April 8, 2025 • 11 mins
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Solar stiff by Charles A. Stouffer totem poles are a
dime a dozen north of sixty three degrees, but only
ketch the lying Eskimaux vowed they dropped out of the
frigid northern skies. Phobos five gazed at the white expanse ahead,
trying to determine where his ship would crash. Something was
(00:21):
haywire in the fuel system of his inner star runabout.
He was losing altitude fast, so fast that all five
pairs of his eyes couldn't focus on a place to land.
Five pairs of arms, each pair about three feet apart
on the log like body, pushed buttons and rotated controls frantically,
but to no avail. In a few short minutes, it
(00:43):
would be all over for Phobos five. Even if, by
some miracle he remained unhurt after crashing, he would die
shortly thereafter. The frigid climactic conditions of the third planet
were deadly to a mercurian. He thought once of donning
his space suit, but decided against it. That would merely
prolong the agony from planet three. When one has a
(01:06):
smashed space cruiser, there is no return. Phobos five knew
that death was riding with him in the helpless ship.
The situation did not unnecessarily dismay him. Mercurians are philosophers.
Phobos five ceased to manipulate the unresponding controls, stretching his
trunk like torso to its full twenty feet. Four heads
(01:29):
gazed through observation ports at the four points of the compass,
while the remaining head desultorily watched the instrument panel. Since die,
he must, Phobos five would meet his ends stoically, and
five pairs of stumpy arms folded over five chests in
a coordinated gesture of resignation. Phobos five thought fleetingly of
(01:50):
his wife Lingua four, and remembered with some annoyance that
she was the author of his present predicament. A social climber,
Phobos five thought to himself, aside from that, a good
wife and mother, in addition to being a reigning beauty.
Lingua four was tall even for a mercurion. Already she
scaled seven dirgs or in Earth terms, fourteen feet, and
(02:12):
was beginning to show evidences of a fifth head. Five
heads were rarely found on females, and Phobos five was
justly proud of his good fortune in all mercury. At
the present time he knew of but two females possessing
five heads, and soon Lingua four would be the third
of her sex to be thus endowed. Yes, thought Phobos five,
(02:34):
a woman to be proud of, for today, after three
vargs of marriage, the memory of her trim trunk with
four pairs of eyes, laughing mischievously filled his five brains
with flame. Slim as a birch, she stood in his memory,
and eight eyes whispered lover's thoughts across space and time.
Phobos five recalled his five minds from their nostalgic reverie
(02:56):
and gazed at the contour of the Earth that was
rushing up to meet him. White blazing, white, reflecting the
rays of the midnight sun covered the region as far
as the eye could reach. Good, thought Phobos five. The
polar regions. That means the end will come quickly, one
or two seconds at most of that bitter cold would
(03:17):
be enough. Turning away from the windows, Phobos five let
his thoughts return to Lingua four, to Phobos two, his son,
and his home on the first planet from the sun.
Ah that is the place to live, thought Phobos the
temperature and unchanging three hundred twenty seven degrees, just comfortably warm,
(03:39):
where one could enjoy a life of warmth and ease.
Too bad that he would not live to see it again.
Thirty vargs, he reflected, is such a short time with luck.
Perhaps he may have lived to see a hundred vargs
slip by, and perhaps in time he may have added
three more heads and five dirgs in length to his
(04:00):
towering trunk. He thought of Phobos two and wondered idly
if his son would also visit the barbarian worlds to
collect data for Lingua four. He wished that he could
have seen more of Phobos two. There's an up and
coming lad, he thought, not quite too vargs old and
two heads already. Yes, indeed he's quite a boy, Phobos five,
(04:24):
remembered proudly. Maybe his mother will keep him at home
instead of running him all over the universe to get
material for her committees. He wished that Lingua four would
settle down and be content as a housewife, but he
doubted that she would. Social ambition was boring, like a
termite under her bark. Lingua four was determined to be
(04:46):
the first lady of Arbor the capital city of Mercury.
