And we thought we were bad off before.
‘Not only can I walk through wood,’ the white-haired, massive-browed, enormous-chinned, ancient-looking Sinanthropus said, in reasonably good but somewhat mumbled English, ‘but I can make myself invisible. The god of air empowers me wherever I go. He fills the sails of life with his magic breath, capable of accomplishing all things. Poor, puny Homo sapiens creatures! How could you conceivably expect to infest our world, with the Wind God himself present?’
By the Wind God, Jim Briskin realized with a sickened, enervating start, was meant George Walt.
He had never before quite thought of them that way, but there it was.
Let’s see how President Schwarz decides to handle this, he said to himself. A Wind God in a satellite over our heads millions of fossil men straining to get at us. Darius Pethel can have his defective Jiffi-scuttler back; it’s time we got rid of it, and by the quickest route possible. But how did this ancient Sinanthropus so-called philosopher get across to our world? Didn’t anybody at TD notice his coming through?
They must have opened their own nexus, he decided. Either that or what he says is actually true; he can make himself invisible.
It was a gloomy prospect, having to wake up in the early morning and face this, to say the least.
And somebody has really lost this election now, he decided. Either Bill Schwarz or myself, depending on whom the electorate, in its understandable frenzy, decides to blame.
Going back to the kitchen table he seated himself and resumed eating his breakfast, now cold. As he mechanically ate, he pondered the chances of successfully shooting down the Golden Door satellite; surely that was the most likely next move for President Schwarz. After all, the exact position of the satellite at any given moment was known; it was - or had been until recently - printed on the entertainment page of every homeopape.
What I’m afraid of now, he realized, is that I’ll look out the window of my decently private conapt and see Peking man walking along the sidewalk, and not just one but many of them.
He decided not to look, just to be on the safe side. At least not for a while. Instead he concentrated on finishing his breakfast, tasteless as it had become. As trivial a task as it was, at least it was a familiar event; it helped restore his sense of the regularity of reality.
Turning from the TV set Sal Heim released his emotion in an explosion of words. ‘Call someone,’ he said to his wife. ‘Call Jim Briskin. Wait a minute; call Bill Schwarz at the White House - I’ll talk to him direct myself. This is a national emergency; anybody with half an eye can see that. Party loyalty is out, you can wipe your nose on it. Let me know as soon as you have Bill Schwarz on the line.’ He returned to watching the TV.
‘Not only can I walk through wood and across the surface of water,’ the great old Peking man on the screen was saying, ‘But I can annihilate time.’
Good grief, Sal thought. This is awful. They can do all kinds of things we can’t; they’re centuries ahead of us. Who around here that I know can annihilate time? No one. He groaned aloud.
Pat said hecticly, ‘I can’t reach President Schwarz. The lines are tied up. Everybody must be …’
‘Of course they are,’ Sal said. ‘The authorities know what this means. It’s hopeless to try to get through to Schwarz. He’ll have to get on the TV himself and tell the nation that a state of war exists between us and these dawn men. Or is this stuff on all channels?’ Savagely, he turned the knob. The same image appeared on every other channel; the satellite was blanketing the airwaves. He was not surprised. I might have known, he said to himself with envenomed bitterness. Next we’ll be picking them up on the vidphone.
‘But more important than anything else,’ the white-haired Peking man on the TV screen was saying, ‘I can work exceeding wonderful, powerful magic. For I am a mighty magician; I can cause the stars to fall from the vault of the heavens and confusion to blind the eyes of all my foes. What do you respond to that, tiny Homo sapiens? You should have cogitated on that before you invested our world. Facilis descensus Averno. You see, through my use of supernatural forces, entirely unknown to your little race, I can speak in German.’
‘Latin,’ Sal murmured. ‘You damn fool dawn man; that’s Latin. So you don’t know everything. Get off the TV so President Schwarz can declare war.’ The image, however, remained.
Standing by his chair Patricia said, ‘I guess this finishes Jim at the polls.’
