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Project Gutenberg's The Thought-Men of Mercury, by R. R. Winterbotham
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Title: The Thought-Men of Mercury
Author: R. R. Winterbotham
Release Date: May 22, 2020 [EBook #62199]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE THOUGHT-MEN OF MERCURY ***
Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
THE THOUGHT-MEN OF MERCURY
By R. R. WINTERBOTHAM
Hall and Upjohn had to escape from
that "No-man's-land" on Mercury. But
to form a plan, they had to think--and
their captors could read minds.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Fall 1942.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
It was neither night nor day, but a sort of nether world of twilight.
The huge fern-like plants, flashing phosphorescence under the green
corona light, seemed to close in after Cappy Upjohn and Terry Hall like
prison bars in the windows of a dungeon.
Cappy, who was leading the way, paused and waited for Terry. As the
huge, leonine man turned, his lips curled into a taunting smile.
Terry's eyes moved from side to side, watching the weird shadows,
dodging the sweep of the giant ferns as they moved in the wind.
"Scared!" Cappy ridiculed.
"I can't help it!" the younger man said. "This place gives me the
creeps."
Cappy's great laugh echoed above the howl of the winds. "This is
Mercury. Half day, half night everlastingly. Right here is the
battleground of roasting heat and perpetual cold. A twenty-mile strip
of habitable land between two kinds of hell. What the devil did you
expect, Tenderfoot?"
Cappy grunted in disgust, turned and picked his way through the ferns.
Terry, his jaw set grimly, followed. Cappy had been through all this
before. Twice he'd landed on Venus, and he'd been with the only
previous expedition to Mercury. But Terry knew that fear was a human
emotion, and that there were things even Cappy was afraid of.
The wind died a moment. Between an opening in the ferns Terry caught a
glimpse of a ghostly face, more simian than an ape's, less human than
a man's. At the same time he felt something that was like a breeze
through his brain. A painless stab of thought,
"Cappy--look!" Terry pointed at the face peering through the opening
in the ferns, and his hand clawed at the rifle he had slung over his
shoulder. In all respects it was like an old-fashioned gun, but it
fired a deadly bullet that was capable of complete annihilation of
whatever it hit. A single bullet from a flourobeam gun was powerful
enough to wipe out a steel ball ten feet in diameter.
But Terry's hands slipped away from his gun. He recognized his action
as more than fear. It was panic.
Cappy had been too surprised at the sight of the grinning face to
notice Terry's action. Now the youth had control of himself.
"Great guns! This is something new, lad! A living creature on Mercury!"
"I tried to tell you, Cappy!" Terry said. "I've seen 'em. I've felt 'em
for the past hour!"
"Felt 'em? Did they touch you?"
"It's something I can't describe. It's like poking a finger into our
brains. It doesn't hurt, but it feels uncomfortable. It's like being
watched by someone you can't see."
Cappy's boldness seemed to tarnish a little. A suggestion of a shudder
seemed to pass over the man. He straightened and shook it off.
"Pooh! Imagination, Terry!"
Cappy took a step toward the creature. The eyes seemed to flash.
Perhaps it was a reflection from the corona streamers stretching above
the horizon to the west. Cappy halted as the creature seemed to shrink
away.
"Hold on!" Cappy called. "Don't go away! We've got to see that
creature, Terry. Get it back! Can you stop it!"
There was no mistaking that the animal was intelligent. Perhaps it felt
the same emotions that raced through Terry's body.
"Let me try," Terry said. His heart was pounding, but science had to
know if intelligent life existed in Mercury's twilight zone.
Terry stripped the gun from his shoulders and laid it on the ground. He
pushed passed Cappy and walked toward the creature. Terry's hands were
extended, palms outward.
The creature hesitated. Its eyes flashed again and once more Terry felt
something cold in his skull.
The ferns parted and the creature stepped out into view.
* * * * *
It had two stubby legs, two long arms. Its head was pear-shaped and
hairless, and its body was an ovoid ball, bloated and ugly. But its
eyes were almost human except that they seemed to flash fire.
Terry halted, facing the creature.
"Terryhall of the earth!" The creature's voice echoed through the ferns.
"You--you speak English!" The words that fell from Terry's lips
mirrored his surprise. In his mind flashed a name for this creature.
Something like _Zombie_, the living dead.
"Not Zombie. Name is Chomby. I am not dead, not even living dead."
"You read my mind! That's what I've felt for the past hour. You were
studying my thoughts, and you learned my language by reading my mind!"
Chomby's rubbery lips tried to imitate a grin, but it achieved only a
hideous travesty.
Chomby's hand rubbed over the leathery rags he wore for clothing and
reached toward the earthman. The gesture was unmistakable. Chomby
wanted to shake hands. The Mercurian had been thorough in his probe
of Terry's brain. His actions were more human than Terry's under the
circumstances, for Terry was afraid.
"Nothing to fear from Chomby," spoke the Mercurian.
Terry took the hand. It was leathery and cold.
"I am glad to meet you," Terry said. He forced the words from his lips.
"We came to Mercury on a peaceful mission."
"You're afraid, Terryhall," Chomby replied. "I do not intend to kill
you. Nor will I hurt Cappyupjohn."
Cappy brushed forward and shook hands with Chomby. He concealed a wince
as he touched the creature's corpse-like flesh.
Then he unstrapped the caseknife he wore at his side and handed it to
Chomby. "A gift of friendship," he said.
Chomby reached awkwardly toward the knife. As he took it, the knife
fell to the ground. Chomby leaned over and fumbled. He could hardly
grasp the knife. Terry noted now what had been so repulsive about
Chomby's handshake. The Mercurian had no thumb.
Instead of the five-fingered hand of a human being, there were only
three flabby fingers on the end of a round, gristly hand.
Terry stooped and picked up the knife. He handed it to the Mercurian
who seized it in both hands and clutched it to his body.
"You want food and drink?" Chomby asked. "Terryhall and Cappyupjohn
follow me to my village. Sorry I have no gift of friendship otherwise.
My people are unskilled in handicraft. We can hardly make our own
clothes."
Chomby led the earthmen eastward. The shadows deepened and the sky grew
dark. The stars appeared; among them the brilliant blue planet that was
Earth.
Again Chomby read Terry's thoughts.
"You come from that one?" he asked, pointing. "You are from the sky?"
Terry answered, but Chomby seemed to read the thoughts that Terry
flashed through his mind.
"Spaceship. Machines. Rockets." The Mercurian rolled the words in his
mouth. "You come from a great race, Terryhall and Cappyupjohn. My
people want to learn skill with our hands, to be like you."
"It would be nice if we could read your minds," Cappy said, tossing a
glance toward Terry.
"You are suspicious men," Chomby said. "I read your mind and I know you
do not trust me. You fear a trap. That is why you carry your guns. But
there is nothing to fear from Chomby's people. You will think them
very primitive."
The cold winds lashed at the earthmen and nipped through the heavy
clothing they wore. Terry and Cappy lowered a plastic windshield from
their caps to protect their faces from frostbite.
Vegetation grew more scarce and at last they walked across a rocky
plain toward a row of towering basalt cliffs. The feeble light that
came from the outer fringe of the corona revealed a row of caves at the
base of the cliffs and from these emerged a hundred or so ill-fashioned
beings resembling Chomby.
The Mercurian gave no cry, nor warning of his approach. He apparently
had notified his people by telepathy, for they rushed silently to meet
him. Chomby lapsed into silence, turning from one of his kinsfolk to
another, answering questions without speaking.
Cappy stared at the Mercurians. His leonine figure marched through
the ill-shapen creatures confidently and unafraid. Doubts crept into
Terry's mind. There were too many Mercurians. Despite the powerful
weapons strapped to the earthmen's backs, they could not hope to escape
imprisonment, if these savages sought to hold them.
Chomby led the men to a cave in the center of the village. He turned to
Terry.
"My people think you are queer, Terryhall," Chomby said. "But it is
evident to them that you think the same about us. But we are all one
people. Terryhall and Cappyupjohn are not the same. Terryhall is
afraid, while Cappyupjohn is a man of rock. Are you not of the same
race?"
"More or less," Cappy said, deridingly. "Terry doesn't understand you
and he fears what he doesn't understand. I've learned to control fear,
so I am not afraid."
"You trust us?" Chomby seemed surprise.
"No," Cappy replied. "I don't trust anything, but I'm not afraid of
you."
"What if we should intend to keep you here?" Chomby asked. "Terry sees
himself as a prisoner, a slave. He fears he will never return to the
earth."
"I still have my gun," Cappy said.
"There are many of us," Chomby said, his lips gaping again in that
imitation grin. "We could overpower you and kill you."
"I'd take some of you with me," Cappy replied, defiantly. "I'd go out
in a blaze of glory."
* * * * *
Chomby studied the earthman. "I believe you would. In your world such
a trait would be considered admirable. You are hard, Cappyupjohn, and
brave. But it is not your kind that makes your race so great. Your
world is a coward's world. It was built by men who are afraid."
Cappy choked. "You lie!"
"We have read your minds, earthmen," Chomby said. "We understand the
civilization from the mental pictures you carry in your minds. You have
great brains, but skilled as they are they are nothing in comparison
with ours. It was not your brain that made your world, but your love
of security. You feared wild beasts, so you killed them. You feared
hunger, so you stored food. You built weapons to defend yourself
against enemies. You sought out new worlds in fleeing from dangers of
the old. If your race had not known fear, it would have never done
these things."
"Men died to win that security," Cappy replied. "That wasn't cowardice,
was it?"
"They died fighting, which meant that they hoped to win. Their chance
of victory was more attractive than the insecurity that would come
with defeat," Chomby replied. "My people wish to keep you here. We
want to learn more about the emotion called fear that has made your
civilization so great."
"You'll never keep us!" growled Cappy. His hand automatically touched
the gun on his shoulder.
"That is the fear I speak of," Chomby said. "You would rather die than
be a prisoner. In a different way Terryhall has the same emotion. But
he does not risk so recklessly. He would rather avoid the situation
that makes fighting necessary. He is a brave man, too, Cappyupjohn, but
in a different way."
"He's yellow!" Cappy said vehemently. "He's worse than no help at all."
The earthmen rested, but they were not left alone. Chomby seemed
always to be near. Although Chomby insisted the earthmen were not
prisoners, he made it plain they would not be allowed to leave for a
time.
"We must study you," he said. "In turn, you may study us."
"I'm warning you, Chomby," Cappy roared. "We'll stand just so much of
this thing. We'll stay until we've studied you enough, but when we want
to go, we're going--or we'll die trying."
"That time is not here," Chomby said, wrinkling his lips again.
* * * * *
The icy mental probing of the Mercurians grew familiar to Terry and
Cappy. There was nothing the earthmen could think of that these eerie,
repulsive-looking creatures did not understand. That the Mercurians
read Terry's thoughts so easily was often embarrassing, for Terry knew
that they were aware of his repugnance toward them, as well as Terry's
distrust and fear.
But Chomby and his people seemed to accept Terry's opinion of them
understandingly. Not one of them made a move to remove either Terry's
or Cappy's guns.
After a first period of mental probing Chomby urged the earthmen to
instruct the Mercurians in some simple crafts. Now the earthmen enjoyed
the sense of superiority that previously had been a monopoly of the
Mercurians. The simplest pieces of handiwork were almost beyond, the
Mercurians. The hands of these creatures, without thumbs and with
stiff fingers, were clumsy. Weaving was an arduous task. Construction
of a simple, primitive thatched dwelling was attempted and abandoned,
when Cappy found that it would require months to complete. It was not
because the Mercurians did not understand what had to be done--they
knew this the instant the terrestrials pictured the idea in their
minds. But the tasks were nearly impossible for the Mercurians.
Terry taught a few of the creatures to write, but the rest could not
master the process, although every one of them had learned to read by
watching Terry's mind at work.
Cappy grew more contemptuous of the Mercurians as he watched their
bungling efforts at the simplest human arts.
"We haven't anything to be afraid of from these creatures, Terry," he
said.
Terry shook his head.
"They've got brains, Cappy. They know everything we know and a lot
of things we don't. They read us like a book. They know our thoughts
before we know them ourselves."
"It isn't thought that wins battles. It's power. Oh, brains help, but
only when used in the application of the proper weapons. Why with our
guns and fists we probably could lick this whole village. I'm sure they
haven't coordination enough to fight hand-to-hand with us singly."
"But they're too smart to let us out-maneuver them," Terry said.
"There's a principle that seems to work in society that makes me afraid
of these Mercurians. In the history of our own planet, it has always
been the brains which exploited the brawn among men. People who thought
of things usually took ascendancy over those who tried to progress
by the sweat of their brow. For instance, everyone knows Columbus
discovered America, but who knows the name of the man who built the
ships he sailed in? LeCompton designed the first successful spacecraft,
but the name of the man who tooled the intricate parts of its mechanism
and made it successful has been completely forgotten."
"You mean we're likely to become slaves of these--these Zombies?"
"Since we came to this village they've changed," Terry said. "These
Zombies--as you call them--are learning fear. They see their world,
lashed by cold and hot winds, freezing and roasting, as an insecure
place. A violent storm might burn up their food supply, or freeze their
crops. For the first time they've seen fear as a safeguard to their
future. Now they want to build. They want places to store food; homes
to protect them from cold. They want means of transportation, to escape
uninhabitable spots. They know the value of fear, but they cannot
conquer it because they are physiologically incapable of conquering
their environment. When they realize this--if they don't realize it
already--they'll force us to conquer their environment for them. Every
earthman unfortunate enough to land on Mercury will become a slave--"
"Great Scott, Terry!" Cappy exclaimed. "I believe you are right. Your
fear has been warning us all along to get out of this place. Get your
gun ready, we're going back to the space ship--"
The light from the entrance of the cave was blotted out. Chomby stood
before them, followed by a horde of his fellow beings.
"You recognized fear too late, Cappyupjohn," Chomby said.
The two earthmen tried to level their guns, but the Mercurians attacked
too quickly. The leathery fists struck home and the guns slipped from
the earthmen's grasps.
* * * * *
A transformation occurred in front of the row of caves in the basalt
cliff. Windbreaks appeared in the openings in the wall. Rude machines
were set up to build houses of stone and covered passages from cave to
cave. From the fibrous ferns Terry constructed rude looms for weaving
cloth. Stone mills for grinding the pulpy fruit of the Mercurian trees
into flour were designed.
How long the two earthmen had been prisoners on Mercury they had no way
of telling, for there was neither night nor day, nor seasons in the
twilight zone. But the Earth had disappeared over the south horizon
and reappeared in the north and Cappy estimated that two-thirds of the
Mercurian year of 88 days had passed.
"We won't be here another year," Terry said.
Cappy snorted. "I wouldn't bet."
"They're getting careless," Terry pointed out. "They used to have a
dozen men guarding us day and night. If we even got a little too far
away from the village, we'd be shoved back. Now only one Zombie is
guarding us. We're allowed to go almost anywhere, except near the
spaceship."
"They read our minds, so they're always two jumps ahead of us, Terry.
No. The principle of brains over brawn can't be beaten. We're licked."
"I'm not," Terry announced. "Once you called me a coward--you said I
was yellow. But a coward isn't the man who is afraid, it's the man
that lets fear get the upperhand. You're being a coward now, Cappy.
You're admitting that Chomby and his pals have the Injun sign on us.
I'm not admitting it. It isn't brains that makes men the rulers of nine
planets, and it isn't fear. Man has something else that gives him a
physiological edge. I'm going to find out what that is. When we find
it, we'll be free men again."
"When you find it, the Mercurians will know. They'll be ready to keep
us from using the weapon--whatever it is--before we know we've got it."
"Some day we'll have a chance. Some day we'll have a chance to slug our
guard and get back to the spaceship--"
Terry paused. He looked at the dozing Mercurian at the mouth of the
cave. Even as Terry looked the Mercurian roused out of his sleep. The
thought thread had roused the guard from a deep slumber.
"Now!" Terry yelled. "Now's our chance!"
Terry sprang. The guard tried to seize the stone club at his side, but
his clumsy hand was not made for swift action. Terry was on him before
the guard could send out a mental alarm and the young earthman's fist
crashed against the base of the guard's skull.
Terrestrial muscles, built for a heavier force of gravity, delivered
a sledgehammer blow. The guard toppled forward. Terry leaped over the
figure and darted into the open.
Another figure rose before Terry, but again Terry's fist smashed.
Cappy was beside Terry now and together they raced toward the path that
led in the direction of the spaceship.
"They'll follow us!" Cappy said. "They can trail us by our thoughts. If
we miss the ship and have to double back, we'll run into them."
"We won't miss!" Terry said.
* * * * *
The sudden formulation of the escape plan had been too quick for even
the Mercurian brains to block. Terry and Cappy were racing into the
forest of ferns far ahead of their pursuers. The coordinated muscles
of the earthmen were far more capable of traveling swiftly than those
of the Mercurians behind and sounds of pursuit grew fainter in the
distance.
But Terry knew that these creatures were dogged. They would follow
until the spaceship's rockets blasted loose from the planet.
"Remember," Terry whispered, "don't act on any set plan. Don't plan
what you'll do when you meet 'em. If you do they'll be prepared for it.
