The Seventh Science Fiction Megapack

by Robert Silverberg

  * * * *

  I managed to get into bed, and I tried to think about it; but someone came along with a heavy mallet and hit me on the head and that was the last I knew until I was awakened by a terrible rackets

  I got to it as fast as I could.

  “What is it now?” I snarled, which is no way to answer a phone but was the way I felt.

  It was J. H. “What’s the matter with you?” he yelled. “Why aren’t you at the office? What do you mean by…”

  “Just a minute, J. H.; don’t you remember? You canned me yesterday.”

  “Now, Mark,” he said, “you wouldn’t hold that against me, would you? We were all excited.”

  “I wasn’t excited,” I told him.

  “Look,” he said, “I need you. There’s someone here to see you.”

  “All right,” I said and hung up.

  * * * *

  I didn’t hurry any; I took my time. If J. H. needed me, if there was someone there to see me, both of them could wait. I turned on the coffee maker and took a shower; after the shower and coffee, I felt almost human.

  I was crossing the yard, heading for the path down to the car when I saw something that stopped me like a shot.

  There were tracks in the dust, tracks all over the place—exactly the kind of tracks I’d seen in the flower bed underneath the window at the Clayborne estate. I squatted down and looked closely at them to make sure there was no mistake and there couldn’t be. They were the self-same tracks.

  They were brownie tracks!

  I stayed there for a long time, squatting beside the tracks and thinking that now it was all believable because there was no longer any room for disbelief.

  The nurse had been right; there had been something in the room that night Mrs. Clayborne died. It was a mercy, the old gardener had said, his thoughts and speech all fuzzed with the weariness and the basic simplicity of the very old. An act of mercy, a good deed, for the old lady had been dying hard, no hope for her.

  And if there were good deeds in death, there were as well in life. In an operation such as this, the surgeon had told me, there are so many factors that no one can take the credit. It was a miracle, he’d said, but don’t you quote me on it.

  And someone—no cleaning woman, but someone or something else—had messed up the notes of the physicist and in the messing of them had put together two pages out of several hundred—two pages that tied together and made sense.

  Coincidence? I asked myself. Coincidence that a woman died and that a boy lived, and that a researcher got a clue he’d otherwise have missed? No, not coincidence when there was a track beneath a window and papers scattered from beneath a paperweight.

  And—I’d almost forgotten—Jo Ann’s old lady who sat rocking happily because all her old dead friends had come to visit her. There were even times when senility might become a very kindness.

  I straightened up and went down to the car. As I drove into town I kept thinking about the magic touch of kindness from the stars or if, perhaps, there might be upon this earth, co-existent with the human race, another race that had a different outlook and a different way of life. A race, perhaps, that had tried time and time again to ally itself with the humans and each time had been rejected and driven into hiding—sometimes by ignorance and superstition and again by a too-brittle knowledge of what was impossible. A race, perhaps, that might be trying once again.

  V

  J. H. was waiting for me, looking exactly like a cat sitting serenely inside a bird cage, with feathers on his whiskers. With him was a high brass flyboy, who had a rainbow of decorations spread across his jacket and eagles on his shoulders. They shone so bright and earnestly that they almost sparkled.

  “Mark, this is Colonel Duncan,” said J. H. “He’d like to have a word with you.”

  The two of us shook hands and the colonel was more affable than one would have expected him to be. Then J. H. left us in his office and shut the door behind him. The two of us sat down and each of us sort of measured up the other. I don’t know how the colonel felt, but I was ready to admit I was uncomfortable. I wondered what I might have done and what the penalty might be.

  “I wonder, Lathrop,” said the colonel, “if you’d mind telling me exactly how it happened. How you found out about the brownies.”

  “I didn’t find out about them, Colonel; it was just a gag.”

  I told him about the Barnacle shooting off his mouth about no one on the staff ever showing any initiative, and how I’d dreamed up the brownie story to get even with him. And how the Barnacle had got even with me by running it.

  But that didn’t satisfy the colonel. “There must be more to it than that,” he said.

  I could see that he’d keep at me until I’d told it, anyhow; and while he hadn’t said a word about it, I kept seeing images of the Pentagon, and the chiefs of staff, and Project Saucer—or whatever they might call it now—and the FBI, and a lot of other unpleasant things just over his left shoulder.

  So I came clean with him. I told him all of it and a lot of it, I granted, sounded downright silly.

  But he didn’t seem to think that it was silly. “And what do you think about all this?”

  “I don’t know,” I told him. “They might come from outer space, or…”

  He nodded quietly. “We’ve known for some time now, that there have been landings. This is the first time they’ve ever deliberately called attention to themselves.”

  “What do they want, Colonel? What are they aiming at?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  Then he said very quietly, “Of course, if you should write anything about this, I simply shall deny it. That will leave you in a most peculiar position at the best.”

  I don’t know how much more he might have told me—maybe quite a bit. But right then the phone rang. I picked it up and answered; it was for the colonel.

  He said “yes,” and listened. He didn’t say another word. He got a little white around the gills, then he hung up the phone.

