Assassin
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simply do not have the necessarybackground. Our science is based upon a completely differentphilosophy from yours."
To Matson the terms were contradictory.
"Not as much as you think," Ixtl continued imperturbably. "As you willfind out, I was speaking quite precisely." He paused and eyed Matsonthoughtfully. "It seems as though the only way to remove yourdisturbing presence is to show you that our technology is of no helpto you. I will make a bargain with you. We shall show you ourmachines, and in return you will stop harassing us. We will do all inour power to make you understand; but whether you do or do not, youwill promise to leave and allow us to continue our studies in peace.Is that agreeable?"
Matson swallowed the lump in his throat. Here it was--handed to him ona silver platter--and suddenly he wasn't sure that he wanted it!
"It is," he said. After all, it was all he could expect.
They met that night at the spaceship. The aliens, tall, calm and cool;Matson stocky, heavy-set and sweating. The contrast was infernallysharp, Matson thought. It was as if a primitive savage were meeting agroup of nuclear physicists at Los Alamos. For some unknown reason hefelt ashamed that he had forced these people to his wishes. But thealiens were pleasant about it. They took the imposition in their usualfriendly way.
"Now," Ixtl said. "Exactly what do you want to see--to know?"
"First of all, what is the principle of your space drive?"
"There are two," the alien said. "The drive that moves this ship innormal space time is derived from Lurgil's Fourth Order equationsconcerning the release of subatomic energy in a restricted space timecontinuum. Now don't protest! I know you know nothing of Lurgil, norof Fourth Order equations. And while I can show you the mathematics,I'm afraid they will be of little help. You see, our Fourth Order isbased upon a process which you would call Psychomathematics and thatis something I am sure you have not yet achieved."
Matson shook his head. "I never heard of it," he admitted.
"The second drive operates in warped space time," Ixtl continued,"hyperspace in your language, and its theory is much more difficultthan that of our normal drive, although its application is quitesimple, merely involving apposition of congruent surfaces of hyper andnormal space at stress points in the ether where high gravitationalfields balance. Navigation in hyperspace is done by electroniccomputer--somewhat more advanced models than yours. However, I can'tgive you the basis behind the hyperspace drive." Ixtl smileddepreciatingly. "You see, I don't know them myself. Only a few of themost advanced minds of Aztlan can understand. We merely operate themachines."
Matson shrugged. He had expected something like this. Now they wouldstall him off about the machines after handing him a fast line ofdouble-talk.
"As I said," Ixtl went on, "there is no basis for understanding.Still, if it will satisfy you, we will show you our machines--and themathematics that created them although I doubt that you will learnanything more from them than you have from our explanation."
"I could try," Matson said grimly.
"Very well," Ixtl replied.
He led the way into the center of the ship where the seamless housingsstood, the housings that had baffled some of the better minds ofEarth. Matson watched while the star men proceeded to be helpful. Thehousings fell apart at invisible lines of juncture, revealingmechanisms of baffling simplicity, and some things that didn't looklike machines at all. The aliens stripped the strange devices and Ixtlattempted to explain. They had anti-gravity, forcefields, faster thanlight drive, and advanced design computers that could be packed in asuitcase. There were weird devices whose components seemed to run outof sight at crazily impossible angles, other things that rotatedfrictionlessly, suspended in fields of pure force, and still otherswhich his mind could not envisage even after his eyes had seen them.All about him lay the evidence of a science so advanced and alien thathis brain shrank from the sight, refusing to believe such thingsexisted. And their math was worse! It began where Einstein left offand went off at an incomprehensible tangent that involved psychologyand ESP. Matson was lost after the first five seconds!
Stunned, uncomprehending and deflated, he left the ship. An impressionthat he was standing with his toe barely inside the door of knowledgebecame a conscious certainty as he walked slowly to his car. The wrythought crossed his mind that if the aliens were trying to convincehim of his abysmal ignorance, they had succeeded far beyond theirfondest dreams!