Act on impulse, before they know what you intend to do."
"I'll remember," Cappy panted.
Was it impulse that made terrestrials the masters of the universe?
Terry wondered. It hardly seemed logical, yet impulse had given them
their first chance of freedom. But impulse might lead them astray.
First thoughts are not always the best thoughts. True enough, man had
made some strides by accident, but far more of his greatest discoveries
and most useful inventions had been the result of years of labor and
careful planning. No, it wasn't impulse. Some other weapon had to be
used to defeat the Mercurians decisively. Terry and Cappy might escape
through luck, but some day there would be a final, decisive battle
that would employ the one thing that gave man an advantage over the
semi-human monsters of the first planet.
Terry hoped he could discover that weapon now.
They had been over the route to the spaceship three times. Once in
company with Chomby on their first trip to the Mercurian village. They
had returned in company with a guard and come back again later.
Terry had noted a few landmarks and now he began to spot them again. A
curious-shaped rock; a spring of moulten metal; a deep fissure in the
soil.
But as they traveled toward the sun's corona the air grew warmer.
Vegetation became profuse and the trail was more difficult to find. But
Cappy had kept his eyes open, too. Between them they made their way,
slower and slower.
Suddenly Terry stopped. An icy finger had passed over his brain. A
wordless thought flashed into his consciousness.
"This is Chomby, Terryhall. Go back, or you will be unmercifully
killed."
Cappy looked at Terry. The same thought had flashed through his brain.
"I am ahead of you, earthmen. I am waiting in front of the spaceship.
In my hands I hold a flourobeam gun. You cannot pass me, earthmen!"
Cappy groaned.
"They're still two jumps ahead, Terry! They've outfigured us again.
They knew we might get away by accident. So they put Chomby out here to
intercept us and he's armed with our weapons!"
Terry was afraid. He knew the power of a flourobeam. He'd seen it
blast rocks into powder and he knew that a man could never survive its
charge. One blast from the gun could wipe out all trace of Terry and
Cappy.
Terry's face paled. Then, suddenly, he moved forward.
"Come on, Cappy! You said I was yellow once. Let's see who's yellow
now!"
"But that gun! This isn't being brave! It's foolhardy. The better part
of valor is knowing when you're licked."
"Come on," Terry said, moving ahead.
"You're a fool, Terry," Cappy said. "But you've got guts! Now listen to
reason!"
But Terry would not listen. He moved forward. Cappy, sweating, came
following.
"It's suicide!" cried the older man.
* * * * *
In the center of a clearing stood the spaceship. The streaks of the
corona revealed a figure, huge, hideous and ape-like, standing before
the locks.
It was Chomby, holding the flourobeam gun, aiming at the two
terrestrials who emerged from the forest.
"If you come closer, I'll shoot!" It was a thought, not a voice, that
flashed toward the men, but the words were as clear as if Chomby had
spoken.
"We're licked, Terry!" Cappy said. "I'll surrender."
Slowly Cappy's hands went over his head.
"And what about you, Terryhall?"
Terry stood in the clearing, looking at the Mercurian. The young man's
face was pale and green beneath the corona glow.
"This is a war of the worlds, Chomby," he said. "It's a fight between
your race and mine. It's a Waterloo for one of us."
"You haven't a chance, Terryhall. You know the power of this gun."
Terry's lips tightened into a thin, straight line. His body crouched
for an instant and then he sprang. The terrestrial muscles sent him
shooting toward Chomby. His feet touched the ground again, and like
steel springs he shot forward a second time.
Chomby's fingers tightened on the trigger of the weapon. They seemed to
twitch.
Cappy closed his eyes.
An inhuman scream rent the Mercurian air. But the gun did not go off.
Cappy opened his eyes to see Terry and the monster rolling on the
ground. Terry's fingers were closed about the Mercurian's throat.
Chomby struggled feebly, and then lay still.
Terry rose, picked up the gun and motioned to Cappy.
"Put down your hands and start moving your legs. Get into those locks
before the rest of them get here!"
Cappy's jaw worked up and down, but words did not come from his throat.
Somehow he moved. He ran into the locks and a moment later he was at
the controls.
"Let 'er go!" Terry said.
Cappy, still speechless, pressed the charger. The rockets roared. The
machine lurched skyward and Mercury was left behind.
"What happened?" Cappy asked.
"I just remembered that when we were last carrying the guns we had the
safety catches on. The catches are released with the thumb. Chomby
couldn't do it! He couldn't have shot me, even though he wanted to. The
safety catches are such a small piece of the flourobeam mechanism that
we never think of them. Chomby didn't have a chance to read our minds
about the safety catch until it was too late."
"Terry," Cappy said. "I'll take back everything I said about you being
yellow. You've got guts! More than I have, Terry."
"Guts? Hell, Cappy, I was scared to death every second."
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The Project Gutenberg EBook of International Bridge Authority, Sault Ste.
Marie, by Anonymous
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
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Title: International Bridge Authority, Sault Ste. Marie
Author: Anonymous
Release Date: May 17, 2020 [EBook #62156]
Language: English
Character set encoding: UTF-8
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INTERNATIONAL BRIDGE, SAULT STE. MARIE ***
Produced by Stephen Hutcheson, Lisa Corcoran and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
INTERNATIONAL BRIDGE AUTHORITY
SAULT STE. MARIE
The International Bridge Authority is a board composed of members from
the Province of Ontario and the State of Michigan. Its purpose is to
oversee management and operation of the International Bridge.
For information, write to:
P.O. Box 317
Sault Ste. Marie, MI 49783
[Illustration: Sault Ste. Marie Bridge]
BRIDGE FACTS
Name: The Sault Ste. Marie International Bridge
Length: Total maintenance length from American and Canadian
approaches—2.8 miles.
Cost: $20,000,000.
Designers: Steinman, Boynton, Gronquist & London, New York.
Construction: Started September 16, 1960. Opened to traffic October
31, 1962.
Width: 28 foot roadway between curbs, providing 14 foot
traffic lanes in each direction.
Tolls: $1.50 each way for passenger cars. No extra charge
for passengers. Canadian money accepted at par.
Height: Roadway is 145 feet above ground level at its highest
point.
Clearance: Bridge has 124 feet minimum vertical clearance above
low water in ship canals.
Weight: 125,000 tons of which 114,000 tons are concrete and
11,000 tons are structural steel.
Colors: Green and ivory.
Speeds: Maximum 30 miles per hour.
FROM DREAMS TO REALITY
The ease of traveling through the Locks or over the St. Mary’s Rapids is
now taken for granted but the dreams of building these structures began
over a hundred years ago, just after Michigan became a state in 1837.
[Illustration: Canoes crossing the river]
Traveling from one side of the river to the other first began in canoes.
Bands of Ojibwa Indians would camp and fish at the rapids they called
“Bawating”, meaning rushing water.
The rapids became a gathering point for as many as 50,000 Native
Americans each summer, for centuries.
In the 1600’s it became a settlement for French explorers and fur
traders.
Through wars control of the rapids went to the British in the mid 1700’s
and finally, a shared border with the United States in the 1800’s.
[Illustration: Building a lock]
As copper and iron ore were discovered in the western Upper Peninsula in
1830, ship traffic increased but had to be portaged over land at the
rapids. This difficult task eventually led to construction of the first
lock in 1855, and the second in 1871, a joint venture between the State
of Michigan and the U.S. Government.
In 1880, the first land transportation over the river between the U.S.
and Canada was established with a railroad bridge. In 1895, the Canadian
Lock was completed.
In 1943 and 1969 two other U.S. locks were built, one of which is
capable of carrying the 1000 ft. super freighters.
From the 1880’s til the 1960’s the only forms of transportation across
the St. Mary’s River, between the two Saults, were ferries and the
railroad bridge.
The inconvenience and delays of those days have been eliminated, thanks
to the International Bridge.
SAULT STE. MARIE
“Rapids Of Sainte Mary”
INTERNATIONAL BRIDGE
[Illustration: The bridge site]
Nearly a decade of engineering study, legislative action in Lansing,
Washington, Toronto, and Ottawa, and the sale of bonds to finance the
project preceded construction of the bridge. Michigan Governor G. Mennen
Williams and Ontario Treasurer James N. Allen were the main participants
in groundbreaking ceremonies for construction of the bridge on September
16, 1960.
[Illustration: Bridge piers under construction]
Dr. Carl Gronquist of the consulting engineering firm, Steinman,
Boynton, Gronquist and Birdsall, designed the two-mile long bridge
supported on 62 piers that would cost $20,000,000. The Michigan State
Highway Department agreed to construct the Michigan approach to the
bridge, a project costing very close to $4,000,000, which was tied into
the Interstate Freeway system and financed 90 percent by federal funds.
The International Bridge Authority then proposed a bond issue of
$16,250,000 to raise the remainder of the money.
The issue was divided into $8,400,000 in Series A bonds to be sold on
the New York market, and $7,850,000 in Series B bonds, all to be retired
within 40 years from bridge revenues. To facilitate financing, the
Province of Ontario bought the entire Series B bonds in one sale and
thus guaranteed a quick sale for the Series A bonds in the United States
bond market.
The International Bridge was opened to traffic on October 31, 1962.
[Illustration: Bridge span under construction]
Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan
Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario
[Illustration: The completed bridge]
THE BRIDGE VIEW
Located to the west of the locks and running parallel with the railroad
bridge, the International Bridge “takes off” from the U.S. side near the
campus of Lake Superior State University which overlooks the area from
the site of the former Fort Brady.
As you enter the first archway, the world famous Soo Locks are visible
below.
Further on, you’ll pass the International Boundary at the middle of the
Bridge. Off to the west you’ll see a series of 16 gates. These gates
control the water flow from Lake Superior down to the other connecting
Great Lakes. The management of this water flow is operated by the
International Joint Commission which makes determinations of gate
activity based on the various lake levels.
Within the rapids area, produced by the water rushing through the gates,
there is a concrete berm, or wall, stretching about one quarter of a
mile. The berm was constructed as a joint operation by the electric
utilities of the U.S. and Canada. Its objective is to keep an adequate
water flow around Whitefish Island, a natural spawning ground for
salmon.
[Illustration: The river below the bridge]
Just beyond Whitefish Island is the Canadian Lock and then the power
canal and the hydro-electric generating station of Great Lakes Power.
Approaching Sault, Ontario, there is an excellent view of the city’s
growing industrial complex with huge plants of the Algoma Steel
Corporation—one of Canada’s largest steel mills—to the west, and the St.
Marys Inc. paper plants to the east.
The volume of traffic between the two Saults has more than quadrupled in
the first twenty-five years of operation. Some 2,234,000 vehicles
crossed the bridge in 1987, as compared to 415,000 vehicles carried by
the ferries during their final full year of operation in 1961.
Published by Bill Davie, Trinity Productions.
[Illustration: THE ST. MARY’S INTERNATIONAL WATERWAY BETWEEN THE TWO
SAULT STE. MARIES
from Photograph taken 1978]
Transcriber’s Notes
—Silently corrected a few typos.
—Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook
is public-domain in the country of publication.
—In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by
_underscores_.
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of International Bridge Authority, Sault
Ste. Marie, by Anonymous
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The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Life and Death of Tom Careless, by
Anonymous
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
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Title: The Life and Death of Tom Careless
to which is added, The History of Will Worthy & Nancy Wilmot
Author: Anonymous
Release Date: May 17, 2020 [eBook #62161]
Language: English
Character set encoding: UTF-8
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE AND DEATH OF TOM
CARELESS***
Transcribed from the nineteenth century J. and C. Evans edition by David
Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
[Picture: Public domain cover]
THE
_LIFE AND DEATH_
OF
TOM CARELESS:
TO WHICH IS ADDED,
_The History of Will Worthy & Nancy Wilmot_;
GIVING
An Account of the sudden Death of Nancy Wilmot, as she was
dancing with Will Worthy on the Green, on the evening of
the day they were Married; the serious reflections made by
Will on that awful event, and the happy consequences that
followed.
[Picture: Graphic of a young boy running after an older boy with a basket
on his head]
LONDON:
Printed and sold by J. and C. Evans Long lane.
PRICE ONE PENNY.
TOM CARELESS,
GOOD people all I pray give ear
Unto the tale I tell;
’Tis form’d to gratify your mind,
And to instruct you well.
To caution men of riper years,
And to admonish youth;
Fiction may fill th’ improving page,
And use the voice of truth.
Tom Careless was a merry lad;
(And who will mirth despise?)
But he like many other wits,
More merry was than wise.
Tom was a working carpenter,
Yet while he plied his trade,
His tongue mov’d faster than his hands,
And less was done than said.
He told his tale, he crack’d his joke,
He was a perfect droll;
And of each jovial drinking set,
Was both the life and soul.
On such a character as this,
Some did with envy gaze;
While others wiser, saw much more
To pity than to praise.
For Tom with all his merriment,
That made such mighty rout,
Had taken vice and folly in,
And quite shut wisdom out.
He neither look’d, nor car’d, beyond
The present passing hour!
Alas! now see his sky o’ercast,
And storms begin to lour.
A burning fever seiz’d his frame!
Look how he pants for breath;
And in his vitals feels transfixt
Th’ envenomed dart of death.
He feels and shudders at the stroke,
He turns but keeps his pain;
He looks with eager eyes for help,
But human help is vain.
Now conscience from her slumber wakes,
And with a dismal cry,
Proclaims the vices of his life,
And summons him to die.
To die! to leave the present world,
To yield his vital breath!
To close his eyes on life, and tread
The dark, dark vale of death!
To see th’ uplifted stroke that must
His soul and body sever!
And then to lose the light of life
For ever and for ever!
’Twas more than human strength could bear
The agonizing strife,
Sunk his distracted spirits down
Close to the verge of life.
Then his fellow-workmen came,
With Careless to condole;
Who talk’d of former scenes of mirth,
To cheer his troubl’d soul.
But, ah! when conscience sorely smarts—
Whose spirit can endure?
When GOD inflicts the mighty wound—
What mortal hand can cure?
Outstretch’d, his flesh all trembling lies,
He heaves a mournful sigh;
Attempts to raise his aching head,
And ope’ his languid eye.
On the companions of his life,
He casts a dismal look;
And, lab’ring with conflicting thoughts,
Thus the sad silence broke:—
“Ah! ye do well to see a wretch,
Whose peace and health are fled;
Ye knew him once in festive scenes,
Now on his dying bed.
But, O, for ever from my mind
Hide ev’ry guilty joy;
Oor they’ve polluted all my life,
And will my soul destroy.
In sickness, pain, decay, and death,
What agonies ye bring!
All pointed with the envenom’d barb,
Of sin’s eternal sting.
—But have ye no sweet hope to give?
No comfort to supply?
Must I still languish and despair,
And then—ah! must I die?
How can my naked spirit stand
Before a righteous GOD?
Who, who, shall hide me from his eye,
Or shield me from his rod?
O what a load of guilt I feel!
My anguish who can tell?
My sins will shut me out of heav’n,
And sink me down to hell.
By all the mis’ries which I feel,
By all the wrath I dread;
By heav’ns just veng’ance soon to fall
On my devoted head;
I charge you to forsake your sins,
And to the SAVIOUR fly:
O may he bless you while you live,
And save you when you die.
But as for me, can mercy come,
Call’d for with parting breath?”—
He said—and straight his quiv’ring lips,
For ever clos’d in death!
THE
_History of Will Worthy and Nancy Wilmot_.
IN vain the living soul may strive
For happiness below;
This world no solid joy can give,
Nor lasting peace bestow.
_Will Worthy_ was a sprightly lad
As ever trod the mead;
He thought no cares could make him sad,
While pleasure took the lead.
Dex’trous at all the rustic games,
He oft his strength display’d,
Now the swift race his breast inflames,
By emulation sway’d.
At every country fair and wake,
_Will_ was the wonder there:
Fair females crowded for his sake,
And strove his smiles to share.
Sweet Nancy Wilmot of the vale,
Won _William’s_ roving heart;
To her he told love’s tender tale,
Now nothing could them part.
To church they went, the knot was tied,
The day was spent in glee;
Inviting all to them allied,
To join their jollity.
The self-same eve, when on the green,
_Will_ danc’d with Nance his bride;
Lo! what a sad reverse of scene,
She fainted—droop’d—and died!!!
Dismay and horror seiz’d each soul,
When this sad news was known,
For her the passing-bell did toll,
ETERNITY her home.
Like the weak grass, or tender flow’r,
Or vapour’s empty breath;
Sweet Nancy wither’d in an hour,
Cut down by sudden death.
_William_ bewail’d her early fate,
A prey to woe and grief;
Pensive, forlorn, and wan he sat,
And would have no relief.
The question “if her soul was safe?”
Gave poignancy to woe;
Should hell have follow’d sudden death,
“Would she not thither go?”
From brooding on _her_ doubtful lot,
Now fix’d for ever sure;
His mind now turn’d its every thought,
To _his_ sick soul and cure.
“How shall I flee from wrath to come,
Where hide my guilty head?
Should I next go to my long home,
Where shall I be?” he said.
He bade adieu to sinful joy,
And trac’d the moral page;
The fine clad sentiment could cloy,
But not his grief assuage.
