MARTIANS, KEEP OUT!
A POWERFUL NOVELET
By Fritz Leiber, Jr.
Illustration by Luros
Hatred of the Martians was being deliberatelyexploited, and Scatterday knew why. And theonly way to fight the enslavement of humans,was to assist the Martians, even though itmeant risking lynch-law!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Future combined with Science Fiction Stories July-August 1950.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
And as if that sign weren't enough, someone with a red spray pencil hadadded
THAT MEANS YOU, BUG!
The stiff, black-shelled form, impaled on a spike beside thetrafficway, with gummy beads of blue blood glistening in the sun, toldthe pretty little story much more graphically.
It hadn't been decapitated; Martians lack external heads.
Scat scanned the tableau, his scarred lean features impassive. "Theydidn't mention this," he commented. "Do we still go in?"
"You ask questions like that just for the sake of the record, don'tyou?" Click-Click replied, using his black pincers to produce code in away that explained his nickname. Though headless, Martians didn't lackbrains. Definitely.
Scat switched to the turbine for jetless surface-drive, and the utilitycar crawled into Bronsco.
A hick town, Scat decided. A couple of 100-story skylons, a mainstreetof glastic commercial buildings, and rows of distressingly similarhomes, all of them Paradise-37's or Eden-2's. But the skylons lookeddead; the glastic was dingy, and the shrubbery drooped. A few cars wereuntidily parked by trafficway. Footpaths worn in the grass showed thatthe slidewalks hadn't been strategically placed, and not all of themseemed to be working.
Crummy.
But it was in burgs like this that the destiny of the Martians wasbeing decided. In the big metropolis, intellectuals talked "MartianQuestion" all night. Here, things happened.
Click-Click sat up in plain view—not to see, but to be seen. Eyelessperception gave him as good a picture as Scat's of the town—lessrange, but a lot more three-dimensional.
His shiny black body and jointed arms brought some coldly unfavorable,lingering stares, but nothing more; broad daylight didn't lend itselfto lynchings.
When they entered the offices of the Bronsco Newsbeam, oldDonnolan acted as if he had been betrayed. His scraggly eyebrowsgyrated contortedly above his pale, close-set eyes. "If I'd had anyidea that I was selling the Newsbeam to a damn bug-lover...!" hefinally howled impotently.
"Get off my property," said Scat in a low voice.
"Jonas Scatterday the Liberator!" Donnolan's eyes became crooked blueneedles of bigotry. "Seems to me I recall you're a bug-smuggler, too.Mixed up in the Underground Skyway to Antarctica...."
"Get off my property," Scat repeated.
As Donnolan sidled out, he uttered those famous last words which are asold as wishful thinking—and blustering cowardice. "You can't do thisto me!"
In the transmission room, Scat explained the changed situation to theNewsbeam employees, with Click-Click standing beside him. Agrizzled old beam-doctor expressed their sentiments. "I guess we'llstick with you, Mister. I won't say we like it, but it's our jobs."
Scat nodded unenthusiastically. He knew the arrangement wouldn't lastout the day, but as Click-Click had observed, there were a lot ofthings he did for the sake of the record.
Ten minutes later they had the Missionary sizzling on the beam, after a