“Fiddle!” Mrs. Chriswell dared not face Clara without the hat. Still hanging on to the bulky purse, she got up to give chase. Rounding the tangle of bushes, she ran smack into a tall young man in uniform.
“Oh!” Mrs. Chriswell said. “Have you seen my hat?”
The young man smiled and pointed on down the hill. Airs. Chriswell was surprised to see her hat being passed from hand to hand among three other tall young men in uniform. They were laughing at it, and she didn’t much blame them. They were standing beside a low, silvery aircraft of some unusual design. Mrs. Chriswell studied it a moment, but, really, she knew nothing about such things… The sun glinted off it, and she realized this was what she had thought was water. The young man beside her touched her arm. She turned towards him and saw that he had put a rather lovely little metal hat on his head. He offered her one with grave courtesy. Mrs. Chriswell smiled up at him and nodded. The young man fitted the hat carefully, adjusting various little ornamental knobs on the top of it.
“Now we can talk,” he said. “Do you hear well?”
“My dear boy,” Mrs. Chriswell said, “of course I do. I’m not so old as all that.” She found a smooth stone and sat down to chat. This was much nicer than birdwatching, or even crochet.
The tall young man grinned and signalled excitedly to his companions. They too put on little metal hats and came bounding up the hill. Still laughing, they deposited the cartwheel in Mrs. Chriswell’s lap. She patted the stone by way of invitation, and the youngest looking one of the four dropped down beside her.
“What is your name, Mother?” he asked.
“Ida Chriswell,” she said. “What’s yours?”
“My name is Jord,” the boy said.
Mrs. Chriswell patted his hand. “That’s a nice, unusual name.” The boy grabbed Mrs. Chriswell’s hand and rubbed it against the smoothness of his cheek.
“You are like my Mother’s Mother,” the boy explained, “whom I have not seen in too long.” The other young men laughed, and the boy looked abashed and stealthily wiped with his hands at a tear that slid down his nose.
Mrs. Chriswell frowned warningly at the laughter and handed him her clean pocket handkerchief, scented with lavender. Jord turned it over and over in his hands, and then tentatively sniffed at it.
“It’s all right,” Mrs. Chriswell said. “Use it. I have another.” But Jord only breathed more deeply of the faint perfume in its folds.
“This is only the thinnest thread of melody,” he said, “but, Mother Ida, it is very like one note from the Harmony Hills of home!” He passed the handkerchief all around the circle, and the young men sniffed at it and smiled.
Mrs. Chriswell tried to remember if she had ever read of the Harmony Hills, but Mr. Chriswell had always told her she was lamentably weak in geography, and she supposed that this was one of her blank spots, like where on earth was Timbuktu? Or the Hellandgone people were always talking about? But it was rude not to make some comment. Wars shifted people about such a lot, and these boys must be homesick and weary of being strangers, longing to talk of home. She was proud of herself for realizing that they were strangers. But there was something… Hard to say, really. The way they had bounded up the hill? Mountain people, perhaps, to whom hills were mere springboards to heights beyond.
“Tell me about your hills,” she said.
“Wait,” Jord said. “I will show vou.” He glanced at his leader as if for approval. The young man who had fitted her hat nodded. Jord drew a fingernail across the breast of his uniform. Mrs. Chriswell was surprised to see a pocket opening where no pocket had been before. Really, the Air Force did amazing things with its uniforms, though, frankly. Mrs. Chriswell thought the cut of these a bit extreme.
Carefully, Jord was lifting out a packet of gossamer material. He gently pressed the centre of the packet and it blossomed out into voluminous clouds of featherweight threads, held loosely together in a wave like a giant spider web. To Mrs. Chriswell’s eyes the mesh of threads was the colour of fog, and almost as insubstantial.
“Do not be afraid,” Jord said softly, stepping closer to her. “Bend your head, close your eyes, and you shall hear the lovely Harmony Hills of home.”
There was one quick-drawn breath of almost-fear, but before she shut her eyes Mrs. Chriswell saw the love in Jord’s, and in that moment she knew how rarely she had seen this look, anywhere… anytime. If Jord had asked it of her, it was all right. She closed her eyes and bowed her head, and in that attitude of prayer she felt a soft weightlessness descend upon her. It was as if twilight had come down to drape itself on her shoulders. And then the music began. Behind the darkness of her eyes it rose in majesty and power, in colours she had never seen, never guessed. It blossomed like flowers - giant forests of them. Their scents were intoxicating and filled her with joy. She could not tell if the blending perfumes made the music, or if the music itself created the flowers and the perfumes that poured forth from them. She did not care. She wanted only to go on forever listening to all this colour. It seemed odd to be listening to colour, perhaps, but after all, she told herself, it would seem just as odd to me to see it.
She sat blinking at the circle of young men. The music was finished. Jord was putting away the gossamer threads in the secret pocket, and laughing aloud at her astonishment.
“Did you like it, Mother Ida?” He dropped down beside her again and patted her wrinkled face, still pink with excitement.
