Glasshead

by Stanley Mullen

In that bright carnival world Glasshead seemed out of place ... a tragic, pathetic figure. And he was!

If you had a strong stomach, the freak show was worth seeing. Some unknown artist had done a real job painting the gaudy banners advertising the show’s chief attraction. There was a big background picture in 3-d, with colors which fluoresced at night in the ultra-violet spotlights, and the painted monster on the banner, at least on windy days, looked more real and convincingly alive than the one seated on the platform inside the tent.

The sign said: THE LAST LIVING MARTIAN.

That, of course, was obviously untrue. Except for lichens, there are no living Martians, and there have been none for uncounted millions of years. A few ruins, a few artifacts weathered past meaning. No other evidence that intelligent life ever existed on Mars, or any other world yet visited by space-voyaging Earth men.

He was not a Martian. He was not Venusian. Nobody knew what he was, or exactly where he came from. Not even the carnival owners, or the two men who brought him back from the place where he was found. You could call him a real-live Martian, and nobody can call you a liar, since nobody ever saw one, and nobody can prove the thing is not what you say.

But there were charges of fakery. To the extent that he was advertised as a Martian, the exhibit was a fake. Beyond that, one guess was as good as another. Scientists, singly and in groups, had examined the creature, and none had been willing to stick his professional neck out very far. Most authorities, as far as they had knowledge of his existence, agreed in private and rarely in public, that he was exactly what he seemed to be.

Beyond argument, he was a freak. A peculiarly disturbing and interesting freak. But congenital freaks are common enough, and accidents or glandular ailments account for a good many more. A few talented individuals manage to contort themselves into profitable freakhood by caricaturing human form, often disagreeably. But none of these origins could explain anything as outre as Glasshead.

Freak or not, he was different. Such a phenomenon would be hard to fake. Inside a head as transparent as crystal were networks of glowing wires radiating from a core of dazzling brilliance. Only by catching light-reflections properly was it possible to see that he had a head at all. To the touch, a head was there, at least a glassy, polished surface defining a normal head-shaped solid. There was mouth, nose, eyes, ears, and a smooth, hairless skull, and a startling sensation of energy, oddly between high-degree heat and a-c electricity.

Glasshead was different. Inside that invisible skull colors came and went, playing over the framework of filaments in strange harmonies, with a hint sometimes of unseen octaves above and below the visible spectrum. It was like watching music translated into light, fascinating and almost frightening.

“Is he real, daddy?”

“Of course not, son. It’s a trick—something they do with lights.”

It was much the same question with curious scientists and the general public, but the answers were rarely quite so pat. Except for the head, Glasshead looked like an ordinary human being. A bit frail, perhaps, with spindly limbs, but not frail enough to seem abnormal.

He never made any claims for himself, never talked of his life, his origins, his past or his future. He had no vocal cords and never spoke at all.

He was a mystery, even to the people who knew most about him.

A shadow moved, far out across the barren surface of Io. The two spacemen stared through the faceplates of their helmets. Tired eyes and strange surroundings play weird tricks on a man sometimes.

But the shadow had a strange vitality to it, and it kept moving.

It came toward them, erratically, as if in trouble. A man alone on Io with no ship in sight would be in the most serious kind of trouble. And the figure was very markedly manlike. It was wearing an odd suit of space-armor, unlike anything the two explorers had seen before. And it seemed such a slight figure, almost girlish. They watched it falter and fall. Both started toward it, wondering.

They were a two-man survey crew. Their expedition had not been instructed to set-down on Io at all, but outside trouble had developed, and they had been forced to land for repairs. It was easier than trying to work outside in space.

Io has always been one of Jupiter’s most interesting moons. From Io, only two hundred and fifty thousand miles from its primary, the view of giant Jupiter is overpowering. The moon itself is bleak and cold and raw-looking, with no surface features that are in any way distinctive. It has an atmosphere of sorts, but it is too thin for comfort, and the wrong stuff for human lungs. And there is no erosion to smooth out the frozen wrinkles. The Sun, Earth, even Mars are a long way off. Early surveys have established the presence of valuable minerals, but getting them out and back home is a different matter—far too expensive. And Io is a place where most men would go quickly mad.

Barent and Carter wondered if they had gone mad with the boredom, loneliness and strain of their work.

