The Continent Makers and Other Tales of the Viagens (3 page)

“Oh. Another Brazzy, eh?”

“Yes. It wass de Câmara who prought the false teeth of our Chief Inspector Ficèsaqha back to Earth from Osiris, and gafe them to Atlantic when they presented him with an honorary degree. Pefore I leat yells at a game, I go up to the museum and gaze upon those teeth. Their sentimental associations inspire me. I am fery sentimental apout Senhor de Câmara, although some of our people claim he stole those teeth and other thinks as well when he left our planet.”

###

At the first pledge-meeting, Hithafea squatted down humbly among his fellow pledges, who looked at him with traces of distaste or apprehension. When the prospective members’ duties had been explained to them, Fitzgerald and a couple of the other brothers undertook to have a little fun of the sadistic sort associated with initiations. They brought out a couple of wooden paddles, like Ping-Pong racquets but heavier, and fired nonsensical questions at the freshmen. Those who failed to answer glibly were paddled for ignorance, whereas those who answered glibly were paddled for being fresh.

By and by Hithafea said: “Will nopody pattle me?”

“Why, Monster?” said Fitzgerald. “D’you wanna be?”

“Of course! It is part of peink a pletch. It would preak my heart if I were not pattled the same as the others.”

The brothers looked at each other with expressions of bafflement. Brother Brown, indicating Hithafea’s streamlined stern, asked:

“How the hell can we? I mean, where’s his—uh—I mean, where shall we hit him?”

“Oh, anywhere!” said Hithafea.

Brother Brown, looking a bit unhappy about the whole thing, hauled off with his paddle and whacked Hithafea’s scaly haunch. He hit again and again, until Hithafea said: “I do not efen feel it. Are you sure you are not goink easy on me on purpose? It would wound my feelinks if you dit.”

Brown shook his head. “Might as well shoot an elephant with a pea-shooter. You try, John.”

Fitzgerald swung his massive arm and dealt Hithafea a swat that broke the paddle. He wrung his hand, looked at the other brothers, and said: “Guess we’ll have to consider you constructively paddled, Hithafea. Let’s get on to business.”

The other pledges grinned, evidently glad to escape any further beating. As the brothers had been made to feel a little foolish, the fun seemed to have gone out of paddling for the time being. The brothers sternly commanded the pledges to show up at the house the following night for the Thanksgiving dance, to do the serving and messwork. Moreover, they were told to bring three cats each to the next pledge meeting, the following week.

Hithafea as usual showed up an hour early for his duties at the dance, wearing a black bow tie around his scaly neck in deference to the formality of the occasion. John Fitzgerald, of course, brought Alice Holm, while Herbert Lengyel came stag and hovered uneasily, trying by an air of bored superiority to mask the fact that he would have liked to bring her himself.

When Hithafea stalked in bearing a tray of refreshments, some of the girls, who were not Atlantic co-eds and so had never seen him before, shrieked. Alice, mastering her initial revulsion, said: “Are you dancing, Hithafea?”

Hithafea said: “Alas, Miss Holm, I could not!”

“Oh, I bet you dance divinely!”

“It is not that. At home on Osiris I perform the fertility tance with the pest of them. Put look at my tail! I should neet the whole floor to myself, I fear. You have no idea how much trouple a tail is in a worlt where peinks do not normally have them. Every time I try to go through a swingink door—”

“Let’s dance, Alice,” said Fitzgerald abruptly. “And you, Monster, get to work!”

Alice said: “Why John, I think you’re jealous of poor Hithafea! I found him sweet!”

“Me jealous of a slithery reptile? Ha!” sneered Fitzgerald as they spun away in the gymnastic measures of the Zulu.

###

At the next pledge meeting a great yowling arose when the pledges showed up with three cats apiece, for which they had raided alleys and their friends’ houses and the city pound. Brother Brown said: “Where’s Hithafea? The Monster’s not usually late—”

The doorbell rang. When one of the pledges opened it he looked out then leaped back with the alacrity if not the grace of a startled fawn, meanwhile making a froglike noise in his throat. There on the doorstep stood Hithafea with a full-grown lioness on a leash. The cats frantically raced off to other parts of the fraternity house or climbed curtains and mantel pieces. The brothers looked as if they would have done likewise if they had not been afraid of losing face before the pledges.

