The Best of Fritz Leiber

by Fritz Reuter Leiber

  “This gets more and more mysterious. Start war to stop it? That is a paradox which demands explanation. Take care, Mr. Whitlow, or I will fall into your error of looking on alien beings as evil and demented monsters.”

  Whitlow lowered his gaze until it was fixed on the Chief. He sighed windily. “I guess I’d better tell you,” he muttered. “You’d have probably found out in the end. Though it would have been simpler the other way—”

  He pushed back the rebellious hair and massaged his forehead, a little wearily. When he spoke again it was in a less oratorical style.

  “I am a pacifist. My life is dedicated to the task of preventing war. I love my fellow men. But they are steeped in error and sin. They are victims of their baser passions. Instead of marching on, hand in hand, trustingly, toward the glorious fulfillment of all their dreams, they insist on engaging in constant

  conflict, in vile war.”

  “Perhaps there is a reason for that,” suggested the Chief mildly. “Some inequalities that require leveling or—”

  “Please,” said the pacifist reprovingly. “These wars have grown increasingly more violent and terrible. I, and others, have sought to reason with the majority, but hi vain. They persist in their delusions. I have racked my brain to find a solution. I have considered every conceivable remedy. Since I came into the possession of. er. the device, I have sought throughout the cosmos and even in other tune-streams, for the secret of preventing war. With no success. Such intelligent races as I encountered were either engaged in war, which ruled them out, or had never known war—these were very obliging but obviously could volunteer no helpful information—or else had outgrown war by the painful and horrible process of fighting until there was nothing more to fight about.”

  “As we have,” the Chief thought, in an undertone.

  The pacifist spread his hands, palms toward the stars. “So, once more, I was thrown on my own resources. I studied mankind from every angle. Gradually I became convinced that its worst trait—and the one most responsible for war—was its overgrown sense of self-importance. On my planet man is the lord of creation. All the other animals are merely one among many—no species is pre-eminent. The flesh-eaters have their flesh-eating rivals. Each browser or grazer competes with other types for the grass and herbage. Even the fish in the seas and the myriad parasites that swarm in bloodstreams are divided into species of roughly equal ability and competence. This makes for humility and a sense of perspective. No species is inclined to fight among itself when it realizes that by so doing it will merely clear the way for other species to take over. Man alone has no serious rivals. As a result, he has developed delusions of grandeur—and of persecution and hate. Lacking the restraint that rivalry would provide, he fouls his planetary nest with constant civil war.

  “I mulled this idea for some time. I thought wistfully of how different mankind’s development might have been had he been compelled to share his planet with some equally intelligent species, say a mechanically-minded sea dweller. I considered, how, when great natural catastrophes occur, such as fires and floods and earthquakes and plagues, men temporarily quit squabbling and work hand in hand— rich and poor, friend and enemy alike. Unfortunately such cooperation only lasts until man once more asserts his mastery over his environment. It does not provide a constant sobering threat. And then. I had an inspiration.”

  Mr. Whitlow’s gaze swept the black-shelled forms—a jumble of satiny crescent highlights ringing the sphere of light enveloping him. Similarly his mind swept their cryptically armored thoughts.

  “I remembered an incident from my childhood. A radio broadcast —we make use of high velocity vibrations to transmit sound—had given an impishly realistic fictional report of an invasion of Earth by beings from Mars, beings of that evil and destructive nature which, as you say, we tend to attribute to

  alien life. Many believed the report. There were brief scares and panics. It occurred to me how, at the first breath of an actual invasion of that sort, warring peoples would forget their differences and join staunchly together to meet the invader. They would realize that the things they were fighting about were really trifling matters, phantoms of moodiness and fear. Their sense of perspective would be restored. They would see that the all-important fact was that they were men alike, facing a common enemy, and they would rise magnificently to the challenge. Ah my friends, when that vision occurred to me, of warring mankind at one stroke united, and united forever, I stood trembling and speechless. I—”

  Even on Mars, emotion choked him.

