5 men from mars

there was no floating inside the space hotel. thegravity-making machine saw to that. so

once the docking had been triumphantly achieved, mr wonka,charlie, grandpa joe and

mr and mrs bucket were able to walk out of the great glasselevator into the lobby of the

hotel. as for grandpa george, grandma georgina andgrandma josephine, none of them

had had their feet on the ground for over twenty years andthey certainly weren't going to

change their habits now. so when the floating stopped, they allthree plopped right back

into bed again and insisted that the bed, with them in it, bepushed into the space hotel.

charlie gazed around the huge lobby. on the floor there was athick green carpet. twenty tremendous chandeliers hungshimmering from the ceiling. the walls were covered withvaluable pictures and there were big soft armchairs all over theplace. at the far end of the room there were the doors of fivelifts. the group stared in silence at all this luxury. nobodydared speak. mr wonka had warned them that every wordthey uttered would be picked up by space control in houston,so they had better be careful. a faint humming noise camefrom somewhere below the floor, but that only made thesilence more spooky. charlie took hold of grandpa joe's handand held it tight. he wasn't sure he liked this very much. theyhad broken into the greatest machine ever built by man, theproperty of the united states government, and if they werediscovered and captured as they surely must be in the end,what would happen to them then? jail for life? yes, orsomething worse.

mr wonka was writing on a little pad. he held up the pad. itsaid: anybody hungry?

the three old ones in the bed began waving their arms andnodding and opening and shutting their mouths. mr wonkaturned the paper over. on the other side it said: thekitchens of this hotel are loaded with lusciousfood, lobsters, steaks, ice-cream. we shall havea feast to end all feasts.

suddenly, a tremendous booming voice came out of aloudspeaker hidden somewhere in the room. 'attention!'

boomed the voice and charlie jumped. so did grandpa joe.

everybody jumped, even mr wonka. 'attention theeight foreign astronauts! this is space controlin houston, texas, u.s.a.! you are trespassing onamerican property! you are ordered to identifyyourselves immediately! speak now!'

'ssshhh!' whispered mr wonka, finger to lips.

there followed a few seconds of awful silence. nobody movedexcept mr wonka who kept saying 'ssshhh! ssshhh!'

'who … are … you?' boomed the voice from houston, andthe whole world heard it. 'i repeat … who … are …you?' shouted the urgent angry voice, and five hundred millionpeople crouched in front of their television sets waiting for ananswer to come from the mysterious strangers inside the spacehotel. the television was not able to show a picture of thesemysterious strangers. there was no camera in there to recordthe scene. only the words came through. the tv watcherssaw nothing but the outside of the giant hotel in orbit,photographed of course by shuckworth, shanks and showlerwho were following behind. for half a minute the world waitedfor a reply.

but no reply came.

'speak!' boomed the voice, getting louder and louder andending in a fearful frightening shout that rattled charlie'seardrums. 'speak! speak! speak!' grandma georgina shotunder the sheet. grandma josephine stuck her fingers in herears. grandpa george buried his head in the pillow. mr andmrs bucket, both petrified, were once again in each other'sarms. charlie was clutching grandpa joe's hand, and the twoof them were staring at mr wonka and begging him with theireyes to do something. mr wonka stood very still, and althoughhis face looked calm, you can be quite sure his clever inventivebrain was spinning like a dynamo.

'this is your last chance!' boomed the voice. 'we areasking you once more … who … are … you? replyimmediately! if you do not reply we shall be

forced to regard you as dangerous enemies. weshall then press the emergency freezer switchand the temperature in the space hotel will

drop to minus one hundred degrees centigrade.

all of you will be instantly deep frozen. youhave fifteen seconds to speak. after that youwill turn into icicles … one … two … three …'

'grandpa!' whispered charlie as the counting continued, 'wemust do something! we must! quick!'

'six!' said the voice. 'seven! … eight! … nine! …'

mr wonka had not moved. he was still gazing straight ahead,still quite cool, perfectly expressionless. charlie and grandpa joewere staring at him in horror. then, all at once, they saw thetiny twinkling wrinkles of a smile appear around the corners ofhis eyes. he sprang to life. he spun round on his toes,skipped a few paces across the floor and then, in a frenziedunearthly sort of scream he cried, 'fimbo feez!'

the loudspeaker stopped counting. there was silence. all overthe world there was silence.

charlie's eyes were riveted on mr wonka. he was going tospeak again. he was taking a deep breath. 'bungo buni!' hescreamed. he put so much force into his voice that the effortlifted him right up on to the tips of his toes.

'bungo bunidafu duni

yubee luni!'

again the silence.

the next time mr wonka spoke, the words came out so fastand sharp and loud they were like bullets from a machine-gun.

