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SOLAR STIFF
By
CHAS. A. STOPHER
_Totem poles are a dime a dozen north of 63 deg. ... but only Ketch, the lying Eskimo, vowed they dropped out of frigid northern skies._
Probos Five gazed at the white expanse ahead, trying to determine wherehis ship would crash. Something was haywire in the fuel system of hisInterstar Runabout. He was losing altitude fast, so fast that all fivepairs of his eyes couldn't focus on a place to land.
Five pairs of arms, each pair about three feet apart on the loglikebody, pushed buttons and rotated controls frantically, but to no avail.In a few short minutes it would all be over for Probos Five. Even if bysome miracle he remained unhurt after crashing, he would die shortlythereafter. The frigid climatic conditions of the third planet weredeadly to a Mercurian. He thought once of donning his space suit butdecided against it. That would merely prolong the agony. From PlanetThree, when one has a smashed space cruiser, there is no return. ProbosFive knew that death was riding with him in the helpless ship. Thesituation did not unnecessarily dismay him; Mercurians are philosophers.
Probos Five ceased to manipulate the unresponding controls. Stretchinghis trunklike torso to its full twenty feet, four heads gazed throughobservation ports at the four points of the compass while the remaininghead desultorily watched the instrument panel.
Since die he must, Probos Five would meet his end stoically, and fivepairs of stumpy arms folded over five chests in a coordinated gesture ofresignation.
Probos Five thought fleetingly of his wife Lingua Four and rememberedwith some annoyance that she was the author of his present predicament.A social climber, Probos Five thought to himself, but aside from that agood wife and mother in addition to being a reigning beauty. Lingua Fourwas tall even for a Mercurian. Already she scaled seven dergs, or inEarth terms, fourteen feet and was beginning to show evidences of afifth head. Five heads were rarely found on females and Probos Five wasjustly proud of his good fortune. In all Mercury at the present time, heknew of but two females possessing five heads and soon Lingua Four wouldbe the third of her sex to be thus endowed.
Yes, thought Probos Five, a woman to be proud of; for today after threevargs of marriage the memory of her trim trunk with four pairs of eyeslaughing mischievously, filled his five brains with flame. Slim as abirch she stood in his memory, and eight eyes whispered lovers' thoughtsacross space and time.
Probos Five recalled his five minds from their nostalgic reverie andgazed at the contour of the Earth that was rushing up to meet him.White, blazing white reflecting the rays of the midnight sun covered theregion as far as the eye could reach.
"Good," thought Probos Five, "the Polar regions. That means the end willcome quickly. One or two seconds at the most of that bitter cold wouldbe enough."
* * * * *
Turning away from the windows Probos Five let his thoughts return toLingua Four, to Probos Two, his son, and his home on the first planetfrom the sun. Ah, that is the place to live, thought Probos, thetemperature an unchanging 327 deg.; just comfortably warm, where one couldenjoy a life of warmth and ease. Too bad that he would not live to seeit again. Thirty vargs, he reflected, is such a short time. With luck,perhaps he may have lived to see a hundred vargs slip by. And perhaps intime he may have added three more heads and five dergs in length to histowering trunk.
He thought of Probos Two and wondered idly if his son would also visitthe barbarian worlds to collect data for Lingua Four.
He wished that he could have seen more of Probos Two. There's anup-and-coming lad, he thought, not quite two vargs old and two headsalready. Yes, indeed, he's quite a boy, Probos Five remembered proudly;maybe his mother will keep him at home instead of running him all overthe universe to get material for her committees.
He wished that Lingua Four would settle down and be content as ahousewife, but he doubted that she would. Social ambition was boringlike a termite under her bark.
Lingua Four was determined to be the first lady of Arbor, the capitalcity of Mercury. To this end Lingua Four had labored unceasingly. Shewas president of half the women's clubs of Arbor. She could always bedepended upon to furnish the best in new and diverting subjects.
She headed almost all committees for aid or research on any type ofproblem. It was owing to Lingua Four being president of the Committeefor Undernourished Arborians that Probos Five was making thisill-starred trip. His purpose was to capture a few of the upright,divided trunk animals that inhabited the third planet.
They were to be transported to Mercury and given over to scientificstudy as to their edible qualities. If it were found that the dividedtrunk creatures were fit for Mercurian consumption, the problem ofundernourishment would no longer exist since the supply of dividedtrunks was seemingly inexhaustible. Mercurians had made expeditions tothe third planet before and every report concluded with--"Divided trunkcreatures increasing in number."