They picked up the stranger and brought him to their ship. On Io, with gravity only slightly above that of Luna, the burden seemed featherweight. Inside the ship, he still seemed rather spindly by spaceman standards. And there was a very bad moment when they examined him, for there was a curious illusion about the helmet plastic which gave the impression that he had no head. Only some colored lights, faint at that, and dancing.

They did not try to remove the helmet until the eery stranger recovered sufficiently to be able to indicate by signs that he wanted it off. Then they helped him remove it, and had another bad moment.

There was a head, of course. It was invisible, and the colors and a kind of webbing were actually inside. Io is not a comfortable place to run across such an oddity. You can hardly call a doctor, or the police, or the army. If anything untoward comes up, you have to stand up to it and deal with it yourself. Or let it alone. There is no precedent, no superior knowledge, you can call upon. You handle the problem in your own unskilled way.

The creature set aside his helmet. He made signs. He was evidently very hungry. They fed him and gave him water. He seemed harmless enough, friendly in a timid sort of way. He was a problem, but not too immediate a problem. He was an alien, but apparently not dangerous. He was not too alien to breathe the oxygen-helium atmosphere of the ship. He hated ordinary foods, both the concentrated items and green stuff from the hydroponics. He drank quantities of water. He seemed weak and not too sure of his spacelegs. They wondered what the devil they were going to do with him.

As a survey expedition, they were licensed to bring back specimens, but specimens meant nonorganic matter. Customs and Health Check Stations, both on Earth and Mars, took a dim view of all life-forms from other worlds—everything from molds, and lichens on up through the pseudo-life of the giant crystals found on Venus. Several serious outbreaks of plant-blight, and even animal and human plagues had been traced to incautious imports of unknown plants and animals. And no spaceship now lands on Mars or Earth without careful checking, thorough sterilization, and possible quarantine for as long a period as the bureaucrats think desirable.

Barent and Carter did not face the problem at once. It did not occur to them that they would be bringing the creature back with them. They hoped he had friends somewhere around, or at least a means of getting wherever he wanted to go.

They were tired of space and boredom and loneliness. They detected in themselves several indications of space-neuroses. They were a long way from home. So they hurried through their repairs, and got the ship ready for blast-off. They wished their new friend well and pushed him outside the ship. They tried to shoo him out of harm’s way, well beyond the dangerous blast-off zone.

They were patient about it, and not unkindly, since he seemed oddly friendly and likeable. Whenever they went into the ship, he followed them. He stuck around like a devoted dog. He tried to make himself useful. They forced him outside as gently as possible, tried to wave him away, and closed the airlock door in his face. He pounded frantically on it. They let him in again and tried to explain by signs. He did not understand.

They went through the farewells again, pushed him outside and locked him out. Through the vision plates, they could see his distress, not only mental but physical. He seemed in a bad way, either from fear or cold, or possibly from causes unknown. They weakened and let him back inside to warm up and get a good lungful of ship’s air. They fed and watered him again and puzzled over what to do. Apparently he was no more at home on Io than they were. He was just there, nobody knew how, or from whence, and he seemed demonstrably unhappy about it.

Finally he won out. They had to take him along.

There was plenty of space in the ship, and his weight was no problem. His thirst was a nuisance, but they rationed water and got by. He ate very little. He tried to be helpful. He was never a bother. All the same, he was a weird companion. He got on their nerves.

They bypassed Mars, which was on the far side of the sun in any case, and headed straight for Earth.

They excused their folly by telling themselves that science would be interested in an intelligent lifeform. And Government would be even more interested in any alien life, intelligent or not. The public would be interested—and curious. There was a certain danger there. The public was easy to panic, often deadly and vicious in dealing with anything which disturbed the comfortable norm. Fear would deal the cards. Fear of disease, fear of danger from alien enemies. Fear of difference. The old enemy—Xenophobia, fear of strangers.

They might well be in for trouble when they got back to Earth. The last half of the run, they thought a lot about it.

“We could be in trouble, Paddy,” said Carter.

“Glasshead?” asked Barent.

“You know what’s likely to happen to him and us when we check in at spaceport?”

“Sure. I know. I’ve been trying not to think too much about it. They’ll put us through the wringer—maybe ground us for good. At least a heavy fine, besides the chewing out. And that’s not the worst. What about him?”

