TRUE! --spacy --very, very dreadfully spacy I had been and am; but why will you say that I am spaced OUT? The helmet had sharpened my senses --not destroyed --not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth, thanks to that clear, porcelean bubble of Earth .... Yes! I heard many things - things never heard - even in the interplanetaries. It was no doubt the gasses, then, NOT the helmet, that moved me, as you will hear ...How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how stealthily --how calmly I can tell you the whole story.
From the moment our respective worlds had awarded us the study grants to explore that strange, cometlike asteroid, the alien had never given me insult. As we spent more and more time together OUTSIDE the base, however (and as my helmet adjusted its gasses to match my perturbations), I began to suspect something seriously amiss in our relationship.
For his vaguely avian feet and claws I felt no revulsion, no dread ....
I think it was its eyes! yes, it was these! He had the eyes of an ancient, 1950's automobile ( ... and were they in very deed asymmetrical? I leave THAT for you to judge...) -- pale golden polythene-filmed eyes. As a long-extinct gecko's, each orb was individually operated, as it were, from SOMEWHERE inside that benign being's skull (that skull! tipped with that pointed, Krellian steel cockscomb ...!).
The ultimate insult, I decided, was that the eyes were each "equipped" with a nacelle ... was The Creator mocking me? Wasn't it bad ENOUGH that my beloved/beknighted HELMET resembled an ancient, analog radio tube from the very same, anteNASAlian ERA??
Whenever one of those hideous eyes fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by sub-celsian degrees --very gradually --I made up my mind to take the life of the alien, and thus rid myself of the eyes forever ...
Now this is the point. You fancy me spaced OUT, you Earthmen - breathing free atmospheres - you know nothing. have you heard the gasses' mingling within the clear confines of a HELMET?
But you should have seen me. You should have HEARD me - (as by now you must know *I* heard) how wisely I proceeded --with what scientific method --with what fiendish foresight --with what perfect actor's skill I went to work!
I was never kinder to the alien than during the whole week before I killed it. Phase by interminable phase, I would 'willingly' forsake my own important experiments to accompany it as it puttered about, hideous eyes akimbo. We would tiptoe, as it were, across the rugged, ragged landscape of that forlorn rock as two young Jovian deer might gambol in a primeaval, Holographic synth. The doomed thing seemed to welcome my company, helmeted though I was, our primitive communications by hand signal or mathematicks serving to distract it somewhat..
Upon the eighth Phase I was more than usually cautious in accompanying it; for you see, during each previous phase I had begun subtly dropping behind the glare of those ambidextroid headlights (pardon the ancient Earthian allusion!): those awful orbs. You see, upon the sixth Phase I had begun carrying my butcher knife, er, SAMPLE/SPECIMEN EXTRACTOR - - in its sheath, of course, so as not to arouse whatever might pass for SUSPICION in the hapless monster's mind ...
I call to mind the moments prior to the Doing of the Deed:
A Martian fly in a Klein bottle moves more quickly than did my knife hand. Never before that Phase had I felt the extent of my own powers --of my Selenite sagacity. I could scarcely contain my feelings of triumph. To think that there I was, dropping behind it, little by little, Phase by interminable Phase, and it? not even to dream (?) of the deeds or thoughts floating in my HELMET. I fairly chuckled at the idea; and perhaps it heard me; for it slowed, one eye rotated , as if startled.
Now you may think that I drew back --but no. The eternal sky was, as always, as black as ink with thick darkness (If you MUST know, we two were light years from any 'natural' light source - any so-called 'civilization' whatever, for that matter.). Too, having secretly discerned the extent of its vision (O! clever ploys! O! practical jokes!) I knew that the thing could not now see the stretching out of my LEFT hand, and I kept drawing my sharp sharp Krellian steel blade - steadily, steadily ... from its ceramic sheath ...
The beast seemed now to freeze in its tracks. I tell you it did NOT turn around; you MUST believe me! I kept quite still and said nothing. For a whole half Phase, it seemed, neither of us moved a muscle, and in the meantime I did not hear those eyes revert. The eyes, on the other hand, were roving, were straining to see what, owing to the position in which I poised and for which I I had so carefully trained, they COULD NOT SEE!
