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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Crowded Colony, by Jay B. Drexel
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+Title: The Crowded Colony
+
+Author: Jay B. Drexel
+
+Release Date: December 1, 2020 [EBook #63930]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CROWDED COLONY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="titlepage">
+
+<h1>THE CROWDED COLONY</h1>
+
+<h2>By Jay B. Drexel</h2>
+
+<p>Oh, how decadent these Martians were! Burke,<br />
+Barnes and the rest of the Conquerors laughed<br />
+loudly at the dusty shrines, those crude and<br />
+homely temples in the desert. More softly laughed<br />
+the Martians, who dreamed of laughing last....</p>
+
+<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br />
+Planet Stories Fall 1950.<br />
+Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br />
+the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p>When the Martians had built the village of Kinkaaka there had been
+water in the canal, a cool, level sweep of green water from the
+northern icecap. Now there was none, and Kinkaaka clung to the upper
+swell of the bank and curved its staggered residential terraces like
+tragic brows over the long slope of sand and clay, the dead wall
+baked criss-cross by the sun, that bore at its deep juncture with the
+opposite bank the pitiful, straggling trench cut by Mars' last moving
+waters an untold time ago.</p>
+
+<p>Kinkaaka's other side, away from the canal, was coated rust-red by
+the desert winds that came with sunset. Here were the crumbling
+market arenas of the ancient traders, the great mounds of underground
+warehouses long empty; and here now, with Mars' conquest, was
+the "native" section into whose sandstone huts the village's few
+inhabitants were shoved firmly, but not brutally, to rest when they
+weren't needed to work.</p>
+
+<p>Like most of the Conquerors, Jack Burke and his companions preferred
+the canal side of Kinkaaka. There they could sit in the stone-cool
+shade of the Expedition Restaurant and look through the broad glassless
+windows down the sun-scalded canal bank, across to the opposite slope
+with its dotting of nomad caves, the desert beyond and the red-tainted
+blue of the sky.</p>
+
+<p>"Happy day we came to Mars," said Jack Burke. He picked up his stone
+mug and drank with a shudder.</p>
+
+<p>He was big and brown, typical of the Conquerors, and spoke, as they
+all did when within earshot of natives, the Martian dialect which the
+Linguistics Squad had translated and reasoned to completion from the
+pages of script found in the metal cairn, half-buried in desert sands
+and upon which they had conveniently almost landed their space-cube
+upon arrival two days ago.</p>
+
+<p>That was one of the dicta of the Psychologists: Always speak the native
+tongue, and learn it preferably from graphics or a specimen before
+contacting the native collective.</p>
+
+<p>There were other policies as strange, or more so; but the
+Psychologists, off-world in the home-ship and poring over the
+translations beamed to them, must know what they were doing.</p>
+
+<p>Barnes looked up in quick response to Burke's sarcasm. Of the three
+Conquerors at this table, he was the smallest. He fiddled nervously
+with his one-pronged fork, turning a piece of badly cooked <i>huj</i> over
+and over, not looking at it.</p>
+
+<p>"That," he said, and he included the <i>huj</i>, "is a mouthful. There
+doesn't seem to be a Martian in this village who can cook worth a
+damn, and you—" this to the pasty faced Martian who stood attentively
+by—"are no exception. You're getting off easy with this job, Martian.