Privately Probos Five doubted the possibility of using the dividedtrunks for food, since the last expedition once again reported acomplete lack of captives due to the frail and tenuous bodies of thedivided trunks. Then, too, transportation and preservation posed atremendous problem, not to mention the difficulty of trying to eatsomething that might vaporize on your fork. But then these questions maynever arise, he decided, for of all the reports perused by Probos Fivenot one expedition had succeeded in bringing a divided trunk to Mercury.
All reports were read to the last letter by Probos Five beforeassembling equipment for his own trip. In the reports he had noted manyof the difficulties of the earlier missions. Planet Three was impossiblefor a Mercurian without a heated space suit. The temperature of PlanetThree was so low that it would literally freeze a Mercurian stiff in amatter of seconds.
The casualties of the early expeditions had been numerous. ManyMercurians had succumbed to the bitter cold due to flaws in space suitsand other accidents. A break in the suit meant instant death. Thevictims of such mishaps were invariably buried in the isolated, sparselyinhabited Polar regions to avoid alarming the divided trunk creatures.
It was strange, mused Probos Five, that the divided trunks wereseemingly unable to bear the slightest increase in temperature. Theirbodies disintegrated upon contact with a Mercurian. Some were roped anddragged from a distance up to the doors of the space ships, but noinhabitant of Planet Three had been closer to Mercury than the air lockof the space cruisers. As the divided trunk people were dragged into theair lock, warm air from the ship would be pumped into the lock to dispelthe frigid air of Planet Three. As the warmth of Mercury enveloped thedivided trunks they became quite red, began to melt and finallydissolved into a gaseous state, leaving a small pile of ashes and adisagreeable odor in the air lock that sometimes lingered for days.
Probos Five believed he had the solution for these obstacles in the pathof scientific study of the divided trunks. He had decided to use guilein place of strength. For this reason he had come alone and in a smallspace runabout to put his solution to the test. But his solution nowcould never be tried, he remembered morosely.
* * * * *
In the aft compartment Probos Five had constructed a refrigerationplant. By maintaining a constant degree of frigidity he hoped to delivera pair of each species of divided trunks to Mercury. He hoped especiallyto capture a complete set and perhaps a few over to make up for breakageand losses. As to what form of sustenance the divided trunks wereaccustomed to, he had no idea whatsoever. He had intended to bringsamples of earth, vegetation and anything else that may have suggested asource of food for the divided trunks.
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The thought too had occurred to him that possibly the divided trunkcreatures ate one another. On the possibility of this Probos Five haddetermined to capture three black ones, three white ones, three yellows,three browns and three reds, and three of any other color that he mightfind. He rather doubted that more colors or combination of colorsexisted. All previous expedition reports had mentioned only the fivecolors. However, Probos Five had determined to keep several eyes open onthe off chance that he might find a new and different species.
His refrigerator was modeled along the architectural lines of the densof the divided trunks. The main room of the refrigerator opened to theoutside of the ship by means of a small air lock. A Mercurian size airlock was not needed for the divided trunks, as few had been found to bemuch over three dergs in height.
Winches and cables to pull the divided trunks into the refrigerator wereinstalled in the refrigerator room itself to avoid burning the dividedtrunks with hot cables from other parts of the ship.
In addition, Probos Five had cunningly devised a refrigerated trap. Thistoo was designed to simulate the caves of the divided trunk creaturesbut was smaller. It was constructed with entrances readily seen andexits well hidden. Probos Five had expected great things of his trap. Hehad conceived the idea after reading the report of a Mercurianexpedition that explored the dens of the divided trunks at some placemarked "Coney Island." According to the reports the divided trunksshowed no hesitancy in entering these types of dens. In fact, the writerof the report gave it as his opinion that the divided ones perhapsplayed games in these types of caves. It also mentioned that some of thedens were equipped with flat shiny surfaces that cast reflections orimages. Probos Five had incorporated the image-making surfaces into histrap design. A pity that all this effort must be wasted, thought Probosas he once more turned to the observation ports to check his remainingdistance from the planet's surface. Seeing that his time was short,Probos Five turned all five faces forward in the Mercurian gesture ofdisdain for death. A moment later came the shock.
* * * * *
A week later the proprietor of a novelty shop in Fairbanks watched twonatives with their dog team pulling something loglike through the snowtoward the trading post. Turning to a customer he remarked,
"Here comes Ketch and Ah Koo dragging in another Totem Pole. Guess thatKetch must be the biggest liar ever produced by the Eskimos. He tried totell me that Totem Poles fall from the sky. Says he can always find oneif he sees it fall because it's so hot it melts the snow around it.Personally I think he should be elected president of the Liars' Club,but I'll buy the Totem Pole anyway. Those pesky tourists always whittlea chunk out of my Totem Pole for a souvenir.
"I'm glad he's bringing me another one," the storekeeper concluded, "theone he sold me last year is about whittled away."
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from _Planet Stories_ January 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.