Chapter 15: A New Game

But with Lilla’s love and trust, I could not despair. As I kissed her good night, with her warm throbbing girlish body held fast in my arms, a single star shone down upon us for an instant, through a rift in the circumambient clouds. Was it my own planet, the earth? I wondered.

During the succeeding days I saw much of Lilla and nothing of Bthuh. And ever I racked my brains for an idea which would point the way out of my difficulties. My only hope was to perform such a distinguished service for my adopted country that the king would relent, would forgive me, and would promote me to the rank of sarkar.

The most distinguished service which a Cupian can render is to invent a new and popular game, so I set about to do something in that line. And at last the idea came, a whiz of an idea! As Hah Babbuh, head of the Department of Mechanics, had advised me to seek this means of distinction, so it was to him that I first confided my plans.

At my request, Prince Toron, who had aided me so efficiently in devising my radio set in the laboratories of Mooni, was detailed to assist me in this new endeavor. He and a young draftsman and a young chemist set to work with me to build the new game.

And what was this new game? Target shooting with army rifles. Explosives were already known on Poros, being used for blasting and for airplane bombs. With the aid of the young chemist, I adapted these explosives to be sufficiently slow burning to drive a rifle-bullet without injuring the gun.

In a surprisingly short time we had turned out a crude rifle which would actually shoot. The heads of the Mathematics and Astronomy Departments, Ja Babbuh and Buh Tedn, were then let in on the secret, for the purpose of computing trajectories and designing the sights and wind leaf, which they did by an adaption of the principles employed in computing the orbits of celestial bodies.

A hundred and forty-seven rifles were then turned out and presented to my athletic club.

My club tried out the rifles; and, when at last they began to get bull’s-eyes, they went wild over the new sport. The king heard, and relented sufficiently to send for me and compliment me.

After being thoroughly tried out in my hundred, rifle shooting was next introduced into the clubs to which my three assistants belonged, and became popular there, as well. The idea spread, and soon all the clubs throughout the kingdom were clamoring for guns. The mechanical laboratory at Kuana was made over into a huge arsenal, and the chemical laboratory into a huge munitions factory, while the athletic clubs of Kuana and the vicinity detailed some of their members to work overtime in my two plants. The Cupians will always work overtime in the cause of play.

Target practice soon became the national sport of Cupia. The craze even reached such dimensions that Queen Formis finally dispatched a special mission to Kuana to study the movement and report whether it could not be put to some practical use. The report of that mission is now one of my most treasured possessions, and a framed reproduction of their conclusions now hangs upon my office wall.

The ant mission concluded, and so reported to their queen, that the new game had absolutely no practical application, but that if it kept the crazy Cupians quiet and took their minds off their troubles, it might prove a valuable contribution toward simplifying the enforcement of the treaty of Mooni. And so, indeed, it seemed. Toron neglected politics to become a proficient shot, and his anti-Formian movement rapidly subsided. All of which was exactly as I had planned.

The collapse of the Toron movement so pleased the exiled Prince Yuri that he sent a special ambassador to his brother, offering to assist in introducing the new sport to the Cupians at Mooni. But “I fear the Greeks even when ferrying doughnuts,” as we used to say at Harvard. So Yuri’s kind offer was declined. We did, however, present a sample rifle and some of our powder to the authorities of the Imperial University of the ant-men at their request, for we could not very well refuse.

Finally King Kew himself condescended to sit in at the conferences between Hah Babbuh, Bub Tedn, Ja Babbuh, Toron, and myself. He had been brooding a good deal recently on the indignities inflicted on his people by Queen Formis, with whom he had had several disputes lately; and the committee-work seemed to divert and cheer him up greatly. But still I was not made a sarkar, although I learned from Lilla that Hah Babbuh had urged this on the king. The influence of Bthuh Sarkari was still too strong. In fact, it was rumored that she now aspired to make herself Queen of Cupia.

