Title: The Third Little Green Man
Author: Knight, Damon
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Third Little Green Man" ***


                      THE THIRD LITTLE GREEN MAN

                            By DAMON KNIGHT

             He was unnecessary. The first two had already
            convinced Shoemaker there was only one cure for
           his condition--and that was to get the hell away
              from space-ships and onto a nice red wagon.

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
                      Planet Stories Summer 1948.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


Shoemaker sat in the open sallyport of the ship and looked gloomily
at a pale blue-green seascape, parted down the middle by a ghostly
shoreline. The sea was a little greener, and the land was a little
bluer; otherwise there was no difference to the eye. Once in a while
a tiny breeze came in from the sea, and then the stink changed from
sulphur to fish.

Venus, he decided, was a pest-hole. If he'd known it would be like
this, he would have socked old Davies in the eye when he came to
him with his damned plans. And then he'd have got roaring drunk to
celebrate his escape.

Drunk.... Boy, he'd been squiffed last night! And every night, except
one horrible period when they'd found his cache and it had been three
days before he could shut off the engines and make more. Thinking of
that, he shuddered. Better get started early tonight; no telling when
the others would be back.

He rose and went back into the stifling heat of the ship. No cooling
system in the thing; that's one item he hadn't thought of. But then, to
hear Davies and Burford talk, Venus was going to be a kind of Turkish
paradise, full of pomegranates and loose women. Nothing had been said
about the temperature or the smells.

He walked down the narrow passageway to the hold, entered one of the
compartments, and stopped before a patched section of the bulkhead.
The ship was practically nothing _but_ patches, and this looked no
different from the rest. But it was.

Shoemaker stuck a fingernail under the lower end of the metal strip,
and pulled. The strip came loose. He got his finger all the way under
and lifted. The soldered edges tore away like so much glue.

He caught the section as the top came away, and laid it aside. Behind
it, in a space where plastic filler had been removed, were stacked
bottles of a colorless liquid. He took one of them out and shoved it
into his back pocket. Then he picked up the patch sheet and, holding it
in place with one hand, took a metal-foil tube out of his pocket with
the other. The gunk in the tube was his own discovery; a phony solder
fluid that was pretty nearly as strong as the real thing, except that
the slightest leverage would pull it loose. He smeared a thin film of
the stuff all around the patch, held the sheet for a few seconds more
while it dried, then stood off to examine his work. Perfect.

The bottle in his pocket was uncomfortably warm against his thin rump.
Well, he could fix that, too. He went down the passage to the next
compartment, jockeyed an oxygen tank around until he could get at the
petcock, and held the bottle in a thin stream of the compressed gas. In
a minute the liquor was chilled.

He was sweating prodigiously. Gasping a little, he went back to the
sallyport and sat down. He settled his broad back against the doorway,
put the neck of the bottle against his pursed lips, and drank.

He was lowering his head after the fifth long swallow, when he saw
something move against the misty boundary of sea and land. He followed
it with his eyes. His long "Ahhh" of satisfaction ended in the sound of
a man treacherously struck in the belly.

       *       *       *       *       *

A little green man was standing there, a little poisonous-green man
with blue-green whiskers and eyes like emeralds. He was about fourteen
inches high, counting his big rabbit ears. He had an ominous look on
his face.

Shoemaker gaped. Suddenly, the things Burford had been telling him,
this morning before he and the other two had left to go exploring,
began to run through his mind. _Flesh and blood can stand just so much,
Jim. One of these days a pink elephant or a polka-dot giraffe is going
to step out of a bottle and say to you_--

"Shoemaker, your time has come."

He jumped a foot. He was quivering all over.

Just as Shoemaker was telling himself that it couldn't possibly have
happened, the little man moved a step forward and said it again.

Shoemaker dived for the door and slammed it after him. Ten minutes
later, when he stopped shaking long enough to open it again, the little
green man was gone.

This was not so good, Shoemaker told himself. Whether it was the d.
t.'s or just a hallucination brought on by chilled liquor in a hot
climate, that green man was nothing he wanted to have around.

He started thinking about what Burford and Davies and Hale would do if
they found out he'd started seeing things. They'd taken a lot from him,
because he was the only man who could hold the _Space Queen_ together;
but this might be too much.

For instance, there was his habit of stopping the engines whenever he
ran out of liquor. Well, he had an alibi for that, anyway. Two days
out of New York, they'd found his supply of Scotch and dumped it into
space. Fighting mad, he'd waited until the others were asleep, then
disconnected the transmutator that fed the rocket motors and adjusted
it to turn out pure grain alcohol. With the addition of a little
grapefruit juice from the stores, it made a fair-to-middling tipple.
He'd kept going on it ever since.