“Goot evenink,” said Hithafea. “This is Tootsie. I rented her. I thought if I prought one cat bik enough it would do for the three I was tolt to pring. You like her, I trust?”

“A character,” said Fitzgerald. “Not only a monster, but a character.”

“Do I get pattled?” said Hithafea hopefully.

“Paddling you,” said Fitzgerald, “is like beating a rhinoceros with a fly swatter.” And he set to work with a little extra vim on the fundaments of the other pledges.

When the pledge meeting was over, the brothers went into conference. Brother Broderick said: “I think we’ll have to give ’em something more original to do for next time. Specially Hithafea here. S’pose we tell him to bring—ah—how about that set of false teeth belonging to that guy—that emperor or whatever he was of Osiris, in the museum?”

Hithafea said: “You mean the teeth of our great Chief Inspector, Ficèsaqha?”

“Yeah, Inspector Fish—well, you pronounce it, but that’s what I mean.”

“That will be a kreat honor,” said Hithafea. “Pefore we go, Mr. Fitzcheralt, may I speak to you alone for a moment?”

Fitzgerald frowned and said: “Okay, Monster, but hurry it up. I got a date.” He followed the Sha’akhfa out, and the other brothers heard Hithafea hissing something to him in the corridor.

Then Hithafea stuck his head in the doorway and said: “Mr. Lengyel, may I speak to you too, now?” And the same thing happened to Lengyel.

The other brothers did not listen to the conversation between Lengyel and Hithafea because they were more interested in what was happening in the parlor. John Fitzgerald came through, all slicked up in his best clothes, and the lioness tackled him and tried to wrestle with him. The more he tried to get away the more vigorously she wrestled. He finally gave up and lay on his back while Tootsie sat on his chest and licked his face. As having your face licked by a lion is something like having it gone over with coarse sandpaper, Fitzgerald was somewhat the worse for wear by the time Hithafea came back into the room and pulled his pet off.

“I am fery sorry,” he told them. “She is playful.”

###

The night before the next pledge meeting, shadows moved in the shrubbery around the museum. The front door opened and a shadow came out—unmistakably that of a big, broad-shouldered man. The shadow looked about, then back into the darkness whence it had come. Sounds came from the darkness. The shadow trotted swiftly down the front steps and whispered: “Here!”

Another shadow rose from among the shrubs; not that of a man, but of something out of the Mesozoic. The human shadow tossed a package to the reptilian shadow just as the museum’s watchman appeared in the doorway and shouted:

“Hey, you!”

The human shadow ran like the wind, while the reptilian shadow faded into the bushes. The watchman yelled again, blew on a police whistle, and ran after the human shadow, but gave up, puffing, after a while. The quarry had disappeared.

“Be goddamned,” muttered the watchman. “Gotta get the cops on this one. Let’s see, who came in late this afternoon, just before closing?

There was that little Italian-looking girl, and that red-haired professor, and that big football-type guy . . .”

###

Frank Hodiak found his roommate packing his few simple belongings, and asked:

“Where you going?”

“I am gettink retty to leave for the Christmas vacation,” said Hithafea. “I got permission to leafe a few tays aheat of the rest.” He shut his small suitcase with a snap and said: “Goot-pye, Frank. It is nice to have known you.”

“Good-bye? Are you going right now?”

“Yes.”

“You sound if you weren’t coming back!”

“Perhaps. Some tay.
Sahacikhthasèf,
as we say on Osiris.”

Hodiak said: “Say, what’s that funny-looking package you put in your—”

But before he finished, Hithafea was gone.

###

When the next pledge meeting was called, Hithafea, hitherto the outstanding eager-beaver among the pledges, was absent. They called the dormitory and got in touch with Frank Hodiak, who said that Hithafea had shoved off hours previously.

The other curious fact was that John Fitzgerald had his right wrist bandaged. When the brothers asked him why, he said: “Damn’f I know. I just found myself in my room with a cut on my wrist, and no idea how it got there.”

The meeting was well under way and the paddles were descending when the doorbell rang. Two men came in: one of the campus cops and a regular municipal policeman.

The former said: “Is John Fitzgerald here?”

“Yeah,” said Fitzgerald. “I’m him.”

“Get your hat and coat and come with us.”

“Whaffor?”

“We wanna ask you a few questions about the disappearance of an exhibit from the museum.”