+Or would you rather go back to digging up history with the rest of your
+tribe?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry." The Martian advanced and bobbed his head. "The
+preparation of your foodstuffs is difficult for me to comprehend. Would
+you care to try something else, perhaps?"</p>
+
+<p>Barnes skidded the fork onto the plate and put his hands flat on the
+stone table. "No. Just take this away."</p>
+
+<p>The Conquerors watched the creature as it moved silently off with the
+plate of <i>huj</i>. All except Randolph, the youngest of the trio.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>He sat nearest the stone-silled window, his gaze reaching out distantly
+over the sandscape. On the far bank of the canal he could see a few
+natives with their guards, emerging from a wood and stone structure
+that thrust finger-shaped into the pink sky.</p>
+
+<p>"No race should have its soul dissected," he said slowly. "Not, at
+least, until they're extinct and can't feel it." He avoided Barnes'
+sudden, sharp look. "Our Archaeologists over there—" pointing at the
+moving dots—"are poking around in burial crypts or sacred temples or
+whatever—it's like cutting someone up alive. We don't know what those
+things mean to these Martians."</p>
+
+<p>Barnes laughed, more of a snort. "You speak as if 'these Martians' were
+people." He leaned forward and blinked his emphasis. "What in hell
+ever happened to you that you've got such ideas? Primitive, misshapen
+morons—you can't think of them as persons! Don't let an Intelligence
+Officer hear you talking that way or you'll find yourself getting
+shipped home!"</p>
+
+<p>Randolph's eyes flicked Barnes' heavy face, then turned to the mural on
+the restaurant wall.</p>
+
+<p>"This is very beautiful," he said. He bent closer, examining the
+delicate work. "This isn't moronic. You're wrong, Barnes."</p>
+
+<p>Burke spoke harshly: "You'd better shut up, Randolph. You're sitting
+there emoting over decadent art and there's an Intelligence Officer at
+the bar."</p>
+
+<p>Young Randolph stiffened and forced a smile. "Of course, the Martians
+are a degenerated race. Our Archaeologists have revealed that Mars was
+spiritually effeminized thousands of years ago. Our colonization will
+have a reforming effect upon them. It is a healthy thing. That is our
+mission in time and space."</p>
+
+<p>The Martian had returned and was again standing at service. Randolph
+caught his eye and flushed, returned his gaze to the mural.</p>
+
+<p>Burke cleared his throat. The Intelligence Officer at the bar was still
+looking icily at Randolph's back, twiddling his drink with a wooden
+mixer.</p>
+
+<p>"You cannot doubt," Barnes took up the fraying thread, "that our
+conquest of these Martians is a very good thing. For them. I ...
+for <i>us</i>, too.... That is our mission in time and space. The first
+desert shrine—the metal one from which we learned this tongue we
+speak—is ugly enough proof. Sheaves of manuscript, recording the most
+disgusting standards and attitudes. And the contents of subsequently
+found structures—like that one across the canal—show an even greater
+decline into sensualism and the subjugation of creative energies."</p>
+
+<p>The Martian stood quietly, his small-featured face blank and smooth. He
+was meant to hear all this.</p>
+
+<p>"I heard one of our Archaeologists say something about the language of
+that first shrine—the metal one—being different from all the others."
+Randolph shifted his great bulk to lean back against the wall. "The
+others are mostly alike, but this one we learned is totally different."</p>
+
+<p>The Martian's eyes flickered.</p>
+
+<p>"So what?" Barnes grunted. "Dialects. Same thing at home."</p>
+
+<p>"But, I mean they—"</p>
+
+<p>"But what? These Martians here speak the language we learned, don't
+they?"</p>
+
+<p>"But—"</p>
+
+<p>"Hell! Do you speak <i>Ahrian</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"You know I don't."</p>
+
+<p>"So when we get through investigating here and move on to other
+villages, we'll find Martians who speak the other dialects."</p>
+
+<p>The Martian said: "Will there be anything else, sirs?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not," said Barnes, "unless you would like to try some <i>noedan</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"No thank you, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Randolph and Burke raised their eyehoods humorously. Then they looked a
+little less amused as Barnes' voice hardened.</p>
+
+<p>"You might like it, Martian. Try it." He pulled a tough green wad of
+<i>noedan</i> from his pouch and tore off a strip. "I think the sooner you
+Martians get used to doing as we do and liking the things we like, the
+better off you'll be. Now take this <i>noedan</i> and use it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, for hell's sake, Barnes—" Randolph put out a hand. "Let him
+alone. He doesn't want it. It makes him sick."</p>
+
+<p>The Intelligence Officer got up from the bar and started for the table,
+his eyes hard, his aural fronds quivering with emotion.</p>
+
+<p>Burke spotted him and seemed to shrug. "You asked for it, kid," he told
+Randolph. "Give my love to the home worlds. You're through on Mars."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe that's what I wanted," said Randolph.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The Intelligence Officer halted beside the table and Randolph got up
+without a word and left with him.</p>
+
+<p>Burke and Barnes watched them down the winding clay street, saw them
+enter a portable teleport booth, one of the several scattered about
+Kinkaaka to facilitate trips to and from the space-cube. The door
+closed, the light blinked on and off, then the booth was open again,
+empty.</p>
+
+<p>"On his way back to the home-ship and Parna," grunted Burke, "and I
+don't know but that I envy him."</p>
+
+<p>"You too?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yeah. Now that there's no damned Intelligence Officer around, me too."</p>
+
+<p>"Disgrace and all?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's what stops me—" and noticing the angry color to Barnes'
+<i>uiye</i>—"and the glory of our mission. Hell, anyone can get homesick,
+can't they?"</p>
+
+<p>During the few moments of Randolph's arrest and departure the Martian
+had disappeared. Barnes grunted and shoved the <i>noedan</i> back into his
+pouch and finished his drink.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll never get anywhere acting like that," said Burke after a
+short silence. "You can't shove our ways down their throats and get
+cooperation."</p>
+
+<p>Barnes got up a little angrily. "Who wants to get anywhere? What do we
+want out of these creatures? They smell! How are we <i>supposed</i> to act?