“End up in a bottle, I suppose,” said Carter unhappily. “Maybe worse. Pawing and prying, trying to take him apart and see what makes him tick. Tests of all kinds in the Bio labs. And if word leaks out and the public gets hold of it, suspicion and fear. If they get the idea he’s dangerous, they’ll kill him. Anyhow, they’ll panic.”

“All that fuss over a harmless little guy.”

“Sure. To us. We know him. They don’t. Remember that early twentieth century ‘Man from Mars’ panic. They scare easy.”

Barent and Carter thought about it a while, in silence. Later—

“We don’t want Glasshead pushed around, do we?”

“Of course not. But we’ll have our hands full saving our own skins. It’s not altogether up to us.”

“I hate the idea of him getting the works in a laboratory. They might even hurt him some way. Or dissect him.”

“They might.”

Silence grew thin and tight between them.

“Keep thinking about it. Maybe we’ll think of something.”

They did.

An off-pattern landing in the hills went sour. The ship crashed. Not a bad crack-up, but half-in and half-out of a rock-rimmed lake. They dug themselves and Glasshead from the wreckage.

Crumpled and split open, the space cruiser lay on its side. But a good landing is still one you can walk away from. They walked away. Later, they flagged a ride by truck into town. Glasshead had a crude bandage wrapped around his head when they smuggled him through the streets and hid him.

For three months Barent’s younger married sister took care of Glasshead. It was a chore, but she never complained. It was no permanent solution.

Through undercover contacts better left unstated, the pair of conspirators eventually got in touch with Jake Fallon who operated a small time carnival and freak show. No money changed hands. But Fallon took over the care and feeding of Glasshead. He gave the creature a job, if you could call it that. His show provided flawless camouflage, and a living. Barent’s sister cried when the men took Glasshead away. But he seemed as happy with the show as anywhere, and grateful to be provided with the merest necessities.

For five years people paid just to look at Glasshead. He had no pitch. He was a brain in a bottle, but the bottle was his own head. He gave no trouble.

The show moved around. New audiences gaped. Among the ignorant, one wonder is no more wondrous than another. They came, they saw, they were conquered. They forgot about it. The fools were not so different from the wise men. They ignored whatever they could not understand. At most, they poked at the obvious in Glasshead’s appearance.

Time is erosion, not dimension. Nobody remembered Glasshead very long. At first, everywhere, the public was startled, shocked, enchanted. But they forgot as quickly. The mind longs for a glimpse of wonder, but after the first glimpse erects mind-blocks against the unknown. Even Barent and Carter let their memories of him grow dim. Fallon cared for his unearthly charge, religiously banked a salary in his name, saw to his creature comforts, but made no attempt to understand him.

One day a man showed more than casual interest in the show. He came back four different times to study Glasshead, with more perception and sympathy than was generally shown.

Dr. Layter had no real business going to a freak show. Such exhibits were out of his line, and his stomach was sensitive. Ordinary freaks made him physically ill, and the sight of accidents and self-made monsters made him mentally ill. But he often haunted the borderlands of slums and bars and smalltime shows in search of the colorful argot which was fast vanishing from modern speech. He was compiling a dictionary of slang and mock-technical terms, and the fringes of humanity were his best hunting grounds.

After his fourth pilgrimage to look at Glasshead, Dr. Layter sought out Fallon. The show-owner met him with quick-draw suspicion.

“Are you some kind of fly-cop?”

“Nothing like that,” Dr. Layter assured him.

“Well, then?”

Dr. Layter introduced himself. “I don’t need a doctor,” Fallon fenced warily. “Nothing wrong with me that alcohol won’t cure.”

Dr. Layter laughed wryly. “It’s a sick world, isn’t it? I wish I could find my escape so easily.”

As briefly as possible, Dr. Layter explained his interest in show business and its oddities of speech. Fallon relaxed only partially. He was used to lunatics, but knew their dangerous potentials. He humored the lunatic.

It was a hot day, and Dr. Layter suggested beer. He was trying the oblique, or Oriental, approach to a serious discussion. First, hospitality and general conversation, then get straight to the point. The intention was more politeness than dishonesty. Dr. Layter asked questions about the various performers, their backgrounds and their origins. Indirectly, he approached the subject of Glasshead. But still suspicious, Fallon veered away. Layter tactfully took the hint. They talked of other things, and he went away.

