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diff --git a/29504.txt b/29504.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4d2c8a0 --- /dev/null +++ b/29504.txt @@ -0,0 +1,695 @@ +Project Gutenberg's What's He Doing in There?, by Fritz Reuter Leiber + +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: What's He Doing in There? + +Author: Fritz Reuter Leiber + +Illustrator: Bowman + +Release Date: July 24, 2009 [EBook #29504] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT'S HE DOING IN THERE? *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +_WHAT'S HE DOING IN THERE?_ + +By FRITZ LEIBER + + + _He went where no Martian ever + went before--but would he come + out--or had he gone for good?_ + + +Illustrated By BOWMAN + + +The Professor was congratulating Earth's first visitor from another +planet on his wisdom in getting in touch with a cultural anthropologist +before contacting any other scientists (or governments, God forbid!), +and in learning English from radio and TV before landing from his +orbit-parked rocket, when the Martian stood up and said hesitantly, +"Excuse me, please, but where is it?" + +That baffled the Professor and the Martian seemed to grow anxious--at +least his long mouth curved upward, and he had earlier explained that it +curling downward was his smile--and he repeated, "Please, where is it?" + +He was surprisingly humanoid in most respects, but his complexion was +textured so like the rich dark armchair he'd just been occupying that +the Professor's pin-striped gray suit, which he had eagerly consented +to wear, seemed an arbitrary interruption between him and the chair--a +sort of Mother Hubbard dress on a phantom conjured from its leather. + +The Professor's Wife, always a perceptive hostess, came to her husband's +rescue by saying with equal rapidity, "Top of the stairs, end of the +hall, last door." + +The Martian's mouth curled happily downward and he said, "Thank you very +much," and was off. + +Comprehension burst on the Professor. He caught up with his guest at the +foot of the stairs. + +"Here, I'll show you the way," he said. + +"No, I can find it myself, thank you," the Martian assured him. + + * * * * * + +Something rather final in the Martian's tone made the Professor desist, +and after watching his visitor sway up the stairs with an almost +hypnotic softly jogging movement, he rejoined his wife in the study, +saying wonderingly, "Who'd have thought it, by George! Function taboos +as strict as our own!" + +"I'm glad some of your professional visitors maintain 'em," his wife +said darkly. + +"But this one's from Mars, darling, and to find out he's--well, similar +in an aspect of his life is as thrilling as the discovery that water is +burned hydrogen. When I think of the day not far distant when I'll put +his entries in the cross-cultural index ..." + +He was still rhapsodizing when the Professor's Little Son raced in. + +"Pop, the Martian's gone to the bathroom!" + +"Hush, dear. Manners." + +"Now it's perfectly natural, darling, that the boy should notice and be +excited. Yes, Son, the Martian's not so very different from us." + +"Oh, certainly," the Professor's Wife said with a trace of bitterness. +"I don't imagine his turquoise complexion will cause any comment at all +when you bring him to a faculty reception. They'll just figure he's had +a hard night--and that he got that baby-elephant nose sniffing around +for assistant professorships." + +"Really, darling! He probably thinks of our noses as disagreeably +amputated and paralyzed." + +"Well, anyway, Pop, he's in the bathroom. I followed him when he +squiggled upstairs." + +"Now, Son, you shouldn't have done that. He's on a strange planet and it +might make him nervous if he thought he was being spied on. We must show +him every courtesy. By George, I can't wait to discuss these things with +Ackerly-Ramsbottom! When I think of how much more this encounter has to +give the anthropologist than even the physicist or astronomer ..." + +[Illustration] + +He was still going strong on his second rhapsody when he was interrupted +by another high-speed entrance. It was the Professor's Coltish Daughter. + +"Mom, Pop, the Martian's--" + +"Hush, dear. We know." + +The Professor's Coltish Daughter regained her adolescent poise, which +was considerable. "Well, he's still in there," she said. "I just tried +the door and it was locked." + +"I'm glad it was!" the Professor said while his wife added, "Yes, you +can't be sure what--" and caught herself. "Really, dear, that was very +bad manners." + +"I thought he'd come downstairs long ago," her daughter explained. "He's +been in there an awfully long time. It must have been a half hour ago +that I saw him gyre and gimbal upstairs in that real gone way he has, +with Nosy here following him." The Professor's Coltish Daughter was +currently soaking up both jive and _Alice_. + + * * * * * + +When the Professor checked his wristwatch, his expression grew troubled. +"By George, he is taking his time! Though, of course, we don't know how +much time Martians ... I wonder." + +"I listened for a while, Pop," his son volunteered. "He was running the +water a lot." + +"Running the water, eh? We know Mars is a water-starved planet. I +suppose that in the presence of unlimited water, he might be seized by a +kind of madness and ... But he seemed so well adjusted." + +Then his wife spoke, voicing all their thoughts. Her outlook on life +gave her a naturally sepulchral voice. + +"_What's he doing in there?_" + +Twenty minutes and at least as many fantastic suggestions later, the +Professor glanced again at his watch and nerved himself for action. +Motioning his family aside, he mounted the stairs and tiptoed down the +hall. + +He paused only once to shake his head and mutter under his breath, "By +George, I wish I had Fenchurch or von Gottschalk here. They're a shade +better than I am on intercultural contracts, especially taboo-breakings +and affronts ..." + +His family followed him at a short distance. + +The Professor stopped in front of the bathroom door. Everything was +quiet as death. + +He listened for a minute and then rapped measuredly, steadying his hand +by clutching its wrist with the other. There was a faint splashing, but +no other sound. + +Another minute passed. The Professor rapped again. Now there was no +response at all. He very gingerly tried the knob. The door was still +locked. + +When they had retreated to the stairs, it was the Professor's Wife who +once more voiced their thoughts. This time her voice carried overtones +of supernatural horror. + +"_What's he doing in there?