#Ynkwysytyv

[rjalker]

transcription part....1/5 maybe?

The Lizard of Woz, by Edmund Cooper. Originally published in the August 1958 edition of Fantastic Universe Science Fiction magazine.

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Ynkwysytyv dropped his flying saucer down to ten thousand feet and allowed it to amble through the sky at a thousand miles an hour. Below him lay the United States of America, which he found very boring to look at.

His telescope had revealed no signs at all of intelligent lizard life—only a host of odd-looking bipeds who lived in peculiar shaped hives and used primitive land carriages to get from one place to another. True, they had flying machines—but of a somewhat amateurish design.

As a matter of fact, Ynkwysytyv had whiled away the last few minutes by playing leap-frog with two ridiculously flimsy jet aircraft. But when they began to pump rockets at him, he lost his temper and nearly burned off their wings with a heat ray—which made life interesting for a couple of incredulous Air Force pilots. Fortunately, their ejector seats and parachutes were in working order.

If, the truth be known, Ynkwysytyv—or Ynky, as his colleagues in the United Planets Organization called him—was not only bored but definitely unhappy. He had to admit, however, that the assignment to this remote and backward area of the galaxy was largely his own doing. If he had not allowed his tail to be turned by the irresistible scales and yellow streak of the Senior Administrator’s only daughter, he would still be at U.P.O. headquarters on Woz.

He sighed nostalgically, as he thought of his home planet, five hundred light years away. He sighed as he remembered the clear green skies, the deep blue grass, the pink rain forests and the boiling crimson oceans. Then he shorted with disgust as he looked down at the miserable world he had come to survey.

The colors were wrong, the inhabitants were backward and ugly, and the whole place would probably have to be fumigated to make it fit for colonization. Possibly a few of the more intelligent natives could be retained for slave labor. But their rudimentary technology seemed to indicate that this was hardly worthwhile. Robots would be far more efficient.

[there’s a line break here between paragraphsd but I can’t tell if it’s like, on purpose….]

However, his instructions were the survey the planet, establish friendly contact with the inhabitants, and prepare a detailed report on their culture—if any. All of which was a complete waste of time, since the report would be filed away and forgotten for a couple of centuries. Then some junior official would stumble across it and sign an order for total demolition under the slum clearance programme.

Ynky had every justification for taking a cynical view of life. His journey to the Solar System had lasted more than ten years, and his hibernation clock had accidentally woken him up eighteen months before planetfall—thus giving him ample opportunity for reflection on lizard’s inlizardity to lizard. It was downright vindictive of the Senior Administrator to pack him off to this hole—and all because his sex band had turned purple at the wrong moment.

Being a mere two hundred years old, Ynky regarded it as the worst possible beginning for the best century of his youth. By the time he got back to Woz all the females in his egg-group would have mated, and he would be condemned to a bachelor existence for at least another seventy-five years.

During his hibernation in the flying saucer, Ynky had naturally been programmed to fluency in all major terrestrial languages; for he was not the first Woz lizard to visit Earth. Some years previously a blue-tailed language specialist had touched down to do research on elementary methods of communication. He had managed to beam back to Woz the basic language patterns of English, French, Russian, and Chinese before being converted into a nourishing soup by the uncultured inhabitants of New Guinea.

Ynky gazed distastefully down at the planetary surface and shrugged. Might as well make a start somewhere. He reluctantly eased the saucer earthwards.

Below was a deserted highway and an equally deserted roadside cafe[with fancy E]. Ynky hovered indecisively for a moment, wondering whether he should press on to a more promising location. But what was the use? The whole civilization was monotonously primitive.

He touched down about a hundred yards from the cafe. He got out of the saucer, sniffed the air cautiously—too much poisonous oxygen and not enough nitrogen—and began to walk along the highway. Then, realizing that he had forgotten something, he went back and rendered the saucer invisible as a precaution against any curious bipeds who happened along.

As lizards go, Ynky was an impressive specimen. Posed erect on his hindlegs, he was four foot tall, excluding an extra three foot of red and purple tail that waved proudly behind him like an animated battle standard. However, in accordance with what the late blue-tailed language specialist had observed of diplomatic procedure, he also wore a top hat and a morning coat.

His entrance, therefore, at the Shady Nook Cafe introduced an element of novelty into the otherwise quiet existence of its proprietor, one Sam Goodwin. Sam, whose favorite relaxation was to read all about bug-eyed monsters, behaved with commendable fortitude when one actually appeared.

“Howdy,” said Sam, scratching his gray hair and trying to look as if the top hat hadn’t shaken him at all. “How are things in the galaxy?”

Ynky was pleasantly surprised by this first contact with homo sapiens. He had anticipated some initial difficulty.

“We try to keep the constellations burning,” he said modestly, “but you know how it is.”

“Sure,” agreed Sam confidentially. “What’ll you eat? Steak, fried chicken, burger?”

Ynky shuddered, remembering the blue-tailed lizard’s repeated warnings about the standard of terrestrial cooking. “I’ll take fruit,” he said. “A dozen apples, a dozen oranges, and a dozen bananas.”

“Drink?” said Sam, filling the counter with fruit.

“Milk,” decided Ynky. “About six quarts.”

He disposed of the lot simultaneously, to Sam’s intense interest. Ten seconds later, Ynky dexterously slipped an arm down his throat and extracted empty milk cartons, banana skins and orange peel all neatly tied up in a plastic wrapper for disposal.

“Cute trick,” observed Sam. “Is that normal, or just for the benefit of the natives?”

“Normal,” said Ynky. “We have somewhat delicate table manners on Woz.”

“Come again?”

“Woz is my home planet. I have been given the task of reporting to the United Planets Organization on the state of your world...I may add that, though I find you as a biped less repulsive than I had expected, I shall probably have to recommend fumigation.”

“You have my interest,” said Sam. “What is fumigation, and why?”

Ynky leaned on the counter, removed his top hat and expounded. “Fumigation is a means of rendering a planet sterile by introduction of an interesting gas that our chemists have developed. It is a breeder gas. That is to say, if a small quantity is introduced into any atmosphere it will quickly make the whole atmosphere lethal….A fine achievement, don’t you think? Well beyond your own elementary science, of course.”

Sam had read about this sort of situation in the pulp magazines. He was not sure he approved of it.

“Permit me to enquire,” he said courteously, “why this little old planet should be fumigated?”

Ynky smiled. We have made the mistake of trying to civilize bipeds before. Too intractable. There were some rather promising apes on Sirius Five—intelligent enough to train as technicians, or so we thought. Unfortunately, they developed a mania for political independence and blew three of our battle squadrons out of space before we demonstrated to them the error of their ways...So you see, it is not wise to educate inferior creatures beyond their natural ability. It will be rather a pity about homo sapiens. In some ways you are a definite improvement on the apes of Sirius.”

“Thank you,” said Sam. “That’s nice to know.”

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(the rest still has to be transcribed, it probably has 5k words total)