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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3f0c7dc --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #51758 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/51758) diff --git a/old/51758-h.zip b/old/51758-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index dc4c1bc..0000000 --- a/old/51758-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/51758-h/51758-h.htm b/old/51758-h/51758-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index bc786e7..0000000 --- a/old/51758-h/51758-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1783 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=us-ascii" /> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> - <title> - The Project Gutenberg eBook of From an Unseen Censor, by Rosel George Brown. - </title> - <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> - - <style type="text/css"> - -body { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - - h1,h2 { - text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ - clear: both; -} - -p { - margin-top: .51em; - text-align: justify; - margin-bottom: .49em; -} - -hr { - width: 33%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - margin-left: 33.5%; - margin-right: 33.5%; - clear: both; -} - -hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} -hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} - -.center {text-align: center;} - -.right {text-align: right;} - -.caption {font-weight: bold;} - -/* Images */ -.figcenter { - margin: auto; - text-align: center; -} - -div.titlepage { - text-align: center; - page-break-before: always; - page-break-after: always; -} - -div.titlepage p { - text-align: center; - text-indent: 0em; - font-weight: bold; - line-height: 1.5; - margin-top: 3em; -} - -.ph1, .ph2, .ph3, .ph4 { text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; font-weight: bold; } -.ph1 { font-size: xx-large; margin: .67em auto; } -.ph2 { font-size: x-large; margin: .75em auto; } -.ph3 { font-size: large; margin: .83em auto; } -.ph4 { font-size: medium; margin: 1.12em auto; } - -.blockquot { - margin-left: 5%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - -.poetry .stanza -{ - margin: 1em auto; -} - -.poetry .verse -{ - padding-left: 3em; -} - -.poetry .indent2 -{ - text-indent: 2em; -} - - - </style> - </head> -<body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of From An Unseen Censor, by Rosel George Brown - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: From An Unseen Censor - -Author: Rosel George Brown - -Release Date: April 14, 2016 [EBook #51758] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM AN UNSEEN CENSOR *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - -</pre> - - - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/cover.jpg" width="399" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="titlepage"> -<h1>FROM AN UNSEEN CENSOR</h1> - -<p>By ROSEL GEORGE BROWN</p> - -<p>Illustrated by DILLON</p> - -<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br /> -Galaxy Magazine September 1958.<br /> -Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br /> -the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph3"><i>You can't beat my Uncle Isadore—he's<br /> -dead but he's quick—yet that is just<br /> -what he was daring me to try and do!</i></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>Uncle Isadore's ship wasn't in bad shape, at first glance. But a second -look showed the combustion chamber was crumpled to pieces and the jets -were fused into the rocks, making a smooth depression.</p> - -<p>The ship had tilted into a horizontal position, nestling in the hollow -its last blasts had made. Dust had sifted in around it, piling over the -almost invisible seam of the port and filming the whole ship.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus2.jpg" width="352" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>We circled around the ship. It was all closed and sealed, blind as a -bullet.</p> - -<p>"Okay," Rene said. "He's dead. My regrets." He coughed the word out as -though it were something he had swallowed by accident.</p> - -<p>"But how do you know?" I asked. "He might be in there."</p> - -<p>"That port hasn't been opened for months. Maybe years. I told you the -converter wouldn't last more than a month in dock. He couldn't live -locked up in there without air and water. Let's go." My guide had no -further interest in the ship. He hadn't even looked to see what the -planet was like.</p> - -<p>I stood shivering in my warm clothes. The ship seemed to radiate -a chill. I looked around at the lumpy, unimaginative landscape of -Alvarla. There was nothing in sight but a scraggly, dun heather -sprouting here and there in the rocks and dust, and making hirsute -patches on the low hills.</p> - -<p>I had some wild idea, I think, that Uncle Izzy might come sauntering -nonchalantly over the hills, one hand in the pocket of a grilch-down -jacket and the other holding a Martian cigarene. And he would have on -his face that look which makes everything he says seem cynical and -slightly clever even if it isn't.</p> - -<p>"The scenery is dull," he might say, "but it makes a nice back-drop for -you." Something like that, leaving the impression he'd illuminated a -side of your character for you to figure out later on.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Nothing of the kind happened, of course. I just got colder standing -there.</p> - -<p>"All right," Rene said. "We've had a moment of silence. Now let's go."</p> - -<p>"I—there's something wrong," I told him. "Let's go in and <i>see</i> -the—the body."</p> - -<p>"We can't go in. That ship's sealed from the inside. You think they -make those things so any painted alien can open the door and shoot in -poisoned arrows? Believe me, he <i>has</i> to be inside if those outside -ports are sealed. And he <i>has</i> to be dead because that port hasn't been -opened in months. Look at the dust! It's a fourth of the way up the -port."</p> - -<p>Rene lumbered over to it and blew away some of the lighter dust higher -up.</p> - -<p>"See that?" he asked.</p> - -<p>"No."</p> - -<p>He groaned. "Well, you'll have to take my word for it. It's a raindrop. -Almost four months old. A very light rain. You could see the faint, -crusted outline of the drop if you knew how to look."</p> - -<p>"I believe you," I said. "I hired you because you know which side of -the trees the moss grows on and things like that. Still...."</p> - -<p>Rene was beginning to stomp around impatiently. "Still <i>what</i>?"</p> - -<p>"It just isn't like Uncle Isadore." I was trying to search out, myself, -what it was that struck me as incongruous. "It's out of character."</p> - -<p>"It's out of character for <i>anybody</i> to die," Rene said. "But I've seen -a lot of them dead."</p> - -<p>"I mean at least he would have died outside."</p> - -<p>"Oh, for Pete's sake! Why outside? You think he took rat poison?"</p> - -<p>I went around to the other side of the spaceship, mostly to get away -from Rene for a moment. I'm only a studs and neck clasp man and Rene -had twenty years' experience on alien planets. So he was right, of -course, about the evidence. There was no getting around it. Still....</p> - -<p>I circled back around to where Rene was smoking his first cigarette -since we left Earth. His face was a mask of sunbaked wrinkles pointing -down to the cigarette smack in the middle of his mouth.</p> - -<p>"Uncle Izzy wouldn't die like an ordinary mortal," I said. "He'd have -a brass band. Or we'd find his body lying in a bed of roses with a big -lily in his hand. Or he might even disappear into thin air. But not -<i>this</i>." I waved a hand toward the dead ship.</p> - -<p>"Look," Rene said. "My job was to find your Uncle Isadore. I've found -him. We can't get inside that ship with anything short of a matter -reducer, which I <i>don't</i> happen to have along since they weigh several -tons. You'll have to take my word for it that his body's in there. Now -let's go home." He managed to talk without moving the cigarette at all.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>"You said a week," I reminded Rene.</p> - -<p>"I said if I didn't find him in a week, then he wasn't there. I've -found him. I'm sorry if he was your favorite uncle or something."</p> - -<p>"As a matter of fact, I never liked him. He was—frivolous. He never -had a job. He thought life was a big game."</p> - -<p>"Then how come he got so rich?"</p> - -<p>"He always won."</p> - -<p>"Not this time, brother! But if he's not your favorite uncle, why all -this concern? You can take my word for it he's dead and you've done -your duty."</p> - -<p>"There are two things that bother me. One is curiosity. I just -don't believe Uncle Izzy died in an ordinary fashion locked up in a -spaceship. You don't know him, so you wouldn't understand. The other -thing I'm concerned about is—well, his will."</p> - -<p>Rene barked a couple of times. I had learned this indicated laughter. -"I figured what you were really after was his money."</p> - -<p>Under my yellow overskin, I could feel myself coloring. That wasn't -at all the point. I'd mortgaged Mother's bonds to finance this trip, -confident that Uncle Izzy would make it good when we found him. If I -couldn't get Mother's bonds out of hock, she'd have to live out her -life in a Comfort Park. I shuddered at the thought. Uncle Isadore must -have known that when he radared for help. He must have provided some -way....</p> - -<p>"You said a week and we're staying a week," I told Rene as -authoritatively as I could manage. "You haven't actually <i>showed</i> -me Uncle Izzy's—er—corpus delicti, so I have you on a legal -technicality." I didn't know whether or not this was true, but it -sounded good.</p> - -<p>"All right, we'll stay." Rene spat the sentence out onto the ground. -"But if you think I'm going to do any more looking, take another guess."</p> - -<p>He tramped back into his own ship, leaving the outside port and the -pressure chamber open.</p> - -<p>If only Uncle Izzy had done that!</p> - -<p>I went over his ship inch by inch, feeling with my hands, to be sure -there was no extra door that might be opened. Rene would have laughed, -but I was beginning to build up antibodies against Rene's laughter.</p> - -<p>I got the bottom part of the ship dusted off and found nothing.</p> - -<p>I pushed open the door of Rene's ship and asked him for a ladder.</p> - -<p>"You'll have to pay for it," he warned. "Once it's open, I can't carry -it in my ship and I'll have to get another."</p> - -<p>"Okay, okay! I'll <i>pay</i> for it."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He handed me a synthetic affair that looked like a meshed rope, wound -tight, about the size of a Venusian cigar.</p> - -<p>"This is a ladder?" I asked incredulously, but he had shut the door in -my face.</p> - -<p>I slipped the cellophane off and unrolled it. It seemed to unroll -endlessly. When it was ten feet long and four feet wide, I stopped -unrolling. Sure enough, it hardened into a ladder in about ten minutes. -It was so strong I couldn't begin to bend it over my knee.</p> - -<p>I set it against the side of the ship and began to investigate the view -ports. The first two were sealed tight as a drum.</p> - -<p>The third slipped off in my hands and clattered over the side of the -ship onto the rocks.</p> - -<p>I was almost afraid to look through the "glass" beneath. I needn't have -been. I could see absolutely nothing. It was space-black inside.</p> - -<p>I went back to Rene's ship for a flashlight. He was unimpressed by my -discovery.</p> - -<p>"Even if you could break the glass, which you can't," he said, "you -still couldn't get through that little porthole. Here's the flash. You -won't be able to see anything."</p> - -<p>He came with me this time. Not because he was interested, but because -he wanted another cigarette and never smoked in the ship.</p> - -<p>He was right. I couldn't see a darned thing in the ship with the -flashlight. But I found something—a little lead object that looked -like a coin. It had rolled into a corner of the port.</p> - -<p>Now I don't like adventure. I don't like strange planets. All I've ever -asked of life was my little four-by-six cubby in the Brooklyn Bloc and -my job. A job I know inside out. It's a comfortable, happy, harmless -way to live and I test 10:9 on job adjustment.</p> - -<p>All the same, it was a thrill to discover a clue that Rene would have -thrown away if he'd been the one looking.</p> - -<p>I tossed it casually in the air and showed it to Rene.</p> - -<p>"Know what that is?" I asked.