Valley of Pretenders. John Russell Fearn
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Their faces were strikingly childlike and docile, differing but little from good-tempered Earth boys and girls of some ten years of age. The only oddity lay in the slit, catlike pupils of their innocent misty blue eyes—pupils which visibly dilated and contracted under the changing lights of Saturn and the various moons.
Beyond them stood a rather makeshift city of dried mud; yet remarkably enough it looked as though it was meant to resemble modern New York—a miniature version of it in mud flung here amidst the wilds of Rhea. There were recognizable edifices, even streets, but there was a complete lack of unity and careful planning.
Behind it was again the evidence of that enigmatic, multi-colored aurora, while to the right, lifting to a height of some 800 feet, and smoking sullenly, stood a squat but nonetheless deadly volcano.…
Mart scrambled to his feet at last with his eyes on the men’s beards.
“So this is where Santa Claus hails from,” he muttered. “Methinks this is where we have plenty palaver, eh, squaw?” He grinned at Eda, then with upraised hand went slowly forward.
“Here’s looking at you!” he cried, halting before the foremost man.
“Mud in your eye,” responded the four-foot leader gravely, and bowed profoundly so that his beard eclipsed his narrow waistline. Then, straightening up and looking Mart full in the eye, he asked politely, “Did you brush your teeth this morning?”
“Huh?” Mart blinked in astonishment, was hardly aware that Eda, Walbrook, and Emmot had come silently up behind him.
“I speak to you by courtesy of the people of Malinjah,” the man went on. “We, the Malinjahs, offer you a free sample of our excellent hospitality. Come at once, or write at once, as you will.…”
Mart shook himself, thumped his forehead. “No doubt about it,” he muttered. “That slug on the head has made me daffy. Why, this guy talks like a radio television announcer handing out blah.… There ain’t no such animal! Who’d you say you are?” he asked abruptly, looking up again.
“The Malinjahs. I am Ansid Rawl, leader of my people’s network, complete with hookups.”
“We’ll skip the hookups. How’d you come to be here? How did you learn English?”
For answer Rawl turned and pointed towards the aurora. “Knowledge is cheap when it is free,” he said poetically. “Write now for my prospectus. Send no money.”
Eda started to snicker at the astounded expression on Mart’s face. Even Walbrook’s withered mouth creased painfully at the corners. Emmot’s eyes had nearly parted company with his face.
“Don’t you get it, Mart?” the girl gasped at last, holding her sides. “Some—somehow these people have a means of hooking onto Earthly television broadcasts; the radio part at any rate. Very probably American broadcasts, since they’re the most widely distributed and work on the strongest power. That’s where they’ve picked up the language and they use advertisement slogans and bits and pieces out of plays, sketches, and political blurbs to talk with. Gosh, who’d have thought it!”
“I don’t believe it,” Mart stated stubbornly. “There’s no signs of radio aerials in that city of theirs.…” He stopped, trying to collect his thoughts, and the quaint people looked gravely at him with their big, slumbrous blue eyes and cat-like pupils.
“We’re from the Earth—third planet out from the $un,” he hesitated. “We’re—er— We’re trapped. Want food. We are friends.”
“You believe in democracy?” Rawl asked surprisingly.
“Eh? Yeah, sure we do.… But what’s that to do with it?”
“If you did not, we would declare a state of war. Democracy for the democrats. Non-party; unilateral. That’s us.”
“War? With whom?”
“Anybody,” Rawl said complacently. “So long as we are right.”
Mart began to gesticulate, finally blurted out, “Be damned to the politics! What about a bite to eat?”
“Eat with pleasure—fear of pain afterwards positively banished! This way.…”
Turning suddenly, Rawl led the way up the shingle towards the Saturn-lit city. Rubbing his bruised head Mart began to follow, Eda at his side.
“Tell me, young man, what do you imagine is the matter with these people?” asked Walbrook, coming level. “In a way, I am—ah, reminded of the case of Munro-v-Munro, wherein the plaintiff complained that her husband developed a mania for writing for advertised samples.… Very similar, eh, Sir Basil?”
“Very similar, m’lud. Clearly these people are strongly influenced by the advertisements of the time.… You’re a chemist, Mr. Latham. Can you account for it?”
“You’ve got me there—up to now,” Mart confessed. “They strike me as being really quite childlike, with little initiative of their own. Take this city we’re coming to. It’s not built by their own ingenuity; it’s taken from descriptions they’ve heard over innumerable radio broadcasts. Note the lack of unity, showing minds that are only half-developed in the matter of self-government and control. Rawl said that the aurora caused him to know English—” Mart broke off and stared at the strange display. “North magnetic Polar Lights all right,” he breathed. “I just wonder how—”
“Gosh, what a smell!” Eda interrupted him, pinching her tilted nose. “Who’s opened the sewers around here?”
“Like—like rotten eggs,” Sir Basil observed, and seemed ashamed of his brief lapse from dignity.
“There’s the source of it,” Mart remarked, nodding towards the volcano. “H2S gas—better known as sulphretted hydrogen— Say, that gives me an idea!”
“Wad?” Eda asked nasally, still clutching her nose. “How der dooce do dese folks live arou’d here wid dat udhody odor blowi’g arou’d?”
“That’s just it. Maybe they don’t smell it.”
“Boy, dey’d wad sub code in de dose dot to smell dat!”
“No, I mean maybe some other sense is developed instead. It might be. For instance, animals have sense of smell developed above sense of eyesight. With humans, sight comes first, hearing second, and smell last. Some even have no sense of smell.”
“So whad?”
“I dunno; ’cept that perhaps these folks have a sense we don’t know about which compensates them for lack of smell.”
“I’d give all I’ve godt to loose my sedse of smell right dow—”
Eda broke off and released her nose as Rawl pointed to the nearest building of the mud city. With a beaming smile and a good deal of ceremony, surrounded by his silent people, he led the way into it. To the deepening amazement of the Earthlings, it was furnished in a style that was crudely terrestrial, There were chairs and tables in the center of a vast room that filled the entire length of the building. There were no other floors: the ceiling went up to an amazing height.
“More evidences of lack of brains,” Mart commented. “They don’t seem to realize that Earthly buildings have several floors and not only one ground floor.… Guess they’re just playing at being civilized, like kids play at shop. They’re just—well, just Pretenders.”
Inside this room, lighted by naturally ignited volcanic gas spouting from crudely designed jets on the stone walls, the odor of sulphretted hydrogen had diminished considerably. The light of Saturn cast silver oblongs on the floor.…
Rawl motioned to the chairs. “If you want food, we have it—and then some,” he said affably.
Turning aside he clapped his hands sharply, spoke for the first time in an unknown language. It was the signal for his childish, passive followers to spring into action.