+We own their smelly little world—"</p>
+
+<p>"Randolph might say we don't own it."</p>
+
+<p>"Shut up, Burke. I'm sick of that!"</p>
+
+<p>Barnes started for the door and Burke got up to follow. They stepped
+out onto the hot clay of the street, moving their top-skins against the
+tight-fitting impact of the sun's rays.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>I</i> don't want anything from them, Burke. <i>I'm</i> the one who should be
+sent home. <i>I</i> want to go home. Why should we go around labeled with
+Martian names? Barnes, Randolph, Burke, Smith—good God! And talking
+this <i>jsu</i>-twisting <i>sutz</i> of a language Martian of all the time
+speaking!"</p>
+
+<p>Burke chuckled, deep in his sac. "The Psychologists dreamed it up—to
+make us seem less alien. We speak their sounds. And we take their
+names. After all, no trouble at all is better than the little they
+might be able to give us if they got excited."</p>
+
+<p>They went down the street toward the teleport booth, two big octopoids,
+the sun warming their glistening brown backs.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The "Martian" was in the cool back room of the restaurant, seated
+before a group of his kind. This was afternoon rest period, and some
+freedom to congregate existed then.</p>
+
+<p>A man turned from the wall slit through which he had watched the exit
+of Burke and Barnes.</p>
+
+<p>"Those things make me sick, Burke," he said to the "Martian". "How can
+you get so close to them and keep your stomach? They smell."</p>
+
+<p>Burke shrugged. "You get used to it, Barnes."</p>
+
+<p>He bent down and lifted the lid of a box that was stamped: FIRST MARS
+EXPEDITION—2006. He took out a heavy proton-buster, broke the grip and
+examined its load of white pellets.</p>
+
+<p>"It's been two days now," he went on, "and I'm convinced at last that
+this one party is all. Scouts, perhaps, from a parent ship off in deep
+space. And I've listened to them talk. If they don't return, nobody's
+going to come looking for them. They come from that kind of society.
+The others will mark Sol off as a bad bet and move on."</p>
+
+<p>He clicked the gun together. "They still think we're the race pictured
+in the Martian crypts and temples—and in your translations, Randolph.
+Coincidence eh? that the old Martians were humanoid and their
+appearance not discrepant with ours."</p>
+
+<p>"We colonize Mars," mused Randolph, "and Beta Centauri colonizes us as
+Martians. Ring around the rosy."</p>
+
+<p>Burke stood there, the proton-buster in his hand. "And it was cosmic
+coincidence that the Centaurians landed their ship at practically
+the same spot we'd set down only three days before. And it's almost
+incredible that they came to this village where we had taken up
+headquarters and addressed us in English!" He turned to Barnes. "You're
+the Psych-man ... let's have it again. Slowly."</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+ <img src="images/illus2.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p>Barnes half turned from the wall slit where he had been keeping an eye
+out for Centaurians. "They found our ship and took it to be a primitive
+shrine of some sort, never dreaming it was a vehicle, a space-craft."
+He waved another man to the slit and stretched his legs as he sat
+down on a crate. He struck a match and cupped it into his pipe.