</p> - -<p>"Slug for a halfdec slot machine?"</p> - -<p>"Nope. Know what I can do with it?"</p> - -<p>He didn't say.</p> - -<p>"I'm going to open Uncle Izzy's ship from the <i>inside</i>."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Rene lighted a fresh cigarette from the old one and let the smoke out -of his nose. It gave rather the impression of a bull resting between -picadors.</p> - -<p>"Can you show me, on the outside, approximately where the button is -that you push on the inside to unseal the ship?" I inquired casually.</p> - -<p>"I can show you exactly."</p> - -<p>He pointed to a spot next to the entrance port. I wet my finger and -made a mark in the dust so I could get it just right. Then I found a -sharp stone and cut around the edges of the lead. As I slipped off the -back half of the coinlike affair, I clapped it over the finger mark.</p> - -<p>The entrance port swung open.</p> - -<p>If I'd had a feather, I would have taken great pleasure in knocking -Rene over with it.</p> - -<p>"It'd be worth a million dollars," he breathed, "to know how you did -that."</p> - -<p>"Oh, a lot less than that," I said airily.</p> - -<p>"Well? Explain!"</p> - -<p>"Uncle Isadore had it set up," I told him, using the same patiently -impatient tone he used on me. "He knew I'd recognize that lead coin. -There was a cuff link in it."</p> - -<p>"A cuff link!"</p> - -<p>"A studs and neck clasp man has to know about cuff links, too. This -happens to be an expensive cuff link, but worth only about a year's -salary, not a million dollars. They're held together by a jazzed-up -electromagnetic force rather than by a clasp. This force is so strong -it would take a derrick to pull them apart. The idea is to keep you -from losing one. If you drop it to the floor, you just wave the mate -around a little and it pops up through the air."</p> - -<p>"How do you get them apart?"</p> - -<p>"Just slip them sideways, like a magnet. You can sheathe them in -lead, like the one I found, to cut down the attraction. This is how -they're packaged. You don't know about them because they're not -advertised—that keeps them a luxury item, you know."</p> - -<p>"So your Uncle Isadore pasted one of them on the port button."</p> - -<p>"He didn't have to paste. All he had to do was stick it on. All I had -to do was line up the mate to it and the attractive force pushed the -button."</p> - -<p>"That's very neat," Rene said. "But why the hell didn't he just leave -the port open? He'd hardly do this sort of thing with his dying gasp."</p> - -<p>"I'm not sure," I admitted. "As a matter of fact, I wonder why he -radared <i>me</i> if he really wanted to be rescued. He had plenty of -friends who could rescue him more reliably."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>I had an inkling of what had been on Uncle Isadore's mind. Although -Uncle Izzy had had three—or was it four?—wives, he'd very carefully -had no children. And it had occurred to him at an advanced age to take -an interest in me.</p> - -<p>He'd sent me through two years of general studies and reluctantly let -me specialize in studs and neck clasps.</p> - -<p>"You were a grilch hop expert in Middle School," he had told me. "How -come you're getting so stuffy?"</p> - -<p>"Because I can't be an adolescent all my life, Uncle Isadore," I had -replied stiffly. "I would like to get into some solid line of work and -be a good citizen."</p> - -<p>"Phooey!" he'd said. But he had let me do what I'd wanted. It was -because of this that I had felt duty bound to answer his call for help.</p> - -<p>I'd <i>not</i> felt duty bound to take all the opportunities he'd tried to -force on me when I got out of school. Mining the semi-solid seas of -Alphard kappa. Fur trading on Procyon beta. And a hundred others, all -obviously doomed to failure unless there was one lucky chance.</p> - -<p>"But I'm <i>happy</i> here with my little room and my little job," I kept -telling Uncle Isadore.</p> - -<p>"You only think you're happy because you don't know any better," he -kept telling me.</p> - -<p>Only, now that he was dead, he seemed to have me where he wanted me. -Now that nothing could matter to him any longer.</p> - -<p>"Maybe he was getting senile," Rene suggested.</p> - -<p>"Uncle Izzy always said he'd rather die than—he <i>did</i> die," I replied, -suddenly recalling myself to the present and the open outside port of -the ship. I realized how reluctant I was to go in. It was one thing to -admit Uncle Izzy was dead—I cherished no great affection for him—but -it was something else to have to face his dead body.</p> - -<p>"Would you mind going in first?" I asked Rene.</p> - -<p>He shrugged and shouldered the inside door open.</p> - -<p>He came out, his face a study in perplexity. "Not here!" he said. "This -is the first time I've been wrong in fifteen years!"</p> - -<p>"That's because it's the first time you've been up against Uncle Izzy. -He must have closed the port behind him the same way I opened it."</p> - -<p>I climbed through the door, feeling immensely relieved. I realized then -what had really been worrying me. If the gods had abandoned Isadore at -the last, what did they have in mind for the rest of us mere mortals?</p> - -<p>I kicked at my mind irritably, knowing these were young thoughts. But -then I <i>am</i> young, I explained to myself.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The inside of the ship was neat and empty. Stuck on the instrument -panel with a vaccup was a note, in Uncle Izzy's flowery script.</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p><i>My boy. I have died of boredom. Do not look for the remains. I have -hidden my body to avoid the banality of a decent burial. I bequeath -you my entire fortune. Find it.</i></p></div> - -<p>Rene groaned. "I suppose now you want to look for the body."</p> - -<p>"No. If he says it's hidden, it's hidden. But it would be a little -silly to go off without finding his fortune, wouldn't it?"</p> - -<p>"Looking for buried treasure wasn't in the contract," Rene pointed out. -"You'll have to make it worth my while."</p> - -<p>"Another five thousand," I said.</p> - -<p>"Make it ten. Payable if I find it."</p> - -<p>"Suppose <i>I</i> find it?"</p> - -<p>"Don't be ridiculous. You'd be a fool to take two steps on this planet -without me."</p> - -<p>He was right, of course. And if we left, I wouldn't get anything. I -thought of Mother living by the bells at a Comfort Park. "All right," I -said.</p> - -<p>"What form was his fortune in?" Rene asked. "Money? Bonds? Polarian -droplets? It would help to know what I'm looking for."</p> - -<p>"I have no idea," I confessed. "Ordinarily it would take a computer -to figure out Uncle Isadore's financial affairs. But he'd have been -perfectly capable of selling out everything and taking his entire -fortune along with him for some new project."</p> - -<p>Rene had skillfully unscrewed the instrument panel and he lifted it -off and began poking inside and removing mysterious bits of machinery. -"That makes it harder. You don't know whether he sold out or not?"</p> - -<p>"I have no idea. He might have all his money piled in the locker of -the Whist Club of Sirius beta. In that case, we look for a key. Or he -might have a block of Eretrevium buried somewhere. Your guess is as -good as mine."</p> - -<p>"If he's dug up the ground," Rene said, "I'll recognize the spot. But -that'll mean walking over every inch of ground for a day's journey -around. Or more, if he did any overnight traveling."</p> - -<p>"Not Uncle Izzy," I said. "He wouldn't be at all likely to spend a -freezing night out on Alvarla, even for a good joke."</p> - -<p>"Radar equipment's in perfect shape," Rene said, shifting his -activities to another segment of the ship's equipment. "I wonder why -he didn't leave it on so we could locate him easier. Not that we had -any trouble. Or why he didn't continue broadcasting for help until he -died.... Mind if I take some of the equipment?"</p> - -<p>"You haven't been exactly generous with me."</p> - -<p>"I intend to subtract its value from the cost of supplies and mileage -on my ship. I never said I was generous, but, by God, I'm honest."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Rene slid out the compartment of lunch packages, dumped them on the -floor.</p> - -<p>"All unopened," he was saying disgustedly. Then he picked up a heavy, -square object with sharp corners, open on three sides. "What the hell -is this?"</p> - -<p>"A book," I informed him.</p> - -<p>Rene opened it "Hey! A real, antique book! Must be worth at least a -thousand! Look at the <i>size</i> of that print! You can read it with the -naked eye, like an instrument panel! Well, here's a little piece of -your fortune."</p> - -<p>He tossed it to me and went on examining the lunch packages. He didn't -trust me to help him because <i>I</i> wouldn't be able to tell if they'd -been opened and something inserted.</p> - -<p>I hung the book by the covers and let the pages flip open. Nothing fell -out. I sighed. I'd have to go through the whole damn thing.</p> - -<p>"I'm going back to your ship and read in comfort," I told Rene.</p> - -<p>"You're no help here anyway," he said, putting the lunch packages in -a large plastic bag he'd found somewhere. "No use letting these go to -waste."</p> - -<p>I didn't tell him I had the clue to Uncle Isadore's fortune in my hand. -He didn't know Uncle Isadore, so he wouldn't have believed me.</p> - -<p>Nothing is more uncomfortable than reading an antique book. There is -no way to lie back and flash it on a screen or run the tape over your -reading glasses while you lie prone and relax. You have to <i>hold</i> it. -If you try to hold it lying down, your arms get tired. If you put it -down on a table to read, your neck gets tired from bending over. And -the pages keep flipping and make you lose your place.</p> - -<p>Still, I read it all the way through. It wasn't too bad. Not like Edgar -Guest, of course, who was the only ancient author I liked in General -Studies. But I found there was a sort of Grilch Hop beat to it that -reminded me of the Footlooses I used to go to in Middle School. I -grinned. It was funny to think of now.</p> - -<p>I found no clues in the book. The only thing to do was read it again, -more carefully.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>I noticed there was one poem with a <i>real</i> Grilch Hop beat. I thought -suddenly of Sally, my regular partner at the Footlooses. She was very -blonde and she affected a green crestwave in her hair, pulled over her -forehead with a diamond clip. She was a beauty, all right. But she was -a little silly. And she had that tendency to overdress.</p> - -<p>No, I sighed, she wouldn't have done for a studs and neck clasp man. -But I couldn't help wondering where she was now and what she was like -now. Did she remember me, and did she think about me when she heard -that song we used to dance to, because it was about a girl named Sally?</p> - -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse"><i>Once I knew a girl named Sally</i></div> - <div class="verse"><i>Met her at a Footloose rally</i></div> -</div></div> - -<p>I began humming the Grilch Hop tune to the ancient poem in Uncle Algy's -book. It was fantastic how closely it fitted, though, of course, the -words in the poem were plain silly.</p> - -<p>But imagine finding a poem with a perfect Grilch Hop beat before -anybody even knew what a grilch was! Before Venus was even discovered. -Jump on both feet. Hop three times on the left foot. Jump. Hop three -times on the right foot. The rhythm was correct, right down to the -breakaway and four-step at the end of each run.</p> - -<p>It was while I was singing this poem to a Grilch Hop tune that I -noticed the clue. The poem was named "The Dodo." And the rhyming was -very smooth until I came to the lines:</p> - -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse"><i>"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Thou," I said, "art like a Raven</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Ghastly, grim, and ancient Dodo,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Wandering from the Nightly shore;</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Tell me what thy lordly name is</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>On the Night's Plutonian shore."</i></div> -<div class="verse indent2"><i>Quoth the Dodo, "Isadore."</i></div> -</div></div> - -<p>Now the author had gone to a lot of trouble in the previous verse not -to break the Grilch Hop rhyme scheme. He made "thereat is" rhyme with -"lattice" and "that is." Why did he follow "shaven" and "raven" with -"Dodo"?