Publicity Stunt

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Other Worlds March 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

The orders were to build up Venus, make it sound like the gateway to Paradise for the average Earthman--fog-flies, flying snakes and "tame" Venusians included.

"Just go right ahead and start chewing on me!" Molock briskly invited the Venusian, Shad Brisbee. "When you get a square meal, I'll get a lunch!"

Rita Morgan didn't turn a hair at the challenge but I thought Captain Wilkerson, who was officially in charge of us, was going to faint. "No, no, NO!" Wilkerson screamed. "Molock, you're getting us all into trouble. You're--"

"Sheddap!" Molock said to Wilkerson. He turned again to the Venusian, Shad Brisbee. "You heard what I said. If you want to try to start carving on me with one of those frog stickers you've got stuck in your belt, hop right to it. But remember, by Harry, while you're doing your carving, I'm going to be doing a little light whittling myself."

Except for the needle pistol in his pocket, Molock was unarmed. Lifting hands as big as hams, he looked Shad Brisbee square in all of the Venusian's eyes that happened to be turned toward him at the moment. Molock had the full attention of all six of those eyes. The expression on Shad Brisbee's face indicated that if he had had six more eyes, he would have been concentrating all of them on the antics of this mad human.

Shad Brisbee was seven feet tall, he must have weighed close to 300 pounds. Molock's six feet, 185 pound frame was a pygmy beside the Venusian. Shad Brisbee fingered the knives in his belt as if he was considering accepting Molock's invitation, then suddenly spread his hands. Protesting sound bellowed out of him.

"But you 'ave landed right in the middle of our dancing ground!"

"Then by Harry! dance somewhere else!" Molock shouted.

I thought at first that Shad Brisbee was going to explode. He puffed himself up until he looked to be eight feet tall. Indignation turned him green. Each of his six eyes turned yellow and he glared at Molock out of all of them.

"Molock, his dancing ground is sacred!" Wilkerson croaked.

"And to me, staying alive is sacred," Molock answered. "Which is the sacredest, my staying alive or his dancing ground?"

"But the way you're acting now, you're going to get us all killed!" Wilkerson screamed.

"Am I?" Molock answered. "Watch this!" He turned again to Shad Brisbee. "Listen, you six-eyed baboon. We landed in the middle of your dancing ground by accident but we're going to stay right where we are as long as we damn well please. Get it? We're going to stay here as long as we damn well please. And neither you nor any other of your six-eyed tribe is going to do anything about it."

I was holding my breath. Wilkerson looked as if he was about to faint. Only Rita seemed to be enjoying this scene. Perhaps she had illusions that two brawny giants were battling for her, which was a big mistake on her part. Shad Brisbee wouldn't have had her, or any other human woman, in his harem as a gift. If she was inspiring Molock to put on his act, then maybe he was battling for her sake. I had the impression that if Wilkerson had thought that she was inspiring Molock to this act, the captain would have drowned her in the nearest mudhole, publicity department or no publicity department. And I would have helped him.

Shad Brisbee puffed himself up until he looked as if he weighed 400 pounds. He fingered his knives in his belt, shifted his weight on his bare splayed feet. He extended two of his eyes and looked backward at the jungle behind him as if he was desperately hoping that some of his tribe would turn up to help him dispose of this brash human. The other four eyes continued to glare at Molock.

"There's none of your tribe around to help you," Molock stated, waving his fists. "It's just you and me."

Shad Brisbee shifted uncomfortably. He didn't know quite what to make of us. We were humans. Since he was a "tame" Venusian, he knew quite a lot about humans. We had landed right in the middle of the huge cleared space that his tribe used as a dancing ground. This in itself was sufficient reason for him to destroy us utterly. Each of his six eyes revealed quite clearly that he longed to destroy us and that only Molock was keeping him from doing it.

"Well?" Molock said, waving his fists. "If you're ready to start getting that square meal, I'm ready to start eating my lunch."

Shad Brisbee took a deep breath. Somewhere inside of him he made up his mind.

"It is all right for you to land on our dancing ground," he said. The way he spoke, the words hurt him.

Wilkerson, Rita, Molock, and I all beamed.

