Enemies In Space

by Groff Conklin (Ed. )

  “Professor, can you describe one of the invaders?”

  “No more than one can describe a radio wave. They are radio waves, in effect, although they emanate from no broadcasting station. They are a form of life dependent upon the movement of ether, as life as we know it is dependent upon the vibration of matter. Life is movement—or at least, life is contingent upon movement.”

  “They are different sizes?”

  “Yes—in two senses of the word size. Radio waves are measured from crest to crest, which measurement is known as the wave length. Since the invaders cover the entire dials of our receiving sets, obviously they can—in imitation, undoubtedly, of the waves of ours that they have met—adjust themselves to any frequency, or crest-to-crest wave length.

  “But that is only a crest-to-crest length. The actual length of a radio wave is much greater. If a broadcasting station sends out a program of one second’s duration, the length of the wave carrying that program is one light-second, or 186,270 miles. A half-hour program is on a continuous wave, as it were, one-half light-hour long, and so on.

  “On that basis, the individual . . . uh . . . invaders vary in length from a hundred thousand miles long—less than a second in duration—to about five million miles long—almost half a minute in duration. Each is in constant movement at the speed of light, and presumably that movement is now in a circle about the surface of the Earth. Each wave, as it were, extends many times, or many thousands of times, around the Earth.”

  “How can that be told?”

  “By the length of the . . . ah . . . excerpts from various programs. None are under half a second in duration, none over half a minute.”

  “But why assume, Professor Helmetz, that these . . . these waves are living things? Why not just inanimate waves?”

  “An inanimate wave . . . as you call it . . . would follow certain laws. Just as inanimate matter follows certain laws. An animal can climb uphill, however, or run in circles, or . . . uh . . . climb a tree. A stone can do none of these unless impelled by some outside force. It is the same with these invaders. They are living things because they show volition, because they are not limited in direction of travel, because they can change their form—because they retain their identity; two signals never come together on the same radio or conflict with one another. They follow one another but do not come simultaneously. They do not blend or heterodyne as signals on the same wave length would ordinarily do. They follow laws and rules of their own. They are not merely radio waves.”

  “But, Professor, are they intelligent beings?”

  Professor Helmetz took off his glasses and polished them thoughtfully. He said finally, “I doubt if we shall ever know. The intelligence of such beings, if any, would be on such a completely different plane from ours that there would be no common point from which we could start intercourse. We are material; they are immaterial. I do not think there can ever be common ground between us.”

  “But if they are intelligent at all, Professor—”

  “Ants are intelligent, after a fashion. Even if one calls it instinct that enables them to do such marvelous things, still instinct is a form of intelligence. Yet we cannot communicate with ants; we shall be less likely to communicate with the invaders. The difference in type between ant intelligence and ours would be nothing to the difference in type between the intelligence of the invaders and our own. What could we have to say to one another?”

  The professor must have had something there. Communication with the vaders—a clipped form, of course, of “invaders”—was never established.

  Radio stocks stabilized on the Exchange. Until, a day after the midnight lecture, someone asked Dr. Helmetz the sixty-four-dollar question and the newspapers published his answer:

  “Resume broadcasting? I don’t know. Not until the invaders go away, and why should they? Unless, of course, radio communication is perfected on some other planet in some other Galaxy, and they’re attracted there.”

  “And if they did go away—?”

  “Oh, they’d be back when we started to broadcast again.”

  Radio stocks dropped to practically zero in an hour. There wasn’t any frenzied scene on the Exchange, however; no frenzied selling, because there was no buying, frenzied or otherwise. No radio stocks exchanged hands.

  Radio musicians took jobs in theaters, taverns, and the like. And failed completely to fulfill the increased demand for talent. With radio out, other forms of entertainment boomed.

  Magazine sales boomed. Movies boomed. Vaudeville was coming back. Everything boomed except radio.

  “One down,” said George Bailey. The bartender asked what he meant.

  “I dunno, Hank. I got a hunch.”

  “What kind of hunch?”

  “I don’t even know that. Shake me up one more of those, and I’ll go home.”

  The electric shaker wouldn’t work, and Hank had to shake it up by hand.

  “Exercise; that’s what you need,” said George. “Take some of that fat off you.”

  Hank grunted and the ice tinkled merrily as he tilted the shaker to pour out the drink.

  George Bailey drank it leisurely and strolled out into an April thundershower. He stood under the awning and watched for a taxi. An old man was standing in front of him.

  “Some weather,” George said.

  The old man grinned at him. “You noticed it?”

  “Huh? Noticed what?”

  “Just watch a while, mister. Just watch a while.”

  The old man moved on. George stood there quite a while—for no cab went by empty—before he got it. His jaw dropped a trifle, and then he closed his mouth and went back into the tavern. He went into a phone booth and called Pete Mulvaney.

  He got three wrong numbers and lost four nickels before he got Pete. Pete’s voice said “Yeah?”

  “George Bailey, Pete. Listen, the weather. Notice it?”