</p> - -<p>Furthermore, it had not struck me the first time I read the poem -quickly that there was anything odd about a bird being named "Isadore." -People who keep pet grilches frequently name them after famous Reed -players and Isadore is a common name.</p> - -<p>On the other hand, it <i>was</i> my Uncle's name. And the word "Dodo" didn't -rhyme as it should.</p> - -<p>I got out a magnifying glass to examine the ancient print. Sure enough, -it had been tampered with. The print looked so odd to me, anyway, I -hadn't noticed the part that had been changed. But it was obvious under -the glass that "Dodo" had been substituted for a word of almost equal -length. The same with "Isadore."</p> - -<p>I went over the whole poem now, carefully, to see which words had been -changed. There weren't many. "White" in a couple of places. "Dodo" and -"Isadore" wherever they occurred. An "o" in the line "Perfume from an -unseen cens<i>o</i>r." "S" in the line "'Wretch,' I cried, 'Isadore hath -<i>s</i>ent thee....'"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Sitting back, I thought about what I had read. It made no sense at all. -Was I to look for a white bird, "grim, ungainly, ghastly"? And what if -I found him? Why was he like a raven? What was this perfume from an -unseen censor? I could picture the ghost of Uncle Isadore, knowing -his financial imagination, as the "unseen censor" because he always -criticized me. Was I to look for perfume? Did he have a fortune in -perfume stowed somewhere? It seemed to me it would take an awful lot of -even the most expensive perfume to comprise a fortune.</p> - -<p>I decided to start with the bird. I went outside Rene's ship and looked -around. No birds.</p> - -<p>"Rene!" I called. He was still looking through Uncle Izzy's ship. "Have -you seen an ungainly white bird around?"</p> - -<p>"What!" he snapped, sticking an indignant face out of the door.</p> - -<p>"I guess you haven't. Can your woodsy lore tell if there <i>are</i> birds on -this planet?"</p> - -<p>"Obviously," Rene said. "I don't know why you can't find your own -spoor. I noticed the droppings immediately."</p> - -<p>"Where are the birds?"</p> - -<p>"How the hell would I know?" But he couldn't contain his special -knowledge. "They're probably night birds," he said.</p> - -<p>"Oh, yes." It checked. "Wandering from the Night's Plutonian shore."</p> - -<p>He looked at me suspiciously. "You ever had a nervous breakdown?"</p> - -<p>"I have <i>not</i>. I test 10:9 on job adjustment and 10:8 on life -adjustment."</p> - -<p>"Some people crack on alien planets," he said. "I have a padded room in -my ship. You'd be surprised how often I have to use it."</p> - -<p>I told him about the poem I found in Uncle Izzy's book. "We look for a -white bird," I said. "Or perfume."</p> - -<p>"You're nuts," he pointed out with some justice, because he hadn't -known Uncle Isadore. "How do you know these changes weren't made by -somebody else a long time ago? Maybe this ancient printer printed it -wrong and had to change it afterward."</p> - -<p>"I don't think they were that primitive back then."</p> - -<p>But I didn't know what "back then" meant or how primitive ancient -printing was. All I knew for sure was that, as the poem stood, it -sounded as if somebody had loused up a perfect Grilch Hop rhyme. And -Uncle Izzy knew I was a Grilch Hop expert in Middle School and this was -the only <i>real</i> Grilch Hop rhythm in the book. What's more, Uncle Izzy -could depend on me to go over that book in painstaking detail because a -studs and neck clasp man has to be good on details.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>"All right," I said. "You look your way and I'll look my way."</p> - -<p>"We're not looking any more any way today," Rene said, emerging from -Uncle Isadore's ship loaded down with removings. "It'll be night and -below freezing in half an hour."</p> - -<p>"What do you think," I asked, "a dodo would like to eat?"</p> - -<p>"A <i>what</i>?"</p> - -<p>"The birds. I want to put something out to attract them. Crackers or -something?"</p> - -<p>"I think you're crazy. If you have any idea of sitting outside to wait -for them, you'll freeze to death. Not only that, there's no moon. You -wouldn't be able to see your hand in front of your face."</p> - -<p>"How do the birds see?"</p> - -<p>"Maybe they aren't night birds. Maybe they migrated somewhere else."</p> - -<p>"And if I use a light, it might scare them away," I mused. "Well, maybe -I'm not supposed to wait outside, anyway."</p> - -<p>Rene went in and switched on the heat and lights.</p> - -<p>"Leave the outside port open," I said.</p> - -<p>"Why?"</p> - -<p>"So the birds can knock."</p> - -<p>"Can <i>what</i>?"</p> - -<p>"Well, it's possible," I said defensively. "It won't hurt anything to -leave it open."</p> - -<p>"All right," he consented, curving his mouth around unpleasantly, "just -to show you what a jackass you are."</p> - -<p>Rene had the heat turned low, for sleeping, and the lights off, as -soon as we had eaten and fed the converter. I hydrated a package of -crackers so that they were full-sized but not soggy, broke them into -pieces and tossed them out.</p> - -<p>I admit I felt a little embarrassed.</p> - -<p>I sat there in the chill quiet, on this ugly, alien world, reading "The -Dodo" by the light of a miniature flash, so as not to disturb Rene.</p> - -<p>Pretty soon I began to feel creepy. "The Dodo" is a ghastly poem. -There's an insidious morbidity about it. It had sounded merely funny -the first time I read it.</p> - -<p>Now, the more I read it, the more I began to hear strange, impossible -creakings and sighs, which might or might not be due to temperature -changes.</p> - -<p>The night outside was a deep, cold cup of darkness where no human thing -moved.</p> - -<p>There was a knock at the door.</p> - -<p>I dropped the book and flashlight. Rene was up like a cat. He didn't -turn on the light.</p> - -<p>"Who's there?" he shouted.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus1.jpg" width="600" height="221" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>There was a scratching noise at the door. Then a voice croaked, "My -name is Isadore Summers."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>I reached a trembling hand for the door.</p> - -<p>"Wait, you fool!" Rene cried. He picked up the flash and got his gun. -"Stand behind me and keep your hands off your gun. I know when to -shoot and when not to shoot. You don't."</p> - -<p>"If it's Uncle Isadore...."</p> - -<p>"I tell you you've got to leave it up to me, if you want to get off -this planet alive. Now stand back and keep your mouth shut, no matter -what happens."</p> - -<p>He kicked the door open and stood back and to one side of it. "Come in -with your arms up!"</p> - -<p>There was a sort of rustling sound and in walked a huge, white, -wingless bird.</p> - -<p>"My name," the dodo repeated, somewhat plaintively this time, with a -glance toward the lunch compartment, "is Isadore Summers."</p> - -<p>I couldn't help it. I rolled all over the ship with laughter. Rene -looked a little shamefaced, tossed his gun onto the rack and punched -the lighting on.</p> - -<p>Obviously the dodo recognized our lunch compartment from familiarity -with Uncle Izzy's ship. Then he looked at the alcohol tap that led from -the fuel conversion. "Nepenthe?" he begged.</p> - -<p>I hesitated. "Isn't there something," I asked Rene, "about corrupting -the natives of a primitive planet?"</p> - -<p>But Rene was sitting on his bunk, his jaw slack. "This is the first -time I've ever been made a fool of by an alcoholic bird."</p> - -<p>"If it's <i>just</i> a bird, of course. Like a parrot...."</p> - -<p>I addressed the bird. "Sir," I began, and caught myself, "or perhaps -madam, can you say anything else?"</p> - -<p>"Nepenthe," the bird said firmly.</p> - -<p>I shrugged and drew a cup. The dodo lifted the cup and drained it in -one smooth gesture. This, as it turned out, was the only thing it -seemed to do smoothly.</p> - -<p>It began a wild attempt to scratch its head with one claw and remain -upright. Then, abandoning all dignity, it rolled to its side and -scratched furiously to satisfaction. After that, it began what looked -like a hopeless attempt to right its awkward body, legs struggling in -the air and back bumping around the ship.</p> - -<p>I couldn't help remembering Uncle Izzy after a meal, slim and suave, -lighting up a tapered, perfectly packed cigarene and blowing out one -round, shapely smoke ring that hovered before his light, sardonic grin -like a comment on his thoughts.</p> - -<p>An uncomfortable comparison. I shook myself to life.</p> - -<p>I righted the bird, no small problem, for he weighed almost two hundred -pounds.</p> - -<p>"Well," Rene finally said, coming out of his mood, "now that you have -this bird, what are you going to do with it?"</p> - -<p>"I had thought it might lead us to Uncle Izzy's fortune," I explained.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The bird obviously had no such intention. It was getting ready to take -a nap.</p> - -<p>"A night bird," I told it reprovingly, "shouldn't take a nap in the -middle of the night."</p> - -<p>"All you're proving is that he has no self-respect," Rene pointed out. -"Why don't you look to see if he's got a note tagged to his leg or -something?"</p> - -<p>I did. He didn't.</p> - -<p>"I think this whole thing is crazy," Rene said, "but since he's a -talking bird, you might ask him a few questions. Maybe he's trained to -say something else."</p> - -<p>"Where is Uncle Izzy's fortune?" I asked, when I had tugged at the -dodo's feathers until he opened one eye.</p> - -<p>He closed it.</p> - -<p>"Do you have a message for me?"</p> - -<p>He drew away from me irritably and closed the eye again, ruffling down -into his feathers.</p> - -<p>"He may be keyed to respond to certain phrases. Try your uncle's -name—he obviously knows that," Rene suggested coldly, wanting no part -of this but unable to hold down the suggestion.</p> - -<p>"My name," I screamed at the somnolent dodo, "is Isadore Summers."</p> - -<p>He reared back and pecked the hell out of me.</p> - -<p>I picked the book up off the floor and flipped through the bent pages -until I found "The Dodo." Maybe there'd be something in <i>that</i>.</p> - -<p>"Listen to this, Rene," I said, "and see if you catch anything I might -have missed."</p> - -<p>Rene looked discomfited, but he didn't stop up his ears.</p> - -<p>When I came to the part, "'Tell me what thy lordly name is/On the -Night's Plutonian shore....'" the dodo looked up and said, "Isadore."</p> - -<p>Clearly, this was it, although I couldn't recall that any of the -questions in the poem were to the point.</p> - -<p>I got to, "'On the morrow he will leave me/As my hopes have flown -before.'/Then the bird said...."</p> - -<p>"Ask me more," said the dodo without missing a beat.</p> - -<p>I read on, getting excited. "'Quaff, oh, quaff this kind nepenthe,/And -forget this lost Lenore.'/Quoth the Dodo...."</p> - -<p>"Give me more," he supplied, pointing his beak at the alcohol tap.</p> - -<p>I gave him another cup and continued, sure that he must be going to say -<i>something</i> relevant to Uncle Izzy's fortune.</p> - -<p>"'Is there—<i>is</i> there balm in Gilead?—Tell me, tell me, I implore!' -Quoth the Dodo...."</p> - -<p>"Probably not," the dodo said, breaking the Grilch Hop rhythm at last, -"but there are perfume trees on Alvarla."</p> - -<p>"Perfume trees!" Rene shouted. "That bird's lying. It's impossible."</p> - -<p>"Shut up!" I yelled at him. "The poem's not over."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>I read on, somewhat ashamed of having to say such inhospitable words to -a dodo who had been, after all, cooperating with me.</p> - -<p>"'Take thy beak from out my heart,/And take thy form from off my -door!'/Quoth the Dodo...."</p> - -<p>"I was just leaving," the bird said, and struggled to his feet and went -and stood by the door expectantly.</p> - -<p>I got up. "Wait!" I commanded the bird, who couldn't do much else -because the door was closed. "Do you know what perfume trees are, Rene?"</p> - -<p>"Yeah, I know what they are, and they don't grow on this planet. You -can take my word for it. They need a warm, moist soil to germinate in. -They need to have their soil cultivated every day for a year. They -die fast on contact with any sort of industrial fumes. They die in -captivity, like some wild animals. They die if you sweat on them. They -die if you breathe on them. They need to start off warm and get colder -every month until they form their flowers. Then they need a frost for -the pods to fill with the perfume, along with the seeds."