“I don’t know anything about it. Run along and peddle your papers.”

That was the wrong line to take, because the city cop brought out a piece of paper with a lot of fancy printing on it and said: “Okay, here’s a warrant. You’re pinched. Come—” and he took Fitzgerald by the arm.

Fitzgerald cut loose with a swing that ended, splush, on the cop’s face, so that the policeman fell down on his back and lay there, moving a little and moaning. The other brothers got excited and seized both cops and threw them out the front door and bumpety-bump down the stone steps of the fraternity house. Then they went back to their pledge meeting.

In five minutes four radio patrol cars stopped in front of the frat house and a dozen cops rushed in.

The brothers, so belligerent a few minutes before, got out of the way at the sight of the clubs and blackjacks. Hands reached out of blue-clad sleeves towards Fitzgerald. He hit another cop and knocked him down, and then the hands fastened onto all his limbs and held him fast. When he persisted in struggling, a cop hit him on the head with a blackjack and he stopped.

When he came to and calmed down, on the way to the police station, he asked: “What the hell is this all about? I tell you, I never stole nothing from a museum in my whole life!”

“Oh yes you did,” said a cop. “It was the false teeth of one of them things from another planet. O’Riley, I think they call it. You was seen going into the museum around closing time, and you left your fingerprints all over the glass case when you busted it. Boy, this time we’ll sure throw the book at you! Damn college kids, think they’re better than other folks . . .”

###

Next day, Herbert Lengyel got a letter:

Dear Herb:

When you read this I shall be en route to Osiris with the teeth of Chief Inspector Ficèsaqha, one of our greatest heroes. I managed to get a berth on a ship leaving for Pluto, whence I shall proceed to my own system on an Osirian interstellar liner.

When Fitzgerald suggested I steal the teeth, the temptation to recover this relic, originally stolen by de Câmara, was irresistible. Not being an experienced burglar, I hypnotized Fitzgerald into doing the deed for me. Thus I killed three birds with one stone, as you Earthmen say. I got the teeth; I got even with Fitzgerald for his insults; and I got him in Dutch to give you a clear field with Miss Holm.

I tell you this so you can save him from being expelled, as I do not think he deserves so harsh a penalty. I also gave you the Osirian hypnosis to remove some of your inhibitions, so you shall be able to handle your end of the project.

I regret not having finished my course at Atlantic and not being finally initiated into Iota Gamma Omicron. However, my people will honor me for this deed, as we admire the refined sentiments.

Fraternally,

Hithafea

Lengyel put the letter away and looked at himself in the mirror. He now understood why he had felt so light, daring, and self-confident the last few hours. Not like his old self at all. He grinned, brushed back his hair, and started for the house phone to call Alice.

###

“So, chentlemen,” said Hithafea, “now you unterstant why I have decidet to sign your agreement as it stants. I shall perhaps be criticized for giffink in to you too easily. But you see, I am soft-heartet apout your planet. I have been on many planets, and nowhere have I peen taken in and mate to feel at home as I was py the Iota Gamma Omicron fraternity, many years ago.”

The ambassador began to gather up his papers. “Have you a memorantum of this meetink for me to initial? Goot.” Hithafea signed, using his claw for a pen. “Then we can have a formal signink next week, eh? With cameras and speeches? Some tay if you feel like erecting a monument to the founders of the Interplanetary Council, you might erect it to Mr. Herbert Lengyel.”

Evans said: “Sir, I’m told you Osirians like our Earthly alcoholic drinks. Would you care to step down to the Federation bar . . .”

“I am so sorry, not this time. Next time, yes. Now I must catch an airplane to Baltimore, U.S.A.”

“What are you doing there?” said Chagas.

“Why, Atlantic University is giving me an honorary degree. How I shall balance one of those funny hats with the tassel on my crest I do not yet know. But that was another reason I agreet to your terms. You see, we are a sentimental race. What is the matter with Mr. Wu? He looks sick.”

Chagas said: “He has been watching his lifelong philosophy crumble to bits, that is all. Come, we will see you to your aircraft.”

As Wu pulled himself together and rose with the rest, Evans grinned wryly at him, saying: “After we’ve dropped the ambassador, I think I’ll make it a champagne cocktail!”