“Oh, Jord,” she said, “how lovely… Tell me…”
But the leader was calling them all to order. “I’m sorry, Mother Ida, we must hurry about our business. Will you answer some questions? It is very important.”
“Of course,” Mrs. Chriswell said. She was still feeling a bit dazed.
“If I can… If it’s like the quizzes on the TV, though, I’m not very good at it.”
The young man shook his head. “We,” he said, “have been instructed to investigate and report on the true conditions of this… of the world.” He pointed at the aircraft glittering in the sunlight. “We have travelled all around in that slow machine, and our observations have been accurate…” He hesitated, drew a deep breath and continued. “… and perhaps we shall be forced to give an unfavourable report, but this depends a great deal on the outcome of our talk with you. We are glad you stumbled upon us. We were about to set out on a foray to secure some individual for questioning. It is our last task.” He smiled. “And Jord, here, will not be sorry. He is sick for home and loved ones.” He sighed, and all the other young men echoed the sigh.
“Every night,” Mrs. Chriswell said, “I pray for peace on earth. I cannot bear to think of boys like you fighting and dying, and the folks at home waiting and waiting…” She glanced all around at their listening faces. “And I’ll tell you something else,” she said, “I find I can’t really hate anybody, even the enemy.” Around the circle the young men nodded at each other. “Now ask me your questions.” She fumbled in her purse for her crochet work and found it.
Beside her Jord exclaimed with pleasure at the sight of the half-finished doily. Mrs. Chriswell warmed to him even more.
The tall young man began his grave questioning. They were very simple questions, and Mrs. Chriswell answered them without hesitation. Did she believe in God? Did she believe in the dignity of man? Did she truly abhor war? Did she believe that man was capable of love for his neighbour? The questions went on and on, and Mrs. Chriswell crocheted while she gave her answers.
At last, when the young man had quite run out of questions, and Mrs. Chriswell had finished the doily, Jord broke the sun-lazy silence that had fallen upon them.
“May I have it, Mother?” He pointed to the doily. Mrs. Chriswell bestowed it upon him with great pleasure, and Jord, like a very small boy, stuffed it greedily into another secret pocket. He pointed at her stuffed purse.
“May I look, Mother?”
Mrs. Chriswell indulgently passed him her purse. He opened it and poured the litter of contents on the gr
ound between them. The snapshots of Mrs. Chriswell’s grandchildren stared up at him. Jord smiled at the pretty little-girl faces He groped in the chest pocket and drew out snapshots of his own. “These,” he told Mrs. Chriswell proudly, “are my little sisters. Are they not like these little girls of yours? Let us exchange, because soon I will be at home with them, and there will be no need for pictures. I would like to have yours.”
Mrs. Chriswell would have given Jord the entire contents of the purse if he had asked for them. She took the snapshots he offered and looked with pleasure at the sweet-faced children. Jord still stirred at the pile of possessions from Mrs. Chriswell’s purse. By the time she was ready to leave he had talked her out of three illustrated recipes torn from magazines, some swatches of material, and two pieces of peppermint candy.
The young man who was the leader helped her to remove the pretty little hat when Mrs. Chriswell indicated he should. She would have liked to keep it, but she didn’t believe Clara would approve. She clapped the straw monstrosity on her head, kissed Jord’s cheek, waved goodbye to the rest, and groped her way around the berry bushes. She had to grope because her eyes were tear-filled. They had saluted her so grandly as she left.
~ * ~
Clara’s usually sedate household was in an uproar when Mrs. Chriswell returned. All the radios in the house were blaring. Even Clara sat huddled over the one in the library. Mrs. Chriswell heard a boy in the street crying “EXTRA! EXTRA!” and the upstairs maid almost knocked her down getting out the front door to buy one. Mrs. Chriswell, sleepy and somewhat sunburned, supposed it was something about the awful war.
She was just turning up the stairs to her room when the snooty nursemaid came rushing down to disappear kitchenwards with another newspaper in her hand. Good, the children were alone. She’d stop in to see them. Suddenly she heard the raised voices from the back of the house. The cook was yelling at somebody. “I tell you, I saw it! I took out some garbage and there it was, right over me!” Mrs. Chriswell lingered at the foot of the stairway puzzled by all the confusion. The housemaid came rushing in with the extra edition. Mrs. Chriswell quietly reached out and took it. “Thank you, Nadine,” she said. The nursemaid was still staring at her as she climbed the stairs.
Edna and Evelyn were sitting on the nursery floor, a candy box between them, and shrieking at each other when their grandmother opened the door. They were cramming chocolates into their mouths between shrieks. Their faces and pinafores were smeared with the candy. Edna suddenly yanked Evelyn’s hair, hard. “Pig!” she shouted. “You got three more than I did!”
“Children! Children! Not fighting?” Mrs. Chriswell was delighted. Here was something she could cope with. She led them firmly to the bathroom and washed their faces. “Change your frocks,” she said, “and I’ll tell you my adventure.”
