Short Fiction

were trying to break the party up or just do the morning mopping and break the lease simultaneously. Arms, legs and heads littered the deck. The boys, it seems, threw a party at the drop of a chin. Sort of a space cataclysm with rules and little regulation⁠—kind of an atomic convulsion in the front parlor. The neighbors never complained. The neighbors were 450 million miles away. And the boys were tighter than a catsup bottle at lunchtime. The last time the captain had looked up the hatch and called to his kiddies in a gentle voice, “Hell!” the kiddies had thrown snowballs at him. The captain had vanished. Clever way they make these space bombs nowadays. A few minutes previous the boys had been tearing up old Amazings and throwing them at one another, but now they contented themselves with tearing up just the editors. Palmer was torn in half and he sat in a corner arguing with himself about rejecting a story for an hour before someone put him through an orange juice machine killing him. (Orange juice sorry, now?)

And then they landed on Venus. How in heck they got back there so quick is a wonder of science, but there they were. “Come on, girls!” cried Quelch, “put on your shin guards, get out there and dig ditches for good old W.P.A. and the Rover Boys Academy, earth branch 27!”

Out into the staggering rain they dashed. Five minutes later they came back in, gasping, reeling. They had forgotten their corsets! The Venusians closed in like a million landlords. “Charge, men!” cried Quelch, running the other way. And then⁠—battle! “What a fight; folks,” cried Quelch. “Twenty thousand earth men against two Venusians! We’re outnumbered, but we’ll fight!” Bloosh! “Correction⁠—ten thousand men fighting!” Kerblom! “One hundred men from earth left!” Boom! “This is the last man speaking, folks! What a fight. I ain’t had so much fun since⁠—Help, someone just clipped my corset strings!” Bwom! “Someone just clipped me!”

The field was silent. The ship lay gleaming in the pink light of dawn that was just blooming over the mountains like a pale flower.

The two Venusians stood weeping over the bodies of the Earthlings like onion peelers or two women in a bargain basement. One Venusian looked at the other Venusian, and in a high-pitched, hoarse, sad voice said: “Aye, aye, aye⁠—this⁠—hit shooden heppen to a dog⁠—not a doidy leedle dog!” And dawn came peacefully, like beer barrels, rolling.

The Piper1

“Lord! He’s there again! He’s there! Look!” the old man croaked, jabbing a calloused finger at the burial hill. “Old Piper again! As crazy as a loon! Every year that way!”

The Martian boy at the feet of the old man stirred his thin reddish feet in the soil and affixed his large green eyes upon the burial hill where the Piper stood. “Why does he do that?” asked the boy.

“Ah?” The old man’s leathery face rumpled into a maze of wrinkles. “He’s crazy, that’s what. Stands up there piping on his music from sunset until dawn.”

The thin piping sounds squealed in the dusk, echoed back from the low hills, were lost in melancholy silence, fading. Then louder, higher, insanely, crying with shrill voice.

The Piper was a tall, gaunt man, face as pale and wan as Martian moons, eyes electrical purple, standing against the soft of the dusking heaven, holding his pipe to his lips, playing. The Piper⁠—a silhouette⁠—a symbol⁠—a melody.

“Where did the Piper come from?” asked the Martian boy.

“From Venus.” The old man took out his pipe and filled it. “Oh, some twenty years ago or more, on the projectile with the Terrestrians. I arrived on the same ship, coming from Earth, we shared a double seat together.”

“What is his name?” Again the boyish, eager voice.

“I can’t remember. I don’t think I ever knew, really.”

A vague rustling sound came into existence. The Piper continued playing, paying no heed to it. From the darkness, across the star-jewelled horizon, came mysterious shapes, creeping, creeping.

“Mars is a dying world,” the old man said. “Nothing ever happens of much gravity. The Piper, I believe, is an exile.”

The stars trembled like reflections in water, dancing with the music.

“An exile.” The old man continued. “Something like a leper. They called him the brilliant. He was the epitome of all Venerian culture until the Earthmen came with their greedy incorporations and licentious harlots. The Earthlings outlawed him, sent him here to Mars to live out his days.”

“Mars is a dying world,” repeated the boy. “A dying world. How many Martians are there, sir?”

The old man chuckled. “I guess maybe you are the last pure Martian alive, boy. But there are millions of others.”

“Where do they live? I have never seen them.”

“You are young. You have much to see, much to learn.”

“Where do they live?”

“Out there, beyond the mountains, beyond the dead sea bottoms, over the horizon and to the north, in the caves, far back in the subterrane.”

“Why?”

“Why? Now that’s hard to say. They were a brilliant race once upon a time. But something happened to them, hybrided them. They are unintelligent creatures now, cruel beasts.”

“Does Earth own Mars?” The little boy’s eyes were riveted upon the glowing planet overhead, the green planet.

“Yes, all of Mars. Earth has three cities here, each containing one thousand people. The closest city is a mile from here, down the road, a group of small metal bubble-like buildings. The men from Earth move about among the buildings like ants enclosed in their space suits. They are miners. With their huge machines they rip open the bowels of our planet and dig out our precious lifeblood from the mineral arteries.”

“Is that all?”

“That is all.” The old man shook his head sadly. “No culture, no art, no purpose. Greedy, hopeless Earthlings.”

“And the other two cities⁠—where are they?”

“One is up the same cobbled road five miles, the third is further still by some five hundred miles.”

“I am glad I live here with you, alone.” The