Allen Kim Lang

“ He felt a dust-storm gathering in the west, and knew that not even the tough skin of a Martian priest could withstand the angry whippings of sand lashed up by the wind-warlocks of the desert.
The old priest drew a tiny, folded mal-skin tent from his back-pack. Without haste, for he knew that the elder gods of Mars were watching his safety, Klaggchallak pitched the tent against the west stabilizer of the rocket, drawing the tough hide down to form a floor-flap and fastening it to the steel of the stabilizer with tough mal-hoof glue, which would hold fast in the fiercest winds of Mars. ”

“ Suddenly the canyon was light, the walls spreading further apart here.
Far up on Hartford's right, seated on a shelf left from some ancient avalanche, was a gigantic figure cast of a coppery metal, green now against the granite wall. "Who is that?" Hartford called to Takeko.
"It is our Daibutsu," Takeko said. "It is the Amida Buddha, the Lord of Boundless Light."
"Do you worship him?"
Takeko smiled and shook her head. "We worship not any man, but a Way," she said. "Butsudo—the Way of the Buddha. We are nearly to the village now, Lee-san." ”

“ Aaron said.
"You'd better have hired mice to guard your stored grain, O Haruna; and blowflies to curry your cattle, than to have engaged the son of Musa as a farmer," Kazunzumi growled. "Waziri has little light of understanding. He will try to win from the soil what only honest sweat and Mother's grace can cause to grow. This boy will gray your beard, Haruna."
"Perhaps the sun that warms the soil will light his brains to understanding," Aaron suggested.
"Better that your hand should leave the plowhandle from time to time to warm his lazy fundament," the Sarki said. ”

“ Ozoneff's home was at its summit, surrounded by a garden that threatened to pullulate into unproper Bostonian jungle at any moment. As I walked up the brick pathway toward the house, between flowering trees that hinted the presence of tigers, the gardener stepped out to block my way. He was dressed in earth-stained overalls and wore gloves; a desiccated man tall and lean as a mystery figure in a Navaho sand-painting. He held before him, like a twin-handled short-sword, a pair of hedge-shears. ”

“ Bumping along the trail into Datura, Aaron Stoltzfoos studied the land. A world that could allow so much well-drained black soil to go unfarmed was fortunate indeed, he mused. He thought of his father's farm, which would be his elder brother's, squeezed between railroad tracks and a three-lane highway, pressed from the west by an Armstrong Cork plant, the very cornstalks humming in harmony with the electric lines strung across the fields. This land was what the old folks had sought in America so long ago: a wilderness ripe for the plow. ”

“ Takeko giggled. "Forgive me," she said. "Kinodoku semban; but you seem to be sorry to be alive." She was silent for a moment, listening. She pointed north. "My father will appear with our giraffu soon," she said. "I can hear them."
Takeko's father rode up a moment later, an unbent man of seventy. He sat astride his camelopard, a comic quadruped little better designed as a beast of burden than an ostrich, with as much dignity as though his steed were an Arabian stallion. His name, Takeko said, was Kiwa-san. The old man bowed from his saddle when his daughter introduced Hartford. ”

“ I went to see Frances for encouragement and to scrounge a cigar. "Let's not kid ourselves," I told her. "Those brass hats are clever. Why don't we just turn over the facts to them, let their Intelligence take over? I'd like to stay with the KEZ research, but I'd also like more and tighter facts. What are the throats of the rockets made of? What fuel are they using, for sure? If they've decided on ozone, how do they keep it from exploding every time a commissar sneezes? Frances, let's just hand my scrapbooks to the Air Force and let it fill in the blank pages. ”

“ His chin and throat were covered with blood, now; blood enough to satisfy the most indignant consumer. The moment the measure was set again, Winfree lunged, trying to slip his blade beneath MacHenery's guard to strike his arm. His foible met the flash of the other man's forte, and his blade bounced aside like a sprung bow.
MacHenery slammed his saber into Winfree's, spinning the weapon out of his hand into the crowd. He lunged then, delivering his point against Winfree's chest. Peggy, released from her captors, burst from the crowd to throw herself against her father. "Stop it, Daddy!" ”

“ That commercial, I thought myself, was as much a triumph of Yankee ingenuity as was color television itself. No child, no housewife in America, could fail to identify that elf and his song with Bryant & May's Garden-Fresh Peas.
My big-eared friend was still glaring at the screen as though that commercial had been designed to insult him. "You don't like commercials?" I demanded. I wasn't really the least bit angry. You meet all kinds in the advertising business.
"Advertising may be necessary," he hedged, pulling at the lobe of one of those magnificent ears of his. ”

