Valley of DreamsWeinbaum, Stanley G. (Stanley Grauman)
Science
Valley of Dreams
Weinbaum, Stanley G. (Stanley Grauman)
Mars (Planet) -- Fiction; Science fiction
"You asked why we came back like tramps," said Jarvis with a faint
shudder. "You'll learn. We plugged along up a low rocky hill that
bounded it, and as we neared the top, Tweel said, 'No breet', Tick! No
breet'!' Well, those were the words he used to describe the silicon
monster; they were also the words he had used to tell me that the image
of Fancy Long, the one that had almost lured me to the dream-beast,
wasn't real. I remembered that, but it meant nothing to me--then!
"Right after that, Tweel said, 'You one-one-two, he one-one-two,' and
then I began to see. That was the phrase he had used to explain the
dream-beast to tell me that what I thought, the creature thought--to
tell me how the thing lured its victims by their own desires. So I
warned Leroy; it seemed to me that even the dream-beast couldn't be
dangerous if we were warned and expecting it. Well, I was wrong!
"As we reached the crest, Tweel spun his head completely around, so his
feet were forward but his eyes looked backward, as if he feared to gaze
into the valley. Leroy and I stared out over it, just a gray waste like
this around us, with the gleam of the south polar cap far beyond its
southern rim. That's what it was one second; the next it was--Paradise!"
"What?" exclaimed the captain.
Jarvis turned to Leroy. "Can you describe it?" he asked.
The biologist waved helpless hands, "_C'est impossible!_" he whispered.
"_Il me rend muet!_"
"It strikes me dumb, too," muttered Jarvis. "I don't know how to tell
it; I'm a chemist, not a poet. Paradise is as good a word as I can think
of, and that's not at all right. It was Paradise and Hell in one!"
"Will you talk sense?" growled Harrison.
"As much of it as makes sense. I tell you, one moment we were looking at
a grey valley covered with blobby plants, and the next--Lord! You can't
imagine that next moment! How would you like to see all your dreams made
real? Every desire you'd ever had gratified? Everything you'd ever
wanted there for the taking?"
"I'd like it fine!" said the captain.
"You're welcome, then!--not only your noble desires, remember! Every
good impulse, yes--but also every nasty little wish, every vicious
thought, everything you'd ever desired, good or bad! The dream-beasts
are marvelous salesmen, but they lack the moral sense!"
"The dream-beasts?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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