But, if there were green men in it....

Shuddering, he went outside to wait for Davies and the other two. It
was a little cooler now, with the sun clear around on the other side
of the planet, but it was also a lot darker. Shoemaker turned on the
light in the sallyport and stood under it, nervously peering into the
blackness.

       *       *       *       *       *

Presently he heard a hail, and then saw the three lights coming
toward him. Three of them; that meant nobody had been devoured by
saber-toothed pipicacas, or whatever cockeyed carnivores there were on
this Turkish bath of a world. That was good. If anybody killed any of
them--big, slow-thinking Davies, the chubby, drawling Hale--or Burford
in particular--Shoemaker wanted it to be him.

That was Burford now. "Seen any elephants?"

Damn him. There went Shoemaker's idea of asking casually if they'd seen
any little green creatures around. Burford was feeling sharp tonight,
and he'd pounce on that like a cat.

The three slogged into the circle of light. They looked a little tired,
even the whipcord-lean Burford. Their boots were crusted with blue-gray
mud almost to the knees.

"Have any trouble finding your way back?" Shoemaker asked. Davies shook
his big head slowly. He looked a little surprised. "No.... No, there's
a river up yonder about a mile, you know. We saw it when we landed...."

"Jim was out cold at the time," Burford put in. He grinned nastily at
Shoemaker.

"So we just followed it up a ways and then back," Davies finished,
putting his knapsack down on the galley table. He sat down heavily. "We
didn't see a thing ... not a thing. Looks like we'll have to pick up
the ship and use it to cruise around ... but we can't spare much fuel,
you know." He looked reproachfully at Shoemaker. "We used up so much
correcting course every time you shut off the engines...."

Shoemaker felt himself getting hot. "Well, if you three commissars
hadn't heaved out my Scotch--"

"Okay, okay, break it up," said Hale boredly. He let his soft bulk down
into a chair. Burford stood up, leaning against the bulkhead.

"You hear anything on the radio, Shoemaker?" Hale asked.

Shoemaker shook his head. "Had it on all day," he said. "Not a peep."

"I don't get it," Burford said. "Radio signals started practically as
soon as we hit atmosphere. They wavered, but we traced them down right
about here. Then, as soon as we landed, they quit. There's something
funny about that."

"Well, now," said Davies, wagging his head, "I wouldn't exactly say it
was _funny_, Charley.... Now you take us, there might be any number
of reasons why we'd quit signaling, if it was the Venusians landing
on Earth instead of us the other way around...." He sighed. "But it
comes to this, boys. If there are any animals on Venus, intelligent or
otherwise, it makes no never-mind, we've got to find 'em. We got to
have _some_ kind o' specimens to take back, or we're sunk. You remember
how much trouble we had, just getting the Supreme Council to subsidize
us at all...."

Shoemaker remembered. Davies' math was all right; it was the only
language he really knew his way around in. And he had the fuel, and the
motor. All he needed was money to build a ship. But he'd picked the
wrong time for it.

It had been just five years after the end of World War III when Davies
had started making plans for his ship. The World Federation was only
four and a half years old, and still bogged down in a quagmire of
difficulties. What with two Balkan and three Indian principalities
still "unreconstructed," ousted officials of other retarded nations
raising hell with underground movements, the world rearming for still
another war--plus a smashed, half-starving empire, smouldering with
atomic fire, to deal with--the Supreme Council had little time or money
to give to space flight.

Davies, though, had had his first and only non-mathematical idea, and
it was a good one. This is the way it added up. The World Federation
argued, reasonably, that the only way to police the world effectively
against the possibility of another war was for everybody to come into
the W. F. But the hold-out nations in Europe and America, who had
been neutral during the last conflict--and were powerful out of all
proportion simply because they had--plus the millions of emigres who
had set up shop in South America and Africa, replied that the W. F.
wasn't going to police _them_, and that they'd sooner _have_ another
war and, furthermore, that if the W. F. thought it could win it, let
them go ahead and drop the first bomb.

The result was an impasse that was throwing the World's Cultural
Rehabilitation Program all out of kilter. Well, said Davies, suppose
it were possible to prove to the reactionary nations that Venus was
habitable--wouldn't they jump at the chance to avoid World War IV by
moving out entirely? Then the W. F. would be able to go about its
business, organizing the Earth into One World--until it was so strong
that the Venus colony would be a pushover, and serve them right.