To this end, Linguafoor had labored unceasingly. She was president
of half the women's clubs of Arbor. She could always
be depended upon to furnish the bet in new and
diverting subjects. She headed almost all the committees for aid
or research on any type of problem. It was owing
(05:08):
to Lingual four, being president of the Committee for Undernourished Arboreans,
that Phobos five was making this ill starred trip. His
purpose was to capture a few of the upright divided
trunk animals that inhabited the third planet. They were to
be transported to Mercury and given over to scientific study
as to their edible qualities. If it were found that
(05:30):
the divided trunk creatures were fit for Mercurean consumption, the
problem of undernourishment would no longer exist, since the supply
of divided trunks was seemingly inexhaustible. Mercurians had made expeditions
to the third planet before, and every report concluded with
divided trunk creatures increasing in number. Privately, Phobos five doubted
(05:53):
the possibility of using the divided trunks for food, since
the last expedition once again reported a complete lack of
care aptives due to the frail and tenuous bodies of
the divided trunks. Then two transportation and preservation posed a
tremendous problem, not to mention the difficulty of trying to
eat something that might vaporize on your fork. But then
(06:15):
these questions may never arise. He decided. For all the
reports perused by Phobos five, not one expedition had succeeded
in bringing a divided trunk to Mercury. All reports were
read to the last letter by Phobos five before assembling
equipment for his own trip. In the reports, he had
noted many of the difficulties of the earlier missions. Planet
(06:37):
three was impossible for a Mercurian without a heated spacesuit.
The temperature of planet three was so low that it
would literally freeze a Mercurian stiff in a matter of seconds.
The casualties of the early expeditions had been numerous. Many
Mercurians had succumbed to the bitter cold due to flaws
in spacesuits and other accidents. A break in the suit
(06:58):
meant instant death. The victims of such mishaps were invariably
buried in the isolated sparsely inhabited polar regions to avoid
alarming the divided trunk creatures. It was strange, mused Phobos five,
that the divided trunks were seemingly unable to bear the
slightest increase in temperature. Their bodies disintegrated upon contact with
(07:20):
the mercurian. Some were roped and dragged from a distance
up to the doors of the space ships, but no
inhabitant of Planet three had been closer to Mercury than
the airlock of the space cruisers. As the divided trunk
people were dragged into the air lock, warm are from
the ship would be pumped into the lock to dispel
the frigid air of Planet three. As the warmth of
(07:40):
mercury enveloped the divided trunks, they became quite red, began
to melt, and finally dissolved into a gaseous state, leaving
a small pile of ashes and a disagreeable odor in
the airlock that sometimes lingered for days. Phobos five believed
he had the solution for these obstacles in the path
of scientific study of the divided trunks. He decided to
(08:02):
use guile in place of strength. For this reason, he
had come alone in a small space runabout to put
his solution to the test. But his solution now could
never be tried, he remembered morosely. In the aft compartment,
Phobos five had constructed a refrigeration plant by maintaining a
constant degree of frigidity. He hoped to deliver a pair
(08:23):
of each species of divided trunks to mercury. He hoped,
especially to capture a complete set, and perhaps a few
over to make up for breakage and losses. As to
what form of sustenance the divided trunks were accustomed to,
he had no idea whatsoever. He had intended to bring
samples of earth vegetation and anything else that may have
suggested a source of food for the divided trunks. The thought, too,
(08:47):
had occurred to him that possibly the divided trunk creatures
ate one another. On the possibility of this, Phobos five
had determined to capture three black ones, three white ones,
three yellows, three bronze, and three reds, and three of
any other color that he might find. He rather doubted
that more colors or combination of colors existed. All previous
(09:09):
expedition reports had mentioned only the five colors. However, Phobos
five had determined to keep several eyes open on the
off chance that he might find a new and different species.
His refrigerator was modeled along the architectural lines of the
dens of the divided trunks. The main room of the
refrigerator opened to the outside of the ship by means
(09:29):
of a small airlock. A Mercurian sized airlock was not
needed for the divided trunks, as few had been found
to be much over three dirgs in height winches and
cables to pull the divided trunks into the refrigerator were
installed in the refrigerator room itself to avoid burning the
divided trunks with hot cables from other parts of the ship.
