by Mark Clifton
"You never did believe they were for us,” she said.
"Nor against us, either,” I answered. “Why should they be? How long is the human race going on believing it is something so damned special that the universe and everything in it has to be arranged to suit man's convenience?"
"Maybe you're right,” she said. “What I came in to tell you is that there's a Mr. Harvey Strickland and his secretary waiting in my office to see you. I don't know how they got past all the security checks, but they're here."
"It's taken him longer to get around to me than I'd expected,” I said. “Maybe he's been waiting for the right moment."
"He's picked a good one,” she agreed.
She correctly interpreted my nod of assent, and stepped back to open the door. The two men must have been standing there on the other side of it. The fat man's face was already clouding with anger at the lese majesty of keeping him waiting.
"Mr. Strickland, Mr. Miller,” Sara murmured as they came through the door, “Galaxy Admiral Dr. Ralph Kennedy,” she introduced me unnecessarily.
But the introduction did recall to me that I was wearing my new sailor suit, and must conduct myself in keeping with all its glittering brass and braid. I stood up, but did not hold out my hand; nor did Strickland walk over to the desk to hold out his.
"Find this gentleman the widest chair we have, Sara,” I said soberly and in a tone of utmost courtesy.
She had been my secretary for many years. Not one line of her face altered, but I noticed there was a new lightness to her step and less dejection in her shoulders as she stepped over to a huge overstuffed and murmured, “I believe the gentleman will find this comfortable.” Sara was exploding with perfectly concealed laughter. The world had not come to an end, after all; not really.
She touched another chair for Miller, but he ignored her. His face was pale, his breathing harsh, his forehead beaded with sweat, his hands at his side were trembling. His eyes were riveted on Strickland, and Strickland alone. Neither the chair, nor the room, nor the rest of us existed for him. He remained standing, a little to the side, a little behind his boss, as a good organization man must.
When Strickland had wheezed and eased himself into the depths of the chair, I sat down too, and folded my hands on top of the desk. Sara was looking at me inquiringly.
"I doubt that the true record would ever find its way into the popular press or on TV channels, Sara,” I said dryly. “But stay and take notes, anyway."
Strickland's head jerked at that. He looked at me piercingly from out the rolls of fat around his eyes, and the slow grin appeared on his face.
"This is going to be a pleasure,” he rumbled. “Another young squirt who thinks he's lord of the Earth."
"I've managed somehow to keep my head up, and my backbone straight,” I said modestly. I deliberately looked at Miller, and felt my words penetrate that rapt preoccupation. His own head seemed to come up a trifle, his own back seemed to straighten. His right hand started to raise, then lowered again.
"I don't know why you've endured the nuisance of coming here,” I said to Strickland. I was using moderate tones, words slowly spaced. I knew this man for what he was; I'd been around Washington long enough now and enough people had become sufficiently confident of me to talk to me. I'd met other men like him, congressmen and senators who believed their districts and their states to be their own private hunting grounds, and the people in them their political serfs and game. Most of these had no other motive except self-preservation; the corrupting years had given them assurance that they were of superior clay, their behavior simply to see that none challenged that truth. Mr. Harvey Strickland was driven by compulsions running deeper than Lord of the Manor keeping his serfs under control.
"You already know what you're going to report out of this meeting,” I continued. “You're looking for a patsy, and you've found one. You know, as well as I, that I have no power and no influence with the Starmen, whatever. If you've got any sense at all, and you've got plenty, you know that they've been fiddling around with the environment of this life form they've discovered; and what I might think about it makes no more difference to them than what some germ thinks about the chemical changes some biologist makes in the culture medium on a smear slide."
His grin grew wider. It was my only answer.
"The mob is going to be howling for blood,” I said. “They're always ready to blame somebody, and you'll get your kicks out of giving them somebody. It would never occur to you to use your power and your influence to build men, to build intelligence, willingness to think, willingness to shoulder responsibility for their own mistakes, to help them grow up. Because if they did that, you might not be such a hot specimen. And that's the realization you can never face."
He threw back his head and roared with laughter.
"I'll bet you were the most popular man on the campus,” he said, between high, wheezing gasps.
That was one thing he shouldn't have said. Miller jerked like a marionette on agitated strings. His right hand swept up under his unbuttoned jacket; he pulled out the small gun; he pumped shots at the body of the huge man; one, two, three, four, five, six.
There was the thud of each, the flinching of the flesh, the slight sway to one side at the force of repeated impact—and the high, wheezing roar of laughter increased.
Miller's eyes widened, his jaw dropped. Now he was trembling violently. He stared at the laughing man in horror, the full surge of his belief in Strickland's invincibility returned. His knees crumpled. He sank to the floor there in the middle of the office. He cradled his head in his arms braced by his knees, and sobbed in loud, racking coughs.
I had half risen, bracing my hands on desk top. Sara was sitting still and frozen. I could understand; I too was frozen in that crouch before a leap around the desk to stop him. Strickland was calmly unbuttoning his shirt, and searching in the mesh of his bulletproof vest for the slugs of lead. As he found one, he would lift it between thumb and forefinger, hold it up as one looks at a pebble specimen, then lay it carefully on the smoking stand at the side of his chair. He was collecting a little pile of them. I had no doubt he would find them useful in the future.
