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diff --git a/29142.txt b/29142.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..48d0581 --- /dev/null +++ b/29142.txt @@ -0,0 +1,578 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Keep Out, by Fredric Brown + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Keep Out + +Author: Fredric Brown + +Illustrator: Ernest Schroeder + +Release Date: June 17, 2009 [EBook #29142] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KEEP OUT *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +[Illustration] + + +KEEP OUT + +BY FREDERIC BROWN + + + _With no more room left on Earth, and with Mars hanging up there + empty of life, somebody hit on the plan of starting a colony on the + Red Planet. It meant changing the habits and physical structure of + the immigrants, but that worked out fine. In fact, every possible + factor was covered--except one of the flaws of human nature...._ + + +Daptine is the secret of it. Adaptine, they called it first; then it got +shortened to daptine. It let us adapt. + +They explained it all to us when we were ten years old; I guess they +thought we were too young to understand before then, although we knew a +lot of it already. They told us just after we landed on Mars. + +"You're _home_, children," the Head Teacher told us after we had gone +into the glassite dome they'd built for us there. And he told us there'd +be a special lecture for us that evening, an important one that we +must all attend. + +And that evening he told us the whole story and the whys and wherefores. +He stood up before us. He had to wear a heated space suit and helmet, of +course, because the temperature in the dome was comfortable for us but +already freezing cold for him and the air was already too thin for him +to breathe. His voice came to us by radio from inside his helmet. + +"Children," he said, "you are home. This is Mars, the planet on which +you will spend the rest of your lives. You are Martians, the first +Martians. You have lived five years on Earth and another five in space. +Now you will spend ten years, until you are adults, in this dome, +although toward the end of that time you will be allowed to spend +increasingly long periods outdoors. + +"Then you will go forth and make your own homes, live your own lives, as +Martians. You will intermarry and your children will breed true. They +too will be Martians. + +"It is time you were told the history of this great experiment of which +each of you is a part." + +Then he told us. + +Man, he said, had first reached Mars in 1985. It had been uninhabited by +intelligent life (there is plenty of plant life and a few varieties of +non-flying insects) and he had found it by terrestrial standards +uninhabitable. Man could survive on Mars only by living inside glassite +domes and wearing space suits when he went outside of them. Except by +day in the warmer seasons it was too cold for him. The air was too thin +for him to breathe and long exposure to sunlight--less filtered of rays +harmful to him than on Earth because of the lesser atmosphere--could +kill him. The plants were chemically alien to him and he could not eat +them; he had to bring all his food from Earth or grow it in hydroponic +tanks. + + * * * * * + +For fifty years he had tried to colonize Mars and all his efforts had +failed. Besides this dome which had been built for us there was only one +other outpost, another glassite dome much smaller and less than a mile +away. + +It had looked as though mankind could never spread to the other planets +of the solar system besides Earth for of all of them Mars was the least +inhospitable; if he couldn't live here there was no use even trying to +colonize the others. + +And then, in 2034, thirty years ago, a brilliant biochemist named +Waymoth had discovered daptine. A miracle drug that worked not on the +animal or person to whom it was given, but on the progeny he conceived +during a limited period of time after inoculation. + +It gave his progeny almost limitless adaptability to changing +conditions, provided the changes were made gradually. + +Dr. Waymoth had inoculated and then mated a pair of guinea pigs; they +had borne a litter of five and by placing each member of the litter +under different and gradually changing conditions, he had obtained +amazing results. When they attained maturity one of those guinea pigs +was living comfortably at a temperature of forty below zero Fahrenheit, +another was quite happy at a hundred and fifty above. A third was +thriving on a diet that would have been deadly poison for an ordinary +animal and a fourth was contented under a constant X-ray bombardment +that would have killed one of its parents within minutes. + +Subsequent experiments with many litters showed that animals who had +been adapted to similar conditions bred true and their progeny was +conditioned from birth to live under those conditions. + +"Ten years later, ten years ago," the Head Teacher told us, "you +children were born. Born of parents carefully selected from those who +volunteered for the experiment. And from birth you have been brought up +under carefully controlled and gradually changing conditions. + +"From the time you were born the air you have breathed has been very +gradually thinned and its oxygen content reduced. Your lungs have +compensated by becoming much greater in capacity, which is why your +chests are so much larger than those of your teachers and attendants; +when you are fully mature and are breathing air like that of Mars, the +difference will be even greater. + +"Your bodies are growing fur to enable you to stand the increasing cold. +You are comfortable now under conditions which would kill ordinary +people quickly. Since you were four years old your nurses and teachers +have had to wear special protection to survive conditions that seem +normal to you. + +"In another ten years, at maturity, you will be completely acclimated to +Mars. Its air will be your air; its food plants your food. Its extremes +of temperature will be easy for you to endure and its median +temperatures pleasant to you. Already, because of the five years we +spent in space under gradually decreased gravitational pull, the gravity +of Mars seems normal to you. + +"It will be your planet, to live on and to populate. You are the +children of Earth but you are the first Martians." + +Of course we had known a lot of those things already. + + * * * * * + +The last year was the best. By then the air inside the dome--except for +the pressurized parts where our teachers and attendants live--was almost +like that outside, and we were allowed out for increasingly long +periods. It is good to be in the open. + +The last few months they relaxed segregation of the sexes so we could +begin choosing mates, although they told us there is to be no marriage +until after the final day, after our full clearance. Choosing was not +difficult in my case. I had made my choice long since and I'd felt sure +that she felt the same way; I was right. + +Tomorrow is the day of our freedom. Tomorrow we will be Martians, _the_ +Martians. Tomorrow we shall take over the planet. + +Some among us are impatient, have been impatient for weeks now, but +wiser counsel prevailed and we are waiting. We have waited twenty years +and we can wait until the final day. + +And tomorrow is the final day. + +Tomorrow, at a signal, we will kill the teachers and the other Earthmen +among us before we go forth. They do not suspect, so it will be easy. + +We have dissimulated for years now, and they do not know how we hate +them. They do not know how disgusting and hideous we find them, with +their ugly misshapen bodies, so narrow-shouldered and tiny-chested, +their weak sibilant voices that need amplification to carry in our +Martian air, and above all their white pasty hairless skins. + +We shall kill them and then we shall go and smash the other dome so all +the Earthmen there will die too. + +If more Earthmen ever come to punish us, we can live and hide in the +hills where they'll never find us. And if they try to build more domes +here we'll smash them. We want no more to do with Earth. + +This is our planet and we want no aliens. Keep off! + + + + +Transcriber's Note: + + This etext was produced from _Amazing Stories_ March 1954. Extensive + research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on + this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical + errors have been corrected without note. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Keep Out, by Fredric Brown + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KEEP OUT *** + +***** This file should be named 29142.txt or 29142.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/1/4/29142/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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