Moonshine

A STORY

by RUTH M. GOLDSMITH

THE day Ocie Powell’s still blew up it brought down two ducks headed back north and an Ix ship that had been gliding low. Only the good and miss the rest of the confusion.

For a time Ocie and his partners, Lee Oliver and Ranse Hawkins, lay where they landed in a clump of palmettos. Under the circumstances it was pleasant to rest there, even necessary. They’d found the cooking-off hot and tiring and tedious and had offered these findings to each other as reasons for sampling the run — until they got against giving reasons. Then they’d just kept on sampling. When they opened their eyes now the twisted pine branches above revolved around them. When they closed their eyes they revolved around themselves.

But the Ixians, glassy-green, four-legged, and two-headed, climbed out of their ship and set out determinedly to locate the disturbance that had brought them down.

The three men waited, patiently and peaceably, for the world to right itself, until the sound of tramping feet bothered them into raising their heads. The site had been chosen with an eye to the view. On a clear day and with normal vision they could see far across the level ground with its meager scattering of tall, straight-trunked pines — far enough in every direction to give them plenty of time to leave in case someone they didn’t feel like welcoming was coming.

They saw the Ixians some distance away, spread out fan wise and moving toward them. The Florida sun sparkled sharply off the approaching figures, and the three looked around for their flat-topped cowboy hats and pulled them low over their eyes.

“Looks like the sheriff’s done bought hisself some uniforms,” Ocie said.

“Man, they sure are bright.” Lee said. “They must’ve raised the fines to pay for that outfit.”

“We’d better be getting out of here,” Ocie said.

Spanish moss hung still on the branches, and mash dripped slowly down, as they studied the possibility. It meant getting up and going over to the truck, starting it up — which might be difficult because it was an aging and ailing machine — and then bouncing over the open ground until they came to the road. It was an energetic measure.

On the other hand, as Ranse Hawkins finally decided it, “We stay still, maybe they won’t find us.”

The feet tramped steadily nearer. Ocie found the funnel on the ground near him and, holding it to his eye like a telescope, peeked out once through the palmetto fans and spotted the antennae on top of the green heads. “Walkie-talkie,” he whispered disgustedly, shoving the funnel in his pocket. “That ain’t hardly playing fair.”

The antennae bent and pointed at where the men were hidden, and quivered at each other. The feet trudged a little more and stopped. The three could hear better than they could see and they knew that they’d been ringed in.

They got up sheepishly, hands in the air.

“Howdy, Sheriff,” they said pleasantly, swaying slightly toward the newcomers.

The delicate antennae swayed silently back at them.

It was a little interplanetary misunderstanding: a sheriff, like everyone else, and perhaps most especially a sheriff, ought to be friendly enough to speak when he’s spoken to, but the Ixians couldn’t communicate except by their antennae. Otherwise, they might right now be receiving honors for concluding a successful expedition.

Having waved a cordial “How do you do?” with their antennae, they started moving off in the direction from which they’d come, back toward their ship, convinced that they could not pursue this investigation further and would have to mark the spot on their maps as a place to be avoided.

Ocie and Lee and Ranse moved with them, hands still in the air, but rapidly losing their peaceableness and patience. It was an odd procession. The Ixians, puzzled but still trudging, were zipping messages back and forth at the head, while the three men brought up a somewhat threshing tail

— Ocie plump and looking plumper because he always stuffed things in his pockets, the other two long and lean and a little springy at the knees. The men were preoccupied with the affront of not having their greeting returned; and with their heads down to keep out the glare, they didn’t even notice they were at the rear.

The sight of the grounded spaceship rubbed salt into their wounded feelings. “Wasting the taxpayers’ money on newfangled swamp-buggies,” Lee complained indignantly, “instead of spending it paving the roads.”

“That’s what comes of putting the wrong men in office,”Ocie said. He’d been about to climb in the hatch, but he swung around abruptly. He was so mad he threw the first thing that came to hand

— the funnel — against the side of the ship and didn’t even notice how the antennae recoiled from the sharp sound.