Meanwhile, what if there were intelligent life on Venus--intelligent
enough to be a new source of cheap labor, now that every world citizen
was demanding that his working day be cut immediately to five hours?

The bored Bureau Chief to whom Davies had talked had nodded
thoughtfully and said there might be something in it, and a few months
later Davies had been set up as head of a new Department, with a wholly
inadequate appropriation.

Burford and Hale had been assigned to the project by the North American
Labor Bureau, and Shoemaker, appealed to by Davies, had joined up
principally because it was a tough job. Then they'd gone to work,
spending the money in driblets as they got it. They'd had to revise
the specifications downward half a dozen times, and when they were
through, the _Space Queen_ was a rule-of-thumb monstrosity that only a
mechanical genius could hold together. Shoemaker was the genius.

       *       *       *       *       *

He thought about the time the meteor had hulled them, piercing both
shop walls and banging hell out of the compartment across the corridor.
Shoemaker had been in the shop, so drunk he could hardly stand up; but
he'd held his breath long enough to slap a patch over the hole through
which all the air in that section had gone whistling out, and seal it
tight. Then he'd staggered to an oxygen flask, turned it on full and
got enough air in his lungs to keep from passing out. By the time the
others rolled out of bed and came down to see whether he was alive or
dead, pressure was back to normal.

He remembered Hale's white face poked through the open seal-door in
the corridor. "What happened, for Pete's sake?"

"Termites," Shoemaker had said.

What a trip, ye gods, what a trip. He'd done some cockeyed things in
his life, but this junket a million miles from anywhere took the oscar.
And now, if he was going to have the screaming meemies, he wanted to
have them in a nice comfortable hospital--not in this watered-down
version of a surrealist's nightmare.

Burford was saying something to him. Shoemaker roused himself. "What?"

"I _said_, what's with _you_, Edison? You've been sitting there with
a dopey look on your face for half an hour. You haven't heard a word
we've been saying, have you?"

Shoemaker made a quick recovery. "I was thinking, bird-brain. That's a
little pastime us intellectuals indulge in. I'd teach it to you, but I
don't think you'd like it."

Burford looked at him sharply. Shoemaker began to sweat. Was it showing
on him already?

Burford said casually, "No offense. Well, think I'll turn in. Big day
tomorrow." He strolled out, closing the door behind him.

Shoemaker got up to go a few minutes later, but Davies said, "Say, Jim,
there was something I wanted to ask you. I know. Now just what was it?
Wait a minute, it'll come back to me. Oh, yes. Jim, do you think--now,
you understand, I just want a rough guess on this--do you reckon if we
were to use up all the mercury we got, we could scout around and get us
some of this sand, or maybe some ore from lower down--"

When he finally got it out, it appeared that he wanted to know if
Shoemaker thought they'd be able to refine some local mineral enough to
put it through the transmutator without blowing themselves up.

Exasperated, Shoemaker said, "Sure, easy. It would only take us five or
six years to dig up the stuff, build a refinery, get hold of a couple
of tons of reagents from Lord knows where, and adjust the trans-M to
take the final product. Just a nice little rest-cure, and then we can
all go home to glory and show off our long gray beards."

That started the old argument all over again. Davies said, "Now, Jim,
don't excite yourself. Don't you see the thing is, if we go home with
nothing but some mud and moss that we could have picked up anywhere, or
some pictures that we could have faked, why, the Supreme Council will
want to know what they spent all that money for. You know we'll get
disciplined, sure as--"

Shoemaker's nerves got jumpier by the minute. Finally he said, "Oh,
blow it out a porthole!" and slammed the galley door behind him.

He met Burford down the corridor, just turning in to his cubby.

"Where have _you_ been?" he demanded.

"Where do you think?" Burford said rudely.

Shoemaker was half undressed when a horrible thought struck him. In his
stocking feet, he hurried up to the compartment where his liquor was
hidden. The patch was lying propped against the bulkhead; the concealed
space was empty. A crowbar lay on the deck, fragments of real solder
from other patches clinging to its edge.

Burning, he went back to the engine-room.

Burford had been thorough. The microspectrograph had been carefully
pried off and disconnected from the rest of the transmutation
rig. Without it, the setup was useless for either the designer's
purpose--making fissionable plutonium--or Shoemaker's--the manufacture
of 200-proof happy water.

Shoemaker didn't have to look to know that the spares were gone, too.

