Sobre a Deficiência Visual

The Planet of the Blind

Paul Corey

excerpt

Dr. Thur Stone, the powerful head of Terra-Testing, becomes the first Earthman to land on the planet Grenda when his pleasure cruiser malfunctions. Understanding the eagerness of the sightless Grendans to learn all they can about him, he cooperates with an extensive series of tests — one of which proves he has eyes.
On Grenda, people don’t have eyes.
Animals have eyes.
If Dr. Stone can’t convince the Grendans that their definition of humanity is wrong, he will wind up a prize specimen in a Grendan zoo . . . if they let him live that long.

FOUR

Three planets have been found so far, among the thousands explored, that closely resemble Earth in atmosphere, gravity, and to some extent even life. Happening upon a possible fourth didn’t particularly surprise me.

However, hospitality of climate is one thing and can be tested easily enough, but the hospitality of life on a strange planet is something else again. It can only be evaluated by direct contact and an extremely careful approach.

I took a shower and had a shave and prepared to go out. The temperature report indicated mildness. I put on a short-sleeved shirt and shorts of light green myrolon fabric. They are very dressy looking, never lose their creases under any condition. I pulled on a pair of tough but flexible annis-hide boots. They combine walking comfort with a dashing appearance.

In this situation certain precautions are routine. You don’t just step out into a new world expecting a red carpet welcome.

I slung my survival kit over my shoulder. It contained my toilet articles, compressed food, first-aid pack, sunglasses, two steroid cameras—one for colour, one black and white—a compact paint set for pastime, a package of bright-coloured plastic beads for barter.

A harmless but effective weapon is a stunner. I strapped one on my hip. Clipped to my belt was a Boy Scout hatchet and knife and my sun-torch.

Around my neck I fastened the magnetic clasp of a fallon cape. It hung down to a couple of inches below the top of my boots. Karen had given me this one on my last birthday. It’s one of the newest garments designed to protect against heat, cold, rain. I pulled on a beret of a colour to match, setting it at a rakish angle.

A good look in the wardrobe mirror satisfied me as to my appearance. Whatever the type of life that inhabited this planet, it was about to see a respectable looking representative of Earth.

A mixture of races out of the past gave me a permanent tan. My brown hair showed distinctive touches of grey from beneath the beret. Wide-set brown eyes, slightly slanted, a wide, high forehead, straight nose, full mouth, lean jaw. All were supported by a six foot physique.

I slapped the wall plate that controlled the airlock. It hissed slightly. I waited. Then it opened and I went down the short ramp for a better look around.

At once I noticed someone coming towards me along the edge of the field, hurrying a little. It was quite distinctly humanoid, and I assumed that it was male. Friendliness, in a situation like this, is never safe to assume. My hand rested firmly on the butt of my stunner. I hoped to create an impressive sight.

The native came on. He wore light orange pyjama-like clothing. It wasn’t until he was quite close that I saw he was blind.

No. That isn’t quite accurate. He simply had no eyes. In all other respects, in so far as I could determine at the moment, he was completely humanoid.

He was slender and of a height about average with Earth people. His movements were graceful. He had two feet, two legs, two arms, two hands, ten digits. His hair was a pale aqua. (That startled me at the moment.) He had ears, a nose and a mouth, but where you and I have eyes, his face merely showed a skeletal depression completely covered with skin.

I concluded that he was a special case. However, his handicap didn’t seem to bother him. He strode towards me without hesitation. The expression on his face I interpreted as a smile.

“Well come,” he said in a pleasant voice. “Doctor Thur Stone, I pre zoom?”

“Thank you. I’m honoured.” I was definitely surprised that he spoke my language and knew my name. “How did you know my name?”

“It was giv-en me a-long with oth-er per-tin-ent da-ta when it was known where your ship was go-ing to land.”

I noticed a slight whirring sound in his voice. His way of pronouncing every syllable as if it were a word intrigued me. I reasoned that it probably had something to do with the way he had been taught the language.

He was really a very pleasant chap. Young, handsome and agreeable. Except for the absence of eyes he could have been a medium-score Terran.

He told me his name was Trom. He said he had been advised to hurry here and assure me that the proper representatives of Grenda would arrive soon.

