Tales From Planet Earth

by Arthur C. Clarke

  But he hardly expected it to then, for they’d had to stop for a couple of hours to ride out a squall, and the time-limit had expired long before he made his final descent.

  He was a little annoyed about that, for he had planned a farewell message. He shouted it just the same, though he knew he was wasting his breath.

  By early afternoon, the Arafura had come in as close as she dared. There were only a few feet of water beneath her, and the tide was falling. The capsule broke surface at the bottom of each wave trough, and was now firmly stranded on a sandbank. There was no hope of moving it any further. It was stuck until a high sea dislodged it.

  Nick regarded the situation with an expert eye.

  “There’s a six-foot tide tonight,” he said. “The way she’s lying now, she’ll be in only a couple of feet of water at low. We’ll be able to get at her with the boats.”

  They waited off the sandbank while the sun and the tide went down and the radio broadcast intermittent reports of a search that was coming closer but was still far away. Late in the afternoon the capsule was almost clear of the water. The crew rowed the small boat towards it with a reluctance which Tibor found himself sharing, to his annoyance.

  “It’s got a door in the side,” said Nick suddenly. “Jeeze—think there’s anyone in it?”

  “Could be,” answered Tibor, his voice not as steady as he thought.

  Nick glanced at him curiously. His diver had been acting strangely all day, but he knew better than to ask him what was wrong. In this part of the world, you soon learned to mind your own business.

  The boat, rocking slightly in the choppy sea, had now come alongside the capsule. Nick reached out and grabbed one of the twisted antenna stubs. Then, with catlike agility, he clambered up the curved metal surface. Tibor made no attempt to follow him, but watched silently from the boat as he examined the entrance hatch.

  “Unless it’s jammed,” Nick muttered, “there must be some way of opening it from outside. Just our luck if it needs special tools.”

  His fears were groundless. The word “Open” had been stenciled in ten languages round the recessed doorcatch, and it took only seconds to deduce its mode of operation. As the air hissed out Nick said “Phew!” and turned suddenly pale. He looked at Tibor as if seeking support, but Tibor avoided his eye.

  Then, reluctantly, Nick lowered himself into the capsule.

  He was gone for a long time. At first, they could hear muffled bangings and bumpings from the inside, followed by a string of bi-lingual profanity.

  And then there was a silence that went on and on and on.

  When at last Nick’s head appeared above the hatchway, his leathery, wind-tanned face was gray and streaked with tears. As Tibor saw this incredible sight, he felt a sudden ghastly premonition. Something had gone horribly wrong, but his mind was too numb to anticipate the truth. It came soon enough, when Nick handed down his burden, no larger than an oversized doll.

  *

  Blanco took it, as Tibor shrank to the stern of the boat.

  As he looked at the calm, waxen face, fingers of ice seemed to close not only upon his heart, but round his loins. In the same moment, both hate and desire died forever within him, as he knew the price of his revenge.

  The dead astronaut was perhaps more beautiful in death than she had been in life. Tiny though she was, she must have been tough as well as highly-trained to qualify for this mission. As she lay at Tibor’s feet she was neither a Russian, nor the first female human being to have seen the far side of the Moon. She was merely the girl that he had killed.

  Nick was talking from a long way off.

  “She was carrying this,” he said, in an unsteady voice. “Had it tight in her hand. Took me a long time to get it out.”

  Tibor scarcely heard him, and never even glanced at the tiny spool of tape lying in Nick’s palm. He could not guess, in this moment beyond all feeling, that the Furies had yet to close in upon his soul—and that soon the whole world would be listening to an accusing voice from beyond the grave, branding him more irrevocably than any man since Cain.

  Publicity Campaign

  Introduction

  This story was written in March 1953 and after prompt publication in the London Evening News took three years to cross the Atlantic, appearing in Satellite Science Fiction’s first issue (October 1956). According to the Science Fiction Encyclopaedia, each of the first five issues contained stories of mine; I am ashamed to confess that I’d forgotten the magazine’s very existence . . .

