








                           The Short Snorter

                          BY CHARLES EINSTEIN

                     _His saucer was parked in the
                 woods, and Mr. Steariot (from Venus)
                     was parked in the lobby...._

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
              Worlds of If Science Fiction, August 1958.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


Three paths led through the woods away from the resort hotel, and of
the three two were clearly marked: one with a sign that said it led to
the lake, the other pointing toward the golf links. The third pathway
was unmarked, and this was the one that inevitably the lovers and the
honeymooners took--the path that Alice and Fred Daniels followed today.

The sun was unusually warm for this time of year, but only a few
yards along the pathway Fred and Alice were swallowed up by the great
and near-great trees of the forest. The sunlight was, except for an
occasional patch of light here and there, warded away by the foliage
above. The forest was very quiet. The pathway bridged a silent brook,
and then, perhaps a third of a mile into the woods, turned abruptly to
the left and the woods became even more dense, the pathway narrow.

Through the trees to the right at this point was a clearing, an unusual
grassy circle perhaps sixty yards in diameter. It was not the clearing
itself, however, but, instead, the glint of color in the sunlight that
caused Fred and Alice to stop and look.

Alice said, "Fred, what is that?"

"Don't know," he said. "Something red. Let's look."

The two of them turned off the path and made their way through a
dismal barrage of thicket to the clearing that lay beyond. When they
got there, they saw the circular object--_vehicle_ might be a better
word. It was possibly fifteen yards in diameter. It seemed to be made
of three rings, smaller ones bottom and top and the larger one ribbing
the center, and to be constructed of some kind of plastic. Between the
central and upper rings were set a series of small windows. The entire
thing was painted a gaudy red.

"What do you think it is?" Fred said.

"A flying saucer," Alice said promptly. She laughed a little, but
clutched at her husband's arm. "Isn't it?"

"I don't know."

"But what else would it be?"

"I don't know," Fred said again. "Let's look inside."

"Fred," Alice said, "You'd better not--"

"Don't be silly," he said, and walked resolutely up to the object and,
standing on tiptoe, peered through one of the windows.

"What is it?" Alice called from the edge of the clearing. "What do you
see?"

"It's empty," he called back.

"What's inside?"

Fred shook his head. "You won't believe it."

"What?"

"It's got a steering wheel," he called out hollowly. "And some dials."

"My goodness," Alice said. "Is it a real one?"

"How do I know?" he said, and rejoined her, casting a series of glances
uncertainly over his shoulder at the bright red saucer behind him.
"What do you suppose we ought to do?"

"Tell somebody," Alice said. "I suppose."

"Who do we tell?"

"I don't know. There must be _somebody_--"

They looked almost guiltily at each other. "Nobody'll believe us," Fred
said.

"Why not?" Alice said. "It's _here_, isn't it?"

Fred stopped and thought. "Who knows how long it'll stay?"

They looked at each other again. Then Alice said slowly, "If we went
back and got the camera--"

       *       *       *       *       *

Swiftly, they made their way back toward the hotel through the quiet
forest. When they got there, they found Mr. Mason, the manager of the
hotel, adjusting the badminton net in front of the main porch. Mr.
Mason loosed a ready smile. "How's everything?" he said. "Find enough
to do?"

"Yes, thank you," Fred said to him. "We were just walking through the
woods. We came back for our camera. Then we're off again."

Mr. Mason nodded. "Find the saucer?"

Fred looked at him. "You mean the flying saucer?"

The manager nodded again. "I see you did find it. Good. Take a picture
of it, by all means. I've already taken a whole batch myself."

"You have?" Fred said, frowning. "What's it all about?"

"It's a flying saucer," Mr. Mason said. "From Venus. Mr. Steariot, who
piloted it, is a guest here. I can introduce you to him if you like. He
speaks excellent English."

Fred Daniels said, "Wait a minute. You--"

"Oh, there's no point in it," Mr. Mason said in a weary tone of voice.
"No point in it at all. I took pictures. I tried to get the Army up
here. I wrote letters." He shrugged expressively. "It's a cynical age
we live in, I guess. Everybody's very polite, but they make it clear
they think it's just a gimmick I worked up to get the hotel publicity."
He nodded seriously. "The whole trouble's with Mr. Steariot. If he had
a light bulb for a head, or seven legs, or talked funny, why, it'd be
a different thing entirely. But he looks and acts just like you or I.
Here I've got a legitimate flying saucer sitting on my property and you
might as well try to tell them it's a--well, a flying saucer! For all
they'll believe me. Now you two have seen it with your own eyes and you
don't believe it either."

Fred swallowed and looked at Alice for a moment. Then he said, "What
did you say his name was?"

"Mr. Steariot," Mr. Mason said. "Actually, he's just as happy nobody
believes he's from Venus. If they believed it, they'd probably lock him
up in jail somewhere or impound his saucer. As it is, he says this is
the first vacation he's had in years." Mr. Mason looked unhappily about
him. "He's probably in the lounge now. Want to meet him?"

Fred said dazedly, "I--"

"Ah, come on," Mr. Mason said. "He won't bite you." He led the way up
the steps of the porch and into the lounge and over to where a small,
mustachioed man, wearing eyeglasses and appearing to be in his late
forties, was working a crossword puzzle in the morning paper.

"Mr. Steariot," Mr. Mason said, "I should like you to meet Mr. and Mrs.
Daniels, also guests here. They have just seen your saucer."