+"I'm almost certain that they didn't even recognize the mechanisms
+as such. Their ship, as you've all seen, is a cube of pure energy,
+configurated—they're that alien. Also, I believe they're military men,
+soldiers and minor technicians. The top specialists are probably on the
+other ship, away from possible danger and biding their talents until
+called."</p>
+
+<p>The watcher's hand went up and fluttered for silence, and Barnes paused
+while heavy, meaty footsteps scuffled the clay outside. When they had
+passed, he spoke again, softly:</p>
+
+<p>"Fortunately, there wasn't room in our ship for a library, or they
+might have encountered the Terrestrial mind and caught on. But they
+learned our language—English, and a damned neat trick—from Randolph's
+written translations of the Martian <i>inscriptiones sensuales</i> he was
+working on. And when they came here and addressed us in that language
+and we responded, nolens-volens they took us for Martians and judged
+us by the context of those translations—foolish, vain and harmless,
+but perhaps with some value as workers. They even took our names from
+the nameplates on our bunks, something that would have found favor with
+the perverse Fourth-Era Martians they presumed us to be." He sucked at
+his pipe which had gone out. "Their Psychologists are clever—maybe a
+little too clever. They think we have no violence potential."</p>
+
+<p>Randolph seemed almost entranced. "But how could they have worked out
+the phonetics?"</p>
+
+<p>Barnes grinned, lifted a shoulder in admiration and envy. "I don't
+know.... Ask <i>them</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"They couldn't know they were <i>our</i> names," said Randolph.</p>
+
+<p>"No, but they thought they were native names. Thank God, we got the
+pitch right off and were able to carry the farce."</p>
+
+<p>"Why didn't they just kill us?"</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Barnes frowned and struck another match. "That would've been the really
+smart thing to do, Dolph, but they're not brutes and they're not making
+war. Their intention is to colonize, and we might as well be insects
+for all we could mean to them or do to stand up to them."</p>
+
+<p>"But if we have to be dealt with at all, we're in the way—"</p>
+
+<p>Barnes had the pipe going. He shook his head. "We're not in their way;
+we're underfoot, and only a sick mind makes a point of stepping on
+ants. Would you kill a talking louse?"</p>
+
+<p>Randolph grinned. "Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"No, you wouldn't—not until you'd given it a going over."</p>
+
+<p>"They're not sick in a killing way," Burke grunted, "but they seem to
+feel that their colonizations act as cathartic to wayward worlds. Just
+look at them, and you know that's sick."</p>
+
+<p>"The people," said Barnes, "at the bottom of any movement—a pun,
+gentlemen—are always fed on dream-stuff. Soldiers always are. Truth
+is, maybe the big boys at home think they can find enough use for us to
+warrant keeping us alive. As laborers, as subjects for experimentation,
+as pets."</p>
+
+<p>Burke looked out the window at the reddening sky. Then he gathered
+their attention by standing up.</p>
+
+<p>"If we hadn't been here," he said, "they would have gone on to Earth
+and taken over. As is, they think Mars is nothing to write home about,
+but they're sticking around to study awhile—not us, the supposed
+latter Martians, the degenerates, but to search out and study the bones
+of Mars' civilization back when it was dynamic. Maybe there's something
+worth learning. That's what they think."</p>
+
+<p>He hefted the proton-buster. Barnes and Smith and Kirk and Randolph
+and Jason and all the others got guns from the box.</p>
+
+<p>There was a hiss and they turned to the window. Rising above the
+visible cluster of roof-domes from some point in the other side of
+the village was a smaller edition of the Centaurians' space-cube. It
+glinted once, high up, and was gone.</p>
+
+<p>"There goes a pretty decent person," said Burke. "I'm glad we don't
+have to kill him. He appreciated Randolph's watercolor painting of the
+canal." His voice was regretful. "How alien can you get? <i>His</i> name
+was Randolph, and he's going home in disgrace."</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+ <img src="images/illus1.jpg" alt=""/>
+ <div class="caption">
+ <p><i>"There goes a pretty decent person," said Burke. "I'm glad we don't have to kill him."</i></p>
+ </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p>Night was coming. Burke's face hardened. The Centaurians would be
+coming too, ready to herd the Martians into their sleeping huts.</p>
+
+<p>"One alien ship, terribly armed," Burke went on, "and sixty Centaurians
