C M Kornbluth - Make Mine Mars

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Make Mine Mars

C. M. Kornbluth

Make Mine Mars

"X is for the ecstasy she ga-a-ave me; E is for her eyes—one, two, and three-ee; T is for the teeth with

which she'd sha-a-ave me; S is for her scales of i-vo-ree-ee-ee ..."

Somebody was singing, and my throbbing head objected. I teemed to have a mouthful of sawdust

T is for her tentacles ah-round me;

J is for her jowls—were none soo-oo fair;

H is for the happy day she found me; 'Fe is for the iron in her hair..,"

I ran my tongue around inside my mouth. It was full of sawdust—spruce and cedar, rocketed in from

Earth.

"Put them all to-gether, they spell Xetstjhfe . . ."

My eyes snapped open, and I sat up, cracking my head on the •nderside of the table beneath which I

was lying. I lay down waited for the pinwheels to stop spinning. I tried to it out. Spruce and cedar . .

.Honest Blogri's Olde Earthe Saloon . . . eleven stingers with a Sirian named Wenjtkpli...

"A worrud that means the wur-r-l-l-d too-oo mee-ee-ee!"

Through the fading pinwheels I saw a long and horrid face, a Sirian face, peering at me with kindly

interest under the table. It was Wenjtkpli.

"Good morning, little Earth chum," he said. "You feel not so tired now?"

"Morning?" I yelled, sitting up again and cracking my head again and lying down again to wait for the

pinwheels to fade again.

"You sleep," I heard him say, "fourteen hours—so happy, so peaceful!"

"I gotta get out of here," I mumbled, scrambling about on the imported sawdust for my hat. I found I was

wearing it, and climbed out, stood up, and leaned against the table, swaying and spitting out the last of the

spruce and cedar.

"You like another stinger?" asked Wenjtkpli brightly. I retched feebly.

"Fourteen hours," I mumbled. "That makes it 0900 Mars now, or exactly ten hours past the time I was

supposed to report for the nightside at the bureau."

"But last night you talk different," the Sirian told me in surprise. "You say many times how bureau chief

McGillicuddy can take lousy job and jam—"

"That was last night," I moaned. "This is this morning."

"Relax, little Earth chum. I sing again song you taught me:

X is for the ecstasy she ga-a-ave me; E is for—"

My throbbing head still objected. I flapped good-by at him and set a course for the door of Blogri's

joint. The quaint period mottoes:

"QUAFFE YE NUT-BROWN AYLE" "DROPPE DEAD TWYCE"

and so on—didn't look so quaint by the cold light of the Martian dawn.

An unpleasant little character, Venusian or something, I'd seen around the place oozed up to me. "Head

hurt plenty, huh?" he simpered.

"This is no time for sympathy," I said. "Now one side or a flipper off—I gotta go to work."

"No sympathy," he said, his voice dropping to a whisper. He fumbled oddly in his belt, then showed me

a little white capsule. "Clear your head, huh? Work like lightning, you bet!"

I was interested. "How much?"

"For you, friend, nothing. Because I hate seeing fellows suffer with big head."

"Beat it," I told him, and shoved past through the door.

That pitch of his with a free sample meant he was pushing

J-K-B. I was in enough trouble without adding an unbreakable

addiction to the stuff. If I'd taken his free sample, I would

, have been back to see him in 12 hours, sweating blood for

more. And that time he would have named his own price.

I fell into an eastbound chair and fumbled a quarter

into the slot The thin, cold air of the pressure dome was

clearing my head already. I was sorry for all the times Fd

I cussed a skinflint dome administration for not supplying a richer air mix or heating the outdoors more

lavishly. I felt

food enough to shave, and luckily had my razor in my wallet. By the time the chair was gliding past the

building where Interstellar News had a floor, I had the whiskers off my jaw and most of the sawdust out

of my hair.

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