‘Didn’t I just now get through saying that party doesn’t count?’ He glared at her; Pat shrank back. ‘To cope with this we’ve got to think along entirely novel lines - everything is changed. I noticed one interesting thing. When George Walt were on they referred to us as “you Homo sapiens.” Does that mean they’re not? My god, you can’t become a converted Sinanthropus; it’s not like a church. I really have to talk to someone about this besides you,’ he said scathingly to his wife. ‘Someone who can come up with answers.’
Pat said, ‘What about—’
‘Wait,’ He turned back to the TV screen. George Walt had once more appeared. ‘They look older,’ Sal said. ‘I can’t remember which of them is the artificial body. The one on right, as I recall. The real one has certainly done a good job of building it back, after we tore it to pieces.’ He chuckled. ‘We had them on the run, then. Our finest hour.’ Once more he became grim. ‘Too bad it’s not like that now.’
‘You know who I was going to suggest you call? Tito Cravelli. He always seems to be able to figure out what’s happening.’
‘Okay.’ He nodded absently. ‘Give me the phone; I’ll call Tito.’ He got to his feet, then. ‘No, I’ll get it myself. Why should you wait on me?’ At the vidphone he paused and turned toward her. ‘I’m sure it’s the one on the right. You know, I’ll bet at this moment everybody, including even Verne Engel and every last damn member of that rotten bunch CLEAN, would give his shirt if we could go back to, say, a month ago. To the way we were and the so-called “race problem” we had then. That’s who I ought to call: Verne Engel. You know what I’d say to him? “You stupid bastard, does what you’re fighting for look so real now? Skin pigment. What a laugh! Why not eye color? Too bad nobody ever thought of that. It cuts it a little finer, but basically it’s the same thing. Okay, Verne, you get out there and die over the issue of upholding one certain eye color. Lots of luck.” ‘ Picking up the vidphone he dialed.
Pat said, ‘What color eyes do Peking men have?’
Glaring at her Sal said, ‘Christ, how would I know?’
‘I just wondered. I never thought of it before.’
‘Hello, Tito?’ Sal said, as the vidscreen lighted. ‘Get us out of this,’ Sal said. ‘Find where they’re getting through into our world and plug it up, an then we’ll figure out how to knock down the Golden Door Moments of Bliss satellite. You agree? Tito, say something.’
‘I know where they’re getting through,’ Tito said, laconically.
Sal turned to his wife. ‘You were right. He does know.’ He turned back to the vidscreen. ‘Well, what do we do? How do we…’
‘We make a deal,’ Tito Cravelli said in a harsh, totally dry voice.
Staring at him Sal said, ‘We what? I don’t believe it.’
‘And we’ll be lucky if we can manage that,’ Tito added. ‘There are a few things you don’t know, Sal. This attack on us by the Pekes is coming out of a hundred years in the future. George Walt have had an entire century to work with them, filling in the gaps in their culture, teaching them as many of our techniques as they could cram into them in that time … and it’s a very long time. Don’t ask me how I found this out; just take my word that it’s the case. The nexus that they’re using is at TD, but we can’t close it; they’re supplying it with power from the other side, a possibility which doesn’t seem to have occurred to anyone at TD until it was too late. In other words, until now.’
‘What kind of deal?’
‘I don’t know yet. I’m seeing Jim Briskin in a few moments
; we’re going to try to think of something we can offer them - offer George Walt actually, since they’re doing the talking. As I see it, the Pekes don’t actually need to expand into our world; they haven’t even filled up their own. They have no pressing population problem, as we have. So there may be something they want and can use more than mere land. Because that’s all they’re going to find if they try to come over here. I know damn well our people will put up a fight until there’s nothing left standing. It’ll be a scorched-earth planet … we can promise them that. As a starter.’
Turning to Pat, Sal said, ‘We’re going to make a deal; there’s no other way out.’
‘I heard,’ she said. ‘I wish I hadn’t; I didn’t want to hear that.’
‘Isn’t that something? Our ancestors didn’t make a deal. They wiped the Pekes out.’
‘But now,’ Pat said, ‘they have George Walt.
He nodded. Evidently that made the difference. But he had a terrible feeling that Tito Cravelli was wrong as to the quantity of techniques that George Walt had passed on to the Pekes. His intuition was that the transfer of knowledge had gone the other way: it had been the Pekes who had educated George Walt.