I asked him who Grenda was, and he informed me that Grenda was the name of this planet the same as Earth was the name of the planet from which I came. When I asked him where this planet was in relation to mine, he said he couldn’t answer that because he didn’t know.

Of course, unless he had been told in detail, he, with his handicap, could hardly read the universe and spot it in our solar system, let alone the Earth. That was the assumption I made at the time.

To my question, “How did you learn my language?” he replied, “While you were com-ing down, I was giv-en a short course in your ver-nac-u-lar.”

I figured there must be some mistake in meaning here. He couldn’t possibly have learned Terranese in the hour or so it took me to come out of orbit.

But there wasn’t the opportunity to go into this subject at the moment.

What I assumed to be the official party floated into sight, just then, riding in something like a giant soap bubble. Beneath it, like a misplaced halo, was a slight orange glow.

It was a fantastic sight. I could see three occupants in this transparent globe. They seemed to be sitting comfortably on something. As far as I could see there was no engine, no visible means of propulsion or control.

The bubble touched down lightly on the turf in front of me. The halo disappeared. The side split. I expected to hear a loud “pop” but didn’t.

The three passengers stepped out and approached me. They bowed slightly. All wore the same pyjama-type clothing as Trom: one wore yellow, one red and one aqua, almost the colour of Trom’s hair. And there wasn’t an eye in the lot.

Red-pyjamas introduced himself as Doctor Rhoa. He was about my height but older. His indigo hair showed a little grey. His face was lined and he was slighter than I. He spoke without separating syllables.

He didn’t offer to shake hands, but introduced yellow-pyjamas as Doctor Mun and aqua as Doctor Zinzer.

Mun was a smaller person, about my age, I concluded. His hair was like the sky. He bowed to me diffidently. Zinzer was younger than I, as husky and gave the impression of being aggressive, even belligerent. His hair looked faded by the strong sun.

Shades of blue hair and no eyes. I was fascinated.

“We are happy to have you here,” Doctor Rhoa said after the introductions.“We will try to make your stay a pleasant one.”

I thanked him. I didn’t explain that Space Rescue would be along shortly to take over. Meanwhile I would let them assume that I had just dropped in for a friendly call.

Well, I told myself, this should be an interesting experience.

FIVE

It was arranged that Trom would stay with my ship and I would accompany the three scientists aboard their bubble to the University where they carried on their study and teaching of cosmology. This information intrigued me. I felt in good hands. What luck to meet such a group on a strange planet.

I'm afraid I let myself be over-confident. But there had been absolutely no evidence of hostility. This welcoming committee wasn’t even armed. Besides, they were all without sight. I felt perfectly safe and well able to take care of myself.

Getting aboard a transparent bubble isn’t as easy as you might guess. First, on entering, I went too far and banged into the far side of the thing. I had to feel my way down upon a transparent bench. The three doctors took their seats easily. Doctor Rhoa sat beside me, while the other two seated themselves opposite me.

The split in the side of the bubble healed and we sailed away over the plain without a sound. It was a little unsettling at first to float along as if driven on a light breeze with seemingly no support beneath and complete visibility all around. How did they do it? Levitation?

I wanted to ask but caught myself. Best not to let these people think they have anything a Terran hasn’t or doesn’t know about. Just the same, I suddenly envisioned this bubble being caught in an updraft and whirled away into some other county. Well, they didn’t seem worried; why should I?

There was a pretty good answer to that question. I could see and they couldn’t.

“We regret your detainment, Doctor Stone.”

It was young Zinzer who said that and I had a feeling he didn’t mean a word of it. I didn’t like that boy for some reason.

“Think nothing of it,” I said. After all, I had full confidence in Space Rescue. “You have a beautiful planet to be detained on.”

“Beautiful? Beautiful. That word in your language has puzzled us.” Doctor Mun smiled agreeably at me all the time he spoke. In contrast to Zinzer, I liked this chap. “It has a sound with pleasant vibrations but no meaning for us,” he said.

For the first time I really considered this sightless world. I took a good look at it, so to speak.

Here I was, sitting on a transparent bench. (It was quite comfortably cushioned and I felt support all around.) I was in a transparent globe, sailing over a field-patterned plain, rife with the many colours of crops and stubble and turned soil.

