Invaders of Earth

by Groff Conklin

  “We essentially agree with Mr. Dever. Further, we suggest a marked increase for research and training in both the physical and social sciences for the next fifty years. Class 4 organisms are very unlikely to get along well with human beings who are Class 9. Neither is basically stable enough when their plans are thwarted. Contact between the two will result in frequent lapses of communication, which must end in violent collision. Eventual contact is certain. Let us arm ourselves against that day.”

  Some men need freedom and peace, for themselves and for others. They work for it all their lives. Jelfiffe was such a man, and the knowledge that he was urging preparation for war rested more heavily on him than on any of his hearers. His poise had been good and his speaking technique excellent, but his face was gray.

  Woodward rose without waiting for an introduction. “We agree in general with the findings of the other two teams, but our recommendations are quite different.”

  He paused and waited for the murmur of surprise to die down. Jelfiffe and Dever were staring at him, and the entire group waited tensely.

  “We think we have detected slight variations from the Class 4 pattern, which lead us to believe that the alien is much more rigid and inflexible than would appear from usual techniques of message analysis. We believe him to be an organism that lays long-range plans, checks them against empirical data a few times, and then must follow them through. In other words, if predictions are demonstrated valid in two or three checks, the alien is no longer structurally capable of abandoning the plan. However, if the empirical data do not fit prediction curves, the alien will withdraw from the situation and feel real emotional blockage to attacking this particular problem again.

  “Before going into the details of this, let me sketch the broad outlines of my recommendation. We let them land at a country estate we prepare. A family is there—a rather typical one—and a staff of servants. We have been going over psychographs for family and staff and submit, as recommendations, Mr. Dever for gardener, Mr. Jelfiffe and his wife as the family, myself as cook. We also have other recommendations, but this is a matter of detail.

  “In effect, then, this is a Class 4 organism with several major differences. As Mr. Dever stated, it is probably empathic and cooperative with its ingroup, rather hostile with others. It makes plans far in advance, sets up prediction curves with a margin for error, and checks those curves. If there is agreement with the data, it must follow through. Further, we believe its purpose here to be aggressive and probably exploitative in nature. There seems little chance that aliens and humans could get along together without violent clashes and probably war. We can, however, possibly turn this situation into a not unprofitable course. Now as to the details. . . .”

  ~ * ~

  The estate in Florida consisted of a large, low, rambling house built around three sides of a court. The fourth side was a lawn that sloped down to a small lake some three hundred yards away. Beyond the lake, open fields stretched for nearly two miles. Some of the fields were newly planted and beginning to grow. Cows and sheep grazed in others. One very large field, about a mile from the house, was of hard-packed earth that was torn up in several places as if small bombs had landed there. A tremendous target, with the outermost circle fifty yards in diameter, was whitewashed on the ground. A steel needle twenty feet long, with fins on the large end, lay in the target. Beyond this field the hills began.

  Behind the house were roads with a two-lane cement highway coming within a hundred yards of the house. A single-track railroad paralleled the road and had a turntable at the end nearest the house. Off to the right stood barns, stables, and servant quarters. The estate entirely filled the small but beautiful valley. It had stood for many years, and there were now no signs of the furious labor that had gone into it in the past two weeks. The army of technicians had installed their equipment, tested it, and gone home. Only a “typical family” awaited the alien’s ambassador.

  ~ * ~

  The small sphere had detached itself from the large cylinder under the close scrutiny of various cameras, spectroscopes, telescopes, and other instruments. With no evidence showing of what was keeping it up, it floated and circled slowly down to the far end of the lawn. Once there, it opened up like a flower and became a flat platform on the ground. Two beings walked off the platform, the sides of it curled up, and the reshaped sphere rose into the air and headed upward toward the cylinder.

  They had the general body shape and size of Shetland ponies. A heavy bone carapace covered the neck and back. The head had a large brain case which changed the looks of the entire face. It had a human quality which probably came from both the bulging skull and the intelligent-looking mobility of the face. A long, flexible tentacle emerging from the base of the neck lay curled passively on the carapace of each. They stood quietly on the lawn looking toward the house, obviously waiting to be received.

  Eli and Wendy Jelfiffe had come out of the house when the vehicle landed. They watched until the sphere was quite out of sight, and then Eli lifted his wrist and spoke into a small radio. Several minutes later a sleigh pulled by three oxen appeared from behind the barn. Driving it was Mr. Dever. In a few minutes Dever and the Jelfiffes had driven up to the ambassador’s and dismounted from the sleigh. Behind them the tracks made by the heavy oak runners of the sleigh stretched across the lawn. Eli Jelfiffe moved forward and spoke. “It is a pleasure to welcome you. I am Jon Parsons, and this is my wife. This is my gardener, Mr. Spencer. We have a place for you and are very glad you are staying with us. We have instructions to continue living as we normally do. You will be our guests. We have further instructions to answer no technical questions but to allow you to inspect anything on the estate. Is that satisfactory?”