</p> - -<p>"There aren't any industrial fumes here," I pointed out, "and they -could get plenty of frost."</p> - -<p>"That's all they'd get. Where's the warm, moist climate to germinate -in? Where's the parasitical Rhns to cultivate their soil? The Rhns -couldn't exist without their Gleees and the Gleees can't exist -without—never mind. The only place perfume trees can grow is on Odoria -and that's why the perfume is worth two thousand dollars an ounce."</p> - -<p>"I have never heard of anything," I informed him, "that spelled 'Uncle -Isadore' so exactly. He always said, 'If it can't be done, I can do -it.' Well, there's only one way to find out. Surely there's something -on the ship I can wear."</p> - -<p>"You mean you're going out into that frozen inkpot after that idiotic -bird?"</p> - -<p>"That's exactly what I mean."</p> - -<p>"For Pete's sake! You're as brainless as the bird is!" But I think, for -all his attitude, he was curious, too.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He began to spray me with something. "Close your eyes and mouth. If you -don't wash this off with soap and water in twenty-four hours, you'll -die. But it sure keeps in the body heat."</p> - -<p>I stuck the book in my pocket for good luck, and Rene handed me a gun, -some lunch packages, an antibiotic kit and a water purification kit.</p> - -<p>"All right," I said, pocketing them, "but it can't be far. Uncle Izzy -wouldn't have gone more than a day's journey."</p> - -<p>"Then why haven't we smelled the perfume? And why would he have gone -through all this rigmarole when he must have known you'd search that -far?"</p> - -<p>I didn't know why.</p> - -<p>I pushed the door open. The bird hopped out and I realized how easy it -would be to lose him from the small, round glow of my flash.</p> - -<p>He looked curiously at me, as though expecting something further.</p> - -<p>I looked curiously at him, wondering where he would lead to.</p> - -<p>Then he was off. There was no question of following him. That big, -awkward bird ran so fast that in a few minutes we could no longer hear -the beat of his huge claws on the rocks, even in the perfectly still, -dry air.</p> - -<p>"How fast do you figure he's going?" I asked Rene.</p> - -<p>"How the hell would I know?"</p> - -<p>"Roughly."</p> - -<p>"Roughly? Maybe fifty miles an hour."</p> - -<p>"But that's incredible!"</p> - -<p>"The big point-tails on Aldebaran kappa can do eighty with a native on -their backs."</p> - -<p>"Ah!" I said. "So <i>that's</i> it! Maybe tomorrow night...."</p> - -<p>But we could hear the drumming of the returning dodo.</p> - -<p>"Don't be stupid," Rene said. "He can't carry both of us and you'd be a -fool either to go alone or stay here alone."</p> - -<p>"As a tribute to my deceased uncle, I'm going to be a fool."</p> - -<p>I stuck my flashlight into one of my many pockets and climbed onto the -huge bird's back. The down beneath his outer feathers was as soft and -strong as heavy fur. I dug in with my hands and feet, my head braced -against the thickened part of his neck.</p> - -<p>He started off with a lurch that brought my stomach out of hiding. I -kept my eyes squeezed closed. I couldn't have seen anything, anyway. -Not even the impossible creature that was rushing through the darkness -carrying me, for all I knew, straight to damnation.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus3.jpg" width="169" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>The night rushed past my ears in a wild keening and it crossed my mind -to wonder what Mr. Picks, my supervisor, would say if he saw me now.</p> - -<p>I had a sudden vision of Mr. Picks, even more neatly dressed than I -always was, with middle-cost neck clasp and stud discreetly shining -from a plain, square-edged bag shirt and dun suit. I pictured him -opening a refined little box and holding it two feet under the -customer's eyes with a gesture of faint, unconscious supplication. A -comfortable, warm, happy picture in which my place, one counter behind -Mr. Picks, was reassuringly assured.</p> - -<p>Then, out of nowhere, into the picture galloped a yellow-skinned -monster astride a huge, white bird. It turned out to be me and I -tumbled off the bird, crying, "Mr. Picks! I don't know what came over -me!"</p> - -<p>But I was answered only by a multitude of squawks, rustles and -scratchings.</p> - -<p>The bird was home.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>I could almost see vague forms. The darkness was beginning to give a -little. I was warm, itchy and uncomfortable under whatever it was that -Rene had sprayed on me.</p> - -<p>Warm?</p> - -<p>Perfume trees?</p> - -<p>All I could smell were bird roosts.</p> - -<p>I stood up, finding my limbs weak, trembling and painful. First, I -glanced at my watch. Five hours terran time since we left the ship. At -fifty miles per hour, we'd have gone two hundred and fifty miles.</p> - -<p>If we'd gone due north, as the bird started out, we must be in the snow -zone. And I was <i>warm</i>!</p> - -<p>I switched my flash around. All I could see were birds. There seemed to -be hundreds of them. I couldn't tell which one was my bearer.</p> - -<p>"Where is the perfume?" I bawled.</p> - -<p>All I got was squawks. Some of the birds were, in fact, standing on -one foot and tucking their heads away.</p> - -<p>It was growing lighter. The birds were going to bed.</p> - -<p>Feverishly, I pulled out Uncle Izzy's old volume of poetry.</p> - -<p>Brushing from my mind a vision of Mr. Picks in a state of shock and -another picture of Uncle Isadore snickering triumphantly, I stood -on that desert land enchanted—on that home by horror haunted, and -solemnly read "The Dodo" to a colony of wingless birds.</p> - -<p>My dodo identified himself at the proper place, but I kept on, waiting -for something to show me my inheritance.</p> - -<p>"Then methought the air grew denser," I read.</p> - -<p>"Perfume from an unseen censor!" a bird croaked from the back row.</p> - -<p>"Where?" I cried, pushing my way through the birds crowding around me -in various stages of roost and curiosity.</p> - -<p>"Then," I repeated, "the air grew denser."</p> - -<p>"Perfume," the bird now in front of me said, "from an unseen censor."</p> - -<p>He began to scratch at the ground assiduously under one of four dim -shapes about the level of my eyes. Then he yawned gapingly, gave up and -went to sleep.</p> - -<p>I sat down to wait, because it was almost dawn and the last dodo had -tucked his head into his feathers.</p> - -<p>Daylight showed me four little trees, nothing like the usual scraggy -vegetation of Alvarla. They <i>must</i> be perfume trees, I thought. But -they were too young to have blossoms or pods.</p> - -<p>I didn't go too near them, remembering what Rene had said.</p> - -<p>And, remembering that, I began to figure out how they grew here.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>This place was a little valley. No, a crater. Several feet deeper than -my height, with sloping sides. The birds apparently kept it warm with -their body heat, plus the heat the rocky sides would store. Since it -was a crater, the winds wouldn't reach it. The crater made a basin to -catch the snow which I could see beginning to melt at the edges and -ooze down the slope.</p> - -<p>The birds provided more than ample fertilizer and Uncle Izzy had -apparently trained at least one of them to cultivate the soil under the -trees.</p> - -<p>I climbed out of the crater to see that I was indeed in the regions -of snow. To the north were huge drifts, and far off loomed towering -glaciers.</p> - -<p>To the south, the hills tapered off from white to spotted brown.</p> - -<p>That was the reason for Uncle Izzy's crazy setup. Rene and I would -never have come across this crater in an ordinary search. Of course, -the setup needn't have been <i>quite</i> so crazy. That was the personal -equation of which Uncle Izzy was so fond.</p> - -<p>The trees would, I assumed, poke their heads up over the crater as they -grew, reaching toward the cold, and finally getting the frostbite to -fill their pods properly.</p> - -<p>At two thousand dollars an ounce.</p> - -<p>I had neglected to ask Rene how many pods a tree could be expected to -produce or how big the pods were. But, say, half an ounce in each pod -and a conservative fifty pods on each tree.</p> - -<p>A hundred thousand dollars.</p> - -<p>I slid back into the crater, sat leaning against a somnolent dodo and -ate a lunch package with a cupful of melted snow.</p> - -<p>All sorts of thoughts were jostling my brain.</p> - -<p>But I was bone-weary. I hadn't slept since we hit Alvarla and the ride -last night had been a tremendous strain, because I wasn't in the habit -of getting any exercise at all.</p> - -<p>Therefore, I fell asleep in mid-thought.</p> - -<p>It was the noon sun that woke me. I wasn't just warm. I was <i>hot</i>.</p> - -<p>And I was very reluctant to let go of my dream; I kept grabbing at the -tag ends of it with both hands. It was the most exciting dream I'd had -since the one about succeeding Mr. Picks. Only <i>very</i> different.</p> - -<p>I'd made a fortune cultivating perfume trees. My dream was full of -perfume. Some of it came from the exotic plants of my African estate. -Some of it was from a long-legged, pink-haired girl, the kind African -millionaires have.</p> - -<p>It was the sort of dream, I mused, unable to keep it in mood any -longer, as large-minded men have. Men like—Uncle Isadore!</p> - -<p>I sat up suddenly. Uncle Isadore—large-minded? Why hadn't he had the -avuncular decency to leave me his fortune the usual way?</p> - -<p>Why?</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Because then he wouldn't be able to play penny-ante psychology and get -me dreaming about wild schemes with perfume trees and African estates. -That's why.</p> - -<p>Or maybe there wasn't any fortune! Suddenly I understood why people -smoke. It gives them something to do when they feel helpless.</p> - -<p>If there wasn't any fortune, then I was hopelessly tied to the perfume -trees. If Uncle Izzy had lost his last cent, it would be very like him -to borrow enough from friends to finance a perfume tree scheme. And if -he didn't make it to the planet he had in mind—why, he'd make the -planet he'd crashed on do.</p> - -<p>Anyone else would have shot the birds for fresh meat. Anyone else would -have seen immediately that Alvarla was the last planet in the Galaxy -where perfume trees would grow.</p> - -<p>Anyone else would have seen immediately that I was one of the minor, -comfortable people in the world who likes the happy regularities of a -little job and an assured, if limited, future. Anyone else would have -seen I had the sort of personality that could not be changed.</p> - -<p>But Uncle Izzy wasn't anyone else.</p> - -<p><i>Why</i> did I keep smelling the perfume from my dream?</p> - -<p>I followed my nose out of the crater and found the snow melting around -a water tank about four feet long and two feet in diameter—part of the -ruined fuel system from Uncle Izzy's ship.</p> - -<p>I dislodged it from the ice beneath and shook it. The perfume was so -strong, as it unfroze, that it made me dizzy. And all that smell was -coming from a pinhole.</p> - -<p>There seemed to be half a gallon in it. Enough to pay off Mother's -bonds and whatever I owed Rene, with a handsome sum left over for me.</p> - -<p>I could go home and forget about perfume trees and Alvarla and Uncle -Isadore.</p> - -<p>But that dream of the African estate kept irritating the back of my -mind. And the large, free sky of Alvarla was soothing to the eye, when -compared to the little squares of blue I noted occasionally when riding -the slidewalks of Brooklyn.</p> - -<p>What <i>did</i> I want out of life, anyway? <i>Damn</i> Uncle Isadore. I'd never -test 10:9 on job adjustment again.</p> - -<p>I was still thinking when evening swept in fast, as it does in dry -climates, and the birds began to wake up and climb out of the crater, -presumably to forage for food.</p> - -<p>"Wait!" I cried. "Isadore!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>I drew out a lunch package and spread it to attract him. It attracted -all of them.</p> - -<p>I pulled out "The Dodo."</p> - -<p>"'Tell me what thy lordly name is/On the Night's Plutonian shore.'"</p> - -<p>"Isadore," he volunteered, swallowing fast while I climbed aboard him.</p> - -<p>"Take me back."</p> - -<p>Then I realized I had made a mistake with the food.</p> - -<p>"Go!" I cried. "Spaceship! More food!" He just stood there, his beak -poking around the ground for crumbs.