(09:50):
In addition, Phobos five had cunningly devised a refrigerated trap.
This two was designed to simulate the caves of the
divided trunk creatures, but was smaller. It was instructed with
entrances readily seen and exits well hidden. Phobos five had
expected great things of his trap. He had conceived the
idea after reading the report of the Mercurian expedition that
(10:12):
explored the dens of the divided trunks at some place
marked Coney Island. According to the reports, the divided trunks
showed no hesitancy in entering these types of dens. In fact,
the writer of the report gave it as his opinion
that the divided ones perhaps played games in these types
of caves. He had also mentioned that some of the
(10:33):
dens were equipped with flat, shiny surfaces that cast reflections
or images. Phobos five had incorporated the image making surfaces
into his trap design. A pity that all this effort
must be wasted, thought Phobos, as he once more turned
to the observation ports to check his remaining distance from
the planet's surface. Seeing that his time was short, Phobos
(10:55):
five turned all five faces forward in the Mercurian gesture
of disdain for death. A moment later came the shock.
A week later, the proprietor of a novelty shop in
Fairbanks watched two Natives with their dog team pulling something
loglike through the snow toward the trading post. Turning to
a customer, he remarked, here comes Ketch and ah who
(11:18):
dragging in another totem pole. Guess that Ketch must be
the biggest liar ever produced by the Eskimos. He tried
to tell me that totem poles fall from the sky,
says he can always find one if he sees it fall,
because it's so hot it melts the snow around it. Personally,
I think he should be elected president of the Liar's Club.
(11:38):
But I'll buy the totem pole anyway. Those pesky tourists
always whittle a chunk out of my totem pole for
a souvenir. I'm glad he's bringing me another one, the
store keeper concluded. The one he sold me last year
is about whittled away. End of Solar Stiff by Charles A.
Stofer
Solar stiff by Charles A. Stouffer totem poles are a
dime a dozen north of sixty three degrees, but only
ketch the lying Eskimaux vowed they dropped out of the
frigid northern skies. Phobos five gazed at the white expanse ahead,
trying to determine where his ship would crash. Something was
(00:21):
haywire in the fuel system of his inner star runabout.
He was losing altitude fast, so fast that all five
pairs of his eyes couldn't focus on a place to land.
Five pairs of arms, each pair about three feet apart
on the log like body, pushed buttons and rotated controls frantically,
but to no avail. In a few short minutes, it
(00:43):
would be all over for Phobos five. Even if, by
some miracle he remained unhurt after crashing, he would die
shortly thereafter. The frigid climactic conditions of the third planet
were deadly to a mercurian. He thought once of donning
his space suit, but decided against it. That would merely
prolong the agony from planet three. When one has a
(01:06):
smashed space cruiser, there is no return. Phobos five knew
that death was riding with him in the helpless ship.
The situation did not unnecessarily dismay him. Mercurians are philosophers.
Phobos five ceased to manipulate the unresponding controls, stretching his
trunk like torso to its full twenty feet. Four heads
(01:29):
gazed through observation ports at the four points of the compass,
while the remaining head desultorily watched the instrument panel. Since die,
he must, Phobos five would meet his ends stoically, and
five pairs of stumpy arms folded over five chests in
a coordinated gesture of resignation. Phobos five thought fleetingly of
(01:50):
his wife Lingua four, and remembered with some annoyance that
she was the author of his present predicament. A social climber,
Phobos five thought to himself, aside from that, a good
wife and mother, in addition to being a reigning beauty.