Yet when I try to convey this impression to my hosts, I am told that I use a word with a pleasant sound but no meaning. How do you make someone who has never seen understand what seeing is? Just think about it.

It appalled me. What a waste of intrinsic values there must be here. Take these transparent bubbles (I assumed there must be many more of them) just to transport a citizenry that is blind.

If we had a thing like this on Earth, think what it would do to tourism. Mentally I hummed an old folk tune. “I’m forever blowing bubbles, pretty bubbles in the air.”

The humming may have come a little to the surface. It seemed to me that all three of the Grendans stiffened slightly. Zinzer, who sat directly opposite me, made a quick pass with his hand in front of my face.

An old, very old Earth saying popped into my mind. “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”

I had two eyes, 20/20 vision, and I was Director of TERRA-TESTING.

“Perhaps agreeable would be a better word,” I said.

I saw them relax noticeably.

“Yes, yes. Agreeable,” said Doctor Mun. “That is an understandable word.”

Doctor Rhoa spoke up then. “We are approaching Lonwolt, Doctor Stone. Right sixty-five degrees, down forty. The University is there. Actually it is the control centre for the educational complex on this side of Grenda. We do mainly research in all fields of learning, but we maintain pilot courses for all levels of education. These set the pattern for other branches of the University and the colleges and schools in the system.”

“Very similar to what we do on Earth,” I said, while adjusting my glance to the co-ordinates he had given me.

However, before I had completely picked up the direction given, I was aware of the town. City, rather. I had been seeing it as a pattern of shimmering reflections in the misty distance for quite some time. Lines ran across the plain towards this spot and these I assumed to be roads.

As we floated nearer I made out an arrangement of almost completely transparent structures separated by streets. It had been the sunlight reflected from the material in these transparent walls that made the tinselled look first attracting my attention. I was aware of vegetation, trees, lawns, gardens, amongst these structures.

What fascinated me at the moment was the shifting reflections as we moved. It was like seeing a wind-ruffled lake in bright sun. Then a thought shook me. How could Doctor Rhoa be so sure of his directions without eyes?

I concluded that he must have been over this ground so often that he knew from repetition just where he was. After all, a blind person on Earth can be so familiar with a room that he can point out chairs or objects as if he could see them.

The University town lay below us now, spreading over a wide area. It was possible to make out smaller structures on the fringes and I assumed these to be homes. Definition of detail increased in spite of the confusion caused by transparency.

Towards the centre of the city the structures grew larger. A section we were heading towards was conspicuous for its sprawling buildings. That must be the University, I told myself. Beyond, but not quite in the centre of the city, was a large red dome.

It was bright red. A cherry red, and the only bright colour showing. Almost every one of the separate structures had a faint greenish cast to its roof, and one or more walls that were faintly pink. But that dome stood out like a warning light on a control pane.

“What is that red building I see?”

“Red? See?” Mun slowly shook his head. “You do have a baffling language, Doctor Stone.”

Of course, those words could mean nothing to the blind.

“Locate this building, please,” said Doctor Rhoa. “Just give us vertical and horizontal co-ordinates, please.”

I pointed. “Down there in the centre of the town. Well, almost the centre.” How stupid of me to point.

The bubble seemed suddenly full of buzzing. I looked around for the bugs. If we had been near the sea I would have thought of dolphins. It wasn’t an unpleasant sound but an awfully lot like a swarm of insects buzzing away in a considerable range of tones. Then I realised that the Grendans were conversing in what I concluded must be their own language.

Doctor Rhoa was the first to buzz off and come back in with Earth talk.

“You have located our energy converter, Doctor Stone. It takes the energy from our universal heat source—sun, I believe is the word you use for the heat source for your planet—and converts this energy to our various needs. The dome radiates a vibration of 739 millimicrons. Your word ‘red’ is a very unspecific way to express these vibrations. But what is the meaning of the word ‘see’?”

That was going to be a toughie. You couldn’t explain the business of seeing by calling it a certain number of vibrations. I was trying to do a step-by-step performance, thinking it out: first explain about eyes, then about vibrations on optic nerves making images, then what images or pictures are. But how the devil do you explain what a picture is to someone who has never seen a picture?

Then I saw something below that knocked out all my efforts to concentrate.