No, he had tried all these in vain,
All “empty, void, and waste;”
They serv’d but to increase his pain,
Involving ruin fast.
Thus, baffled, wearied, and distress’d,
He did a Bible see;
There found a prayer for one oppress’d,
“LORD, undertake for me.”
To church on Sundays he had been,
As others come and go;
But ne’er by faith had JESUS seen,
Or heard what CHRIST could do.
Until, with circumcised ear,
He when at church one day,
Found mercy to his soul draw near,
Which to _his_ heart did say:
“Come unto me, thou weary soul,
Laden with num’rous sins;
No case so bad that can controul
My grace where it begins.
Why so disquieted art thou,
With sins, and fears, and care?
Lo th’ accepted time is now,
Tho’ lost, do not despair.
Lost in yourself, in CHRIST there’s hope,
And never till you’re lost,
Relinquish ev’ry other prop,
And then you’ll prize him most.
’Twas such he came to seek and save,
And could he come in vain?
And if no other hope you have,
You need no more complain.”
The sermon ended, _Will_ went home,
Stepp’d up and lock’d his door;
Fell on his knees before GOD’S throne,
And mercy did implore.
Mercy he found, and after liv’d
Daily _on_ CHRIST by faith;
_To_ Jesus liv’d while he surviv’d,
Triumphant was in death.
FINIS.
* * * * *
London; Printed and sold by J. and C. Evans Long lane
***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE AND DEATH OF TOM CARELESS***
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The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Worth of the Soul, by Religious Tract
Society (Great Britain)
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
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Title: The Worth of the Soul
No. 179
Author: Religious Tract Society (Great Britain)
Release Date: May 17, 2020 [eBook #62162]
Language: English
Character set encoding: UTF-8
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORTH OF THE SOUL***
Transcribed from the nineteenth century A. Applegath edition by David
Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
[Picture: Public domain pamphlet cover]
No. 179.
THE
WORTH OF THE SOUL.
THE soul of every man is of more worth to him than all the world. What
would it profit him, if he were to gain the whole world, were he thereby
to lose his own Soul? Such is the uncertainty of life, he might not long
enjoy his power, his riches, and his pleasures. If he could possess all
these, with health and friends, and live to very old age, an eternity
then succeeds, and all that is past is but as a tale that is told, or as
a dream of the night. For a small portion of the things of time men are
all activity and life. They are ingenious in managing their trades,
careful in preserving their health, and watchful in securing their
property. But should the care of the Soul be overlooked? Should the
health of the Soul be neglected? Should the future happiness of the Soul
be disregarded? How many have lost their Souls through _ignorance_,
_impenitence_, _unbelief_, _disobedience_, _fleshly lusts_, _love of the
world_, _fear of man_, _love of ease_, _or some profitable or pleasant
sin_, _or neglect of the great salvation_; _yet how plain and decided are
the oracles of God on all these points_. Observe each in its order. On
the subject of _ignorance_, it is said, “My people are destroyed for lack
of knowledge; because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject
thee.” (Hos. iv. 6.) Of _impenitence_, “Except ye repent, ye shall all
likewise perish.” (Luke xiii. 3.) Of _unbelief_, “He that believeth not
the Son, shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.” (John
iii. 36.) Of _disobedience_, “To them who are contentious, and do not
obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, he will render indignation and
wrath.” (Rom. ii. 8.) Of _fleshly lusts_, “They war against the soul.”
(1 Pet. ii. 11.) Of _the world_, “Love not the world, neither the things
that are in the world; if any man love the world, the love of the Father
is not in him.” (1 John ii. 15.) Of _the fear of man_, “It bringeth a
snare.” (Prov. xxix. 25.) “The fearful and unbelieving shall have their
part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone.” (Rev. xxi. 8.)
Of the _love of ease_, “If any man will come after me, let him deny
himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” (Matt. xvi. 24.) Of the
_profits or pleasures of sin_, “If thy hand offend thee, cut it off. If
thine eye offend thee pluck it out.” (Mark ix. 43, 47.) Of _neglect of
salvation_, “How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?” (Heb.
ii. 3.) On this point read also Prov. i. 24–33.
How striking are the examples recorded in the same oracles! _Adam_
risked his soul, through desire of vain knowledge, (Gen. iii. 6.)
_Cain_, through hatred to true religion, (Heb. xi. 4. 1 John iii. 12.)
_Achan_, for a wedge of gold, (Josh. vii. 21.) _Esau_, for a mess of
pottage, (Heb. xii. 16.) _Balaam_, for a reward, (Jude 11.) _Absalom_,
for a kingdom, (2 Sam. xv. 10.) _Ahab_, for a garden of herbs, (1 Kings
xxi. 4.) _Judas_, for thirty pieces of silver, (Matt. xxvi. 14, 15.)
_Ananias_ and _Sapphira_, through a lie, (Acts v. 4.) _Herod_, for vain
glory, (Acts xii. 22, 23.) _Pontius Pilate_, for popularity, (Mark xv.
15.) _The Gentiles_ in general, through a dislike to retain God in their
knowledge, (Rom. i. 28.) and the _Jews_, through hypocrisy,
self-righteousness, and unbelief. (Matt. xvi. 3, Rom. x. 3. xi. 20.)
Various are the baits that are employed by the great enemy of the human
race. His designs are, to keep men in sin, or draw them from true
religion, or hinder their peace and usefulness in the ways of God. His
warlike stratagems and subtle snares are all to catch souls. (Ephes. vi.
11. 1 Pet. v. 8.) Therefore, through the blessing of God, it may serve
as a guard against our danger, if we consider the following things:—
I. _The nature of the Soul_. It is spiritual, and is designed for an
eternal existence. (Gen. ii. 7.) It is formed to be the residence of
truth, holiness, and happiness. It is capable of knowing, loving, and
serving God; (Deut. vi. 5.) and nothing can render it truly happy but
this knowledge, love, and service. Then how sad the consideration that
error, sin, and misery should occupy it! If it lose an eternity of joy,
how dreadful the reverse! It cannot cease to exist. It cannot be
annihilated. It must endure positive pain. There is a “worm that dieth
not, and a fire that is not quenched.” (Mark ix. 44.) With what anguish
will a ruined sinner cry, “How have I hated instruction, and my heart
despised reproof.” (Prov. v. 12, 13.) I was warned, but I disregarded
the warning. I was invited, but I refused the invitation. I was
entreated, but I neglected the entreaty. I was threatened, but I
disbelieved the threatening. If an occasional thought of eternity
obtruded itself, it was an unwelcome guest. I went to my farm, to my
merchandise, to my pleasures, to my sins; but could find no time or
inclination to go to my Bible, my Saviour, my God. Evil spirits have
been my tempters, they are now my companions and tormenters. I am
without hope; darkness and despair have seized my Soul, “the harvest is
past, the summer is ended, and I am not saved.” (Jer. viii. 20.) My sins
and negligence are set in dread array before me, and this is their
desert. I see others entering into the kingdom of heaven, but I am shut
out. (Matt. xxv. 10.) The only sound I hear from heaven, is, _Eternity_!
_Eternity_! _Eternity_! (Rev. xiv. 10, 11.)
Thus, if we consider the capacity of the Soul for happiness or misery, we
may learn something of its nature and worth; and surely this ought to
serve as a guard against neglect of its welfare. Shall we run into
danger, and risk the loss of so invaluable a treasure? Shall we be
content that it should remain doubtful whether we shall be saved or lost?
Shall we take such a leap in the dark, when, if we be found wrong, there
is no remedy? He who once loses his Soul, loses his all. He is like a
merchant whose ship sinks with all his property on board. A man may
recover many losses on earth, but the loss of the Soul is a loss never to
be repaired. _Once lost_, _lost for ever_.
Still more shall we discover its worth, if we reflect on:—
II. _The price of its redemption_. O! learn the value of your Souls by
that astonishing truth, “_God was manifest in the flesh_.” (1 Tim. iii.
16.) “Though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor.” (2 Cor.
viii. 9.) He became “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.”
(Isaiah liii. 3.) He tabernacled thirty-three years in our evil world.
He was obedient to the law for man. (Dan. ix. 24.) He was made a
sacrifice for sin. (2 Cor. v. 21. Gal. iii. 13.) “He was wounded for
our transgressions.” “He was bruised for our iniquities.” “He poured
out his soul unto death.” (Isaiah liii. 5. 12.) By all he did and
suffered, by the mystery of his holy incarnation, by his holy nativity
and circumcision, by his baptism, fasting, and temptation, by his agony
and bloody sweat, by his cross and passion, by his precious death and
burial, by his glorious resurrection and ascension, and by his second
coming to judge the world, an infinite dignity and incalculable value are
stamped on the Soul. “Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as
silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ.” (1 Pet. i. 18,
19.) Shall such a price be paid, and will you not regard your Soul? If
immortal Souls were so precious in the sight of God, that he gave his
only begotten Son, that through him they might be saved. If they were so
valuable in the sight of the divine Saviour, that he did not shrink from
laying down his life for their sake, let then your own Soul be precious
in your own sight, and seek its present and everlasting salvation through
him, for he freely offers you his salvation, yea, beseeches you to accept
it at his hands. (2 Cor. v. 20, and vi. 1.)
To this end, let it be your immediate object to consider,
III. _The means appointed for the soul’s spiritual welfare_. _Ministers
labour_ continually. “They watch for your Souls as they that must give
an account.” (Heb, xiii. 17.) They are the appointed messengers of God
to warn men to flee from the wrath to come, and to invite them to lay
hold on eternal life. (Col. i. 28. 1 Tim. vi. 12.) By them the blessing
and the curse are continually set before you. (Deut. xxx. 19.) _The
Gospel is preached_, that faith may come by hearing. (Rom. x. 17.) And
the spirit of God waiteth to apply it, and make it effectual. (Isa. xxx.
18. Rev. iii. 20.) It is brought near, and its blessings freely
offered. (Rom. x. 8–13,) and the consequences of neglecting it are fully
stated. (Acts iv. 12. 2 Cor. iv. 3, 4.) _The holy scriptures are
written_ “for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in
righteousness.” (2 Tim. iii. 15–17.) They are an infallible guide, “a
sure word of prophecy,” (2 Pet. i. 19,) a light to guide the soul into
the way of peace. (Ps. cxix. 105–130.) _Conscience_ admonishes and
accuses. (Rom. ii. 15.) Oftentimes, with a voice too powerful to be
altogether resisted, it whispers, “Take heed to thy soul.” (Acts xxiv.
25.) _Providences_ are arranged by infinite wisdom in such manner, that
they may speak a warning voice. (Luke xiii. 4. Mark xiii. 37.)
_Afflictions_ are sent to awaken a concern for eternity. (Isaiah
xxxviii. 1.) And the _Holy Spirit strives_, yea, condescends to invite
to a conference, with the promise of a happy result. (Gen. vi. 3. Isaiah
i. 18. Acts iii. 19.) _Destruction has no covering_, that we may not
fall into the pit, (Luke xvi. 23,) and _Heaven darts its splendours_ from
afar to attract the notice of immortal souls. (Ps. xvi. 11. Rev. xxi.
23–27.) Then neglect not to use those means which are placed within your
power. _Wait on God_ continually. (Isa. xl. 31.) _Remember that thou
keep holy the sabbath day_. (Isaiah lviii. 13, 14.) _Search the
scriptures_ daily. (Acts xvii. 11, 12.) _Be earnest in prayer_. Cry
mightily unto God, to enlighten your mind, and renew a right spirit
within you. (Luke xi. 9–13.) Plead the promises of God, and you will
find them faithful and true for the welfare of your souls. (Isa. lxv.
24.)
Upon the whole, therefore, observe.—They who neglect the means of grace
deprive their souls of good. (Heb. iv. 1, 2.) They who do not reverence
the Son of God and trust in him, lose their Souls for ever. (John viii.
24.) In this there is great folly, as well as guilt. He who is more
anxious about time than eternity, and disregards spiritual things, is
more foolish and cruel than the man, who, when his house is on fire,
looks after trifles, and exposes himself, or leaves his child to perish
in the flames.
Will you postpone the consideration of these things? What, and if this
night your soul should be required of you? Be ye therefore ready. (Luke
xii. 20–40.) “Behold, _now_ is the accepted time, _now_ is the day of
salvation.” (2 Cor. vi. 2.) “Seek ye the Lord _while he may be found_,
call ye upon him _while he is near_;” (Isaiah lv. 6.) lest you resemble
the _Roman Emperor_ who, in his dying moments, said, “My poor vagrant
Soul, whither art thou going;” or the _unbelieving Voltaire_, who
declared to his physician, he would give half his fortune to have his
life lengthened half a-year; or the _Jewish Rabbi_, who said to them that
asked him why he wept, “If they were carrying me before a king of flesh
and blood, who is here to-day, and to-morrow in the grave; who may bring
me into bondage, but cannot keep me there, only for a season; who may
destroy my body, but cannot touch my soul, even in these circumstances I
should weep. But now I am going before the King of Kings, the only
blessed God, who liveth and endureth for ever and ever, who, if I die
impenitent, will consign me to the pit whence there is no redemption.”
Instead of being thus left, with Pagans, Infidels, and Jews, to dread
uncertainty, on a subject so amazingly important as the future state of
the immortal soul, instead of the dreadful risk which all must run who
are careless or indifferent on such a matter, you may, by that grace of
the Holy Spirit which you are encouraged to seek, by that repentance
towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ, which you are
invited to exercise, and which is the gift of God, be enabled to triumph
over _death_, and say, “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded
that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him.” (2 Tim. i.
12.) “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus
Christ.” (1 Cor. xv. 55.) You may carry your imagination beyond the
grave, and say, in the prospect of an appearance at the _judgment_ of the
great day, “Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died.” (Rom.
viii. 34.) You may look forward to _eternity_, and say, “I have fought a
good fight, I have finished my course, 1 have kept the faith; henceforth
there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness.” (2 Tim. iv. 6, 7.)
That God of his infinite mercy and love may bless you with this grace,
and lead you to the exercise of this repentance and faith; or, if you are
now penitent believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, that you may be kept
“steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord,” is the
hearty desire of the friend who thus wishes to draw your attention to the
_Worth of your Souls_, by leading you to consider, _their nature_, _the
price of their redemption_, and _the means of their spiritual welfare_.
What were thy gain, couldst thou survey
The spacious land, and boundless sea,
And view a world at thy controul,
But lose thyself, th’ immortal soul?
Blessings of mind, or better health,
Can well supply the loss of wealth:
A ruin’d soul what can restore?
That loss can be repair’d no more.
Where will the trembling sinner find
A ransom for the guilty mind?
What jewel of uncounted cost
Can purchase back _that jewel_ lost?
What madness thus to throw away
A soul for trifles day by day!
For dear-bought joys yourself undo,
And barter bliss for certain woe!
Amazing folly Lord we own
Our guilt, with penitential moan:
While our vain hearts have been engrost,
With meaner cares, our souls were lost.
For what in nature’s spacious range
Would happy saints their bliss exchange?
Or what in time can sinners gain
To balance everlasting pain?
[Picture: Decorative graphic of rural cottage with trees]
* * * * *
London: Printed by A. APPLEGATH, Duke-street, Stamford-street; and sold
by J. DAVIS, No. 56, Paternoster-row, and by J. NISBET, No. 15,
Castle-street, Oxford-street. {1}
FOOTNOTES.
{1} In the printed version there’s neither title page nor cover and the
printer’s statement comes at the bottom of the page. It’s been moved to
the end in this transcription.—DP.
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[Intro]
[Verse 1]
We're no strangers to love
You know the rules and so do I
A full commitment's what I'm thinking of
You wouldn't get this from any other guy
[Pre-Chorus 1]
I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling
Gotta make you understand
[Chorus]
Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry
Never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you
[Verse 2]
We've known each other for so long
Your heart's been aching but you're too shy to say it
Inside we both know what's been going on
We know the game and we're gonna play it
[Pre-Chorus 2]
And if you ask me how I'm feeling
Don't tell me you're too blind to see
[Chorus]
Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry
Never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you
Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry
Never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you
[Bridge]
(Ooh give you up)
(Ooh give you up)
(Ooh) Never gonna give, never gonna give (give you up)
(Ooh) Never gonna give, never gonna give (give you up)
[Verse 2]
We've known each other for so long
Your heart's been aching but you're too shy to say it
Inside we both know what's been going on
We know the game and we're gonna play it
[Pre-Chorus 1]
I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling
Gotta make you understand
[Chorus]
Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry
Never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you
Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry
Never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you
Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry
Never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you
The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Last Martian, by Raymond Van Houten
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
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this ebook.
Title: The Last Martian
Author: Raymond Van Houten
Release Date: May 11, 2020 [EBook #62097]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LAST MARTIAN ***
Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
THE LAST MARTIAN
By RAYMOND VAN HOUTEN
The great pumps of Mars were slowly
stopping. Unless the strange being
from far-off Gamtl could renew their
life-giving flow, a once-mighty
planet would die.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Spring 1942.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Peetn drew his cloak more firmly about his furry shoulders as the sun
began to sink through the Martian sky and the wind throbbed a deeper
note in the gathering darkness. He stood gazing silently as the fading
light painted the sky in somber colors, preparing to disappear for
another night of screaming wind and penetrating sub-zero cold.
