All three men were watching me, and suddenly I was on the defensive. “I didn’t know! What do you expect when you see an insect that size?”
Lieberman nodded.
“What in the name of God is it?”
From his desk Lieberman produced a bottle and four small glasses. He poured and we drank it neat. I would not have expected him to keep good Scotch in his desk.
“We don’t know,” Hopper said. “We don’t know what it is.” Lieberman pointed to the broken skull, from which a white substance oozed. “Brain material—a great deal of it.”
“It could be a very intelligent creature,” Hopper nodded.
Lieberman said, “It is an insect in developmental structure. We know very little about intelligence in our insects. It’s not the same as what we call intelligence. It’s a collective phenomenon—as if you were to think of the component parts of our bodies. Each part is alive, but the intelligence is a result of the whole. If that same pattern were to extend to creatures like this one—”
I broke the silence. They were content to stand there and stare at it.
“Suppose it were?”
“What?”
“The kind of collective intelligence you were talking about.”
“Oh? Well, I couldn’t say. It would be something beyond our wildest dreams. To us—well, what we are to an ordinary ant.”
“I don’t believe that,” I said shortly, and Fitzgerald, the government man, told me quietly, “Neither do we. We guess.”
“If it’s that intelligent, why didn’t it use one of those weapons on me?”
“Would that be a mark of intelligence?” Hopper asked mildly.
“Perhaps none of these are weapons,” Lieberman said.
“Don’t you know? Didn’t the others carry instruments?”
“They did,” Fitzgerald said shortly.
“Why? What were they?”
“We don’t know,” Lieberman said.
“But you can find out. We have scientists, engineers—good God, this is an age of fantastic instruments. Have them taken apart!”
“We have.”
“Then what have you found out?”
“Nothing.”
“Do you mean to tell me,” I said, “that you can find out nothing about these instruments—what they are, how they work, what their purpose is?”
“Exactly,” Hopper nodded. “Nothing, Mr. Morgan. They are meaningless to the finest engineers and technicians in the United States. You know the old story—suppose you gave a radio to Aristotle? What would he do with it? Where would he find power? And what would he receive with no one to send? It is not that these instruments are complex. They are actually very simple. We simply have no idea of what they can or should do.”
“But there must be a weapon of some kind.”
“Why?” Lieberman demanded. “Look at yourself, Mr. Morgan—a cultured and intelligent man, yet you cannot conceive of a mentality that does not include weapons as a prime necessity. Yet a weapon is an unusual thing, Mr. Morgan. An instrument of murder. We don’t think that way, because the weapon has become the symbol of the world we inhabit. Is that civilized, Mr. Morgan? Or is the weapon and civilization in the ultimate sense incompatible? Can you imagine a mentality to which the concept of murder is impossible—or let me say absent. We see everything through our own subjectivity. Why shouldn’t some other—this creature, for example—see the process of mentation out of his subjectivity? So he approaches a creature of our world—and he is slain. Why? What explanation? Tell me, Mr. Morgan, what conceivable explanation could we offer a wholly rational creature for this—” pointing to the thing on his desk. “I am asking you the question most seriously. What explanation?”
“An accident?” I muttered.
“And the eight jars in my cupboard? Eight accidents?”
“I think, Dr. Lieberman,” Fitzgerald said, “that you can go a little too far in that direction.”
“Yes, you would think so. It’s a part of your own background. Mine is as a scientist. As a scientist, I try to be rational when I can. The creation of a structure of good and evil, or what we call morality and ethics, is a function of intelligence—and unquestionably the ultimate evil may be the destruction of conscious intelligence. That is why, so long ago, we at least recognized the injunction, ‘thou shalt not kill!’ even if we never gave more than lip service to it. But to a collective intelligence, such as this might be a part of, the concept of murder would be monstrous beyond the power of thought.”