We were floating in low over the edge of the town. Just as I had thought, those smaller structures were homes. This Grendan city was just like an Earth city—business in the centre, bedrooms on the outside.

The faintly greenish roofs did nothing to shut off the view. At first I couldn’t believe what I saw. This can’t be, I thought. But it was true. Some of the occupants of those houses were as naked as jaybirds and engaged in shocking conjugal relations. I was giving them the benefit of conjugality in my thoughts.

“You were about to explain the word ‘see’ to us,” said Doctor Rhoa.

Zinzer interrupted, “I sense displeasure. How have we displeased you, Doctor Stone?”

He sounded belligerent to me, as if I had damn well better not admit to being displeased, or say that they had done anything to displease me.

“Not displeased,” I said quickly. “I—uh—I found myself inadvertently spying upon the intimate relations of some of your good people.”

Doctor Mun caught me up at once. “Spying. Another word I cannot understand. Explain, please.”

“Later,” said Doctor Rhoa. “We are here.”

As indeed we were. Our bubble floated down to rest upon a wide lawn in the midst of the complex of sprawling structures.

SIX

The whole area was crowded with people. It was like a field of lupins, all those heads of blue hair. All looked young, like a bunch of students at any Earth university, except for their absence of eyes.

The planetary garb, those pyjama-like clothes in many colours, was different of course. But they were as wrinkled and rumpled and sloppy as any campus clothes on Earth. You couldn’t tell the sexes by hair length, but nubility was unmistakable. I felt sorry for the boys for being blind.

For the first time since I left my ship, I thought of Karen. Just a passing thought: why couldn’t she, when she was a student, have fallen in love with someone of her own score-level? Then an old Earth saying came to mind, “Love is blind.”

As our bubble split and we stepped out upon the ground, the buzz of conversation in the crowd rose to a twittering and squeaking, then subsided to a low hum. I could see laughing faces. I could see arms reaching towards us, fingers feeling the air. I was reminded of the feelers of Earth insects which they use to sample their environment.

Doctor Rhoa made a whistling sound, apparently calling for attention. The crowd became respectfully silent. They were evidently well aware of this momentous occasion for their planet

He turned to me. “Would you care to say a few words to our student body, Doctor Stone? I will be happy to translate for you.”

“Thank you,” I said. Then, raising my voice, I addressed the throng of eyeless faces.

“Students of Lonwolt, inhabitants of the planet Grenda. This is an historic occasion. I come from many millions of miles away. I am not an official visitor. I cannot speak officially for my planet Earth.”

I waited while Rhoa translated, listening intently to the waxing and waning of his buzz.

“I am only a sightseer in space, temporarily stopping here.” It took longer for Rhoa to get buzzing on that. The crowd laughed a little and I wondered what was funny about what I had said.

“It is a great pleasure and privilege for me to have this opportunity to see your beautiful world and be welcomed by such a sea of shining faces.”

For a moment I thought that Rhoa wasn’t going to say anything. Finally he sputtered, buzzed and squeaked to a stop.

“I thank you for your welcome,” I finished.

He buzzed that out easily enough. The crowd applauded by clapping their hands like any similar Earth crowd.

Switching back to my language, Rhoa said stiffly, “I was unable to translate all that you said because I did not understand it.”

I felt rebuked.

He took my arm. “Let’s go into our laboratory and make some studies.”

“Fine,” I said. “A Space Rescue ship will be along for me shortly and I will have to leave. Let’s make the most of our time together.”

We crossed the lawn. Students drew aside to let us through, buzzing as we passed. Occasionally an arm came out, fingers feeling towards me. We went up three steps to the front of a wide one-story building. The wall split and we entered.

I was aware that my three hosts had climbed those steps without the slightest hesitation. It wasn’t that easy for me. Try walking up transparent steps sometime. You’ll find you’re not so sure where you put down your feet.

As the wall split closed behind us, Doctor Zinzer said, “There will be no rescue ship, Doctor Stone.”

“What do you mean?” I said indignantly. “Of course a rescue ship will come. Space Rescue never fails.”

Doctor Rhoa spoke gently. “I’m sorry, Doctor Stone. Your distress signal never got past our grip on your ship.”

That hit me hard. I had been taken in by their show of friendliness. Automatically I reached for my stunner.