Jim Briskin said half-ironically, ‘We can offer them the Encyclopedia Britannica, translated into their language.’ If they have a written language, he added to himself. Or if George Walt haven’t given them that already. ‘Maybe George Walt have passed them everything they’ll ever need,’ he said to Tito Cravelli, who sat moodily facing him across the room. ‘I’d assume that during the next century George Walt probably have gone back and forth continually.’ He could picture it, and it was not encouraging.
‘Who can we ask for help from?’ Sal Heim said, to no one in particular. ‘Call God.’ His wife patted his arm, sympathetically. ‘Don’t do that,’ Sal complained. ‘It distracts me. In the name of something-or-other there must be somebody we can turn to.’
The vidphone rang and Tito Cravelli rose to answer it. After a few moments he returned. ‘That was my contact at TD. At this moment, while we’re sitting here muttering pointless maledictions, Pekes are pouring through the rent.’
Everyone in the room stared at him.
‘That’s right,’ Tito said, nodding. ‘So already now the TD administration building is full of them; in fact they’re beginning to leak out into downtown Washington, D.C. Leon Turpin’s been conversing with President Schwarz, but so far …’ He shrugged. ‘They erected a concrete barrier in front of the rent but the Pekes simply moved the rent to one side. And kept on coming across.’ He added, ‘Bohegian, my contact, is leaving the TD building; they’re being evacuated.’
‘Christ,’ Sal Heim said. ‘Christ, sweet shimmering Christ.’
Pat Heim said, ‘You know who I’d like to see you talk to?’ She glanced around at the others. ‘Bill Smith.’
‘Who’s that?’ Cravelli asked sharply. ‘Oh yeah. The Peke. That anthropologist Dillingsworth has him. What could Bill Smith tell us?’
‘He would know what they lack,’ Patricia said. ‘Maybe for instance they’ve been trying for a dozen centuries to achieve a space drive. We could turn a small rocket engine over to them, one with only a million pounds of thrust or so. Or maybe they don’t have music. Think what it would mean: We could start them out with single instruments such as the harmonica or the jew’s harp or the electric guitar …’
‘Yes,’ Cravelli agreed acidly, ‘But George Walt have already done that. At least, we’ve got to assume that. You heard that Peke talking Latin; I didn’t grasp, really genuinely grasp, how much George Walt have accomplished until I heard that … then I threw in the sponge. I don’t mind admitting it; that’s when I gave up, pure and simple.’
‘And decided to plead for a deal,’ Sal Heim said, half to himself.
‘That’s right,’ Cravelli said. ‘Then I knew we had to come to some kind of terms. It didn’t terrify you to hear Sinanthropus talking Latin? It should have.’
‘I’ve got it,’ Pat Heim said. ‘That one Sinanthropus, that old white-haired so-called philosopher up in the satellite, he’s a mutant. More evolved than the others, greater cranial area or something, especially in the forehead region. Unique. George Walt are pulling the wool over our eyes.’
‘But they are pouring through the nexus rent,’ Cravelli said coldly. ‘Whether they speak Latin or don’t. If Leon Turpin has ordered the TD administration building evacuated, you know it’s critical.’
‘I’ve got it,’ Pat said, ‘Oh my god, I’ve really got it. Listen to me. Let’s turn the Smithsonian Institute over to the Pekes in exchange for them leaving. What about that?’
‘Institution,’ Cravelli said, correcting her.
‘And if that’s not enough,’ Pat said, ‘we’ll throw in the Library of Congress. They’d be smart to take that. What an offer!’
‘You know,’ Sal said, hunching forward and gazing steadily down at his knees, ‘she may have something there. Look what they’d get out of that; the entire assembled, collected artifacts and knowledge of our culture. A hell of a lot more - incredibly much more - than George Walt can give them. It’s the wisdom of four thousand years. Boy, I tell you; I’d take it in a second if it were offered to me.’
After a long pause Tito Cravelli said, ‘But we’re forgetting something. None of us are in a position to make the Pekes any kind of offer; none of us hold any official position in the government. Now, if you were already in office, Jim …’
‘Take it to Schwarz,’ Sal said.
‘We’d have to,’ Pat agreed rapidly. ‘And that means going to the White House, since the phone lines are all tied up. Which one of us would Schwarz be willing to see? Assuming he’d see any of us.’