"But you must be gone in one zonar!" Shad Brisbee snarled. "Or I will tear you all to pieces with my own bare hands." Saying these words didn't hurt him. He enjoyed every one of them. Judging from the way his hands worked as he spoke, he would enjoy even more translating his words into action. "Be gone in one zonar--or else!" Turning, he stalked into the jungle.

I quit breathing again. The smile went from Wilkerson's face. Rita looked a little perturbed. Only Molock was unconcerned even though he knew that a zonar was less than an hour and he wouldn't be gone from this place in two weeks, and then only if we were lucky.

"Did you see me out-bluff him?" Molock said, grinning. "Did you see me run a sandy on that six-eyed idiot?"

"You were marvelous, simply marvelous," Rita murmured.

"Oh, hell!" Wilkerson shouted. If there had been a stone wall handy for him to butt his head against, I'm sure he would have felt much better. "Yaas, you bluffed him. You bluffed him so goddamned good that we'll all be dead before we get out of this place. Remember, this is his country, this is his tribal dancing ground--"

"Captain, I'm sure you are taking much too negative a view," Rita interrupted.

Since she was a woman, Wilkerson couldn't slug her. But woman or not, he looked as if he was about to do it.

"I'm not taking nearly as negative a view as Shad Brisbee will take when he comes back and wants his dancing ground," Wilkerson said, bitterly.

For a moment, Molock looked worried.

"You were yelling for a light lunch," Wilkerson said. "You may find you have bitten off more than you can chew. Now I'm going into that ship and get headquarters on the radio and see if I can get some help out here in time to save our necks. In the meantime, by thunder, you get ready to take care of Shad Brisbee."

Turning, Wilkerson stalked toward the ship. Indignation bristled in every step he took. We followed him with reluctance.

Beneath my breath I cursed Trans-Space, Inc., its publicity department, and George Cooper. Cooper was head of the publicity department. It was his brilliant idea that had landed us here in the middle of Venus, where Shad Brisbee was giving us one zonar to get off of his dancing ground--or else.

Of course, you know that Trans-Space, Inc., has a monopoly on carrying passengers and freight to and from Venus, but what you probably don't know is that from the financial end, things have been a little tough for the company. Now don't go getting your sympathy aroused about this poor suffering corporation being down to its last billion credits. Let Trans-Space sympathize with itself, it's quite capable of doing the job very competently. It is also capable of hiring boys like George Cooper to help it sympathize with itself. Cooper had dreamed up the idea that the way to help the financial situation was to encourage human colonizing on Venus. If they could get several thriving human colonies settled on the Veiled Planet, the line would not only pick up revenue from transporting the colonists to Venus but it would also pick up some profitable freight business. In the long run, they foresaw a very happy increase in traffic.

One joker they ran into right from the start was that nobody but a damned fool wanted to go to Venus and argue with six-eyed apes like Shad Brisbee over the rights to their dancing grounds. Also, nobody wanted to put up with the fog flies and the flying snakes and the what-nots.

Cooper knew how to change all that. "We'll make films, write books, publish pamphlets--all of them emphasizing the good points of Venus. We'll make this planet look and sound like a seed catalogue. We'll soon have thousands, maybe millions of people, coming here. Build Venus up. Make people see Venus maybe not quite as good as heaven but at least as wonderful as Eden!"

This was where Wilkerson and Molock and Rita Morgan and yours truly, Sam Crane got into the act. Rita, who was the apple of Cooper's eye, got the assignment of taking the three dimensional movies in full color and full sound that would make Venus attractive. Of course, on the sound side we had Cooper's permission to dub out the screams of any Venusian getting swallowed by a forty-foot boa constrictor. Wilkerson, Molock, and I were included to fly the ship and help Rita.

In other words, it was our job to dig up the raw material that the publicity department could use to sell a bill of goods to suckers back on Earth who could be flim-flammed into making the big hop to Venus.

In getting these pictures of Eden in the Sky, we had hunted up the tamest of all tame Venusians, Shad Brisbee. We knew him, he knew us. To my mind, the fact that he knew us was not to our advantage. In some ways, I would have preferred taking our pictures among some of the wilder tribes, who didn't know us. But Know-All George Cooper had decided that the tame Shad Brisbee was just the lad for us. He had loaded the ship with trade goods and had told us where to go. All of this might have worked out fine, if we had not damaged the drive and had to make a forced landing right in the middle of Shad Brisbee's tribal dancing ground.