Humorous stories; Science fiction; Short stories; Space travelers -- Fiction
“A saucer!” Bjaal yelps. “A New Muan flyin’ saucer. Spink, where in the
world did you--?”
“Are you kiddin’?” I choke out. “Not this world, General. Quick, an
ambulance! And throw water on me on the way as I am wilting like any
petunia pulled up by the roots.”
They get me to the hospital and pump red blood back into my veins. A
nurse faints when she sees I bleed green when they poke the needle in
my arm. Interplanetary newshounds crowd the operating room. The word
goes to Mars, Venus, Jupiter, everywhere.
A nurse says, “Look, Doctor, his feelers are disappearing. His skin is
getting pink.”
“You are a cute number,” I says to the nurse. “But you should see Zyb.
She blushes purple. Uhg!”
They keep me under observation for three days and then let me get up.
I feel as if I had been towed through all the subways in the U.S. by a
hot rocket, but after all I have not just been around the corner to the
drugstore for a concentrated malted.
* * * * *
The next A.M., at a news conference covered by correspondents as far
away as Asphasia, I tell my story. I give the bug-eyed characters an
account of the wiping out of the Nougat Space squadron, description of
the statue of Cyril Spink on New Mu, and of the Rocket, Circa 1918, I
saw in the Spink museum.
The high cockalorums of the Neuropsychiatorium in Metropolita demand
my removal back to the cuckoo’s nest, until the brass shows them the
saucer I delivered F.O.B. from New Mu. Instead of a strait jacket I
get the Interplanetary Nobel prize and a dozen medals. They make me a
Subcommander in Space Squadron X9.
A sample of the green blood they took out of my pipes was sent to the
lab for analysis. A scientist reports that it can be manufactured
in great quantities if ever the Allied Planetary war lord deemed
it necessary to invade New Mu! The saucer, Bjaal said, would be
manufactured by the millions once the smart boys of the age figured out
the stuff it was made of.
Three weeks later pieces of the shellacked Nougatine air force fall on
Metropolita and leave a film the color of gray snow on the street. And
about the same time when I started hamming with my viso-screen I pick
up Quantum Spink. Cousin, to my surprise, is not sore at me, and says
he won’t attack Earth.
“Only a Spink could do what you did, Sep. I can’t blame the universe,”
Quantum says to me. “What else they ever said about the Spinks, they
had sportin’ blood. Green or red. Ha! Over and out!”
“You are a pal,” I says. “Tell Zyb I will send her a package of vigoro
for Xmas. Over.”
I look out the window at the flying saucer that is on exhibition atop
the four thousand foot Empiric Building and sigh deeply. The great
wonders of the world, The Pyramids of Cheops in Egypt and the Spinks of
Earth and New Mu. As modest as I am I have to admit it.
Transcriber’s note:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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