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Earthman On Venus (Version 2)

<h2 id="c4">4 go to the ant, thou sluggard</h2> As I slowly awakened the next morning, I vaguely remembered a terrible nightmare of the night before. But no, it was no dream, for I opened my eyes upon the same plain concrete room with its slit windows. I was lying on the same couch. The same strange ant-man was standing guard at the door. During the night some one had placed over me a blanket of some sort of light fleecy wool felt. <div class="pb" id="Page_23">23</div> As I lay in bed I studied the walls of the room and noticed, what I had not seen before, three dials sunk in the opposite wall close to the ceiling. Each dial had twelve numbers or letters around the edge, and also a single pointer. The pointer of the right dial was slowly revolving left-handedly; the pointer of the middle dial was turning even more slowly; while that of the left dial appeared motionless. Absent-mindedly I started to time the right-hand pointer. “One chimpanzee. Two chimpanzee. Three chimpanzee,” I counted in sing-song; that being a formula which I had been taught as a child, to count the time between a lightning flash and the resulting thunder, in order to estimate the distance of the stroke. For, if carefully done, each chimpanzee equaled one second of time, and each second meant one quarter-mile of distance. Of course the real object of the game was to distract the child’s mind from his fear of the lightning. I now found that it took about fifty chimpanzees for the right pointer to move one of the twelve graduations. This fact I verified by several trials. I fell to wondering what the device was for. It looked and acted like a gas meter or electric meter. Then I dismissed the meter from my mind, and considered my predicament. For some reason I thought of my father, Alden Cabot, now many years dead. The old man had been a stern puritanical character, abhorring sloth and frivolity. How often had I heard him rebuke some act of laziness with his favorite Biblical quotation: “Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways and be wise.” “Wouldn’t father be pleased,” thought I, “for I have certainly gone to the ant, all right! But now the big question is how to get away from them.” By this time the sentinel noticed that I was awake, and immediately brought me my breakfast, consisting of a bowl of the sweet green liquid and a bowl of dark reddish-brown paste, about the consistency of mashed beans, and having a rich flavor not unlike beef gravy. After breakfast Doggo took his turn as guard. I patted his head, and then went over to the windows to see the view, if any. <div class="pb" id="Page_24">24</div> The windows overlooked a courtyard completely enclosed by piled-up Puéblo buildings. In the yard was a fountain, surrounded by beds of plants quite unlike any that I had ever seen before. The prevailing color of the foliage was gray and silver green. Many of the twigs bore knobs of red or purple, and a few of the plants had brilliantly colored blue and yellow flowers somewhat similar to those of dandelions. For a long time I aimlessly gazed upon this beautiful garden. The warm moist fragrant atmosphere was not conducive to hurry or to excitement. But finally even the beauties of the view palled upon me, and I returned to the blue couch. Just then Doggo ushered into the room, with great deference, four ant-men slightly smaller than himself, but more refined looking than he, if one can appreciate such differences among ants. That is, they were more slender and delicate, like machines built for precision rather than for strength. They evidently were a bit afraid of me, for after eyeing me furtively from the door they appeared to confer with Doggo, though not an audible word passed between them. To assure them that I was perfectly harmless, Doggo walked over to me and permitted himself to be patted; after which the committee drew near and inspected me carefully, agitating their antennae at each newly discovered peculiarity. They appeared chiefly perplexed by my forehead and my back, to examine which, they lifted up my toga. They counted my fingers several times, and then counted my toes. But the thing about me which amazed them the most was my ears. These they studied for a long time, with much inaudible consultation, as I judged by the motions of their antennae. Finally they took their departure, and Doggo came to me bristling with excitement, and apparently having much important information to impart; but, alas, he did not know my language, and he had no language at all. I patted him again, but this time it did not soothe him, for he broke away from me impatiently and returned to his station by the door. Left to myself, I fell to studying the meter again, watching the counter-clockwise rotation of its hands. Even the left pointer had moved a bit since early morning. <div class="pb" id="Page_25">25</div> Now I noticed, what I might have surmised on the analogy of an earthly gas meter, that each graduation of the central dial represented one complete revolution of the pointer on its right; and this principle presumably extended to the dial on its left. Then I counted chimpanzees again, and found that the right hand pointer was still rotating counterclockwise at the rate of about fifty chimpanzees per graduation. Counterclockwise! Why, perhaps this machine was a clock! I made a hasty mental calculation: “One graduation equals fifty seconds. Twelve graduations—one