</p> - -<p>But I had to get that skin spray washed off before twenty-four hours -were up.</p> - -<p>"Nepenthe!" I shouted desperately.</p> - -<p>The dodo was off like a flash and didn't stop till we were back at the -ship.</p> - -<p>"You were gone quite a while," Rene said nonchalantly. "Find anything?"</p> - -<p>"Enough to pay you off," I said. "And we'll make it five thousand -because <i>I</i> found it. Stow this somewhere. It's perfume."</p> - -<p>He did. "Find anything else?"</p> - -<p>"Nothing that would interest you. I'll be ready to blast off as soon as -I've had a shower."</p> - -<p>Rene shrugged.</p> - -<p>The perfume, when we returned to Earth, proved to be worth what he'd -said it would be. A lot of people wanted to know where I'd gotten it. -"The crops on Odoria," they said, "are entirely sewed up by Odoria, -Inc."</p> - -<p>"They certainly are," I always replied agreeably.</p> - -<p>It took all I cleared from the perfume to put a down payment on a ship -and hire an expert on fertilizing perfume flowers. But this time <i>I</i> -wanted to run the show.</p> - -<p>Mr. Picks shook his head sadly when I told him to replace me -permanently.</p> - -<p>"You have a great future ahead of you in studs and neck clasps," he -said. "Why not take a little time and reconsider your decision? Or—"</p> - -<p>"Nevermore," I answered.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Not until five years later did I find out what happened to the rest of -good old Uncle Algernon's fortune.</p> - -<p>I was stretched out on a gently undulating force-field in my interior -patio, a huge, scarlet fan-flower tree sifting in the sunshine. Leda, -her pink hair flowing down to her knees, was just emerging from the -pool of grilch milk. She bent to an Aphrodite of Cnidos position.</p> - -<p>"Perfect!" I said, and threw away my cigarene.</p> - -<p>"Depart!" I told the robot, who came rolling in.</p> - -<p>"But, master, it's the Cha'n of Betelgeuse, Lord of the Seven Planets -and the Four Hundred Moons."</p> - -<p>"Get dressed, Leda," I said regretfully. "We have company."</p> - -<p>I'd never met him, but I knew he was one of Uncle Isadore's best -friends and I felt obliged to see him.</p> - -<p>The Cha'n had several meals and four cigarenes, maintaining a -courteous silence all the while. Then he loosened his belt, reached -into his furry pouch and handed me a piece of copper scroll.</p> - -<p>It was a check for five million dollars.</p> - -<p>"You won," he told me. "Or lost, as the case may be."</p> - -<p>I just looked at him.</p> - -<p>"I was holding it in trust for you," the Cha'n explained, "in -accordance with your Uncle Isadore's last wishes."</p> - -<p>I blew a perfect smoke ring, let it float before my face for a perfect -moment, and then asked, "And suppose I had lost? Or won, as the case -may be?"</p> - -<p>"I was to save it to try on your son, the gods permitting you have one."</p> - -<p>"If necessary," I told him, "I'll try it on him myself, O Cha'n of the -Seven Planets and the Four Hundred Moons."</p> - -<p>"Call me Charlie," he said.</p> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's From An Unseen Censor, by Rosel George Brown - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM AN UNSEEN CENSOR *** - -***** This file should be named 51758-h.htm or 51758-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/7/5/51758/ - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: From An Unseen Censor - -Author: Rosel George Brown - -Release Date: April 14, 2016 [EBook #51758] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM AN UNSEEN CENSOR *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - - - - FROM AN UNSEEN CENSOR - - By ROSEL GEORGE BROWN - - Illustrated by DILLON - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Galaxy Magazine September 1958. - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - - - - You can't beat my Uncle Isadore--he's - dead but he's quick--yet that is just - what he was daring me to try and do! - - -Uncle Isadore's ship wasn't in bad shape, at first glance. But a second -look showed the combustion chamber was crumpled to pieces and the jets -were fused into the rocks, making a smooth depression. - -The ship had tilted into a horizontal position, nestling in the hollow -its last blasts had made. Dust had sifted in around it, piling over the -almost invisible seam of the port and filming the whole ship. - -We circled around the ship. It was all closed and sealed, blind as a -bullet. - -"Okay," Rene said. "He's dead. My regrets." He coughed the word out as -though it were something he had swallowed by accident. - -"But how do you know?" I asked. "He might be in there." - -"That port hasn't been opened for months. Maybe years. I told you the -converter wouldn't last more than a month in dock. He couldn't live -locked up in there without air and water. Let's go." My guide had no -further interest in the ship. He hadn't even looked to see what the -planet was like. - -I stood shivering in my warm clothes. The ship seemed to radiate -a chill. I looked around at the lumpy, unimaginative landscape of -Alvarla. There was nothing in sight but a scraggly, dun heather -sprouting here and there in the rocks and dust, and making hirsute -patches on the low hills. - -I had some wild idea, I think, that Uncle Izzy might come sauntering -nonchalantly over the hills, one hand in the pocket of a grilch-down -jacket and the other holding a Martian cigarene. And he would have on -his face that look which makes everything he says seem cynical and -slightly clever even if it isn't. - -"The scenery is dull," he might say, "but it makes a nice back-drop for -you." Something like that, leaving the impression he'd illuminated a -side of your character for you to figure out later on. - - * * * * * - -Nothing of the kind happened, of course. I just got colder standing -there. - -"All right," Rene said. "We've had a moment of silence. Now let's go." - -"I--there's something wrong," I told him. "Let's go in and _see_ -the--the body." - -"We can't go in. That ship's sealed from the inside. You think they -make those things so any painted alien can open the door and shoot in -poisoned arrows? Believe me, he _has_ to be inside if those outside -ports are sealed. And he _has_ to be dead because that port hasn't been -opened in months. Look at the dust! It's a fourth of the way up the -port." - -Rene lumbered over to it and blew away some of the lighter dust higher -up. - -"See that?" he asked. - -"No." - -He groaned. "Well, you'll have to take my word for it. It's a raindrop. -Almost four months old. A very light rain. You could see the faint, -crusted outline of the drop if you knew how to look." - -"I believe you," I said. "I hired you because you know which side of -the trees the moss grows on and things like that. Still...." - -Rene was beginning to stomp around impatiently. "Still _what_?" - -"It just isn't like Uncle Isadore." I was trying to search out, myself, -what it was that struck me as incongruous. "It's out of character." - -"It's out of character for _anybody_ to die," Rene said. "But I've seen -a lot of them dead." - -"I mean at least he would have died outside." - -"Oh, for Pete's sake! Why outside? You think he took rat poison?" - -I went around to the other side of the spaceship, mostly to get away -from Rene for a moment. I'm only a studs and neck clasp man and Rene -had twenty years' experience on alien planets. So he was right, of -course, about the evidence. There was no getting around it. Still.... - -I circled back around to where Rene was smoking his first cigarette -since we left Earth. His face was a mask of sunbaked wrinkles pointing -down to the cigarette smack in the middle of his mouth. - -"Uncle Izzy wouldn't die like an ordinary mortal," I said. "He'd have -a brass band. Or we'd find his body lying in a bed of roses with a big -lily in his hand. Or he might even disappear into thin air. But not -_this_." I waved a hand toward the dead ship. - -"Look," Rene said. "My job was to find your Uncle Isadore. I've found -him. We can't get inside that ship with anything short of a matter -reducer, which I _don't_ happen to have along since they weigh several -tons. You'll have to take my word for it that his body's in there. Now -let's go home." He managed to talk without moving the cigarette at all. - - * * * * * - -"You said a week," I reminded Rene. - -"I said if I didn't find him in a week, then he wasn't there. I've -found him. I'm sorry if he was your favorite uncle or something." - -"As a matter of fact, I never liked him. He was--frivolous. He never -had a job. He thought life was a big game." - -"Then how come he got so rich?" - -"He always won." - -"Not this time, brother! But if he's not your favorite uncle, why all -this concern? You can take my word for it he's dead and you've done -your duty." - -"There are two things that bother me. One is curiosity. I just -don't believe Uncle Izzy died in an ordinary fashion locked up in a -spaceship. You don't know him, so you wouldn't understand. The other -thing I'm concerned about is--well, his will." - -Rene barked a couple of times. I had learned this indicated laughter. -"I figured what you were really after was his money." - -Under my yellow overskin, I could feel myself coloring. That wasn't -at all the point. I'd mortgaged Mother's bonds to finance this trip, -confident that Uncle Izzy would make it good when we found him. If I -couldn't get Mother's bonds out of hock, she'd have to live out her -life in a Comfort Park. I shuddered at the thought. Uncle Isadore must -have known that when he radared for help. He must have provided some -way.... - -"You said a week and we're staying a week," I told Rene as -authoritatively as I could manage. "You haven't actually _showed_ -me Uncle Izzy's--er--corpus delicti, so I have you on a legal -technicality." I didn't know whether or not this was true, but it -sounded good. - -"All right, we'll stay." Rene spat the sentence out onto the ground. -"But if you think I'm going to do any more looking, take another guess." - -He tramped back into his own ship, leaving the outside port and the -pressure chamber open. - -If only Uncle Izzy had done that! - -I went over his ship inch by inch, feeling with my hands, to be sure -there was no extra door that might be opened. Rene would have laughed, -but I was beginning to build up antibodies against Rene's laughter. - -I got the bottom part of the ship dusted off and found nothing. - -I pushed open the door of Rene's ship and asked him for a ladder. - -"You'll have to pay for it," he warned. "Once it's open, I can't carry -it in my ship and I'll have to get another." - -"Okay, okay! I'll _pay_ for it." - - * * * * * - -He handed me a synthetic affair that looked like a meshed rope, wound -tight, about the size of a Venusian cigar. - -"This is a ladder?" I asked incredulously, but he had shut the door in -my face. - -I slipped the cellophane off and unrolled it. It seemed to unroll -endlessly. When it was ten feet long and four feet wide, I stopped -unrolling. Sure enough, it hardened into a ladder in about ten minutes. -It was so strong I couldn't begin to bend it over my knee. - -I set it against the side of the ship and began to investigate the view -ports. The first two were sealed tight as a drum. - -The third slipped off in my hands and clattered over the side of the -ship onto the rocks. - -I was almost afraid to look through the "glass" beneath. I needn't have -been. I could see absolutely nothing. It was space-black inside. - -I went back to Rene's ship for a flashlight. He was unimpressed by my -discovery. - -"Even if you could break the glass, which you can't," he said, "you -still couldn't get through that little porthole. Here's the flash. You -won't be able to see anything." - -He came with me this time. Not because he was interested, but because -he wanted another cigarette and never smoked in the ship. - -He was right. I couldn't see a darned thing in the ship with the -flashlight. But I found something--a little lead object that looked -like a coin. It had rolled into a corner of the port. - -Now I don't like adventure. I don't like strange planets. All I've ever -asked of life was my little four-by-six cubby in the Brooklyn Bloc and -my job. A job I know inside out. It's a comfortable, happy, harmless -way to live and I test 10:9 on job adjustment. - -All the same, it was a thrill to discover a clue that Rene would have -thrown away if he'd been the one looking. - -I tossed it casually in the air and showed it to Rene. - -"Know what that is?" I asked. - -"Slug for a halfdec slot machine?" - -"Nope. Know