Luckily, he had about five quarts of the stuff hidden for emergencies
in a canister marked "Hydrochloric Acid" down in the shop. With
rationing, it would do. It would have to. Green men or no, he couldn't
go dry. He'd been a quart-a-day man for as long as he could remember,
and it would take more than a spook or two to scare him off it.

       *       *       *       *       *

He had to admit to a certain apprehension, though, as he sat on watch
in the sallyport the next evening. Land, sea and sky were the same
slimy monotone; the occasional breath of wind that came in from the
ocean bore the same broad hint of decaying marine life. It had been
just about this time last night when that--

Restless, he got up and tramped around the ship. On the seaward side,
beyond the huge muzzles of the rocket tubes, the greenish sand sloped
downward abruptly in a six-foot embankment to the stagnant edge of the
water. There was nothing out there, not even a ripple.

To landward, there was nothing but mud.

He sat down again, looked dubiously at his half-finished quart, decided
to let it rest awhile. The glass had a green tinge from the sand around
it. Resolutely, he turned his mind to the exploring party, tramping
around in that godforsaken wilderness again. Well, what do you think,
Shoemaker? he asked himself. How long will it take those supermen
to give up their little paper-chase? Two more days? Three? A week?
Shoemaker, he answered, I don't know and at this point I don't give a
damn. I got more important things to worry about.

That seemed to settle that. He stared gloomily at the bottle, then
picked it up and drank.

When he lowered the bottle again, pushing the cap shut with his thumb,
the little green man was there.

No, it was a different one this time. Rigid with shock, he could still
see that this one was fatter around the middle and had shorter whiskers.

But the expression was the same. Like a fiend on his way to a
dismemberment party.

He found his voice. "Where did you come from?"

The little man smiled unpleasantly. "Mud and moss," he said.

Shoemaker wanted to yell. Holding a conversation with a hunk of mist, a
non-existent goblin! He hardly recognized his own voice when he said,
"What do you want?"

The green man walked toward him. "Heaved out my Scotch," he said, and
leered.

Shoemaker did yell. Leaping to his feet, flinging his arms wide, he
bellowed like a wounded carabao. The bottle slipped out of his fingers
and looped gracefully into the sea. The goblin turned his head to
follow it.

Then, astonishingly, he looked at Shoemaker, said, "It'll come back,"
and dived in after the bottle.

Neither of them came up, though Shoemaker hung onto the frame of the
sallyport and watched for half an hour.

       *       *       *       *       *

Shoemaker heard their voices through the hull when they came back that
night.

"Where's the old soak?" That was Burford.

"Now, Charley, that isn't nice. He didn't say anything, but you
could tell he wasn't feeling so good when he found out you'd located
his cache. I dunno's we should of done that. He's sure to get real
uncooperative on us, and we need him."

"All right!" said Burford. "But have you noticed how shaky he's been
the last couple of days? What if he cracks up, then where'll we be? I
say it isn't enough to just throw out his liquor--he'll make more as
soon as we get into space again. We ought to make him take the cure.
Force it down his throat if we have to."

"Sure," said Hale. "Just tell him we're through kidding around. He's
got to take it and like it."

"Now, boys, take it easy," Davies said. "We've been all over this
before...."

Shoemaker grinned sourly. So that was what they were cooking up.
Well, forewarned was forearmed; as a matter of fact, he'd given this
possibility some thought a long time ago, and acted accordingly. So he
had one hole card, anyway. But getting them to agree to an immediate
takeoff was another horse.

Wait a minute.... There was an idea. If he played it right--it was
tricky, but it might work.

They were coming in the sallyport now. Shoemaker ducked down to the
chem storeroom, found the bottle he was looking for and filled a small
capsule from it. His hands were shaking, he noticed. That was what the
fear of hellfire did to you.

Shoemaker had reached a decision. Delirium tremens wasn't a good enough
answer; it didn't fit. If he thought it was that, he'd gladly take the
cure, even though the idea made his belly crawl. Of course, it was too
late for that, anyway--he'd thrown out the drug in Burford's sick-box
and substituted plain baking soda long ago.

But Shoemaker thought he knew what was happening to him, and it wasn't
d. t.'s. It wasn't the usual dipso's collection of crazy daymares at
all; there was a horrid kind of logic to it. Instead of delirium, it
was--judgment.

That was as far as he'd gone. He knew he had it coming to him, and
now he thought he was going to get it. But he hadn't given up yet.
There was one thing he could still do, and that was to run--get clear
away from this damned planet. After that, he'd just have to take his
chances. Maybe the things could follow him into space, maybe not.
Shoemaker wasn't sure of anything any more.