“Sheriff,” he said slowly, “there ain’t me, nor nobody else in my family, ever going to vote for you again.”

Darkness engulfed them inside the ship, and the only sound was of their own heavy breathing. It was a place where anyone who was going to have misgivings would have them, and Lee said, “I ain’t so sure that was the sheriff. Looked a little different somehow.”

“If they were federal men they should have said so,” Ocie said, still hot under the collar. ” By God, I’m going to ask them. They ain’t got no right not to talk to me.” He started up, but the ship lurched and it was too late then for doubt to rescue anybody. They blacked out as the ship took off.

2

A BOXLIKE room with metal walls and no windows, a single door with grillwork, dim light over all — that was what the three saw when they came to. They raised themselves carefully to sitting positions and reached for the makings of cigarettes.

“ Tain’t the county jail,” Ocie said, authoritatively.

“It’s some place,” Ranse said, trying to hold the little cigarette paper steady in his hand, “that makes tobacco act like them Mexican jumping beans.”

“Must be a federal prison,” Lee said.

Ocie twisted the end of his cigarette slowly. “They can’t put us in no federal prison — not without a fair trial, they can’t.”But the words were quiet; there was no strength left for fiery indignat ion.

It was at this moment that an Ixian appeared at the grillwork door. Silently and soberly they looked at it and saw a green creature with two heads and four legs and something sprouting from the top of the heads. A set of retractable arms reached out to grasp the grill as the creature pressed close to get a good look.

“Foreigners,” Ocie said, over a dry throat.

“Enemies of the United States,” Ranse concluded.

They’d been captured, that much they remembered. Usually they weren’t. Among other reasons, they set up stills to show their spirit; they knew of the days when, it was said, every selfrespecting man had a still, and by tradition they resented being told what to do or what not to do.

It was spirit that made them open their throats now, as they sat with their backs to the wall, and cut loose with the rebel yell; but it was fright that made their yell so fiendishly shrill.

There was nowhere for the shrieks to go except out the door, and there stood the green creature who couldn’t talk, couldn’t hear, except by means of his sensitive antennae.

The antennae recoiled, then started a long slow slide down the Ixian’s foreheads. He fell away from the door and groped back to his companions. Hospitalized and nourished, he’d regain his faculties, but the wound was serious enough to put the green creatures on a split stick. Their instructions on leaving Ix had run more or less: Think. Think. Think. Establish satellite to revolve around earth, concealed from detection. Gather information by instrument from satellite and by trips to earth — analyze, correlate. Avoid provoking incident but take specimens when possible without arousing suspicion. Think. Think. Think.

They’d followed their instructions to the letter because obedience was second nature to them. It had happened that one of the ships sent, out to explore had been accidentally brought to earth, and that some of the inhabitants had climbed aboard very willingly and accompanied them back to the base. As researchers they were inordinately pleased with the specimens; and with the inborn stubbornness of researchers, they didn’t intend to he pried loose easily from the chance of gaining information from them. But the specimens had suddenly turned dangerous enough to put the whole undertaking in jeopardy.

They sent an urgent query back to Ix, asking what to do with the specimens, and decided that while waiting for an answer they would treat them with the great courtesy and respect due to the best thinkers, the greatest honor that could be accorded on lx.

By the time two more of the Ixians had suffered the loss of antennae, due to the rebel yell, they divined that these particular thinkers didn’t like to do their thinking in a small locked room.

So the door of the cell swung open and Ocie, Lee, and Ranse settled their cowboy hats on their heads in a manner that spoke of grim determination, and walked out as though they had holsters at the hip. The Ixians bowed respectfully as they came.

“ Looks like the googies is trying to be friendly,” Ocie said. They’d taken to calling their captors the googies because of the sound the padded feet of the Ixians made when they walked — like walking in shoes full of water. But the sudden friendliness didn’t turn their heads and they countered it by just touching their hands to the big brims of their hats; their eyes stayed watchful.