+walking around unarmed because they think we're pansies." He cocked the
+gun. "They'll never leave Kinkaaka to bring back more."</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Crowded Colony, by Jay B. Drexel
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CROWDED COLONY ***
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diff --git a/63930-h/images/cover.jpg b/63930-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..60359b4 --- /dev/null +++ b/63930-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/63930-h/images/illus1.jpg b/63930-h/images/illus1.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d4b10ee --- /dev/null +++ b/63930-h/images/illus1.jpg diff --git a/63930-h/images/illus2.jpg b/63930-h/images/illus2.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..fdbf116 --- /dev/null +++ b/63930-h/images/illus2.jpg diff --git a/63930.txt b/63930.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1fff45c --- /dev/null +++ b/63930.txt @@ -0,0 +1,786 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Crowded Colony, by Jay B. Drexel
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+Title: The Crowded Colony
+
+Author: Jay B. Drexel
+
+Release Date: December 1, 2020 [EBook #63930]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CROWDED COLONY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ THE CROWDED COLONY
+
+ By Jay B. Drexel
+
+ Oh, how decadent these Martians were! Burke,
+ Barnes and the rest of the Conquerors laughed
+ loudly at the dusty shrines, those crude and
+ homely temples in the desert. More softly laughed
+ the Martians, who dreamed of laughing last....
+
+ [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
+ Planet Stories Fall 1950.
+ Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
+ the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
+
+
+When the Martians had built the village of Kinkaaka there had been
+water in the canal, a cool, level sweep of green water from the
+northern icecap. Now there was none, and Kinkaaka clung to the upper
+swell of the bank and curved its staggered residential terraces like
+tragic brows over the long slope of sand and clay, the dead wall
+baked criss-cross by the sun, that bore at its deep juncture with the
+opposite bank the pitiful, straggling trench cut by Mars' last moving
+waters an untold time ago.
+
+Kinkaaka's other side, away from the canal, was coated rust-red by
+the desert winds that came with sunset. Here were the crumbling
+market arenas of the ancient traders, the great mounds of underground
+warehouses long empty; and here now, with Mars' conquest, was
+the "native" section into whose sandstone huts the village's few
+inhabitants were shoved firmly, but not brutally, to rest when they
+weren't needed to work.
+
+Like most of the Conquerors, Jack Burke and his companions preferred
+the canal side of Kinkaaka. There they could sit in the stone-cool
+shade of the Expedition Restaurant and look through the broad glassless
+windows down the sun-scalded canal bank, across to the opposite slope
+with its dotting of nomad caves, the desert beyond and the red-tainted
+blue of the sky.
+
+"Happy day we came to Mars," said Jack Burke. He picked up his stone
+mug and drank with a shudder.
+
+He was big and brown, typical of the Conquerors, and spoke, as they
+all did when within earshot of natives, the Martian dialect which the
+Linguistics Squad had translated and reasoned to completion from the
+pages of script found in the metal cairn, half-buried in desert sands
+and upon which they had conveniently almost landed their space-cube
+upon arrival two days ago.
+
+That was one of the dicta of the Psychologists: Always speak the native
+tongue, and learn it preferably from graphics or a specimen before
+contacting the native collective.
+
+There were other policies as strange, or more so; but the
+Psychologists, off-world in the home-ship and poring over the
+translations beamed to them, must know what they were doing.
+
+Barnes looked up in quick response to Burke's sarcasm. Of the three
+Conquerors at this table, he was the smallest. He fiddled nervously
+with his one-pronged fork, turning a piece of badly cooked _huj_ over
+and over, not looking at it.
+
+"That," he said, and he included the _huj_, "is a mouthful. There
+doesn't seem to be a Martian in this village who can cook worth a
+damn, and you--" this to the pasty faced Martian who stood attentively
+by--"are no exception. You're getting off easy with this job, Martian.
+Or would you rather go back to digging up history with the rest of your
+tribe?"
+
+"I am sorry." The Martian advanced and bobbed his head. "The
+preparation of your foodstuffs is difficult for me to comprehend. Would
+you care to try something else, perhaps?"
