by Various
The audience gasped and murmured. A woman screamed.
The group of men started walking towards the stage. My hands were up. I cupped my right one and gave the heavy man a full charge of heat. His hair went up in a bright orange flame. He dropped the red hot gun from his smoking hand, and fell to the floor. He frantically rolled around the aisle trying to put out his flaming clothes.
One of the other men shot at me. The little piece of lead came toward me, flew over my shoulder. It was going at about 900 feet per second. This was enough to kill me, Excellency. I became panic-stricken. I fled into the wings. I was followed by a storm of little whistling lead pellets.
The stagehands scattered hysterically before me as I ran down the steps and out the stage door entrance. The street in front of the theatre was packed with police cruisers and athletic-looking men in blue uniforms.
* * * * *
Before anyone saw me, I cupped my hand, and fired the gas tank of the nearest police cruiser. The ray of the male principle went out with the heat ray. As I ran by the flaming car, all of the women in the street felt something important. They all turned and looked at me.
Policemen started shooting. They piled out of their cars. The street was echoing with yells and shouts. I was terrified. I exerted an enormous effort of will and mustered every atom of energy at my command. I sent a full-power heat blast up the street. I have never marshalled a bigger blast, even in the contests at our training school in Area Twelve.
Fifteen automobiles burst into flames. Twenty or thirty men and women fell screaming to the sidewalk, their clothes burning. A flock of roasted pigeons fell smoking out of the sky. A black cloud condensed over the street, and a forked tongue of lightning flashed from it. Every woman within a quarter of a mile felt the hot electrical force of the male principle. I dived into the Times Square subway entrance and sprinted down the stairs. There was a men's washroom at the end of the platform.
I heard the wild tumult of pursuit behind me. I pushed open the door. A man was there washing his hands. I strangled him, tore off his clothes, and put them on myself. Hastily, I twisted my face about so that I looked like an entirely different person. I opened the door and started walking slowly back down the platform.
A platoon of policemen with drawn guns was sprinting down the platform towards me. They were followed by a yelling mob of civilians which included hundreds of women. They swept by me. I was safe, but shivering with fear, Excellency. I was spent. I couldn't have mustered up a heat ray strong enough to warm the end of my nose.
I stumbled around the corner and away from that neighborhood. Then I went into the first restaurant I saw, and gorged. After a five dollar plank steak, three glasses of milk, one glass of beer, and apple pie a la mode I was still ravenous; still energy-minus.
I went a block up the street, into another restaurant, and bolted down exactly the same meal again. Strength started to flow slowly through my veins. After one more meal in still another restaurant, my confidence returned.
The newspapers handled the affair with amazing restraint. The facts brought in by their reporters naturally sounded fantastic to the editors, so they rearranged them to "make sense." The reticence of the authorities, particularly the F.B.I., helped to convert what might have caused a national panic into just an unusually spectacular chase after an escaped murderer. The burning cars were laid to hooliganism on the part of the bystanders. The people who got burned, so the stories explained, were hurt by the gasoline explosions of the burning cars. The mass hysteria of the women was caused by the excitement. The papers said that the steel necktie worn by my stooge at the theatre had to be cut off by a water-cooled electric saw. They said that however I did it, it was a clever trick.
The next few days, Your Excellency, were the most difficult of my stay here. I knew that the full power of not only the F.B.I., but of the whole national government, would be concentrated to destroy me. I had to hide--hide, and get a new start.
The money in the pockets of my borrowed suit didn't last long. I couldn't possibly risk presenting myself as a strong man or a magician again. I became a ditch digger and a day laborer, and finally drifted into the professional wrestling racket. Many of the top wrestling promoters live in Washington, D. C. I rented a little white clapboard house with green shutters, out in the country beyond Silver Springs, Maryland.
* * * * *
I was careful to keep myself a second-rate wrestler. This was exasperating, Your Excellency. At any time I could have beaten three or four of their best wrestlers simultaneously. Everything was fixed so I won and lost when they told me to. We even practiced how we were going to win or lose before each match. I was very obedient and very scared.
I did everything not to attract attention. I started to use the male principle again, but so sparingly that everything looked natural.
I tried to fit into the life of the community and become an American. I joined a Bowling League. I learned to play a game called "Canasta."
I got to be great friends with a man named Nat Brown, an automobile mechanic. He lived with his extraordinarily beautiful wife, Helene, in a house about a half mile away.
The Browns used to ask me to dinner, and I would meet their friends. I grew very fond of them. We would sit around and drink beer and play cards and talk until late at night about politics and philosophy and love and everything else on earth. It was by far the swiftest part of my education in America, living with these lighthearted, charming people who obviously liked me.
The only disadvantage was the problem raised by my increasing fondness for Helene Brown. She was a vivid incarnation of the female principle, and yet I knew I must not touch her. I had a constant battle with myself to maintain the disinterested relationship necessary to continuing with these people without complication.
Both Nat and Helene Brown used to come to see me wrestle whenever I had a match in Washington. Whether I won or lost we would go out and drink beer together. I would sometimes bring another girl along. More and more I started to feel like a real native American. A couple of close friends, Excellency, did a lot for your humble servant.