With pride gleaming through their deference, the Ixians showed them the large laboratory where they weighed, measured, analyzed, and recorded information about earth and its life. It didn’t interest their newest specimens at all. They had no reason to recognize the results of the studies and looked with suspicion even at such simple things as the Ixian equivalents of Bunsen burners and calculators.

The gardens were better. The plants grew in something like soil and were irrigated by what might be water. The googies offered them food and they ate and found it filling. “This ain’t bad,” Ocie said, He was partial to sweets and starches and he was eating something that tasted awfully sweet, though it looked like eggplant, and something that looked like wheat but tasted like corn.

“I’d rather have me a dish of okra or turnip greens or black-eye peas,” Lee said.

“There’s a plenty, anyway,” Ranse said. “We won’t go hungry.”

The food did lull them though, and made the shock of their next discovery that much worse.

Urged persistently toward the scanner, they finally made out enough to realize that that was earth way down there. Then someone let out a low whistle that made the googies step back apprehensively.

Ocie pointed to the far-off earth and pointed to himself and the others and made motions of flying by flapping his arms. Relieved and happy, uncomprehending, the googies waved their antennae wildly in return.

“Looks like we’re going to have to fight our way out of here,” Ocie said.

“We fight our way out of here” — Ranse shook his head — “ and we’re in for a right smart drop.”

The three returned to their cell by preference.

They studied all around their problem but couldn’t come up with a way of getting back to earth.

“It never rains but it pours,” Ocie said, searching his pockets. “Getting treed by a bunch of foreigners and now I don’t know where my tobacco is at.” He brought something out of his pocket but it wasn’t tobacco. It was yeast, and then the plan came together, just naturally.

“Eggplant sweet as sugar,” Lee said.

“Something that tastes like corn must be like corn,” Ocie said.

“Plenty of equipment in that place where they work,” Ranse said, getting up and pushing his hat back to a jaunty angle.

3

THE Ixians were pleased to see their specimens making use of their facilities and settling down to study. They came over to watch whenever they could spare a minute from their own work, and admired the extremely careful attention the three gave to their operations. They felt a sort of dryas-dust affinity for the experimenters, and hoped to learn a great deal.

They did. The result of the studies wasn’t good but it was whisky—clear, scalding, and with powerful effect on the googies. “Why, they got a skinful,” Ocie remarked in astonishment, “just from dipping their sprouts in the stuff.”

And considerably later, Ranse said wearily, “I never seen anyone get such a long jag from just such a little.”

Picture the poor Ixians, precision workers of the cosmos, who always measured by the finest lines of the instrument, always calculated to more places than was necessary, always checked and rechecked results like little victims of compulsive behavior complexes — picture the Ixians, freed for the first time from the burden of being exact!

They sent Ix a report that earth was the most amazing thing they’d ever seen; that it doubled itself and bounced in its orbit; that it defied description; and, finally, that they couldn’t, bear to think about it. The ships that were supposed to go to earth would sometimes go there and sometimes just race each other through space like hotrods.

Anxious queries ticked in from Ix, but all these were torn from the machine without being read, folded into miniature spaceships, and sent sailing. For the three master distillers the Ixians felt nothing but good will sprinkled with prankish affection, slapping them on the back with their antennae and tugging their big hats down over their eyes whenever they came near. So Ocie and the others forgot about trying to talk to them and stayed in their cell as much as possible.

“ Well,” Ocie said by way of consolation, “it was a good run, anyway.”

“ Yep,” Lee said, “and it sure was nice not having to watch for the sheriff while we was cooking off.”

“It sure was,” Ocie said.

“It sure was,” Ranse said slowly, and by then the plan had come together, just naturally.

“You can talk googie better than us,” Lee said to Ocie. “You got more padding, so you can listen to them better. You can talk them into taking you down and bringing you back. It ain’t as though they was losing us for good.”

The understanding of the googies had expanded amazingly. They landed Ocie near the wreckage of the still and he signaled for them to wait, and drove off to town in the truck.

