The Martial Kavallier (Original sci-fi story from my grandmother Ella Burley) Part 01/03
THE MARTIAN KAVALLIER
I. From Mars With Love.
The problem, of course, was their utter similarity. Had he been a little green man, had four legs, or three eyes, for example, things might have been easier. He might have been believed when he claimed to be a Martian. The human form he had assumed was, perhaps, a mistake. But there it was!
Secret Agent X000X landed without mishap on a deserted beach, in the middle of Earth’s twentieth century. He lost no time in getting out of his space suit and into a perfect-in-every-detail suit. He had been thoroughly briefed beforehand, and provided with all the necessary appurtenances to ensure the success of his mission. All requisite credentials and various documents which Earthlings habitually stuffed their pockets with, such as passports, driver’s licences, credit cards, and cheque books - now stuffed the martian pockets. He had also been provided with a suitable Earthling name - Mr. B. Peacemaker, and a considerable quantity of newly minted money, faultlessly copied from one of Earth’s principal currencies. All was in order. Everything at his fingertips: most of the planet’s principal languages and an encyclopaedic knowledge of things earthly in general. In fact, he might have been a computer.
Mr. B. Peacemaker checked his instruments and set off on his mission. His travelling contraption was simple enough. It consisted of what, at first sight, could be taken for a pearl which he wore in his button hole for some reason best known to a Martian. However, there was more to it than met the eye, for when he twirled it, it expanded into what looked like a toy balloon. This was his precious pearloon, without which he would not go very far, for his newly assumed humanoid feet were not as yet used to walking long distances. So he twirled his pearloon and shot into the air. There were devices incorporated into this marvellous piece of machinery, whereby he could control the altitude, speed and direction in which he wished to travel, which, in the present case, was the Capital City.
Mr. B. Peacemaker began his journey by night, at an altitude of fifty thousand metres, for it was known that Earthlings did not rise as high in the air, and not at all, without the aid of great, cumbersome metal birds, so he hoped he would not be spotted. Had he flown at a reasonable altitude, he would have been in considerable danger from the aggressive race, for a man flying over the earth on the end of a toy balloon would inevitably have been detected and shot down, just in case.
Night flying with everything automatically controlled, could really be quite pleasant. Mr. B. Peacemaker settled down comfortably in the air, and relaxed, for he could adapt to any element. He was floating at minimum speed through air which was fresh and bracing, not clammy and stifling as it was on Venus, for example. Above him, the huge dome of space with its worlds, a great many of which he had visited. Beneath him, the damp, fragrant ground smelling earthy - as it might well do - and he sighed with content.
All to soon his instruments alerted him that he was over the capital city, and he turned over on his tummy to see the view. He found he was floating over a veritable ocean of little lights burning bright and twinkling happily, and surmised that this was what Earthlings called Electricity. He felt great, and everything was beautiful, except for a singular odour picked up by his supersensitive olfatory apparatus. An alien and entirely terrestrial mixture of smog, petrol, garbage, sweat and decaying matter, which contrasted unfavourable with the countryside and the sea shore where he had landed.
He set the pearloon for his allotted destination - an ancient tenement house shivering starkly in a dark, noisome alley which seemed to have got lost in the middle of the city; then, having ascertained that there were no spies lurking in the vicinity, he affected a neat and silent landing.
Owing to the precision of his instruments, he knew he was in the right place, though disillusion set in when he flashed his eyes upon the house for the first time. Nevertheless, he rapped on the worm-eaten door with a small brass knocker in the shape of a fist, which appeared to be the sole survivor of better days. It produced an eerie, hollow sound, and after banging away fruitlessly for some ten earthly minutes, he at last heard shuffling footsteps approaching from within. The door creaked open, and a sharp nose belonging to an ageless woman, protruded through the gap.
“Good night,” said Mr. Peacemaker in his best earthly accent, and hoping he was getting things right. “Is professor Dasher out?”