complete rotation—equal six hundred seconds—ten minutes. Thus one graduation of the middle dial represents ten minutes, and its complete circuit, represents two hours. By the same token, a complete circuit of the left dial would represent twenty-four hours—one day!” My guess was apparently correct. At that time it did not occur to me as strange that a day on this planet should be twenty-four hours as on earth. The figure to the left of the top of each dial was a single horizontal line, presumably standing for unity; for a single line, either horizontal or vertical, is the almost universal symbol for unity. “Then,” said I, “the next figures must be two, the next figure three, and so on around to twelve. Eureka! I can now count up to twelve with these creatures; thus establishing, in writing at least, the beginning of a possible basis of communication.” Eager to test my newfound knowledge, I beckoned to Doggo. He came to my side. Scratching the ant figure five upon the floor with a small pebble which I found in a corner—for I could not reach the dials to point to their figures—I held up five fingers. The effect was electrical. Greatly excited, Doggo rushed to the door. But, pausing on the threshold, he returned; held up three legs, looking at me almost beseechingly, as I thought; and, when I wrote an ant figure three on the floor, his joy knew no bounds. He patted me on the side of my head for a moment, to show his appreciation, and then rushed once more from the room. And now, for the first time, I was left unguarded, but I had no thought of escape; in the first place, because it would be unfair to my friend; and in the second place because escape merely from the room would be useless. <div class="pb" id="Page_26">26</div> Presently Doggo returned with the committee of four, and put me through my paces. He would hold up a certain number of legs, and I would scratch the corresponding character upon the pavement. Finally, as a crowning stunt, I wrote down five and six, pointed to them, and then wrote down eleven. The committee were much impressed. Then Doggo had me put on and take off my toga for them. Evidently he was trying to convince them I was a reasoning human being like themselves, though what the disrobing performance had to do with it I could not see for the life of me. At last the committee left, and after that a very nice luncheon was served; more green milk, some baked cakes and honey. Real honest to goodness honey, like we have on earth. You can’t appreciate how these little touches of similarity to good old terra firma appealed to me, thoroughly homesick after three whole days’ absence. After luncheon, Doggo brought me a pad of paper and a pointed stick like a skewer, with its tip incased in some lead-like metal. This stick could thus be used as a pencil. He himself was similarly equipped, except that his pencil had a strap for attachment to his left front claw. The difference between the two pencils attracted my attention and excited my wonder, but I could not account for it. Instruction began at once. I would point to some object; Doggo would make marks on his pad; and then I would copy them on mine, adding the name in English. These additions puzzled and annoyed my instructor; but I persisted, for otherwise I might forget the meaning of his scratch marks. When a vocabulary of about twenty concrete nouns had been accumulated, Doggo took away my sheet, and then pointed to the articles in turn, while I wrote down their ant names, as well as I could remember them. Fortunately I have a good visual memory, for I was no more able to invent sounds for the ant words, than I would have been able to read aloud a Chinese laundry ticket. After several hours of this absorbing sport, Doggo produced a book! With rare presence of mind, I figured that as ant-men wrote with their left hands and had counterclockwise clocks, their books would probably begin at the wrong end; so accordingly I opened at the back. And, sure enough, the last page was numbered one. This proof of my intelligence pleased my instructor greatly. <div class="pb" id="Page_27">27</div> On page one was a picture of an ant-man. Under it was printed the word which Doggo had given me as equivalent to himself. Next came the same word, followed by a strange word. Then these two words were repeated, followed by two others. Reasoning by the analogy of my primary school days at home, I decided that these words were: “Ant-man. An ant-man. This is an ant-man.” But I was wrong, for on this basis, the next line made no sense; for, reading from right to left the next line would be: “An ant-man is this.” Oh, I had it! “Ant-man. The ant-man. I see the ant-man. The ant-man sees me.” To test it, I wrote down the word for “I,” and pointed to myself. Doggo, who had been watching me intently as I studied the page, now showed unmistakable signs of pleasure at this evidence of my intelligence; and, departing, soon returned with a large furry beetlelike creature about two feet square, called a “buntlote”—so I learned later—which he set on the floor before me with every expectation of extreme gratitude on my part. I tried to appear grateful; but could not figure out what I was supposed to do with the beast! The buntlote, however, had much more definite views on the subject, for he ambled over to me and patted me on the side with one of his front paws. I looked inquiringly at Doggo, who indicated that I was supposed to feed the buntlote with some of the remains of my luncheon, which was still