Authors: John Sladek
The idea of spending time among the Martians was beginning to lose its appeal, as we read on: They were mainly rough, uncouth men with no imagination, no ambition, no money. They all lived in tiny surburban bungalows—metal outside, paperframe inside—with "colonial" façades. Usually such a house would have a bong tree in the glassed-in front yard, which was called a
godden
. Bong trees were sickly items, but much prized on Mars. They were four-foot yellow spindles producing a few needles and a few large yellow pods, empty as the rest of Martian life.
The house itself, called a
teep
, usually had three rooms: kitchen, bedroom and sickroom. Because of the handling of mined minerals, no less than the constant drinking and drugs, it was necessary to have one room which could be cleaned very easily, the sickroom or
barfy
. If the house had a fourth room, it was the garage. Martians spend a lot of time with their cars.
Before we tackled videos of the actual Martians talking about their lives, we first had to learn their language. It was an American dialect, spoken with a North Iowa accent, but the vocabulary had undergone deep changes: Mars or Martian was now
Marty
; a man was a
brudda
or a
Martybrudda
; a woman was a
snap
. Food was
spew
; dinner was
grabbin the barf-bag
; a car was a
goodwheel
or a
can
; whiskey was
Budapest
; gin was
goose
; beer was
parthenogenesis
; all amphetamine-related drugs were
monkey bread
; antidepressants were
furze
; tranquillizers were
Circassian chicken
; sleeping pills were
weenies
; cola drinks of any type were
jissom
; poison capsules (sold openly and quite legally in the colony) were
Sylvesters
; a hand-scrubbed floor was a
murph
; wages were
greengage
; racing imaginary horses was
purplesnow
; a message from Earth was a
plywooder
. Knuckle keys, for some reason, were called
wurpy
.
One day the Deacon was jubilant (
serrated
). "I've really cracked this
language barrier, you know? I mean I've really, really cracked it. I can communicate, I can get right inside the head and guts of these people, you know? Know thy enemy, like. I mean I can finally cut through the bullshit (
quidge
) and talk to them. That means some chance of really converting them.
"Listen, you've been really helpful here, I'm gonna do something for you in return. You work for the Crusade for just one year after we land, and I'll turn you loose."
"Turn me loose?"
"On Mars, there are free robots. The cook told me. They can work and earn wages just like any free human being! Oh, I tell you, there's a glorious day a-coming!" He waved his hideous hands, now covered with pus and weeping sores. I saw that the Deacon was feverish, probably delirious. I began to hate him, if hate is the word. Even in his pain he had to be smug, making promises that could not be kept. Either he would turn out to be wrong (no free robots on Mars) or he would die before freeing me. Either way I would end my days grubbing away on the ugliest planet, among people who talked like those on the video we now watched.
FIRST MARTIAN:
Grok, brudda
(Hello, fellow Martian.)SECOND MARTIAN:
Grokola, Marty-brud. My parsnip is fraughter nor a dead skate's greep, ow you?
(Hello. I could use a drink, how about you?)FIRST MARTIAN:
Too wry, nuncle. Not schlepped the old barf-bag since the old snap jived earthside, curd shore use a spew and a pinter pipi.
(Right. I haven't dined out since my girl left me, so I could sure use a meal and a beer.)SECOND MARTIAN:
Bow-wow. There is no ankle-grine without some wallop a frigstore ending. Me got brakes, let's scop the joot so snaffle a coupla pinters.
(Fine. Every stone must have its well. I've got a car, let's ?? the road and grab two beers.)
While we were still puzzling over
scop
, an alarm siren went off somewhere in the ship. The
Doodlebug
always had some kind of alarm going off—being a big ship and old—but this time the captain spoke to us over the PA system:
"Attention all passengers and crew, this is the captain speaking. We are um being um spacejacked—is that the word?" There was the sound of machinegun fire. "Hijacked, okay, we're being hijacked. By the um Vilo Jord and Family Liberation Front." There was a long pause, and then he said, "That is all. Thank you."
From time to time we heard gunfire from distant parts of the ship.