"Charmed," Mr. Steariot said, and got to his feet. He shook hands with
Fred Daniels. "Are you here for a long stay, Mr. Daniels?"

"I'm not sure," Fred said, a little unhappily. "Mr. Mason told us you
were from Venus."

"I told them about you, Mr. Steariot," Mr. Mason said. "Naturally, they
don't believe it any more than anybody else."

"No reason why they should," Mr. Steariot said amiably. "No reason in
the world, if I may coin a phrase. Dr. Phelps at the Institute didn't
believe it either."

Mr. Mason said, "Mr. Steariot here had a long interview with Dr. Phelps
of the Geophysical Institute at Princeton when he first arrived here on
Earth with us."

"Oh," Fred said. He gazed uncomfortably at Mr. Steariot. "We didn't
mean to interrupt you."

"I was only doing the crossword puzzle," Mr. Steariot said. "Do you
know a two-letter word for sun-god?"

Alice said, "Is this your first trip here?"

"You mean here to the hotel," Mr. Steariot said, "or to Earth?"

"Earth," Fred said, dismally.

"My second," Mr. Steariot said. "First trip I wound up near Leningrad.
Terrible time. I thought they'd talk English, but they don't, and they
thought I was an American, and two of their officials got into the
saucer with me, and the only way I could save myself was to take off
with them. They're on Venus now."

"This accounts," Mr. Mason broke in, "for the way those two high
Russian officials suddenly disappeared from sight three years ago. You
remember? Everybody thought they'd been liquidated."

Fred Daniels looked around the room. A hollow, frightening feeling had
come upon him. There were hundreds of questions he could have asked,
and yet he wanted nothing so much as to be away from there.

His wife Alice, though, was constrained to learn more about Mr.
Steariot. She said, "Mr. Steariot, may I ask you something?"

"By all means," Mr. Steariot said, and blinked owlishly at her.

"Do you," Alice said to him, "carry any money?"

It was, Fred Daniels realized, a marvelous question. If there were sham
here, this would be the quickest way to--

"Why, of course." Mr. Steariot said, and reached for his wallet.
"Let's see--health insurance--saucer driver's license--here, my dear.
A five-djino bill." He extracted a yellow banknote and handed it to
Alice. The banknote, slightly larger than an American dollar bill, was
remarkably similar in other particulars. It had upon it a picture of a
flying saucer, the figure 5, and, spelled out, "FIVE DJINOS".

"Let me sign it for you," Mr. Steariot said, taking out a pen. "You can
have it for a souvenier."

"Like the short snorters in the war," Mr. Mason, the hotel manager,
said. "You remember them, Mr. Daniels? Where people got famous
signatures on five and ten and twenty-dollar bills and exchanged them
and what not, and they called them short snorters?"

"I remember," Fred Daniels said. "Something like that."

"Five djinos on Venus," Mr. Steariot said, signing his name with a
flourish, "is worth about twenty dollars here on Earth. No official
rate of exchange, of course, but from what I've seen, that's about what
I'd judge. Here you go." He handed the bill over.

"Well, wait, then," Fred Daniels said. "I ought to sign one of _our_
bills for _you_."

"Ah, no need for that," Mr. Steariot said. "No doubt you need twenty
dollars worse than I need five djinos."

"Don't be ridiculous," Fred said, a little stiffly; and, by now
committed, he went into his wallet and came out with a twenty dollar
bill. He signed his name to it, using Mr. Steariot's fountain pen.

"Wonderful," Mr. Steariot said. "How nice to have met you both."

       *       *       *       *       *

"I feel very badly about this," Mr. Mason, the hotel manager, said to
Fred and Alice. The three of them were on the porch outside. "This
short snorter business always seems to happen whenever I introduce Mr.
Steariot to anyone. Dr. Phelps at the Institute gave him fifty dollars.
Can you imagine that?"

"It's interesting in its way," Fred said. "It just occurred to me: Mr.
Steariot can spend Earth money here, but we can't spend Venus money."

"That's true," Mr. Mason said. "On the other hand, Mr. Steariot has
never once, to my knowledge, been the one to bring up the subject. I
think it's quite painful to him, really. But the same thing inevitably
occurs to everybody he meets. You know, let's see the color of your
money. I guess people are pretty much the same everywhere--that
is, everywhere on _Earth_. They judge everything in terms of money,
including whether you've even been born on Earth! 'Let's see your
money,' they say to Mr. Steariot, and out he comes with one of those
damn five-djino bills, and we're off."

"You know," Alice Daniels said thoughtfully, "in a way it's a lesson.
Isn't it, Fred? I mean, everybody is money conscious. Maybe too much
so. I'm not sorry it cost us twenty dollars to meet Mr. Steariot."

"You may be right," Fred said to her. "You may be right. Who knows,
some day this five-djino bill may be a very valuable--"

"There you go again," Alice cut in. "Always putting it in terms of
money."

"But _you're_ the one," Fred said, "who thought to ask him about it in
the first place."

"Don't quarrel," Mr. Mason, the hotel manager, said to them. "After
all, for you it's just a vacation. For me, I've got this man sitting in
my lounge day in and day out doing crossword puzzles and trading short
snorters with my guests. Nobody really believes he's from Venus--nobody
important, anyway. It's a little frightening, when you're trying to run
a happy hotel. Sometimes I wish he'd go back to wherever he came from."

"Well," Fred said, "he's bound to leave one of these days."

"Maybe," Mr. Mason said doubtfully. "Offhand, though, I'd say the way
he's taking it in, he can't afford to."