  “Very interesting,” thought the Senior Coleopteroid blandly, “but wouldn’t the method you propose be a contradiction of that higher morality to which I can perceive you subscribe?”

  The pacifist bowed his head. “My friend, you are quite right—in the large and ultimate sense. And let me assure you”—the fire crept back into his hoarse voice—“that when that day comes, when the question of interplanetary relations arises, I will be in the vanguard of the interspecieists, demanding full equality for coleopteroid and man alike. But”—his feverish eyes peered up again through the hair that had once more fallen across his forehead—“that is a matter for the future. The immediate question is: How to stop war on Earth. As I said before, your invasion need only be a token one, and of course the more bloodless, the better. It would only take one taste of an outside menace, one convincing proof that he has equals and even superiors hi the cosmos, to restore man’s normalcy of outlook, to weld him into a mutually-protective brotherhood, to establish peace forever!”

  He threw his hands wide and his head back. His hair flipped into its proper place, but his tie popped out again.

  “Mr. Whitlow,” thought the Chief, with a cold sardonic merriment, “if you have any notion that we are going to invade another planet for the sake of improving the psychology of its inhabitants, disabuse yourself of it at once. Earthlings mean nothing to us. Their rise is such a recent matter that we hardly had taken note of it until you called it to our attention. Let them go on warring, if they want to. Let them kill themselves off. It is no concern of ours.”

  Whitlow blinked. “Why-” he started angrily. Then he caught himself. “But I wasn’t asking you to do it for humanitarian reasons. I pointed out that there would be loot—”

  “I very much doubt if your Earthlings have anything that would tempt us.”

  Whitlow almost backed off his boulder. He started to splutter something, but again abruptly changed his tack. There was a flicker of shrewdness in his expression. “Is it possible you’re holding back because you’re afraid the Venusian molluscoids will attack you if you violate the perpetual truce by making a foray against another planet?”

  “By no means,” thought the Chief harshly, revealing for the first time a certain haughtiness and racial pride bred of dry eons of tradition. “As I told you before, the molluscoids are a distinctly inferior race. Mere waterlings. We have seen nothing of them for ages. For all we know they’ve died out. Certainly we wouldn’t be bound by any outworn agreements with them, if there were a sound and profitable reason for breaking them. And we are in no sense—no sense whatever—afraid of them.”

  Whitlow’s thoughts rumbled confusedly, his spatulate-fingered hands making unconsciously appropriate gestures. Driven back to his former argument, he faltered lamely. “But surely then there must be some loot that would make it worth your while to invade Earth. After all, Earth is a planet rich in oxygen and water and minerals and life forms, whereas Mars has to contend with a dearth of all these things.”

  “Precisely,” thought the Chief. “And we have developed a style of life that fits in perfectly with that dearth. By harvesting the interplanetary dust in the neighborhood of Mars, and by a judicious use of transmutation and other techniques, we are assured of a sufficient supply of all necessary raw materials. Earth’s bloated abundance would be an embarrassment to us, upsetting our system. An increased oxygen supply would force us to learn a new rhythm of breathing to av
oid oxygen-drowning, besides making any invasion of Earth uncomfortable and dangerous. Similar hazards might attend an over-supply of other elements and compounds. And as for Earth’s obnoxiously teeming life forms, none of them would be any use to us on Mars—except for the unlucky chance of one of them finding harborage in our bodies and starting an epidemic.”

  Whitlow winced. Whether he knew it or not, his planetary vanity had been touched. “But you’re overlooking the most important things,” he argued, “the products of man’s industry and ingenuity. He has changed the face of his planet much more fully than you have yours. He has covered it with roads. He does not huddle savagely hi the open as you do. He has built vast cities. He has constructed all manner of vehicles. Surely among such a wealth of things you would find many to covet.”

  “Most unlikely,” retorted the Chief. “I cannot see envisaged in your mind any that would awaken even our passing interest. We are adapted to our environment. We have no need of garments and housing and all the other artificialities which your ill-adjusted EarthTings require. Our mastery of our planet is greater than yours, but we do not advertise it so obtrusively. From your picture I can see that your Earthlings are given to a worship of bigness and a crude type of exhibitionism.”