“Your weapon won’t help you,” said Zinzer. “Before you could use it, we would have you restrained like this.”

I felt as if a cord were being drawn through my chest. It was a terrifying feeling. From the set of Zinzer’s jaw, I got the notion that he was enjoying what he did.

Mun buzzed harshly and the tug of the cord vanished.

But Zinzer continued, “That vibration was benign. However, we can change it faster than you can move.”

This time Doctor Rhoa buzzed something and Zinzer subsided. Then Rhoa turned to me. “Don’t be alarmed. Doctor Stone. We don’t mean to harm you. Our space probe pulled your ship in because we wished to study an inhabitant of your planet. If you will let us study you, I assure you, we will be grateful. At the end of it you will be able to return to your world in good health. And you will be able to study us at the same time.”

My first reaction was to resent being made a guinea-pig of. Then it struck me that Earth was lucky that the people of this planet had me, the Director of TERRA-TESTING, as their first contact with my world. Suppose they had dragged in one of our space bums. They might have got a very mistaken impression.

“Fine,” I said. “I don’t like this space-raiding, but as long as proper respect is maintained, I’ll go along.”

“We respect intelligence highly,” said Doctor Rhoa bowing.

“Then our approach is mutual,” I said. “Let’s get on with our studies.”

The building we were in—I suppose it might be called a “Science Building,” or something like that—first struck me as a big room cluttered with people and things. I could see what looked like classes going on, several of them. I could see other Grendans in sitting positions at what could be desks. Then I realised that these various activities were partitioned off, but the partitions, like the walls and roofs and floors, were transparent.

Doctor Rhoa led the way. He walked without hesitation, his arms swinging. But instead of his arms swinging forth and back, both of them, his right arm described a narrow arc as it swung from his side around and across his front and back again, index finger extended.

When I noticed this, it reminded me of blind people on Earth, tapping with their white canes.

Then Rhoa’s left hand came up as if to push something and the filminess I had come to know as a transparent wall, split. We moved through. We went down what I assumed now to be a corridor because for quite a distance there was no more wall-splitting. Doctors Mun and Zinzer came along behind me.

Many things pulled at my attention. I extended an arm exploringly to one side. My fingers finally made contact with the filmy transparency that was a wall. I kept pressure against it as we went along.

Doctor Rhoa turned right. This time his right arm came up in a sort of salute. The filminess split and we went through into an area that was empty. Yes, it was empty. All around I could see Grendans doing a lot of different things. But in a rectangular area in front of me, there was no activity.

This must be Rhoa’s special laboratory, I concluded. My eyes were getting accustomed to picking out transparent objects and identifying them—desks, tables, chairs. An orderly grouping of objects that seemed suspended in space I took to be a row of filing cabinets full of records.

One of the things I found hardest to get used to was this wall-splitting instead of using a door. At that moment I saw a young woman approaching what I was certain was the far wall of the laboratory. She seemed to wave at me. Then the filminess separated and she came in.

She was lovely. I mean it. With or without eyes, she was lovely. She was as slender as Karen, but older—maybe eight or ten years older. The added years made her even more attractive.

Her off-white pyjama-style ensemble fitted her without a wrinkle. The fabric was similar to some of Earth’s synthetic textiles. But it wasn’t the fabric that counted, it was the fit. Her arms and face were a light golden tan. Her sky blue hair—What a magnificent colour for hair—was cut short. Her nose was just a little snubbed and her lips were full and rose red without any make-up evident. Only the absence of eyes distracted.

But when my glance started at her nose and went down, I felt ten years younger. I suddenly realised that with all my preoccupation with TERRA-TESTING and with Karen, I had been missing something in life.

Doctor Rhoa said, “I would like you to meet my daughter, Ello. She is also my secretary.”

She held out a slender hand. “An Earth custom, isn’t it? Shaking hands?” She had a most charming smile.

I shook her hand gently. The fingers were strong. She had gone farther in Earth ways than the scientists, evidently.

“On Earth,” I said, “you would be called a ‘cute chick’.”

She laughed then. The first laugh I had heard separate and isolated on Grenda. How ringing and gay it sounded! And her teeth were beautiful.