There were only hissing accusals and whispered countercharges behind her as she turned her back on the children to scan the newspaper. The headlines leapt up at her.
Mysterious broadcast interrupts programmes on all wave lengths
Unknown woman saves world, say men from space
One sane human found on earth
Cooking, needlework, home, religious interests sway space judges
Every column of the paper was crowded with the same unintelligible nonsense. Mrs. Chriswell folded it neatly, deposited it on the table, and turned to tie her grandaughters’ sashes and tell her adventure.
“… And then he gave me some lovely photographs. In colour, he said… Good little girls, just like Edna and Evelyn. Would you like to see them?”
Edna made a rude noise with her mouth pursed. Evelyn’s face grew saintlike in retaliation. “Yes, show us,” she said.
Mrs. Chriswell passed them the snapshots, and the children drew close together for the moment before Evelyn dropped the pictures as if they were blazing. She stared hard at her grandmother while Edna made a gagging noise.
“Green!” Edna gurgled. “Gaaa… green skins!”
“Grandmother!” Evelyn was tearful. “Those children are frog-coloured!”
Mrs. Chriswell bent over to pick up the pictures. “Now, now, children,” she murmured absently. “We don’t worry about the colour of people’s skins. Red… yellow… black… we’re all God’s children. Asia or Africa, makes no difference…” But before she could finish her thought, the nursemaid loomed disapprovingly in the doorway. Mrs. Chriswell hurried out to her own room, while some tiny worry nagged at her mind. “Red, yellow, black, white,” she murmured over and over, “and brown… but green… ?” Geography had always been her weak point. Green… Now where on earth… ?
<
~ * ~
Fredric Brown
THE WAVERIES
Take a deep breath, shake yourself vigorously a couple of times, and try to imagine, before you begin this story, what the “Waveries” might be. Ten thousand to one you won’t be able to!
Certainly, this is one of the most unique invasion stories of the last couple of decades. There have been two or three others that have more or less played around with the same general idea, but none which carried it relentlessly through to its ultimate consequence—the complete “conquest’ of humanity.
The “conquest,” however, is far from malign. Perhaps we could use some Waveries in actuality, for the end result of their activity might force us to greater self-reliance, relaxation from tension, and a return to some of the less mechanized pleasures that our grandparents knew.
~ * ~
Definitions from the school-abridged Webster-Hamlin Dictionary 1998 edition:
wavery (WĀ-ver-ĭ) n. a vader—slang
vader (VĀ-dêr) n. inorgan of the class Radio
inorgan (ĭn-OR-găn) n. noncorporeal ens, a vader
radio (RĀ-dĭ-ōh) n. 1. Class of inorgans 2. Etheric frequency between light
and electricity 3. (obsolete) Method of communication used up to 1977
~ * ~
The opening guns of invasion were not at all loud, although they were heard by millions of people. George Bailey was one of the millions. I choose George Bailey because he was the only one who came within a googol of light-years of guessing what they were.
George Bailey was drunk and under the circumstances one can’t blame him for being so. He was listening to radio advertisements of the most nauseous kind. Not because he wanted to listen to them, I hardly need say, but because he’d been told to listen to them by his boss, J. R. McGee of the MID network.
George Bailey wrote advertising for the radio. The only thing he hated worse than advertising was radio. And here on his own time he was listening to fulsome and disgusting commercials on a rival network.
“Bailey,” J. R. McGee had said, “you should be more familiar with what others are doing. Particularly, you should be informed about those of our own accounts who use several networks. I strongly suggest . . .”
One doesn’t quarrel with an employer’s strong suggestions and keep a five hundred dollar a week job.
But one can drink whisky sours while listening. George Bailey did.
Also, between commercials, he was playing gin rummy with Maisie Hetterman, a cute little redheaded typist from the studio. It was Maisie’s apartment and Maisie’s radio (George himself, on principle, owned neither a radio nor a TV set) but George had brought the liquor.
“-only the very finest tobaccos,” said the radio, “go dit-dit-dit nation’s favorite cigarette-”
George glanced at the radio. “Marconi,” he said.
He meant Morse, naturally, but the whisky sours had muddled him a bit so his first guess was more nearly right than anyone else’s. It was Marconi, in a way. In a very peculiar way.
“Marconi?” asked Maisie.
George, who hated to talk against a radio, leaned over and switched it off.
“I meant Morse,” he said. “Morse, as in Boy Scouts or the Signal Corps. I used to be a Boy Scout once.”
“You’ve sure changed,” Maisie said.
George sighed. “Somebody’s going to catch hell, broadcasting code on that wave length.”
“What did it mean?”
“Mean? Oh, you mean what did it mean. Uh- S, the letter S. Dit-dit-dit is S. SOS is did-dit-dit dah-dah-dah dit-dit-dit.”
“O is dah-dah-dah?”
George grinned. “Say that again, Maisie. I like it. And I think you are dah-dah-dah too.”
“George, maybe it’s really an SOS message. Turn it back on.”
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