  “But then there are our machines,” Whitlow insisted, seething inwardly, plucking at his collar. “Machines of tremendous complexity, for every purpose. Machines that would be as useful to another species as to us.”

  “Yes, I can imagine them,” commented the Chief cuttingly. “Huge, clumsy, jumbles of wheels and levers, wires and grids. In any case, ours are better.”

  He shot a swift question to the Senior. “Is his anger making his mind any more vulnerable?” “Not yet.”

  Whitlow made one last effort, with great difficulty holding his indignation in check. “Besides all that, there’s our art. Cultural treasures of incalculable value. The work of a species more richly creative than your own. Books, music, paintings, sculpture. Surely—”

  “Mr. Whitlow, you are becoming ridiculous,” said the Chief. “Art is meaningless apart from its cultural environment. What interest could we be expected to take hi the fumbling self-expression of an immature species? Moreover, none of the art forms you mention would be adapted to our style of perception, save sculpture—and in that field our efforts are incomparably superior, since we have a direct consciousness of solidity. Your mind is only a shadow-mind, limited to flimsy two-dimensional patterns.”

  Whitlow drew himself up and folded his arms across his chest. “Very well!” he grated out. “I see I cannot persuade you. But”—he shook his finger at the Chief—“let me tell you something! You’re contemptuous of man. You call him crude and childish. You pour scorn on his industry, his science, his art. You refuse to help him in his need. You think you can afford to disregard him. All right. Go ahead. That’s my advice to you. Go ahead—and see what happens!” A vindictive light grew in his eyes. “I know my fellow man. From years of study I know him. War has made him a tyrant and exploiter. He has enslaved the beasts of field and forest. He has enslaved his own kind, when he could, and when he couldn’t he has bound them with the subtler chains of economic necessity and the awe of prestige. He’s wrong-headed, brutal, a tool of his baser impulses—and also he’s clever, doggedly persistent, driven by a boundless ambition! He already has atomic power and rocket transport. In a few decades he’ll have spaceships and subatomic weapons. Go ahead and wait!

  Constant warfare will cause him to develop those weapons to undreamed of heights of efficient destructiveness. Wait for that too! Wait until he arrives on Mars hi force. Wait until he makes your acquaintance and realizes what marvelous workers you’d be with your armored adaptability to all sorts of environments. Wait until he picks a quarrel with you and defeats you and enslaves you and ships you off, packed hi evil-smelling hulls, to labor in Earth’s mines and on her ocean bottoms, hi her stratosphere and on the planetoids that man will be desirous of exploiting. Yes, go ahead and wait!“

  Whitlow broke off, his chest heaving. For a moment he was conscious only of his vicious satisfaction at having told off these exasperating beetle-creatures. Then he looked around.

  The coleopteroids had drawn in. The forms of the foremost were defined with a hatefully spiderish distinctness, almost invading his sphere of light. Similarly their thoughts had drawn in, to form a menacing wall blacker than the encircling Martian night. Gone were the supercilious amusement and dispassionate withdrawal that had so irked him. Incredulously he realized that he had somehow broken through their armor and touched them on a vulnerable spot.

  He caught one rapid thought, from the Senior to the Chief: “And if the rest of them are anything like this one, they’ll behave just as he says. It is an added confirmation.”

  He looked slowly around, his hair-curtained forehead bent forward, searching for a clue to the coleopteroids’ sudden change hi attitude. His baffled gaze ended on the Chief.

  “We’ve changed our minds, Mr. Whitlow,” the Chief volunteered grimly. “I told you at the beginning that we never hesitate about undertaking projects when given a sound and sufficient reason. What your silly arguments about humanitarianism and loot failed to provide, your recent outburst has furnished us. It is as you say. The Earth-lings will eventually attack us, and with some hope of success, if we wait. So, logically we must take preventive action, the sooner the better. We will reconnoiter Earth, and if conditions there are as you assert, we will invade her.”

  From the depths of a confused despondency Whitlow was in an instant catapulted to the heights of feverish joy. His fanatical face beamed. His lanky frame seemed to expand. His hair nipped back.

