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Read Ebook: Education of a Martian by Shallit Joseph Emshwiller Ed Illustrator
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Ebook has 153 lines and 7302 words, and 4 pages
EDUCATION OF A MARTIAN
Illustrated by EMSH
It was for his ideals Joyce loved the alien. But ideals are conditioned reflexes....
Walter Harley glowered across the room at his daughter. He didn't like the willful tone that crept into her voice these days; he didn't like the way her gray eyes spread wide at him, the way her lips tensed, the way she drew herself up, tall and slim, an arch of determination. The darned girl had grown up too fast, that was the trouble.
Joyce faced up to his scowl, shaky as she was. She knew what he was thinking, because he had told her enough times--she was a headstrong girl without a brain cell to her name; her college education had been a waste; worse than that, it had pumped her full of crazy ideas, had knocked her sense of values upside down.
"How anybody in their right mind...." he growled at her. "Listen, you've already been to Mars. You've seen it. What do you want to go to that miserable, dried-up hole again for?"
"Because ... because I was happy there," she said tremulously.
"What? With those miserable savages?" He slapped his euphoria pipe down on the table. "Ethel, will you listen to that?"
Joyce's mother, plump and round-shouldered and vague-eyed, was deep in her reclining chair, the miniature transviewer on her lap, watching a garden party in Rome.
"What is it, dear?" she asked unhappily.
"This crazy girl wants to take her vacation on Mars again."
Harley made a wild, exasperated sound. "What do you know about it? You've never been there. It's a dried-up hole, I tell you. It's a slum--it's one great big slum. Just one decent hotel in the whole place, and that's only because some of our boys went out there and put it up for them."
"That awful hotel--" Joyce caught herself. Not an argument about this, please! There was trouble enough waiting for her. "I wouldn't stay at the hotel," she said quietly.
"What do you mean? Where would you stay?"
"With some people I know there."
She saw his heavy eyebrows clench, saw his eyes search her suspiciously. She heard her mother's uneasy movements. She sat tautly, her hands in her lap.
"Who," Harley said finally, "are these people?"
"Just ... some friends," Joyce said. Now it was coming, now, now.
"What friends?" Her father's voice was lower, harsher.
"Just some people I met when I was there last time."
"Just some.... Say! Is this why we've been running up these solarphone bills? What've you been doing--talking to these people every week?"
"Only a few times."
"Look here. Look at me. Joyce, answer me. Have you been talking to that fellow you told us about--the one you met on your other trip?"
She let it out, a tiny, miserable, "Yes."
Harley's hand slammed down on the table. He wrestled his heavy body up out of his chair, stamped halfway across the room toward her and stopped.
"Whenever I was able to," Joyce said hoarsely, looking at the floor.
"Joyce!" He came to her, reached down and lifted her chin. "Joyce, you're not--you're not in love with this--this creature!"
She nodded, suddenly angered at her weakness, angered at the wetness in her eyes.
"Oh, my God!" Harley raised his arms, brought them down with a slap against his thighs. He turned away from her. He glared at his wife, who was drifting nervously up out of her chair. He turned back to Joyce. "You're not serious. You can't be. This can't--this just can't happen to us. You'll have to get this foolishness out of your head right now. Right this minute. My God, the next thing you know, you'll be wanting to marry one of those things."
"I do...." The sound barely came out. She swallowed, forced her voice up. "I am going to marry him."
A blast of silence swept the room, but, strangely, the shock of it didn't touch her. All at once, she was calm, quiet. She had said it, and now she was armored against everything.
"No," her father was saying dully. "No, Joyce. No."
"I'm sorry, Dad," she said all in a rush. "I've thought about it a long time. I thought I'd forget him after a little while. I wasn't able to. I'm in love with him--I'll always be in love with him. When I come back, I'm bringing him with me. We're going to be married here."
Now, finally, the storm broke out of him. He yelled at her, he stamped around, his fists pounded the air--it was just as she had pictured it, dreaded it. Yet she was unshaken now, detachedly able to watch him as if he were some unruly, unintelligent child. I am going to marry him, she had said, and once the words were out, everything else was easy. There were no problems. There was nothing to be afraid of.
"His name is Gregrill," she said. "They don't have last names. We'll have to make one up or perhaps use mine."
"I'll see my daughter dead before I let her marry a Martian!" Harley roared.
"But if she really loves him--" Ethel intruded timorously.
"Loves him? Love that miserable scum?"
"Dad, please," Joyce said quietly. "You're condemning somebody you've never seen."
"I don't have to see him! He's a Martian, isn't he? He has horns, doesn't he?"
"They're not horns. They're antennae."
"Call them what you like, they're horns!"
"They're antennae, Dad," Joyce repeated firmly. "They're proof of advanced development. They can communicate with each other hundreds of miles. They can sense instantly--"
"I don't want to hear about it!"
"But, dear," Ethel tried again, "sometimes, when they marry an Earthling girl, they cut those horns off, and then they look just like us."
"I wouldn't let him--" Joyce bit off each word--"do any such thing. I'd be utterly ashamed of him. I wouldn't marry him if he knuckled under to our prejudices like that. What does he have to be apologetic about? He's a superior being--"
"Superior?" her father howled at her, but his voice was losing its power.
"In spite of our buildings and machines and things, they're far richer than we are, really. They have such a richness of feeling, such warmth, such sensitivity. They understand and feel so much more than we do. It's--it's fantastic. It's just something we can't comprehend."
"I see," he said bitterly. "And how are you going to comprehend them?"
"Gregrill can speak Earthling as well as I can," Joyce said. "He's a graduate of the university there in Memnonia. Maybe, with his guidance, I'll eventually get some insight into--"
"My God," Harley said dully. He walked unsteadily away from her and fell into his chair. "A daughter of mine...." He looked at her again. "Joyce, can't you see it's impossible? It couldn't work. These mixed marriages have never worked out. Never! Don't you see how it would be? You'd be an outcast. None of your friends would ever want to see you again."
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