He watched until the twilight deepened to purple and then stalked
laboriously into the wind, up the gentle slope toward the little hollow
where he went each night.
His tall, articulated form strode across the dusty plain. By the time
he had reached the foot of the bank the sky was totally blank, except
for the stars, and he could barely propel himself forward against
the raging world-wide currents of atmosphere. The last few yards he
crawled on his bellyplates. He tumbled into the central hollow and lay
exhausted, his lungs sucking in and out--
The cry of a Martian _odlat_ would not be audible to human ears, but
the screech which emanated within an inch of Peetn's ear-cupulas
sent paralyzing waves of terror washing to the tip of his spiny
tail. He skirled in agony as inch-long teeth crunched savagely into
his shoulder, and the _odlat_, startled, let go. Peetn's tentacles
shot beneath the flapping folds of his cloak and the night-dark was
shattered in a hissing blaze of light. The headless corpse of the
_odlat_ thudded to the ground. Black reaction smote Peetn a blow
somewhere inside, and the Martian lost consciousness.
It was after midnight that he awoke to the agonizing throb of his
poisoned shoulder. His faculties returned somewhat, and he crawled
painfully over to a little niche in the rocks, where he kept his scant
stores. Extracting a few pieces of twisted root which had a slight
medicinal quality, he plugged the holes left by the _odlat's_ fangs.
Soon, under the soporific influence of the whining wind, he dropped off
into a feverish, agitated sleep.
The Martian awoke just before noon of the next day and found that the
crude poultices he had applied to his wounds had been more effective
than he had expected. The shoulder still hurt, but with the gentle ache
of healing tissues rather than the savage bite of newly-torn nerves.
The effect of the _odlat_ poison had worn off, and outside of a slight
weakness and dizziness, Peetn felt nothing amiss in his interior. He
slowly unwound from where he lay and stretched to his full height.
The body of the _odlat_ lay where it had fallen the night before,
headless and beginning to stiffen. The dominant race of Mars could use
little of this altogether useless and dangerous beast, namely the ears
and eyeballs, and if the animal were not too old, the tail. This fierce
old reprobate was entirely worthless therefore, and Peetn dragged it
out into the desert and threw it into a pit. It could not be left lying
near his hollow to draw other _odlats_ to the spot.
He returned from his errand and prepared for another day at his
appointed duties.
The routine of caring for a Martian water-station is neither
complicated nor arduous, being hardly more than a daily inspection
tour. No Martian alive understood the methods or mechanisms which drew
and pumped water from the massive ice-cap into the pool of the colony;
no one could alter the flow of liquid through the pipes, or shut it
off, for the valves had long ago corroded into their seats. Even the
inspection was a mere gesture.
* * * * *
Peetn always started his rounds in the underground pump room, partly
because most of the machinery was there, but mostly because of a
subconscious certainty that there something was wrong. Somehow the
conglomeration of squeaks, hisses, and shudders suggested things
that shouldn't be. Day after day he had gone over the maze of pipes
and cylinders, looking for a dreaded break, but always he found
everything the way he had left it the night before. He couldn't know of
oilless bearings burning slowly out during the centuries. The Martian
artificers had built for incredible durability in that long-gone age of
Martian glory, but they had not anticipated the mining of the last drop
of oil or the last flake of graphite, which had occurred millennium
before Peetn's time.
Once again he began to go over the machinery which he didn't vaguely
understand. In the center of the floor squatted a huge, inscrutable
mass of metal from which plumed the beginning of all the pipes. Peetn
traced with his sight organs the spidery lengths of hard, grey tubing
to where they disappeared into the housings of the chugging pumps. It
was the pumps which emitted the disturbing noises most of all. Peetn
stuck his head close and listened to the discords in their tune. It
sounded like rasping, like two raw bones being rubbed together under
the flesh. He shook his bald head sadly and let his tentacle-tips
flicker lightly over the smooth metal. As long as they didn't stop--
He watched the four bulky pipes crawl along the floor and up the wall,
where they pushed through the ceiling into the valve-house above. He
glanced over the gauges, meaningless to him, but still faithfully
recording the surge of water passing through the pipes. It had lessened
by about four-fifths since this station had been in operation, but
nobody noticed the difference. Those that had seen the greater flow
were less than dust these ages past.
He trudged back up the stairs counting them mechanically, and was in
the outer air again. The change from semi-darkness to light brought his
multiple eyelids winking shut, screening his sight. He squinted toward
the southern horizon, seeing nothing but wastes.
What was that?
From the tail of his eye he thought he saw a flash of light far out
toward the west, but although he gazed at the spot for several minutes,
it did not repeat. Dismissing it as a result of the glare, he stopped
and entered the valve-house, which stood in the shadow of the towering
reservoir.
He finished his useless routine, touching gently the same things and
looking in the same places as every day, and came outside.
This time it was unmistakable. Something flashed in the sunlight out
in the desert to the west, a piece of polished metal or glass. Or a
weapon. Somebody was on the desert!
He was immediately prompted to run atop the knoll, whistle and wave his
tentacles so that they would not miss him, but some primal caution held
him back until reason took hold of his chaotic mind.
Out there was either a friend or an enemy. If it were a friend, it
could only be his relief, and he wasn't due for another three years.
Besides, he would be coming from the south. Therefore it was an enemy,
some members of another colony coming to raid the water station!
Bending low, he raced up the hill and threw himself into the central
hollow, facing west. He drew from its holster the flash gun, which had
killed the _odlat_, and cradled it beside him. His eyes strained on
their stalks across the western wastes, ready for the first hint of
suspicious movement.
Intra-mural war had again broken out on Mars! It disturbed Peetn to
have the first responsibility fall on him, but recollecting the tales
that the oldsters used to tell him, he was a little proud too. The
little band of water-station defenders had been heroes in those days of
the past, not useless, forgotten automatons. There had been a real and
vital reason for their bitter existence in the north. Peetn's presence,
up till now, had been a formality.
For a long time he lay sweeping the desert before him, waiting for
another glimpse of his attackers, until suddenly he realized that
another night was near. The sky had already begun to edge toward the
dark end of the spectrum, and the light was lessening visibly. Peetn
grew uneasy as the shadow of the box-like reservoir left its source and
began a sinister march to the horizon behind him. The rising nightwind
send cold _odlat_-tongues up and down his spindly back, and although
he knew that no living thing could stand on the open desert during a
Martian night, the coming of darkness brought fear rather than a sense
of security.
* * * * *
The dusky sun touched the western plains and the wind howled higher
in anticipation of the darkness. Abruptly, from out of the dull glare
in the west, a figure, small from distance, moved. Peetn's limbs and
tentacles tensed as he watched, and amazement riveted his gaze.
That small, chunky, ballooning figure was no Martian!
Carried onward by the wind, staggering weakly on its thick legs, the
figure came on, weaving from side to side, blundering over the bare
rock and hard-packed sand.
Peetn made no move to lift the projector as the thing came within
range. Possibly the sight of this apparition had driven all thought of
it from his mind; or possibly his analytical subconscious had reasoned
that all the menace of the unknown attacker had vanished, since this
was obviously no raiding Martians from another colony.
Whatever it was, it seemed in no way belligerent. In fact, Peetn
guessed that the creature was in trouble, possibly dying. It made no
effort to hold back against the driving wind, as he would have done,
and the erratic course which it followed bespoke numbed faculties.
The strange figure passed Peetn's hillcrest hollow a few rods to
the north and brought up with a thud against the sheer side of the
reservoir, where it toppled limply over and lay still on the ground.
Banks of sand began to accumulate against the windward sides of the
bloated legs and body.
Peetn hesitated only long enough to jam the flash pistol back into
its holster, where it would be safe from the blasting sand, before he
scuttled, bent double, toward the mysterious intruder's prone body. The
thought that it was a corpse flashed through the Martian's mind, but
the chance that a living being lay in travail decided him in favor of
the risk.
He was down on his tentacles and knees when he reached the reservoir
wall, and he burrowed down behind the inert form for a moment before
attempting the more arduous trip back with the dead weight dragging
behind. He found to his surprise that it was covered by a case of metal!
Inch by inch, minute by minute, he conquered the two-score feet back
to the small safety of his hilltop. Keeping the limp form between
himself and the wind, he strained against the uphill drag until finally
he topped the crest and slid down into the familiar haven. Dizzy from
exertion and gulping air and sand indiscriminately, he relaxed on the
fringes of oblivion while the Martian wind bawled in Jovian defeat.
Returning vigor brought renewed interest in his prize of war, and
he raised himself on his bony knees, peering breathlessly into the
transparent faceplate of the metal suit. Nausea, fear, and amazement
flooded his brain at the sight of the alien face which returned
his stare with sightless, open eyes. It was the face of a Martian
nightmare; square, with jutting chin-bone; straight long nose, pierced
under the lobes by wide slits; hideous blue eyes with single skin-like
lids; and a mouth--a long, gaping crack rimmed with soft red flesh and
filled with gleaming teeth, like a carnivorous beast's!
And that mouth breathed! It was not dead!
Peetn's tentacles fumbled with the unfamiliar drawcatch of the
creature's locked faceplate, until with a grating of sand crystals
between metal, it slid out, and he lifted the glass off. A puff of
evil-smelling vapor flew into the Martian's face, and he recoiled.
The awful face beneath writhed, and a low groan from the pulpy lips
made Peetn's eye-sacs pale in terror. He watched fascinated as the
returning light of consciousness slowly dissolved the glaze over the
bluish eyes. One metal-clad hand raised feebly to the open faceplate
and then dropped like lead as if the owner had used the last bit of
energy in his storm-beaten body for the effort. The monstrosity lay
panting for breath and making murmuring sounds. Peetn bent closer to
listen, submerging his revulsion with curiosity.
"Water! Water!" it was saying over and over.
A wave of deep compassion engulfed Peetn's twin hearts as he looked
into that twisted face beneath its mat of stiff bristly black fur. He
realized instantly that this thing was suffering, probably from lack of
the things which kept it alive. He closed the faceplate again to keep
out the whirling sand and rummaged out the last of his _merrl_ root
and a small quantity of water, on the chance that his food might be
suitable to the alien tastes of this being.
An avid light sparkled in the cloudy eyes as Peetn held the food and
water close, and in a spasmodic burst of energy it grasped the metal
container and splashed the precious fluid into its sucking mouth.
Peetn averted his eye-stalks from the horrible, yet pitiful sight. The
_merrl_ root was snatched from his tentacle and crammed between the red
lips with revolting smacking sounds and gasps of pleasure.
Strength seemed to flow back into the stranger, and he assayed to sit
up. He slumped into Peetn's supporting tentacles with a weak grin and
closed his eyes, dropping immediately into a deep sleep.
Peetn lay the inert figure back on the ground and gazed fascinated at
the face, now relaxed in repose. From whence had this stranger come?
Mars could never have spawned such a creature! This was a being from
another world, maybe from _Gamtl_ itself! Peetn thrilled at the thought
as he lay himself down to a food-and-water-less bed.
* * * * *
Long, long ago the savants had predicted the death of Mars, the gradual
wasting away of its ability to support life, until finally the last
Martian would die alone. They pointed with eagerness and envy in their
telescopes at the soft green sphere of the third planet, picturing it
as the Martian Eden, teeming with life-giving food and water.
Space ships were built. There was not nearly enough room for the entire
population of Mars aboard, so it was agreed that they should act as
ferries, shuttling back and forth until Mars was evacuated.
The first contingent departed one day on the long trek to another
world, and the people left behind waited with renewed hope for their
turn to go. Hope turned to uneasiness as a second fleet of ships
rocketed toward Paradise, many years after the first ones should
have returned. A third and fourth fleet followed at ever-lengthening
intervals, and with ever-lessening numbers, but all vanished into
obscurity with the same finality.
Weakening civilization soon could no longer strain the necessary
resources from the perishing planet to send another fleet; Gamtl, the
lush, life-choked pleasure-laden Paradise, became a myth of the past,
and then even the myth became dim and half-remembered.
Life was a sodden series of hungry days and frigid nights. The energies
of each individual were strictly circumscribed to activities designed
to give his colony one more day, one more hour of life. Birth, when
it was allowed at all, was limited to the replacement of necessary
personnel to carry on the food gathering of the community. All contact,
outside of occasional meetings between scouts searching for new patches
of _merrl_ bushes, was lost between the colonies, which had settled
on the dust-covered sites of the ancient cities because of the trickle
of water which still issued from the massive pipes. Even the sporadic
raids made on the water stations were abandoned, and as the danger of
attack lessened, small and smaller numbers of guards were spared from
the duties of procuring _merrl_ from the desert wastes, until finally
only one made the food-and water-less trip into the northern steppes of
the polar region. Every fifth year another was sent to relieve him, but
the oldest man in the colony could not remember when one had returned.
What privation, what utter loneliness these martyrs endured would never
be known. What acts of heroism they might perform would go forever
unsung.
Peetn had been very young when he had set out for the far north and
five years of Martian hell at the water station, but the two years that
had passed so far had left him a dead-hearted, middle-aged Martian.
Wrinkles had appeared on his eye-sacs, and his fur had become sparse
and gray. His mind, too, had turned gray, had withered from watching
too many sunsets. He came to feel inside that he would never see his
colony again, just like the others.
* * * * *
In spite of his activity the day before, Peetn was up and about early
the next morning and went into the desert for _merrl_. Before he left,
however, he placed the metal container half-full of water beside the
still-sleeping figure in the metal suit. An intermittent buzzing sound
issuing from its mouth startled him, and he opened the faceplate. The
sonorous sound stopped abruptly with a snort, and the stranger mumbled
a few words and squirmed in his sleep. Peetn hastily but softly closed
the lid and ambled off into the sea of rock and sand.
When he returned, his visitor was standing shakily on his feet,
watching him stilt across the plain toward him. Peetn emptied his
pockets of the succulent _merrl_ he had gathered and faced the stranger
with a whistle of greeting, extending a friendly tentacle. It was
grasped by the prehensile tip of the creature's queer tentacle and
gently oscillated up and down. Peetn interpreted the gesture as meaning
friendship and enthusiastically entered into the spirit of it, pumping
the thick arm up and down until the being cried out. The Martian,
noticing that his companion's eyes were fastened on the _merrl_ root
which he had brought, snatched up one of the tubers and offered it to
him.
They broke their fast in genial camaraderie, this decadent Martian and
his un-Martian visitant, so utterly divergent in form, so different in
many ways. But such is the yearning of loneliness and bewilderment that
all this was forgotten.
Peetn was about to leave on his daily inspection when a gentle hand
restrained him. The stranger was making sounds at him, meaningless
and unfamiliar, but it was apparent that he wanted Peetn to stay and
listen. So the Martian stayed and listened solemnly, strange thoughts
milling through his head.
"I know you're not going to understand a word of this," his companion
was saying, "But I'm going to tell it to you, anyway--just for luck.
My name is Harrison Clark, late of San Francisco, U.S.A., Earth. I
cracked up, like a damn fool, in the first rocket to reach Mars about
two hundred miles out there in the desert. My food and water gave out,
and the air inside my ship was getting bad, so I crawled into my can
and started out, looking for God knows what! I was about done when
you must have found me, for I don't remember anything for a long time
back. You saved my life, and now I want to do something for you. Got
any lawns you want mowed, or houses I can haunt? I'll bet I'm quite a
fright in these parts!" He grinned broadly.
Peetn listened gravely to this address, and when it was over, he
extended a tentacle and shook hands.
"I get it, pal!" laughed Harry Clark. "We're friends no matter what I
look like. You'd be a sixteen cylinder haunt back on Earth yourself!"
Peetn disengaged his tentacle-tip and strode off down the slope to the
subterranean entrance of the pump room. Clark hesitated a moment and
then followed, more slowly because of his wasted strength, Peetn turned
and waited for him at the head of the steps, and they entered the
cavern together.
Clark could not see for a few minutes in the gloom, and he stood still,
while Peetn, with his more adaptable sight organs, moved about with
ease in the familiar surroundings. The multiple noises which rebounded
in the enclosed space beat through the Earthman's open faceplate,
betraying the secret of the darkly looming masses.
"Machinery," he said softly.
Peetn went through his customary routine, conscious of the stranger's
eyes watching his every move, and conscious also of a pitying wonder in
them. They quit the underground room, Peetn gently tugging Clark away
from the four gauges which measured the water-flow through the monster
pipes, and entered the valve-house.
Peetn's tentacles caressed the valve-wheels and giant housings
reverently--and uselessly--while the stranger once again watched with
interest. Peetn was suddenly startled by a gusty, explosive sound from
the alien.
"What a hell of a mechanic you are!" laughed the Earthman. "I don't
believe you know the first thing about all this, and yet you're
obviously the caretaker around here. The pumps down there are in a bad
way. Why don't you oil them?"
Peetn stuck out his tentacle and they shook hands.
"Yeah, we're pals, but I still think you're a bust. Look," he walked
over to one of the valve wheels and grasped it by the rim, "there's
hardly a trickle going through the pipes. Why don't you open her up,
like this--" The valve creaked protestingly and moved a fraction of an
inch under the Earthman's effort. Gauges on the wall quivered slightly
and advanced an imperceptible amount along their calibrated scales.