I sat down and lit a cigarette. My hands were trembling. Hopper apologized. “We have been rather rough with you, Mr. Morgan. But over the past days, eight other people have done just what you did. We are caught in the trap of being what we are.”
“But tell me—where do these things come from?”
“It almost doesn’t matter where they come from,” Hopper said hopelessly. “Perhaps from another planet—perhaps from inside this one—or the moon or Mars. That doesn’t matter. Fitzgerald thinks they come from a smaller planet, because their movements are apparently slow on earth. But Dr. Lieberman thinks that they move slowly because they have not discovered the need to move quickly. Meanwhile, they have the problem of murder and what to do with it. Heaven knows how many of them have died in other places—Africa, Asia, Europe.”
“Then why don’t you publicize this? Put a stop to it before it’s too late!”
“We’ve thought of that,” Fitzgerald nodded. “What then—panic, hysteria, charges that this is the result of the atom bomb? We can’t change. We are what we are.”
“They may go away,” I said.
“Yes, they may,” Lieberman nodded. “But if they are without the curse of murder, they may also be without the curse of fear. They may be social in the highest sense. What does society do with a murderer?”
“There are societies that put him to death—and there are other societies that recognize his sickness and lock him away, where he can kill no more,” Hopper said. “Of course, when a whole world is on trial, that’s another matter. We have atom bombs now and other things, and we are reaching out to the stars—”
“I’m inclined to think that they’ll run,” Fitzgerald put in. “They may just have that curse of fear, Doctor.”
“They may,” Lieberman admitted. “I hope so.”
But the more I think of it the more it seems to me that fear and hatred are the two sides of the same coin. I keep trying to think back, to recreate the moment when I saw it standing at the foot of my bed in the fishing shack. I keep trying to drag out of my memory a clear picture of what it looked like, whether behind that chitinous face and the two gently waving antennae there was any evidence of fear and anger. But the clearer the memory becomes, the more I seem to recall a certain wonderful dignity and repose. Not fear and not anger.
And more and more, as I go about my work, I get the feeling of what Hopper called “a world on trial”. I have no sense of anger myself. Like a criminal who can no longer live with himself, I am content to be judged.
“THIS WORLD IS OURS!” by Emil Petaja
Originally published in Imagination, July 1952.
“He must die. It will look like an accident.”
“Shouldn’t we take him back with us?”
“We are far from through here. Don’t tell me you are developing a sympathy for these miserable creatures?”
“Impossible. I merely assumed he might be of some further value in our great crusade.”
“He must die.”
Max Field was listening at the door. He moved back so he could breathe again. Those dozens of little wounds in his chest and on his arms and neck stung like fire. His amiable young features were tense but resigned. This was the end, period…
Outside the little cabin an owl hooted. It was a lonely sound. But it was a familiar earth sound, and
it brought a lump to his throat.
If only there was some way to outwit them. But he had thought of everything; apparently so had they. That window, for instance, was shuttered and bolted from outside. A sudden noise would bring them in here in no time. The back wall was up against a cliff. There was no outside door in this room.
He was supposed to be drunk, befuddled. But he hadn’t drank any of the champagne. In that, at least, he had outwitted them. He was to die. No question about that. The only question remaining was—how.
He sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled out the little notebook he’d been, at odd moments, scribbling the whole story in. Force of habit, perhaps. Max was a science-fiction writer. He flipped through the penciled pages. Worth money, this story. He smiled ironically. Yet who would read it, much less believe it.
Somebody might, he decided. He would hide it somewhere in this room. Maybe slip it through a crack in the flooring, a few pages at a time.
He pulled out a stub of pencil and added that final shuddery scene. Alice. Alice…
Outside, the owl-hooted.
* * * *
It started, as so many stories do, with my phone ringing. I was eating cigarettes and pounding out a cover novel for Gizmo. If there is anything that gripes me where I live it is some joker calling me up when I’m busy producing and—
“Hello. Yeah. This is Max Field, the science fiction writer. And while we’re on that subject, I happen to be—”
“I am Wallace Starr.” It was a funny voice. Funny-strange. It sounded a little like rubbing two pieces of sandpaper together.