The grimy old being, whose rank smell was offending the Martian’s fastidious olfactory system, peered at him out of bleary eyes. “It aint no time to be knocking up decent folks out of their beds, young man,” she grumbled, but since you’re here, you might as well come in out of the cold. That one you’re looking for - Felix, his name is, which means happy - lives out at the back - last door on the left... The one with the broken hinge.” The old woman wrapped a greasy dressing gown round her lean body and followed the stranger along the passage suspiciously, taking note, out of the corner of her eye, of the little white balloon which was dangling from his button hole
“Have to be mad, wouldn’t yer, to come looking for the likes of him,” she muttered at his back. “And if you does find him, yer can tell him from me that he owes me six months’ rent.”
Mr. B. Peacemaker knocked at the door she had pointed out, on the peeling surface of which, was chalked in large capitals: “EFS - Extra-Terrestrial Friendly Society. MYH - Make Yourself at Home”.
“May I stay out?” he asked, poking his head in: for Martians often say things the wrong way round when they feel shy or flustered. An old man raised his grizzled head, which evidently knew neither brush nor comb, and favoured him with a myopic stare, pushing his spectacles well up on his beak of a nose - a feature which appeared bent upon a meeting with his up tilted and much entangled beard.
“Lets see now. You would be Agent ABC13 wouldn’t you?” enquired the Martian politely. The short-sighted eyes lit up with glee.
“At last!” cried the ecstatic agent. “Oh the years I’ve waited. Here, take a seat sir. What planet are you from? Venus, Jupiter, Mars? Entirely at your service in any case, my very dear sir,” he gabbled on, rubbing his hands unctuously. “Are you on some project? Secret mission? diplomatic negotiations?”. “You might say so. I have just floated in from Mars,” explained the visitor smiling benignly, “and should be grateful if you would put me in touch with the Advisory Organization, so that I may explain the object of my two-fold mission.”
“Splendid! Great! Terrific!” chortled the old man. “However, all this you see around you is the Organisation, and, I may add, it is entirely at your disposal and service, my very dear sir. I used to have a couple of partners, but unfortunately, they were ruthlessly removed. Our Organization does not find favour with the Authorities. We are not kindly looked upon. In fact, I might almost say, most unkindly indeed.” he ended on a rueful note.
Mr. B. Peacemaker opened his sky-blue eyes very wide. This was hardly the sort of reception he had been led to expect, but he did see quite clearly the necessity for one half of his mission. The urgent need for new agents.
“Where do we start?” enquired the old man eagerly.
“Well, I think perhaps I should explain my objectives first, don’t you?” Then we could do our planning, once we know where we are.”
“Of course, of course. So right. Fire away sir.”
“Well,” continued the Martian, “I think I mentioned that it was a twofold mission. Two horns, so to speak. On the first horn hangs the study of the human race and the implantation and propagation of universal love, which seems to be singularly lacking at the moment. On the second horn...” he hesitated, wondering how to put it tactfully, “is the imperious need to create new and competent agents on Earth, with the worthy object of furthering this implantation and propagation. For this reason I have been commissioned to beget a child on a human female woman. It is thought that an agent half Martian and half human would understand better what is meant by universal love (oh, no offence meant, my friend, I assure you) and would be more fitted to cope with human truculence. Nothing personal Brother Felix, I do assure you. But you do see, don’t you?”
The Agent did not seem to be put out but showed himself decidedly doubtful as regards the success of the second part of the mission.
“Hum, hum” he mumbled. “Well then, to study the nature of man, is it?” He scratched his beard thoughtfully.
“That’s it, and also to beg...”
“Quite, quite. To study the nature of man. Well, I would say, on the whole that Man is ill-natured, but we could look into it further. We might begin, for example, at a football match: lots of human nature at these friendly get-togethers, really worthy of study. Or perhaps you could take a job? Hm... Let me see...er...hum... Think you could find your way about the city all right?”
“No problem at all Professor Basher,” said the Martian brightly. “Why, I have no difficulty at all in getting lost at any point of the Universe.”
“Can you drive a car, then?”
“I can drive a UFO, so no doubt I could take any sort of terrestrial vehicle in my stride”.
“Oh, if only we had a car,” moaned the professor. “Then you could work as a taxi driver. See life in the raw, so to speak. Any amount of freaks taking taxis and buses and whatnot. Good way to pick up a chicken, too, for your begetting mission,” he added ruminatively. “That is, if you’re still bent upon this hazardous and questionable act.”
The Martian reflected for some time. “Yes...of course...” he said at length. “But I wasn’t thinking of poultry.”