SEVEN

There was a grumbling buzz behind me. Then Zinzer said, “Let’s get started with the examination. That bag you carry and your weapon first, Doctor Stone.”

I handed over my stunner with some reluctance. They didn’t seem to care much for it. I suppose it was considered not very effective compared to that vibration trick of theirs.

Briefly, I wondered how they could direct that thin beam of energy they used without some gadget to activate it. No such device was evident. This was something I needed to find out about before leaving the planet.

They shrugged off my Boy Scout hatchet and knife with hardly a buzz. But my sun-torch got more attention.

Doctor Rhoa snapped the switch and passed his hand through the light.

“Six hundred millimicrons. Seventy degrees. What could you possibly use this for, Doctor Stone? It certainly could not keep you warm.”

“For light. To see in the dark with.”

“Light, see, dark. Meaningless words,” muttered Doctor Mun. He seemed really unhappy about that.

My survival kit came in for even more careful examination. Such items as first-aid, tissue and similar things didn’t puzzle them. My emergency food ration did.

I suggested they taste the packet. That was a stupid thing to do, I realised later. But at the moment I was cooperative, expecting them to reciprocate.

My two stereoid cameras really bothered them. When I explained about taking pictures in colour and in black and white, they repeated the words: “Pictures, colour, black, white.” They buzzed together for several minutes. Zinzer said, “meaningless” once, contemptuously, and went on buzzing.

He turned his attention to my sun-glasses, fondling them, trying to make them out. These were a type with a dual purpose. They fitted tightly around my eyes and kept out dust and irritating air like smog as well as taming bright light.

When I explained their purpose, the word “dim” was added to their list of “meaningless” words.

Each of them took turns buzzing over these various things, while Ello’s fingers worked swiftly on a gadget she had with her, apparently taking notes. At last they seemed satisfied and my belongings were set aside on a table.

“Now, you will permit us to examine you, Doctor Stone, if you please,” said Doctor Rhoa. “Please remove your clothing.”

“But your daughter’s here,” I said.

“Why should that bother you, Doctor Stone?”

I was being foolish, of course. Obviously, on the planet of the blind, covering one’s nakedness could mean very little. Just the same I glanced toward Ello. She was facing me and smiling. I took a deep breath.

“All right,” I said, and took off my clothes article by article.

They examined each with the same care they had my other tilings. I thought of an old old story on Earth about the four blind men examining and describing an elephant. Were each of these Grendans getting a different picture of me? Picture? That made me smile. Impression? What impression would these three blind scientists on this planet of the blind have of me?

Maybe they’d tell me after a while.

I felt a little on the chilly side as soon as I stripped. Then the feeling went away. Perhaps I imagined it. But something happened that I didn’t imagine. The wall behind me had turned a slightly pinkish colour as if it were blushing.

The buzzing of the three scientists over my apparel ceased and Doctor Rhoa asked me to stretch out on a table. I lay on my back looking up through the greenish ceiling or roof and wondered about it. Beyond was the sky, a blue sky dampened by the green, and a sun was sliding down it into a cushion of clouds on the distant horizon.

Zinzer tweaked one of my toes and I forgot about what was above me. Logically, they began their examination of my body at my feet. They worked methodically. They touched, probed and felt. The flexed, stroked and titillated. And from a man who had been celibate for ten years, they got certain inevitable results.

My face burned with embarrassment. My entire naked body was flushed, and I noticed that the pinkish colour had gone from the wall. I looked toward Ello. Her fingers worked feverishly on the note-taking gadget, keeping up with the buzzing of the scientists. The smile on her face, at the moment, would have been called Mona Lisa-esque where I came from.

The humiliation of the examination, I assured myself, was all for the sake of science—Grendan science. This was undoubtedly the first time they had ever examined a native of another planet. Their buzzing was steady, matter-of-fact and businesslike.

When their exploring fingers reached my neck, Doctor Rhoa switched over to Terranese. “You are very like us, Doctor Stone, very.”

“Yes,” I agreed, “but with one difference.”

“And what is that?”

“You are blind.”

“Blind?”

Doctor Mun said anxiously, “Explain, please.”

“Discover for yourselves,” I said. “Go on with your examination.”

