“What? You’re going back to his native planet with him?”
“Yes, isn’t it wonderful? Talk about plumbing new depths of viscosity—man, he’s really viscous! I’ll be doing the cause of viscosimetry a great service. Besides,” she added, with a libidinous growl, “I always was a sucker for tall, hairy guys.”
Hand-in-pseudopod, Brenda and Pete walked toward the flying saucer as the music climbed to great heights. It was still neo, but this time it was more like Tschaikowsky than Stravinsky. Conroy took it like a man, blinked back a tear, packed his viscometer, and walked slowly in the opposite direction.
The lights in the theatre went up and I became suddenly aware of the coldness of the leather seat on which I was sitting. A sudden fear gripped me and I looked down to find it confirmed. Somehow, by the wizardry of dreams, I was now clad in only the tops—rather than the bottoms—of my pajamas. Furtively, I looked, at Marilyn. She was wearing the bottoms. I found this turn-of-events charming and, as I left the theatre with her, hand-in-pseudopod, I did not even try to understand the transference. That would require, I knew, a superhuman intelligence beyond my ken.
DIGGING THE WEANS
by Robert Nathan
From Hollywood to Harper’s, via Far Future Transit.
Ray Russell, from the eminence of his editorial chair in the newest and shiniest of publishing successes, may sneer (past the glossy heads of waiting ranks of would-be Playmates) at Hollywood and anything it has to offer.
Robert Nathan, one of the most durable successes in the fantasy business, from his home in Hollywood (circa 3500?), surveys the rest of the continent (standing on tiptoe, perhaps, to see past the shaggy, scaled, and betentacled crania of the “creatures”) with at least equivalent scorn.
The inscription on the north wall of the temple at Pound-Laundry on the east coast of the Great West Continent has finally been deciphered by the team led by Sr. B’Han Bollek. This work brings us certain assurance of the theory expressed by Bes Nef, Hanh Shui, and Nat Obelgerst-Levy that a people of considerable numbers and power formerly inhabited this salt and desolate land. It is a triumph for those archaeologists who have been working ever since the fortunate discovery of an ivory cross and string of beads at the northeast, or “Bosstin” tumulus, along with a rusted iron wheel which seems to have been designed to run along some kind of track or trolley. These artifacts, as everyone knows, are now in the museum at Kenya.
What we have been unable to discover is the fate of these ancient people. That they perished in some sort of upheaval many thousands of years ago is clear from the inscription itself, which Sr. B’Han Bollek translates as follows: “nor [for north?] rain nor hail nor snow . . .” there are some hieroglyphics missing, and the inscription ends with the phrase ... “their appointed rounds.”
However, it must be remembered that the r and the w are readily interchangeable, both in Hittite and in ancient Hivite, and Bes Nef prefers the reading: “their pointed wounds.” This naturally suggests a catastrophe, possibly an invasion from the east, a belief, I may add, greatly encouraged by the findings in the Valley of the Sun, which will be discussed later. On the other hand, if, as some believe, including B’Han Bollek, that the phrase should be read: “their appointed rounds,” the meaning of the full inscription might well be as follows: “The north rain, the hail and the snow [also from the north] have accomplished their appointed ‘rounds’ [or tasks]” . . . namely, have annihilated the inhabitants.
So much, then, we do know; but very little else is known of these ancient people. Professor Shui believes that they may have been Brythons, and related to the still older, Druidic culture whose stones are still to be seen in the East Island. Professor Shui bases this theory upon a certain similarity in the two glyphs, the Brythonic “bathe” and the Wean “bath”; but his theory necessarily comes to grief when one examines the glyph for “that which rises”—the Brythonic “lift” and the Wean “elevator” having obviously no common root.
I have called these people the Weans, because certain archaeological findings incline us to the belief that they called their land the We, or the Us; actually, in the southern part of the continent, the word Weuns (or Weans) does appear, as well as the glyph for Wealls, and the word They-uns.
To return for a moment to the theory of catastrophe, and the “pointed wounds” of Bes Nef. In the Valley of the Sun there have been unearthed many bronze, and tin, and even stone figures of what would seem to be a kind of huge praying mantis. There are many groups of such figures, usually including male and female, and sometimes with young; it is curious that in every case the male figure is larger and more powerful than the female, which we know to be untrue in the case of the actual praying mantis. These figures nevertheless have the small, cruel head, the long savage arms, the spindly legs, and the attenuated bodies of the mantis. Is it possible that a civilization of men and women, more or less like ourselves, might have been overwhelmed by an invasion of mantis-like insects? Where could they have come from? and where did they go? The conjecture is, of course, fascinating; but no mantis skeletons or remains of any kind have been found, except the above-mentioned statues.
Pound-Laundry is in itself the richest of the diggings. It is believed that at one time this city (for recent excavations indicate “the laundry,” as we call it, to have been a city of considerable culture) may at one time have been, in fact, the capital of We, or at least to have had some political or historic importance. Obelgerst-Levy translates the first word of the name as “washing”; the second is obviously the sign for “weight.” It is not known what—if anything—was washed there.
In the middle mound, or Cha’ago, near the Lakes, there have been unearthed several paintings; badly discolored, they yet show enough to prove that the inhabitants of Cha’ago were not entirely without visual art. However, they show almost nothing else. They portray squares, lines, lozenges, and mathematical figures; perhaps they were used in some way by the astrologers of the period. One finds no recognizable human face or figure. We cannot be sure what the Weans of Cha’ago looked like.
(In this relation, it is interesting to note that among the artifacts unearthed at Cha’ago were some unbroken jars and other ceramic objects; also statues of what appear to be eggs, and certain nightmare shapes in stone, iron, and bronze. One is allowed to wonder if there was not some correspondence between these art objects and the praying mantises who may have taken over the country. It is also believed that the Weans had music, but so far at least only a few brass instruments and some drums and cymbals have been found; no sounds have come down to us from those faraway people except a high rasping cry from a slender horn-like object found in Oleens.)
To return again to the matter of what the Weans may have looked like; no human bones have been found. Although we have turned up many artifacts of the period, we have nothing for the anthropologists to work on. It is probable that the bones of these people were brittle, and turned to chalk soon after interment.
The greatest difficulty in reconstructing the life of the Weans has not been the deciphering of the inscriptions and the scrolls—due to the brilliant work of Professors Bollek and Shui—but the fact that the Weans, unlike the true ancients, used little gold, preferring to build everything of steel or other metal, and of some curious substance which Bes Nef translates as “gastric,” or “plastric.” As a result, little is left for the archaeologist. Stone was used mainly for monuments, as was bronze, but those which have been uncovered are too heavily encrusted with bird-droppings to be easily recognizable. One theory is that the Weans collected guano; but it is not known what they did with it.