“Really?”
I pushed out my current Camel and sneaked in a few pecks at the old Underwood. So sand paper-voice was Wallace Starr. Maybe I was supposed to turn handsprings.
“You don’t know me,” the heckler went on, “but I am very familiar with you and your work. I have an important project in mind. A new monthly science fiction magazine to be called Orion, I need a good assistant editor. You were suggested.”
“Orion,” I said.
“Yes. My book will feature a completely new approach. We will buy only the best material, and each story will concern itself with the constellation Orion and its various systems. All material will be correlated to this end. How does this strike you?”
“You won’t find it so easy pinning the best writers down to Orion,” I grinned. “Writers like Swain and St. Reynard and Ric Planter like elbow room.”
“Orion is vast and complex. One hundred and seven solar systems, to be exact. That should provide ample elbow room.”
I whistled. “Ought to. But what’s the idea?”
“Novelty, Mr. Field. I have studied the imaginative magazines closely and it occurs to me that they are already beginning to specialize. One of them uses highly technical stories, another adheres to stories of other planets in this system. Orion will link each story with all the others in it. Instead of a hundred interpretations of the life patterns of Orion we shall have but one. Of course casual stories we buy will have to be revamped to fit in.”
“That’s where I come in,” I guessed.
“Exactly. But don’t you feel that we will wind up with a fascinating pseudo-history of Orion, and that such a magazine would create a furor with its realistic slant?”
“I guess so.”
It tasted like my first olive. But Wallace Starr was obviously burning with enthusiasm. He sounded just a little like a crackpot. A rich crackpot, maybe.
“It will be hard work, Mr. Field. But rewarding. Are you prepared to accept my proposition?” He spoke like a man who means business.
I hesitated. It is well-known that the mortality rate among new fiction magazines is high. I had writing contracts to fill, I was doing okay. Editing a monthly is a fulltime job.
“About salary—” I hinted.
He named a figure that made my hair curl. What could I say but, “When do we start, Boss?”
Starr wasn’t like any editor I’ve known. He wasn’t like an editor at all. He wasn’t much like anybody I’ve known. Which puts him in a class all by himself. He was brown and thin and had peculiarly big eyes, like a grasshopper’s.
He spent so much money getting started I figured he wasn’t long for this racket. But he did have a knack and the first couple issues, while not wildly successful, went over well.
One morning he called me into his office. From the tone of that dry voice of his I knew I was in for it.
“What’s all this?” he buzzed, rattling a manuscript in front of me. From the cheap yellow paper I knew it was the lead novelette of the forthcoming issue. Ric Planter was one of our top writers and also a very bad boy. Ric loved to put an editor on the spot, bless his little pointed head.
“Didn’t he change that ending?” I asked. The tic in my left eye started up. I had never had this twitch until the first time I saw Starr. I think it was something about those eyes of his. Every time I looked at him…
“He changed it all right!” Starr hissed. “He turned the Kiriki into villains. When their benevolent plan to spread patterned contentment throughout the circle of outer planets was just taking hold he had the semi-civilized Green Ones rise up and destroy their power by smashing their means of telepathic communication.”
“How could he do that?” I clucked.
“Supersonic wave interrupter of some kind.”
I hadn’t meant that, and somehow I couldn’t help grinning. Trust Ric to latch on to the Kiriki vulnerable point. The Kiriki, as Starr had outlined them, were highly communal. Like our ants, only very much more advanced. They depended on this intricate pattern of inter-communication, mind with mind, for their very existence, since each Kiriki was by birth fitted to perform only one basic function in their communal society. Their ingenious “Army of Patterned Contentment” was helpless, when reduced by the adaptable Green Ones to individuals.
