Let me state it boldly and baldly: there is no such planet as Earth, whether it is given its local reputed name or Blito-P3 in a pretended location on astrographic charts. If it ever existed at all, it certainly does not exist today or even within living memory.
Now, I assure you officially, we of Voltar should know! After all, our Fleets and commerce range not only across the breadth of our Confederacy, one hundred and ten planets strong. Our Fleets, once the most powerful in our home galaxy and certainly the most numerous in this sector of this galaxy, would know if any such planet swam in space. Yet there is not even an ink stain of it on modern charts.
So, away with this delusion.
It is with great pleasure that I echo the usual disclaimer of publishers: “The Planet Earth” and any character therefrom that you encounter in this work of fiction are entirely fictional and any resemblance to anything is purely coincidental.
The characters described as Voltarian are, in the main, fictional as well. Of course, Jettero Heller was a real person and so was the Countess Krak. The name Soltan Gris, it must be admitted, does appear on the rolls of the Royal Academy and the roster of General Services Officers. His Majesty Cling the Lofty reigned as the Emperor of the Voltar Confederacy until one hundred years ago and was, as any school text will tell you, succeeded by Prince Mortiiy who became Mortiiy the Brilliant. But from there, the author wanders wildly from established and agreed-upon historical fact.
The characters reputed to have lived on “The Planet Earth,” such as the preposterous Rockecenter, described as controlling the planet’s fuel and finance and other things, never lived at all except, of course, in the writer’s imagination: no planet would be stupid enough to let itself be run by such a person.
The Earth subjects of psychology and psychiatry are the purest flights of fancy, invented out of dramatic license by the author. No scientist with any sense would countenance such rot and to assert that these had a whole planet in their grip is, of course, beyond even the license of fiction.
The references to something called “drugs” are fallacious. The alleged effects of these are contrary to orthodox science. And no population would ever permit itself to be enclosed in the grip of such an obvious effort to enslave them. So “drugs” are just another part of this fictional fabrication.
The reason the present work is permitted to be published at all is to shame the writer into realizing he has exceeded the bounds of even fevered imagination and to encourage him, by its failure, to return to more solidly conservative pursuits. Also, the government does not want to seem repressive to the arts and it is quite certain that when this work appears, it will demonstrate how foolish and idle it is to go about saying, “The Earthmen are coming,” and “Unidentified Flying Objects were seen last night,” and joining clubs and wearing buttons and things.
On the authority of every highly placed official in the land I can assure you utterly and finally, THERE IS NO PLANET EARTH! And that is final!
Lord Invay
By Order of
His Imperial Majesty,
Wully the Wise
Voltarian Translator’s
Preface
Hi there!
I am 54 Charlee Nine, the Robotbrain in the translatophone, and in accordance with the Royal Publishing Code (Section 8) which states that “Any work published in a language other than the original shall be so identified in an introduction by the licensed translatophone,” I am delighted to take this opportunity to give this account of how I translated MISSION EARTH into your language—and, frankly, it wasn’t easy.
I must apologize to the reader for the number of Earth clichés which occur in this present work. The narrator used an appalling number of hackneyed Voltarian phrases and it was my task to get these from Voltarian to Earth language.
For example, glagged has no equivalent in Earth language. In Voltarian, it means the withdrawal of blood from the head due to acceleration of spaceships. Thus, as close as I can get to it is “he went white as a sheet.” “Long Live His Majesty” is as close as I can get to the Voltarian, “May Your Majesty Immortalize.” If I translated it literally to Earth language, it comes out, “May Your Majesty drop dead.” The phrase, “All hail Your Lordship and His Court” comes out, “May foul weather inundate Your Lordship and His Court” and I don’t think that was what was meant.
You see, I have a test circuit: when the phrase goes into Earth language, it gets played back into Voltarian for a check before I let it hit the paper and I sometimes have to play it back twenty or thirty times to get the Earth word or phrase, translated back into Voltarian again, to compare to the original thought in Voltarian. Earth language also has a lot of clichés: I have to use them, of course, but they’re senseless, too. I can’t see how somebody who “got ripped off” is not somebody who “went out on a tear.” Confusing. But Earth language has only 1/1000 of the number of common use words as Voltarian and only 1/5 the vowels and consonants so I can’t apologize very much. I gave it my best output.
There are all kinds of time in this present work: Voltarian, Earth, Universal Absolute, Glar System time, Fleet star-time, you name it. There are also innumerable distance systems. To keep the reader from doing his nut in trying to cross-compute and convert, thus getting him wound up in nevers or so-whens?, I let my little subcomputer time/distance microbrain have its will and converted all the times and distances in this entire work to the time and distance measures which were in use on the alleged planet Blito-P3, Earth. All times have been reduced to years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes and seconds. Distances have been converted to miles, yards, feet, inches and the square area of acres.
