Part 2

I make it in ten minutes flat, circle over the Kremlin in Neo Moscow and hop the Atlantis in a fraction of a second. I keep flying in circles over Metropolita until I find the thingmajig that slows down the saucer. All the harnessed-up energy from the world’s uranium mines are tossed up at me but nothing has been invented or discovered anywhere that will penetrate the New Mu flying saucer.

I finally glide down and land in Centralia Park, and thousands of citizens head for the bomb shelters. I get up and my legs buckle under me like dahlia stems, and remember I am still half a plant.

I push the door open and stagger down the steps that automatically fall into place. Half the armored might of the Eastern Defense Area is rolling toward the saucer. I wave my arms and yelp, “It is I, Septimus Spink!” and then fall flat on my proboscis.

And I do mean flat.

I open my eyes and look up into the face of Commander Bjaal. “L-Look,” I says. “Get me to the Metropolita Medical Center an’ don’t spare the saucers. I am full of chlorophyl and need at least ten blood transfusions. These feelers on my dome ain’t pasted on, Buster!”

“A saucer!” Bjaal yelps. “A New Muan flyin’ saucer. Spink, where in the world did you--?”

“Are you kiddin’?” I choke out. “Not this world, General. Quick, an ambulance! And throw water on me on the way as I am wilting like any petunia pulled up by the roots.”

They get me to the hospital and pump red blood back into my veins. A nurse faints when she sees I bleed green when they poke the needle in my arm. Interplanetary newshounds crowd the operating room. The word goes to Mars, Venus, Jupiter, everywhere.

A nurse says, “Look, Doctor, his feelers are disappearing. His skin is getting pink.”

“You are a cute number,” I says to the nurse. “But you should see Zyb. She blushes purple. Uhg!”

They keep me under observation for three days and then let me get up. I feel as if I had been towed through all the subways in the U.S. by a hot rocket, but after all I have not just been around the corner to the drugstore for a concentrated malted.

* * * * *

The next A.M., at a news conference covered by correspondents as far away as Asphasia, I tell my story. I give the bug-eyed characters an account of the wiping out of the Nougat Space squadron, description of the statue of Cyril Spink on New Mu, and of the Rocket, Circa 1918, I saw in the Spink museum.

The high cockalorums of the Neuropsychiatorium in Metropolita demand my removal back to the cuckoo’s nest, until the brass shows them the saucer I delivered F.O.B. from New Mu. Instead of a strait jacket I get the Interplanetary Nobel prize and a dozen medals. They make me a Subcommander in Space Squadron X9.

A sample of the green blood they took out of my pipes was sent to the lab for analysis. A scientist reports that it can be manufactured in great quantities if ever the Allied Planetary war lord deemed it necessary to invade New Mu! The saucer, Bjaal said, would be manufactured by the millions once the smart boys of the age figured out the stuff it was made of.

Three weeks later pieces of the shellacked Nougatine air force fall on Metropolita and leave a film the color of gray snow on the street. And about the same time when I started hamming with my viso-screen I pick up Quantum Spink. Cousin, to my surprise, is not sore at me, and says he won’t attack Earth.

“Only a Spink could do what you did, Sep. I can’t blame the universe,” Quantum says to me. “What else they ever said about the Spinks, they had sportin’ blood. Green or red. Ha! Over and out!”

“You are a pal,” I says. “Tell Zyb I will send her a package of vigoro for Xmas. Over.”

I look out the window at the flying saucer that is on exhibition atop the four thousand foot Empiric Building and sigh deeply. The great wonders of the world, The Pyramids of Cheops in Egypt and the Spinks of Earth and New Mu. As modest as I am I have to admit it.

Transcriber’s note:

This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe, May 1955 (Vol. 3, No. 4.). Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

Obvious errors have been silently corrected in this version, but minor inconsistencies have been retained as printed.