Martians -- Fiction; Science fiction; Short stories
But is it any wonder we were having to increase the size of the saucers
to space-haul all that jag-whiff up through the rattleballs? And a big
reason makes me think it could have been done more efficiently, we were
having to take so much junk stuff, extra accessories I guess you'd
call it, to get the jag-whiff. Our Earthit contacts were always giving
us the old breeze about cost of labor, cost of materials, improvement
in design and next year's inventories. Apparently the dealers didn't
understand at all what the play was with us because they'd give us
so much blab-blab that didn't apply, all about futuristic design and
about how one jag-whiffer machine had it all over another jag-whiffer
machine, which to us didn't mean a thing. And we didn't talk, because
we'd heard already how some Earthits feared the saucers, and how some
Earthits said they didn't exist at all, and how some other Earthits
were on the fence, saying maybe they did maybe they didn't so what? and
how there was wide fear and great unrest among the Earthits in general.
And when it's like that, and you're a possible source of the wide fear
and unrest, a whole planet full of people can easily decide they don't
want any part of contributing to your pleasure.
And that's what the jag-whiff was to us actually, pleasure. Back home
when our troubles had us down, or maybe we just felt like raising
a little dust, we'd go to a jag-whiff place. We'd plunk down our
pay-pictures, and the whiff-tender would wheel out one of those black
rings, which they have to keep under special pressures in our climate.
Then he'd screw on the tube with the face piece and we'd take our
whiff and something out of the black ring--just seemed like real thick
chest filler to me--would spread all through to the farthest reaches
of our breath bags and go into our blood and suddenly all five of our
eye sticks would start whirling and focusing and zeroing-in for dames
and our arms and legs would start a kick and a slap dance, enough to
shake the planet down. And when our face spines and head tubes would go
into that special sharp buzz of contentment, we'd know we were on our
jag, full and warm and happy with as much pleasure as any Martian is
ever supposed to know. But we never revealed the play to our Earthit
contacts, just slipped in at night in our noiseless saucers with all
lights dimmed, cleared our cargo tubes of the tons of pay-picture we'd
brought (green copy of the Earthits' currency) and took on as many of
the gleaming jag-whiffer machines as our cargo tubes would hold.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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