  Although the references in the story are somewhat dated, the questions it raises are certainly not. And by a curious coincidence, I’ve re-read it the very week the media are ruefully celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of Orson Welles’ famous War of the Worlds broadcast. (CBS’s Mercury Theatre of the Air, 31 October, 1938.)

  For the first few decades after the Martians lowered New Jersey real estate values, benevolent aliens were few and far between, perhaps the most notable example being Klatuu in The Day the Earth Stood Still. Yet nowadays, largely thanks to E.T., friendly and even cuddly aliens are taken almost for granted. Where does the truth lie?

  In recent years, the total absence of any genuine evidence for life elsewhere has prompted a number of scientists to argue that intelligence is very rare in the universe. Some (such as Frank Tipler) have gone so far as to argue that we are completely alone—a proposition which can never be proved, but only disproved. (Wasn’t it Pogo who said “Either way, it’s a staggering thought”?)

  Of course, hostile and malevolent aliens make for much more exciting stories than benevolent ones. Moreover, the Things You Wouldn’t Like to Meet of the 1950s and 1960s, as has often been pointed out, were reflections of the paranoia at that time, particularly in the United States. Now the Cold War has, hopefully, given way to the Tepid Truce, we may look at the skies with less apprehension.

  For we have already met Darth Vader—and he is us.

  The concussion of the last atom bomb still seemed to linger as the lights came on again. For a long time, no one moved. Then the assistant producer said innocently: “Well, R.B., what do you think of it?”

  R.B. heaved himself out of his seat while his acolytes waited to see which way the cat would jump. It was then that they noticed that R.B.’s cigar had gone out. Why, that hadn’t happened even at the preview of “G.W.T.W.”!

  “Boys,” he said ecstatically, “we’ve got something here! How much did you say it cost, Mike?”

  “Six and a half million, R.B.”

  “It was cheap at the price. Let me tell you, I’ll eat every foot of it if the gross doesn’t beat Quo Vadis.” He wheeled, as swiftly as could be expected for one of his bulk, upon a small man still crouched in his seat at the back of the projection room. “Snap out of it, Joe! The Earth’s saved! You’ve seen all these space films. How does this line up with the earlier ones?”

  Joe came to with an obvious effort.

  “There’s no comparison,” he said. “It’s got all the suspence of The Thing, without that awful letdown at the end when you saw the monster was human. The only picture that comes within miles of it is War of the Worlds. Some of the effects in that were nearly as good as ours, but of course George Pal didn’t have 3-D. And that sure makes a difference! When the Golden Gate bridge went down, I thought that pier was going to hit me!”

  “The bit I liked best,” put in Tony Auerbach from Publicity, “was when the Empire State Building split right up the middle. You don’t suppose the owners might sue us, though?”

  “Of course not. No one expects any building to stand up to—what did the script call them?—city busters. And, after all, we wiped out of the rest of New York as well. Ugh—that scene in the Holland Tunnel when the roof gave way! Next time, I’ll take the ferry!”

  “Yes, that was very well done—almost too well done. But what really got me was those creatures from space. The animation was perfect—how did you do it, Mike?”

  “Trade secret,” said the p
roud producer. “Still, I’ll let you in on it. A lot of that stuff is genuine.”

  “What!”

  “Oh, don’t get me wrong! We haven’t been on location to Sirius B. But they’ve developed a microcamera over at Cal Tech, and we used that to film spiders in action. We cut in the best shots, and I think you’d have a job telling which was micro and which was the full-sized studio stuff. Now you understand why I wanted the Aliens to be insects, and not octopuses, like the script said first.”

  “There’s a good publicity angle here,” said Tony. “One thing worries me, though. That scene where the monsters kidnap Gloria. Do you suppose the censor . . . I mean the way we’ve done it, it almost looks . . .”