“Will you please stop laughing,” Starr rasped. “This hack writer of yours has outraged the history of an ancient, noble race!”
“I didn’t get a chance to read his revision,” I defended myself. Starr had grabbed it off my desk as he went through. “I told Planter the Kiriki were good guys, not bad guys.”
“Good guys, bad guys!” Starr cried. “How naive can we be. Let us hope that our readership is on a different intelligence level, otherwise our great plan will fail miserably.”
It was the way he said it, and I don’t think he meant to. He was mad and the fact that my dialog had lapsed to comic book levels gave him the idea, perhaps, that I was too dumb to worry about. There had been other hidden meanings behind other things he’d said or done. My subconscious mind was working on it.
“What plan is that?” I ventured mildly.
“Never mind! Get busy on this—this libel!”
My left eye twitched. “Okay. I’ll change it myself. I know Planter’s style. By the way, when am I getting that secretary you promised me? My desk’s flooded, I need a girl bad.”
“Ah, yes.” It was supposed to be a smile, I guess. “Very soon. Meanwhile, kindly fill out this form.”
I took it without comment and went back to my office. This made altogether the fifth form Starr had dreamed up for me to fill out. Must be some weird complex he had, wanting to know what color socks I prefer and if my mother kept goats.
Anyhow, I grinned, as I grabbed up the phone and dialed Ric Planter’s number, it gave Starr ideas for my Christmas presents for the next twenty years.
“Yeah,” Ric’s sleepy voice yawned. “It’s me. What a head.”
I passed the beef on to him, good.
“Shut up, Max,” he yawned. “I was just having a little fun.”
“Fun-schmun. It’s my job!”
“Come off it, Maxie. Okay. Tell you what. The first outline you sent me about the Kiriki and their habits isn’t nearly complete enough. Have
that boss of yours dream up a more complete dossier, just for little ole me. I like those Kiriki, they’re such smug, heartless devils.”
“Listen, Starr’s hot for them. He’ll buy anything glorifying the Kiriki. They’re his little dream-babies.”
“Sure, sure. Here’s what you do, Maxie. Get Starr to make me out a complete dossier on them, but complete. You know me. I like to use the little out of the way touches like what color they paint their toenails. I’ll give him some stuff that will curl his eyebrows. Okay?”
“No more tricks?”
“Cross my cast-iron heart.”
“Okay, Ric. But remember, Ric rhymes with tic.”
“How’s that?”
“Never mind.”
* * * *
The moment Alice walked in my office I knew she was for me. I guess every guy has a girl all built up in his imagination, a girl who is and has everything he likes. Alice Corey was mine. Soft blue eyes, lots of brown wavy hair, a little well-shaped nose, and let’s just say the rest of her was well-shaped, too. It was all there, including a lot of hard to define details of speech and manner that were exactly right. Maybe it was chemical, or maybe it just added up to every dream I’d ever had about my ideal girl.
“My name is Alice Corey,” she said, with soft violins in the background. “I understand you need an editorial secretary.” She went on briskly, when I found myself speechless, “I worked two years with Tower Periodicals in London and—”
“You’re hired,” I said.
“But those other girls waiting outside?”
“Would you please inform them that the job’s filled—Alice?”
I had to deal with the boss about Alice. He didn’t like her. She was too pretty, he thought. Couldn’t be efficient. He went over her background with a fine-tooth comb. He found fault with most everything about her. But I stuck to my guns. He had his Kiriki. Alice was mine and I was damned if I would leave her out of my sight. She filled my working hours with golden sunshine and my nights with platinum dreams.
What’s more, she was efficient. And she would work until twelve the night before a deadline without a murmur. She was diffident about having dinner with me, first, but as time went by we spent many an evening together, strolling in the park listening to the carousel or sipping chocolate sodas at Howard Johnson’s. Alice didn’t talk much, but she was a good listener. I must have told her everything I had ever thought or done during those evenings.
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