Anthology of Speculative Fiction, Volume One

by Short Story Anthology

  McLeod thought about the natives of New Guinea and decided that on the Galactic scale Earth was about in the same position. Except that there had at least been gold in New Guinea. The Galactics didn't have any interest in Earth's minerals; the elements were much more easily available in the asteroid belts that nearly every planetary system seemed to have.

  The Galactics were by no means interested in bringing civilization to the barbarians of Earth, either. They had no missionaries to bring new religion, no do-gooders to "elevate the cultural level of the natives." They had no free handouts for anyone. If Earthmen wanted anything from them, the terms were cash on the barrelhead. Earth's credit rating in the Galactic equivalent of Dun & Bradstreet was triple-Z-zero.

  A Galactic ship had, so to speak, stumbled over Earth fifteen years before. Like the English explorers of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, the Galactics seemed to feel that it was necessary to install one of their own people on a new-found planet, but they were not in the least interested in colonization nor in taking over Earth's government. The Galactic Resident was not in any sense a Royal Governor, and could hardly even be called an ambassador. He and his staff--a small one, kept more for company than for any necessary work--lived quietly by themselves in a house they'd built in Hawaii. Nobody knew what they did, and it didn't seem wise to ask.

  The first Galactic Resident had been shot and killed by some religious nut. Less than twenty-four hours later, the Galactic Space Navy--if that was the proper term--had come to claim the body. There were no recriminations, no reprisals. They came, "more in sorrow than in anger," to get the body. They came in a spaceship that was easily visible to the naked eye long before it hit the atmosphere--a sphere three kilometers in diameter. The missiles with thermonuclear warheads that were sent up to intercept the ship were detonated long before they touched the ship, and neither Galactics nor Earthmen ever mentioned them again. It had been the most frightening display of power ever seen on Earth, and the Galactics hadn't even threatened anyone. They just came to get a body.

  Needless to say, there was little danger that they would ever have to repeat the performance.

  The national governments of Earth had organized themselves hurriedly into the Terrestrial Union. Shaky at first, it had gained stability and power with the years. The first thing the Union Government had wanted to do was send an ambassador to the Galactic Government. The Galactic Resident had politely explained that their concept of government was different from ours, that ambassadors had no place in that concept, and, anyway, there was no capital to send one to. However, if Earth wanted to send an observer of some kind....

  Earth did.

  Fine. A statement of passenger fares was forthcoming; naturally, there were no regular passenger ships stopping at Earth and there would not be in the foreseeable future, but doubtless arrangements could be made to charter a vessel. It would be expensive, but....

  If a New Guinea savage wants to take passage aboard a Qantas airliner, what is the fare in cowrie shells?

  As far as McLeod knew, his book was the first thing ever produced on Earth that the Galactics were even remotely interested in. He had a higher opinion of the ethics of the Galactics than Jackson did, but a thousandth of a per cent seemed like pretty small royalties. And he couldn't for the life of him see why his book would interest a Galactic. Clem had explained that it gave Galactics a chance to see what they looked like through the eyes of an Earthman, but that seemed rather weak to McLeod.

  Nevertheless, he knew he would take Clem's offer.

  * * * * *

  Eight months later, a shipload of Galactic tourists arrived. For a while, it looked as though Earth's credit problem might be solved. Tourism has always been a fine method for getting money from other countries--especially if one's own country is properly picturesque. Tourists always had money, didn't they? And they spend it freely, didn't they?

  No.

  Not in this case.

  Earth had nothing to sell to the tourists.

  Ever hear of baluts? The Melanesians of the South Pacific consider it a very fine delicacy. You take a fertilized duck egg and you bury it in the warm earth. Six months later, when it is nice and overripe, you dig it up again, knock the top off the shell the way you would a soft-boiled egg, and eat it. Then you pick the pinfeathers out of your teeth. Baluts.

  Now you know how the greatest delicacies of Earth's restaurants affected the Galactics.