  “Yes. What’s it mean, you want to know. So do I. You tell me. I think it’s—” A crackling sound on the wire blurred it out.

  “Hey, Pete! You there?”

  The sound of a violin. Pete Mulvaney didn’t play the violin.

  “Hey, Pete! What in—”

  Pete’s voice again. “Come on over, George. This isn’t going to last long. Bring—” A buzzing noise and then a voice that was not Pete’s said, “—come to Carnegie Hall. The best tunes of all come to Carnegie Hall. Yes, the best tunes of all come to Car—”

  George slammed down the receiver.

  He walked through the rain to Pete’s place. On the way he bought a bottle of Scotch. Pete had started to tell him to bring something, and maybe, he figured, that was what it was.

  It was.

  They poured a drink apiece and lifted them. The lights flickered briefly, went out, and then on again.

  “No lightning,” said George. “No lightning and pretty soon no lighting. They’re taking over the telephone. What do they do with lightning, though?”

  “Eat it, maybe.”

  “No lightning,” said George. “I can get by without a telephone, and candles and oil lamps aren’t bad for lights, but I’m going to miss lightning. I like lightning.”

  Pete Mulvaney leaned back in his chair. He said, “Electric lights, electric toasters, electric hair curlers, vacuum cleaners. Electric power, and—automobiles and airplanes and Diesel-engined boats. George, do you know no gasoline engine can work without electricity?”

  “Huh? For a starter, sure, but can’t it be cranked by hand?”

  “Yes, but the spark.”

  “Yes, the spark. Hey, how about these new rocket planes? Those, too?”

  “Those, too.”

  “Movies?”

  “Definitely, movies. You couldn’t work a projector with an oil lamp. You need concentrated light for that. And sound tracks—well, that’s electricity per se.”

  George Bailey shook his head slowly. “All right, scratch movies. Streetcars. Trucks, tanks, toasters—See what it means, Pete?” />
  Pete poured another drink. “It means we’re going back to the original source of horsepower. Horses. If you want to invest, buy horses. Particularly mares; mares are going to be worth their weight in gold.”

  “Hey, though, there are steam engines. Locomotives.”

  Pete Mulvaney nodded. “The iron horse. We’ll be back to it for the long hauls, and back to Dobbin for the short ones. Can you ride?” George sipped his drink slowly. “Used to when I was a kid. Guess I can learn again. Say, it’ll be fun. And say—”

  “What?”

  “Used to play the cornet when I was a kid. Think I’ll get one and learn again. That’ll be fun, too. And maybe I’ll hole in somewhere and write that nov—Say, what about printing?”

  “They printed books long before electricity. Take a while to readjust the printing industry, but there’ll be books and magazines, all right.” George Bailey grinned and got up. He walked over to the window and looked out and down into the storm. A streetcar was stalled in the middle of the block outside. Behind him, the lights flickered again. An automobile stopped, then started more slowly, stopped again.

  A neon light across the way suddenly went dark.

  He looked up at the sky and sipped his drink.

  “No lightning,” he said. He was going to miss the lightning.

  The change-over, for a wonder, went smoothly.

  The government, having had experience of a multiplicity of divided authorities, created one board with practically unlimited authority, and under it three subsidiary boards. The main board, called the Economic Readjustment Bureau, had only seven members, and its job was to coordinate the efforts of the three subsidiary boards and to decide, quickly and without delay, any jurisdictional disputes among them.

  First of the three subsidiary boards was the Transportation Bureau. It immediately took over, temporarily, the railroads. It ordered Diesel engines run on sidings and left there, organized use of the steam locomotives, and solved the problems of railroading sans telegraphy and electric signals. It dictated, then, what should be transported, food coming first, coal and fuel oil second, and essential manufactured articles in the order of their relative importance. Carload after carload of new radios, electric stoves, refrigerators, and such useless articles were dumped unceremoniously alongside the tracks, to be salvaged for scrap metal later.

  All horses were declared wards of the government, graded according to capabilities, and put to work or to stud. Draft horses were used for only the most essential kinds of hauling. The breeding program was given the fullest possible emphasis; the bureau estimated that the equine population would double in two years, quadruple in three, and that within six or seven years there would be a horse in every garage in the country.

  Farmers, deprived temporarily of their horses, and with their tractors rusting in the fields, were instructed how to use cattle for plowing and other work about the farm, including light hauling.

  The second board, the Manpower Relocation Bureau, functioned just as one would deduce from its title. It handled unemployment benefits for the millions thrown temporarily out of work and helped relocate them—not too difficult a task, considering the tremendously increased demand for hand labor in many fields. In May of 1947, thirty-five million employables were out of work; in October, fifteen million; by May of 1948, five million. By 1949 the situation was completely in hand and competitive demand was already beginning to raise wages.

  The third board had the most difficult job of the three. It was called the Factory Readjustment Bureau. It coped with the stupendous task of converting factories, filled with electrically operated machinery and, for the most part, tooled for the production of other electrically operated machinery, over to the production, without electricity, of essential nonelectrical articles.