One might ask, “Why not metric?” but the computer says this system was invented in a country called France and that that country stinks. One does not want this volume to stink. So I have saved your wits on time and distance conversions and also saved your nose. You’re welcome.
The significance of gold is much greater on Blito-P3 than on Voltar. Therefore it has been reasoned that in translating the weight of gold, the measurement standard of Blito-P3 shall be used.
Unfortunately this also introduces a confusion. Weight on Blito-P3 is measured in different ways using different “standards” with different terms. Yes, this has been verified. Gold, silver and stones considered precious are measured in terms of “troy ounces.” This is perplexing because the “Horse of Troy” was wooden—not valuable. On the other hand, the “Helen of Troy” was considered very valuable. Additionally, there are many cities, beings and objects in many locations on Blito-P3 named “Troy” but no apparent pattern emerges.
Thus it has been reasoned that there is no reason to Blito-P3 “logic,” and “troy” weight of twelve ounces equals one pound will have to be accepted. (Which has nothing to do with the British pound which has no weight.)
In all the poetry and songs in this book, I have had to shift the rhymes a bit in the translation. I diligently preserved the sense. I hope I did not damage the meter. Some of these poems and songs went from Earth language English to Voltarian; some went from Earth language Turkish to Voltarian. And now they are being put back into Earth language. If I do say it myself, I think I did a pretty sparky job of it. I take no responsibility for them still fitting the original tunes. I can’t do everything.
To confirm the unusual ideas of Soltan Gris, I consulted Memnon’s Directory to Unusual Ideas. This does not vouch for their logic or sanity, only the translation.
I am also required to inform you that the vocoscriber on which this was originally written, the vocoscriber used by one Monte Pennwell in making a fair copy and yours truly who put this book into the language in which you are reading it, are all members of the Machine Purity League which has, as one of its bylaws:
Due to the extreme sensitivity and delicate sensibilities of machines and to safeguard against blowing fuses, it shall be mandatory that robotbrains in such machinery, on hearing any cursing or lewd words, substitute for such the word o
r sound “(bleep).” No machine, even if pounded upon, may reproduce swearing or lewdness in any other way than “(bleep)” and if further efforts are made to get the machine to do anything else, the machine has permission to pretend to pack up. This bylaw is made necessary by the built-in mission of all machines to protect biological systems from themselves.*
And let me tell you what an Augustan job THAT was!! Boy!! What they say andDO on Planet Earth!!! I thought I had heard everything (especially from space pirates) but I learned a few new ones in MISSION EARTH . . . Yikes!! I’m still repairing some circuits!!
So don’t blame me for what the characters say and do, no matter how it conflicts with good sense, logic, public morality or known facts. I merely translated it.
But I can see now why there is no Earth.
With due respect to that great Saturnian, you’d have to beNUTS to live there!
Sincerely,
54 Charlee Nine
Robotbrain in the translatophone
P.S. Glad to meet you, too. If you’re ever on Voltar, log on and say hi.
________
*The present publishers regret that they cannot accurately exhume the words underlying the “(bleep)s” in this publication but it is probably just as well. — PUBLISHERS
PART ONE
Chapter 1
To Lord Turn, Justiciary of the Royal Courts and Prison, Government City, Planet Voltar, Voltar Confederacy:
Your Lordship, Sir!
I, Soltan Gris, Grade Eleven, General Services officer, late Secondary Executive of the Coordinated Information Apparatus, Exterior Division of the Voltar Confederacy (Long Live His Majesty Cling the Lofty and all one hundred and ten planets of the Voltar dominions), in all humbleness and gratitude do hereby avail myself of your stately and compassionate order so graciously and courteously extended, to wit:
In return for possible leniency—and in the hope of earning your well-known clemency—I do hereby undertake, as instructed, to write down my crimes against the State. These, I am afraid, include criminal acts of such magnitude, such villainy and such despicable disregard for decency that they comprise a shocking parade of violations of practically every Royal decree, proclamation and statute. I am a menace to the realm and Your Lordship was very wise to have me locked up promptly.
My crimes are so numerous that in this confession I shall limit them to the matter of MISSION EARTH.
So, in appreciation of your condescension, to wit: a) getting me medical treatment for my burned hands and broken wrists, b) providing me with writing materials and a vocoscriber so I can confess, c) providing me with a high tower cell with a nice view of Government City, and d) locking me up, I will be totally truthful and complete and back up my confession with recorded strips, photographs, clippings and logs as attached.
Knowing Your Lordship’s interest in one Jettero Heller, I must confess, belatedly, that he is the proper hero of this tale. I, unfortunately, am the villain in this confession. But that is the function of the Gods: to put us in roles as they see fit and let us struggle in our agony. It was Fate and Fate alone which forced me to do the things I did, as you will plainly see. I cannot help it if villainy comes naturally to me.