  He sat there, looking sick.

  * * * *

  “What’s the matter, Colonel?”

  “That was the field,” he told me. “It happened just a while ago. They came out of nowhere and swarmed all over the plane—polished it and cleaned it and made it spic and span, both inside and out. The men couldn’t do a thing about it. They just had to stand and watch.”

  I grinned. “There’s nothing bad about that, Colonel. They were just being good to you.”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” he said. “When they got it all prettied up, they painted a brownie on the nose.”

  That’s just about all there’s to it so far as the brownies are concerned. The job they did on the colonel’s plane was, actually, the sole public appearance that they made. But it was enough to serve their purpose if publicity was what they wanted—a sort of visual clincher, as it were. One of our photographers—a loopy character by the name of Charles, who never was where you wanted him when you wanted him, but nevertheless seemed to be exactly on the spot when the unusual or disaster struck—was out at the airport that morning. He wasn’t supposed to be there; he was supposed to be covering a fire, which turned out luckily to be no more than a minor blaze. How he managed to wind up at the airport even he, himself, never was able to explain. But he was there and he got the pictures of the brownies polishing up the plane—not only one or two pictures, but a couple dozen of them, all the plates he had. Another thing—he got the pictures with a telescopic lens. He’d put it in his bag that morning by mistake; he’d never carried it before. After that one time he never was without it again and, to my knowledge, never had another occasion where he had to use it.

  * * * *

  Those pictures were a bunch of lulus. We used the best of them on page one—a solid page of them—and ran two more pages of the rest inside. The AP got hold of them, transmitted them, and a number of other member papers used them before someone at the Pentagon heard about it and promptly blew his stac
k. But no matter what the Pentagon might say, the pictures had been run and whatever harm—or good—they might have done could not be recalled.

  I suppose that if the colonel had known about them, he’d have warned us not to use them and might have confiscated them. But no one knew the pictures had been taken until the colonel was out of town, and probably back in Washington. Charlie got waylaid somehow—at a beer joint most likely—and didn’t get back to the office until the middle of the afternoon.

  When he heard about it, J. H. paced up and down and tore his hair and threatened to fire Charlie; but some of the rest of us got him calmed down and back into his office. We caught the pictures in our final street edition, picked the pages up for the early runs next day, and the circulation boys were pop-eyed for days at the way those papers sold.

  The next day, after the worst of the excitement had subsided, the Barnacle and I went down to the corner to have ourselves a couple. I had never cared too much for the Barnacle before, but the fact that we’d been fired together established a sort of bond between us; and he didn’t seem to be such a bad sort, after all.

  * * * *

  Joe was as sad as ever. “It’s them brownies,” he told us, and he described them in a manner no one should ever use when talking of a brownie. “They’ve gone and made everyone so happy they don’t need to drink no more.”

  “Both you and me, Joe,” said the Barnacle; “they ain’t done nothing for me, either.”

  “You got your job back,” I told him.

  “Mark,” he said, solemnly, pouring out another, “I’m not so sure if that is good or not.”

  It might have developed into a grade-A crying session if Lightning, our most up-and-coming copy boy, had not come shuffling in at that very moment.

  “Mr. Lathrop,” he said, “there’s a phone call for you.”

  “Well, that’s just fine.”

  “But it’s from New York,” said the kid.

  That did it. It’s the first time in my life I ever left a place so fast that I forgot my drink.

  The call was from one of the papers to which I had applied, and the man at the New York end told me there was a job opening in the London staff and that he’d like to talk with me about it. In itself, it probably wasn’t any better than the job I had, he said, but it would give me a chance to break in on the kind of work I wanted.

  When could I come in? he asked, and I said tomorrow morning.

  I hung up and sat back and the world all at once looked rosy. I knew right then and there those brownies still were working for me.

  * * * *

  I had a lot of time to think on the plane trip to New York; and while I spent some of it thinking about the new job and London, I spent a lot of it thinking about the brownies, too.

  They’d come to Earth before, that much at least was clear. And the world had not been ready for them. It had muffled them in a fog of folklore and superstition, and had lacked the capacity to use what they had offered it. Now they tried again. This time we must not fail them, for there might not be a third time.

  Perhaps one of the reasons they had failed before—although not the only reason—had been the lack of a media of mass communications. The story of them, and of their deeds and doings, had gone by word of mouth and had been distorted in the telling. The fantasy of the age attached itself to the story of the brownies until they became no more than a magic little people who were very droll, and on occasion helpful, but in the same category as the ogre, or the dragon, and others of their ilk.

  Today it had been different. Today there was a better chance the brownies would be objectively reported. And while the entire story could not be told immediately, the people still could guess.

  And that was important—the publicity they got. People must know they were back again, and must believe in them and trust them.

  And why, I wondered, had one medium-sized city in the midwest of America been chosen as the place where they would make known their presence and demonstrate their worth? I puzzled a lot about that one, but I never did get it figured out, not even to this day.