  “Aw, quit worrying! That’s what people are supposed to think! Anyway, we make it clear in the next reel that they really want her for dissection, so that’s all right.”

  “It’ll be a riot!” gloated R.B., a faraway gleam in his eye as if he was already hearing the avalanche of dollars pouring into the box office. “Look—we’ll put another million into publicity! I can just see the posters—get all this down, Tony. WATCH THE SKY! THE SIRIANS ARE COMING! And we’ll make thousands of clockwork models—can’t you imagine them scuttling around on their hairy legs! People love to be scared, and we’ll scare them. By the time we’ve finished, no one will be able to look at the sky without getting the creeps! I leave it to you, boys—this picture is going to make history!”

  He was right. Monsters from Space hit the public two months later. Within a week of the simultaneous London and New York premières, there could have been no one in the western world who had not seen the posters screaming EARTH BEWARE! or had not shuddered at the photographs of the hairy horrors stalking along deserted Fifth Avenue on their thin, many-jointed legs. Blimps cleverly disguised as spaceships cruised across the skies, to the vast confusion of pilots who encountered them, and clockwork models of the Alien invaders were everywhere, scaring old ladies out of their wits.

  The publicity campaign was brilliant, and the picture would undoubtedly have run for months had it not been for a coincidence as disastrous as it was unforeseeable. While the number of people fainting at each performance was still news, the skies of Earth filled suddenly with long, lean shadows sliding swiftly through the clouds. . . .

  Prince Zervashni was good-natured but inclined to be impetuous—a well-known failing of his race. There was no reason to suppose that his present mission, that of making peaceful contact with the planet Earth, would present any particular problems. The correct technique of approach had been thoroughly worked out over many thousands of years, as the Third Galactic Empire slowly expanded its frontiers, absorbing planet after planet, sun upon sun. There was seldom any trouble: really intelligent races can always co-operate, once they have got over the initial shock of learning that they are not alone in the universe.

  It was true that humanity had emerged from its primitive, warlike stage only within the last generation. This, however, did not worry Prince Zervashni’s chief adviser, Sigisnin II, Professor of Astropolitics.

  “It’s a perfectly typical Class E culture,” said the professor. “Technically advanced, morally rather backward. However, they are already used to the conception of space flight, and will soon take us for granted. The normal precautions will be sufficient until we have won their confidence.”

  “Very well,” said the prince. “Tell the envoys to leave at once.”

  It was unfortunate that the “normal precautions” did not allow for Tony Auerbach’s publicity campaign, which had now reached new heights of interplanetary xenophobia. The ambassadors landed in New York’s Central Park on the very day that a prominent astronomer, unusually hard up and therefore amenable to influence, announced in a widely reported interview that any visitors from space probably would be unfriendly.

  The luckless ambassadors, heading for the United Nations Building, had got as far south as 60th Street when they met the mob. The encounter was very one-sided, and the scientists at the Museum of Natural History were most annoyed that there was so little left for them to examine.

  Prince Zervashni tried once more, on the other side of the planet, but the news had got there first. This time the ambassadors were armed, and gave a good account of themselves before they were overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Even so, it was not until the rocket bombs started climbing up toward his fleet that the prince finally lost his temper and decided to take drastic action.

  It was all over in twenty minutes, and was really quite painless. Then the prince turned to his adviser and said, with considerable understatement: “That appears to be that. And now—can you tell me exactly what went wrong?”

  Sigisnin II knitted his dozen flexible fingers together in acute anguish. It was not only the spectacle of the neatly disinfected Earth that distressed him, though to a scientist the destruction of such a beautiful specimen is always a major tragedy. At least equally upsetting was the demolition of his theories and, with them, his reputation.

  “I just don’t understand it!” he lamented. “Of course, races at this level of culture are often suspicious and nervous when contact is first made. But they’d never had visitors before, so there was no reason for them to be hostile.”