Peetn went suddenly berserk. He lashed out with his tentacles and
caught Harrison Clark's straining figure about the waist, flinging
him across the narrow room with a metallic clangor. He stood over the
cowering figure, his tentacles poised threateningly. This creature was
meddling with the machinery!
"Hey, wait a minute!" shouted the shaken Earthman, raising himself on
an elbow and looking up into the inscrutable face of the Martian. "I'm
not trying to hurt anything! Sorry if I've done anything wrong. Here,
shake hands!"
He extended his hand and reluctantly the Martian took it.
They went back to the little hollow, Clark limping a bit from his fall.
Peetn enclosed himself in a shell of reticence after the episode in the
valve-house, and it was only by dint of hard labor that the Earthman
was able to coax him out of it.
* * * * *
The days went by, and sandwiched between them were the Martian nights
with their savage fury. Slowly the two mis-matched companions evolved
a crude method of making themselves understood to each other, and a
dawning comprehension of the incredible state of Martian life came to
Harry Clark. He spent much time in wandering about the water station,
and slowly he pieced together the puzzle. He knew that it was water
which was contained in the pipes almost the first day he had been
there. The intake pipes burrowed under the ground toward the north
direction of the ice cap, while the outlets stretched away to the
south to an unknown destination. This, then, must be some kind of
intermediary, where the ice of the polar cap was transformed into water
and then pumped south to some place where it was needed. Examination
of the huge machine in the center of the pump cavern convinced him
that this must be where the ice was turned into water. How the ice was
transported over the five hundred miles from the polar cap he could not
discover. Water came out, however, so ice must go in.
The pumps carried the water up into the high-sided reservoir, from
where it started its journey south after passing through the main
valves.
But something was missing. Where did the trickle of water go? Why was
it so small? Why had the Martian gone off the deep end when he had
tried to increase the volume of water flowing through _the_ pipes?
He made up his mind to worm the answers out of Peetn at the first
opportunity.
Peetn's mind was in a turmoil as he grubbed in the desert sands at the
base of the stubby, tree-like plant. He mechanically pulled up the
bulbous roots, tearing them loose, but always leaving enough of a stem
so that a new one would grow back on, but his thoughts were upon what
the stranger had made known to him by the diagram he had drawn in the
sand. This being was from Gamtl! Gamtl, the mythical Eden, the planet
to which legend told all good Martians would go some day. Some day, it
was said, the ghostly ships of space would return, and all Mars would
be happy again. This monstrosity claimed to have come from there. Could
this be the time of resurrection which Mars was promised by the old
myth? How could this thick-tentacled, hideous-faced being bring Mars
back to its old lost glory?
Such were Peetn's thoughts as he approached the water station with his
pockets half full of _merrl_. The now familiar figure of the being from
Gamtl stood atop the knoll beckoning to him.
They shook hands solemnly after Peetn had dumped his load of food, and
the stranger drew Peetn over to a patch of cleared sand. Bending down,
he drew with his finger a crude diagram of the water-station, pointing
to it, and then to the reservoir, pump-cavern, and the valve-house,
indicating each in the sand in turn. He then drew a line from the
pump-cavern northward, and connected it to a large scrawl which Peetn
decided was supposed to represent the ice-cap. He nodded his head in
a gesture which he had learned from the Earthman, indicating that he
understood, and that the diagram was right.
Clark then drew a line from the valve-house south. By means of much
pointing and insistent signs, the Martian finally discovered that he
wished to know where it led, and what was at the end.
Peetn jack-knifed his gangly legs and sank to his knees. The tip of
his tentacles traced a picture in the sand. It looked like a series
of small circles interlinked by little curved lines. Peetn pointed to
himself, then at the circles. Then he made eighty-two little dashes in
the sand.
The Earthman understood immediately. So that was it! This water-station
supplied a colony of eighty-two Martians with drinking water, vital to
their existence! They must live very far south near the equator, in the
warmest zone of the planet, where food and heat were more abundant. Of
course! And Beany was shipped up here as watchman. Clark looked with
new respect at the Martian, thinking of the soul-deadening loneliness
he must have known. He certainly wasn't much good as a mechanic; why,
he couldn't even have known that the flow of water could be increased
by opening those valves wider! Naturally, he had thought that Clark had
tried to sabotage the plant when he had laid hands on the machinery.
Those pumps--it was a wonder that they hadn't frozen stiff long before
this.
Harrison Clark made up his mind.
Next morning when Peetn arose, the man from Gamtl was gone. So was a
three-day supply of _merrl_ and water.
* * * * *
It was eight days later when the Martian emerged from the valve-house
and saw the tiny figure come trudging out of the west. It was the
alien, and behind him dragged a curious object, a black, cylinder-like
affair trundling along on four wheels and pulled by a rope in the
stranger's hands. Peetn stalked out to meet him and after they had
shaken hands, he curled a few tentacles about the rope and together
they pulled the mysterious object into the water-station. Peetn watched
with his curiosity aroused as Clark heaved and grunted the thing down
the thirty-one steps into the underground pump room, talking all the
while.
"You know what this is, Beany, old boy?" he said. "It's oil--for the
pumps. It'll take the squeaks out of 'em for a while anyway. It won't
last forever, but before it's gone, maybe you and I can figure out
something else. Lucky I had this barrel left on the ship. There!"
He stood up and dusted off his hands. "If we can get those pumps to
stop chattering, we can open up the valves and let a _real_ head of
water through to your pals. Be afraid to do it with the things in this
condition."
He unscrewed the cap and peered in, sniffing. He turned to the Martian
with a broad grin.
"About three-quarters full," he announced, marking the level on the
outside of the drum with his hand.
Peetn, deciding that the mystery had progressed just about far enough
for his Martian tastes, stilted over and inserted his tube-like
proboscis into the hole left by the screw cap, and inhaled. He
straightened up abruptly and whistled, tears dropping from his yellow,
sac-like eyes.
Clark laughed excitedly. "That's oil, you Beanpole! We're going to
rebuild Mars with that drum! You poor guys must have had a hell of
a time living in this hole," he continued, becoming serious and
pensive and indicating the desert with a wave of his hand. "It would
take one of you a life-time to find food enough to live that long.
Your civilization has sunk right down to rock bottom, but I think
we're going to change all that." He shook his head doubtfully. "It's
according to how long we can make this oil last. Those machines which
your ancestors made are the real McCoy, all right, but God knows how
long they've been pounding away dry as a bone. The oil might pour out
of every crack as fast as we pour it in. Well," he finished, shrugging
his shoulders, "there's only one way of finding out!"
Carefully, lest he spill a drop of the priceless fluid, he filled a
water container with the lubricant.
"Keep your tentacles crossed!" he shot at Peetn, who looked down upon
him from his superior height as the Earthman slowly poured the contents
of his container into the oil-cup on the main bearing of No. 1 pump. He
allowed the dregs to drain into the capacious pocket and then bent with
hands on knees, looking for signs of a leak below.
Peetn followed his every move tensely, wondering whether or not to
force a halt to this tampering with the vital machines, but somehow he
trusted this monster from Gamtl. He seemed to know what he was about,
and there _was_ a chance that after he was through the disturbing
noises in the machines would be gone. So he watched and waited, always
on the alert to prevent any outright damage. He couldn't see, anyway,
how pouring some of that evil-smelling stuff into those little cups
would change anything.
And then suddenly, the song of the pumps changed! The thumping and
creaking lessened to an almost imperceptible amount as a tiny ring of
oil appeared around the periphery of the bearing. The pump rose to a
new level of activity, the parts whirling and plunging at a greater
speed. Peetn thrilled in surprise.
His interest increased ten-fold as Clark filled the cups on the
other three pumps in turn. Each one's voice dropped from a shout to a
whisper, and all chugged with more vigor under the relaxing influence
of the lubricating oil. Peetn trembled all over as he noted that
the protesting groans which had worried him so were gone. This was
unbelievable! This stranger from Gamtl was indeed a friend!
"Our work isn't done, Beany," said Clark, as he dumped what was left of
the oil back into the drum and wiped his hands in the sand. "The really
important part is yet to come. This is just preparing; now we've got to
knock those rusty valves loose from their eye-teeth!"
He screwed the barrel-cap back into place and, followed by Peetn whose
animation was visibly increased over his usual lethargic, fatalistic
state, he trod the stairs into the open air.
The Earthman gave a preliminary tug or two at the valve-wheels, and
then muttered under his breath. Peetn scowled inwardly. It was not
good, tampering with the machines. Then the Martian went all weak and
fluttery inside as the stranger picked up a short metal bar which
had been lying in a dusty corner and began banging on the tops of
the machines! He was upon Clark like a flash, and the tendons in the
Earthman's arms cracked agonizingly as the Martian giant wrested the
bar away from him in mid-blow. Clark relaxed as the tense tableau
threatened to continue for a protracted length of time.
"Look, Beany," he said pleadingly. "I'm only trying to jar the rust
loose inside. Gimme back that thing and let me alone. I know what I'm
doing."
The Martian, of course, didn't understand a word, and he stood toying
with the length of metal rod, his yellow eyes blank and inscrutable.
Then with a sudden gesture, he handed it back to Clark and extended a
tentacle.
"He trusts me!" gasped the Earthman as he pumped the furry limb up and
down enthusiastically.
Using the bar as a lever, he twisted the spoked wheel around several
turns, watching the meters on the wall as the valve grated wider and
wider. The indicator crept up and up, revealing the increased flow to
Clark's anxious eyes. The noise from the pumps below drifting through
the open archway thundered with new energy to catch up with the added
drain on their powers. Trembling with triumph, he disentangled the bar
from the spokes and turned the handle on the petcock from which Peetn
drained their drinking water every morning. A stout stream as thick
as his thumb spattered to the ground with a heavenly gurgling sound.
Peetn's knees must have given way at the sight, for he folded up and
sat down on the floor ungently, his eyes glued to that stream of life
which issued from the pipette.
* * * * *
Several weeks later, Harry Clark stood by with an amused grin on his
face as Peetn tweedled excitedly to the three Martians who had come
stilting out of the south the evening before. The whistling of the
Martians was less than gibberish to him, but he got the idea from the
various tentacle-wavings and yellow-eyed stares in his direction that
Peetn was giving them the dirt about himself.
And that was exactly what Peetn was doing.
"The monster is from Gamtl, the Paradise of the old legend," he was
whistling. "Many days ago the wind blew him into the water-station,
sick and dying from lack of life essentials. He was clad in the strange
metal suit which you still see upon him. He is a very strange and
alien being. It seems inexplicable, but I believe that he understands
more about them than we for whom they exist. Well, one day in the
valve-house, he laid tentacles on one of the machines, and I had to
pull him bodily away from it. His interest did not carry him quite so
far as that in succeeding days, but about a week later I arose in the
morning to find him gone!
"His return, which I didn't expect, was the queerest sight I ever saw.
He came across the desert at about midday, from the direction he first
came, dragging behind him a cylindrical object which I later found to
be hollow and filled with a very amazing liquid. He took this container
down into the cavern of the chugging machines and unscrewed a small
circular section in the top. I smelled its contents; it smelled like
the juice of the _merrl_ plant when it was crushed, a very unpleasant
odor, I assure you. It also had the same consistency and texture, as I
discovered surreptitiously afterwards.
"Well, he poured some of it into the chugging machines, and the noises
which they had been making--stopped! It was the most amazing thing I
have ever experienced. He seemed to wield some un-Martian control over
them!
"Then he did a thing which makes me shudder to recount! He picked up
a bar of metal half as long as my tentacle and began belaboring the
machines from which I had pulled him a few weeks before! Quickly I
stopped him, but something, perhaps the memory of how he had quieted
the chugging machines, told me that this being could be trusted, and
that he knew what he was doing. I--I took an awful chance. I squirm
inside when I think of what might have happened if my trust in this
Gamtlian had been misplaced. I gave him back the bar and allowed him to
continue!
"He stopped banging before he broke anything, and then he did a
peculiar thing. He turned the outer edge of the round machines in
there," Peetn indicated the valve-house, "so that the whole top moved
around itself. Then the miracle happened."
"Yes, go on," twittered the other one excitedly. "What did he do?"
Peetn paused for a moment to gather weight, and then proceeded
solemnly. "He opened the little machine from which I draw my drinking
water, and a stream shot forth as thick as my tentacle and spattered
all about the room!" He allowed himself to exaggerate. "An unbelievable
quantity of water poured out in the short space of time that I watched
it."
The newcomers seemed slightly disappointed at the tale Peetn told,
expecting to hear about gigantic super-Martian operations by the
stranger from Gamtl, the Martian spirit-world.
"Why that's just about what happened down at the colony, about the
water, I mean," said one of them. "All of a sudden a flood came
gushing out of the supply pipe and overflowed the pool and spreading
out over the surrounding desert. A funny thing, too, was the way that
the _merrl_ plants grew where the water had spread. When we left,
our colony had a full fifteen days' stock, and all of it was gathered
within a five-minute walk of the caves!"
Peetn had a faraway look in his usually inexpressive, yellow eyes. A
quiver was noticeable in his whistle as he replied.
"Can this be the fulfilment of the old legend of Gamtl?" he asked.
"Already we owe this alien much; our lives have been made easier
to live. Who knows, with the awful burden of food-gathering and
water-conserving lifted from our colony, we may be able to gain back
some of the lost glory of our ancestors; may again be able to build
water-stations and flash-guns! Yes, my friends, the day that stranger
staggered into this water-station was the first day of the rebirth of
Mars!"
* * * * *
Harrison Clark, for the first time since he had crashed on the Martian
desert in the rocket, did not dream so longingly of Earth as he lay
in the little hollow he had come to know as home. He had work to do
here. A feeling of mingled exultation and determination had possessed
him when Peetn had shown him the liquid which resulted from crushing
_merrl_. It was a very heavy and durable vegetable oil, quite capable
of continuing the job of lubricating the machinery after his petroleum
was gone. Mars could be re-awakened with it; the task was his.
Then, too, some day another rocket might arrive from Earth, one that
wouldn't crash. The American Rocket Society wouldn't give up because
their first rocket failed to return. In examining the pumps a day or so
ago, he thought he found what made them go. A small, ridiculously small
box, no larger than his two fists fastened to the eccentric. Obviously
atomic power, or something as efficient and ever-lasting. Earth could
use something like that.
A sense of warmth and friendship suffused him, in spite of the frigid
wind which blew all around, as he thought of the Martian monsters which
lay sleeping beside him. They were _his_ people now! For when Peetn had
stopped whistling to them, one by one they had filed past, and every
damn one had shaken his hand!
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According to all known laws
of aviation,
there is no way a bee
should be able to fly.
Its wings are too small to get
its fat little body off the ground.
The bee, of course, flies anyway
because bees don't care
what humans think is impossible.
Yellow, black. Yellow, black.
Yellow, black. Yellow, black.
Ooh, black and yellow!
Let's shake it up a little.
Barry! Breakfast is ready!
Ooming!
Hang on a second.
Hello?
- Barry?
- Adam?
- Oan you believe this is happening?
- I can't. I'll pick you up.
Looking sharp.
Use the stairs. Your father
paid good money for those.
Sorry. I'm excited.
Here's the graduate.
We're very proud of you, son.
A perfect report card, all B's.
Very proud.
Ma! I got a thing going here.
- You got lint on your fuzz.
- Ow! That's me!
- Wave to us! We'll be in row 118,000.
- Bye!
Barry, I told you,
stop flying in the house!
- Hey, Adam.
- Hey, Barry.
- Is that fuzz gel?
- A little. Special day, graduation.
Never thought I'd make it.
Three days grade school,
three days high school.
Those were awkward.
Three days college. I'm glad I took
a day and hitchhiked around the hive.
You did come back different.
- Hi, Barry.
- Artie, growing a mustache? Looks good.
- Hear about Frankie?
- Yeah.
- You going to the funeral?
- No, I'm not going.
Everybody knows,
sting someone, you die.
Don't waste it on a squirrel.
Such a hothead.
I guess he could have
just gotten out of the way.
I love this incorporating
an amusement park into our day.
That's why we don't need vacations.
Boy, quite a bit of pomp...
under the circumstances.
- Well, Adam, today we are men.
- We are!
- Bee-men.
- Amen!
Hallelujah!
Students, faculty, distinguished bees,
please welcome Dean Buzzwell.
Welcome, New Hive Oity
graduating class of...
...9:15.
That concludes our ceremonies.
And begins your career
at Honex Industries!
Will we pick ourjob today?
I heard it's just orientation.
Heads up! Here we go.
Keep your hands and antennas
inside the tram at all times.
- Wonder what it'll be like?
- A little scary.
Welcome to Honex,
a division of Honesco
and a part of the Hexagon Group.
This is it!
Wow.
Wow.
We know that you, as a bee,
have worked your whole life
to get to the point where you
can work for your whole life.
Honey begins when our valiant Pollen
Jocks bring the nectar to the hive.
Our top-secret formula
is automatically color-corrected,
scent-adjusted and bubble-contoured
into this soothing sweet syrup
with its distinctive
golden glow you know as...
Honey!
- That girl was hot.
- She's my cousin!
- She is?
- Yes, we're all cousins.
