Anyway I was just jawing at Flapjack; I was gettin’ just about ready for a trip to town myself, and maybe that’s why I was takin’ it out on him. I like a trip to town just as well as Flapjack does, only I ain’t there no length of time before I get fed up with all the noise and the folks and the buildings and sleeping in beds and I just got to get out and head for the hills again. That’s the only thing me and Flapjack really differ on; he’d rather stay longer.
I was makin’ supper half an hour later and Flapjack probably thought I didn’t see him go into the tent. He was scoutin’ around for something to steal. Flapjack’s the stealingest burro I ever did see. If he thinks it’s something I want, he’ll steal it quicker’n you can say «Holy hominy,» even if he don’t like it or want it himself. I recollect the time I was gettin’ tired of the way he’d swipe pancakes in the morning, so I cooked up a batch with lots of red pepper in them. You think: he’d let out a peep? Not Flapjack. He was so happy about getting away with swiping my pancakes that he didn’t care how awful they tasted.
Flapjack’s a caution, Flapjack is. But I started out to tell you about the Martians. Maybe I better.
It was coming on morning; let’s see now, just to be accurate—like, it must’ve been August 6 or maybe August 7, sometimes you lose track in the desert.
Anyway, I opened my eyes when I heard Flapjack bray, real indignant-like. I knew something was up; Flapjack doesn’t use that tone of bray unless. I stuck my head out of the tent just in time to see this here—well, balloon was what I thought it was at first—balloon on fire. Fire was shootin’ out from beneath it like crazy. I expected a big explosion any minute.
But it didn’t explode. The balloon settled down no more than maybe fifty feet away, and the flames died out.
«Holy hominy,» I said to myself and to Flapjack, «it must’ve blowed all the way from some fair somewheres.»
I crawled the rest of the way out of the tent, figurin’ on gettin’ over to where that thing had come down to investigate-like. I didn’t expect no folks to be there cause there wasn’t no basket slung underneath. And if there had been, both the basket and the folks in it would’ve been fried to a crisp, the way that thing had been spouting fire as it came down.
I’d plumb forgot about Flapjack. You can’t blame him for feeling kind of skittish, but instead of runnin’ away he’d backed up toward the tent. And when he heard me movin’ behind him, he let go with his hind hoofs real quick. I don’t think he done it on purpose.
But that’s all I remembered for a while.
When I woke up again, it was good and light. I must’ve been out at least an hour, could have been two. I put my hand up to my head and groaned and then, sudden, I remembered that balloon. I staggered up to my feet and looked over at it.
That balloon wasn’t no balloon. I seen one balloon back in Missouri at a fair and I seen pictures of other ones, and this thing, whatever it was, wasn’t no balloon. I’ll guarantee you that.
Besides, whoever heard of anybody being inside a balloon? Maybe I shouldn’t say anybody, I should say anything, on account of the critters that was dartin’ in and out of a door in the side of that thing sure wasn’t ordinary folks. First thing that come to my mind was maybe it was something from a circus; they have the damnedest freaks and animals—and contraptions, too—at a circus. Only I couldn’t decide whether these things was freaks or animals. They was somewhere in between.
Anyhow, these critters was dartin’ in and out of the big ball that I’d taken for a balloon, sometimes on their back legs, sometimes on all fours. On two legs, they was about four feet high, and on four they was only knee-high to a heifer, on account of their legs—and arms, if their front legs was arms—was so short. They was carryin’ all sorts of funny devices which they was settin’ up on the desert just about halfway between me and that ball-contraption they went in and out of. And three of ’em swarmed around puttin’ together what the others brought ’em.
Then I noticed Flapjack. He was standin’ right near ’em and didn’t look afraid at all. Just curious, like any burro is.
Well, I got up my courage and meandered over that way and took a look at the thing they was workin’ on, but I couldn’t make nothing of it. I said, «Hullo,» and they didn’t answer me and didn’t pay no more attention to me than if I was a prairie dog.
So I went around ’em, keepin’ my distance, and went up to the side of this ball and reached up and touched it. Holy hominy! It was made out of metal as smooth and hard as the barrel of a Colt and it was as big as a two-story house.
One of the funny-lookin’ little critters came along and shooed me away, kinda waving a thing in his hand that looked something like a flashlight. I had a sneaking suspicion that it wasn’t no flashlight and I wasn’t too curious, just then, to find out what would happen if he did more than wave it at me, so I got. I went back about twenty feet or so and watched.
Pretty soon they seemed to have finished putting together whatever it was they’d been working on. Flapjack was standing only a few feet away from it by now, and I started to wander up closer but one of ’em waved a flashlight at me again and I got back.
Two of ’em stood there on their hind legs pullin’ levers and twistin’ knobs. There was a kind of loud-speaker on top of it, like you used to see on old-fashioned phonographs. Suddenly the loud-speaker said: «It should be correctly adjusted now, Mandu.»
You could have knocked me down with a pebble. Here were these things looking like they’d escaped from a zoo and they had a talking machine of some kind or other. I sat down on a rock and stared at the loud-speaker.
«It would seem so,» the loud-speaker said. «Now if this terrestrial has the type of mentality that we have deduced, we should be able to communicate.»
All of the critters walked away from the device except one and he looked direct at Flapjack and said, «Greetings.»
«Greetings, yourself,» I said. «Flapjack’s a burro, so how’s about talking to me?»
«Will one of you,» said the loud-speaker, «please attempt to stop that domesticated creature over there from making his fantastic noises?»
Flapjack hadn’t been makin’ any noise that I could hear. But a flashlight got waved at me so I shut up to see what’d happen.
«I assume,» said the loud-speaker, «that you are the dominant intelligence of this planet. Greetings from the inhabitants of Mars.»
A funny thing about that there loud-speaker; something makes me remember every dang word it said, just like it said ’em, even when I still don’t rightly know what all the fancier words mean.
While I was tryin’ to figure the answer to what they’d said, danged if Flapjack didn’t beat me to the draw. He opened his mouth, showed his teeth and brayed real hearty.
«Thank you,» said the loud-speaker. «And in answer to your question, this is a sonic telepathor, It, in a manner of thinking, broadcasts my thoughts and they are reproduced in the mind of the listener in the language which he speaks and understands. The sounds you seem to hear are not the exact sounds that come from the speaker; it emits an abstract sound pattern which your subconscious, with the aid of the carrier wave, hears as expression in your own language. It is not selective, many creatures speaking many tongues would all understand what I am thinking. Our adjustment consisted in tuning the receiver part, which is selective, to the particular pattern of your individual intelligence.»
«You’re crazy,» I yelled. «Why don’t you fix that danged thing so it can understand what I say?»
«Please keep that animal quiet, Yagarl,» said the loud-speaker. Flapjack looked at me over his shoulder reproachfully. That didn’t worry me. But one of the critters with flashlights waved it at me again and that did. And anyway the speaker was blaring again and I wanted to hear what it said so I listened.