what I can do with it?" - -He didn't say. - -"I'm going to open Uncle Izzy's ship from the _inside_." - - * * * * * - -Rene lighted a fresh cigarette from the old one and let the smoke out -of his nose. It gave rather the impression of a bull resting between -picadors. - -"Can you show me, on the outside, approximately where the button is -that you push on the inside to unseal the ship?" I inquired casually. - -"I can show you exactly." - -He pointed to a spot next to the entrance port. I wet my finger and -made a mark in the dust so I could get it just right. Then I found a -sharp stone and cut around the edges of the lead. As I slipped off the -back half of the coinlike affair, I clapped it over the finger mark. - -The entrance port swung open. - -If I'd had a feather, I would have taken great pleasure in knocking -Rene over with it. - -"It'd be worth a million dollars," he breathed, "to know how you did -that." - -"Oh, a lot less than that," I said airily. - -"Well? Explain!" - -"Uncle Isadore had it set up," I told him, using the same patiently -impatient tone he used on me. "He knew I'd recognize that lead coin. -There was a cuff link in it." - -"A cuff link!" - -"A studs and neck clasp man has to know about cuff links, too. This -happens to be an expensive cuff link, but worth only about a year's -salary, not a million dollars. They're held together by a jazzed-up -electromagnetic force rather than by a clasp. This force is so strong -it would take a derrick to pull them apart. The idea is to keep you -from losing one. If you drop it to the floor, you just wave the mate -around a little and it pops up through the air." - -"How do you get them apart?" - -"Just slip them sideways, like a magnet. You can sheathe them in -lead, like the one I found, to cut down the attraction. This is how -they're packaged. You don't know about them because they're not -advertised--that keeps them a luxury item, you know." - -"So your Uncle Isadore pasted one of them on the port button." - -"He didn't have to paste. All he had to do was stick it on. All I had -to do was line up the mate to it and the attractive force pushed the -button." - -"That's very neat," Rene said. "But why the hell didn't he just leave -the port open? He'd hardly do this sort of thing with his dying gasp." - -"I'm not sure," I admitted. "As a matter of fact, I wonder why he -radared _me_ if he really wanted to be rescued. He had plenty of -friends who could rescue him more reliably." - - * * * * * - -I had an inkling of what had been on Uncle Isadore's mind. Although -Uncle Izzy had had three--or was it four?--wives, he'd very carefully -had no children. And it had occurred to him at an advanced age to take -an interest in me. - -He'd sent me through two years of general studies and reluctantly let -me specialize in studs and neck clasps. - -"You were a grilch hop expert in Middle School," he had told me. "How -come you're getting so stuffy?" - -"Because I can't be an adolescent all my life, Uncle Isadore," I had -replied stiffly. "I would like to get into some solid line of work and -be a good citizen." - -"Phooey!" he'd said. But he had let me do what I'd wanted. It was -because of this that I had felt duty bound to answer his call for help. - -I'd _not_ felt duty bound to take all the opportunities he'd tried to -force on me when I got out of school. Mining the semi-solid seas of -Alphard kappa. Fur trading on Procyon beta. And a hundred others, all -obviously doomed to failure unless there was one lucky chance. - -"But I'm _happy_ here with my little room and my little job," I kept -telling Uncle Isadore. - -"You only think you're happy because you don't know any better," he -kept telling me. - -Only, now that he was dead, he seemed to have me where he wanted me. -Now that nothing could matter to him any longer. - -"Maybe he was getting senile," Rene suggested. - -"Uncle Izzy always said he'd rather die than--he _did_ die," I replied, -suddenly recalling myself to the present and the open outside port of -the ship. I realized how reluctant I was to go in. It was one thing to -admit Uncle Izzy was dead--I cherished no great affection for him--but -it was something else to have to face his dead body. - -"Would you mind going in first?" I asked Rene. - -He shrugged and shouldered the inside door open. - -He came out, his face a study in perplexity. "Not here!" he said. "This -is the first time I've been wrong in fifteen years!" - -"That's because it's the first time you've been up against Uncle Izzy. -He must have closed the port behind him the same way I opened it." - -I climbed through the door, feeling immensely relieved. I realized then -what had really been worrying me. If the gods had abandoned Isadore at -the last, what did they have in mind for the rest of us mere mortals? - -I kicked at my mind irritably, knowing these were young thoughts. But -then I _am_ young, I explained to myself. - - * * * * * - -The inside of the ship was neat and empty. Stuck on the instrument -panel with a vaccup was a note, in Uncle Izzy's flowery script. - - _My boy. I have died of boredom. Do not look for the remains. I - have hidden my body to avoid the banality of a decent burial. - I bequeath you my entire fortune. Find it._ - -Rene groaned. "I suppose now you want to look for the body." - -"No. If he says it's hidden, it's hidden. But it would be a little -silly to go off without finding his fortune, wouldn't it?" - -"Looking for buried treasure wasn't in the contract," Rene pointed out. -"You'll have to make it worth my while." - -"Another five thousand," I said. - -"Make it ten. Payable if I find it." - -"Suppose _I_ find it?" - -"Don't be ridiculous. You'd be a fool to take two steps on this planet -without me." - -He was right, of course. And if we left, I wouldn't get anything. I -thought of Mother living by the bells at a Comfort Park. "All right," I -said. - -"What form was his fortune in?" Rene asked. "Money? Bonds? Polarian -droplets? It would help to know what I'm looking for." - -"I have no idea," I confessed. "Ordinarily it would take a computer -to figure out Uncle Isadore's financial affairs. But he'd have been -perfectly capable of selling out everything and taking his entire -fortune along with him for some new project." - -Rene had skillfully unscrewed the instrument panel and he lifted it -off and began poking inside and removing mysterious bits of machinery. -"That makes it harder. You don't know whether he sold out or not?" - -"I have no idea. He might have all his money piled in the locker of -the Whist Club of Sirius beta. In that case, we look for a key. Or he -might have a block of Eretrevium buried somewhere. Your guess is as -good as mine." - -"If he's dug up the ground," Rene said, "I'll recognize the spot. But -that'll mean walking over every inch of ground for a day's journey -around. Or more, if he did any overnight traveling." - -"Not Uncle Izzy," I said. "He wouldn't be at all likely to spend a -freezing night out on Alvarla, even for a good joke." - -"Radar equipment's in perfect shape," Rene said, shifting his -activities to another segment of the ship's equipment. "I wonder why -he didn't leave it on so we could locate him easier. Not that we had -any trouble. Or why he didn't continue broadcasting for help until he -died.... Mind if I take some of the equipment?" - -"You haven't been exactly generous with me." - -"I intend to subtract its value from the cost of supplies and mileage -on my ship. I never said I was generous, but, by God, I'm honest." - - * * * * * - -Rene slid out the compartment of lunch packages, dumped them on the -floor. - -"All unopened," he was saying disgustedly. Then he picked up a heavy, -square object with sharp corners, open on three sides. "What the hell -is this?" - -"A book," I informed him. - -Rene opened it "Hey! A real, antique book! Must be worth at least a -thousand! Look at the _size_ of that print! You can read it with the -naked eye, like an instrument panel! Well, here's a little piece of -your fortune." - -He tossed it to me and went on examining the lunch packages. He didn't -trust me to help him because _I_ wouldn't be able to tell if they'd -been opened and something inserted. - -I hung the book by the covers and let the pages flip open. Nothing fell -out. I sighed. I'd have to go through the whole damn thing. - -"I'm going back to your ship and read in comfort," I told Rene. - -"You're no help here anyway," he said, putting the lunch packages in -a large plastic bag he'd found somewhere. "No use letting these go to -waste." - -I didn't tell him I had the clue to Uncle Isadore's fortune in my hand. -He didn't know Uncle Isadore, so he wouldn't have believed me. - -Nothing is more uncomfortable than reading an antique book. There is -no way to lie back and flash it on a screen or run the tape over your -reading glasses while you lie prone and relax. You have to _hold_ it. -If you try to hold it lying down, your arms get tired. If you put it -down on a table to read, your neck gets tired from bending over. And -the pages keep flipping and make you lose your place. - -Still, I read it all the way through. It wasn't too bad. Not like Edgar -Guest, of course, who was the only ancient author I liked in General -Studies. But I found there was a sort of Grilch Hop beat to it that -reminded me of the Footlooses I used to go to in Middle School. I -grinned. It was funny to think of now. - -I found no clues in the book. The only thing to do was read it again, -more carefully. - - * * * * * - -I noticed there was one poem with a _real_ Grilch Hop beat. I thought -suddenly of Sally, my regular partner at the Footlooses. She was very -blonde and she affected a green crestwave in her hair, pulled over her -forehead with a diamond clip. She was a beauty, all right. But she was -a little silly. And she had that tendency to overdress. - -No, I sighed, she wouldn't have done for a studs and neck clasp man. -But I couldn't help wondering where she was now and what she was like -now. Did she remember me, and did she think about me when she heard -that song we used to dance to, because it was about a girl named Sally? - - Once I knew a girl named Sally - Met her at a Footloose rally - -I began humming the Grilch Hop tune to the ancient poem in Uncle Algy's -book. It was fantastic how closely it fitted, though, of course, the -words in the poem were plain silly. - -But imagine finding a poem with a perfect Grilch Hop beat before -anybody even knew what a grilch was! Before Venus was even discovered. -Jump on both feet. Hop three times on the left foot. Jump. Hop three -times on the right foot. The rhythm was correct, right down to the -breakaway and four-step at the end of each run. - -It was while I was singing this poem to a Grilch Hop tune that I -noticed the clue. The poem was named "The Dodo." And the rhyming was -very smooth until I came to the lines: - - "Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, - Thou," I said, "art like a Raven - Ghastly, grim, and ancient Dodo, - Wandering from the Nightly shore; - Tell me what thy lordly name is - On the Night's Plutonian shore." - Quoth the Dodo, "Isadore." - -Now the author had gone to a lot of trouble in the previous verse not -to break the Grilch Hop rhyme scheme. He made "thereat is" rhyme with -"lattice" and "that is." Why did he follow "shaven" and "raven" with -"Dodo"? - -Furthermore, it had not struck me the first time I read the poem -quickly that there was anything odd about a bird being named "Isadore." -People who keep pet grilches frequently name them after famous Reed -players and Isadore is a common name. - -On the other hand, it _was_ my Uncle's name. And the word "Dodo" didn't -rhyme as it should. - -I got out a magnifying glass to examine the ancient print. Sure enough, -it had been tampered with. The print looked so odd to me, anyway, I -hadn't noticed the part that had been changed. But it was obvious under -the glass that "Dodo" had been substituted for a word of almost equal -length. The same with "Isadore." - -I went over the whole poem now, carefully, to see which words had been -changed. There weren't many. "White" in a couple of places. "Dodo" and -"Isadore" wherever they occurred. An "o" in the line "Perfume from an -unseen cens_o_r." "S" in the line "'Wretch,' I cried, 'Isadore hath -_s_ent thee....'" - - * * * * * - -Sitting back, I thought about what I had read. It made no sense at all. -Was I to look for a white bird, "grim, ungainly, ghastly"? And what if -I found him? Why was he like a raven? What was this perfume from an -unseen censor? I could picture the ghost of Uncle