They certainly had! Matson thought grimly as he selected fivecartridges from the box lying beside him. In fact they had succeededtoo well. They had turned his deflation into antagonism, his ignoranceinto distrust. Like a savage, he suspected what he could notunderstand. But unlike the true primitive, the emotional distrustdidn't interfere with his ability to reason or to draw logicalinferences from the data which he accumulated. In attempting toconvince, Ixtl had oversold his case.
* * * * *
It was shortly after he had returned to Washington, that the aliensgave the waiting world the reasons for their appearance on Earth. Theywere, they said, members of a very ancient highly evolved culturecalled Aztlan. And the Aztlans, long past the need for conquest andexpansion, had turned their mighty science to the help of other, lessfortunate, races in the galaxy. The aliens were, in a sense,missionaries--one of hundreds of teams travelling the star lanes tobring the benefits of Aztlan culture to less favored worlds. Theywere, they unblushingly admitted, altruists--interested only inhelping others.
It was pure corn, Matson reflected cynically, but the world lapped itup and howled for more. After decades of cold war, lukewarm war, andsporadic outbreaks of violence, that were inevitably building toatomic destruction, men were willing to try anything that would easethe continual burden of strain and worry. To Mankind, the Aztlans'words were as refreshing as a cool breeze of hope in a desert ofdespair.
And the world got what it wanted.
Quite suddenly the aliens left the Northwest, and accompanied byprotective squads of FBI and Secret Service began to cross the nation.Taking widely separated paths they visited cities, towns, and farms,exhibiting the greatest curiosity about the workings of humancivilization. And, in turn, they were examined by hordes of hopefulhumans. Everywhere they went, they spread their message of good willand hope backed by the incredibly convincing power of their telepathicminds. Behind them, they left peace and hopeful calm; before them,anticipation mounted. It rose to a crescendo in New York where thepaths of the star men met.
The Aztlans invaded the United Nations. They spoke to the GeneralAssembly and the Security Council, were interviewed by the secretariatand reporters from a hundred foreign lands. They told their story withsuch conviction that even the Communist bloc failed to raise anobjection, which was as amazing to the majority of the delegates asthe fact of the star men themselves. Altruism, it seemed, had noconflict with dialectic materialism. The aliens offered a watered-downvariety of their technology to the peoples of Earth with no stringsattached, and the governments of Earth accepted with open hands, muchas a small boy accepts a cookie from his mother. It was impossible formen to resist the lure of something for nothing, particularly when itwas offered by such people as the Aztlans. After all, Matson reflectedbitterly, nobody shoots Santa Claus!
From every nation in the world came invitations to the aliens to visittheir lands. The star men cheerfully accepted. They moved acrossEurope, Asia, and Africa--visited South America, Central America, theMiddle East and Oceania. No country escaped them. They absorbedlanguages, learned customs, and spread good will. Everywhere they wentrelaxation followed in their footsteps, and throughout the world arosea realization of the essential brotherhood of man.
It took nearly three years of continual travelling before the aliensagain assembled at UN headquarters to begin the second part of theirpromised plan--to give their science to Earth. And men waited withcalm expectation for the dawn of Golden Age.
Matson's lips twisted. Fools! Blind, stupid fools! Selling theirbirthright for a mess of pott
age! He shifted the rifle across hisknees and began filling the magazine with cartridges. He felt an emptyloneliness as he closed the action over the filled magazine and turnedthe safety to "on". There was no comforting knowledge of support andsympathy to sustain him in what he was about to do. There was no realhope that there ever would be. His was a voice crying in thewilderness, a voice that was ignored--as it had been when he visitedthe President of the United States....
* * * * *
Matson entered the White House, presented his appointment card, andwas ushered past ice-eyed Secret Service men into the presidentialoffice. It was as close as he had ever been to the Chief Executive,and he stared with polite curiosity across the width of desk whichseparated them.
"I wanted to see you about the Aztlan business," the President