“Poultry? Oh, I didn’t mean that,” apologised the agent. “That’s merely what vulgar people call a young girl. We might call an old one a hen, in fact. Very common of me. I do beg your pardon.”
All this information seemed very human to the Martian, and was carefully stored away for future use. “However,” he went on, “our main object is the acquisition of a suitable vehicle. Are you able to provide one, Mr. Crasher?”
The ancient professor shook his unruly locks. “Where would I get a taxi from, dear sir, when I don’t even make enough to pay my rent? We should have to steal one, and that would be against the law.”
“Steal one?” exclaimed the shocked Martian. “To burgle a taxi is a highly immoral act. We could, of course, borrow one. Where I come from it is right and honourable to borrow, with the one condition that we must return things in the same or improved condition. To improve an article is a sort of payment for a loan.”
At this juncture a muffled exclamation was heard outside the door, and Professor Dasher jumped up with unsuspected nimbleness and kicked the door wide, giving the old landlady, who was crouching with her ear to the keyhole, such a shaking that she had some difficulty in getting away in one piece.
“You old spy,” shouted the irate professor. “I’ll teach you to snoop at honest key holes.”
“And I’ll learn you how to talk to the police, you old scrounger. Talk about stealing taxis, to say nothing of robbing elderly ladies.”
The aged landlady fled down the passage slopping about in her slippers and proffering loud shrieks of “Help! Rape! Murder!” as she went. There was no escape possible, for there was but one way out of the building, and all the lodgers had emerged from their hovels in various stages of undress to see the fun. The Martian was reluctant to effect a speedy getaway by means of his pearloon, for fear of giving himself away and getting his colleague into trouble, so in the midst of the ensuing hubbub the two scientific gentlemen simply sat on the floor and waited for everyone to calm down, each musing on his own particular problem. Agent ABC13 of Earth was wringing his bony hands as visions of cold nights spent at the police station flitted through his befuddled mind, while Mr. B. Peacemaker was hopefully thinking that at last he might be about to get acquainted with some human habits. As for spreading Universal Love, well that would have to await a more propitious opportunity.
Presently a very young policeman made his appearance on the turbulent scene.
“What’s all this?” he said as gruffly and as authoritatively as he knew how. “You again sir?” he added, addressing the Earthling professor. “Not the first time I’ve had complaints. What is it this time? Drunken brawling, or debt?”
The unfortunate professor could do nothing but wring his hands, with a great deal of pathos, something he did very well, while Mr. Peacemaker gazed at the youthful policeman with undisguised curiosity.
“Good afternoon, brother cop,” he ventured amiably. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“That remains to be seen”, replied the constable sourly, quite misinterpreting Martian breeding. “You’ll soon be having the pleasure of meeting the Chief of Police, so come along with you now.”
At the police station they were summarily ordered to sit on a hard bench against the wall, where they were left to cool their heels for several earthly hours, amidst a throng of humans at different stages of inebriety, truculence and mawkishness. At last the eagerly awaited meeting materialised and the Martian found himself face to face with the Chief. He was a rotund man with a purple pear-shaped face, a couple of double chins, and several spare tires overlapping his belt. Eyes like gimlets bored into the Martian-blue ones with a lamentable lack of amiability.
“Greetings, comrade,” said Mr. Peacemaker in his warmest Martian tones. “It’s going to be a lovely day.”
“We’ll see about that presently,” grunted the corpulent officer making slits of his colourless eyes and tucking one of his rolls of fat away into his trousers.
“Russky, are you? KGB, no doubt!”.
I’m afraid this is a case of mistaken identity,” corrected the Martian gently. “Not Russian but Martian, and certainly not KGB but X000X. Goodness me, I don’t even know the other gentleman.”
The Chief of Police leered horribly. “Know what the penalty is for drunken behaviour?” he asked nastily.
“But my dear brother,” protested the Martian mildly, for by this time his earthly counterpart had been reduced to ignominious speechlessness and cramping hand-wringing; “we haven’t drunk a thing but water. I, at any rate, don’t need to indulge in such stimulants as you suggest.”
“You’re fucking right you don’t need to,” vociferated the Chief thumping the table with his ham of a fist, “trouble being you might want to, hey? Otherwise what might you be doing with a balloon fluttering from your button hole? What sort of an orgy have you been indulging in, young fly-by-night?”