But Layter was patient and persistent. He came again and again. They drank beer, and later switched to boiler-makers. But Fallon was no fool, and his head was laminated oak, some said from the staves of old whiskey barrels. And indirection was not his method. He came to the point abruptly.

“You wouldn’t be interested in Glasshead, would you?”

“Interested, yes.”

“What exactly did you want to know?”

“Anything. Everything. He drinks a lot, doesn’t he. I can’t blame him, but I wonder why. Do you know?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s medicine for him. Maybe it’s food. Or maybe it just dulls his senses so he won’t feel the pain of being what he is. Why do any of us drink? I’m a souse myself, so I should talk. And you’re no teetotaler.”

“I know why you and I drink,” Dr. Layter said slowly. “But would the same reasons apply to him? He’s no ordinary freak. He’s not even a human being, is he?”

“I don’t think so. I’m not even sure of that. I can’t ask him what he is, and if I did, and he wanted to tell me, how could he? He can’t even tell me he’s sick, but I know he is. He never has been just right, not since he came with me, I worry a lot about him, but what can I do?”

“You could call in a doctor.”

Jake Fallon spat viciously into the sawdust. “I wouldn’t trust a sawbones a minute with him. Besides, if he’s what I think he is, no doctor on Earth would know anything about him.”

“What do you think he is?”

Jake Fallon grinned sourly. “Now that you ask me, I don’t know.”

Crudely but graphically he told the story of Io, of the two space survey men who found Glasshead, or were found by him. He told of the smuggled arrival, but was understandably vague on the subject of the transfer of guardianship.

“I shouldn’t have told you that, Doc, but it’s all I know about him. God’s truth. I’m not saying that I trust you, either, but you seem like a right guy. The little fella’s sick, real sick, and I don’t know what to do. Will you do me a favor and have a look at him?”

Dr. Layter frowned. “I’m not an MD. My specialty is semantics.”

“Specialty—smeshalty! Who said anything about a regular doctor? I didn’t say he had a disease. Besides, what would a real doc know about a character like Glasshead? He’s not sick with a disease. He’s just been going steadily downhill all the time he’s been with me.”

“If Glasshead is really an alien, as you say, it could be a little of everything. Our air may not be just right for him. The water might be different. Even the food could have different elements that he’s not built to handle. Not enough wrong with anything to poison him outright, but enough to cause malnutrition over a long period of time. About alcohol, I couldn’t say, but it is a concentrated food. Maybe he needs it.”

“Will you look at him for me?”

“Of course. That’s what I really wanted anyhow. But I just wanted to know him, to try to find a way to communicate with him. I didn’t want to take him apart clinically. I don’t want to hurt him in any way.”

Fallon nodded soberly. “I know what you mean. When you are around him, even a little bit, you just naturally like him and want to help him be happy. He has that effect. And you get so you know if he’s happy or feeling low. Those colors in his head show his emotions. When he’s happy, they show happy-colors, and when he’s low, the colors jangle your nerves. He’s been low a heck of a lot lately. I’m afraid he’s hit the skids.”

Dr. Layter thought a moment. “I hope not. But if he’s in need of real medical care, I can arrange it. I have a doctor friend who makes up his own rules as the occasion seems to require. A friend we can trust. He won’t cause any trouble, and if Glasshead seems to need him, I’ll arrange it. Is that all right with you?”

“It’s okay—if you vouch for him.”

“Then let’s see the patient....”

Glasshead seemed pitifully weak and spindly.

“He was always skinny, but it’s worse now,” explained Fallon.

“Does he understand us at all?” Layter asked.

“Maybe not words. He’s quick and smart, though, catches on fast about simple things, especially pictures. If he wants something he knows about, he draws a picture.”

“Pictures, never words?”

“That’s right. No way for him to learn about words. His hearing is good, though, very sharp, can catch the drop of a nickel half a mile away. I’ve thought about it, why words don’t seem to mean anything to him. If a race like him had no speech, they might never develop the idea of words. Without the idea of words, how could they develop reading or writing?”

“Probably they couldn’t. But there are other means of communication besides the vocal. Bees dance. It’s a regular language, not connected with sound. And I’d say he was a representative of a highly intelligent race. It should be possible to communicate with him.”