“ Lieutenant Kim glanced at Captain Barnaby, then spoke. "Yes, sir. I'd like to know how long we're going to let the Marties push us around this way. Thirteen Martian priests are on our payroll, just because they demand it. We've got to stay five kilometers away from their cities, or pay a five-hundred credit fine. We can't spit without special permission from the Grand Council of Mars. We don't think like they do; why should we submit to being judged by their million-year-old laws? In all respect, sir, why does our Service act so weak?" ”

“ Tedder walked out into the classroom holding the slice of meat by one ketchup-moist corner.
Mr. Formeller impaled the slice of pimento-loaf on a length of No. 8 galvanized wire the physics teacher provided. Like a keeper shoving a flank of horse meat into a cageful of lions, the biology teacher thrust the baited wire into the empty air above the demonstration bench. ”

“ In the evenings, protecting her fingers from the sin of idleness, Martha quilted and cross-stitched by lamplight. Already her parlor wall boasted a framed motto that reduced to half a dozen German words, the Amish philosophy of life: "What One Likes Doing is No Work."
For all the chill of the late-winter winds, Aaron kept himself and his young helper in a sweat. Martha's cooking and the heavy work were slabbing muscle onto Waziri's lean, brown frame. Aaron's farming methods, so much different to Murnan routines, puzzled and intrigued the boy. Aaron was equally bemused by the local taboos. ”

“ Winfree said.
"Yes, indeed," MacHenery agreed, smiling and fitting his fingertips together. "Now attend my simile, Captain. Unlike those feathered Romans of the Decadence, we moderns settle for one meal at a sitting, and let it digest in peace. We have instead our more sophisticated greeds, whetted by subtle persuasions and an assurance that it's really quite moral to ransom our future for today's gimmicks." ”

“ Hartford said. "They are certain they will die if they inhale a breath of Kansas air, chew a bite of Kansas food, drink your clear stream water. I was certain I would die when my safety-suit was torn: remember our meeting, Takeko-san? It will not be easy to persuade my brothers and sisters in the Barracks to forget their fears. We are so sure, we Axenites, that contamination will kill us that we'd rather dance with lightning and eat stones than walk this world unprotected and eat its fruits." ”

“ Four days brought the ship within falling-distance of Mars; soon the jets thundered as it backed into a pocket of hills outside Klamugra. The air-pumps hammered to bring the air pressure inside the hull gradually down to that of the outside, so that instruments and equipment wouldn't be subjected to a sudden lowering of pressure. The men inside the ship slipped plastic helmets over their heads, checked the tiny air-pumps on their shoulders, and drew on heavy gloves and boots.
When the port swung open Kim and Barnaby climbed down the ladder to the blast-blackened sand. ”

“ Aaron said. "As a guest on Murna, I have done some deed that has hurt this Mother-god, whom our neighbors hold dear."
"Heathenish superstition!"
"Martha, love, I am older than you, and a man," Aaron said. "Give me room to think! If the goddess-Mother is heathen as Baal, it matters not; these folk who worship her hold our future in their hands. Besides, we owe them the courtesy not to dance in their churches nor to laugh at their prayers; even the 'English' have more grace than that." Aaron pondered. "Something in the springtime is the Murnan Mother's gift, her greatest gift. ”

“ Old Kiwa told his daughter.
"Hai, Otosan." The girl turned to Hartford. "In our bodies there are no mischief-makers of the sort Earth-people know. There are not even those juices Pia-san called 'footprints of the bugs.'"
"He must have meant you have no bacterial antibodies," Hartford said. "That explains the whole package," he went on, with growing excitement. "Why I'm alive without my safety-suit. What Piacentelli went outside to find. And, when he found it, why he unsuited himself, knowing this world as pure as Titan. You're Axenites, you Kansans! You're as germ-free as the troopers." ”

“ Are you really proposing that each consumer be required to give birthday presents to the same people, and on the same scale, as he now gives Xmas Gratuities?"
"Precisely, sir," Captain Winfree said. "My staff has in the files the birthdate of every consumer in the District. Enforcement of the new quotas I propose will be no more difficult than the old: the same scale of fines for non-compliance, the same terms of imprisonment for repeated offenses will be imposed. The dates-of-destruction to be marked on Birthday Gratuities will be set as the next Potlatch Day, plus one year. ”