  The heavier of the two aliens replied in the same formal tone, “My name is Inot and this is Kcid. We believe that the arrangement you state will be entirely acceptable. Food will be landed for us every three of your days, and we do not require to eat oftener than that.”

  Jelfiffe raised his wrist to his mouth and spoke into it, “Cook, the aliens do not require food; you may discontinue preparations.” Noticing the aliens’ eyes on him, he smiled and said, “Not knowing exactly what you ate, we were preparing a wide variety of foods for you to choose from. Our cook, Mr. Wis, was making lists of the chemical constituents of each to help you decide.” He took the reins, gestured his guests onto the broad, flat back of the sleigh, and turned the oxen back to the house.

  ~ * ~

  Although it was only late afternoon, the sky was gray and a chill had begun to creep into the air. The house was brightly lit, the tall chimneys of the kerosene lamps blazed with a warm glow. Jelfiffe showed his guests to two large, bare chambers on the ground floor. “If you will describe the furniture you would like in here, I can have it made and shipped in by rocket plane within a few hours. You can control the temperature in these rooms by means of those levers, which connect with the atomic pile we use for heating. The small wheel at the base of each kerosene lamp controls the amount of illumination it gives off.”

  Kcid, who had been fingering with his tentacle the various controls mentioned, looked up from the kerosene lamp. “Why do you not use other power than this for light?”

  Jelfiffe thought a moment. “I’m afraid that comes under the heading of technical questions. Now if you would care to look over the rest of the house ? Oh, I forgot—furniture. We can transmit the designs to the factory as fast as you make or describe them.”

  “We will need some large heavy cloths—blankets or suchlike—and you probably have enough of them here. We prefer to sleep on them rather than anything else. We would like to see the house. Tell me— we had understood most families have children. We do not mean to be personal, but do you and your wife have any, and where are they?”

  “We have two boys of nineteen and twenty-two years,” replied Jelfiffe. “Neither has been here for some time. The younger one is away at college. He should get his degree in electronics next year. The
older is serving as a mercenary abroad—as a captain in a company of lancers. If his campaign goes well, he may get a short furlough and be permitted to come here and see you. But tell me, how did you learn English?”

  Inot smiled. “Your radio waves are powerful and can be heard a good deal farther than you probably imagine. Once we figured out that you were broadcasting in several languages, we were able to analyze the most prevalent one. We could learn your language from it but get no consistent picture of your world. So many different kinds of people—so many different techniques and motivations. So we came here to learn more about you.”

  “We are glad you came and within the limits of our instructions will help you as much as we can. Now let us show you around. Then we will eat. You may watch us, rest here, look through our library, or watch our television. There are various programs, and our butler will show you how to work the set.”

  While family and servants ate together, Jelfiffe and his wife at the upper table and the servants at the lower one below the salt, the aliens wandered around the house. They watched the eating for a while, motionless through the long grace, listened to the harpist play from his. corner for a brief period, and then went into the living room. They found five channels of the television operating; one showed a film about pirates, another a First World War battle. The third showed Ben Hur, the fourth a Dr. Kildare film, and the fifth a science fantasy. In the manner typical of films, all apparently were set in the present. Occasional commercials featured such articles as electric razors, crossbows, aspirin, home permanent kits, and magic love charms.

  In the morning Jelfiffe and his wife told their guests their usual daily routine. “We generally do a little farming in the morning and sports in the afternoon, then a siesta and supper.”

  The aliens watched the routine for two weeks. Sometimes the gardener would sit on the terrace and operate the remote-controlled farming machinery while Jelfiffe sweated with scythe or hoe in the fields. Sometimes Jelfiffe would sit at the small control box while the servants worked with rake or shovel. They saw Woodward open frozen-food containers and cook the foods on a wood-burning range. Once a day the mail truck came speeding up the road, its jets leaving a long roar behind it. Every other day the supplies came in on the railroad behind the tiny, chugging steam engine that had been resurrected from the Smithsonian Institution. Sometimes, in the afternoon, Jelfiffe and his staff would dress in light mail armor and, mounted on armored horses, practice with lances at targets. The small, electric-powered planes would swoop and dive about the field while the horsemen thundered after them, occasionally catching one on the end of a spear, at which time the others would shout in triumph. On other days they would have contests with slings or simply throw stones by hand at straw-filled dummies. Other sports included skeet shooting, midget-automobile racing, fencing, discus throwing, and sailing races in small catboats on the lake.

