Invaders of Earth

by Groff Conklin

  “But—” began Bell.

  “You can return it out of the profits when they come in,” said Grahame quickly, anticipating the objection.

  “Well—thanks.”

  “Your clothes will take at least another ten minutes. Perhaps you can spare me time to air a little fancy of mine?”

  “Go ahead, Mick. But don’t let it run away with you—about Mars, is it? You think we were visited by Martians in 1908?”

  “Perhaps we were. Suppose we were. Suppose they had another try and pulled it off. Suppose they landed tomorrow. What kind of reception do you think they’d get?”

  “Depends what kind of mood they were in and what they looked like,” said Bell. “If they were mean, like Wells’s things, and started flashing heat rays around, I guess they’d soon be nothing but another uranium-made hole in the ground. Unless they had bigger and better bombs than we.

  “If they were offensive but still looked like Wells’s things, they’d probably end up in a zoo. If they were halfway human, I suppose they’d be feted and asked to say a few words over the radio. But I doubt whether they’d be allowed to colonize.”

  “That’s it, Stan. You reflect the current outlook exactly. You see it in terms of power. Two different races, and one’s got to get on top of the other. That’s the mental sickness my book analyzes. The power complex.”

  “That’s not new.”

  “No. Far from new. It goes back to the old tribal fear of the stranger. The intolerance of the difference. Everyone wants everyone else to accept his creed, to be like himself, thus harmless to him. This craving for security, for protection against the different, won’t give tolerance and common sense a chance.

  “It’s the philosophy of dialectic materialism, and people are acting on it more and more, whether they’re Marxists or hate Karl’s insides, or have simply never heard of him. But all this and much more is in my book.”

  “O.K., I’ll read it religiously and let you know my views,” said Bell. “But I don’t want to get into a discussion now.”

  “All right. I just want to make my point. That is, if the Martians came and stayed for any length of time, there would inevitably arise a state of tension and probably conflict between them and Man. Because —and especially if the Martians were a superior race—this increasing fear of the different would pump suspicion into a frenzy in men’s minds.”

  “Surely, if the Martians were more civilized than we, they’d first send missionaries to educate us out of our lowly state,” said Bell. “After all, we sent missionaries to Africa and the South Seas to help the natives out.”

  “And fine juicy steaks the missionaries made until the white man turned up in force, complete with guns, to show said natives who was really top dog.

  “Can you imagine proud, intolerant Man, lord of this planet, content to play second fiddle to a crowd of intruding Martians and permitting himself to be bossed around by them? No. He’d soon turn them into juicy steaks. Unless they also had a power complex and slapped his ears down first.”

  “I see. You think that’s the reason why the Martians have never visited us?”

  “No. I think they have visited us.”

  “You mean they tried to in 1908?”

  “Doggone, no,” said Grahame, stubbing out his cigar. “That was a meteorite and nothing else, despite ‘Soviet Science.’ I mean long before that.”

  “Prehistory?”

  “No. In recorded history.”

  “But they’re not recorded!” said Bell.

  “They are. I believe they landed here unseen, went around observing us unseen, and left missionaries to educate us unseen.”

  “Why unseen? How unseen?”

  “Why? Because they didn’t want to become steaks. How? How do bird and animal watchers observe unseen? They try to make themselves look like part of the landscape. Which is only a substitute for making themselves look like part of the life they’re observing.

  “Some of the top deerstalkers actually get themselves up like deer. Those who first studied the Arabs dressed as Arabs, moved among Arabs, and passed for Arabs—even in the sacred enclosure of the Kaaba, where non-Mohammedans were forbidden on pain of death.”

  “You mean,” said Bell slowly, “you think Martians have been moving among us, disguised in some crazy way as human beings? Observing us—and educating us?”

  “Yes,” said Grahame. “Who are the teachers of mankind?”

  “I—er—” hesitated Bell and veered off anxiously, “You haven’t put this nutty idea in the book, have you?”

  “No. I said this was a fancy of mine.”

  “Good!” said Bell with relief. “Well, I guess you could say the teachers of mankind are the originals, our really great poets, artists, composers, engineers, scientific men, and so forth. The creators of all this.”

  And he imitated Grahame’s circular gesture at the books and objets d’art in the room.

  “Exactly. They’re the missionaries from Mars. They set the standard. And the rest of mankind tries to reach it when they can turn their thoughts now and again from war making.”

  “There must have been droves of missionaries coming and going through the ages, then,” said Bell.

  “Perhaps not so many as you may think. I visualize these people changing their roles, their bodies, sometimes even their subjects over the years to avoid monotony. Being born again—reincarnated. Though perhaps the change-over is gradual. I mean, as life fades out of one body through senile decay, it flourishes gradually in the new body in the form of the child.”

  Bell regarded the speaker doubtfully. “Think my clothes are dry now,” he said and went and got them. He started dressing himself.