It was while he was in the store buying twenty cases of fruit jars that he had the bad luck to run into the sheriff. “Howdy, Ocie,” the sheriff said. “ That’s a powerful lot of fruit jars for a single man to be buying.”

“It sure enough is, Sheriff,” Ocie said. “And I’ll swear, that’s just what I told my friend when he asked me to get them for him. But he’s courting this widow woman and he’s just got a notion that if he takes around these fruit jars, and some fruits and vegetables for her to put up in them, she’ll just naturally ask him around to help eat them.”

“I’m real glad to hear that, Ocie,” the sheriff said. “ Real glad. I’d sure hate to come along, just doing my duty, and find you using them jars for something illegal.”

“If I was you I wouldn’t waste no time looking, Sheriff,” Ocie advised him honestly, “’cause you ain’t likely to find me.”

All the same, when Ocie went back on the satellite and told of the meeting, the three agreed they’d better delay the first delivery to earth while the sheriff had time to hunt and not find.

When they were finally ready to go, another batch was ready for cooking off. They instructed the googies in the intricate process and left three of them to tend to it. But they didn’t realize what a fine time the googies were having being irresponsible for a change.

The I.xians landed them on earth again with their load and they transferred the fruit jars full of whisky from the ship to the truck and covered them with a tarpaulin. Lee and Ranse sat in the cab with Ocie, and the happy Ixians sat on the load and on the tailgate, swinging their legs. They liked the feeling of the cool dark air flowing by their antennae, and the unpredictable bouncing of the truck made the green creatures merry. They laughed at the way foliage and phone poles rushed into the beam of the right headlight and then vanished. There were things on earth they never knew existed.

The three Ixians left on the satellite suspected they were missing a lot of fun and took off to join the others. The fire under the cooker was left to itself.

A Highway Patrol car parked at an intersection signaled the truck to slop. “Your left headlight is out,” the trooper said, coming up to the cab.

“Officer,” Ocie said, “I’m aiming to get that fixed soon’s I get to town.”

“Let’s see your license,” the trooper said sternly, playing his flashlight into the cab of the truck.

Ocie started searching his pockets. “I got it right here somewhere,” he said.

The trooper took a step to the rear and played his flashlight over the back of the truck. The lxians sparkled and shone in ihe beam. All those heads and legs were green, glittering, and unnerving. But the Ixians saw only a man and they were full of good will toward men. Antennae whipped out to slap him on the back; arms reached out and pulled his big-brimmed trooper’s hat down snugly over his eyes.

Ocie accelerated and took the next turnoff back the way they’d come.

There was a mysterious flash in the sky that night that some people are still wondering and talking about. But the three guessed what had happened when they found the googies who’d been left to tend the cooking-off waiting by the other ships.

“The still must have blowed up,” Lee said.

“It must have blowed the whole place up with it,” Ocie said, “and that’s a pity ‘cause that was a right nice spot. We ain’t likely to find as pretty a one again soon.”

“Maybe they can piece it together again,” Ranse said, “afterwards. Right now, we got to get this stuff hid.”

“We bury it under the road,” Ocie said. “The law’ll never think of looking for it there.”

They’d only started to dig up the dirt road when the sound of approaching feet stopped them.

But it wasn’t the Highway Patrol, nor the sheriff and his deputies, nor agents of the State Beverage Department or the Federal Alcohol Tax Unit. For the first time in Ixian history a police force had been sent out to bring back an expedition.

The police bowed slightly and began a rapid quizzing of the renegades with their antennae. Sobering, the googies answered falteringly; and sobered, they waved their antennae sadly toward their friends and took off obediently with their police.

The three returned to their digging.

“They’ll probably just get fines, maybe suspended,” Ocie said, trying not to feel so bad.

The sound of the shovels was all that was heard for a while; then Ocie said, “I ain’t ordinarily a drinking man, but it’d be a shame to bury all these jars, after what we been through.”

“It sure would,” Lee said.

“It sure would,” Ranse said.