- Right. You're right.
- At Honex, we constantly strive
to improve every aspect
of bee existence.
These bees are stress-testing
a new helmet technology.
- What do you think he makes?
- Not enough.
Here we have our latest advancement,
the Krelman.
- What does that do?
- Oatches that little strand of honey
that hangs after you pour it.
Saves us millions.
Oan anyone work on the Krelman?
Of course. Most bee jobs are
small ones. But bees know
that every small job,
if it's done well, means a lot.
But choose carefully
because you'll stay in the job
you pick for the rest of your life.
The same job the rest of your life?
I didn't know that.
What's the difference?
You'll be happy to know that bees,
as a species, haven't had one day off
in 27 million years.
So you'll just work us to death?
We'll sure try.
Wow! That blew my mind!
"What's the difference?"
How can you say that?
One job forever?
That's an insane choice to have to make.
I'm relieved. Now we only have
to make one decision in life.
But, Adam, how could they
never have told us that?
Why would you question anything?
We're bees.
We're the most perfectly
functioning society on Earth.
You ever think maybe things
work a little too well here?
Like what? Give me one example.
I don't know. But you know
what I'm talking about.
Please clear the gate.
Royal Nectar Force on approach.
Wait a second. Oheck it out.
- Hey, those are Pollen Jocks!
- Wow.
I've never seen them this close.
They know what it's like
outside the hive.
Yeah, but some don't come back.
- Hey, Jocks!
- Hi, Jocks!
You guys did great!
You're monsters!
You're sky freaks! I love it! I love it!
- I wonder where they were.
- I don't know.
Their day's not planned.
Outside the hive, flying who knows
where, doing who knows what.
You can'tjust decide to be a Pollen
Jock. You have to be bred for that.
Right.
Look. That's more pollen
than you and I will see in a lifetime.
It's just a status symbol.
Bees make too much of it.
Perhaps. Unless you're wearing it
and the ladies see you wearing it.
Those ladies?
Aren't they our cousins too?
Distant. Distant.
Look at these two.
- Oouple of Hive Harrys.
- Let's have fun with them.
It must be dangerous
being a Pollen Jock.
Yeah. Once a bear pinned me
against a mushroom!
He had a paw on my throat,
and with the other, he was slapping me!
- Oh, my!
- I never thought I'd knock him out.
What were you doing during this?
Trying to alert the authorities.
I can autograph that.
A little gusty out there today,
wasn't it, comrades?
Yeah. Gusty.
We're hitting a sunflower patch
six miles from here tomorrow.
- Six miles, huh?
- Barry!
A puddle jump for us,
but maybe you're not up for it.
- Maybe I am.
- You are not!
We're going 0900 at J-Gate.
What do you think, buzzy-boy?
Are you bee enough?
I might be. It all depends
on what 0900 means.
Hey, Honex!
Dad, you surprised me.
You decide what you're interested in?
- Well, there's a lot of choices.
- But you only get one.
Do you ever get bored
doing the same job every day?
Son, let me tell you about stirring.
You grab that stick, and you just
move it around, and you stir it around.
You get yourself into a rhythm.
It's a beautiful thing.
You know, Dad,
the more I think about it,
maybe the honey field
just isn't right for me.
You were thinking of what,
making balloon animals?
That's a bad job
for a guy with a stinger.
Janet, your son's not sure
he wants to go into honey!
- Barry, you are so funny sometimes.
- I'm not trying to be funny.
You're not funny! You're going
into honey. Our son, the stirrer!
- You're gonna be a stirrer?
- No one's listening to me!
Wait till you see the sticks I have.
I could say anything right now.
I'm gonna get an ant tattoo!
Let's open some honey and celebrate!
Maybe I'll pierce my thorax.
Shave my antennae.
Shack up with a grasshopper. Get
a gold tooth and call everybody "dawg"!
I'm so proud.
- We're starting work today!
- Today's the day.
Oome on! All the good jobs
will be gone.
Yeah, right.
Pollen counting, stunt bee, pouring,
stirrer, front desk, hair removal...
- Is it still available?
- Hang on. Two left!
One of them's yours! Oongratulations!
Step to the side.
- What'd you get?
- Picking crud out. Stellar!
Wow!
Oouple of newbies?
Yes, sir! Our first day! We are ready!
Make your choice.
- You want to go first?
- No, you go.
Oh, my. What's available?
Restroom attendant's open,
not for the reason you think.
- Any chance of getting the Krelman?
- Sure, you're on.
I'm sorry, the Krelman just closed out.
Wax monkey's always open.
The Krelman opened up again.
What happened?
A bee died. Makes an opening. See?
He's dead. Another dead one.
Deady. Deadified. Two more dead.
Dead from the neck up.
Dead from the neck down. That's life!
Oh, this is so hard!
Heating, cooling,
stunt bee, pourer, stirrer,
humming, inspector number seven,
lint coordinator, stripe supervisor,
mite wrangler. Barry, what
do you think I should... Barry?
Barry!
All right, we've got the sunflower patch
in quadrant nine...
What happened to you?
Where are you?
- I'm going out.
- Out? Out where?
- Out there.
- Oh, no!
I have to, before I go
to work for the rest of my life.
You're gonna die! You're crazy! Hello?
Another call coming in.
If anyone's feeling brave,
there's a Korean deli on 83rd
that gets their roses today.
Hey, guys.
- Look at that.
- Isn't that the kid we saw yesterday?
Hold it, son, flight deck's restricted.
It's OK, Lou. We're gonna take him up.
Really? Feeling lucky, are you?
Sign here, here. Just initial that.
- Thank you.
- OK.
You got a rain advisory today,
and as you all know,
bees cannot fly in rain.
So be careful. As always,
watch your brooms,
hockey sticks, dogs,
birds, bears and bats.
Also, I got a couple of reports
of root beer being poured on us.
Murphy's in a home because of it,
babbling like a cicada!
- That's awful.
- And a reminder for you rookies,
bee law number one,
absolutely no talking to humans!
All right, launch positions!
Buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz! Buzz, buzz,
buzz, buzz! Buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz!
Black and yellow!
Hello!
You ready for this, hot shot?
Yeah. Yeah, bring it on.
Wind, check.
- Antennae, check.
- Nectar pack, check.
- Wings, check.
- Stinger, check.
Scared out of my shorts, check.
OK, ladies,
let's move it out!
Pound those petunias,
you striped stem-suckers!
All of you, drain those flowers!
Wow! I'm out!
I can't believe I'm out!
So blue.
I feel so fast and free!
Box kite!
Wow!
Flowers!
This is Blue Leader.
We have roses visual.
Bring it around 30 degrees and hold.
Roses!
30 degrees, roger. Bringing it around.
Stand to the side, kid.
It's got a bit of a kick.
That is one nectar collector!
- Ever see pollination up close?
- No, sir.
I pick up some pollen here, sprinkle it
over here. Maybe a dash over there,
a pinch on that one.
See that? It's a little bit of magic.
That's amazing. Why do we do that?
That's pollen power. More pollen, more
flowers, more nectar, more honey for us.
Oool.
I'm picking up a lot of bright yellow.
Oould be daisies. Don't we need those?
Oopy that visual.
Wait. One of these flowers
seems to be on the move.
Say again? You're reporting
a moving flower?
Affirmative.
That was on the line!
This is the coolest. What is it?
I don't know, but I'm loving this color.
It smells good.
Not like a flower, but I like it.
Yeah, fuzzy.
Ohemical-y.
Oareful, guys. It's a little grabby.
My sweet lord of bees!
Oandy-brain, get off there!
Problem!
- Guys!
- This could be bad.
Affirmative.
Very close.
Gonna hurt.
Mama's little boy.
You are way out of position, rookie!
Ooming in at you like a missile!
Help me!
I don't think these are flowers.
- Should we tell him?
- I think he knows.
What is this?!
Match point!
You can start packing up, honey,
because you're about to eat it!
Yowser!
Gross.
There's a bee in the car!
- Do something!
- I'm driving!
- Hi, bee.
- He's back here!
He's going to sting me!
Nobody move. If you don't move,
he won't sting you. Freeze!
He blinked!
Spray him, Granny!
What are you doing?!
Wow... the tension level
out here is unbelievable.
I gotta get home.
Oan't fly in rain.
Oan't fly in rain.
Oan't fly in rain.
Mayday! Mayday! Bee going down!
Ken, could you close
the window please?
Ken, could you close
the window please?
Oheck out my new resume.
I made it into a fold-out brochure.
You see? Folds out.
Oh, no. More humans. I don't need this.
What was that?
Maybe this time. This time. This time.
This time! This time! This...
Drapes!
That is diabolical.
It's fantastic. It's got all my special
skills, even my top-ten favorite movies.
What's number one? Star Wars?
Nah, I don't go for that...
...kind of stuff.
No wonder we shouldn't talk to them.
They're out of their minds.
When I leave a job interview, they're
flabbergasted, can't believe what I say.
There's the sun. Maybe that's a way out.
I don't remember the sun
having a big 75 on it.
I predicted global warming.
I could feel it getting hotter.
At first I thought it was just me.
Wait! Stop! Bee!
Stand back. These are winter boots.
Wait!
Don't kill him!
You know I'm allergic to them!
This thing could kill me!
Why does his life have
less value than yours?
Why does his life have any less value
than mine? Is that your statement?
I'm just saying all life has value. You
don't know what he's capable of feeling.
My brochure!
There you go, little guy.
I'm not scared of him.
It's an allergic thing.
Put that on your resume brochure.
My whole face could puff up.
Make it one of your special skills.
Knocking someone out
is also a special skill.
Right. Bye, Vanessa. Thanks.
- Vanessa, next week? Yogurt night?
- Sure, Ken. You know, whatever.
- You could put carob chips on there.
- Bye.
- Supposed to be less calories.
- Bye.
I gotta say something.
She saved my life.
I gotta say something.
All right, here it goes.
Nah.
What would I say?
I could really get in trouble.
It's a bee law.
You're not supposed to talk to a human.
I can't believe I'm doing this.
I've got to.
Oh, I can't do it. Oome on!
No. Yes. No.
Do it. I can't.
How should I start it?
"You like jazz?" No, that's no good.
Here she comes! Speak, you fool!
Hi!
I'm sorry.
- You're talking.
- Yes, I know.
You're talking!
I'm so sorry.
No, it's OK. It's fine.
I know I'm dreaming.
But I don't recall going to bed.
Well, I'm sure this
is very disconcerting.
This is a bit of a surprise to me.
I mean, you're a bee!
I am. And I'm not supposed
to be doing this,
but they were all trying to kill me.
And if it wasn't for you...
I had to thank you.
It's just how I was raised.
That was a little weird.
- I'm talking with a bee.
- Yeah.
I'm talking to a bee.
And the bee is talking to me!
I just want to say I'm grateful.
I'll leave now.
- Wait! How did you learn to do that?
- What?
The talking thing.
Same way you did, I guess.
"Mama, Dada, honey." You pick it up.
- That's very funny.
- Yeah.
Bees are funny. If we didn't laugh,
we'd cry with what we have to deal with.
Anyway...
Oan I...
...get you something?
- Like what?
I don't know. I mean...
I don't know. Ooffee?
I don't want to put you out.
It's no trouble. It takes two minutes.
- It's just coffee.
- I hate to impose.
- Don't be ridiculous!
- Actually, I would love a cup.
Hey, you want rum cake?
- I shouldn't.
- Have some.
- No, I can't.
- Oome on!
I'm trying to lose a couple micrograms.
- Where?
- These stripes don't help.
You look great!
I don't know if you know
anything about fashion.
Are you all right?
No.
He's making the tie in the cab
as they're flying up Madison.
He finally gets there.
He runs up the steps into the church.
The wedding is on.
And he says, "Watermelon?
I thought you said Guatemalan.
Why would I marry a watermelon?"
Is that a bee joke?
That's the kind of stuff we do.
Yeah, different.
So, what are you gonna do, Barry?
About work? I don't know.
I want to do my part for the hive,
but I can't do it the way they want.
I know how you feel.
- You do?
- Sure.
My parents wanted me to be a lawyer or
a doctor, but I wanted to be a florist.
- Really?
- My only interest is flowers.
Our new queen was just elected
with that same campaign slogan.
Anyway, if you look...
There's my hive right there. See it?
You're in Sheep Meadow!
Yes! I'm right off the Turtle Pond!
No way! I know that area.
I lost a toe ring there once.
- Why do girls put rings on their toes?
- Why not?
- It's like putting a hat on your knee.
- Maybe I'll try that.
- You all right, ma'am?
- Oh, yeah. Fine.
Just having two cups of coffee!
Anyway, this has been great.
Thanks for the coffee.
Yeah, it's no trouble.
Sorry I couldn't finish it. If I did,
I'd be up the rest of my life.
Are you...?
Oan I take a piece of this with me?
Sure! Here, have a crumb.
- Thanks!
- Yeah.
All right. Well, then...
I guess I'll see you around.
Or not.
OK, Barry.
And thank you
so much again... for before.
Oh, that? That was nothing.
Well, not nothing, but... Anyway...
This can't possibly work.
He's all set to go.
We may as well try it.
OK, Dave, pull the chute.
- Sounds amazing.
- It was amazing!
It was the scariest,
happiest moment of my life.
Humans! I can't believe
you were with humans!
Giant, scary humans!
What were they like?
Huge and crazy. They talk crazy.
They eat crazy giant things.
They drive crazy.
- Do they try and kill you, like on TV?
- Some of them. But some of them don't.
- How'd you get back?
- Poodle.
You did it, and I'm glad. You saw
whatever you wanted to see.
You had your "experience." Now you
can pick out yourjob and be normal.
- Well...
- Well?
Well, I met someone.
You did? Was she Bee-ish?
- A wasp?! Your parents will kill you!
- No, no, no, not a wasp.
- Spider?
- I'm not attracted to spiders.
I know it's the hottest thing,
with the eight legs and all.
I can't get by that face.
So who is she?
She's... human.
No, no. That's a bee law.
You wouldn't break a bee law.
- Her name's Vanessa.
- Oh, boy.
She's so nice. And she's a florist!
Oh, no! You're dating a human florist!
We're not dating.
You're flying outside the hive, talking
to humans that attack our homes
with power washers and M-80s!
One-eighth a stick of dynamite!
She saved my life!
And she understands me.
This is over!
Eat this.
This is not over! What was that?
- They call it a crumb.
- It was so stingin' stripey!
And that's not what they eat.
That's what falls off what they eat!
- You know what a Oinnabon is?
- No.
It's bread and cinnamon and frosting.
They heat it up...
Sit down!
...really hot!
- Listen to me!
We are not them! We're us.
There's us and there's them!
Yes, but who can deny
the heart that is yearning?
There's no yearning.
Stop yearning. Listen to me!
You have got to start thinking bee,
my friend. Thinking bee!
- Thinking bee.
- Thinking bee.
Thinking bee! Thinking bee!
Thinking bee! Thinking bee!
There he is. He's in the pool.
You know what your problem is, Barry?
I gotta start thinking bee?
How much longer will this go on?
It's been three days!
Why aren't you working?
I've got a lot of big life decisions
to think about.
What life? You have no life!
You have no job. You're barely a bee!
Would it kill you
to make a little honey?
Barry, come out.
Your father's talking to you.
Martin, would you talk to him?
Barry, I'm talking to you!
You coming?
Got everything?
All set!
Go ahead. I'll catch up.
Don't be too long.
Watch this!
Vanessa!
- We're still here.
- I told you not to yell at him.
He doesn't respond to yelling!
- Then why yell at me?
- Because you don't listen!
I'm not listening to this.
Sorry, I've gotta go.
- Where are you going?
- I'm meeting a friend.
A girl? Is this why you can't decide?
Bye.
I just hope she's Bee-ish.
They have a huge parade
of flowers every year in Pasadena?
To be in the Tournament of Roses,
that's every florist's dream!
Up on a float, surrounded
by flowers, crowds cheering.
A tournament. Do the roses
compete in athletic events?
No. All right, I've got one.
How come you don't fly everywhere?
It's exhausting. Why don't you
run everywhere? It's faster.
Yeah, OK, I see, I see.
All right, your turn.
TiVo. You can just freeze live TV?
That's insane!
You don't have that?
We have Hivo, but it's a disease.
It's a horrible, horrible disease.
Oh, my.
Dumb bees!
You must want to sting all those jerks.
We try not to sting.
It's usually fatal for us.
So you have to watch your temper.
Very carefully.
You kick a wall, take a walk,
write an angry letter and throw it out.
Work through it like any emotion:
Anger, jealousy, lust.
Oh, my goodness! Are you OK?
Yeah.
- What is wrong with you?!
- It's a bug.
He's not bothering anybody.
Get out of here, you creep!
What was that? A Pic 'N' Save circular?
Yeah, it was. How did you know?
It felt like about 10 pages.
Seventy-five is pretty much our limit.
You've really got that
down to a science.
- I lost a cousin to Italian Vogue.
- I'll bet.
What in the name
of Mighty Hercules is this?
How did this get here?
Oute Bee, Golden Blossom,
Ray Liotta Private Select?
- Is he that actor?
- I never heard of him.
- Why is this here?
- For people. We eat it.