A.D. 104-2128

Summer Wear

Cato Chapman and Celia Zorn, the model, were waiting for the Moon ship to take off from Mohave Spaceport. Chapman, a brisk young man who sometimes reminded people of a chipmunk, said to his young cousin, Mahoney: “If you can take enough time off from your precious paint, Ed, keep an eye on Miss Nettie. Don’t want to come back in twenty-two years and find she’s forgotten us.”

“Sure,” said Mahoney. “I like the old dame. She buys our paint. Tough customer, though, isn’t she?”

Celia Zorn said: “I think ‘formidable’ is the word. But see to it she doesn’t get some perfectly bizarre idea and go broke.”

“Like selling summer clothes to critters that don’t wear none and don’t need ’em?” said Mahoney. “If she gets any crazier ones than that . . .”

Chapman punched his cousin’s arm with friendly violence. “Not so nuts, Ed. Osirians go in for fads and fashions, and they’re the only civilized extra-terrestrials with a real capitalistic system; less socialized even than that of the U.S.”

Mahoney said: “What do I do if she does go loco?”

“I don’t know,” said Chapman, “but I’d hate to come back and find there wasn’t any Greenfarb’s of Hollywood . . .”

“All passengers!
Todos passageiros!”
bellowed the loudspeaker.

Chapman and Miss Zorn shook hands with Mahoney and walked up the ramp. Mahoney yelled after them: “Behave yourselves! Or if you can’t . . .”

Chapman thought that if he had misbehavior in mind, he wouldn’t pick a girl two inches taller than he. He forebore to say so, though, since he wanted to keep on friendly terms with Celia even if she did not appeal to the romantic side of his nature.

Seven hours later they alighted at Tycho station for the usual wrestle with red tape before boarding the
Camões
for Osiris, otherwise Procyon XIV. The passenger
fiscal
said: “You have a berth reserved for your
trunk,
senhor?”

“That’s right,” said Chapman.

“I do not understand. Contains this trunk a live creature?”

“Not at all. It is my sample trunk.”

“Samples of what?”

“Clothes. I am the sales agent for Greenfarb’s of Hollywood, summer wear, and Miss Greenfarb insists I sleep with that damned trunk until I’ve done my business.”

The
fiscal
shrugged. “It is no business of mine, if your employer wishes to pay a couple of thousand dollars extra. There is another passenger on the
Camões
with a sample trunk like yours; he is in clothing too. Excuse me please . . .”

Seeing that the next man in line was fidgeting, Chapman walked away, checking his tickets and passport.

“Yours okay?” he asked Celia.

“Yes. Wasn’t that ticket agent simply divine, Cato? I love these tall dark Latin types.”

“Keep your mind on business,” growled Chapman. As he was small and sandy, her remarks stung his
amour-propre.
Moreover he knew enough of her weaknesses to become apprehensive when she began to talk in that vein. He added: “Seems we’ve got a rival aboard.”

“What? How perfectly horrid! Who is he?”

“Dunno yet, but the
fiscal
said some guy has another sample trunk full of clothes.”

“Oh.” Celia’s face took on that lugubrious expression. “One of the big Parisian cout—”

“Sh! We’ll know soon enough. It’s not
him,
anyhow.” Chapman jerked his head towards an Osirian who stalked past on birdlike legs, carrying a suitcase. The Osirian (or Sha’akhfa, to give him his proper name) looked like a dinosaur seven feet tall: one of the little ones that ran around on their hind legs with a tail sticking out behind to balance. The creature’s scaly hide was decorated with an elaborate painted pattern in many colors.

“Excuse me, pleass,” said this being in a barely intelligible accent, “put what iss the correct moon time?”

Chapman told the Osirian (a male from his wattle) who set his wrist-watch and asked: “Are you too koink py the
Camões?”

“Yes,” said Chapman.

“So am I. Let uss introtuce ourselfs. I am Businessman-second-rank Fiasakhe.”

Chapman introduced himself and the model and asked: “I wonder you don’t wait for an Osirian ship, Mr. Fiasakhe?”

“I would, sir, but an urchent message from home . . . I came in with that cultural mission, you know, that iss to prepare the way for the export of the designs of Osirian arts and crafts . . .”

Celia said: “I should think you’d find one of our ships frightfully uncomfortable.”

“I do! Always I am bumping my head on torframes or catching my tail in tors! Put then . . .” The creature managed a shrug with his negligible shoulders.