  * * * *

  Jo Ann was waiting for me at the airport when I came back from New York with the job tucked in my pocket. I was looking for her when I came down the ramp, and I saw that she’d got past the gate and was running toward the plane. I raced out to meet her and I scooped her up and kissed her and some damn fool popped a Hash bulb at us. I wanted to mop up on him, but Jo Ann wouldn’t let me.

  It was early evening and you could see some stars shining in the sky, despite the blinding floodlights; from way up, you could hear another plane that had just taken off; and up at the far end of the field, another one was warming up. There were the buildings and the lights and the people and the great machines and it seemed, for a long moment, like a tableau built to represent the strength and swiftness, the competence and assurance of this world of ours.

  Jo Ann must have felt it, too, for she said suddenly: “It’s nice, Mark. I wonder if they’ll change it.”

  I knew who she meant without even asking.

  “I think I know what they are,” I told her; “I think I’ve got it figured out. You know that community chest drive that’s going on right now. Well, that’s what they are doing, too—a sort of galactic chest. Except that they aren’t spending money on the poor and needy; their kind of charity is a different sort. Instead of spending money on us, they’re spending love and kindness, neighborliness and brotherhood. And I guess that it’s all right. I wouldn’t wonder but that, of all the people in the universe, we are the ones who need it most. They didn’t come to solve all our problems for us—just to help clear away some of the little problems that somehow keep us from turning our full power on the important jobs, or keep us from looking at them in the right way.”

  * * * *

  That was more years ago than I like to think about, but I still can remember just as if it were yesterday.

  Something happened yesterday that brought it all to mind again.

  I happened to be in Downing street, not too far from No. 10, when I saw a little fellow I first took to be some sort of dwarf. When I turned to look at him, I saw that be was watching me; he raised one hand in an emphatic gesture, with the thumb and first finger made into a circle—the good, solid American signal that everything’s okay.

  Then he disappeared. He probably ducked into an alley, although I can’t say for a fact I actually saw him go. But he was right. Everything’s okay.

  The world is bright, and the cold war is all but over. We may be entering upon the first true peace the human race has ever known.

  Jo Ann is packing, and crying as she packs, because she has to leave so many things behind. But the kids are goggled-eyed about the great adventure just ahead. Tomorrow morning we leave for Peking, where I’ll be the first accredited American correspondent for almost thirty years.

  And I can’t help but wonder if, perhaps, somewhere in that ancient city—perhaps in a crowded, dirty street; perhaps along the imperial highway; maybe some day out in the country beside the Great Wall, built so fearsomely so many years ago—I may not see another little man.

  PROTOTYPE, by John Gregory Betancourt

  THE VIENNA EXPRESS

  September 15, 1936

  As he struck a match and leaned back to light his Lucky Strike, Flynn took a surreptitious glance around Baron Ogilvy’s private car. Red velvet upholstery, gilded wood, and highly polished mahogany filled the room. The dozen or so noble-born Austrians sitting in the high-backed chairs chatted amiable in German and French; a few others worked at opening more bottles of champagne. Poor fools, Flynn thought. They hadn’t a clue about what lay ahead.

  He took a deep drag on the cigarette, then slowly blew out a cloud of light gray smoke. His acting coaches had taught him to use props like this cigarette so he always looked natural. He took another pull and tried desperately to keep his tension from showing. Almost there, he told himself. In an hour, when we cross into Austria, I�
��ll be safe.

  The danger didn’t come from the baron or his retinue; they were the cream of Viennese society, stunningly clueless men more interested in hunting than politics, accompanied by beautiful women all dressed in the latest Paris fashions, lace and diamonds and pearls at their throats and ears and wrists. The baron and his friends circled through the European social scene, drinking, hunting, and celebrating a lifestyle which, Flynn knew, would soon end with the coming of war.

  He had met Baron Ogilvy in Berlin at the grand opening of his latest MGM picture—They Dared the Alps—which paired him with Katharine Hepburn and Van Johnson. Kate and Van had the easy part, touring the United States to promote the movie. Louis B. Meyer had steel-armed him into the European tour because he spoke passable French and German.

  The baron, learning of his plans to promote the film in Austria next, had invited him to share his private car aboard the Vienna Express. Flynn had agreed immediately.

  Now he sagged deeper into his seat and half closed his eyes, trying to look as though he were drowsing off. Maybe they would leave him alone if he did. He’d done enough today. Enough that it might cost him his life…

  “Mr. O’Conner,” a beautiful young woman said to him in lightly accented English. She held out a champagne glass, and with a smile he stood and accepted it.

  “Danke schoen,” he said, sipping. It was French, of course, a light, dry champagne, and quite good.

  “Please, Mr. O’Conner, my English is excellent.”

  He forced a laugh. “Better than my German, I’m sure. Will you join me?” He indicated the seat beside his. Courtesy required no less.

  “Certainly.”

  With a laugh, she sat, and he sat next to her.

  “Aren’t you Baron Ogilvy’s niece?” he asked.

  “Yes. My name is Gertrude Berliner Ogilvy. My friends call me Gerty.” She winked at him, then traced a pattern on his leg with her fingernail. “I’d like it if you called me Gerty…Flynn.”