Lingua four was tall even for a mercurion. Already she
scaled seven dirgs or in Earth terms, fourteen feet, and
(02:12):
was beginning to show evidences of a fifth head. Five
heads were rarely found on females, and Phobos five was
justly proud of his good fortune in all mercury. At
the present time he knew of but two females possessing
five heads, and soon Lingua four would be the third
of her sex to be thus endowed. Yes, thought Phobos five,
(02:34):
a woman to be proud of, for today, after three
vargs of marriage, the memory of her trim trunk with
four pairs of eyes, laughing mischievously filled his five brains
with flame. Slim as a birch, she stood in his memory,
and eight eyes whispered lover's thoughts across space and time.
Phobos five recalled his five minds from their nostalgic reverie
(02:56):
and gazed at the contour of the Earth that was
rushing up to meet him. White blazing, white, reflecting the
rays of the midnight sun covered the region as far
as the eye could reach. Good, thought Phobos five. The
polar regions. That means the end will come quickly, one
or two seconds at most of that bitter cold would
(03:17):
be enough. Turning away from the windows, Phobos five let
his thoughts return to Lingua four, to Phobos two, his son,
and his home on the first planet from the sun.
Ah that is the place to live, thought Phobos the
temperature and unchanging three hundred twenty seven degrees, just comfortably warm,
(03:39):
where one could enjoy a life of warmth and ease.
Too bad that he would not live to see it again.
Thirty vargs, he reflected, is such a short time with luck.
Perhaps he may have lived to see a hundred vargs
slip by, and perhaps in time he may have added
three more heads and five dirgs in length to his
(04:00):
towering trunk. He thought of Phobos two and wondered idly
if his son would also visit the barbarian worlds to
collect data for Lingua four. He wished that he could
have seen more of Phobos two. There's an up and
coming lad, he thought, not quite too vargs old and
two heads already. Yes, indeed he's quite a boy, Phobos five,
(04:24):
remembered proudly. Maybe his mother will keep him at home
instead of running him all over the universe to get
material for her committees. He wished that Lingua four would
settle down and be content as a housewife, but he
doubted that she would. Social ambition was boring, like a
termite under her bark. Lingua four was determined to be
(04:46):
the first lady of Arbor the capital city of Mercury.
To this end, Linguafoor had labored unceasingly. She was president
of half the women's clubs of Arbor. She could always
be depended upon to furnish the bet in new and
diverting subjects. She headed almost all the committees for aid
or research on any type of problem. It was owing
(05:08):
to Lingual four, being president of the Committee for Undernourished Arboreans,
that Phobos five was making this ill starred trip. His
purpose was to capture a few of the upright divided
trunk animals that inhabited the third planet. They were to
be transported to Mercury and given over to scientific study
as to their edible qualities. If it were found that
(05:30):
the divided trunk creatures were fit for Mercurean consumption, the
problem of undernourishment would no longer exist, since the supply
of divided trunks was seemingly inexhaustible. Mercurians had made expeditions
to the third planet before, and every report concluded with
divided trunk creatures increasing in number. Privately, Phobos five doubted
(05:53):
the possibility of using the divided trunks for food, since
the last expedition once again reported a complete lack of
care aptives due to the frail and tenuous bodies of
the divided trunks. Then two transportation and preservation posed a
tremendous problem, not to mention the difficulty of trying to
eat something that might vaporize on your fork. But then
(06:15):
these questions may never arise. He decided. For all the
reports perused by Phobos five, not one expedition had succeeded
in bringing a divided trunk to Mercury. All reports were
read to the last letter by Phobos five before assembling
equipment for his own trip. In the reports, he had
noted many of the difficulties of the earlier missions. Planet
(06:37):
three was impossible for a Mercurian without a heated spacesuit.
The temperature of planet three was so low that it
would literally freeze a Mercurian stiff in a matter of seconds.