Isadore, knowing -his financial imagination, as the "unseen censor" because he always -criticized me. Was I to look for perfume? Did he have a fortune in -perfume stowed somewhere? It seemed to me it would take an awful lot of -even the most expensive perfume to comprise a fortune. - -I decided to start with the bird. I went outside Rene's ship and looked -around. No birds. - -"Rene!" I called. He was still looking through Uncle Izzy's ship. "Have -you seen an ungainly white bird around?" - -"What!" he snapped, sticking an indignant face out of the door. - -"I guess you haven't. Can your woodsy lore tell if there _are_ birds on -this planet?" - -"Obviously," Rene said. "I don't know why you can't find your own -spoor. I noticed the droppings immediately." - -"Where are the birds?" - -"How the hell would I know?" But he couldn't contain his special -knowledge. "They're probably night birds," he said. - -"Oh, yes." It checked. "Wandering from the Night's Plutonian shore." - -He looked at me suspiciously. "You ever had a nervous breakdown?" - -"I have _not_. I test 10:9 on job adjustment and 10:8 on life -adjustment." - -"Some people crack on alien planets," he said. "I have a padded room in -my ship. You'd be surprised how often I have to use it." - -I told him about the poem I found in Uncle Izzy's book. "We look for a -white bird," I said. "Or perfume." - -"You're nuts," he pointed out with some justice, because he hadn't -known Uncle Isadore. "How do you know these changes weren't made by -somebody else a long time ago? Maybe this ancient printer printed it -wrong and had to change it afterward." - -"I don't think they were that primitive back then." - -But I didn't know what "back then" meant or how primitive ancient -printing was. All I knew for sure was that, as the poem stood, it -sounded as if somebody had loused up a perfect Grilch Hop rhyme. And -Uncle Izzy knew I was a Grilch Hop expert in Middle School and this was -the only _real_ Grilch Hop rhythm in the book. What's more, Uncle Izzy -could depend on me to go over that book in painstaking detail because a -studs and neck clasp man has to be good on details. - - * * * * * - -"All right," I said. "You look your way and I'll look my way." - -"We're not looking any more any way today," Rene said, emerging from -Uncle Isadore's ship loaded down with removings. "It'll be night and -below freezing in half an hour." - -"What do you think," I asked, "a dodo would like to eat?" - -"A _what_?" - -"The birds. I want to put something out to attract them. Crackers or -something?" - -"I think you're crazy. If you have any idea of sitting outside to wait -for them, you'll freeze to death. Not only that, there's no moon. You -wouldn't be able to see your hand in front of your face." - -"How do the birds see?" - -"Maybe they aren't night birds. Maybe they migrated somewhere else." - -"And if I use a light, it might scare them away," I mused. "Well, maybe -I'm not supposed to wait outside, anyway." - -Rene went in and switched on the heat and lights. - -"Leave the outside port open," I said. - -"Why?" - -"So the birds can knock." - -"Can _what_?" - -"Well, it's possible," I said defensively. "It won't hurt anything to -leave it open." - -"All right," he consented, curving his mouth around unpleasantly, "just -to show you what a jackass you are." - -Rene had the heat turned low, for sleeping, and the lights off, as -soon as we had eaten and fed the converter. I hydrated a package of -crackers so that they were full-sized but not soggy, broke them into -pieces and tossed them out. - -I admit I felt a little embarrassed. - -I sat there in the chill quiet, on this ugly, alien world, reading "The -Dodo" by the light of a miniature flash, so as not to disturb Rene. - -Pretty soon I began to feel creepy. "The Dodo" is a ghastly poem. -There's an insidious morbidity about it. It had sounded merely funny -the first time I read it. - -Now, the more I read it, the more I began to hear strange, impossible -creakings and sighs, which might or might not be due to temperature -changes. - -The night outside was a deep, cold cup of darkness where no human thing -moved. - -There was a knock at the door. - -I dropped the book and flashlight. Rene was up like a cat. He didn't -turn on the light. - -"Who's there?" he shouted. - -There was a scratching noise at the door. Then a voice croaked, "My -name is Isadore Summers." - - * * * * * - -I reached a trembling hand for the door. - -"Wait, you fool!" Rene cried. He picked up the flash and got his gun. -"Stand behind me and keep your hands off your gun. I know when to -shoot and when not to shoot. You don't." - -"If it's Uncle Isadore...." - -"I tell you you've got to leave it up to me, if you want to get off -this planet alive. Now stand back and keep your mouth shut, no matter -what happens." - -He kicked the door open and stood back and to one side of it. "Come in -with your arms up!" - -There was a sort of rustling sound and in walked a huge, white, -wingless bird. - -"My name," the dodo repeated, somewhat plaintively this time, with a -glance toward the lunch compartment, "is Isadore Summers." - -I couldn't help it. I rolled all over the ship with laughter. Rene -looked a little shamefaced, tossed his gun onto the rack and punched -the lighting on. - -Obviously the dodo recognized our lunch compartment from familiarity -with Uncle Izzy's ship. Then he looked at the alcohol tap that led from -the fuel conversion. "Nepenthe?" he begged. - -I hesitated. "Isn't there something," I asked Rene, "about corrupting -the natives of a primitive planet?" - -But Rene was sitting on his bunk, his jaw slack. "This is the first -time I've ever been made a fool of by an alcoholic bird." - -"If it's _just_ a bird, of course. Like a parrot...." - -I addressed the bird. "Sir," I began, and caught myself, "or perhaps -madam, can you say anything else?" - -"Nepenthe," the bird said firmly. - -I shrugged and drew a cup. The dodo lifted the cup and drained it in -one smooth gesture. This, as it turned out, was the only thing it -seemed to do smoothly. - -It began a wild attempt to scratch its head with one claw and remain -upright. Then, abandoning all dignity, it rolled to its side and -scratched furiously to satisfaction. After that, it began what looked -like a hopeless attempt to right its awkward body, legs struggling in -the air and back bumping around the ship. - -I couldn't help remembering Uncle Izzy after a meal, slim and suave, -lighting up a tapered, perfectly packed cigarene and blowing out one -round, shapely smoke ring that hovered before his light, sardonic grin -like a comment on his thoughts. - -An uncomfortable comparison. I shook myself to life. - -I righted the bird, no small problem, for he weighed almost two hundred -pounds. - -"Well," Rene finally said, coming out of his mood, "now that you have -this bird, what are you going to do with it?" - -"I had thought it might lead us to Uncle Izzy's fortune," I explained. - - * * * * * - -The bird obviously had no such intention. It was getting ready to take -a nap. - -"A night bird," I told it reprovingly, "shouldn't take a nap in the -middle of the night." - -"All you're proving is that he has no self-respect," Rene pointed out. -"Why don't you look to see if he's got a note tagged to his leg or -something?" - -I did. He didn't. - -"I think this whole thing is crazy," Rene said, "but since he's a -talking bird, you might ask him a few questions. Maybe he's trained to -say something else." - -"Where is Uncle Izzy's fortune?" I asked, when I had tugged at the -dodo's feathers until he opened one eye. - -He closed it. - -"Do you have a message for me?" - -He drew away from me irritably and closed the eye again, ruffling down -into his feathers. - -"He may be keyed to respond to certain phrases. Try your uncle's -name--he obviously knows that," Rene suggested coldly, wanting no part -of this but unable to hold down the suggestion. - -"My name," I screamed at the somnolent dodo, "is Isadore Summers." - -He reared back and pecked the hell out of me. - -I picked the book up off the floor and flipped through the bent pages -until I found "The Dodo." Maybe there'd be something in _that_. - -"Listen to this, Rene," I said, "and see if you catch anything I might -have missed." - -Rene looked discomfited, but he didn't stop up his ears. - -When I came to the part, "'Tell me what thy lordly name is/On the -Night's Plutonian shore....'" the dodo looked up and said, "Isadore." - -Clearly, this was it, although I couldn't recall that any of the -questions in the poem were to the point. - -I got to, "'On the morrow he will leave me/As my hopes have flown -before.'/Then the bird said...." - -"Ask me more," said the dodo without missing a beat. - -I read on, getting excited. "'Quaff, oh, quaff this kind nepenthe,/And -forget this lost Lenore.'/Quoth the Dodo...." - -"Give me more," he supplied, pointing his beak at the alcohol tap. - -I gave him another cup and continued, sure that he must be going to say -_something_ relevant to Uncle Izzy's fortune. - -"'Is there--_is_ there balm in Gilead?--Tell me, tell me, I implore!' -Quoth the Dodo...." - -"Probably not," the dodo said, breaking the Grilch Hop rhythm at last, -"but there are perfume trees on Alvarla." - -"Perfume trees!" Rene shouted. "That bird's lying. It's impossible." - -"Shut up!" I yelled at him. "The poem's not over." - - * * * * * - -I read on, somewhat ashamed of having to say such inhospitable words to -a dodo who had been, after all, cooperating with me. - -"'Take thy beak from out my heart,/And take thy form from off my -door!'/Quoth the Dodo...." - -"I was just leaving," the bird said, and struggled to his feet and went -and stood by the door expectantly. - -I got up. "Wait!" I commanded the bird, who couldn't do much else -because the door was closed. "Do you know what perfume trees are, Rene?" - -"Yeah, I know what they are, and they don't grow on this planet. You -can take my word for it. They need a warm, moist soil to germinate in. -They need to have their soil cultivated every day for a year. They -die fast on contact with any sort of industrial fumes. They die in -captivity, like some wild animals. They die if you sweat on them. They -die if you breathe on them. They need to start off warm and get colder -every month until they form their flowers. Then they need a frost for -the pods to fill with the perfume, along with the seeds." - -"There aren't any industrial fumes here," I pointed out, "and they -could get plenty of frost." - -"That's all they'd get. Where's the warm, moist climate to germinate -in? Where's the parasitical Rhns to cultivate their soil? The Rhns -couldn't exist without their Gleees and the Gleees can't exist -without--never mind. The only place perfume trees can grow is on Odoria -and that's why the perfume is worth two thousand dollars an ounce." - -"I have never heard of anything," I informed him, "that spelled 'Uncle -Isadore' so exactly. He always said, 'If it can't be done, I can do -it.' Well, there's only one way to find out. Surely there's something -on the ship I can wear." - -"You mean you're going out into that frozen inkpot after that idiotic -bird?" - -"That's exactly what I mean." - -"For Pete's sake! You're as brainless as the bird is!" But I think, for -all his attitude, he was curious, too. - - * * * * * - -He began to spray me with something. "Close your eyes and mouth. If you -don't wash this off with soap and water in twenty-four hours, you'll -die. But it sure keeps in the body heat." - -I stuck the book in my pocket for good luck, and Rene handed me a gun, -some lunch packages, an antibiotic kit and a water purification kit. - -"All right," I said, pocketing them, "but it can't be far. Uncle Izzy -wouldn't have gone more than a day's journey." - -"Then why haven't we smelled the perfume? And why would he have gone -through all this rigmarole when he must have known you'd search that -far?" - -I didn't know why. - -I pushed the door open. The bird hopped out and I realized how easy it -would be to lose him from the small, round glow of my flash. - -He looked curiously at me, as though expecting something further. - -I looked curiously at him, wondering where he would lead to. - -Then he was off. There was no question of following him. That big, -awkward bird ran so fast that in a few minutes we could no longer hear -the beat of his huge claws on the rocks, even in the perfectly still, -dry air. - -"How fast do you figure he's going?" I asked Rene. - -"How the hell would I know?" - -"Roughly." - -"Roughly? Maybe fifty miles an hour." - -"But that's incredible!" - -"The