  “Marvelous!” he chortled, and then rattled on excitedly, “Of course, I’ll do everything I can to help. I’ll provide transport—”

  “That will not be necessary,” the Chief interrupted flatly. “We have no more trust in your larger powers than you have yourself. We have our own spaceships, quite adequate to any undertaking. We do not make an ostentatious display of them, any more than we make a display of the other mechanical aspects of our culture. We do not use them, as your Earthlings would, to go purposely skittering about. Nevertheless, we have them, stored away in the event of need.”

  But not even this contemptuous rebuff could spoil Whitlow’s exultation. His face was radiant. Halfformed tears made him blink his hectic eyes. His Adam’s apple bobbed chokingly.

  “Ah my friends. my good, good friends! If only I could express to you. what this moment means to me! If I could only tell you how happy I am when I envisage the greater moment that is coming! When men will look up from their trenches and foxholes, from their bombers and fighters, from their observation posts and headquarters, from their factories and homes, to see this new menace in the skies. When all their petty differences of opinion will drop away from them like a soiled and tattered garment. When they will cut the barbed-wire entanglements of an illusory hate, and join together, hand in hand, true brothers at last, to meet the common foe. When, in the accomplishment of a common task, they will at last achieve perfect and enduring peace!”

  He paused for breath. His glazed eyes were lovingly fixed on the blue star of Earth, now just topping the horizon.

  “Yes,” faintly came the Chiefs dry thought. “To one of your emotional temperament, it will probably be a very satisfying and touching scene—for a little while.”

  Whitlow glanced down blankly. It was as if the Chief’s last thought had lightly scratched him—a feathery flick from a huge poisoned claw. He did not understand it, but he was conscious of upwelling fear.

  “What-” he faltered. “What.. .do you mean?”

  “I mean,” thought the Chief, “that hi our invasion of Earth it probably won’t be necessary for us to use the divide-and-rule tactics that would normally be indicated in such a case—you know, joining with one faction on Earth to help defeat the other—warring beings never care who their allies are—and then fomenting further disunit
ies, and so on. No, with our superiority in armament, we can probably do a straight cleanup job and avoid bothersome machinations. So you’ll probably have that glimpse of Earthlings united that you set so much store by.”

  Whitlow stared at him from a face white with dawning horror. He licked his lips. “What did you mean by —‘for a little while’?” he whispered huskily. “What did you mean by ‘glimpse’?”

  “Surely that should be obvious to you, Mr. Whitlow,” replied the Chief with offensive good humor.

  “You don’t for one minute suppose we’d make some footling little invasion and, after overawing the Earthlings, retire? That would be the one way to absolutely assure their eventual counterinvasion of Mars. Indeed, it would probably hasten it—and they’d come as already hostile destroyers intent on wiping out a menace. No, Mr. Whitlow, when we invade Earth, it will be to protect ourselves from a potential future danger. Our purpose will be total and complete extermination, accomplished as swiftly and efficiently as possible. Our present military superiority makes our success certain.”

  Whitlow goggled at the Chief blankly, like a dirty and somewhat yellowed plaster statue of himself. He opened his mouth—and shut it without saying anything.

  “You never believed, did you, Mr. Whitlow,” continued the Chief kindly, “that we’d ever do anything for your sake? Or for anyone’s— except us coleopteroids?”

  Whitlow stared at the horrible, black, eight-legged eggs crowding ever closer—living embodiments of the poisonous blackness of their planet.

  All he could think to mumble was: “But. but I thought you said. it was a misconception to think of alien beings as evil monsters intent only on ravaging. and destroying—”

  “Perhaps I did, Mr. Whitlow. Perhaps I did,” was the Chiefs only reply.

  In that instant Mr. Whitlow realized what an alien being really was.

  As in a suffocating nightmare, he watched the coleopteroids edge closer. He heard the Chiefs contemptuously unguarded aside to the Senior, “Haven’t you got hold of his mind yet?” and the Senior’s “No,” and the Chiefs swift order to the others.