Sal said, ‘It would have to be Jim.’
Shrugging, Jim Briskin said, ‘I’ll go. It’s better than merely sitting around here talking.’ It all seemed futile to him anyhow. But at least this way he’d be doing something.
‘Who’re you going to take the offer to ultimately?’ Cravelli asked him. ‘Bill Smith?’
‘No,’ Jim said. ‘To that white-haired Sinanthropic philosopher up in the satellite.’ Obviously, he was the one to go to; he held the power.
‘George Walt aren’t going to like it when they hear it,’ Cravelli pointed out. ‘You’ll have to talk fast; they’ll do their best to shut you up.’
‘I know,’ Jim said, rising to his feet and moving toward the door. ‘I’ll phone you from Washington and let you know how I made out.’
As he left the apartment, he heard Sal saying, ‘I think, though, we ought to take the Spirit of St Louis out when the Pekes aren’t looking and keep it. They won’t know it’s gone; what do they know about airplanes?’
‘And the Wright brothers’ plane,’ Pat said, as he started to shut the door after him. He paused, then, as he heard her ‘Do you think he’ll get in to see President Schwarz?’
‘Not a chance,’ Sal said emphatically. ‘But what else can we do? It’s the best we could come up with on such short notice.’
‘He’ll get in,’ Cravelli disagreed. ‘I’ll make you a dime bet.’
‘You know what else we could have offered?’ Pat said. ‘The Washington Monument.’
‘What the hell would the Pekes do with that?’ Sal demanded.
Jim shut the door after him and walked down the corridor to the elevator. None of them, he reflected, had offered to come with him. But what difference did it make? There was nothing they could do vis-a-vis President Schwarz … and perhaps nothing he could do, either. And even if he did get in to see Schwarz, and even if Schwarz went along with the idea - how far did that carry him? What were the chances that he could sell the Sinanthropic philosopher on the idea with George Walt present?
But I’m still going to try it, he decided. Because the alternative, a general war, would doom our colonists there on the other side; it’s their lives we’re trying to save.
And anyhow, he realized, none of us wants to start slaughtering the Peki
ng people. It would be too much like the old days, back among our cave-dwelling ancestors. Back to their level. We must have grown out of that by now, he said to himself. And if we haven’t - what does it matter who wins?
Four hours later, from a public vidphone booth in downtown Washington, D.C., Jim Briskin called back to report. He felt bone-weary and more than a little depressed, but at least the first hurdle had been jumped successfully.
‘So he liked the idea,’ Tito Cravelli said.
Jim said, ‘Schwarz is madly grasping at any straw he can find, and there aren’t even very many of them. Everyone in Washington is prepared to shoot down the Golden Door Moments of Bliss satellite, of course; they’ll do that if my attempt at negotiation fails, my attempt to split George Walt off from the Pekes.’
‘If we shoot down the satellite,’ Cravelli said, ‘then we’d have to fight to the bitter death. Either our race or theirs would be wiped out, and we can’t have that, not in this day and age. With the weapons we’ve got and what they possibly have …’
‘Schwarz realizes that. He appreciates all the nuances of the situation. But he can’t just sit idle while Pekes pour across at will. We’re walking a highly tricky line. It’s not in our interest to make this into a full-scale hydrogen bomb war, and yet we don’t want simply to capitulate. Schwarz says to go ahead with the Smithsonian, but to hold back on the Library of Congress as long as possible, to give it up only under the greatest pressure. I tend to agree.’ He added, ‘They’re sending me up there; I’ll do it myself.’
‘Why you? What’s the matter with the State Department? Don’t they have anyone who can do that sort of work any more?
‘I asked to go.’
‘You’re nuts. George Walt hates you already.’
‘Yes,’ Jim agreed, ‘but I think I know how to handle this; I’ve got an idea of how I can impair the relationship between George Walt and the Pekes in such a way that it can’t be repaired. Anyhow, it’s worth a try.’
‘Don’t tell me what your idea is,’ Cravelli said. ‘Tell me after it works. If it doesn’t work, don’t tell me at all.’
The Crack in Space (1966) Page 17