big point-tails on Aldebaran kappa can do eighty with a native on -their backs." - -"Ah!" I said. "So _that's_ it! Maybe tomorrow night...." - -But we could hear the drumming of the returning dodo. - -"Don't be stupid," Rene said. "He can't carry both of us and you'd be a -fool either to go alone or stay here alone." - -"As a tribute to my deceased uncle, I'm going to be a fool." - -I stuck my flashlight into one of my many pockets and climbed onto the -huge bird's back. The down beneath his outer feathers was as soft and -strong as heavy fur. I dug in with my hands and feet, my head braced -against the thickened part of his neck. - -He started off with a lurch that brought my stomach out of hiding. I -kept my eyes squeezed closed. I couldn't have seen anything, anyway. -Not even the impossible creature that was rushing through the darkness -carrying me, for all I knew, straight to damnation. - -The night rushed past my ears in a wild keening and it crossed my mind -to wonder what Mr. Picks, my supervisor, would say if he saw me now. - -I had a sudden vision of Mr. Picks, even more neatly dressed than I -always was, with middle-cost neck clasp and stud discreetly shining -from a plain, square-edged bag shirt and dun suit. I pictured him -opening a refined little box and holding it two feet under the -customer's eyes with a gesture of faint, unconscious supplication. A -comfortable, warm, happy picture in which my place, one counter behind -Mr. Picks, was reassuringly assured. - -Then, out of nowhere, into the picture galloped a yellow-skinned -monster astride a huge, white bird. It turned out to be me and I -tumbled off the bird, crying, "Mr. Picks! I don't know what came over -me!" - -But I was answered only by a multitude of squawks, rustles and -scratchings. - -The bird was home. - - * * * * * - -I could almost see vague forms. The darkness was beginning to give a -little. I was warm, itchy and uncomfortable under whatever it was that -Rene had sprayed on me. - -Warm? - -Perfume trees? - -All I could smell were bird roosts. - -I stood up, finding my limbs weak, trembling and painful. First, I -glanced at my watch. Five hours terran time since we left the ship. At -fifty miles per hour, we'd have gone two hundred and fifty miles. - -If we'd gone due north, as the bird started out, we must be in the snow -zone. And I was _warm_! - -I switched my flash around. All I could see were birds. There seemed to -be hundreds of them. I couldn't tell which one was my bearer. - -"Where is the perfume?" I bawled. - -All I got was squawks. Some of the birds were, in fact, standing on -one foot and tucking their heads away. - -It was growing lighter. The birds were going to bed. - -Feverishly, I pulled out Uncle Izzy's old volume of poetry. - -Brushing from my mind a vision of Mr. Picks in a state of shock and -another picture of Uncle Isadore snickering triumphantly, I stood -on that desert land enchanted--on that home by horror haunted, and -solemnly read "The Dodo" to a colony of wingless birds. - -My dodo identified himself at the proper place, but I kept on, waiting -for something to show me my inheritance. - -"Then methought the air grew denser," I read. - -"Perfume from an unseen censor!" a bird croaked from the back row. - -"Where?" I cried, pushing my way through the birds crowding around me -in various stages of roost and curiosity. - -"Then," I repeated, "the air grew denser." - -"Perfume," the bird now in front of me said, "from an unseen censor." - -He began to scratch at the ground assiduously under one of four dim -shapes about the level of my eyes. Then he yawned gapingly, gave up and -went to sleep. - -I sat down to wait, because it was almost dawn and the last dodo had -tucked his head into his feathers. - -Daylight showed me four little trees, nothing like the usual scraggy -vegetation of Alvarla. They _must_ be perfume trees, I thought. But -they were too young to have blossoms or pods. - -I didn't go too near them, remembering what Rene had said. - -And, remembering that, I began to figure out how they grew here. - - * * * * * - -This place was a little valley. No, a crater. Several feet deeper than -my height, with sloping sides. The birds apparently kept it warm with -their body heat, plus the heat the rocky sides would store. Since it -was a crater, the winds wouldn't reach it. The crater made a basin to -catch the snow which I could see beginning to melt at the edges and -ooze down the slope. - -The birds provided more than ample fertilizer and Uncle Izzy had -apparently trained at least one of them to cultivate the soil under the -trees. - -I climbed out of the crater to see that I was indeed in the regions -of snow. To the north were huge drifts, and far off loomed towering -glaciers. - -To the south, the hills tapered off from white to spotted brown. - -That was the reason for Uncle Izzy's crazy setup. Rene and I would -never have come across this crater in an ordinary search. Of course, -the setup needn't have been _quite_ so crazy. That was the personal -equation of which Uncle Izzy was so fond. - -The trees would, I assumed, poke their heads up over the crater as they -grew, reaching toward the cold, and finally getting the frostbite to -fill their pods properly. - -At two thousand dollars an ounce. - -I had neglected to ask Rene how many pods a tree could be expected to -produce or how big the pods were. But, say, half an ounce in each pod -and a conservative fifty pods on each tree. - -A hundred thousand dollars. - -I slid back into the crater, sat leaning against a somnolent dodo and -ate a lunch package with a cupful of melted snow. - -All sorts of thoughts were jostling my brain. - -But I was bone-weary. I hadn't slept since we hit Alvarla and the ride -last night had been a tremendous strain, because I wasn't in the habit -of getting any exercise at all. - -Therefore, I fell asleep in mid-thought. - -It was the noon sun that woke me. I wasn't just warm. I was _hot_. - -And I was very reluctant to let go of my dream; I kept grabbing at the -tag ends of it with both hands. It was the most exciting dream I'd had -since the one about succeeding Mr. Picks. Only _very_ different. - -I'd made a fortune cultivating perfume trees. My dream was full of -perfume. Some of it came from the exotic plants of my African estate. -Some of it was from a long-legged, pink-haired girl, the kind African -millionaires have. - -It was the sort of dream, I mused, unable to keep it in mood any -longer, as large-minded men have. Men like--Uncle Isadore! - -I sat up suddenly. Uncle Isadore--large-minded? Why hadn't he had the -avuncular decency to leave me his fortune the usual way? - -Why? - - * * * * * - -Because then he wouldn't be able to play penny-ante psychology and get -me dreaming about wild schemes with perfume trees and African estates. -That's why. - -Or maybe there wasn't any fortune! Suddenly I understood why people -smoke. It gives them something to do when they feel helpless. - -If there wasn't any fortune, then I was hopelessly tied to the perfume -trees. If Uncle Izzy had lost his last cent, it would be very like him -to borrow enough from friends to finance a perfume tree scheme. And if -he didn't make it to the planet he had in mind--why, he'd make the -planet he'd crashed on do. - -Anyone else would have shot the birds for fresh meat. Anyone else would -have seen immediately that Alvarla was the last planet in the Galaxy -where perfume trees would grow. - -Anyone else would have seen immediately that I was one of the minor, -comfortable people in the world who likes the happy regularities of a -little job and an assured, if limited, future. Anyone else would have -seen I had the sort of personality that could not be changed. - -But Uncle Izzy wasn't anyone else. - -_Why_ did I keep smelling the perfume from my dream? - -I followed my nose out of the crater and found the snow melting around -a water tank about four feet long and two feet in diameter--part of the -ruined fuel system from Uncle Izzy's ship. - -I dislodged it from the ice beneath and shook it. The perfume was so -strong, as it unfroze, that it made me dizzy. And all that smell was -coming from a pinhole. - -There seemed to be half a gallon in it. Enough to pay off Mother's -bonds and whatever I owed Rene, with a handsome sum left over for me. - -I could go home and forget about perfume trees and Alvarla and Uncle -Isadore. - -But that dream of the African estate kept irritating the back of my -mind. And the large, free sky of Alvarla was soothing to the eye, when -compared to the little squares of blue I noted occasionally when riding -the slidewalks of Brooklyn. - -What _did_ I want out of life, anyway? _Damn_ Uncle Isadore. I'd never -test 10:9 on job adjustment again. - -I was still thinking when evening swept in fast, as it does in dry -climates, and the birds began to wake up and climb out of the crater, -presumably to forage for food. - -"Wait!" I cried. "Isadore!" - - * * * * * - -I drew out a lunch package and spread it to attract him. It attracted -all of them. - -I pulled out "The Dodo." - -"'Tell me what thy lordly name is/On the Night's Plutonian shore.'" - -"Isadore," he volunteered, swallowing fast while I climbed aboard him. - -"Take me back." - -Then I realized I had made a mistake with the food. - -"Go!" I cried. "Spaceship! More food!" He just stood there, his beak -poking around the ground for crumbs. - -But I had to get that skin spray washed off before twenty-four hours -were up. - -"Nepenthe!" I shouted desperately. - -The dodo was off like a flash and didn't stop till we were back at the -ship. - -"You were gone quite a while," Rene said nonchalantly. "Find anything?" - -"Enough to pay you off," I said. "And we'll make it five thousand -because _I_ found it. Stow this somewhere. It's perfume." - -He did. "Find anything else?" - -"Nothing that would interest you. I'll be ready to blast off as soon as -I've had a shower." - -Rene shrugged. - -The perfume, when we returned to Earth, proved to be worth what he'd -said it would be. A lot of people wanted to know where I'd gotten it. -"The crops on Odoria," they said, "are entirely sewed up by Odoria, -Inc." - -"They certainly are," I always replied agreeably. - -It took all I cleared from the perfume to put a down payment on a ship -and hire an expert on fertilizing perfume flowers. But this time _I_ -wanted to run the show. - -Mr. Picks shook his head sadly when I told him to replace me -permanently. - -"You have a great future ahead of you in studs and neck clasps," he -said. "Why not take a little time and reconsider your decision? Or--" - -"Nevermore," I answered. - - * * * * * - -Not until five years later did I find out what happened to the rest of -good old Uncle Algernon's fortune. - -I was stretched out on a gently undulating force-field in my interior -patio, a huge, scarlet fan-flower tree sifting in the sunshine. Leda, -her pink hair flowing down to her knees, was just emerging from the -pool of grilch milk. She bent to an Aphrodite of Cnidos position. - -"Perfect!" I said, and threw away my cigarene. - -"Depart!" I told the robot, who came rolling in. - -"But, master, it's the Cha'n of Betelgeuse, Lord of the Seven Planets -and the Four Hundred Moons." - -"Get dressed, Leda," I said regretfully. "We have company." - -I'd never met him, but I knew he was one of Uncle Isadore's best -friends and I felt obliged to see him. - -The Cha'n had several meals and four cigarenes, maintaining a -courteous silence all the while. Then he loosened his belt, reached -into his furry pouch and handed me a piece of copper scroll. - -It was a check for five million dollars. - -"You won," he told me. "Or lost, as the case may be." - -I just looked at him. - -"I was holding it in trust for you," the Cha'n explained, "in -accordance with your Uncle Isadore's last wishes." - -I blew a perfect smoke ring, let it float before my face for a perfect -moment, and then asked, "And suppose I had lost? Or won, as the case -may be?" - -"I was to save it to try on your son, the gods permitting you have one." - -"If necessary," I told him, "I'll try it on him myself, O Cha'n of the -Seven Planets and the Four Hundred Moons." - -"Call me Charlie," he said. - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's From An Unseen Censor, by Rosel George Brown - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM AN UNSEEN CENSOR *** - -***** This file should be named 51758.txt or 51758.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/7/5/51758/ - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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