Three days ago I was riding along Connecticut Avenue in my new car. When I stopped for a light, I saw a familiar face in the crowd crossing the street. It was the tall heavy man, the F.B.I. agent who had tracked me down and tried to capture me in the theatre the night of the big battle. I could sense the mass of metal carried under his left arm.
He was hurrying along with another man. When I saw who it was my blood froze in my veins. It was my neighbor, Nat Brown. He also had a mass of metal under his left arm.
It was clear to me then that, in spite of my precautions, the F.B.I. had spotted me weeks ago. How, I do not know. Nat Brown was their surveillance agent.
I drove home immediately to finish this letter and get it off to you. I may not be alive tomorrow. The launching apparatus is concealed in a tool shed about a half a mile behind the house. I am going to put down my recommendations and get this off immediately--before it's too late.
* * * * *
As I see it, Excellency, there are only four courses available to us:
(1) A chemical or other isolation of the female principle, followed by an attempt to synthesize it at home to see what its effect would be on our women. This might save us. Unfortunately I have yet been unable to isolate what causes the female principle here; so this is not a possibility yet.
(2) Kidnap some of their women. This would be delightful fun for Your Excellency and a few others; but it would not solve the main problem. Transportation difficulties would make it impossible to get enough of them. Also, if the basic element which creates the "female principle" is lacking because of some soil or other deficiency at home, their women would soon become like ours. All of our trouble would go for nothing, and our doom would continue to approach.
(3) Conquer them, kill the men, take their women, and live with the women here. This, in my opinion, should not be attempted for the following reasons. Ame
ricans are extraordinarily efficient in warfare. They have atomic and hydrogen weapons, and they know how to use them. They are very warlike, although they constantly deny it. Some of their other weapons are fully equal to ours, in some respects, superior. Our communications would be far too long to enable us to prevail. This should be attempted only if the fourth alternative fails; and even then only after long expensive preparation. Also, there is distinct danger if we disclose ourselves by attacking them. They may find a way to attack us, and cause considerable damage. As things are now, with our vanishing birth rate, we can't afford to lose people in a war.
(4) The fourth alternative is to breed their race out of existence by planting our blood here--in other words, an invasion from within. This will depend upon our two races being inter-fertile. I am almost certain that they are. If I can stay alive for seven months longer I will give you a definite report. I will carry on the experiment as swiftly as possible.
Since these people have such a short life span our descendants will live hundreds of years longer than theirs. The present race will slowly be bred out due to the infirmities of its men. Our men and their women will create a race superior to both.
If I can find a way to escape from the F.B.I., and establish myself once more in safety I will try to justify Your Excellency's confidence in your humble servant.
* * * * *
I put the letter down on my desk. It certainly told most of the story. It needed only a final paragraph. Then I sat down at the typewriter and added it:
I am closing now, Your Excellency. Tomorrow will be the transmission date for this letter. I may not communicate with you again for some time, but please understand, Excellency, that I am your humble and devoted servant and have tried to carry on in strict accordance with your wishes.
I put the letter into an envelope and put it in my pocket. Then I got into my car and drove down through the city to the northwest wing of the Department of Justice Building. The elevator girl smiled. "Haven't seen you for a long time, Nat. Don't you work for the F.B.I. any more?"
I smiled back at her, "The Chief has had me up to a lot of out-of-town devilment."
I passed Jack and Tex in the hall, and we waved to each other. They wanted to talk, but I was in too much of a hurry. "The Chief wants me," I said, without slowing down.
When I reached the Chief's office Mrs. Sperling gave me a broad grin. "Hello, Nat. The Chief's been waiting for you."
I went down the little corridor into the Chief's room. He was sitting at his desk looking grim and tense. On the wall behind him was a huge map of the United States. It had clumps of vari-colored pins all over it. His deep voice boomed across the room.
"Hello, Nat. How is the Chief of the Venusian Desk?"
"Well, if you want to know the truth, Chief, I'm pretty god damned relieved. Some jobs are fun. But my hair has been standing on end so much since you gave me this job that it's going to need about a year's rest. No man wants his hair to have a nervous breakdown."
The Chief looked at me fondly. "Well, I can't say you carried your mission out quietly. It practically blew me out of bed, and I live at least ten miles away."
"Joe did a hell of a good job with the TNT," I said. "How the hell he ever got twenty tons of it down in the basement in three hours I'll never find out."
A slight frown came over the Chief's face. "Are you sure our Venusian friend was there?"
"Absolutely."
"How--absolutely?"
"I called him on the telephone. When he answered I pressed the button. I heard the explosion over the wire, half a second before it practically tore down my own house. When I got over there a big crowd was collecting." I took a deep breath. "Not much for them to look at, though--just a big black smoking hole in the ground."
"And our inter-planetary friend?"
"Well, I don't know about his soul, Chief, but his body isn't around anywhere. I guess it just turned into steam with the rest of the house. A lot of women are going to be sad as hell."