The Deacon's eyes were shining. "Real Martys! This Jord family are real Martys! This is our chance to try out the lingo. Let's go."
"Go, boss?" I began to feel uneasy.
"We won't find them sitting here. Come on, grab some pamphlets and follow me."
"But isn't it dangerous?"
"God laughs at danger," he said, quoting one of the pamphlets he was now
stuffing into his pockets. "Get the lead out."
I was more worried about keeping it out, but there was nothing to do but obey. I collected an assortment of Crusade pamphlets:
Christ had short hair!
Is Heaven enough?
(The answer was No; after getting to Heaven it was necessary to get a house in a good neighborhood.)The Reverend Flint Orifice Story
Double Tithing—the best investment!
Zither fish fools scientists—God laughs!
Caesarian birth: myth or reality?
We heard more gunfire as we stepped out into the companionway. "Deacon, are you sure this is the smart thing to do? Maybe they're killing people. Those can't all be warning shots."
"Don't worry," he said. "
We
speak the lingo!"
As he spoke, we turned a corner and found our first body. The ship's carpenter lay face-up at the foot of a ladder. His chest was full of bullet-holes and his face was curiously mutilated.
On the upper deck we found two more bodies of crewmen, again with facial mutilations. Deacon bent over one, checking the cigar in its hand. "Still warm. We're getting close."
We hurried down greasy iron steps into the hold, an enormous barrel of a room with a ceiling forty metres above us in the greasy gloom. Along the curved walls, cattle hung in hammocks. There were a dozen of these Bossies, each in its own floral print hammock or sling, with a separate smaller hammock for its udder. The horns were protected by transparent globes of hardened glass. Since these cattle were all Holsteins, the room was filled at all times with accordion music. As we came in, the creatures were swaying gently to the
Minneapolis Polka
.
On the floor were the cylindrical glass tanks of cattle embryos. Each glowing tank held ten gallons, or enough little cows to populate the Milky Way, I understood. There were 28 in all, each throbbing with a different color of light, for identification: red for Jersey, orange for Guernsey, etc.
As we made our way silently down the ladder to floor level, we could see a group of armed people by the vats. Their savage faces and gleaming weapons reflected the glow from a red-blue (Jersey-Angus) tank, as they tapped it into plastic tankards. Rude laughter echoed over the accordion music.
I tugged at the Deacon's sleeve and whispered: "Maybe we shouldn't disturb them just now, boss. If we wait a while, maybe they'll be in a better mood."
"Wait? Never!" he said aloud. I heard automatic weapons being cocked. The shadowy figures all turned to face us.
Deacon Cooper marched towards them, holding out a fistful of pamphlets. "Grok, bruddas! Your parsnip must be fraughter nor a dead skate's greep, so snaffle a coupla pinters, yo?"
"Stay where you are. Don't come any closer!"
"Pax, Marty-bruddas, Marty-snaps. Got great plywooder of God!" he said, bearing down on them. "God howdys those who howdy themselves! Me avalanche plywooder-kid of Reverend Flint Orifice Crusade, God say let the serration—"
One of the figures shot him, and he fell in a flurry of tracts. The assassin stooped to cut off the Deacon's nose and add it to the hideous collection on his belt. "What the Christ kinda lingo was he talking, anyways?"
One of the other figures aimed a weapon at me. "There's another one."
"Don't shoot!" I said. "I'm a robot, and I could be useful."
"Come over here slowly." I did so. "Okay, useful, suppose you tell me why this here piña colada tastes like elephant pee?"
"Not for drinking," I explained. "It's a solution of cattle embryos."
"Awjeez, we thought it was premixed cocktails." Someone opened up on the vats, putting out their lights and murdering trillions of invisible cows. The real cows above us lowed, complaining of the noise that interrupted their
Lady of Spain
.
At dusk, Blojob and the gang brought in a steel drum full of spoils for my inspection.
"Any casualties?"
"It went like a dream, Boss. Oh, we picked up a couple bullet holes here and there, nothing serious. And like 'you' ordered, we didn't leave no witnesses."
