An Earthman on Venus (Originally titled "The Radio Man") by Ralph Milne Farley (trending books to read TXT) 📗
- Author: Ralph Milne Farley
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Whereat the king turned to his daughter and asked: “Who is this man who seems to know you, and who claims the honor of being a servitor of the royal house?”
But before she could answer, one of the suite stepped forward and declared: “I know the prisoner, sire, and he is none other than Myles Cabot, a great scientist from the planet Minos, recently feasted and honored at the University of Formia. Surely his imprisonment must be a mistake.”
My new defender was the Cupian professor who had stood at the head table at the banquet in my honor my first night in Mooni.
“Then,” declared the king, “this must be the Cabot of whom Prince Yuri spoke, urging us to consent that he be deprived of his artificial antennae. A great scientist he must be to have designed such an apparatus; but Yuri assures us that he is likewise a great criminal and a dangerous enemy of the Kew dynasty, of which facts Yuri has promised us full particulars shortly. Speak, man, and tell us your version of your crimes.”
I hesitated, but the princess answered my unspoken thought: “My good fellow, you need not fear to tell everything to my father, the king.”
So I told. I told the whole story of my life on Poros, omitting nothing except my love for the Princess Lilla. It was nearly a whole parth in the telling, and all those present hung on every word.
When I was done, the king, amazed, turned to his daughter and inquired: “Can this be true? Is the crown prince such a scoundrel that he would abduct the princess royal, and then falsely claim the credit for her rescue?”
To which Lilla replied: “I know nothing of Prince Yuri’s complicity in my abduction, though it seems to fit in with his other acts. But I do know that he has claimed undeserved credit, which is an unforgivable breach of the Cupian ethics of fair play.”
The king called to one of his courtiers: “Go, forthwith, and order the prince to repair immediately to our quarters. We shall sift this matter to the bottom. And”—turning on me—“if your story proves false, it will go hard with you; but if your story proves to be true, it will go hard with Prince Yuri.”
And he swept from my presence, followed by his suite. And last of all by the Princess Lilla, who turned and smiled sweetly on me, just as she was leaving.
No further word came from the palace all that day, but late that afternoon Prince Yuri visited the jail with a number of his courtiers. He was furiously angry. Poblath was with him, endeavoring to calm him down and to divert him from seeing me, but Yuri was insistent.
As the door of my cell was flung open, the prince started to abuse me.
“How dare you malign a member of the ruling house?” he thundered. “How dare you lie, and involve the Princess Lilla in your lies? I have a mind to kill you on the spot, and thus rid the planet of your foul presence.”
And he would have gone on if I had not had a sudden inspiration.
“Yuri,” said I, “you woofus, brink, mathlab! I’ll—get—your number!”
The effect was electrical. The prince’s face went white with rage. Then he calmed, and a smile overspread his face.
“Pardon me, sir, but I’ll get yours,” he replied with a low bow.
Poblath interjected: “You poor fool, Cabot! Prince Yuri is the best duelist in all Cupia.”
“‘A brink may hop once too often beneath the kerkool,’” I quoted. “But come, I see that we do not rush at each other as they do in Formia. What are supposed to be the formalities here?”
“You will learn soon enough,” Yuri growled, scowling ominously.
But Poblath more kindly explained: “Each of you chooses an attendant, and then the attendants tie you together, and you kill with knives.”
This reminded me of Mark Twain’s “Gatling guns at fifteen paces.” I chose Poblath, and Yuri chose one of his own suite. A peculiar harness was then produced, consisting of a double belt. One half of this was buckled around Yuri’s waist; but when they came to buckle me into the other half, my radio apparatus, which was concealed beneath my toga, furnished an obstacle, and so there was nothing for me to do but take it off. This, of course, would render me entirely deaf during the fight, which fact might prove somewhat disadvantageous.
But before they took away my hearing they explained fully to me just how the duel would be conducted. And I cautioned Poblath to keep a firm hold of my apparatus and not let it get into the hands of any of Yuri’s henchmen even for an instant.
“Otherwise,” I said, “the ancient law might easily become violated.”
Then I shed my antennae, and stood once more, an earth-man, ready to battle for my existence against the inhabitants of Poros.
We were belted together, face to face, waist touching waist. Each of us held a short sharp dagger in his left hand—Cupians being a left-handed race—while the right hand of each of us seized the left wrist of his opponent. The idea was for me to try and stab Yuri to death before he could stab me, and vice versa.
Yuri had the advantage on the offensive, for he held his dagger in his strong hand, whereas I held mine in my weak. But conversely, I had the advantage on the defensive, for it was my strongest hand which warded him off.
No spoken signal could be given, because of my receiving set being off. So Poblath held up his hand and both of us watched it. Then when he let it fall we started to wrestle.
Yuri might be the most perfect physical specimen in all Cupia, but I was from a planet where the greater attraction of gravity necessitated a greater strength on the average. However, I soon perceived that these Porovian duels are not to be won by strength alone. There were tricks and feints by which one’s opponent could be tired out. And I was a mere novice, while Yuri was regarded as the most expert duelist on all Poros.
We tumbled and rolled about the floor, with first his knife and then mine near its mark. At last we both struggled to our feet again and swayed back and forth for a moment.