  Earth was just a little too picturesque. The tourists enjoyed the sights, but they ate aboard their ship, which was evidently somewhat like a Caribbean cruise ship. And they bought nothing. They just looked.

  And laughed.

  And of course they all wanted to meet Professor John Hamish McLeod.

  When the news leaked out and was thoroughly understood by Earth's population, there was an immediate reaction.

  Editorial in Pravda:

  The stupid book written by the American J. H. McLeod has made Earth a laughingstock throughout the galaxy. His inability to comprehend the finer nuances of Galactic Socialism has made all Earthmen look foolish. It is too bad that a competent Russian zoologist was not chosen for the trip that McLeod made; a man properly trained in the understanding of the historical forces of dialectic materialism would have realized that any Galactic society must of necessity be a Communist State, and would have interpreted it as such. The petty bourgeois mind of McLeod has made it impossible for any Earthman to hold up his head in the free Socialist society of the galaxy. Until this matter is corrected....

  News item Manchester Guardian:

  Professor James H. McLeod, the American zoologist whose book has apparently aroused a great deal of hilarity in Galactic circles, admitted today that both Columbia University and the American Museum of Natural History have accepted his resignation. The recent statement by a University spokesman that Professor McLeod had "besmirched the honor of Earthmen everywhere" was considered at least partially responsible for the resignations. (See editorial.)

  Editorial, Manchester Guardian:

  ... It is a truism that an accepted wit has only to say, 'Pass the butter,' and everyone will laugh. Professor McLeod, however, far from being an accepted wit, seems rather to be in the position of a medieval Court Fool, who was laughed at rather than with. As a consequence, all Earthmen have been branded as Fools....

  Statement made by the American Senator from Alabama:

  "He has made us all look like jackasses in the eyes of the Galactics, and at this precarious time in human history it is my considered opinion that such actions are treasonous to the human race and to Earth and should be treated and considered as such!"

  Book review, Literary Checklist, Helvar III, Bornis Cluster:

  "Interstellar Ark, an Earthman's View of the Galaxy," translated from the original tongue by Vonis Delf, Cr. 5.00. This inexpensive little book is one of the most entertainingly funny publications in current print. The author, one John McLeod, is a member of a type 3-7B race inhabiting a planet in the Outer Fringes.... As an example of the unwitting humor of the book, we have only to quote the following:

  "I was shown to my quarters shortly before takeoff. Captain Benarly had assigned me a spacious cabin which was almost luxurious in its furnishings. The bed was one of the most comfortable I have ever slept in."

  Or the following:

  "I found the members of the crew to be friendly and co-operative, especially Nern Cronzel, the ship's physician."

  It is our prediction that this little gem will be enjoyed for a long time to come and will be a real money-maker for its publishers.

  * * * * *

  They haven't hanged me yet, McLeod thought. He sat in his apartment alone and realized that it would take very little to get him hanged.

  How could one book have aroused such wrath? Even as he thought it, McLeod knew the answer to that question. It wasn't the book. No one who had read it two and a half years before had said anything against it.

  No, it wasn't the book. It w
as the Galactic reaction to the book. Already feeling inferior because of the stand-offish attitude of the beings from the stars, the Homeric laughter of those same beings had been too much. It would have been bad enough if that laughter had been generated by one of the Galactics. To have had it generated by an Earthman made it that much worse. Against an Earthman, their rage was far from impotent.

  Nobody understood why the book was funny, of course. The joke was over their heads, and that made human beings even angrier.

  He remembered a quotation from a book he had read once. A member of some tribal-taboo culture--African or South Pacific, he forgot which--had been treated at a missionary hospital for something or other and had described his experience.

  "The white witch doctor protects himself by wearing a little round mirror on his head which reflects back the evil spirits."

  Could that savage have possibly understood what was humorous about that remark? No. Not even if you explained to him why the doctor used the mirror that way.