He slipped the capsule into his pocket where he could get at it when he
needed it, and went on up the passageway.

"Oh, there you are," said Burford. "We were wondering where you'd got
to."

Shoemaker glared at him. "Okay, go ahead, ask me if I was digging for a
microspectrograph mine."

Burford looked shocked. "Why, Jim, you know I wouldn't say a nasty
thing like that." He took Shoemaker's arm. "Come on up to the galley.
We're having a pow-wow."

Oh-oh, thought Shoemaker. This looks like it. He put his hand in his
pocket and folded his handkerchief over the capsule.

Davies and Hale stared at him solemnly as he came through the door with
Burford behind him. He looked back at them, poker-faced, and sat down.

Davies cleared his throat. "Er-um. Jim, we've been worried about you
lately. You don't act like you're feeling too chipper."

"That's right," said Shoemaker, looking doleful. "I've been thinking
about my poor old mother."

Burford snorted. "Your poor old mother died fifty years ago."

"She did," said Shoemaker, taking out his handkerchief, "and she died
with one great wish unfulfilled."

"Yeah? What was that?" Burford asked skeptically.

"She always wanted to have a son like you," Shoemaker said, "so that
she could whale the living daylights out of him." He blew his nose
raucously, slipped the capsule into his mouth, put his handkerchief
away and smiled beatifically.

Davies was frowning. "Jim," he said, "I wish you wouldn't make jokes
about it. We all know what's the matter with you. You been fightin' the
liquor too hard."

"Who says so?" Shoemaker demanded.

"Now, Jim, don't make things difficult. I don't like this any more'n
you do, but--"

"Like what?"

Burford made an impatient gesture. "Go ahead, tell him, Lou. No use
dragging it out."

"That's right," Hale put in, glowering.

"Shut up, you," said Shoemaker. He turned to Davies. "Tell me what?
You're not going to bring up that 'cure' chestnut again, by any chance?"

Davies looked uncomfortable. "I'm sorry, Jim. I know you don't want to
take it. I argued against it, but the boys finally convinced me. You
know, Jim, if it was only you that we had to think about, I wouldn't
try to make you do anything you didn't want to. But, don't you see,
this is it--either we all stick together or we're sunk. If we don't
all keep in good shape and able to do our jobs, why ... well, you see,
don't you, Jim--"

"What he means," said Burford, "is that this time you're going to take
the cure, whether you want to or not."

Shoemaker got up and put his chair very carefully out of the way.

"Let's see you make me," he said.

       *       *       *       *       *

It had to look good, so when Burford grabbed for him he stepped back
and swung a hearty right into the middle of Burford's face.

Burford staggered, but kept on coming. He clipped Shoemaker's jaw
glancingly, swung again and missed, then gave him a beauty in the eye.

Shoemaker aimed for the midriff and got it. "Uff!" said Burford. Then
Hale tackled him from behind and the three of them were all over him.

[Illustration: _Every time he tore loose they brought him down again._]

Shoemaker writhed, kicking, biting and using his elbows, but every
time he tore loose they brought him down again. After a while he was
beginning to wonder if he could get away even if he really meant it.
Then, somehow, Davies got a half Nelson on him and bore down. Shoemaker
decided it was time to quit.

He looked at his opponents. Burford had a black eye and several
assorted contusions, Hale a puffed and bleeding cheek. He couldn't see
Davies' face, but the pants-leg stretched out beside his own was ripped
and hanging down over the boot, revealing a hairy thigh. Shoemaker felt
pretty good.

"Whuff," said Burford, gazing at him with a new respect. He got up
carefully, walked over to the sick-box and came back with a box of
powders and a glass of water.

He knelt. Shoemaker glared at him. Burford said, "Okay, baby, open
your mouth or we'll pry it open. Hold his head, Lou." Davies' big hand
clasped Shoemaker's skull, and Burford pried at his lower jaw. The
instant his lips parted, Burford tilted the powder into his mouth, then
pushed it shut again. Shoemaker's eyes bulged. "Swallow," said Burford
remorselessly, and grabbed Shoemaker's nose between a horny finger and
thumb.

Shoemaker swallowed. "Now you get the water," Burford said, and held
the glass to his lips. Shoemaker drank, meekly.

Burford stood up. "Well," he said uncertainly, "that's that." Davies
let go of Shoemaker and eased out from under him. Then he stood beside
Burford and Hale, and all three looked down at Shoemaker.