Presently my helmet picked up a new sound. It's like
the groan of mortal terror. It's not terrestrial,
this groan of pain or of grief --oh, no! --its the low, stifled sound that arises from the bottom of a *soul* when overcharged with awe. You know that
sound well. Many a night, as A YOU must know,
at Zero
Dark Thirty,
when all your world sleeps,
it has welled up from your
own bosom, deepening, with its dreadful echo, the terrors that distract you ...
But you should have seen me. You should have HEARD me - (as by now you must know *I* heard) how wisely I proceeded --with what scientific method --with what fiendish foresight --with what perfect actor's skill I went to work!
I was never kinder to the alien than during the whole week before I killed it. Phase by interminable phase, I would 'willingly' forsake my own important experiments to accompany it as it puttered about, hideous eyes akimbo. We would tiptoe, as it were, across the rugged, ragged landscape of that forlorn rock as two young Jovian deer might gambol in a primeaval, Holographic synth. The doomed thing seemed to welcome my company, helmeted though I was, our primitive communications by hand signal or mathematicks serving to distract it somewhat..
Upon the eighth Phase I was more than usually cautious in accompanying it; for you see, during each previous phase I had begun subtly dropping behind the glare of those ambidextroid headlights (pardon the ancient Earthian allusion!): those awful orbs. You see, upon the sixth Phase I had begun carrying my butcher knife, er, SAMPLE/SPECIMEN EXTRACTOR - - in its sheath, of course, so as not to arouse whatever might pass for SUSPICION in the hapless monster's mind ...
I call to mind the moments prior to the Doing of the Deed:
A Martian fly in a Klein bottle moves more quickly than did my knife hand. Never before that Phase had I felt the extent of my own powers --of my Selenite sagacity. I could scarcely contain my feelings of triumph. To think that there I was, dropping behind it, little by little, Phase by interminable Phase, and it? not even to dream (?) of the deeds or thoughts floating in my HELMET. I fairly chuckled at the idea; and perhaps it heard me; for it slowed, one eye rotated , as if startled.
The beast seemed now to freeze in its tracks. I tell you it did NOT turn around; you MUST believe me! I kept quite still and said nothing. For a whole half Phase, it seemed, neither of us moved a muscle, and in the meantime I did not hear those eyes revert. The eyes, on the other hand, were roving, were straining to see what, owing to the position in which I poised and for which I I had so carefully trained, they COULD NOT SEE!
the groan of mortal terror. It's not terrestrial,
this groan of pain or of grief --oh, no! --its the low, stifled sound that arises from the bottom of a *soul* when overcharged with awe. You know that
sound well. Many a night, as A YOU must know,
at Zero
Dark Thirty,
when all your world sleeps,
it has welled up from your
own bosom, deepening, with its dreadful echo, the terrors that distract you ...
I say you know it ...
well. You do invery deed know what the alien felt; do you pity it? Not in my helmet you wouldn't!
...
and I remained
absolutely
still: knife poised, silver-gloved hand outstretched, buoyed by the pitiful atmosphere of that tiny satellite of terror. A *soul*! BAH! The eyes are the windows of the soul. What would I have read through the gasses -through the crystal clarity of my protective headgear had the thing managed to turn upon me, unarmed and helpless as it was? What would YOU have read in those poly-glossy-eyes? This soulless, slimy serpent must DIE ...
The alien's hour had come! With a loud yell, I leaped upon it. It shrieked once --once only. The shriek and my yell mingled well in my helmet! Oh, let me tell you,
THAT was a sound for the Unvierse!
In an instant I dragged him to the tarmac, and stabbed, and stabbed, and stabbed. I then smiled gaily, to find the deed so far done.
THAT was a sound for the Unvierse!
In an instant I dragged him to the tarmac, and stabbed, and stabbed, and stabbed. I then smiled gaily, to find the deed so far done.
(to be concluded)
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