_" + +"He may be dead or dying," the Professor's Coltish Daughter suggested +briskly. "Maybe we ought to call the Fire Department, like they did for +old Mrs. Frisbee." + +The Professor winced. "I'm afraid you haven't visualized the +complications, dear," he said gently. "No one but ourselves knows that +the Martian is on Earth, or has even the slightest inkling that +interplanetary travel has been achieved. Whatever we do, it will have to +be on our own. But to break in on a creature engaged in--well, we don't +know what primal private activity--is against all anthropological +practice. Still--" + +"Dying's a primal activity," his daughter said crisply. + +"So's ritual bathing before mass murder," his wife added. + +"Please! Still, as I was about to say, we do have the moral duty to +succor him if, as you all too reasonably suggest, he has been +incapacitated by a germ or virus or, more likely, by some simple +environmental factor such as Earth's greater gravity." + +"Tell you what, Pop--I can look in the bathroom window and see what he's +doing. All I have to do is crawl out my bedroom window and along the +gutter a little ways. It's safe as houses." + + * * * * * + +The Professor's question beginning with, "Son, how do you know--" died +unuttered and he refused to notice the words his daughter was voicing +silently at her brother. He glanced at his wife's sardonically composed +face, thought once more of the Fire Department and of other and larger +and even more jealous--or would it be skeptical?--government agencies, +and clutched at the straw offered him. + +Ten minutes later, he was quite unnecessarily assisting his son back +through the bedroom window. + +"Gee, Pop, I couldn't see a sign of him. That's why I took so long. Hey, +Pop, don't look so scared. He's in there, sure enough. It's just that +the bathtub's under the window and you have to get real close up to see +into it." + +"The Martian's taking a bath?" + +"Yep. Got it full up and just the end of his little old schnozzle +sticking out. Your suit, Pop, was hanging on the door." + +The one word the Professor's Wife spoke was like a death knell. + +"_Drowned!_" + +"No, Ma, I don't think so. His schnozzle was opening and closing regular +like." + +"Maybe he's a shape-changer," the Professor's Coltish Daughter said in a +burst of evil fantasy. "Maybe he softens in water and thins out after a +while until he's like an eel and then he'll go exploring through the +sewer pipes. Wouldn't it be funny if he went under the street and +knocked on the stopper from underneath and crawled into the bathtub with +President Rexford, or Mrs. President Rexford, or maybe right into the +middle of one of Janey Rexford's Oh-I'm-so-sexy bubble baths?" + +"Please!" The Professor put his hand to his eyebrows and kept it there, +cuddling the elbow in his other hand. + +"Well, have you thought of something?" the Professor's Wife asked him +after a bit. "What are you going to do?" + +The Professor dropped his hand and blinked his eyes hard and took a deep +breath. + +"Telegraph Fenchurch and Ackerly-Ramsbottom and then break in," he said +in a resigned voice, into which, nevertheless, a note of hope seemed +also to have come. "First, however, I'm going to wait until morning." + +And he sat down cross-legged in the hall a few yards from the bathroom +door and folded his arms. + + * * * * * + +So the long vigil commenced. + +The Professor's family shared it and he offered no objection. Other and +sterner men, he told himself, might claim to be able successfully to +order their children to go to bed when there was a Martian locked in the +bathroom, but he would like to see them faced with the situation. + +Finally dawn began to seep from the bedrooms. When the bulb in the hall +had grown quite dim, the Professor unfolded his arms. + +Just then, there was a loud splashing in the bathroom. The Professor's +family looked toward the door. The splashing stopped and they heard the +Martian moving around. Then the door opened and the Martian appeared in +the Professor's gray pin-stripe suit. His mouth curled sharply downward +in a broad alien smile as he saw the Professor. + +"Good morning!" the Martian said happily. "I never slept better in my +life, even in my own little wet bed back on Mars." + +He looked around more closely and his mouth straightened. "But where did +you all sleep?" he asked. "Don't tell me you stayed dry all night! You +_didn't_ give up your only bed to me?" + +His mouth curled upward in misery. "Oh, dear," he said, "I'm afraid I've +made a mistake somehow. Yet I don't understand how. Before I studied +you, I didn't know what your sleeping habits would be, but that question +was answered for me--in fact, it looked so reassuringly homelike--when I +saw those brief TV scenes of your females ready for sleep in their +little tubs. Of course, on Mars, only the fortunate can always be sure +of sleeping wet, but here, with your abundance of water, I thought there +would be wet beds for all." + +He paused. "It's true I had some doubts last night, wondering if I'd +used the right words and all, but then when you rapped 'Good night' to +me, I splashed the sentiment back at you and went to sleep in a wink. +But I'm afraid that somewhere I've blundered and--" + +"No, no, dear chap," the Professor managed to say. He had been waving +his hand in a gentle circle for some time in token that he wanted to +interrupt. "Everything is quite all right. It's true we stayed up all +night, but please consider that as a watch--an honor guard, by +George!--which we kept to indicate our esteem." + + --FRITZ LEIBER + + + + +Transcriber's Note: + + This etext was produced from _Galaxy Science Fiction_ December 1957. + 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 Project Gutenberg's What's He Doing in There?, by Fritz Reuter Leiber + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT'S HE DOING IN THERE? *** + +***** This file should be named 29504.txt or 29504.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/5/0/29504/ + +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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