+
+Barnes skidded the fork onto the plate and put his hands flat on the
+stone table. "No. Just take this away."
+
+The Conquerors watched the creature as it moved silently off with the
+plate of _huj_. All except Randolph, the youngest of the trio.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+He sat nearest the stone-silled window, his gaze reaching out distantly
+over the sandscape. On the far bank of the canal he could see a few
+natives with their guards, emerging from a wood and stone structure
+that thrust finger-shaped into the pink sky.
+
+"No race should have its soul dissected," he said slowly. "Not, at
+least, until they're extinct and can't feel it." He avoided Barnes'
+sudden, sharp look. "Our Archaeologists over there--" pointing at the
+moving dots--"are poking around in burial crypts or sacred temples or
+whatever--it's like cutting someone up alive. We don't know what those
+things mean to these Martians."
+
+Barnes laughed, more of a snort. "You speak as if 'these Martians' were
+people." He leaned forward and blinked his emphasis. "What in hell
+ever happened to you that you've got such ideas? Primitive, misshapen
+morons--you can't think of them as persons! Don't let an Intelligence
+Officer hear you talking that way or you'll find yourself getting
+shipped home!"
+
+Randolph's eyes flicked Barnes' heavy face, then turned to the mural on
+the restaurant wall.
+
+"This is very beautiful," he said. He bent closer, examining the
+delicate work. "This isn't moronic. You're wrong, Barnes."
+
+Burke spoke harshly: "You'd better shut up, Randolph. You're sitting
+there emoting over decadent art and there's an Intelligence Officer at
+the bar."
+
+Young Randolph stiffened and forced a smile. "Of course, the Martians
+are a degenerated race. Our Archaeologists have revealed that Mars was
+spiritually effeminized thousands of years ago. Our colonization will
+have a reforming effect upon them. It is a healthy thing. That is our
+mission in time and space."
+
+The Martian had returned and was again standing at service. Randolph
+caught his eye and flushed, returned his gaze to the mural.
+
+Burke cleared his throat. The Intelligence Officer at the bar was still
+looking icily at Randolph's back, twiddling his drink with a wooden
+mixer.
+
+"You cannot doubt," Barnes took up the fraying thread, "that our
+conquest of these Martians is a very good thing. For them. I ...
+for _us_, too.... That is our mission in time and space. The first
+desert shrine--the metal one from which we learned this tongue we
+speak--is ugly enough proof. Sheaves of manuscript, recording the most
+disgusting standards and attitudes. And the contents of subsequently
+found structures--like that one across the canal--show an even greater
+decline into sensualism and the subjugation of creative energies."
+
+The Martian stood quietly, his small-featured face blank and smooth. He
+was meant to hear all this.
+
+"I heard one of our Archaeologists say something about the language of
+that first shrine--the metal one--being different from all the others."
+Randolph shifted his great bulk to lean back against the wall. "The
+others are mostly alike, but this one we learned is totally different."
+
+The Martian's eyes flickered.
+
+"So what?" Barnes grunted. "Dialects. Same thing at home."
+
+"But, I mean they--"
+
+"But what? These Martians here speak the language we learned, don't
+they?"
+
+"But--"
+
+"Hell! Do you speak _Ahrian_?"
+
+"You know I don't."
+
+"So when we get through investigating here and move on to other
+villages, we'll find Martians who speak the other dialects."
+
+The Martian said: "Will there be anything else, sirs?"
+
+"Not," said Barnes, "unless you would like to try some _noedan_."
+
+"No thank you, sir."
+
+Randolph and Burke raised their eyehoods humorously. Then they looked a
+little less amused as Barnes' voice hardened.
+
+"You might like it, Martian. Try it." He pulled a tough green wad of
+_noedan_ from his pouch and tore off a strip. "I think the sooner you
+Martians get used to doing as we do and liking the things we like, the
+better off you'll be. Now take this _noedan_ and use it."
+
+"Oh, for hell's sake, Barnes--" Randolph put out a hand. "Let him
+alone. He doesn't want it. It makes him sick."
+
+The Intelligence Officer got up from the bar and started for the table,
+his eyes hard, his aural fronds quivering with emotion.