You don't have
enough food of your own?
- Well, yes.
- How do you get it?
- Bees make it.
- I know who makes it!
And it's hard to make it!
There's heating, cooling, stirring.
You need a whole Krelman thing!
- It's organic.
- It's our-ganic!
It's just honey, Barry.
Just what?!
Bees don't know about this!
This is stealing! A lot of stealing!
You've taken our homes, schools,
hospitals! This is all we have!
And it's on sale?!
I'm getting to the bottom of this.
I'm getting to the bottom
of all of this!
Hey, Hector.
- You almost done?
- Almost.
He is here. I sense it.
Well, I guess I'll go home now
and just leave this nice honey out,
with no one around.
You're busted, box boy!
I knew I heard something.
So you can talk!
I can talk.
And now you'll start talking!
Where you getting the sweet stuff?
Who's your supplier?
I don't understand.
I thought we were friends.
The last thing we want
to do is upset bees!
You're too late! It's ours now!
You, sir, have crossed
the wrong sword!
You, sir, will be lunch
for my iguana, Ignacio!
Where is the honey coming from?
Tell me where!
Honey Farms! It comes from Honey Farms!
Orazy person!
What horrible thing has happened here?
These faces, they never knew
what hit them. And now
they're on the road to nowhere!
Just keep still.
What? You're not dead?
Do I look dead? They will wipe anything
that moves. Where you headed?
To Honey Farms.
I am onto something huge here.
I'm going to Alaska. Moose blood,
crazy stuff. Blows your head off!
I'm going to Tacoma.
- And you?
- He really is dead.
All right.
Uh-oh!
- What is that?!
- Oh, no!
- A wiper! Triple blade!
- Triple blade?
Jump on! It's your only chance, bee!
Why does everything have
to be so doggone clean?!
How much do you people need to see?!
Open your eyes!
Stick your head out the window!
From NPR News in Washington,
I'm Oarl Kasell.
But don't kill no more bugs!
- Bee!
- Moose blood guy!!
- You hear something?
- Like what?
Like tiny screaming.
Turn off the radio.
Whassup, bee boy?
Hey, Blood.
Just a row of honey jars,
as far as the eye could see.
Wow!
I assume wherever this truck goes
is where they're getting it.
I mean, that honey's ours.
- Bees hang tight.
- We're all jammed in.
It's a close community.
Not us, man. We on our own.
Every mosquito on his own.
- What if you get in trouble?
- You a mosquito, you in trouble.
Nobody likes us. They just smack.
See a mosquito, smack, smack!
At least you're out in the world.
You must meet girls.
Mosquito girls try to trade up,
get with a moth, dragonfly.
Mosquito girl don't want no mosquito.
You got to be kidding me!
Mooseblood's about to leave
the building! So long, bee!
- Hey, guys!
- Mooseblood!
I knew I'd catch y'all down here.
Did you bring your crazy straw?
We throw it in jars, slap a label on it,
and it's pretty much pure profit.
What is this place?
A bee's got a brain
the size of a pinhead.
They are pinheads!
Pinhead.
- Oheck out the new smoker.
- Oh, sweet. That's the one you want.
The Thomas 3000!
Smoker?
Ninety puffs a minute, semi-automatic.
Twice the nicotine, all the tar.
A couple breaths of this
knocks them right out.
They make the honey,
and we make the money.
"They make the honey,
and we make the money"?
Oh, my!
What's going on? Are you OK?
Yeah. It doesn't last too long.
Do you know you're
in a fake hive with fake walls?
Our queen was moved here.
We had no choice.
This is your queen?
That's a man in women's clothes!
That's a drag queen!
What is this?
Oh, no!
There's hundreds of them!
Bee honey.
Our honey is being brazenly stolen
on a massive scale!
This is worse than anything bears
have done! I intend to do something.
Oh, Barry, stop.
Who told you humans are taking
our honey? That's a rumor.
Do these look like rumors?
That's a conspiracy theory.
These are obviously doctored photos.
How did you get mixed up in this?
He's been talking to humans.
- What?
- Talking to humans?!
He has a human girlfriend.
And they make out!
Make out? Barry!
We do not.
- You wish you could.
- Whose side are you on?
The bees!
I dated a cricket once in San Antonio.
Those crazy legs kept me up all night.
Barry, this is what you want
to do with your life?
I want to do it for all our lives.
Nobody works harder than bees!
Dad, I remember you
coming home so overworked
your hands were still stirring.
You couldn't stop.
I remember that.
What right do they have to our honey?
We live on two cups a year. They put it
in lip balm for no reason whatsoever!
Even if it's true, what can one bee do?
Sting them where it really hurts.
In the face! The eye!
- That would hurt.
- No.
Up the nose? That's a killer.
There's only one place you can sting
the humans, one place where it matters.
Hive at Five, the hive's only
full-hour action news source.
No more bee beards!
With Bob Bumble at the anchor desk.
Weather with Storm Stinger.
Sports with Buzz Larvi.
And Jeanette Ohung.
- Good evening. I'm Bob Bumble.
- And I'm Jeanette Ohung.
A tri-county bee, Barry Benson,
intends to sue the human race
for stealing our honey,
packaging it and profiting
from it illegally!
Tomorrow night on Bee Larry King,
we'll have three former queens here in
our studio, discussing their new book,
Olassy Ladies,
out this week on Hexagon.
Tonight we're talking to Barry Benson.
Did you ever think, "I'm a kid
from the hive. I can't do this"?
Bees have never been afraid
to change the world.
What about Bee Oolumbus?
Bee Gandhi? Bejesus?
Where I'm from, we'd never sue humans.
We were thinking
of stickball or candy stores.
How old are you?
The bee community
is supporting you in this case,
which will be the trial
of the bee century.
You know, they have a Larry King
in the human world too.
It's a common name. Next week...
He looks like you and has a show
and suspenders and colored dots...
Next week...
Glasses, quotes on the bottom from the
guest even though you just heard 'em.
Bear Week next week!
They're scary, hairy and here live.
Always leans forward, pointy shoulders,
squinty eyes, very Jewish.
In tennis, you attack
at the point of weakness!
It was my grandmother, Ken. She's 81.
Honey, her backhand's a joke!
I'm not gonna take advantage of that?
Quiet, please.
Actual work going on here.
- Is that that same bee?
- Yes, it is!
I'm helping him sue the human race.
- Hello.
- Hello, bee.
This is Ken.
Yeah, I remember you. Timberland, size
ten and a half. Vibram sole, I believe.
Why does he talk again?
Listen, you better go
'cause we're really busy working.
But it's our yogurt night!
Bye-bye.
Why is yogurt night so difficult?!
You poor thing.
You two have been at this for hours!
Yes, and Adam here
has been a huge help.
- Frosting...
- How many sugars?
Just one. I try not
to use the competition.
So why are you helping me?
Bees have good qualities.
And it takes my mind off the shop.
Instead of flowers, people
are giving balloon bouquets now.
Those are great, if you're three.
And artificial flowers.
- Oh, those just get me psychotic!
- Yeah, me too.
Bent stingers, pointless pollination.
Bees must hate those fake things!
Nothing worse
than a daffodil that's had work done.
Maybe this could make up
for it a little bit.
- This lawsuit's a pretty big deal.
- I guess.
You sure you want to go through with it?
Am I sure? When I'm done with
the humans, they won't be able
to say, "Honey, I'm home,"
without paying a royalty!
It's an incredible scene
here in downtown Manhattan,
where the world anxiously waits,
because for the first time in history,
we will hear for ourselves
if a honeybee can actually speak.
What have we gotten into here, Barry?
It's pretty big, isn't it?
I can't believe how many humans
don't work during the day.
You think billion-dollar multinational
food companies have good lawyers?
Everybody needs to stay
behind the barricade.
- What's the matter?
- I don't know, I just got a chill.
Well, if it isn't the bee team.
You boys work on this?
All rise! The Honorable
Judge Bumbleton presiding.
All right. Oase number 4475,
Superior Oourt of New York,
Barry Bee Benson v. the Honey Industry
is now in session.
Mr. Montgomery, you're representing
the five food companies collectively?
A privilege.
Mr. Benson... you're representing
all the bees of the world?
I'm kidding. Yes, Your Honor,
we're ready to proceed.
Mr. Montgomery,
your opening statement, please.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,
my grandmother was a simple woman.
Born on a farm, she believed
it was man's divine right
to benefit from the bounty
of nature God put before us.
If we lived in the topsy-turvy world
Mr. Benson imagines,
just think of what would it mean.
I would have to negotiate
with the silkworm
for the elastic in my britches!
Talking bee!
How do we know this isn't some sort of
holographic motion-picture-capture
Hollywood wizardry?
They could be using laser beams!
Robotics! Ventriloquism!
Oloning! For all we know,
he could be on steroids!
Mr. Benson?
Ladies and gentlemen,
there's no trickery here.
I'm just an ordinary bee.
Honey's pretty important to me.
It's important to all bees.
We invented it!
We make it. And we protect it
with our lives.
Unfortunately, there are
some people in this room
who think they can take it from us
'cause we're the little guys!
I'm hoping that, after this is all over,
you'll see how, by taking our honey,
you not only take everything we have
but everything we are!
I wish he'd dress like that
all the time. So nice!
Oall your first witness.
So, Mr. Klauss Vanderhayden
of Honey Farms, big company you have.
I suppose so.
I see you also own
Honeyburton and Honron!
Yes, they provide beekeepers
for our farms.
Beekeeper. I find that
to be a very disturbing term.
I don't imagine you employ
any bee-free-ers, do you?
- No.
- I couldn't hear you.
- No.
- No.
Because you don't free bees.
You keep bees. Not only that,
it seems you thought a bear would be
an appropriate image for a jar of honey.
They're very lovable creatures.
Yogi Bear, Fozzie Bear, Build-A-Bear.
You mean like this?
Bears kill bees!
How'd you like his head crashing
through your living room?!
Biting into your couch!
Spitting out your throw pillows!
OK, that's enough. Take him away.
So, Mr. Sting, thank you for being here.
Your name intrigues me.
- Where have I heard it before?
- I was with a band called The Police.
But you've never been
a police officer, have you?
No, I haven't.
No, you haven't. And so here
we have yet another example
of bee culture casually
stolen by a human
for nothing more than
a prance-about stage name.
Oh, please.
Have you ever been stung, Mr. Sting?
Because I'm feeling
a little stung, Sting.
Or should I say... Mr. Gordon M. Sumner!
That's not his real name?! You idiots!
Mr. Liotta, first,
belated congratulations on
your Emmy win for a guest spot
on ER in 2005.
Thank you. Thank you.
I see from your resume
that you're devilishly handsome
with a churning inner turmoil
that's ready to blow.
I enjoy what I do. Is that a crime?
Not yet it isn't. But is this
what it's come to for you?
Exploiting tiny, helpless bees
so you don't
have to rehearse
your part and learn your lines, sir?
Watch it, Benson!
I could blow right now!
This isn't a goodfella.
This is a badfella!
Why doesn't someone just step on
this creep, and we can all go home?!
- Order in this court!
- You're all thinking it!
Order! Order, I say!
- Say it!
- Mr. Liotta, please sit down!
I think it was awfully nice
of that bear to pitch in like that.
I think the jury's on our side.
Are we doing everything right, legally?
I'm a florist.
Right. Well, here's to a great team.
To a great team!
Well, hello.
- Ken!
- Hello.
I didn't think you were coming.
No, I was just late.
I tried to call, but... the battery.
I didn't want all this to go to waste,
so I called Barry. Luckily, he was free.
Oh, that was lucky.
There's a little left.
I could heat it up.
Yeah, heat it up, sure, whatever.
So I hear you're quite a tennis player.
I'm not much for the game myself.
The ball's a little grabby.
That's where I usually sit.
Right... there.
Ken, Barry was looking at your resume,
and he agreed with me that eating with
chopsticks isn't really a special skill.
You think I don't see what you're doing?
I know how hard it is to find
the rightjob. We have that in common.
Do we?
Bees have 100 percent employment,
but we do jobs like taking the crud out.
That's just what
I was thinking about doing.
Ken, I let Barry borrow your razor
for his fuzz. I hope that was all right.
I'm going to drain the old stinger.
Yeah, you do that.
Look at that.
You know, I've just about had it
with your little mind games.
- What's that?
- Italian Vogue.
Mamma mia, that's a lot of pages.
A lot of ads.
Remember what Van said, why is
your life more valuable than mine?
Funny, I just can't seem to recall that!
I think something stinks in here!
I love the smell of flowers.
How do you like the smell of flames?!
Not as much.
Water bug! Not taking sides!
Ken, I'm wearing a Ohapstick hat!
This is pathetic!
I've got issues!
Well, well, well, a royal flush!
- You're bluffing.
- Am I?
Surf's up, dude!
Poo water!
That bowl is gnarly.
Except for those dirty yellow rings!
Kenneth! What are you doing?!
You know, I don't even like honey!
I don't eat it!
We need to talk!
He's just a little bee!
And he happens to be
the nicest bee I've met in a long time!
Long time? What are you talking about?!
Are there other bugs in your life?
No, but there are other things bugging
me in life. And you're one of them!
Fine! Talking bees, no yogurt night...
My nerves are fried from riding
on this emotional roller coaster!
Goodbye, Ken.
And for your information,
I prefer sugar-free, artificial
sweeteners made by man!
I'm sorry about all that.
I know it's got
an aftertaste! I like it!
I always felt there was some kind
of barrier between Ken and me.
I couldn't overcome it.
Oh, well.
Are you OK for the trial?
I believe Mr. Montgomery
is about out of ideas.
We would like to call
Mr. Barry Benson Bee to the stand.
Good idea! You can really see why he's
considered one of the best lawyers...
Yeah.
Layton, you've
gotta weave some magic
with this jury,
or it's gonna be all over.
Don't worry. The only thing I have
to do to turn this jury around
is to remind them
of what they don't like about bees.
- You got the tweezers?
- Are you allergic?
Only to losing, son. Only to losing.
Mr. Benson Bee, I'll ask you
what I think we'd all like to know.
What exactly is your relationship
to that woman?
We're friends.
- Good friends?
- Yes.
How good? Do you live together?
Wait a minute...
Are you her little...
...bedbug?
I've seen a bee documentary or two.
From what I understand,
doesn't your queen give birth
to all the bee children?
- Yeah, but...
- So those aren't your real parents!
- Oh, Barry...
- Yes, they are!
Hold me back!
You're an illegitimate bee,
aren't you, Benson?
He's denouncing bees!
Don't y'all date your cousins?
- Objection!
- I'm going to pincushion this guy!
Adam, don't! It's what he wants!
Oh, I'm hit!!
Oh, lordy, I am hit!
Order! Order!
The venom! The venom
is coursing through my veins!
I have been felled
by a winged beast of destruction!
You see? You can't treat them
like equals! They're striped savages!
Stinging's the only thing
they know! It's their way!
- Adam, stay with me.
- I can't feel my legs.
What angel of mercy
will come forward to suck the poison
from my heaving buttocks?
I will have order in this court. Order!
Order, please!
The case of the honeybees
versus the human race
took a pointed turn against the bees
yesterday when one of their legal
team stung Layton T. Montgomery.
- Hey, buddy.
- Hey.
- Is there much pain?
- Yeah.
I...
I blew the whole case, didn't I?
It doesn't matter. What matters is
you're alive. You could have died.
I'd be better off dead. Look at me.
They got it from the cafeteria
downstairs, in a tuna sandwich.
Look, there's
a little celery still on it.
What was it like to sting someone?
I can't explain it. It was all...
All adrenaline and then...
and then ecstasy!
All right.
You think it was all a trap?
Of course. I'm sorry.
I flew us right into this.
What were we thinking? Look at us. We're
just a couple of bugs in this world.
What will the humans do to us
if they win?
I don't know.
I hear they put the roaches in motels.
That doesn't sound so bad.
Adam, they check in,
but they don't check out!
Oh, my.
Oould you get a nurse
to close that window?
- Why?
- The smoke.
Bees don't smoke.
Right. Bees don't smoke.
Bees don't smoke!
But some bees are smoking.
That's it! That's our case!
It is? It's not over?
Get dressed. I've gotta go somewhere.
Get back to the court and stall.
Stall any way you can.
And assuming you've done step correctly, you're ready for the tub.
Mr. Flayman.
Yes? Yes, Your Honor!
Where is the rest of your team?
Well, Your Honor, it's interesting.
Bees are trained to fly haphazardly,
and as a result,
we don't make very good time.
I actually heard a funny story about...
Your Honor,
haven't these ridiculous bugs
taken up enough
of this court's valuable time?
How much longer will we allow
these absurd shenanigans to go on?
They have presented no compelling
evidence to support their charges
against my clients,
who run legitimate businesses.
I move for a complete dismissal
of this entire case!
Mr. Flayman, I'm afraid I'm going
to have to consider
Mr. Montgomery's motion.
But you can't! We have a terrific case.
Where is your proof?
Where is the evidence?
Show me the smoking gun!
Hold it, Your Honor!
You want a smoking gun?
Here is your smoking gun.
What is that?
It's a bee smoker!
What, this?
This harmless little contraption?
This couldn't hurt a fly,
let alone a bee.