Fallon looked dubious. “How?”

“I wish I knew. But he could learn that patterns of sound are symbols of things and ideas. There is always a key to unlock any door.”

“Not if there was never a lock.”

“I’d still like to try. For all we know he already understands us, but may not know the connection between sounds and written words. Can he control those colors in his head, or do they come and go at random?”

“I never thought much about it. There is a connection somehow between what he’s thinking or feeling. When you get used to him, you catch what he’s feeling just by colors. If he’s feeling good, they work together right. If not, they clash. Not according to any strict color theory I know, but it’s something you feel. When he’s happy or drunk—well, they’re different. Not that his colors and emotions are the same as ours. Some of his happy-colors would jar you, except that they feel right.”

“Happy-colors,” mused Dr. Layter aloud. “Could be that those colors are his way of communicating. Color-vibrations taking the place of sound-vibrations. Color patterns instead of words. It could make a rich and stimulating speech. Or writing. Imagine a book printed in color patterns instead of words. They’d be works of art as well as instruments of thought.”

“Interesting, and possible,” admitted Fallon. “But it still leaves us on the outside looking in. Even if he knows that our talk means something, he doesn’t know what. And granting that his colors may mean something, we don’t know what. Probably not words at all. Maybe just ideas or emotions. Two languages with no point of contact. Even if he wanted to, he can’t tell us what the colors mean.”

“But he can. He can tell us in his own speech. It’s up to us to understand him.”

“But can we?”

“We can try. It’s a lot like breaking any other code or cipher. If I were a mathematician with a calculator, the job might be easier. But I can start simply, with the obvious, and go on through trial and error.”

Glasshead sat stiffly in his thronelike chair. He had been drinking, but not to stupefaction. As relaxed as he ever got, he showed no interest in the proceedings. Not at first.

Dr. Layter started with basic mathematics. Numbers.

Holding up a finger, he said, “One,” very distinctly. At the same time, with his free hand, he drew the Arabic numeral “1” on Glasshead’s slate. Invisible eyes watched him. Odd mixtures of color squirmed inside the transparent skull. Almost, Dr. Layter felt a stir of intelligence from the alien, a dim awakening of interest and curiosity.

Layter repeated the performance, varying it by tapping once on the slate. Symphonies of color flared and faded. Glasshead held up a slender finger, then reached out and tapped the slate. He redrew the numeral. Then he held up two fingers and waited.

“Two,” said Dr. Layter. He drew the numeral. Glasshead repeated the maneuver, added to the performance by tapping twice on the slate.

They went up to ten and ran out of fingers. And Glasshead ran out of interest. He refused further response. But it was a start. A running start.

The next day, Dr. Layter returned. Excitement burned hotly within him. Glasshead remembered. Dr. Layter marked numeral “9” on the slate. Glasshead tapped out nine.

Instruction continued, but went slow. There were many frustrations, misdirections. Glasshead appeared to understand a connection between sounds and ideas, but he never grasped a single written word. He drew some weirdly beautiful pictures of objects and seemed satisfied with Layter’s spoken response. He ignored the written word equivalent.

They got past simple arithmetic and exercises in geometry. The work outgrew the slate, went on to large sheets of paper. Layter brought colored chalk and pencils, and Glasshead insisted upon tinted paper. It seemed important to him. In one fit of temper, or frustration, he became as nearly violent as anyone had ever seen him. He made his point.

Nimbly and surely, his pencil worked out complicated pictures of people and things, arrangements of objects, drawings of machinery with a quick grasp of their operation. In each case he demanded a sound equivalent.

Dr. Layter brought pictures, picture books, and picture magazines, which spurred Glasshead into renewed curiosity. Pointing, he silently demanded the vocal terms for countless objects and combinations of objects. Dr. Layter worked with him until he was hoarse. He brought recorded music and got a storm of brilliant color-effects from the workings inside his pupil’s skull.

Such fragmentary education could have continued indefinitely, but Glasshead was sick. Physically and mentally, he was in a sharp decline. More and more often, he was too drunk or depressed to work at all.

Layter’s physician friend, the man who made his own rules, was consulted. Reluctantly, he examined the curious patient, and gave his verdict. “He’s drinking too much, of course. Practically an alcoholic, but I gather that’s nothing new. I’d have to know more about his metabolism and background to recommend any sound routine of diet or treatment.”