###

The steward showed Chapman his cabin and said: “Where shall we put this trunk you have a passenger ticket for, Senhor?”

“Middle bunk,” said Chapman, picking up the printed passenger list from the tiny dresser. He read:

Barros, M.C, Rio de Janeiro.

Bergerat, J.-J.M., Paris.

Chapman, C.H., Hollywood.

Chisholm, W.J., Minneapolis.

Fiasakhe, 3*, Cefef Aqh, Osiris.

Kamimura, A., Kobe.

Kichik*, Dzidzigä, Thoth.

Mpande, S., Molopololi, Bechuanaland.

Popovich, I.I., Sofia.

Savinkov, A.P., Paris.

Sz, T.-E., Tientsin.

Varga, M., Szolnok, Hungary.

Zorn, C.E., Hollywood.

A footnote told him that the names with asterisks were those of extra-terrestrials . . .

“Cato!” said Celia’s voice outside.

“Come in, Cee.”

The tall dark girl did so. “I’m in with Senhora Barros and Anya Savinkov. Anya is a model for Tomaselli’s of Paris!”

“Ah,” said Chapman. “Say who her boss was?”

“No, I’ve only just met her. She’s the redhead.”

“Hm. Our rival must be this Bergerat. I seem to remember that guy: the agent for Tomaselli’s at the New York fair three years ago. A tall dark type, the kind you slobber over—”

“I do
not!
The nerve of you—”

“Okay, consider it unsaid. A slick operator, as I remember; pulled some fast ones on the New York department stores.”

She looked at the list. “Fiasakhe we know. This Kichik must be an e.t. from Thoth. What are they like?”

“Monkey-rats, they sometimes call them; about a meter high, with seven fingers on each hand.”

“How perfectly horrid!”

“They’re harmless.”

The door opened again and the steward ushered in a black man who turned out to be S. Mpande. After introductions Chapman said: “How about giving me to top bunk, Mr. Mpande? I’m better fitted for climbing into it.”

Mpande patted his paunch and chuckled. “Right-o, old chap.”

“See you later, Cee,” said Chapman.

After the first few high-g hours following takeoff, Chapman got up from his bunk and went out to explore. On the opposite side of the narrow curving corridor, a little way around the circumference of the nose of the ship, was a door behind which, according to the legend in the Brazilo-Portuguese of the spaceways, lay the passengers’ heavy baggage. The door was closed by a simple cylinder lock—locked.

Following the corridor back in the other direction, Chapman came to the tiny saloon with its two little tables. Around one a game of sunburst was already under way among three human passengers and the Thothian, whose many fingers flipped the cards with ominous dexterity.

A tall dark young man unfolded himself and came over to extend a hand ornamented with a large and gaudy ring: “ ’Ello, Meester Shapman! Remembair me from the New York Fair?”

“Hello, Jean-Jacques,” said Chapman. “On your way to Osiris to drum up business?”

“Well, yes, maybe. I suspect that you and I, we are after the same thing.”

“Got a line of summer wear?”

“Pour le sport,
that is it. This is droll, no? What is this about keeping your sample trunk in your cabin?”

Chapman grinned. “Thought some sharp operator like you might be along, so . . .”

“I see, ha-ha. Me, I think Captain Almeida’s locks will keep unwanted ones away. And I can imagine more amusing things to keep in my cabin than a trunk.”

“No doubt,” said Chapman. “But as there are only three females aboard . . .”

“Exactement.
When the number does not come out even, the results are sometimes of the most amusing. Unless you count Kichik, who is neither one thing nor the other.”

“Both,” squeaked the Thothian. “Don’t you envy me? Three spades.”

It was hard to get Celia aside for private conversation because of the lack of space. He met the other passengers, including Bergerat’s luscious redhead, who seemed a nice straightforward girl. At least she didn’t tower over him as Celia did.

Since Mpande turned out to be a sunburst enthusiast, Chapman finally got a moment with his model in his cabin. He said: “I’m going to get a look at that trunk of Bergerat’s.”

“How, if it’s locked up?”

“Didn’t you know I once worked for a locksmith?”

“Now, look, Cato, don’t start something like
that
again. You remember what happened to you in the case of that Argentine polo player . . .”

“You leave this to me! I didn’t say I was going to do anything to his trunk, did I?”