  Now what? McLeod thought. He was out of a job and his bank account was running low. His credit rating had dropped to zero.

  McLeod heard a key turn in the lock. The door swung open and Jackson entered with his squad of U.B.I. men.

  "Hey!" said McLeod, jumping to his feet. "What do you think this is?"

  "Shut up, McLeod," Jackson growled. "Get your coat. You're wanted at headquarters."

  McLeod started to say something, then thought better of it. There was nothing he could say. Nobody would care if the U.B.I. manhandled him. Nobody would protest that his rights were being ignored. If McLeod got his teeth knocked in, Jackson would probably be voted a medal.

  McLeod didn't say another word. He followed orders. He got his coat and was taken down to the big building on the East River which had begun its career as the United Nations Building.

  He was bundled up to an office and shoved into a chair.

  Somebody shoved a paper at him. "Sign this!"

  "What is it?" McLeod asked, finding his voice.

  "A receipt. For two thousand dollars. Sign it."

  McLeod looked the paper over, then looked up at the burly man who had shoved it at him. "Fifty thousand Galactic credits! What is this for?"

  "The royalty check for your unprintably qualified book has come in, Funny Man. The Government is taking ninety-eight per cent for income taxes. Sign!"

  McLeod pushed the paper back across the desk. "No. I won't. You can confiscate my money. I can't stop that, I guess. But I won't give it legal sanction by signing anything. I don't even see the two thousand dollars this is supposed to be a receipt for."

  Jackson, who was standing behind McLeod, grabbed his arm and twisted. "Sign!" His voice was a snarl in McLeod's ear.

  Eventually, of course, he signed.

  * * * * *

  "'Nother beer, Mac?" asked the bartender with a friendly smile.

  "Yeah, Leo; thanks." McLeod pushed his quarter across the bar with one hand and scratched negligently at his beard with the fingers of the other. Nobody questioned him in this neighborhood. The beard, which had taken two months to grow, disguised his face, and he had given his name as McCaffery, allowing his landlord and others who heard it to make the natural assumption that he was of Irish descent.

  He was waiting. He had been forced to move from his apartment; nobody wanted that dirty so-and-so, Professor McLeod, around. Besides, his money was running short. He had never seen the two thousand. "You'll get that when the Galactic bank cashes your royalty check," he had been told. He was waiting.

  Not hiding. No. That wasn't possible. The U.B.I. could find him easily when they wanted him. There was no place he could have hidden from them for very long. A man needs friends to stay hidden from an efficient police organization for very long, and John Hamish McLeod had no friends. "Jack McCaffery" had, since he was a pleasant kind of fellow who made friends easily when he wanted them. But he had no illusions about his new friends. Let them once suspect, however faintly, that Good Old Jack McCaffery was really that Professor McLeod, and the game would be up.

  The U.B.I. would find him again all right, whenever it wanted him. And McLeod hoped it would be soon because he was down to his last hundred bucks.

  So he waited and thought about fifty thousand Galactic credits.

  The mathematics was simple, but it conveyed an awful lot of information. To make fifty thousand credits from one thousandth of one percent royalties on a book selling at five credits the copy, one must needs sell a billion copies. Nothing to it.

  5X·10to the power of -5 = 5·10to the power of 4

  Ergo: X = 10to the power of 9

  McLeod drew the equations on the bar with the tip of a wet forefinger, then rubbed them out quickly.

  A billion copies in the first year. He should have seen it. He should have understood.

  How many planets were there in the galaxy?

  How many people on each planet?

  Communication, even at ultralight velocities, would be necessarily slow. The galaxy was just too big to be compassed by the human mind--or even by the mind of a Galactic, McLeod suspected.

  How do you publish a book for Galactic, for galaxy-wide, consumption? How long does it take to saturate the market on each planet? How long does it take to spread the book from planet to planet? How many people were there on each planet who would buy a good book? Or, at least, an entertaining one.

