The original, 2-page short story version of

YELLOW PLANET; a man from planet Venus

Copyright © 1975 by Roger M. Wilcox. All rights reserved.
(writing on this story officially began 1-July-1975, but actually began some days earlier)
The original draft was written on a mechanical typewriter, single-spaced, with no right margin. I'd started to learn about those pesky little things called "paragraphs" by the time I wrote this, but I had yet to learn that paragraphs were supposed to be indented. Though the title was inspired by Heinlein's Red Planet, the story itself owes more to various and sundry episodes of The Six Million Dollar Man. All spellings, punctuation, chemical names, capitalizations, colors, etc. are as in the original. Unfortunately, without scanning it in and presenting an image, I can't really convey all the typewriter overstrikes and formatting oddities I had to slog through in the original.

You have been warned.

The man from planet Venus that reached Earth, came: 7-1-1975. Year on their planet when arrived: 8-4-6784. He called his planet 'Earth', because it was very much like our planet. It has an atmosphere of 'C-O2 & O2', just like our planet, only denser. He can stand the lower tempratures, because he, & all the other people on his planet, are hot blooded (meaning their blood goes opposite of the temprature). They can also adjust to the differentual atmosphere of different planets, w/ the same kind of air. Now, our story begins.
One day, a strange u.f.o. came into our atmosphere. 4 minutes later, it was visable w/ binaculars. It was orbiting Earth at an alarming rate of speed. It was traveling at 35 miles per second, & nothing to stop the atmosphere. No sharp things or nothing! So they knew it (the person driving it) must know much more than we do.
As it came closer & closer to the Earth, the people became more & more worried. It was puzzling to all the people. He then, 3½ minutes later, crash-landed. The only person who saw him do this & found him was Alfred Smith, the bionic person, who had 2 bionic legs, & 1 bionic arm (each very powerful. In fact, he could run 100 miles per hour, & lift up 1000 lbs.). He finally snapped out of it, & he immediatley revieled himself as a man from Venus to Alfred Smith. He wouldn't of belived it if he hadnt seen the saucer!
They then went to Alfred's house. Then, the man from venus immediatley told him that he'd better be heading back for venus. But then, he interupted "my saucer has been wrecked. How am I going to fix it?" Then Alfred said, "well, since you know more than me, I guess your going to have to figure it out for yourself." Then he went into the garage, w/ the parts of his saucer, & staretd fixing it.
It was damaged very badly; the window was broken, the anti-gravity machine needed fixing, & the saucer, itself, was very badly damaged. What he needed was some "Willic" frequency (the stuff in between radia & infer red), to transpute into electrical energy, by their own methods. But he first fixed the things on his saucer.
Then he looked around the house for some form of "Willic" frequency. He then revieled that he was 320 (32 years of human age) (each of our human years = 10 Venus-man years). Then Alfred said, "why dont we play a game of tennis to cheer you up a little?" Then the Venus man said, "OK". Then they went to the tennis grounds w/ a ball & 2 rackets & 1 net. Then they started playing.
The first serve was from Alfred. He served it at 650 miles per hour, but the Venus-man got it & hit it back at 850 miles per hour (transonic) (w/ his Venus-man powers) But when Alfred jumped 25 feet in the air to hit it back, the man from Venus levetated it over his head & back. Then Alfred said, "thats no fair! You used your Venus-man powers! Dont do it again!" Then the man from Venus said, "well if you can use your bionics, I can use my powers as well!" "Well alright, but only levetating. & Dont levetate your racket" said Alfred.
Then the man from Venus served the ball to Alfred, normally. Then he hit it back at the same 750 m.p.h.,. But the man from Venus hit it back at equal speed (750) (he had to levetate himself 25 ft. in the air). ¼ Second later, he servet it back at 700. Then the man from Venus served it back at 650. Then Alfred served it back at 600. Then the man from Venus served it back at 550. Then Alfred served it back at 500. Then the man from Venus (Eczidgius 5½) served it back at 450. Then Alfred served it back at 400. Then Eczidgius 5½ served it back at 350. Then Alfred served it back at 300. Then Eczidgius 5½ served it back at 250. Then Alfred served it back at 200. Then Eczidgius 5½ served it back at 150. Then Alfred served it back at 100. Then Eczidgius 5½ served it back at 50. Then Alfred said, "why dont we end the game, Venus man?" Then Eczidgius said "OK. But my real name is Eczidgius." Then Alfred said, "oh, Eczidgius." Then they went back to Alfred's house.
Then he looked again for some form of "willic" frequency. But he didnt find any. So he decided to raise his antennae to feel any in the air. Then he found some — it came from a flouescent tube — so all he needed was that. So he took that in his saucer, went to planet Venus, made even Alfred Smith forget, & the story ends right there.

THE END

A "WILCOX" PRESENTATION

Author's notes from 2013:

Behold the return of Alfred Smith, last seen making a cameo in the haunting pages of 2005: A Space Oddyssey [sic].
The 850 mile per hour figure early on in the tennis game may have actually been 750 miles per hour. The original document shows an 8 and a 7 overstruck on top of one another. It was hard to tell which digit was "on top" and was my actual 9-year-old self's intent, though to my current aging 47-year-old self's eyes it looks like the 8 was a little bit stronger than the 7.
Our Venusian protagonist's name was derived from an episode of My Favorite Martian, in which it was revealed that Uncle Martin's real name on Mars was Exigius 2½. Or maybe it was Exigius 12½. In any event, they didn't bother to spell "Exigius" for the TV viewing audience, so I was forced to guess how it was spelled.

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