  “Hostile! They were demons! I think they were all insane.” The prince turned to his captain, a tripedal creature who looked rather like a ball of wool balanced on three knitting needles.

  “Is the fleet reassembled?”

  “Yes, Sire.”

  “Then we will return to Base at optimum speed. This planet depresses me.”

  On the dead and silent Earth, the posters still screamed their warnings from a thousand hoardings. The malevolent insectile shapes shown pouring from the skies bore no resemblance at all to Prince Zervashni, who apart from his four eyes might have been mistaken for a panda with purple fur—and who, moreover, had come from Rigel, not Sirius.

  But, of course, it was now much too late to point this out.

  The Other Tiger

  Introduction

  I had almost forgotten this story until Byron Preiss disinterred it—I did not even have a copy, and never reprinted it in any of my various collections.

  It was written in January 1951 and published in the first issue of Fantastic Universe, a magazine which appeared from 1953 to 1960 and which the invaluable Science Fiction Encyclopaedia neatly categorizes as “the poor man’s Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.” My original title was “Refutation” but editor Sam Merwin changed it to “The Other Tiger.” This would probably have been meaningless even then to most British readers; for that matter, how many of his own countrymen now remember Frank Stockton’s classic short story “The Lady or the Tiger”?

  On rereading my own variant after more than thirty years, I’m not quite certain why I failed to include it in the Clarke canon. It may have been because it scares me.

  It scares me even more today, for reasons I will explain after you’ve had a chance of reading it yourself. . .

  “It’s an interesting theory,” said Arnold, “but I don’t see how you can ever prove it.” They had come to the steepest part of the hill and for a moment Webb was too breathless to reply.

  “I’m not trying to,” he said when he had gained his second wind. “I’m only exploring its consequences.”

  “Such as?”

  “Well, let’s be perfectly logical and see where it gets us. Our only assumption, remember, is that the universe is infinite.”

  “Right. Personally I don’t see what else it can be.”

  “Very well. That means there must be an infinite number of stars and planets. Therefore, by the laws of chance, every possible event must occur not merely once but an infinite number of times. Correct?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Then there must be an infinite number of worlds exactly like Earth, each with an Arnold and Webb on it, walking up this hill just as we are doing now, saying these same words.”

  “That’s pretty har
d to swallow.”

  “I know it’s a staggering thought—but so is infinity. The thing that interests me, though, is the idea of all those other Earths that aren’t exactly the same as this one. The Earths where Hitler won the War and the Swastika flies over Buckingham Palace—the Earths where Columbus never discovered America—the Earths where the Roman Empire has lasted to this day. In fact the Earths where all the great if’s of history had different answers.”

  “Going right back to the beginning, I suppose, to the one in which the ape-man who would have been the daddy of us all, broke his neck before he could have any children?”

  “That’s the idea. But let’s stick to the worlds we know—the worlds containing us climbing this hill on this spring afternoon. Think of all our reflections on those millions of other planets. Some of them are exactly the same but every possible variation that doesn’t violate the laws of logic must also exist.

  “We could—we must—be wearing every conceivable sort of clothes—and no clothes at all. The Sun’s shining here but on countless billions of those other Earths it’s not. On many it’s winter or summer here instead of spring. But let’s consider more fundamental changes too.

  “We intend to walk up this hill and down the other side. Yet think of all the things that might possibly happen to us in the next few minutes. However improbable they may be, as long as they are possible, then somewhere they’ve got to happen.”

  “I see,” said Arnold slowly, absorbing the idea with obvious reluctance. An expression of mild discomfort crossed his features. “Then somewhere, I suppose, you will fall dead with heart failure when you’ve taken your next step.”

  “Not in this world.” Webb laughed. “I’ve already refuted it. Perhaps you’re going to be the unlucky one.”

  “Or perhaps,” said Arnold, “I’ll get fed up with the whole conversation, pull out a gun and shoot you.”