Well, I did not mind. Better even one of her sons on the throne than Yuri!

Having got the new game well under way, I next turned to my old love, radio. First I obtained some stones from the Howling Valley, which was easy, because of my deafness to radio-waves; but I was unable to put them to any practical use. Then I devised a simple wave trap for absorbing the ordinary carrying waves of Porovian speech. Also I arranged a variable condenser, which could so alter the capacity of the Cupian antennae that selective sending and reception were possible.

These two devices were combined in a small box which could easily be carried on a man’s head and be coupled to his antennae. My third invention on these lines was a broadcasting set, whereby the normal Cupian sending range of four parastads—about fifty yards—was increased to half a stad—about half a mile.

And now, in my frantic quest for a sarkarship, I introduced a still further new game, namely marching evolutions on an extended scale. Strictly speaking, this was really an adaptation of an old game, rather than the creation of a new, for marching formations had always been popular in Cupia; but my three new radio devices made it possible to perform these evolutions by twelves of thousands.

We tried it out in our own twelve thousand. The commander broadcast his orders to the selectively tuned headsets of the eklats, and they in turn to the pootahs, each of whom then directed his hundred at ordinary wave length. The regimental evolutions went through like clockwork, and this idea spread to the other twelve thousands of the country.

But still I was not made a sarkar.

I then turned my attention to the construction of two huge engines, one of which we mounted on a kerkool and one on a concrete base in the courtyard of the university machine shop. The purpose of these engines was for the present kept secret. But I had a feeling that they would win me the sarkarship, even if everything else failed.

As a result of my inventions, King Kew sufficiently unbent to invite me to occupy the reviewing stand with him on Peace Day, when the annual athletic prize-giving was to take place. This was a signal honor which even sarkars might envy, but it was not a sarkarship.

The morning of the five hundredth anniversary of the Peace of Mooni—three hundred and fifty-eight in Porovian notation—dawned clear and dazzling. By 460 o’clock—9:00 o’clock in earth time—the whole plaza and the fields beyond were jammed with marching clubs.

The Minister of Play, who stood with me on the reviewing platform at the crest of University Hill—along with the rest of the cabinet, Prince Toron, and a few leading nobles and professors—sadly remarked that he was afraid the maneuvers would have to be given up.

I replied with a smile that I guessed not; though he was unable to figure out how evolutions could be possible with that huge crowd.

Pistol shooting had recently been introduced as a tentative subject for next year’s games, and our committee of five all wore revolvers strapped to our sides, as a special badge in recognition of our responsibility for the gala occasion.

The housetops and roads were crowded with Cupian femininity. All was ready for the grand opening. I adjusted the controls of the big sending set, and dispatched Poblath, who had been detailed as my aide for the day, to inform the king that the time had arrived for his address.

As King Kew XII stepped up on the stand, at just 500 o’clock—10:00 in earth time—practically the entire male population of Cupia gave him the United States Army present arms in absolute unison. It was an inspiring sight.

I noticed that the king seemed extremely pale and nervous, but I did not give this much thought at the time.

Then I yielded the sending set to him, and he began his speech of welcome, a very different speech from what had been expected, but one which will go down in history, and which every Cupian school boy throughout the ages will commit to memory, as American boys do the Gettysburg Address.

Thus spoke King Kew: “Three hundred and fifty-eight years ago today our forefathers submitted to the indignities of the treaty of Mooni, and the stigma of that infamous treaty attached to the Kew dynasty, which was then founded. For twelve generations, Cupia has been under the dominion of a race of animals—animals possessed of human intelligence, it is true, but still merely lower animals.

“Now the parth of our deliverance is at hand. Those rifles which you hold were designed not for play, but rather for the killing of Formians. The bullets which have been issued to you this day contain the highest explosive known to Porovian science. With these weapons you are invincible. Today, with your support, Cupia will become free, and the Kew Dynasty will wipe out forever the stigma of its birth.