+
+Burke spotted him and seemed to shrug. "You asked for it, kid," he told
+Randolph. "Give my love to the home worlds. You're through on Mars."
+
+"Maybe that's what I wanted," said Randolph.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The Intelligence Officer halted beside the table and Randolph got up
+without a word and left with him.
+
+Burke and Barnes watched them down the winding clay street, saw them
+enter a portable teleport booth, one of the several scattered about
+Kinkaaka to facilitate trips to and from the space-cube. The door
+closed, the light blinked on and off, then the booth was open again,
+empty.
+
+"On his way back to the home-ship and Parna," grunted Burke, "and I
+don't know but that I envy him."
+
+"You too?"
+
+"Yeah. Now that there's no damned Intelligence Officer around, me too."
+
+"Disgrace and all?"
+
+"That's what stops me--" and noticing the angry color to Barnes'
+_uiye_--"and the glory of our mission. Hell, anyone can get homesick,
+can't they?"
+
+During the few moments of Randolph's arrest and departure the Martian
+had disappeared. Barnes grunted and shoved the _noedan_ back into his
+pouch and finished his drink.
+
+"You'll never get anywhere acting like that," said Burke after a
+short silence. "You can't shove our ways down their throats and get
+cooperation."
+
+Barnes got up a little angrily. "Who wants to get anywhere? What do we
+want out of these creatures? They smell! How are we _supposed_ to act?
+We own their smelly little world--"
+
+"Randolph might say we don't own it."
+
+"Shut up, Burke. I'm sick of that!"
+
+Barnes started for the door and Burke got up to follow. They stepped
+out onto the hot clay of the street, moving their top-skins against the
+tight-fitting impact of the sun's rays.
+
+"_I_ don't want anything from them, Burke. _I'm_ the one who should be
+sent home. _I_ want to go home. Why should we go around labeled with
+Martian names? Barnes, Randolph, Burke, Smith--good God! And talking
+this _jsu_-twisting _sutz_ of a language Martian of all the time
+speaking!"
+
+Burke chuckled, deep in his sac. "The Psychologists dreamed it up--to
+make us seem less alien. We speak their sounds. And we take their
+names. After all, no trouble at all is better than the little they
+might be able to give us if they got excited."
+
+They went down the street toward the teleport booth, two big octopoids,
+the sun warming their glistening brown backs.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The "Martian" was in the cool back room of the restaurant, seated
+before a group of his kind. This was afternoon rest period, and some
+freedom to congregate existed then.
+
+A man turned from the wall slit through which he had watched the exit
+of Burke and Barnes.
+
+"Those things make me sick, Burke," he said to the "Martian". "How can
+you get so close to them and keep your stomach? They smell."
+
+Burke shrugged. "You get used to it, Barnes."
+
+He bent down and lifted the lid of a box that was stamped: FIRST MARS
+EXPEDITION--2006. He took out a heavy proton-buster, broke the grip and
+examined its load of white pellets.
+
+"It's been two days now," he went on, "and I'm convinced at last that
+this one party is all. Scouts, perhaps, from a parent ship off in deep
+space. And I've listened to them talk. If they don't return, nobody's
+going to come looking for them. They come from that kind of society.
+The others will mark Sol off as a bad bet and move on."
+
+He clicked the gun together. "They still think we're the race pictured
+in the Martian crypts and temples--and in your translations, Randolph.
+Coincidence eh? that the old Martians were humanoid and their
+appearance not discrepant with ours."
+
+"We colonize Mars," mused Randolph, "and Beta Centauri colonizes us as
+Martians. Ring around the rosy."
+
+Burke stood there, the proton-buster in his hand. "And it was cosmic
+coincidence that the Centaurians landed their ship at practically
+the same spot we'd set down only three days before. And it's almost
+incredible that they came to this village where we had taken up
+headquarters and addressed us in English!" He turned to Barnes. "You're
+the Psych-man ... let's have it again. Slowly."
+
+Barnes half turned from the wall slit where he had been keeping an eye
+out for Centaurians. "They found our ship and took it to be a primitive
+shrine of some sort, never dreaming it was a vehicle, a space-craft."
+He waved another man to the slit and stretched his legs as he sat
+down on a crate. He struck a match and cupped it into his pipe.
