Fredric Brown: Martians, Go Home

The shoes were dark green and so were the rest of his clothes—tight-fitting trousers and a loose blouse, both made of the same material—something that looked like chamois or a very soft suede. No hat.

“I’m beginning to believe you,” Luke said wonderingly. He took another pull at his drink.

The Martian snorted. “Are all humans as stupid as you? And as impolite? Drinking and not offering a guest a drink?”

“Sorry,” Luke said. He got up and started for the bottle and another glass.

“Not that I want one,” said the Martian. “I don’t drink. Disgusting habit. But you might have offered.”

Luke sat down again, sighed.

“I should have,” he said. “Sorry again. Now let’s start over. My name’s Luke Devereaux.”

“A damn silly name.”

“Maybe yours will sound silly to me. May I ask what it is?”

“Sure, go ahead.”

Luke sighed again. “What is your name?”

“Martians don’t use names. Ridiculous custom.”

“But they’re handy to call someone. Like—say, didn’t you call me Mack?”

“Sure. We call everyone Mack—or its equivalent in whatever language we’re speaking. Why bother to learn a new name for every person you speak to?”

Luke took some more of his drink. “Hmmm,” he said, “maybe you’ve got something there, but let’s skip it for something more important. How can I be sure you’re really there?”

“Mack, I told you, you got rocks in your head.”

“That,” said Luke, “is just the point. Have I? If you’re really there I’m willing to concede that you’re not human and if I concede that there’s no reason why I shouldn’t take your word as to where you’re from. But if you’re not there, then I’m either drunk or hallucinating. Except that I know I’m not drunk; before I saw you I’d had only two drinks, weak ones, and I didn’t feel them at all.”

“Why’d yon drink them then?”

“Irrelevant to what we’re discussing. That leaves two possibilities—you’re really there or I’m crazy.”

The Martian made a rude noise. “And what makes you think those possibilities are mutually exclusive? I’m here all right. But I don’t know whether or not you’re crazy and I don’t care.”

Luke sighed. It seemed to take a lot of sighing to get along with a Martian. Or a lot of drinking. His glass was empty. He went and refilled it. Straight whiskey again, but this time he put in a couple of ice cubes.

Before he sat down again, he had a thought. He put down his drink, said, “Excuse me a minute,” and went outside. If the Martian was real and was really a Martian, there ought to be a spaceship somewhere around.

Or would it prove anything if there was, he wondered. If he was hallucinating the Martian why couldn’t he hallucinate a spaceship as well?

But there wasn’t any spaceship, hallucinated or real. The moonlight was bright and the country was flat; he could see a long way. He walked around the shack and around his car parked behind it, so he could see in all directions. No spaceship.

He went back inside, made himself comfortable and took a sizable swallow of his drink, and then pointed an accusing finger at the Martian. “No spaceship,” he said.

“Of course not.”

“Then how’d you get here?”

“None of your damned business, but I’ll tell you. I kwimmed.”

’What do you mean?”

“Like this,” said the Martian. And he was gone from the chair. The word “like” had come from the chair and the word “this” came from behind Luke.

He whirled around. The Martian was sitting on the edge of the gas range.

“My God,” Luke said. “Teleportation.”

The Martian vanished. Luke turned back and found him in the chair again.

“Not teleportation,” the Martian said. “Kwimming. You need apparatus to teleport. Kwimming’s mental. Reason you can’t do it is you’re not smart enough.”

Luke took another drink. “You got here all the way from Mars that way?”

“Sure, just a second before I knocked on your door.”

“Have you kwimmed here before? Say—” Luke pointed a finger again, “I’ll bet you have, lots of you, and that accounts for superstitions about elves and—”

“Nuts,” said the Martian: “You people got rocks in your heads, that’s what accounts for your superstitions. I’ve never been here before. None of us has. We just learned the technique of long-distance kwimming. Just short-range before. To do it interplanetary, you got to savvy hokima.”

Luke pointed a finger again. “Got you. How come, then, you speak English?”

The Martian’s lip curled. It was a lip well adapted to curling. “I speak all your simple silly languages. All of them spoken on your radio programs anyway, and whatever other ones there are I can pick up in an hour or so apiece. Easy stuff. You’d never learn Martian in a thousand years.”

“I’ll be damned,” Luke said. “No wonder you don’t think much of us if you get your ideas about us from our radio programs. I’ll admit most of them stink.”

“Then so do most of you or you wouldn’t put them on the air.”

Luke took a firm grip on his temper and another drink from his glass. He was beginning, finally, to believe that this really was a Martian and not a figment of his own imagination or insanity. And besides, it struck him suddenly, what did he have to lose in assuming so? If he was crazy, that was that. But if this was really a Martian, then he was missing a hell of an opportunity for a science fiction writer.

“What’s Mars like?” he asked.

“None of your damn business, Mack.”

Luke took another pull at his drink. He counted ten and tried to be as calm and reasonable as he could. “Listen,” he said. “I was rude at first, because I was surprised. But I’m sorry and I apologize. Why can’t we be friends?”

“Why should we? You’re a member of an inferior race.”

“Because if for no other reason it’ll make this conversation more pleasant for both of us.”

“Not for me, Mack. I like disliking people, I like quarreling. If you’re going to go namby-pamby and pally-wally on me, I’ll go find someone else to chin with.”

“Wait, don’t—” Luke suddenly realized that he was taking exactly the wrong tack if he wanted the Martian to stay. He said, “Get the hell out of here then, if you feel that way.”

The Martian grinned. “That’s better. Now we’re getting somewhere.”

“Why did you come to Earth?”

“That’s none of your business either, but it’ll be a pleasure to give you a hint. Why do people go to zoos here on your lousy planet?”

“How long do you plan to stay?”

The Martian cocked his head sidewise. “You’re a hard guy to convince, Mack. I’m not Information, Please . What I do or why I do it is none of your business. One thing I didn’t come here for is to teach kindergarten.”

Luke’s glass was empty again. He filled it.

He glared at the Martian. If the guy wanted to quarrel, why not? “You little green wart,” he said, “damned if I don’t think I ought to—”

“You ought to what? Do something to me? You and who else?”

“Me and a camera and a flash gun,” Luke said, wondering why he hadn’t thought of it sooner. “I’m going to get at least one picture of you. Then when I get it developed—”

He put down his glass and hurried into the bedroom. Luckily his camera was loaded and there was a bulb in the flash gun; he’d stuck them in his suitcase, not in the expectation of shooting a Martian but because Benson had told him coyotes often prowled quite close to the slack at night and he’d hoped to get a shot of one.

He hurried back, set the camera quickly, raised it an one hand and the flash gun in the other.