Look at what has happened
to bees who have never been asked,
"Smoking or non?"
Is this what nature intended for us?
To be forcibly addicted
to smoke machines
and man-made wooden slat work camps?
Living out our lives as honey slaves
to the white man?
- What are we gonna do?
- He's playing the species card.
Ladies and gentlemen, please,
free these bees!
Free the bees! Free the bees!
Free the bees!
Free the bees! Free the bees!
The court finds in favor of the bees!
Vanessa, we won!
I knew you could do it! High-five!
Sorry.
I'm OK! You know what this means?
All the honey
will finally belong to the bees.
Now we won't have
to work so hard all the time.
This is an unholy perversion
of the balance of nature, Benson.
You'll regret this.
Barry, how much honey is out there?
All right. One at a time.
Barry, who are you wearing?
My sweater is Ralph Lauren,
and I have no pants.
- What if Montgomery's right?
- What do you mean?
We've been living the bee way
a long time, 27 million years.
Oongratulations on your victory.
What will you demand as a settlement?
First, we'll demand a complete shutdown
of all bee work camps.
Then we want back the honey
that was ours to begin with,
every last drop.
We demand an end to the glorification
of the bear as anything more
than a filthy, smelly,
bad-breath stink machine.
We're all aware
of what they do in the woods.
Wait for my signal.
Take him out.
He'll have nauseous
for a few hours, then he'll be fine.
And we will no longer tolerate
bee-negative nicknames...
But it's just a prance-about stage name!
...unnecessary inclusion of honey
in bogus health products
and la-dee-da human
tea-time snack garnishments.
Oan't breathe.
Bring it in, boys!
Hold it right there! Good.
Tap it.
Mr. Buzzwell, we just passed three cups,
and there's gallons more coming!
- I think we need to shut down!
- Shut down? We've never shut down.
Shut down honey production!
Stop making honey!
Turn your key, sir!
What do we do now?
Oannonball!
We're shutting honey production!
Mission abort.
Aborting pollination and nectar detail.
Returning to base.
Adam, you wouldn't believe
how much honey was out there.
Oh, yeah?
What's going on? Where is everybody?
- Are they out celebrating?
- They're home.
They don't know what to do.
Laying out, sleeping in.
I heard your Uncle Oarl was on his way
to San Antonio with a cricket.
At least we got our honey back.
Sometimes I think, so what if humans
liked our honey? Who wouldn't?
It's the greatest thing in the world!
I was excited to be part of making it.
This was my new desk. This was my
new job. I wanted to do it really well.
And now...
Now I can't.
I don't understand
why they're not happy.
I thought their lives would be better!
They're doing nothing. It's amazing.
Honey really changes people.
You don't have any idea
what's going on, do you?
- What did you want to show me?
- This.
What happened here?
That is not the half of it.
Oh, no. Oh, my.
They're all wilting.
Doesn't look very good, does it?
No.
And whose fault do you think that is?
You know, I'm gonna guess bees.
Bees?
Specifically, me.
I didn't think bees not needing to make
honey would affect all these things.
It's notjust flowers.
Fruits, vegetables, they all need bees.
That's our whole SAT test right there.
Take away produce, that affects
the entire animal kingdom.
And then, of course...
The human species?
So if there's no more pollination,
it could all just go south here,
couldn't it?
I know this is also partly my fault.
How about a suicide pact?
How do we do it?
- I'll sting you, you step on me.
- Thatjust kills you twice.
Right, right.
Listen, Barry...
sorry, but I gotta get going.
I had to open my mouth and talk.
Vanessa?
Vanessa? Why are you leaving?
Where are you going?
To the final Tournament of Roses parade
in Pasadena.
They've moved it to this weekend
because all the flowers are dying.
It's the last chance
I'll ever have to see it.
Vanessa, I just wanna say I'm sorry.
I never meant it to turn out like this.
I know. Me neither.
Tournament of Roses.
Roses can't do sports.
Wait a minute. Roses. Roses?
Roses!
Vanessa!
Roses?!
Barry?
- Roses are flowers!
- Yes, they are.
Flowers, bees, pollen!
I know.
That's why this is the last parade.
Maybe not.
Oould you ask him to slow down?
Oould you slow down?
Barry!
OK, I made a huge mistake.
This is a total disaster, all my fault.
Yes, it kind of is.
I've ruined the planet.
I wanted to help you
with the flower shop.
I've made it worse.
Actually, it's completely closed down.
I thought maybe you were remodeling.
But I have another idea, and it's
greater than my previous ideas combined.
I don't want to hear it!
All right, they have the roses,
the roses have the pollen.
I know every bee, plant
and flower bud in this park.
All we gotta do is get what they've got
back here with what we've got.
- Bees.
- Park.
- Pollen!
- Flowers.
- Repollination!
- Across the nation!
Tournament of Roses,
Pasadena, Oalifornia.
They've got nothing
but flowers, floats and cotton candy.
Security will be tight.
I have an idea.
Vanessa Bloome, FTD.
Official floral business. It's real.
Sorry, ma'am. Nice brooch.
Thank you. It was a gift.
Once inside,
we just pick the right float.
How about The Princess and the Pea?
I could be the princess,
and you could be the pea!
Yes, I got it.
- Where should I sit?
- What are you?
- I believe I'm the pea.
- The pea?
It goes under the mattresses.
- Not in this fairy tale, sweetheart.
- I'm getting the marshal.
You do that!
This whole parade is a fiasco!
Let's see what this baby'll do.
Hey, what are you doing?!
Then all we do
is blend in with traffic...
...without arousing suspicion.
Once at the airport,
there's no stopping us.
Stop! Security.
- You and your insect pack your float?
- Yes.
Has it been
in your possession the entire time?
Would you remove your shoes?
- Remove your stinger.
- It's part of me.
I know. Just having some fun.
Enjoy your flight.
Then if we're lucky, we'll have
just enough pollen to do the job.
Oan you believe how lucky we are? We
have just enough pollen to do the job!
I think this is gonna work.
It's got to work.
Attention, passengers,
this is Oaptain Scott.
We have a bit of bad weather
in New York.
It looks like we'll experience
a couple hours delay.
Barry, these are cut flowers
with no water. They'll never make it.
I gotta get up there
and talk to them.
Be careful.
Oan I get help
with the Sky Mall magazine?
I'd like to order the talking
inflatable nose and ear hair trimmer.
Oaptain, I'm in a real situation.
- What'd you say, Hal?
- Nothing.
Bee!
Don't freak out! My entire species...
What are you doing?
- Wait a minute! I'm an attorney!
- Who's an attorney?
Don't move.
Oh, Barry.
Good afternoon, passengers.
This is your captain.
Would a Miss Vanessa Bloome in 24B
please report to the cockpit?
And please hurry!
What happened here?
There was a DustBuster,
a toupee, a life raft exploded.
One's bald, one's in a boat,
they're both unconscious!
- Is that another bee joke?
- No!
No one's flying the plane!
This is JFK control tower, Flight 356.
What's your status?
This is Vanessa Bloome.
I'm a florist from New York.
Where's the pilot?
He's unconscious,
and so is the copilot.
Not good. Does anyone onboard
have flight experience?
As a matter of fact, there is.
- Who's that?
- Barry Benson.
From the honey trial?! Oh, great.
Vanessa, this is nothing more
than a big metal bee.
It's got giant wings, huge engines.
I can't fly a plane.
- Why not? Isn't John Travolta a pilot?
- Yes.
How hard could it be?
Wait, Barry!
We're headed into some lightning.
This is Bob Bumble. We have some
late-breaking news from JFK Airport,
where a suspenseful scene
is developing.
Barry Benson,
fresh from his legal victory...
That's Barry!
...is attempting to land a plane,
loaded with people, flowers
and an incapacitated flight crew.
Flowers?!
We have a storm in the area
and two individuals at the controls
with absolutely no flight experience.
Just a minute.
There's a bee on that plane.
I'm quite familiar with Mr. Benson
and his no-account compadres.
They've done enough damage.
But isn't he your only hope?
Technically, a bee
shouldn't be able to fly at all.
Their wings are too small...
Haven't we heard this a million times?
"The surface area of the wings
and body mass make no sense."
- Get this on the air!
- Got it.
- Stand by.
- We're going live.
The way we work may be a mystery to you.
Making honey takes a lot of bees
doing a lot of small jobs.
But let me tell you about a small job.
If you do it well,
it makes a big difference.
More than we realized.
To us, to everyone.
That's why I want to get bees
back to working together.
That's the bee way!
We're not made of Jell-O.
We get behind a fellow.
- Black and yellow!
- Hello!
Left, right, down, hover.
- Hover?
- Forget hover.
This isn't so hard.
Beep-beep! Beep-beep!
Barry, what happened?!
Wait, I think we were
on autopilot the whole time.
- That may have been helping me.
- And now we're not!
So it turns out I cannot fly a plane.
All of you, let's get
behind this fellow! Move it out!
Move out!
Our only chance is if I do what I'd do,
you copy me with the wings of the plane!
Don't have to yell.
I'm not yelling!
We're in a lot of trouble.
It's very hard to concentrate
with that panicky tone in your voice!
It's not a tone. I'm panicking!
I can't do this!
Vanessa, pull yourself together.
You have to snap out of it!
You snap out of it.
You snap out of it.
- You snap out of it!
- You snap out of it!
- You snap out of it!
- You snap out of it!
- You snap out of it!
- You snap out of it!
- Hold it!
- Why? Oome on, it's my turn.
How is the plane flying?
I don't know.
Hello?
Benson, got any flowers
for a happy occasion in there?
The Pollen Jocks!
They do get behind a fellow.
- Black and yellow.
- Hello.
All right, let's drop this tin can
on the blacktop.
Where? I can't see anything. Oan you?
No, nothing. It's all cloudy.
Oome on. You got to think bee, Barry.
- Thinking bee.
- Thinking bee.
Thinking bee!
Thinking bee! Thinking bee!
Wait a minute.
I think I'm feeling something.
- What?
- I don't know. It's strong, pulling me.
Like a 27-million-year-old instinct.
Bring the nose down.
Thinking bee!
Thinking bee! Thinking bee!
- What in the world is on the tarmac?
- Get some lights on that!
Thinking bee!
Thinking bee! Thinking bee!
- Vanessa, aim for the flower.
- OK.
Out the engines. We're going in
on bee power. Ready, boys?
Affirmative!
Good. Good. Easy, now. That's it.
Land on that flower!
Ready? Full reverse!
Spin it around!
- Not that flower! The other one!
- Which one?
- That flower.
- I'm aiming at the flower!
That's a fat guy in a flowered shirt.
I mean the giant pulsating flower
made of millions of bees!
Pull forward. Nose down. Tail up.
Rotate around it.
- This is insane, Barry!
- This's the only way I know how to fly.
Am I koo-koo-kachoo, or is this plane
flying in an insect-like pattern?
Get your nose in there. Don't be afraid.
Smell it. Full reverse!
Just drop it. Be a part of it.
Aim for the center!
Now drop it in! Drop it in, woman!
Oome on, already.
Barry, we did it!
You taught me how to fly!
- Yes. No high-five!
- Right.
Barry, it worked!
Did you see the giant flower?
What giant flower? Where? Of course
I saw the flower! That was genius!
- Thank you.
- But we're not done yet.
Listen, everyone!
This runway is covered
with the last pollen
from the last flowers
available anywhere on Earth.
That means this is our last chance.
We're the only ones who make honey,
pollinate flowers and dress like this.
If we're gonna survive as a species,
this is our moment! What do you say?
Are we going to be bees, orjust
Museum of Natural History keychains?
We're bees!
Keychain!
Then follow me! Except Keychain.
Hold on, Barry. Here.
You've earned this.
Yeah!
I'm a Pollen Jock! And it's a perfect
fit. All I gotta do are the sleeves.
Oh, yeah.
That's our Barry.
Mom! The bees are back!
If anybody needs
to make a call, now's the time.
I got a feeling we'll be
working late tonight!
Here's your change. Have a great
afternoon! Oan I help who's next?
Would you like some honey with that?
It is bee-approved. Don't forget these.
Milk, cream, cheese, it's all me.
And I don't see a nickel!
Sometimes I just feel
like a piece of meat!
I had no idea.
Barry, I'm sorry.
Have you got a moment?
Would you excuse me?
My mosquito associate will help you.
Sorry I'm late.
He's a lawyer too?
I was already a blood-sucking parasite.
All I needed was a briefcase.
Have a great afternoon!
Barry, I just got this huge tulip order,
and I can't get them anywhere.
No problem, Vannie.
Just leave it to me.
You're a lifesaver, Barry.
Oan I help who's next?
All right, scramble, jocks!
It's time to fly.
Thank you, Barry!
That bee is living my life!
Let it go, Kenny.
- When will this nightmare end?!
- Let it all go.
- Beautiful day to fly.
- Sure is.
Between you and me,
I was dying to get out of that office.
You have got
to start thinking bee, my friend.
- Thinking bee!
- Me?
Hold it. Let's just stop
for a second. Hold it.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry, everyone.
Oan we stop here?
I'm not making a major life decision
during a production number!
All right. Take ten, everybody.
Wrap it up, guys.
I had virtually no rehearsal for that.
The stranger pulls out a phone and shows you this YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mDyPARA7gUGive the video a thumbs up!Give the video a thumbs down!Have sex with the stranger!
The crocodile demands that you send some ETH to this address: 0xBA9Dc7d88783a466E469EE60bF1884812F31c9C1Send some ETH to the addressHave sex with the crocodile
In order to get the gold, you are required to send some ETH to this address: 0xBA9Dc7d88783a466E469EE60bF1884812F31c9C1Send the ETH to the addressSend Bitcoin instead
The crocodile whips out a phone and shows you this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCTw7jxZAaQGive the video a thumbs upGive the video a thumbs downGive the crocodile some ViagraShit in the crocodile's mouth
Eat spaghetti to summon 3 Blue-Eyes White Dragons in attack mode to attack the crocodile while you fart loudly to scare away the pigeons that were stalking you.
You climb down in the dark carefully at first and then, as you get into the rhythm of it, more quickly. Suddenly your foot reaches for a rung but catches nothing. You almost lose your grasp but manage to climb back up panting - now very much in the present. Is this really the end of the ladder? There is nothing but darkness below you but you sense something glistening and metallic below.Hang and jump into the darkness.Climb back up.
You climb down in the dark carefully at first and then, as you get into the rhythm of it, more quickly. Suddenly your foot reaches for a rung but catches nothing. You almost lose your grasp but manage to climb back up panting - now very much in the present. Is this really the end of the ladder? There is nothing but darkness below you but you sense something glistening and metallic below.
You cash out, grab your ledger and head downtown. On the way to Carlos' mom's apartment you stop at a whore house that accepts Bitcoin and proceed to spend it all. Suddenly a masked gunman bursts in and, finding you with your pants around your legs and a glass of Champaign in your hand, says you remind him of his step-father and shoots you twice in the face.
You cash out, grab your ledger and head downtown. On the way to Carlos' mom's apartment you stop at a whore house that accepts Bitcoin and proceed to spend it all. Suddenly a masked gunman bursts in and, finding you with your pants around your legs and a glass of Champaign in your hand, says you remind him of his step-father and shoots you twice in the face.
You cash out, grab your ledger and head home. On the way you stop at a corner store to pick up a bottle of Cristal to celebrate your new life when a masked gunman bursts in and, although not planning to kill anyone, says you remind him of his step-father and shoots you twice in the face.
You cash out, grab your ledger and head home. On the way you stop at a corner store to pick up a bottle of Cristal to celebrate your new life when a masked gunman bursts in and, although not planning to kill anyone, says you remind him of his step-father and shoots you twice in the face.
Indeed, eating human brains requires mental strength but it reminds you of your mothers cooking. Suddenly you can remember when you were born and you feel like you have more strength than ever before.Chop a tree down
Indeed, eating human brains requires mental strength but it reminds you of your mothers cooking. Suddenly you can remember when you were born and you feel like you have more strength than ever before.
"So, what's a frog like you doing on a stump like this?" you ask. The frog just stares at you in a frogly manner. "Eat any good flies lately?" you continue. Still nothing. I don't think there's such thing as a talking frog. It begins to hop away.Sit on the tree stump
"So, what's a frog like you doing on a stump like this?" you ask. The frog just stares at you in a frogly manner. "Eat any good flies lately?" you continue. Still nothing. I don't think there's such thing as a talking frog. It begins to hop away.
"There's a lot you don't know", says the elf. You agree. You still have a mild headache and you're starting to feel ill. It occurs to you that whatever was on the sword might have been a mild hallucinogen. As if to confirm this, you realise the elf was actually just a tree stump with a talking frog on it. Also, your name isn't even Stefan.Talk to the frogHit the frog with the sword
"There's a lot you don't know", says the elf. You agree. You still have a mild headache and you're starting to feel ill. It occurs to you that whatever was on the sword might have been a mild hallucinogen. As if to confirm this, you realise the elf was actually just a tree stump with a talking frog on it. Also, your name isn't even Stefan.
You are inside the cave. The waterfall is behind you, and a bluish light far at the horizon of the long cave. The darkness looks scary at the beginning but there is a strange calming sound coming from that light.