“That, Mr. Chief of Police, is a state secret,” replied Mr. B. Peacemaker with dignity. “Quite inoffensive, I assure you.” “So you say. But grown men don’t play with balloons unless they are perverts of some sort. Been living it up good and proper, if you ask me. So lets have it, sonny boy - what are you on, hey?”
“Begging of your pardon, yer honour,” broke in the old landlady, who had come along voluntarily as a witness, “but what they was on was taking of a taxi, heard it with me own ears, so help me God.”
“No harm in that Mrs. Crocus,” conceded the chief magnanimously. “Lots of people take taxis if they can afford it. Question is, can they?”
“What I means is stealing one, see?” hissed the land lady spitefully. “Heard them planning it through the key hole.”
“That’ll do Mrs. Crocus,” cut in the chief with some asperity. “You be off with you, or I’ll run you in for false testimony. Bad record you’ve got.... Right, then,” he continued, turning back to the culprits.
“Assaulting taxi drivers, were you?”
“Please sir, I can’t drive,” whined Professor Dasher, at long last emerging from his comatose condition.
“If it’s the rent that’s making you unhappy, I should have the greatest pleasure in settling it for you.” interrupted the Martian, taking a handful of newly minted dollar bills from his pocket.
The Chief of Police scratched his brush-like head and sighed with mock resignation, rolling a great expanse of eye white at his brother officer, as he stretched out a podgy fist
“Hand them over then,” he said coaxingly. “Fakes, no doubt. Where did you get these?”
“I received them from my government for private investigations,” explained the Martian naively. “I assure they are perfectly legitimate falsifications. They shouldn’t even notice the difference at the Terrestrial Bank. Go ahead, pay the lady. I assure you there will be no problem.”
“Hm,” muttered the Chief pocketing the bills absent-mindedly. “I don’t know which your government might be, but it is not customary to falsify bills in this country, any more that it is to assault taxi drivers.”
“Dear me no, no brother Chief of Police. You’ve got it all balled up. You see, I don’t need any vehicles. I get about on my own steam, so to speak. I fly through the air with the greatest of ease...” “Aha!” bellowed the Chief of Police with the greatest of scorn. “On your own steam, is it? What are you then? an angel? Ha ha!...” “Sergeant,” he roared, “call the loony bin and order an ambulance. As for the other fellow... LOCK HIM UP!”
The two secret agents were roughly separated. The Martian was brusquely shoved into a small room which held nothing but a rickety chair and a large photograph of the Chief of Police, lit up from below by a tube while his hand-wringing colleague and companion-in-woe was dragged of he knew not where. In a matter of mere Martian instants, two men clad in white, barged noisily into the room bearing a stretcher between them. They proceeded to strip the Martian coat off, under severe protest from the party concerned, who wailed calamitously for the precious pearloon. Then they strapped him into a straight jacket and flung him unceremoniously onto the stretcher.
“Don’t you worry about your toy balloon, matey, you’ll get it back if you’re a good boy,” said one of the men with a wink. “Heave Ho!” - and with a nasty jolt Mr. B. Peacemaker was on his way.
II Beethoven.
Maud shuddered as she slipped into the front hall. A cracked jar full of disgusting dried leaves, dyed the colour of beetroot, stood on a wobbly table. How she loathed them. They clashed with her flaming hair. She couldn’t remember, or had never known, where they had come from, but they were certainly one of the few items in the house to survive selling or pawning in times of penury. Maud’s husband was a portrait painter who never finished a portrait. She was humming bits of Beethoven to herself. “Credo, credo” went her muddled mind. Why credo, when she didn’t credo a damn thing about Sam. She climbed up to the studio on the top floor of the ramshackle house, as the latest model came undulating down the stairs, after posing for a never to be finished portrait. “Aaaamen,” muttered Maud, harking back to Beethoven, who was in no way to blame. Sam was listening to pop music with his feet up on another wobbly table, from which a bottle of cheap whisky had fallen and splashed all over his trousers. The pop music was very loud, and Maud could no longer hear the Beethoven in her mind. She could only imagine Sam cavorting on the worn-out carpet with one of his many models.
To be continued....
***** All text and images are originals *****