  “ ‘Intimations of Immortality,’ “ murmured Grahame lazily as if meditating aloud. “Wordsworth died in 1850. Robert Louis Stevenson was born in 1850.”

  “What of it?”

  “Byron died in 1824. He was a restless sort. Supposing he wanted to be one of the great physicists for a change? Lord Kelvin was born in 1824.

  “Shelley died in 1822. Pasteur was born in 1822. Titian died in 1576, and Robert Burton, of the famous Anatomy of Melancholy, was born in 1576. In 1809, Haydn, the father of the symphony, died—and Abe Lincoln was born. In 1828 Schubert died, Tolstoi was born.”

  Bell fought with his twisted suspenders and said nothing.

  “The Martian who played Voltaire from 1694 to 1778 and Sir Humphry Davy, who gave the miners the safety lamp, for one thing, from 1778 to 1829, and Rubinstein from 1829 to 1894 must have had some fun,” mused Grahame.

  “And where did he go in 1894?” asked Bell gruffly.

  Grahame smiled. “Maybe he went back to Mars on furlough.”

  “In an organized party, perhaps?” Bell tried to make it sound like levity, but underneath was uneasiness about the way Grahame was talking. Grahame had always been common sense personified. But this fantastic stuff ... if it was meant as a joke it wasn’t particularly funny.

  And if Grahame were half serious it made one wonder whether the psychiatrist wouldn’t soon need a psychiatrist—and whether The Whole Man were really valuable literary property or only something of like quality.

  “I doubt whether there were enough of them to make up parties,” said Grahame, still smiling. “But there might have been pals who went in pairs. For instance, two great composers, like Liszt and Berlioz, who both died in 1867. Or two great writers, like Mark Twain and Tolstoi, who both died in 1910.

  “And the two men who knew more about the soul of humanity than all the others, Cervantes and Shakespeare, both died on the same day— April 23, 1616. On the other hand, Wordsworth and Beethoven were born in the same year, 1770.”

  “I never could remember dates,” said Bell, tying his shoelaces.

  “I’m not very good at them myself—these are only odd ones that occur to me,” said Grahame carelessly. “But there’s one series I know quite well. I’ll write it down for you.”

  “Oh, don’t trouble,�
� said Bell, now fully dressed and brushing his coat. But Grahame scribbled a list on the back of an old envelope and held it out to him. Bell took it.

  “That—” began Grahame, and was interrupted by the telephone. At the sudden loud tintinnabulation, Bell’s stomach seemed to contract to a little lump of pain.

  “That may be for me,” he said, and licked dry lips.

  “It is,” said Grahame, who had answered it, holding it out to him. Bell found he was reaching for it with the hand that still clutched the list. He thrust the list impatiently in his pocket and took the phone.

  “Hello.”

  Bess said, “It’s started. Sooner than we expected. Don’t worry. It’ll be some time yet. I’m all packed. The taxi you come back in can take us to the hospital.”

  “Right. I’m leaving straight away. Make yourself comfortable, pet. Won’t be long. ‘By.”

  He dialed the number of a cab rank. When the cab was ordered, he gulped the neat Scotch the understanding Grahame had placed silently at his elbow.

  “Thanks. It would happen the one evening I left her. I could murder you, Mick! However, I’ve no time now.”

  He snatched his hat.

  “Take the book,” said Grahame quickly. “Please!”

  There was a note in his voice that made Bell, for all his haste, pause to look at him. Grahame was on his feet, a massive figure, standing plumb in the center of his beautiful room, and his attitude was tense entreaty. Never before had Bell seen Grahame show evidence of wanting anything, a favor least of all. Somehow, it moved him.

  “Sure, sure,” he muttered. “Can’t stop to wrap it, though. Can I borrow the folder?”

  “You can keep it,” said Grahame.

  Bell thrust folder and manuscript under his arm.

  Grahame relaxed. He even smiled.

  “Don’t worry about Bess,” he said. “It’ll turn out all right. I’d come with you but I’m booked for that train.”

  “That’s all right,” said Bell, and they shook hands. “Hope the tour’s a hit. When you’re back I’ll be seeing you.”

  “Yes,” said Grahame, and there passed in his eyes an amused twinkle which Bell was to remember.

  ~ * ~

  The rain had stopped.

  As the taxi bore him down the avenue, Bell glanced back through the little rear window at the apartment house. Lighted windows staggered up its tall dark sides to the penthouse, shaped against the night sky. There was a break in the clouds above it, a handful of dim stars just visible.

  It was a glimpse into the infinite that one rarely obtained in New York.

  And somehow, suddenly, Grahame’s fancy about the missionaries from out there seemed—possible. When one was moving, trembling, toward the eternal mystery of the birth of a new part of one’s own self— especially if it was your first child and you were the apprehensive sort and you were mad about your wife—then in that borderland of uncertainty and the unprecedented almost anything seemed possible.

  He came back to the flat as the shadows were long in the early morning light.

  He had a shave and a lonely breakfast. It didn’t seem right without Bess at the other side of the little table.