  The few available stationary steam engines worked twenty-four-hour shifts in those early days, and the first thing they were given to do was to run stampers and planers and millers turning out more stationary steam engines, of all sizes. These, in turn, were first put to work making still more steam engines. The number of steam engines grew by squares and cubes, as did the number of horses put to stud. The principle was the same. One might—and many did—refer to those early steam engines as stud horses. At any rate, there was no lack of metal for them. The factories were filled with nonconvertible machinery waiting to be melted down.

  Only when steam engines—the basis of the new factory economy—were in full production were they assigned to running machinery for the manufacture of other articles: oil lamps, clothing, coal stoves, oil stoves, bathtubs, and bedsteads.

  Not quite all the big factories were converted. For, while the conversion period went on, individual handicrafts sprang up in thousands of places. Little one-and two-man shops made and repaired furniture, shoes, candles, all sorts of things that could be made without complex machinery. At first these small shops made small fortunes because they had no competition from heavy industry. Later, they bought small steam engines to run small machines, and held their own, growing with the boom that came with a return to normal employment and buying power, increasing gradually in size until many of them rivaled the bigger factories in output and beat them in quality.

  There was suffering, during the period of economic readjustment, but less than there had been during the great depression of the early 1930’s. And the recovery was quicker.

  The reason was obvious: In combating the depression, the government was working in the dark. They didn’t know its cause—rather, they knew a thousand conflicting theories of its cause—and they didn’t know the cure. They were hampered by the idea that the thing was temporary and would cure itself if left alone. Briefly and frankly, they didn’t know what it was all about, and while they experimented, it snowballed.

  But the situation that faced the country—and all other countries—in 1947 was clear-cut and obvious. No more electricity. Readjust for steam and horsepower.

  As simple and clear as that, and no ifs or ands or buts. And the whole people—except for the usual scattering of cranks—back of them.

  By 1951—

  It was a rainy day in April, and George Bailey was waiting under the sheltering roof of the little railroad station at Blakestown, Connecticut, to see who might come in on the 3:14.

  It chugged in at 3:25 and came to a panting stop: three coaches and a baggage car. The baggage-car door opened and a sack of mail was handed out and the door closed again. No luggage, so probably no passengers would—

  Then at the sight of a tall, dark man swinging down from the platform of the rear coach, George Bailey let out a yip of delight. “Pete! Pete Mulvaney! What the devil—”

  “Bailey, by all that’s holy! What are you doing here?”

  George was wringing his hand. “Me? I live here. Two years now. I bought the Blakestown Weekly in ’49, for a song, and I run it—editor, reporter, and janitor. Got one printer to help me out with that end, and Maisie does the social items. She’s—”

  “Maisie? Maisie Hetterman?”

  “Maisie Bailey now. We got married same time I bought the paper and moved here. What are you doing here, Pete?”

  “Business. Just here overnight. See a man named Wilcox.”

  “Oh, Wilcox. Our local screwball—but don’t get me wrong; he’s a smart guy, all right. Well, you can see him tomorrow. You’re coming home with me now for dinner and to stay overnight. Maisie’ll be glad to see you. Come on, my buggy’s over here.”

  “Sure. Finished whatever you were here for?”

  “Yep, just to pick up the news on who came in on the train. And you came in, so here we go.”

  They got in the buggy, and George picked up the reins and said, “Giddap, Bessie,” to the mare. Then, “What are you doing now, Pete?”

  “Research. For a gas-supply company. Been working on a more efficient mantle, one that’ll give more light and be less destructible. This fellow Wilcox wrote us he had something along that line; the company sent me up to lo
ok it over. If it’s what he claims, I’ll take him back to New York with me and let the company lawyers dicker wit”, him.”

  “How’s business, otherwise?”

  “Great, George. Gas; that’s the coming thing. Every new home’s being piped for it, and plenty of the old ones. How about you?”

  “We got it. Luckily we had one of the old linotypes that ran the metal pot off a gas burner, so it was already piped in. And our home is right over the office and print shop, so all we had to do was pipe it up a flight. Great stuff, gas. How’s New York?”

  “Fine, George. Down to its last million people, and stabilizing there. No crowding, and plenty of room for everybody. The air—why, it’s better than Atlantic City, without gasoline fumes.”

  “Enough horses to go around yet?”

  “Almost. But bicycling’s the craze; the factories can’t turn out enough to meet the demand. There’s a cycling club in almost every block, and all the able-bodied cycle to and from work. Doing ’em good, too; a few more years, and the doctors will go on short rations.”

  “You got a bike?”

  “Sure, a pre-vader one. Average five miles a day on it, and I eat like a horse.”

  George Bailey chuckled. “I’ll have Maisie include some hay in the dinner. Well, here we are. Whoa, Bessie.”

  An upstairs window went up, and Maisie looked out and down. She called out, “Hi, Pete!”