I settled back down in my chair and began to breathe again. I did not punch any of the buttons under the front rim on my desk top. There was no emergency. And I doubted that the spat, spat, spat of the gun had been heard outside the office. Oddly, I heard myself still talking in measured tones, and this time to Miller huddled there on the floor.
"It wouldn't have solved anything,” I was saying. “There's always been Stricklands around. There'll always be Stricklands around until people get tired of swallowing ready-made opinions and slogans like cure-all pills. This Strickland was only one of the series, and it wouldn't take long to replace him with another. Personally, I think the people deserve him."
Strickland looked up from his preoccupation with his little pile of misshapen bullets. He stared long at me from the creased rolls of flesh.
"I could use a man like you,” he said as if making an important discovery. “By God if I couldn't!"
"But by God you won't,” I said.
"You know the score,” he went on as if I hadn't spoken. As if the matter were already arranged. “Now this is the next step we'll take..."
His voice trailed off, and his own eyes widened. I hadn't believed it possible to see so much of them. His own face went slack, and the flesh suddenly sagged. The whole body seemed to slump and overflow the edges of the chair. The head dropped suddenly, as far as fat would allow, toward the chest.
And only then did I become aware that a purple vortex was whirling beside my desk.
I seemed to be past shock, past caring. Perhaps I had been expecting them, prepared for their coming, ready for any kind of form in which they might appear.
"Bex, Dex, Jex, Kex and—ah—Lex,” I said dryly. “I think you've given the man a heart attack. Granted that one was long overdue with all that fat around it, this is how y
ou carry out your resolution to harm no one?"
Miller still cradled his head in his arms, his face concealed. He had not yet seen the vortex. Sara was still huddled back in her chair, staring at the purple whirlwind.
"It's all right, Sara,” I said. “These are our little playmates who just like to have fun. I think this is probably how they really look. All the other he-man stuff was just showmanship. More illusion. You know, same as people?"
She nodded, but out of habit only. I wouldn't have been surprised to see her fingers transcribing it all in shorthand, without the faintest notion of what I was saying.
"Still,” I said to the vortex, “it might he a little chummier if you did take human shapes.” I nodded toward the slumped figure of Miller, who hadn't yet looked up.
They obliged me. Five, handsome, resplendent young men were standing about the room. At the stir Miller did look up then.
"Your boss is dead,” I said.
His face stiffened, and then he smiled.
He held out his hands, wrists together, toward the nearest Starman.
"They're not policemen,” I said. “Sara, take him down to first aid. Let the Strickland body be until I see what these slap-happy fly-boys want now. We'll get around to cleaning up our own mess after I learn why these fellows who come from the stars have created such a bigger one."
As if she too were a puppet on a string, Sara arose, reached out to Miller, helped him pull himself to his feet, helped him out the door. As they went across the room, I wasn't sure who was leaning on whom.
"Well?” I asked when Sara had closed the door behind them. I nodded toward the Strickland body again.
I do not know, to this day, whether the Starmen felt emotions in the way we feel them. They portrayed emotions, and I suppose any life form must have emotions of some kind. Wouldn't it be a part of awareness, awareness of self, awareness of self in relation to things about us, awareness that things, even though unpersonal and impersonal, can harm or benefit us according to our use of them? These Starmen had at least the courtesy, if nothing else, to look regretful.
"Your criticism of our mistakes is nothing compared to what Galaxy Council will say,” Bex said. I suppose it was Bex.
"I thought you told me yours was a policy of noninterference, of bringing harm to no life form,” I said.
"We have restored everything to its original state."
"Oh no,” I answered. “You've been here. You've made yourself known. If nothing else, nothing else at all, we'd never be the same again."
"That's the point,” he said. “You will be the same. Because the Vegans were here, thousands of years ago. Prematurely, without authorization. You've built up an entire structure of thought based on their appearance. In time, our appearance will come to be just more of the same."
"But we were progressing out of it,” I said. “Our belief in demons was fading. Compared with what you can do, perhaps we hadn't made much progress in science, but we were starting off in that direction. Now you've set us back at least a thousand years."
"We miscalculated,” he said, and had the grace to look unhappy about it.
"You sure did,” I agreed fervently.
"It's still difficult to believe that you've made the advances in nuclear physics, other quite commendable advances in other fields..."
"Thanks,” I interrupted dryly.
"And still know nothing, nothing at all about yourselves. We miscalculated. We believed there must be two life forms. We didn't see how a man could master science in one area of knowledge and be as ignorant and superstitious as a savage in another. We believed that for some reason the intelligent race must be in hiding. We didn't then know that this intelligence was being hidden, not only from his own kind, but from himself.
"Otherwise we wouldn't have made an appearance at all."
"And having made the appearance ... But if you were courting an intelligence, why the guise of—well—such hero types?"