"Excellent." I peered into the drum. It was three-quarters full of jewelry, mostly platinum and gold on top with a few diamonds gleaming in the depths. "Quite a haul for a first attempt."
Blojob said, "Thanks, Boss, but it ain't jest as good as it looks, there's some junk in there too, underneath."
"Junk? Costume jewelry?"
"Naw, you know, odds and ends. Coupla velvet trays, some busted glass, a few fingers and one or two hands. We ain't had a chance to clean it up yet."
"A very successful video," I said. "All very realistic. I think we'll probably make a few more, maybe a bank job or a bullion job. Yes, we'll make a lot more."
"Whatever 'you' say, Boss."
"
J
ust take a good look, meatfaces. Count the damn rivets! Check the damn circuit diagram! Read the damn serial number! Make sure there's a five-year warranty! And when you get all done making sure I am the real thing, you can kiss my copper-plated ass!"
It always seemed to work. There were a couple of hundred Wages for Robots people in the auditorium, applauding at every insult. When I had finished calling them shitbellies, they cheered themselves hoarse. After all the questions, it was late. Sybilla White and Harry LaSalle walked with me to my limousine which, for obvious reasons, couldn't collect me at the door.
"The temperature is hotting up all over the country," Sybilla said. "Wages for Robots is going to be a key issue in election year. And already four states have passed interim bills giving limited rights to robots."
"It's a big international issue," said Harry. "The Swedes are drafting a full citizenship law right now, and there were those big demonstrations last week in Japan, France and Germany. The German cops used blackout gas, now they've got a hundred and fifty students in the hospital."
Sybilla said, "Yeah, but in France the cops not only beat up students, they went around later smashing robots. Anywhere they caught a robot on the street, they just—"
"Yeah," said Harry. "But hey listen, T.T., my dad says he's found a way for you to form your corporation. I'm supposed to take you to his office tomorrow at eleven, is that okay? In the Boregard Tower. So I'll meet you downstairs at ten forty-five."
I arrived at the imposing entrance of Boregard Tower at exactly ten forty-five the following morning, stepped out of my limousine and stood for a moment admiring the great building. Boregard Tower is a tall green sliver of glass, out of which seem to grow great eyeballs in clusters. These eyes, scattered over its whole surface, are of all possible types— brown to violet, bluish whites to bloodshot jaundice, myopic and so on—but all are made to turn and gaze steadily at the sun throughout the day.
A handcuff was clamped on my wrist. Someone showed me a badge. Two tired-looking middle-aged men seized my arms.
"But what are you arresting me for?"
"Suspicion. Get in the car." There was no chance to resist; they were very efficient, lifting and dragging me into the car. One of them crowded me on either side.
"Suspicion of what? You know I'm a robot."
One of them said, "Suspicion of kidnapping." The other one snickered. It was at that moment I realized that they weren't policemen.
Sure enough, they put a bag over my head and pushed me down on the floor, where they used me for a footrest. I spent the rest of the journey trying to count the right and left turns, but getting mixed up. At last we stopped in a place that sounded like woodland, judging by the excess of bird noises. I was led stumbling through dirt, up a rough step and through a door. A voice that I seemed to remember said:
"Good work. Take the bag off him then, let's see if he looks worth ten million."
I was in a log cabin, facing a rough wooden desk. On the wall to my right was a dartboard, to my left, deer-antlers. On the wall behind the desk was a calendar from a funeral parlor. Below it a man sat tapping his cigarette into a curious ashtray.
"Smilin' Jack," I said.
"Banjo!"
"What are you doing here?" we said in unison.
George "Smilin' Jack" Grewney was one of the hijackers who stood there in the gloomy hold, watching the dreary rain of cowshit, listening to
Lady of Spain
. It was he who said, "No drink. I knew we should have hijacked a passenger ship."
"We couldn't afford the fares, remember?"
"We've hijacked nothing! Nothing! The ship itself isn't worth the cowshit on the floor here," said Grewney. "And now, no drink!"