I saw the Chief's fists clenched on the desk. He was still taut from the strain of the last few hours. Finally he reached for the silver cigarette box on his desk. His fingers jerked crazily as he put a cigarette in his mouth. He passed the box to me. I took one and started fumbling in my pockets for a match. The Chief snapped open the top of his big desk lighter, and held it over to me. I put the cigarette into the flame and drew deeply. The flame was at least three inches high. The Chief leaned forward, his eyes riveted on me. There was a queer, expectant look on his face. I stared back at him, puzzled. Finally he snapped the lighter shut, and turned to the wall. "It's all right, boys," he said.
* * * * *
A door with grille-work along the front opened up. I saw Joe Evans and Tom Hardy and Jim Reid standing there with tommy guns, pointed right at my head.
The Chief laughed at my expression of bewilderment.
"I wasn't taking any chances, Nat. You can't afford to in a situation like this. No matter how sure you are, you can't gamble the whole future of your own world. I wanted to be damned certain that you really were Nat Brown, and not His Excellency's humble servant from the planet Venus. If you had flinched so much as one eyelash, Nat, when I held that lighter up to your face, three tommy guns would have opened up on you--all at one and the same time."
I felt suddenly limp. I uttered a long audible whistle of relief.
The Chief's voice was low and solemn. "Think what we've escaped, Nat--think how close he came to getting loose on our world!"
I took the letter out and threw it on his desk. "After you read this, Chief, you'll appreciate it a little more. The last paragraph is mine. I picked up the letter while the boys were loading the TNT down in the basement."
While the Chief was reading the letter I got up and looked at the map of the United States behind him. Each of the colored pinheads had names printed on them. Grouped around Silver Springs, Maryland, were two pins. One was labeled "Chief." The other was labeled "Nat Brown." I turned to the Chief. "I wish you would do one thing for me."
"I'll do anything for you."
"Instead of calling us 'Chief' and 'Nat Brown,' call us 'Excellency' and 'Your Humble Servant.'"
The Chief chuckled. "There has never been any humor on that board, and by God, it's high time there was." He rang the buzzer. "Mrs. Sperling, change the 'Chief' and 'Nat Brown' pins to 'Excellency' and 'Your Humble Servant.'"
* * * * *
Her eyes widened a bit, but the labels were changed on the spot.
When the Chief got to that part about the recommendations he read them out loud. Then he began to pace the room.
"Nat," he said, "I'm going to see that you get some very special recognition for the job you have done. I mean recognition from the White House itself. Of course we can't give it any publicity--at least not yet--but it will mean a lot more money for you."
"Thanks, Chief, I can use it."
"In your opinion, what should we do now, as our next step?" He paused. "Or should we just do nothing?"
"I think we've got to be careful that they don't send anyone else down here. Or maybe it is 'up' here. We've got to get messages back to his 'Excellency' every once in a while from 'Your Humble Servant.' I know how to do it now. The launching tube is still intact in its shed. There are ten rockets, so we can send at least ten messages. Time plays in our favor--since they have apparently lost the ability to reproduce themselves, they are dying out. If we can hold them off for a long enough period, we'll be safe forever. The most important thing, Chief, is to be sure we know it if they land any more 'humble servants' on the earth."
The Chief nodded approval. "How can we make sure we'll know it?"
"It's hard to make absolutely sure, but why not send me out on a roving mission to set up an international organization to detect such a creature? What we want is information about anyone, anywhere, who is unusually strong or unusually attractive to women, or eats six or eight meals a day, or who has the other queer powers they have. I coul
d get all the information coming in from all over the world, process it here, and only bother you when we found something suspicious."
The Chief was enthusiastic. "You've thought yourself up a job, Nat. Take three weeks vacation to get yourself rested up, and then get started."
* * * * *
I walked down the long marble corridors away from the Chief's office, and went down in the elevator and out into the street. As I walked along in the crowds I felt the warmth of bodies as they passed me. I suddenly realized the novocaine was beginning to wear off. I didn't get out any too soon. My chin ached and throbbed. That hot searing flame had come so close ... from now on my nightmares would be of that moment when the Chief was holding the lighter to my cigarette. But one thing sang through my being; the battle was won. In a month my world travels for the F.B.I. would start.
Like a phoenix, I, the new Nat Brown, had risen re-born from the ashes of the Nat Brown vaporized by the explosion. What could his thoughts have been, lying tied up on the living room floor waiting for twenty tons of TNT to go off? Waiting, while I held the mirror in front of me and slowly made my face into an exact replica of his. He must have known then that I would get his job, and get his wife, Helene, and finally get his world. He realized then that His Excellency would send down hundreds more like me and that I would be the screen between them and the F.B.I., that I would instruct them and encourage them and give them aid and safety for their missions.
As I neared the Cathedral I looked west on Massachusetts Avenue. The sun had just set and the Evening Star was hanging like a lantern in the sky--my homeland, the radiant planet which men on earth call Venus. Venus, they have told me, means love. What a superb and cosmic joke that is! I looked at the beautiful orb on the horizon and was filled with the triumphant excitement of being the earth-man, Nat Brown, of going home to my wife, Helene, one of the thousands who would breed thousands who would breed thousands.