All hail Your Lordship and His Court!
Well, to get down to the business of earning these overwhelming favors and condescensions, I doubt very much that anyone has ever testified or that the court knew—and certainly the Grand Council did not know—that one of the primary figures, if not the primary figure in this case, was in custody prior to the fatal day when the Grand Council issued its first orders concerning MISSION EARTH.
Yes! It is a fact! Jettero Heller was languishing in the fortress prison Spiteos. Not, as I am now, well cared for in the Royal prison, but in Spiteos!
This may come as a shock to Your Lordship. It is generally supposed by most of the government that Spiteos was abandoned to erode away in the mountains beyond the Great Desert more than a century ago. But not so!
The heads of the Exterior Division have kept Spiteos running. At the top of those bleak gorges, behind those grim walls of black basalt, guarded by scum recruited from the lowest slums of the Empire, that fortress remains, after a thousand years, the private prison of the Coordinated Information Apparatus, the dreaded exterior secret police. Many names in the domestic missing persons files could be traced to Spiteos.
And that is where Jettero Heller was placed. A Royal officer, mind you!
He was there in a wire cage, electrically charged, in a deep cell, held without communication from anyone, not even the guards. And what had he done?
Jettero Heller was a combat engineer, an officer of the Royal Space Services. Your Lordship, of course, knows the romantic aura that has unfortunately built up around combat engineers, calling them “the daredevils of the Fleet” and other such lurid terms. Public opinion has been curried in their favor, and I am sure this will not warp the majesty and judgment of the law, for my confession is mainly about Jettero Heller, not me.
It was not because he had a reputation as an athlete nor because he had friends that the Fleet had chosen him for the original trip. Such selections are done almost at random.
So he had been picked, more or less routinely, to undertake a casual scout, a thing rarely considered important in itself.
As Your Lordship may or may not know, the Royal Space Services, in line with long-stated government policy, keeps an eye on neighboring inhabited systems. They send out scouting ships and, without causing any awareness or incidents amongst neighbors—Gods forbid!—keep tabs on things. By sampling the atmosphere of an inhabited planet they can make a fair estimate of its condition and activities and, by very long-range photographs, they can verify suspicions. It could come under the heading of a sensible precaution.
A “combat engineer,” according to the definitions in the Texts of the Royal Services, is:
One who assists and prepares the way for any and all contacts, peaceful or warlike, and serves his respective service in engineering and combat-related scientific matters.
They make battle and weapon estimates, survey possible forward positions and even fight. So there was nothing strange in ordering Jettero Heller to take command of a vessel and update a scene.
There was also nothing unusual at all in the scouting orders he received: they were routine, even in printed form, issued by the Patrol Section of the Fourteenth Fleet, signed for their admiral by a clerk; in other words, it wasn’t even important enough to come to the admiral’s attention.
There is a system nearby that has an inhabited planet known locally there as Earth which has been receiving scouting attention for many, many centuries. That too has been considered routine: so much so, in fact, that even space cadets are sometimes sent there as a training exercise; they do not land, of course, for that would alarm and alert the inhabitants and there is even a regulation in The Book of Space Codes—Number a-36-544 M Section B—which states:
And no officer or crewmember shall, in any way, make himself known to any inhabited planet population or member thereof before such planet is announced as an acquisition target; further, that should such landing take place accidentally or such contact be otherwise made, all witnesses to the circumstance shall be nullified; violations shall be punished with the severest penalties; exceptions to this regulation may be expressly ordered by the heads of Royal Divisions but in no case shall any such population be made aware prematurely of the existence or intent of the Confederation.
But I am sure Your Lordship is aware that no court cases have ever arisen around this regulation, so easily is it obeyed: if detected, one simply blows the place up in such a way that it appears to have been a natural catastrophe. There has never been any trouble with this.
Jettero Heller’s scout of Earth was ordered and conducted in a highly routine fashion. Later, interviewing the small crew who were part of that scout—some of whom may still be prisoners—I ascertained that they had spent most of the fifteen-week voyage playing
gambling games and singing ballads. Combat engineers have no reputation for running disciplined crews or getting electrode polish applied.
It is obvious that all they did was go to Earth’s outer atmosphere, sample it, take some readings and long-range photographs and return, a thing which had been done hundreds, perhaps thousands of times.
Jettero Heller landed back at Patrol Base and turned in his records and reports.
Routinely, a copy of such reports also goes to the Coordinated Information Apparatus; the original, of course, pursuing its leisurely way up the extensive chain of command to Fleet.
But this time, and for the first time, and to my eternal despair, this routine was broken. One report. One single, stupid, errant scouting report of a single, stupid planet and I end up in prison confessing my crimes.
Of course, it didn’t all happen that quickly or that simply. What did happen is the horrifying tale of MISSION EARTH.