Probos Five gazed at the white expanseahead, trying to determine wherehis ship would crash. Something washaywire in the fuel system of his InterstarRunabout. He was losing altitude fast, sofast that all five pairs of his eyes couldn'tfocus on a place to land.
Five pairs of arms, each pair about threefeet apart on the loglike body, pushed buttonsand rotated controls frantically, butto no avail. In a few short minutes it wouldall be over for Probos Five. Even if by somemiracle he remained unhurt after crashing,he would die shortly thereafter. The frigidclimatic conditions of the third planet weredeadly to a Mercurian. He thought once ofdonning his space suit but decided againstit. That would merely prolong the agony.From Planet Three, when one has a smashedspace cruiser, there is no return. Probos Fiveknew that death was riding with him in thehelpless ship. The situation did not unnecessarilydismay him; Mercurians are philosophers.
Probos Five ceased to manipulate the unrespondingcontrols. Stretching his trunkliketorso to its full twenty feet, four headsgazed through observation ports at the fourpoints of the compass while the remaininghead desultorily watched the instrumentpanel.
Since die he must, Probos Five wouldmeet his end stoically, and five pairs ofstumpy arms folded over five chests in a coordinatedgesture of resignation.
Probos Five thought fleetingly of his wifeLingua Four and remembered with some annoyancethat she was the author of his presentpredicament. A social climber, ProbosFive thought to himself, but aside from thata good wife and mother in addition to beinga reigning beauty. Lingua Four was tall evenfor a Mercurian. Already she scaled sevendergs, or in Earth terms, fourteen feet andwas beginning to show evidences of a fifthhead. Five heads were rarely found onfemales and Probos Five was justly proudof his good fortune. In all Mercury at thepresent time, he knew of but two femalespossessing five heads and soon Lingua Fourwould be the third of her sex to be thusendowed.
Yes, thought Probos Five, a womanto be proud of; for today after three vargsof marriage the memory of her trim trunkwith four pairs of eyes laughing mischievously,filled his five brains with flame. Slimas a birch she stood in his memory, andeight eyes whispered lovers' thoughts acrossspace and time.
Probos Five recalled his five minds fromtheir nostalgic reverie and gazed at the contourof the Earth that was rushing up tomeet him. White, blazing white reflectingthe rays of the midnight sun covered theregion as far as the eye could reach.
"Good," thought Probos Five, "the Polarregions. That means the end will comequickly. One or two seconds at the most ofthat bitter cold would be enough."
Turning away from the windows ProbosFive let his thoughts return to LinguaFour, to Probos Two, his son, and his homeon the first planet from the sun. Ah, thatis the place to live, thought Probos, thetemperature an unchanging 327°; just comfortablywarm, where one could enjoy alife of warmth and ease. Too bad that hewould not live to see it again. Thirty vargs,he reflected, is such a short time. With luck,perhaps he may have lived to see a hundredvargs slip by. And perhaps in time he mayhave added three more heads and five dergsin length to his towering trunk.
He thought of Probos Two and wonderedidly if his son would also visit the barbarian