"We felt there must be some desperate reason why the intelligence was concealed. We fitted the mores of the lesser form, lest our appearance lead to revealment unwittingly."
"So now,” I said, “you've made your tests and done your exploring, and you've found that while we can mix together a little of this and that and make a big bang, emotionally and philosophically we're still ignorant savages. That we've made a little progress in the physical sciences, but in the humanic sciences we are still determined not to make any progress, I suppose you'll—uh—ah—quarantine us? See to it that we don't get out beyond our solar system?"
"Oh no!” The reply was instant, and shocked. “We wouldn't have any right to do that. Who are we to say how a life form shall develop? When you get out there, if you do, if your humanists permit your science to develop any farther and that's unlikely, we'll cope with you somehow."
"Our humanists may fool you,” I said. “You hadn't noticed, because it is such a tiny trace; but here and there we even have a humanist who is willing to admit that his authoritative personal opinion and vested importance as a leader-not-ever-to-be-challenged might not, after all, be the whole and final answer."
I nodded toward Strickland's body.
"That guy's a bumbling amateur compared with some of the humanists we've had and what they've done to the human race. But don't count on us failing. That would be another miscalculation."
[Back to Table of Contents]
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
The star-sapphire globe, iridescent from pearl to blue, hovered once more in the center of Washington's Mall. Once more the sad eyes of the Lincoln statue looked out upon it.
The crowd was thinner now, and quiet. The dignitaries were few. Men such as the President had calculated the political disadvantages of appearing too intimate with these Starmen who had given of miracles, and taken them away. No one, this time, seemed eager to challenge my position as go-between, host speeding the departing guests upon their way.
There were a few officers from the Pentagon, bless ‘em, who had shown up; as if to say, right or wrong, the services will stand behind their own. The crowds of the curious had gathered, but they were neither enthusiastic nor hostile. The death of Strickland had left a hole, a deep hole not yet healed, and no one had yet turned public opinion toward the Starmen into hate. Lacking leadership in forming slogans, for this temporary space, the news media were simply reporting events. It was something new for this generation, and no one knew how to respond to it.
We stood, a little lonely group; the five Starmen, somehow less resplendent this morning under a clouded sky, Sara and I, Shirley and Dr. Kibbie and Dr. Gaffee, a handful of lesser Pentagon officers.
We stood by the ramp (no rainbow bridge this time) and gravely shook hands with the five Starmen. They turned and filed up the ramp. There were no cheers from the crowd.
Four of them filed into the blue radiance shining from the interior, an interior our scientists had never got to explore. The fifth, I suppose it was Bex, turned and faced the silent people. So he was going to carry out my suggestion of saving face, after all!
"People of Earth,” he said, and his voice came clearly to all of us. “I reckon you all are disappointed that we hafta go home now. But like your own Peace Corps we came, and we showed you how to turn wasteland into bountiful fertile acres. We done our duty by you, and I reckon now that you know what ought to be done, you'll go right ahead and do it. We showed you. We done our part."
He waited.
There was no answering cheer.
"Good-by, now. When you all have figgered out how to sail across space to our shores, you'll find yourselves just as welcome as the people who come to your shores."
There was a murmur from one of the officers behind me.
"Why the dirty, hostile sonsofbitches!” he said.
Bex turned then, and walked into the blue radiance. The ramp slid, melted into the side of the ship. The door closed. The globe lifted; slowly at first, then faster and faster.
It melted into the layer
of clouds. It was gone.
The silent crowd shuffled a little, and slowly began to disperse.
They had come from space, and Earth would start its long road to recovery.
I looked at Sara, Shirley, Gaffee, Kibbie.
"Well, boys and girls,” I said. “We're still the Bureau of Extraterrestrial Psychology. Maybe some of the obscure research departments of some of the universities will still want some information from us."
"We may have to hoard that two billion and stretch it out for quite a while,” Dr. Kibbie answered.
The three of them turned then, and started walking toward our staff cars, ahead of Sara and me.
"I wonder if Old Stone Face might hire back a couple of wandering personnel people,” I mused.
Sara grabbed me by the arm and halted me. She spoke intensely.
"Look, boss,” she said firmly. “Everybody's shocked now. After that they're going to be mad. They'll be as mad as hornets for a while. And then they're going to start thinking. Now that we know that outside our solar system, now that we know it is there; how long do you think it's going to be before we grit our teeth, dig in, and determine to go out there, ourselves? Come hell or high water!"
Shirley, Gaffee, Kibbie had stopped when we did, and now they drifted back.
"Why, sure,” Kibbie began to bubble again. “And that two billion will be just a drop in the bucket, why it'll be like pissin’ in the ocean compared to the money we can promote for that kind of program. ‘Scuse me, girls."
"Dr. Kennedy, I'm going to need much more scientific help than I've got if I'm to carry my share,” Gaffee said, and began to look far away into a dream.
"And, Admiral,” Shirley said, “I think we ought to use this lull to get reorganized for the big push. Oh, ah, I've been invited to join the Women's Executive Club of Washington. Do you think I should?"
"Okay, kids,” I said. “You're right. We're not licked. We're just starting."