There were real tears in Shoemaker's eyes--from having his nose pinched
in Burford's vise-like grip--and his face looked drawn. Slowly, like an
old man, he got to his feet, walked to the table and sat down.

"Now, Jim," Davies began hesitantly, "don't take on. It isn't so bad.
You'll be a better man for it, you know. You'll prob'ly gain weight and
everything. Now, Jim--"

Shoemaker wasn't listening. His eyes were rigid and glassy, his jaw
lax. Slowly he began to tremble. He slumped over and hit the deck with
a thud, still jerking.

"Good Lord!" exploded Burford.

"What is it?" Hale demanded.

"Mitchel's reaction," said Burford. "Hasn't happened twice in thirty
years. I never thought--"

"Is it dangerous, Charley?"

"Lord, yes. Wait till I get the handbook." Shoemaker heard his quick
steps, then pages being riffled.

When he thought it was safe, Shoemaker sneaked a look out of one
eye. The other two men were pressed close to Burford, staring over
his shoulders. Their backs were to him, but he kept jerking his body
occasionally anyway, just to be on the safe side.

"Treatment," said Burford hoarsely, "extended rest on soft diet,
diathermy, u. v. irradiation, hourly injection of--Hell, we can't do
that. We haven't got half the stuff."

"What happens if he don't get it, Charley?" said Davies nervously. "I
mean to say, how long--"

Burford flipped pages. "General debility, progressing rapidly, followed
by heart stoppage and death after four to ten weeks."

"Oh, my," said Davies. "What'll we do, Charley? I mean--"

"Wait a minute, here. Are you sure he's got what you think?" asked Hale
skeptically. "How do you know he's not faking?"

"Faking!" said Burford. "Well--he's got all the symptoms." He riffled
pages. "Immediate unconsciousness, violent tremors--oh-oh. Look at
this."

The two heads craned forward eagerly. There was a moment of silence,
and then Hale giggled. "Well, if he does _that_, I'll believe you!"

"Yes," said Davies seriously, "but, if he's unconscious, how can he--"

Burford glanced at the handbook again. "He should be coming to any time
now," he said loudly. "When he does, we'll know for sure."

       *       *       *       *       *

Shoemaker grinned to himself. He knew that section of the Medical
Handbook by heart. _Patient remains unconscious and cannot_ be roused
for twenty minutes to one-half hour.... He kept his eyes closed and
waited, jerking occasionally, for what he judged was a good twenty
minutes, then another five for good measure. When he opened them again,
he saw Davies' anxious face a few inches away, flanked by Burford's and
Hale's.

"He's coming out of it!" said Burford. "How do you feel, old man?"

"Wha--?" said Shoemaker.

"You've had a little stroke," said Burford mendaciously. "Help me get
him up.... You'll be all right, Jim, but you've got to do just as we
tell you."

"Poisoned me," Shoemaker gasped, suffering himself to be hoisted limply
erect.

"No, no," Davies protested. "We're trying to help you, Jimmy boy. Just
go with Charley, that's right. Here, take this bottle, Charley."

Even Shoemaker was a little startled by what followed.

When they returned, Burford nodded solemnly. "It was blue, all right,"
he said.

"Poisoned me!" said Shoemaker, allowing himself to speak a little more
emphatically.

"Oh, hell!" said Burford, lifting Shoemaker's quaking body into a
chair. "So we poisoned you. We didn't mean to do it. Question is now,
what's to be done?"

"Why, we've got to get him to a hospital," said Davies. "Got to start
back to Earth immediately. Uh--but, Charley, will he be well enough to
work on the trip?"

"It _might_ not kill him," said Burford grimly. "But what about us? Are
we going to go back empty-handed?"

"Oh, my," said Davies. "I forgot for a minute. No, we _can't_ do that.
But look here, Charley--if he dies while we're still here, how're we
going to get back without him?"

"We'll have to, that's all," said Burford.

"Check," said Hale.

"Well, I got to admit you boys are right," said Davies promptly, with
a long face. "Never had to make a more difficult decision in my life.
Poor old Jim! When I think--"

He stopped with a gasp as Shoemaker rose to his feet, swelling visibly
with rage. "When _I_ think," said Shoemaker loudly, "of the chances
I've had--" he found himself encumbered by the broken halves of the
capsule under his tongue, and spat them out violently--"to strangle
the whole murdering crew of you quietly in your sleep--" His fingers
curled. He started toward Davies slowly, on stiff legs.