“No, but I know you—”

“And I know Jean-Jacques; the only way to treat that no goodnik is to beat him to the punch.”

“I think he’s perfectly nice!”

“Ha ha. You’ll see.”

Chapman went back down the corridor and studied the baggage-room door. Then he took life easy until chance introduced him to Zuloaga, the chief engineer of the
Camões.

“Could I have a look around?” he asked after the amenities.

“I much regret, but it is a strict rule of the Viagens Interplanetarias that no passengers are allowed in the power compartments.”

“Then how about the machine shop? I couldn’t do any harm there.”

Zuloaga wagged a forefinger. “Oh, you
Americanos do Norte
all want to get your hands greasy as soon as you come aboard. It must give you a feeling of virility,
pois não?
But come, you shall see our little shop.”

In the shop Chapman cultivated the acquaintance of Chief Machinist Gustafson. Zuloaga left them puttering among the tools. When Chapman departed a quarter-hour later, he took with him a lump of beeswax and a length of wire which he had slipped into his pockets unseen.

When he was sure nobody was coming along the corridor, Chapman made an impression of the cross-section of the slot of the lock on the baggage-room door, and poked his wire into the slot until he knew how deep it was.

As the hours passed, some passengers took short-trance pills while others continued to play sunburst. Fiasakhe, whose claws were ill-shaped for holding playing cards, sat folded in a corner of the saloon with his tail curled up against the wall, reading through a pile of slushy sentimental Earthly novels he had brought with him.

Chapman, after letting a decent interval elapse, found an excuse to get back into the machine shop. Here he wheedled a couple of pieces of titanium brass out of Gustafson and began hammering and filing them into the shape he wanted. Gustafson appeared to believe the unlikely story that they were for Chapman’s portable radio.

The two pieces of metal finally took the form of a couple of very slender cylinder-lock keys, one without any of the usual saw-toothed projections and the other with a single such projection. The two keys had handles offset in opposite directions. “For adjusting my germanium crystals,” said Chapman.

“You must show me how to fix mine some time,” said Gustafson.

“Sure.
Obrigado.”

Chapman’s next step was to walk off from the dinner table with the pepper shaker in his pocket. When Mpande was absent from the cabin, Chapman emptied the pepper into an ordinary envelope and put the envelope in his pocket. Then he waited until nearly all the passengers were asleep, and Mpande was playing sunburst in the saloon. (On a spaceship there were always some individualists who preferred not to keep to the arbitrary waking-and-sleeping schedule of the majority.)

He slipped out of his cabin with the brass gadgets in his pockets and went to the baggage room. After looking nervously over his shoulders, he slipped the plain brass finger into the lock and twisted hard. Then he slid the one with the projection into the remaining space in the slot and worked it in and out until all the little split pins inside caught at their opening levels. Click! Chapman opened the door.

First, making sure that he would not be locking himself in, he closed the door behind him. He was in complete darkness except for the beam of his little pocket flashlight. The compartment was so jammed with baggage that there was little room to move. However, Chapman grinned when his light picked out Bergerat’s big sample trunk in plain sight, with the legend:
J.-J. M. B.—Tomaselli of Paris.
He had to move only one suitcase to get at it.

He grinned wickedly at the thought that Monsieur Tomaselli, a notorious pinchfranc, had been unwilling to lay out a couple of grand more to assure a private berth for his samples; how nice! But what now? The trunk had a combination lock: a Kleinwasser, the peculiarity of which was that it had to be locked as well as unlocked by twirling the knob in a certain combination. The idea had been to discourage people from locking the combination into the trunk.

That knowledge, however, did him no good without the combination. Of course there were the tried-and-true methods of prying, drilling, or blasting. But even the unbrilliant Gustafson would get suspicious if he tried to borrow a jimmy or a drill, and blasting was quite out of the question. What then? Too bad he didn’t have a hypnoscope to pry the combination out of Bergerat.

What other possibilities? The luscious redhead, Anya Savinkov, might prove pliable. In fact he wouldn’t mind cultivating her on general principles. Although he knew many beauties in Hollywood, they’d all be middle-aged matrons by the time he returned. That was why only people like Celia and himself, without close family ties, went off on jaunts of this sort. In the five months’ subjective time of their voyage, eleven years would be passing on the planets . . .