The casualties of the early expeditions had been numerous. Many
Mercurians had succumbed to the bitter cold due to flaws
in spacesuits and other accidents. A break in the suit
(06:58):
meant instant death. The victims of such mishaps were invariably
buried in the isolated sparsely inhabited polar regions to avoid
alarming the divided trunk creatures. It was strange, mused Phobos five,
that the divided trunks were seemingly unable to bear the
slightest increase in temperature. Their bodies disintegrated upon contact with
(07:20):
the mercurian. Some were roped and dragged from a distance
up to the doors of the space ships, but no
inhabitant of Planet three had been closer to Mercury than
the airlock of the space cruisers. As the divided trunk
people were dragged into the air lock, warm are from
the ship would be pumped into the lock to dispel
the frigid air of Planet three. As the warmth of
(07:40):
mercury enveloped the divided trunks, they became quite red, began
to melt, and finally dissolved into a gaseous state, leaving
a small pile of ashes and a disagreeable odor in
the airlock that sometimes lingered for days. Phobos five believed
he had the solution for these obstacles in the path
of scientific study of the divided trunks. He decided to
(08:02):
use guile in place of strength. For this reason, he
had come alone in a small space runabout to put
his solution to the test. But his solution now could
never be tried, he remembered morosely. In the aft compartment,
Phobos five had constructed a refrigeration plant by maintaining a
constant degree of frigidity. He hoped to deliver a pair
(08:23):
of each species of divided trunks to mercury. He hoped,
especially to capture a complete set, and perhaps a few
over to make up for breakage and losses. As to
what form of sustenance the divided trunks were accustomed to,
he had no idea whatsoever. He had intended to bring
samples of earth vegetation and anything else that may have
suggested a source of food for the divided trunks. The thought, too,
(08:47):
had occurred to him that possibly the divided trunk creatures
ate one another. On the possibility of this, Phobos five
had determined to capture three black ones, three white ones,
three yellows, three bronze, and three reds, and three of
any other color that he might find. He rather doubted
that more colors or combination of colors existed. All previous
(09:09):
expedition reports had mentioned only the five colors. However, Phobos
five had determined to keep several eyes open on the
off chance that he might find a new and different species.
His refrigerator was modeled along the architectural lines of the
dens of the divided trunks. The main room of the
refrigerator opened to the outside of the ship by means
(09:29):
of a small airlock. A Mercurian sized airlock was not
needed for the divided trunks, as few had been found
to be much over three dirgs in height winches and
cables to pull the divided trunks into the refrigerator were
installed in the refrigerator room itself to avoid burning the
divided trunks with hot cables from other parts of the ship.
(09:50):
In addition, Phobos five had cunningly devised a refrigerated trap.
This two was designed to simulate the caves of the
divided trunk creatures, but was smaller. It was instructed with
entrances readily seen and exits well hidden. Phobos five had
expected great things of his trap. He had conceived the
idea after reading the report of the Mercurian expedition that
(10:12):
explored the dens of the divided trunks at some place
marked Coney Island. According to the reports, the divided trunks
showed no hesitancy in entering these types of dens. In fact,
the writer of the report gave it as his opinion
that the divided ones perhaps played games in these types
of caves. He had also mentioned that some of the
(10:33):
dens were equipped with flat, shiny surfaces that cast reflections
or images. Phobos five had incorporated the image making surfaces
into his trap design. A pity that all this effort
must be wasted, thought Phobos, as he once more turned
to the observation ports to check his remaining distance from
the planet's surface. Seeing that his time was short, Phobos
(10:55):
five turned all five faces forward in the Mercurian gesture
of disdain for death. A moment later came the shock.
A week later, the proprietor of a novelty shop in
Fairbanks watched two Natives with their dog team pulling something
loglike through the snow toward the trading post. Turning to
a customer, he remarked, here comes Ketch and ah who
(11:18):
dragging in another totem pole. Guess that Ketch must be
the biggest liar ever produced by the Eskimos. He tried
to tell me that totem poles fall from the sky,
says he can always find one if he sees it fall,
because it's so hot it melts the snow around it. Personally,
I think he should be elected president of the Liar's Club.
(11:38):
But I'll buy the totem pole anyway. Those pesky tourists
always whittle a chunk out of my totem pole for
a souvenir. I'm glad he's bringing me another one, the
store keeper concluded. The one he sold me last year
is about whittled away. End of Solar Stiff by Charles A.
Stofer
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