Burford was staring at the capsule-halves on the deck. Suddenly he
bent and picked them up, saw the faint blue stain that still clung to
their edges. Light broke over his face. "Methylene blue!" he said. "You
knew--you hid this in your mouth and swallowed it. Why, you old--"

"I did," said Shoemaker, "and now I'm going to make _you_ swallow it."
He stepped forward and swung a vigorous right that knocked Burford
through the open door.

Hale had picked up a chair. Shoemaker ducked aside as it whooshed
down, meanwhile kicking Hale in the stomach. Then he looked around for
Davies, but the latter, it seemed, was behind him. Something tapped
Shoemaker on the back of the skull, and then everything faded away in
gray mist....

       *       *       *       *       *

The mist lifted once, while, with a throbbing head, he listened to
Burford explaining that everything on the ship that could possibly
be a weapon was locked up; that if he attempted any more reactionary
violence they would as soon leave him dead on Venus as not; and that if
he knew what was good for him, he would behave himself both before the
takeoff--which would occur when they pleased--and after it.

He tried to tell Burford what he could do with himself, but he fell
asleep again before he was half through.

When he woke, finally, it was evening, and low voices from the galley
forward told him that the other three had returned from another day of
hunting. He got up, feeling stiff and heavy, and prowled disconsolately
down the passageway as far as his shop door, which was, indeed, locked.
He was hungry, but he had a feeling that the sight of any one of the
other three human faces on Venus would take away his appetite. For lack
of anything better to do, he stepped into the airlock, closed the inner
door quietly behind him, and sat down morosely in the sallyport.

Sky and sea were dull blue-green, without star or horizon. There was a
stink of sulphur, and then a stink of fish, and then another stink of
sulphur.... He sat and sweated, thinking his gloomy thoughts.

Shoemaker was not a moral man, but the sense of personal doom was
strong upon him. Suppose there really were a Hell, he thought, only
the preachers were wrong about everything but the heat.... A splitting
skull.... _No_ liquor.... _No_ women.... A stinking, slime-blue
seascape that was the same right-side up, upside-down, or crossways....
And the little green men. He had almost forgotten them.

When he looked up, he remembered.

The third little man was slimmer, and had no whiskers at all. He
carried a shiny golden dagger, almost as big as himself. He was walking
forward purposefully.

Shoemaker waited, paralyzed.

The little man fixed him with his gleaming eye. "We're through kidding
around," he said grimly. "Question is now!"

And he laid the golden dagger in Shoemaker's quaking palm.

Shoemaker's first impulse was to cut his own throat. His second was to
throw the dagger as far away as possible. Those two came in flashing
tenths of a second. The third was stronger. He rose effortlessly into
the air, landed facing the sallyport, and, mouth wide open but emitting
no sound, ran straight through it. He passed the closed inner door more
by a process of ignoring it than by bursting it open.

Directly opposite was the door of Burford's chubby, just now open far
enough to show Burford's startled face. When he saw Shoemaker, he tried
hastily to shut the door, but Shoemaker by now had so much momentum as
to have reached, for practical purposes, the status of an irresistible
force. In the next second, he came to a full stop; but this was only
because he was jammed against Burford, who was jammed against the far
wall of the room, which was braced by five hundred tons of metal.

"_Ugg_," said Burford. "Whuff--where did you get that _knife_?"

"Shut up and start talking," said Shoemaker wildly. "Where's the
microspectrograph?"

Burford opened his mouth to yell. Shoemaker shut it with a fist,
meanwhile thrusting the knife firmly against Burford's midriff to
illustrate the point.

Burford spat out a tooth. As Shoemaker put a little more pressure on
the blade, he said hastily, "It's in the--uhh!--fuel reservoir."

Shoemaker whirled him around and propelled him into the corridor, after
a quick look to make sure that the way was clear. They proceeded to the
engine room, in this order: Burford, knife, Shoemaker.

Without waiting to be persuaded, Burford produced a ring of keys,
unlocked the reservoir, and withdrew the microspectrograph. "Hook it
up," said Shoemaker. Burford did so.

"Uhh," said Burford. "Now what--whiskey?"

"Nope," said Shoemaker incautiously. "We're taking off."

Burford's eyes bulged. He made a whoofling noise and then, without
warning, lunged forward, grabbing Shoemaker's knife arm with one hand
and punching him with the other. They rolled on the deck.

Shoemaker noticed that Burford's mouth was open again, and he put
his hand into it, being too busy keeping away from Burford's knee to
take more effective measures. Burford bit a chunk out of the hand and
shouted, "Hale! Davies! Help!"