  Several times Dever brought out small vehicles with an elaborate covered apparatus on the hood. Each had levers, dials, and a telescopic sight. One of the humans would get into each vehicle and aim the sights at the great needle lying on its target in the distant field. He would manipulate the controls, and presently the needle would rise into the air some sixty or seventy feet. It would then fall, point first, onto the target. As far as the aliens could tell, the object of the game was to drop the needle in the exact center of the target. They asked no questions about the energies used in the game, and no information was volunteered.

  Evenings, they listened to the harpist or watched groups of players put on short skits in the living room. The humans looked at television, listened to a crystal set, played chess, go, dominoes, and checkers, read, talked, and occasionally got drunk.

  At the end of the second week the two aliens suddenly announced that they had to leave and asked Jelfiffe to signal their ship. They refused to give reasons, and two hours later the sphere closed around them and slowly floated up to the cylinder. Several hours later the cylinder gathered speed and moved rapidly out into space.

  ~ * ~

  Woodward again faced the general council, Dever and Jelfiffe at each side of him. This time the atmosphere was much more cheerful. Woodward was smiling as he continued.

  “. . . It was not too difficult, once we made the analysis of the message. We were taking a terrific chance, of course, but a chance of some sort had to be taken. We were in a corner and had to do something. The fact that they left early proves we were right.

  “They had obviously been listening to our radio programs. That was the most likely way they would have learned English. The programs concern all kinds of people and all types of adventures.

  “Our best analyses were that they were rigid, somewhat hostile organisms who had probably made an analysis o£ us on the basis of our planetary conditions and our radio programs. They seemed to be making a check on their predictions when they sent us ambassadors. On the basis of our analyses, we felt that they would check their predictions once or twice and then act on them. If their predictions failed in unexpected ways, they would probably withdraw and find real emotional difficulty in reattacking the problem. This should mean, we hope, that we will not see them again until we are ready to make contact.

  “This, of course, is not ideal. Trade and information exchange would be much better. But neither race is now ready for contact; we both need more maturing. In particular, now when we are in a hopelessly inferior position scientifically, contact between us would certainly lead to our being badly exploited. In the future, if we can catch up— and the evidence is that we will catch up—things may be different. When we finish analyzing all our new information—everything that was said by anyone on the estate was, of course, picked up on hidden microphones and recorded—we shall have an excellent store of knowledge about the aliens, their personality structure, and even some of their science.

  “The estate was rigged so that they could form no picture of us. The human inhabitants apparently followed a routine, but the things they did were taken from every age and every culture. We even faked one technique so they would be further hampered in judging us. We buried large coils in the ground, rigged so that a heavy electrical charge flowing through them would throw the needle high in the air, and then it would fall back point first. It looked as though those contraptions mounted on the little cars made the needle go up into the air. In reality, of course, underground wires led out of the valley, and our technicians there were tipped off by signals given off when the driver fiddled with the dials.

  “In short, gentlemen, we have come through a major crisis and learned much from it. When we meet the aliens next time, it will be on much more even terms.” He sat down to thunderous applause.

  ~ * ~

  As their ship went into overdrive, Inot and Kcid were just finishing their report. “In conclusion,” said Inot into the recorder while the entire crew listened, “this is an essentially primitive life class too unsure of its young sciences to meet us openly. They know of only aggressive, hostile organisms and had never observed a peaceful, friendly form of life and so could not conceive of one. Doubtless, they projected their own rigidity and hostilities onto us and so saw our advanced science as dangerous to them.

  “They therefore attempted to trick us, using cultural techniques from many of their past ages. Naturally, they did not realize that if our physical sciences were more advanced than theirs, our social sciences would be similarly advanced, and it was no difficult trick to analyze them through the screens they attempted to throw up.

  “We were careful what we said near their recording instruments and made sure they learned a good deal that they can use in advancing both their physical and social sciences. When we accomplished our purpose, we left.

  “When we next make contact they should be more mature. We will then be able to treat them as we wish to, as equals and colleagues. They will be wiser, more advanced, and, in short, when we next meet these aliens, it will be on much more even terms.”

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  ~ * ~

  Edgar Pangborn

  ANGEL’S EGG

  The highly advanced far-planet civilization is one of the more common concepts of modern science fiction. Many authors refuse to assume that mankind is the apex, the point of the pyramid, the tip of the top. In some of their tales, as in the preceding item in this collection, we find that members of some alien civilizations are so far ahead of us that we are beneath their notice. When they find out what we are, they simply consign us to our fate and take off for other, more promising, parts of the Galaxy.

  On the other hand, some authors take it for granted that the creatures from space will be friendly even though they are a few thousand years ahead of us, eager to help us even though most of us would blindly and savagely stride them down if we could, and willing to work painstakingly with the few humans who have imagination and ability to learn, even though, in doing so, the aliens might become permanent exiles from their home planet.

  “Angel’s Egg” is a beautifully conceived and gracefully written story of this type, and the author’s first published science fiction, as well.