  McLeod didn't know, but he suspected that the number was huge. McLeod was a zoologist, not an astronomer, but he read enough on astronomy to know that the estimated number of Earth-type planets alone--according to the latest theory--ran into the tens of millions or hundreds of millions. The--

  A man sat down on the stool next to McLeod and said something loud enough and foul enough to break the zoologist's train of thought.

  "Gimme a shot, Leo," he added in an angry voice.

  "Sure, Pete," the bartender said. "What's the trouble?"

  "Tourists," Pete said with a snarl. "Laffin' attus alla time like we was monkeys inna zoo! Bunch 'em come inta day." He downed his whiskey with a practiced flip of the wrist and slammed it on the bar. Leo refilled it immediately. "I shunt gripe, I guess. Gotta haffa credit offen 'em." He slapped down a five dollar bill as though it had somehow been contaminated.

  The bar became oddly quiet. Everyone had heard Pete. Further, everyone had heard that another shipload of Galactics had landed and were, at the moment, enjoying the sights of New York. A few of them knew that Pete was the bell-captain in one of the big midtown hotels.

  McLeod listened while Pete expounded on the shame he had had to undergo to earn half a credit--a lousy five bucks.

  McLeod did some estimating. Tourists--the word had acquired an even more pejorative sense than it had before, and now applied only to Galactics--bought nothing, but they tipped for services, unless the services weren't wanted or needed. Pete had given them information that they hadn't had before--where to find a particular place. All in all, the group of fifteen Galactics had given out five or six credits in such tips. Say half a credit apiece. There were, perhaps, a hundred Galactics in this shipload. That meant fifty credits. Hm-m-m.

  They didn't need anyone to carry their bags; they didn't need anyone to register them in hotels; they didn't need personal service of that kind. All they wanted to do was look. But they wouldn't pay for looking. They had no interest in Broadway plays or the acts in the night-clubs--at least, not enough to induce them to pay to see them. This particular group had wanted to see a hotel. They had wandered through it, looking at everything and laughing fit to kill at the carpets on the floor and the electric lighting and such. But when the management had hinted that payment for such services as letting them look should be forthcoming, they had handed half a credit to someone and walked out. Then they had gone to the corner of Fifty-first and Madison and looked for nothing.

  Fifty credits for a shipload. Three shiploads a year. Hell, give 'em the benefit of the doubt and say ten shiploads a year. I
n a hundred years, they'd add another fifty thousand to Earth's resources.

  McLeod grinned.

  And waited.

  * * * * *

  They came for him, eventually, as McLeod had known they would.

  But they came long before he had expected. He had given them six months at the least. They came for him at the end of the third month.

  It was Jackson, of course. It would have to be Jackson. He walked into the cheap little room McLeod had rented, followed by his squad of men.

  He tossed a peculiar envelope on the bed next to McLeod.

  "Letter came for you, humorist. Open it."

  McLeod sat on the edge of the bed and read the letter. The envelope had already been opened, which surprised him none.

  It looked very much like an ordinary business letter--except that whatever they used for paper was whiter and tougher than the paper he used.

  He was reminded of the time he had seen a reproduction of a Thirteenth Century manuscript alongside the original. The copy had been set up in a specially-designed type and printed on fine paper. The original had been handwritten on vellum.

  McLeod had the feeling that if he used a microscope on this letter the lines and edges would be just as precise and clear as they appeared to the naked eye, instead of the fuzziness that ordinary print would show.

  The way you tell a synthetic ruby from a natural ruby is to look for flaws. The synthetic doesn't have any.

  This letter was a Galactic imitation of a Terran business letter.

  It said:

  Dear Mac,

  I am happy to report that your book, "Interstellar Ark," is a smash hit. It looks as though it is on its way to becoming a best seller. As you already know by your royalty statement, over a billion copies were sold the first year. That indicates even better sales over the years to come as the reputation of the book spreads. Naturally, our advertising campaign will remain behind it all the way. Congratulations.