  But he was immensely relieved. Things had gone swell. Bess was fine —and he was a father—of a son. Pride glowed steadily within him, as though he were due the credit for arranging everything.

  On another morning, the mail’s reminder of his precarious business would have worried him.

  Now it didn’t seem to matter. He even took up the newspaper and glanced over the headlines with a light heart.

  Two minutes later he saw an item which knocked all the cheerfulness out of him, which impelled him to push his plate away, to rest his head in his hands, all his appetite gone.

  At a quarter after midnight last night, the cab taking the well-known psychiatrist and author, Michael Grahame, to Grand Central Station had crashed into a streetcar. Grahame had been killed outright.

  And Bell, in his empty flat, felt great gulfs of loneliness opening up all around him. The rock of Grahame was gone overnight. And Bess was not here to comfort him. Not that he thought it wise to tell her about Grahame yet.

  She was still weak. And she had liked Grahame.

  But she had nothing like his own love and hero worship for the man. He recalled his brusque impatience with Mick a few hours back and wished that he’d been more gracious.

  He felt a mixture of grief and self-pity. The glory of his fatherhood was somewhat dimmed.

  At midday he went to see her again, bearing orchids he couldn’t afford.

  His son was asleep in the little cot at her bedside.

  Bess said, “Well, there he is. Half a day old already. It’s just twelve hours since he arrived.”

  Bell glanced at his watch—12:15.

  “That’s right,” he said. “I ought to know. Shall I ever forget!”

  They laughed. But his laughter died before hers because he remembered something: Mick was killed at the same time that their son was born.

  Exactly!

  Bess sensed his sudden change of mood.

  “What’s the matter, love?”

  He didn’t answer. He was fumbling in his pocket.

  He drew out the crumpled old envelope Mick had given him and, for the first time, read what his friend had written.

  Then he dropped the envelope on the bed and got up to stare unseeing out of the window.

  Mick had been forty-four—born in 1904.

  Then, as he gazed at the noonday shimmer, his doubts and uncertainties fell away from him. He knew a confidence that he had never known before.

  The Whole Man would be all Mick said it would be.

  It would make Bell’s fortune and lift Grahame’s name into the ranks of the great. And there was every chance that it would do what it was primarily designed to do—set mankind’s feet firmly on the true path of deliverance.

  Best of all, to him, Mick was with him, would always be with him.

  Bess looked at him puzzledly, then picked up the envelope.

  Her expression of perplexity only deepened as she read.

  “What’s it mean, darling?”

  He came back, took the envelope, folded it carefully into his wallet.

  “Just some notes Mick gave me.”

  “Oh,” she said, “that reminds me. Has it struck you—the boy looks rather like Mick? Don’t you think there’s something of Mick in him?”

  He turned bright eyes on the little red, wrinkled face in the cot.

  “Yes,” he said, quietly, “I’m sure there’s quite a lot of Mick in him.”

  <>

  ~ * ~

  Donald Wollheim

  STORM WARNING

  This remarkably circumstantial description of how a piece of Alien Weather once tried to take over the Earth is reprinted here with special pleasure, since it is by the man who edited the first science-fiction anthology ever published, The Pocket Book of Science Fiction (1943). Mr. Wollheim, who published this story originally under the pseudonym of “Millard Verne Gordon,” is now the Editor of Avon Publishing Company.

  ~ * ~

  WE HAD no indication of the odd business that was going to happen. The boys at the Weather Bureau still think they had all the fun. They think that being out in it wasn’t as good as sitting in the station watching it all come about. Only there’s some things they’ll never understand about the weather, some things I think Ed and I alone will know. We were in the middle of it all. % v

  We were riding out of Rock Springs at sunrise on a three-day leave, but the Chief Meteorologist had asked us to take the night shift until then. It was just as well, for the Bureau was on the edge of the desert and we had our duffel and horses tethered outside. The meteor fall of two days before came as a marvelous excuse to go out into the badlands of the Great Divide Basin. I’ve always liked to ride out in the glorious, wide, empty Wyoming land, and any excuse to spend three days out there was good.

  Free a
lso from the routine and monotony of the Weather Bureau as well. Of course, I like the work, but still the open air and the open spaces must be bred in the blood of all of us born and raised out there in the West. I know it’s tame and civilized today, but even so, to jog along with a haphazard sort of prospector’s aim was really fine.

  Aim was, of course, to try to locate fragments of the big meteor that had landed out there two nights before. Lots of people had seen it, myself for one, because I happened to be out on the roof taking readings. There had been a brilliant streak of blue-white across the northern sky and a sharp flash way off, like an explosion. I understand that folks in Superior claim to have felt a jolt, as if something big had smashed up out there in the trackless dust and dunes between Mud Lake, Morrow Creek, and the town. That’s quite a lot of empty territory, and Ed and I had about as much chance of finding the meteor as the well-known needle in the haystack. But it was a swell excuse.