+"I'm almost certain that they didn't even recognize the mechanisms
+as such. Their ship, as you've all seen, is a cube of pure energy,
+configurated--they're that alien. Also, I believe they're military men,
+soldiers and minor technicians. The top specialists are probably on the
+other ship, away from possible danger and biding their talents until
+called."
+
+The watcher's hand went up and fluttered for silence, and Barnes paused
+while heavy, meaty footsteps scuffled the clay outside. When they had
+passed, he spoke again, softly:
+
+"Fortunately, there wasn't room in our ship for a library, or they
+might have encountered the Terrestrial mind and caught on. But they
+learned our language--English, and a damned neat trick--from Randolph's
+written translations of the Martian _inscriptiones sensuales_ he was
+working on. And when they came here and addressed us in that language
+and we responded, nolens-volens they took us for Martians and judged
+us by the context of those translations--foolish, vain and harmless,
+but perhaps with some value as workers. They even took our names from
+the nameplates on our bunks, something that would have found favor with
+the perverse Fourth-Era Martians they presumed us to be." He sucked at
+his pipe which had gone out. "Their Psychologists are clever--maybe a
+little too clever. They think we have no violence potential."
+
+Randolph seemed almost entranced. "But how could they have worked out
+the phonetics?"
+
+Barnes grinned, lifted a shoulder in admiration and envy. "I don't
+know.... Ask _them_."
+
+"They couldn't know they were _our_ names," said Randolph.
+
+"No, but they thought they were native names. Thank God, we got the
+pitch right off and were able to carry the farce."
+
+"Why didn't they just kill us?"
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Barnes frowned and struck another match. "That would've been the really
+smart thing to do, Dolph, but they're not brutes and they're not making
+war. Their intention is to colonize, and we might as well be insects
+for all we could mean to them or do to stand up to them."
+
+"But if we have to be dealt with at all, we're in the way--"
+
+Barnes had the pipe going. He shook his head. "We're not in their way;
+we're underfoot, and only a sick mind makes a point of stepping on
+ants. Would you kill a talking louse?"
+
+Randolph grinned. "Yes."
+
+"No, you wouldn't--not until you'd given it a going over."
+
+"They're not sick in a killing way," Burke grunted, "but they seem to
+feel that their colonizations act as cathartic to wayward worlds. Just
+look at them, and you know that's sick."
+
+"The people," said Barnes, "at the bottom of any movement--a pun,
+gentlemen--are always fed on dream-stuff. Soldiers always are. Truth
+is, maybe the big boys at home think they can find enough use for us to
+warrant keeping us alive. As laborers, as subjects for experimentation,
+as pets."
+
+Burke looked out the window at the reddening sky. Then he gathered
+their attention by standing up.
+
+"If we hadn't been here," he said, "they would have gone on to Earth
+and taken over. As is, they think Mars is nothing to write home about,
+but they're sticking around to study awhile--not us, the supposed
+latter Martians, the degenerates, but to search out and study the bones
+of Mars' civilization back when it was dynamic. Maybe there's something
+worth learning. That's what they think."
+
+He hefted the proton-buster. Barnes and Smith and Kirk and Randolph
+and Jason and all the others got guns from the box.
+
+There was a hiss and they turned to the window. Rising above the
+visible cluster of roof-domes from some point in the other side of
+the village was a smaller edition of the Centaurians' space-cube. It
+glinted once, high up, and was gone.
+
+"There goes a pretty decent person," said Burke. "I'm glad we don't
+have to kill him. He appreciated Randolph's watercolor painting of the
+canal." His voice was regretful. "How alien can you get? _His_ name
+was Randolph, and he's going home in disgrace."
+
+[Illustration: _"There goes a pretty decent person," said Burke. "I'm
+glad we don't have to kill him."_]
+
+Night was coming. Burke's face hardened. The Centaurians would be
+coming too, ready to herd the Martians into their sleeping huts.
+
+"One alien ship, terribly armed," Burke went on, "and sixty Centaurians
+walking around unarmed because they think we're pansies." He cocked the
+gun. "They'll never leave Kinkaaka to bring back more."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Crowded Colony, by Jay B. Drexel
+
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