And then, gradually, Yuri’s dagger began to descend. Strain as I would, I could not stay its slow and steady progress toward my heart. A gleam of exultation filled the eye of my opponent. The point of his knife pricked my breast, and began to enter. In a few seconds it would be over and I should fall a victim to an alien race.
A strange train of ideas ran through my affrighted mind: “Alien race. Japanese. Jiujitsu. The very thing! The ulnar nerve!”
Suddenly shifting my grip on his wrist, I forced my thumb into the sensitive spot; and instantly his knife, about to pierce my heart, dropped instead from his nerveless fingers and clattered harmlessly to the floor.
And now what was the etiquette of the situation?
I turned my glance from Yuri’s eyes to those of Poblath and saw the latter frantically motioning me to kill. To kill! Nothing would give me greater pleasure.
But as I returned to the task, I noted the Princess Lilla standing in the crowd, with a look of terror on her face. Her appealing eyes showed that she was speaking to me, probably urging me to spare the prince.
So she cared for the scoundrel after all!
In disgust, I threw my own knife into a corner, and signaled to Poblath to remove the belts. He did so, reproachfully, and then handed me my receiving set.
Something prompted me to put it on in haste, and it is well that I did so, for as I snapped the ear phones in place, I heard Yuri shout: “Quick, two of you cover Cabot and the mango.”
Instantly each of us was forced to the wall with a sharp broadsword at our breast; while Yuri seized the princess, and surrounded by the rest of his suite, made a hasty exit from the cell room.
kidnaped
As Yuri surrounded by his bodyguard, dragged Princess Lilla from the room, I had an inspiration; I remembered the superstitious legend about me, which prevailed among the farmer ants of Formia.
“Halt!” I shouted. “My electrical antennae can kill as well as radiate speech. Let no man move a foot, if he would escape the lightnings of heaven, which I have power to loose upon you.”
The whole party stopped dead in their tracks and watched me, fascinated.
“Drop your points!” I ordered the two who guarded Poblath and me. “Quick, before I blast you!”
They obeyed, and I walked fearlessly across the room.
“Let one man stir, and you all die,” I continued as I pushed between the guards and wrenched the princess from her cousin’s nerveless arms. “Now, out of here, all of you!”
In sheer relief, like men awakened from a trance, they bolted through the door.
“Fine work,” Poblath remarked, himself greatly relieved, “but you should have detained them all as prisoners.”
“Good riddance of bad rubbish,” I replied, “and besides, who knows how soon one of them might have moved, and not have been blasted, and thus have spoiled my entire bluff?”
The princess clung to my arms. Then, raising her eyes to mine with a smile, she said: “Again, you have saved me, Myles Cabot, and again I am yours.”
“And I am always yours, my princess,” I replied.
She stamped her foot. Then said sadly: “Ever you remind me that I am a princess. And as a princess I must demand more respect from you, Myles Cabot.”
Gently I released her, and she lingeringly departed, leaving me alone with Poblath. I felt let down and futile, the victim of an anticlimax. What next?
And then ensued a period of waiting. Days passed, and I still remained an inmate of the Kuana jail. No word from Princess Lilla. No word from King Kew. No word of Prince Yuri, although rumor had it that he had fled into Formia, fearing the wrath of the king.
I heard that a group of the younger politicians in the popular assembly, headed by Prince Toron, had suggested to the king that he demand an apology from Queen Formis for the first abduction of the princess, and that he demand extradition of Yuri on the charge of attempting the second.
But King Kew was in a ticklish position, being the ruler of a subject race, and holding his position merely by grace of Formis, whom he hated, as she well knew. If he were to present any such demand as this, the least that he could expect would be an immediate counterdemand for my surrender. Formis might demand his abdication in favor of Yuri. Even war might result, which the Cupians were unarmed to resist. This would mean tons of explosives dropped upon Kuana from Formian airplanes, thousands of Cupians ground between fierce mandibles, and then another treaty more degrading even than that of Mooni.
So King Kew resorted to diplomacy, rather than to ultimatums; and finally reached a tacit understanding, whereby Queen Formis disclaimed responsibility for the kidnaping and made a gift to the Princess Lilla, and whereby Prince Yuri was permitted to remain undisturbed in Formia, and I in Cupia.
Upon the consummation of the agreement between the two countries, I was let out of prison and conducted to the royal palace, where I was received in honor by the king and princess. The palace was one of the monumental white buildings on the brow of the hill around which the city of Kuana is built, the rest of the group being the university.
Lilla greeted me cordially as an old friend; but of course in the presence of the king neither of us dared show any stronger sentiments.
King Kew patted me warmly on the cheek.
“Well done, Myles Cabot!” he declared. “We welcome to Kuana the scientist of Minos. Formis, by her treachery, has lost your great abilities, and Cupia is the gainer thereby. The old hag may gnash her mandibles in vain, but—”
“Father, father,” the princess interjected remonstratingly, “do be careful! Remember that you occupy your throne merely by the grace of the conquerors.”
“And by the disgrace of my ancestors,” he added grimacing.
“But father,” she continued, “‘walls have antennae.’ Even now, word of your utterances may be on the way to the Imperial City.” And she laid, her golden curly head beguilingly on his broad shoulder.
Somewhat mollified, the king murmured, “I know. I know. And I must be careful. But the enslavement of my people irks me, even though I spring from a line of eleven servile
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