on the couch. The buntlote, after satisfying his hunger, curled up in a corner and went to sleep, whereupon I returned to my studies. Evidently ant-men kept pets the same as humans; but whether this buntlote was supposed to be a dog, or a cat, or what, I did not know. Doggo then taught me how to write “buntlote,” and the words for food, mouth, and eat—my first verb, by the way—and so on. By supper time I was in a position to carry on a very elementary conversation with my instructor, but only by pad and pencil, of course, for not a word nor a sound had I ever heard him utter. And since their speech was not articulate, their written language could not, of course, be phonetic. It must be ideographic, like the Chinese. The fact that each word consisted in but a single character lent color to this surmise. <div class="pb" id="Page_28">28</div> And yet I noticed that all of the characters which I had so far learned could be decomposed into distinguishable parts, and that there were only about thirty of these parts in the aggregate. This fact certainly pointed to a phonetic alphabet of thirty sounds, for it was inconceivable that these highly cultivated animals possessed only thirty ideas. And yet how could an unspoken language be phonetic? I gave up the puzzle. Supper came, the lights went on, and my buntlote uncurled and ambled over to be fed. I decided to regard him as a cat, and so named him Tabby. At this meal Doggo joined me, and as we ate, my attention was again attracted to the white marks on his back, which to my surprise I now noticed were exactly like those on the clock. They must be his license number: “334-2-18.” If the large figures represented his license number, I thought, what did the small figures stand for? The license numbers of the cars he had run into, perhaps? I little guessed how near this came to being the truth. That night I went to bed well satisfied with my progress. But, alas, although Doggo proved to be an indefatigable teacher, I did not get on so well during the succeeding days. But I did make progress in one thing however; namely, in acquiring a beard. Although facilities for washing and bathing were provided in a little alcove off my room, and although a fresh toga was forthcoming from time to time, yet my captors did not furnish either a razor or a mirror. Of course ants have nothing to shave, and they cannot be blamed for not caring to look at themselves in the glass. I tried my best to explain to Doggo what I wanted, but it was no use. If this manuscript is ever discovered, let the reader try to figure out how to explain by sign language to a person who has never seen either a razor or a looking glass, that you want them. When the beard got well under way, the committee of four were recalled to view it. They were even more impressed with my beard than they had been with my ears, and made frequent visits to take notes on its growth. <div class="pb" id="Page_29">29</div> This convinced me that they had never before seen any men, or at least any unneat ones, and so my hope for human companionship received another blow. Yet if there were no men on this planet, how account for the fact that when I drew a sketch of a table and a chair these were at once forthcoming, together with a written name for each? Of course all my time was not spent in lessons. Sometimes I played with Tabby and sometimes I took long walks. Gradually I became more of a guest than a prisoner or even a curiosity, and so I was given the run of the entire city, which was built as one large connected house; a veritable jumble of rooms, passageways, ramps and courtyards. But this freedom nearly proved my undoing. One day when I had strolled unusually far from my own quarters, I met my old enemy, Satan, in one of the courtyards. Instinctively I shrank back, but he gave every indication of wishing to be friendly, even to the extent of turning his head on one side to be patted. Distasteful as the act was to me, I decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and so patted him gingerly. Apparently as a reward for this service, he beckoned me to follow him. And so I did, through many a winding corridor. Our way finally led to the outskirts of the city, to a grating guarded by a sentinel, whom Satan promptly relieved. When the old guard had gone, Satan, to my great surprise, opened the gate and motioned me to step out. This was indeed a favor, for, although I had been able to get plenty of fresh air in the courtyard flower gardens and on the roofs, yet I had felt cramped and restrained, and had longed for the freedom of a run in the open fields. So, patting him again, to show my gratitude, I rushed out and turned several handsprings for joy on the silver sward. As I regained my feet, what should I see to my dismay but a squad of ant-men issuing from the gate and rushing toward me at full speed, with Satan at their head, his savage jaws snapping with hate. I stood astounded for a moment, and then turned and fled. At an earthly speed of running a man would have little hope of distancing one of these creatures, but the added buoyancy of this strange planet gave me a slight advantage over them, until I had the misfortune to stub my toe on something and fall. Whereupon the pack closed over me. The fall stunned me, and as my brain darkened, I felt the sharp mandibles of my enemy fasten upon my throat. <div class="pb" id="Page_30">30</div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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