A Martian has worshipped a Terrestrial! The Martian race, believing they have worshipped a god too great to give attention to the lesser races, will know that they have worshipped, not a god at all, but a man from Earth, one of the despised, money-grabbing, business-like men of the third planet.
When that is done I shall hurry to keep my last earthly appointment. The appointment will be with Dr. Barston in the vault that is chiseled from the living stone. Weeks ago I placed in his hands complete directions, given me by Tarsus-Egbo, for the process of transferring a human brain to one of the cylinders. One of the cylinders, especially constructed under directions and specifications also given me by the Martian, now rests in the vault.
There, in the vault, I shall lie down on an operating table and Dr. Barston will take my brain from its cavity and place it in the cylinder and when he leaves, with a jewel chest under his arm, there will be three cylinders, all standing in a row…waiting for what?
He will close the door of stone behind him and the automatic bolts will shoot home. The three of us, Kenneth Smith, Tarsus-Egbo, and myself, will remain behind, awaiting our fate.
Perhaps, in millions of years, men wonderfully advanced in science, will find us and mayhaps they will know how to release us from the cylinders and give us bodies again. Perhaps men will never come and we will remain forever in the deep sleep of seeming death. Perhaps we will never be aroused from that sleep, perhaps no one will ever attach the machine to our cylinders. If anyone of intelligence gains entrance to our vault, he will find there, imprinted on metal pages, definite information which should be easy for him to follow.
Life holds no more for me. I might as well be dead. It is Ken’s idea, however, and I am going through with it. It was my suggestion that I destroy his cylinder and kill myself when vengeance was accomplished, but he suggested this other way, and it may be the better way.
Only a few minutes remain. I must soon start for the broadcasting station. Then I must hurry to keep my appointment with Dr. Barston.
My last thought shall be, I know, whether or not I will ever live again, or if, when I go under the anaesthetic, my days are ended. It matters little either way. My vengeance will then have been complete.
When the knife cuts into my skull, all the universe will be listening to my final words, and the name of Kell-Rabin will be bandied about in laughter from world to world.
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By Amalgamated Press
Ventnor, Calif., October 5th—As the new gigantic interplanetarian station IXXB went on the air tonight for the first time, the whole universe held its breath for what its new and generous owner, Mr. Robert Humphrey would have to say. Much mystery had surrounded the building of this station and untold wealth had been poured into it, yet no one seems to have the confidence of the silent Humphrey who intimated that the mystery would be speedily ended with the first broadcast.
Mr. Humphrey had spent much time in arranging his inauguration address, and instead of facing the microphone himself, he had preferred to make a record of his voice and it is understood that a number of these had been made as he was not satisfied with the first one. He intended to have the first broadcast letter-perfect, and it was personally “edited” by him a number of time to make it 100% perfect.
The station, as is well known, was to go on the air last night at 8 o’clock sharp, and the populace of not only our own earth but all the other planets were at a fever pitch to hear this first broadcast. The reason of course, was that Mr. Humphrey had spent millions in the week before the broadcast was to come off in newspapers, radio broadcasting on other stations, and, as a matter of fact, he used every means of publicity he could to draw attention to the first broadcast of his station. Sensational copy was used in all his advertising to make sure that everybody would listen. Such sentences as “The Greatest Dramatic Story Ever Told in the Universe,” “Revelations That Will Set the Universe Agog,” had caused heated speculation as to what the first broadcast would be.
A few minutes before 8 o’clock, when the memorable event was to come off, a heavy thunderstorm was at its height near this city, and at exactly five seconds before 8, a lightning bolt struck the studio of the immense station. The listeners heard the announcer introduce Mr. Humphrey whose voice from the record had just gone on the air, with the words, “Ladies and Gentlemen, I am about to make the most dramatic revelation of the ages…” This terminated the broadcast because when the lightning struck it set fire to the studio, and inasmuch as the announcer and the two control men at the studio had been stunned, the fire immediately gained some headway and the record was destroyed in the ensuing blaze.
There was no duplicate record, but strangest of all, Bob Humphrey was not in the building, and he is strangely missing. The mystery has now deepened, as for sixteen hours no word has been had from Humphrey. It is certain that if he had been near the scene, he would have been able, in person, to make his announced broadcast or supply another record. The fire was not so extensive, and the main radio generating plant was not damaged excepting the studio, and the station could have gone on the air within three hours after the fire. Yet, there is no word from Humphrey. His station staff hint that he bid them good-bye in the afternoon telling them that “they might have to get new positions after tomorrow.” Foul play is feared.
Retrograde Evolution
This story was named “The Googles Are a Funny Race” when Clifford D. Simak sent it to Sam Moskowitz in November 1952. The following April, Cliff was paid $270 for it, at about the same time that the story, having been renamed, was published in the second issue of Hugo Gernsback’s doomed magazine, Science Fiction Plus.
Gernsback, perhaps abusing his status as one of the founding fathers of magazine science fiction, included in that same issue a long editorial in which he excoriated “pseudo science-fiction,” by which he meant stories, represented as science fiction, that were based on “science” that was not possible—an attitude that would, a few months later, lead him to take unusual liberties with a different Simak story, “Target Generation” (you can find that story in volume seven of this series, which is entitled A Death in the House and Other Stories).
But for the purpose of publishing “Retrograde Evolution,” Gernsback made a number of changes to Cliff’s story—including one that likely amuses the modern reader: he changed the name of the alien race featured in the story, “Googles,” to “Kzyzz”—a name, he explained in a dreadful footnote purportedly written by the author of the story, which was given them because of the “strange sibilant sound” they made while eating. I do not believe for an instant that the change was Cliff’s idea, and I will always wonder what his reaction was to Gernsback’s alterations—the situation, after all, was complicated, since it was Gernsback who had published the very first piece of Cliff’s fiction to appear before the public, more than two decades earlier … In any case, along with deleting the footnote, I’ve reversed that change, and several others, for this publication.