A somber look came into the physician’s eyes. “If he were human, I’d know what to say. Medicine can’t do much even for human alcoholics, unless they want to be helped. We can throw them a rope if they want to climb out of the bottle. But nobody can haul them out if they prefer slow suicide.”

“You think Glasshead is killing himself by drinking?” Layter demanded.

“Yes, definitely. Whether deliberately or not, I don’t know. I don’t even pretend to know too much about the humans I try to treat. I can’t tell you anything about our friend here, except that he’s in a bad way, and will probably get worse. He’s burning himself out with an alcohol flame.”

“We were getting along so well, too,” complained Layter sadly. The doctor grunted.

“Well, that’s your department. It won’t matter too much anyhow. In your case, I’d really work on him, find out all you can while you can. I don’t think he’ll last very long.”

“He’s really dying?”

“No real question about that. I couldn’t be more definite about it if he were human.”

“Maybe he just doesn’t like our world.”

The doctor grimaced. “Who does?”

The next few sessions of study were harrowing. Glasshead was not too drunk, but acted dazed and unhappy. He grew steadily weaker, refusing food and sometimes even alcohol.

In desperation, the teacher tried to push through his pupil’s education too rapidly. He ran into more difficulty. As a last resort, he attempted to get across the basic abstractions of yes and no, affirmative and negative. It took a great deal of time and patience, but it finally worked out.

Glasshead understood. Yellow was affirmative, blue was negative. It was a real Rosetta Stone.

Accommodating and polite as always, Glasshead tried to rally and carry through his daily word-drills. His vocabulary grew rapidly. Apparently he had already grasped some understanding of the meaning of words. Then, for a brief time, Dr. Layter found that he was pupil, not teacher. Glasshead obligingly slowed down the flare and fusing of colors in his brain, and laboriously coded them to Layter’s understanding. They worked out a common alphabet and hammered the colors into words. It was a fearful strain.

Now they could converse, lamely. But it was already too late.

As Glasshead’s abilities grew, his interest in study and in the world about him waned. He was too ill to respond to forced education, too ill to respond to questions about himself and the vast stores of alien knowledge which might be locked in his brain. He was almost too far gone to communicate at all.

Knocking at the gates of the great unknown, Dr. Layter forced himself to wait. He knew that even the simplest colors of speech were difficult for Glasshead. And he could not torture a dying creature. Not for any knowledge.

Dr. Layter hesitated. In his own way, he had grown very fond of Glasshead. He understood now why everyone who had come in contact with the alien loved him. Painfully distressed, he watched the last strength and spirit drain from the odd being.

Glasshead was dying, and he knew it. Through Fallon, he summoned his teacher to his side. In colors which burned like hot coals inside his transparent head, he said simply, “Soon I will go away.”

“Soon,” echoed Dr. Layter sadly.

“Perhaps today.”

Despite his sadness, his aching pity, Dr. Layter felt that he had to go on. The key had worked, the door was unlocked, and just beyond the threshold—all the knowledge. So much to know. So little time.

“What are you, Glasshead? Where did you come from?”

Ignoring the first question, as perhaps unanswerable in known terms, the alien said in soft colors: “Io.”

“I know that. But you were not native there. Where were you before that?”

Colors stumbled into visible words. “With my people.”

“Your people? But what are they? Where are they?”

If Glasshead understood the question, he did not reply. Formless, wordless emotions writhed inside him, in jangling colors.

Dr. Layter tried again, more simply. “Were you castaway on Io?”

“Yes.” Yellow in the color code.

“Your ship was wrecked there?”

“No.” Blue. Silence. Blue fading into neutral grey.

“You mean that someone took you there? Deliberately, or by accident?”

For a moment, the colors were scrambled. A flaring formula of hopeless distress flickered out, then died away as Glasshead mastered his emotions. Colors became words again.

“My own people took me there and left me. Not by accident. They cast me out to die.”

“But why—why? How could your own people do such a foul and horrible thing?” raged Dr. Layter helplessly.

Colors pulsed feebly inside the transparent skull as Glasshead roused for one more answer before he died.

“I was different from the others,” he said slowly and faintly. And as the coals died into ashes, he added: “I was a freak....”