'zoonk-zoonk-zoonk-zoonk-zoonk!' he barked. thenoise echoed around and around the lobby of the space hotel.

it echoed around the world.

mr wonka now turned and faced the far end of the lobbywhere the loudspeaker voice had come from. he walked a fewpaces forward as a man would, perhaps, who wanted a moreintimate conversation with his audience. and this time, the tonewas much quieter, the words came more slowly, but there wasa touch of steel in every syllable:

'kirasuku malibuku,

weebee wize un yubee kuku!

alipend a kakamend a,pantz forldun ifno

suspenda!

fuikika kanderika,weebe stronga yubee

weeka!popokota borumokaveri riski yu provoka!

kАtikАt1 moons un starsfanfanisha venus mars!'

mr wonka paused dramatically for a few seconds. then hetook an enormous deep breath and in a wild and fearsomevoice, he yelled out:

'kitimbibi zoonk!fumboleezi zoonk!gugumiza

zoonk!fumikaka zoonk!anapolala zoonk zoonk

zoonk!'

the effect of all this on the world below was electric. in thecontrol room in houston, in the white house in washington,in palaces and city buildings and mountain shacks fromamerica to china to peru, the five hundred million people whoheard that wild and fearsome voice yelling out these strangeand mystic words all shivered with fear before their televisionsets. everybody began turning to everybody else and saying,'who are they? what language was that? where do they comefrom?'

in the president's study in the white house, vice-presidenttibbs, the members of the cabinet, the chiefs of the army andthe navy and the air force, the sword-swallower fromafghanistan, the chief financial adviser and mrs taubsypussthe cat, all stood tense and rigid. they were very much afraid.

but the president himself kept a cool head and a clear brain.

'nanny!' he cried. 'oh, nanny, what on earth do we do now?'

'i'll get you a nice warm glass of milk,' said miss tibbs.

'i hate the stuff,' said the president. 'please don't make medrink it!'

'summon the chief interpreter,' said miss tibbs.

'summon the chief interpreter!' said the president. 'where ishe?'

'right here, mr president,' said the chief interpreter.

'what language was that creature spouting up there in thespace hotel? be quick! was it eskimo?'

'not eskimo, mr president.'

'ha! then it was tagalog! either tagalog or ugro!'

'not tagalog, mr president. not ugro, either.'

'was it tulu, then? or tungus or tupi?'

'definitely not tulu, mr president. and i'm quite sure it wasn'ttungus or tupi.'

'don't stand there telling him what it wasn't, you idiot!' saidmiss tibbs. 'tell him what it was!'

'yes, ma'am, miss vice-president, ma'am,' said the chiefinterpreter, beginning to shake. 'believe me, mr president,' hewent on, 'it was not a language i have ever heard before.'

'but i thought you knew every language in the world?' 'i do,mr president.'

'don't lie to me, chief interpreter. how can you possibly knowevery language in the world when you don't know this one?'

'it is not a language of this world, mr president.'

'nonsense, man!' barked miss tibbs. 'i understood some of itmyself!'

'these people, miss vice-president, ma'am, have obviously triedto learn just a few of our easier words, but the rest of it is alanguage that has never been heard before on this earth!'

'screaming scorpions!' cried the president. 'you mean to tell methey could be coming from … from … from somewhere else?'

'precisely, mr president.' 'like where?' said the president.

'who knows?' said the chief interpreter. 'but did you notnotice, mr president, how they used the words venus andmars?'

'of course i noticed it,' said the president. 'but what's that gotto do with it? … ah-ha! i see what you're driving at! goodgracious me! men from mars!'

'and venus,' said the chief interpreter. 'that,' said thepresident, 'could make for trouble.' 'i'll say it could!' said thechief interpreter. 'he wasn't talking to you,' said miss tibbs.

'what do we do now, general?' said the president. 'blow 'emup!' cried the general.

'you're always wanting to blow things up,' said the presidentcrossly. 'can't you think of something else?'

'i like blowing things up,' said the general. 'it makes such alovely noise. woomph-woomph!'

'don't be a fool!' said miss tibbs. 'if you blow these people up,mars will declare war on us!

so will venus!'

'quite right, nanny,' said the president. 'we'd be troculated liketurkeys, every one of us! we'd be mashed like potatoes!'

'i'll take 'em on!' shouted the chief of the army.

'shut up!' snapped miss tibbs. 'you're fired!'

'hooray!' said all the other generals. 'well done, missvice-president, ma'am!'

miss tibbs said, 'we've got to treat these fellows gently. theone who spoke just now sounded extremely cross. we've gotto be polite to them, butter them up, make them happy. thelast thing we want is to be invaded by men from mars! you'vegot to talk to them, mr president. tell houston we wantanother direct radio link with the space hotel. and hurry!'