       *       *       *       *       *

There were bangings in the corridor. Shoemaker decided the knife was
more of a hindrance than a help, and dropped it. When Burford let
go to reach for it, he managed to roll them both away, at the same
time getting a good two-handed grip on Burford's skinny throat. This
maneuver had the disadvantage of putting Burford on top, but Shoemaker
solved the problem by lifting him bodily and banging his skull against
the nearby bulkhead.

Burford sagged. Shoemaker pushed him out of the way and got up, just in
time to be knocked down hard by Hale's chunky body.

"Old idiot," panted Hale, "oof! Help me, Davies!"

Shoemaker got an ear between his teeth, and was rewarded by a
bloodcurdling scream from Hale. Davies was hopping ponderously around
in the background, saying, "Boys, stop it! Oh, my--the guns are all
locked up. Charley, give me the keys!"

Shoemaker pulled himself loose from Hale, sprang up, and was
immediately pulled down again. Burford, who was getting dizzily to his
feet, tripped over Shoemaker's head and added himself to the tangle.
Shoemaker got a scissors on him and then devoted himself to the twin
problems of avoiding Burford's wildly threshing heels and keeping Hale
away from his throat. Suddenly inspired, he solved both by bending
Burford's body upward so that the latter's booted feet, on their next
swing, struck Hale squarely in the middle of his fat face.

At this point he noticed that Davies was standing nearby with one foot
raised. He grasped the foot and pushed. Davies hit the deck with a
satisfying clang.

Shoemaker got up for the third time and looked around for the dagger,
but it had been kicked out of sight. He paused, wondering whom to hit
next, and in the interval all three of his opponents scrambled up and
came at him.

Shoemaker thought, this is it. He spat on his fist for luck and hit
Burford a beauty on the chin. Burford fell down, and, astonishingly,
got up again. A little disheartened, Shoemaker took two blows in the
face from Hale before he knocked the little man into a far corner.
_Hale_ got up again. Shoemaker, who had been aware for some time that
someone was pummeling his back, turned around unhappily and knocked
Davies down. Davies, at any rate, stayed down.

Burford, whose face was puffy, and Hale, who was bleeding from assorted
cuts, came toward him. Hale, he saw, had the dagger in his hand.
Shoemaker stepped back, picked up the unconscious Davies by collar and
belt, and slung him across the deck. This time both men went down (Hale
with a soggy _bloomp_), and stayed there. The dagger skidded out of
Hale's hand and came to rest at Shoemaker's feet.

He picked it up, knelt at a convenient distance to cut off Hale's and
Burford's noses, and threatened to do just that. Burford intimated that
he would do as he was told. Hale said nothing, but the expression on
his face was enough.

Satisfied, Shoemaker opened a locker with Burford's keys, got a coil of
insulated wire and tied up Davies and Hale, after which, with Burford's
help, he strapped them into their acceleration hammocks.

Burford was acting a little vague. Shoemaker slapped him around until
he looked alive, then set him to punching calculator keys. After a few
minutes of this, Burford looked as if he wanted to say something.

"Well, spit it out," said Shoemaker, waving the golden knife.

"You'll get yours," said Burford, looking scared but stubborn. "When we
get back to New York--"

"South Africa," corrected Shoemaker, "where the Supreme Council can't
ask us any questions."

Burford looked surprised, then said it was a good idea.

It was, too.

       *       *       *       *       *

The lone star winked out in the blue-green heavens, and the winds of
its passing died away. The throng of little rabbit-eared green men,
floating on their placid ocean, gazed after it long after it had
disappeared.

"What do _you_ think?" said the slim one without whiskers. "Did they
like us?"

The one addressed was yards away, but his long ears heard the question
plainly. "Can't say," he answered. "They acted so _funny_. When we
spoke to that one in their own language, so as to make him feel at
home--"

"Yes," said a third, almost invisible in the mist. "Was that the right
thing to do, d'you suppose? Are you _sure_ you got the words right,
that last time?"

"Sure," said the first, confidently. "I was right next to the ship all
evening, and I memorized everything they said...."

They considered that for a while, sipping from their flasks. Other
voices piped up: "Maybe we should have talked to them when they were
all together?"

"Nooo. They were so _big_. That one was much the nicest, anyway."

"He took our present."

"Yes," said the slim one, summing it up. "They must have liked us all
right. After all, they gave us _this_"--swinging his flask to make a
pleasant gurgle of 150-proof grain alcohol. "That proves it!"

_Burp!_



*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Third Little Green Man" ***

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