We're Civilized!
Page 3
planet. He held out hisright hand and received the scroll from Lieutenant Atkinson.
With a decisive gesture, not quite theatrical, he unfurled the scroll.He read in a voice firm enough to impress all posterity:
"By virtue of authority invested in me from the Supreme Council of theWestern Alliance, the only true representatives of Earth and Man, I takepossession of all this planet in the name of our President, the SupremeCouncil, the Western Alliance, Earth, and in the name of God."
----
The ground was cool enough now that their feet might bear it. The painwas great, but it was lost in the greater pain of feeling the killingobstruction the great meteor had brought to their canals. The Mars racebegan to press inward, inexorably.
It was in the anticlimactic moment, following the possession ceremony,when men milled around in uncertainty, that Lt. Atkinson saw the Marsrace had come closer and were still moving.
"The monsters!" he exclaimed in horror. "They're attacking!"
Berkeley looked, and from the little gestures of movement out of hislong training he deduced their true motive.
"Not against us!" he cried. "The ship."
Perhaps his words were more unfortunate than his silence might havebeen; for the ship was of greater concern to Captain Griswold than hisown person.
"Halt!" Griswold shouted toward the approaching Mars race. "Halt or I'llfire!"
The Mars race paid no heed. Slowly they came forward, each step on thehot ground a torture, but a pain which could be borne. The greatertorture, the one they could not bear, was the ache to press against thismeteor, push it away, that they might dig the juncture clean again. As aman whose breath is stopped fights frantically for air, concerned withnothing else, so they felt the desperation of drying sands.
They came on.
"For the last time," Griswold shouted, "halt!" He made a motion with hishands, as if to push them back, as if to convey his meaning by signs.Involuntarily, then, his eyes sought those of Berkeley. A look ofpleading, helplessness. Berkeley met the glance and read the anxietythere, the tragic unwillingness of the man to arouse posterity's rage orcontempt.
It was a brief glance only from both men and it was over. CaptainGriswold's head came up; his shoulders straightened in the face of theoncoming monsters. They were close now, and coming closer. As always,the experts were free with their advice when it was not needed. When thechips were down, they could do no more than smirk and shrug a helplessshoulder.
He gave the command, and now there was no uncertainty.
"Fire!"
----
The celebration was being held in the Great Stadium, the largest, mostcostly structure that Man had ever built. It was a fitting structure forthe more important football games; and used on occasion, if they couldbe fitted in without upsetting the schedule, for State affairs. Now thestadium was filled to capacity, its floor churned by the careless feetof the thousands upon thousands who had managed to obtain an entrance.
From the quarter-mile-high tiers of seats, from the floor of thestadium, the shouts welled up, washing over the platform at the Northend.
"Griswold! Griswold!"
It was not yet time for history to assess the justice of the massacre.
The President raised his hand. The battery of video cameras picked upeach move.
"Our hopes, our fears, our hearts, our prayers rode through everyspace-dark, star-flecked mile with these glorious pioneers." He turnedthen to the captain. "For the people of Earth, _Admiral_ Griswold, thismedal. A new medal for a Guider of Destiny, Maker of Empire, Son ofMan!"
The voice faltered, stopped.
The crowd on the floor of the stadium was pressing outward from thecenter, screaming in pain and terror. At the moment when the peopleshould be quiet, rapt in reverence, they were emptying the floor of thestadium. But not willingly. They were being pressed back and out, as agreat weight pushes its way through water. Those who could move outwardno farther were crushed where they stood.
And then the ship appeared.
Hazy of outline, shimmering with impossible angles, seen by its glintingfire of light rather than by its solid form, as if its reality were insome other dimension and this only a projection, the ship appeared.
The President's hand reached out and gripped Griswold's shoulder as heleaned back and back, trying to determine its vast height. A silencethen clutched the crowd--a terrified silence.
A full minute passed. Even on the platform, where all the pioneers ofMars were assembled with Earth's dignitaries, even there the peoplecowered back away from this unseeable, unknowable horror.
But one man leaned forward instead, frantically studying the shimmeringoutline of the ship. One man--Berkeley.
With the training of the ethnologist, a man who really can deduce anentire civilization from mystifying data, he recognized the tremendousimport.
At the end of that minute, without warning, a group of figures hoveredin the air near the floor of the stadium.
----
Quickly, Berkeley's eyes assessed their form, their color, theincreasing solidity of the humanoids. There are some movements, somegestures, common to all things of intelligence--the pause, theresolution, the lift of pride.
"No!" he screamed and started forward. "Oh, no! We're civilized. We'reintelligent!" He was pulled back, as in his terror he tried to leap fromthe platform to get at the humanoids.
Held there, unable to move, he read the meaning of the actions of thegroup hovering near the ship. One flashed a shining tentacle around, asif to point to the stadium, the pitifully small spaceship on display,the crowds of people.
The leader manifestly ignored him. He flowed forward a pace, his ovoidhead held high in pride and arrogance. He pointed a tentacle toward thesouth end of the stadium, and a pillar of leaping flame arose; fed withno fuel, never to cease its fire, the symbol of possession.
He pointed his tentacles to the north, the south, the east, the west. Hemotioned with his tentacles, as if to encircle all of Earth.
He unfurled a scroll and began to read.
--MARK CLIFTON & ALEX APOSTOLIDES
_Transcribers note_: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction August 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.