They did, resuming their buzz-buzz. However, when their exploring fingers reached my eyes this conversive tone shot up to a disturbed twitter. They poked, prodded, felt, pawed, groped, twiddled. They even tried to pluck out one of them. I fluttered my eyelids and they drew back their hands as if they were afraid of being bitten.

“What have we here, Doctor Stone?” Rhoa demanded. “What are those two squirming things on your face? Are those two globe-like manifestations that twitch and flutter some parasite? They certainly can’t be part of your real body.”

“But they are,” I said. “They are eyes. I just got through telling you, the one difference between you and me. You are blind. I have eyes. I can see.”

Their buzzing became more excited. Ello put down her note-taking gadget and came to the table. She ran her fingers swiftly around and over my eyes, then drew back with a little gasp. The smile was gone from her face. She didn’t buzz a sound or say a word.

Mun kept insisting almost pathetically, “Blind, eyes, see. Explain, please.”

I sat up.

“With my eyes,” I said. “I see shape, colour, light. When no light is present, they tell me it is dark.”

“Meaningless, meaningless, meaningless. Eyes, see, shape, colour, light, dark.” Zinzer’s lips curled as he mounted these words, as if he were repeating the stupid prattling of a child.

Mun waved his hands about despairingly.

“Let me try again,” I said. “When your universal heat source, which Earth people call the sun, is over you, my eyes see light.” How could they possibly understand the word “light”? I hurried on. “When your planet turns and your sun disappears, my eyes tell me it is dark.” Again, how could they possibly understand “dark”?

I became frantic. “Look,” I said. (No good.) “Try this then. In the presence of your primary energy-converter, my eyes see red, which you call merely a vibration of 739 millimicrons. Maybe this is better. Doctor Rhoa, my eyes tell me that your daughter is tall, slender, and very agreeable to look—to contemplate, in spite of her absence of eyes.”

They drew away from me then. Their attitude did not seem to indicate fear so much as it did revulsion, a sort of disgust. I saw Zinzer wipe his hands on the loose upper part of his pyjamas as if he had handled something slimy.

Their manner irritated me. What in the name of the Milky Way went on here?

Silence grew between us. Then Doctor Mun gave a short buzz. The buzzing became general again. Doctor Rhoa droned. Mun twittered. Zinzer squeaked. But there wasn’t a sound for Ello.

She came over to me again. Her hand hesitated a moment before she ran her fingers around and over my eyes once more. She gave a short buzz in a quite normal tone.

There came another squeak from Zinzer.

Suddenly, I felt the cord pulling through me again, pulling lengthwise this time. The beam grew stronger. It seemed to be sprouting barbs, tearing at my insides.

“Hey,” I yelled. “Stop that!”

Ello swung on Zinzer, shrilling something at him as loud as a scream. The tearing beam softened, disappeared.

All buzzing stopped. Once it sputtered to life briefly. Then there was silence.

Doctor Rhoa took a deep breath. He approached the table and stood close to me. He conveyed the impression that he had everything under control.

“Doctor Stone,” he said. “You are an animal.”
 

ϟ

Paul Frederick Corey (1903–1992)
His only Science-Fiction novel was published when he was 65; a variant on the theme of Wells' The Country of the Blind. In the genre of science fiction, Paul Corey only published this single novel as well as three short stories: "Operation Survival" (1962), "If You're So Smart" (1969) and "Red Carpet Treatment" (1977). Far from prolific in science fiction, Paul Corey is most notable for his Mantz trilogy about farming during the Depression in Midwestern America: Three Miles Square (1939), The Road Returns (1940) and County Seat (1941). In addition, he is also noted for his science-fiction-sounding novel Acres of Antaeus (1946) which is also about small town farmers in the Midwest.

About 'The Country of the Blind'
What would happen to an intelligent, sighted inhabitant of Earth marooned on a planet inhabited by an unsighted people with a technology equal or superior to his? Further, let us suppose that this man heads a world organization that controls the now the expanding field of tests and testing - Mr. Test himself. How would he fare in this PLANET OF THE BLIND? This is the story of Dr. Thur Stone in just such a situation."  Amazon


ϟ

The Planet of the Blind
excerpt
(chapters 4 to 7)
by Paul Corey
1968
Paperback Library
New York

Δ

14.Abr.2023
Publicado por MJA