This gloriously gay smiley character; this
astounding peace-pervading creature from Saturn's
inner moon, was radiating like a space beacon
in a meteor shower when it landed on Mars ...
it was madness ... gargantuan madness.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories January 1953.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The Cargo Declarations mart at Areopolis spaceport was humming busilywhen I walked in. A moment later it was as quiet as a church and twiceas attentive.
The sudden hush that fell wasn't out of deference to me, though I'mpretty well known through the odd corners of the Solar System, butbecause of the Mimasan smiley I carried in a ten-inch tungsten wirecage under my arm. Nothing this side of Saturn's inner moon can laydown the euphoric aura of peace and brotherhood that a smiley can, andthis one was doing a noble job of it. He was one of the first two everto hit Mars, young and healthy and still unmated, and he was radiatinglike a space beacon in a meteor shower.
"Hey, it's Blaster Bill Bailey," I heard a trader—an Earthside homo bythe sound of him—say. "What's the beautiful little item you broughtback this time, Bill?"
They crowded around me, Earthies and Eetees—Extraterrestrials—alike,all trying to get closer to that lovely peace-be-on-you euphoria. Ilooked them over carefully, counting the house and estimating theirprobable bids, and for the hundredth time it struck me that the placewas more like a zoo than a mart for serious business.
Cargo Declarations is a regular Mecca for Eetee traders from theoutlands. I saw both kinds of Martians, the cat-whiskered, man-like,yellow city dwellers and their wilder, little, brown baboon-facedcousins from the red upland deserts; pink-and-white Venusiansglistening like four-foot snails under the celloplast sheaths that keptthem from dehydrating in the dry Martian air; Callistans teetering likescaly green sawhorses on their four stiff-jointed legs and walkingstick tails; wooly blue tree men from Titan and ponderous Europansrolling on the little three-wheeled carts they used to carry theirbarrel-bellied tonnage.
"It's a smiley," I told them, holding the cage up so they could admirethe soulful little brute. "From Mimas, Saturn's first moon. His name isJoey and he is very much for sale."
Everybody wanted Joey, naturally. I'd have wanted him myself if Ihadn't learned from the Mimasan natives, who are as rare as smileys anda damned sight less friendly, that chewing khiff roots would immunizeme against his hypnotic aura. That aura makes smileys remarkableeven among Eetees, so remarkable that nobody had ever brought one inbefore. It's their mating call, a very practical gimmick evolved toattract each other and at the same time protect themselves from nativepredators while they carry on their courtship. It works on anythingfrom swamp gnats to Syrtis Major sand snakes, and it's literallyirresistible.
Joey looked something like a fist-sized marmoset shaped out ofpale blue smoke, his body so insubstantial that you could see thecage wires through and behind him. It was hard to put a finger onthe quality unless you had learned the hard way, but there was aweird incompleteness about him that escaped definition. Smileys areparadoxical little brutes. Unmated, they're only half material becausethey actually aren't complete entities. But when they mate—
"Gleef?" Joey said plaintively, yearning at the assorted faces aroundhim and loving every one of them.
That clinched it. "How much?" somebody asked, and there was a generaldigging f