Son of the Stars

by Raymond F. Jones

  “All right. “I’ll be over as soon as possible/’

  He went back through the kitchen. “Anne’s a nice girl,” his mother said.

  “You can say that again,” he agreed. “Got a head on her shoulders, too!”

  In the lab building he flopped into a chair at his desk. The leg was stinging too much to stand up to work on anything. There were a half-dozen projects in various stages of incompletion, but none that seemed very urgent this morning. He avoided even glancing at his ham set, because he had missed his schedules for the week.

  On the desk top he spread out the components he had taken from the ship. None of them had any familiarity about them. Most were opaque cylinders with bands about them that looked as if they were connecting rings of some kind. Three of the objects looked somewhat like electronic tubes, except that the elements were completely buried in some plastic substance. He had no notion as to how they might function as tubes.

  He was leaning over the desk when the door suddenly swung open behind him. He turned about and raised a hand in greeting.

  “Hi, Anne. Thanks for coming over, Dan. Pull up chairs. I’m a cripple this morning.”

  “Anne told me something about your little escapade last night,” said Dan as he sat down. “Sounds like you really let yourself in for some hot water.”

  “I made Middleton mad at me. He’ll get over it. I’m sorry about the delay in giving you the story on this. I figured that the military had priority. I didn’t realize how they’d botch up the whole thing.”

  “What do you mean, botch up? I thought Middleton gave me a pretty straight story.”

  “Tell me what he told you, and I’ll tell you what I mean.”

  “He said that Clonar is evidently a member of an enemy alien system that has been sending the saucers as scouts for the past few years. He said that was strictly off the record, of course, that I wasn’t to excite the public by mentioning their hostility.

  “He said that what I could release was the fact that Clonar had come here in a ship apparently designed for military purposes, that it had accidentally crashed, and that due to the alertness of his office the vital functions of the ship were being analyzed. That’s about the substance of it.”

  “It’s hogwash! He has no evidence whatever of hostility on the part of the ships. They are not designed for military purposes, but rather exploratory use. Here’s a sample of what I mean by their botching the job.”

  He extended a hand toward the pile of components on the desk. “This is the heart of one of the most advanced pieces of technological equipment this Earth has ever seen, a device that could send radio waves across light-years of space instead of merely bounce them off the Moon.”

  Dan eyed the litter, frowningly. “You mean the instrument should have been left intact? That now the device is useless?”

  “Yes. I don’t believe that any of our technicians can put it together again.”

  Backtracking then, Ron gave Dan the details of the whole affair.

  When he finished, Dan’s eyes were alight with excitement, and a thick stack of notes was in his hands. “This will really make a story now! It makes Middleton’s little publicity play sound like a fairy tale. I’ll get my camera to get a few shots of you and Anne. We’ll really bust this story in a big way!”

  Chapter 11 Compromise

  In mid-afternoon Ron glanced up at his clock and realized that Anne was long overdue, unless the visit to the hospital had turned into something very unusual. He trusted her, but he couldn’t help carrying a little shred of worry in the back of his mind when she had his powerful car out alone. He gnawed at a finger nail, watching the red second hand of the clock sweep steadily.

  Voices broke into his reverie of worry. His mother’s voice and one that he didn’t recognize. He twisted in the chair to get a glimpse through the window. Coming from the house was his mother and a stranger.

  Ron recognized instantly who the stranger must be. General Gillispie. The uniform and the insignia spelled out the name to him.

  His breath sucked in sharply and involuntarily. There was something of honor and dignity being offered him in the personal visit of this powerful man. And there was a certain humility, he thought. Middleton had not even bothered to ask for his story. Perhaps his father had been right—it was possible that General Gillispie was not another Middleton.

  He opened the door at his mother’s knock. She introduced them. The General offered a hard handshake and the square of his face broke into pleasant lines.

  “Wouldn’t you like to go into the house?” said Ron.

  “This will be fine,” said Gillispie. “I like the atmosphere of your place out here. What I would have given to have had one like it when I was a boy!”

  His eyes roved appreciatively over the specimen shelves, the chemistry corner, the ham rig.

  “I’ll leave you now,” said Mrs. Barron.

  “Mother, please let me know when Anne comes with the car,” said Ron. “She’s been gone a long time.”

  “Shall I call Mrs. Martin?”

  “No, don’t worry her. Anne’s all right. But I just want to know.”

  “All right.”

  “I saw your friends at the hospital until a short time ago,” said General Gillispie. “I kept them from visiting the patient, so perhaps that is why she is late.”

  “Oh, I’m glad to know that. I was worried.”

  “We didn’t have a chance to discuss the things I want to discuss with you, although some of them came up. Miss Martin seems like a very lovely and intelligent girl.”

  “She’s been with me through most of this business of the saucer, which is what you have come to talk about, of course.”

  “You’ve had quite an experience,” said the General, “the honor of being the first to welcome a visitor from another planet. It’s something no other Earthman will ever do. You have a unique place in history.”

  “So have some other people,” said Ron quietly.

  “Some regrettable things have occurred,” agreed General Gillispie. “The men who acted impulsively and beyond their authority have been reprimanded for their treatment of the dead and the dismantling of the equipment.

  “As to the custody of Clonar, however, and our relationship with him—that remains an open question.”

  Ron nodded thoughtfully. “But don’t you think, Sir, it would be better if we offered alien visitors a handshake first and shooting afterwards, if that becomes necessary? It’s the code upon which our history was founded.”

  “Yes, I agree that it was. In late years, however, we’ve had some rather sad experiences in having our proffered hand seized while we were stabbed in the back. It has made us cautious.”

  “In Clonar’s case, there is obviously no ability to stab us while we offer a hand,” said Ron. “Assuming he might be the agent of our deadliest enemy, he has not come to us in a manner that demands that we stab him, first.”

  “Sometimes the most effective infiltration is the enemy’s offer of his own hand. That has happened too, and within your own memory.”

  “A people who can cross a million light-years of space have no need to go to an elaborate ruse to crash a ship and put a cloak and dagger agent among us. In the light of their scientific achievements the whole thing is silly!”

  “You make it very difficult,” sighed Gillispie. “I can understand your desire for fair treatment of Clonar. It is only natural—when you have not seen so much of the tremendous deceit that exists between races and nations. On the other hand, I have seen so much of that deceit that it is virtually impossible for me to assume that Clonar is anything but an enemy. Somewhere between you and me, Ron, there ought to be a compromise position, don’t you think?”

  Ron watched the General’s massive, angular face before answering. It was hard to comprehend what was behind his words because he was capable of understanding both sides of a question.

  It was easier with men like Middleton and Hornsby. They saw only one side of
a problem and never dreamed there could be any other. Ron felt that Gillispie had the ability to see a hundred sides of a question that others perhaps did not even dream were there. But that made it harder to know where the General himself stood. It made it necessary to be guided only by Gillispie’s honesty and integrity.

  And Ron had no way of knowing yet the quality of these in the General.

  “We can try, sir,” said Ron earnestly. “We can try to find some understanding and compromise in the matter. There’s nothing I want more right now than to find a way by which Clonar can be evaluated properly and given a chance to find a place in our society, if he is our friend.

  “If he is an enemy, no one is more desirous of finding it out than I am. How do you believe we can do that?”

  “What we want most from Clonar is information. Information about his great ship and the science that lies behind it. We want to know about his home world, the culture and ambitions of his people, their motives in spaceflight. Most of all, we need the secrets of their engines that drive those ships.

  “At the moment, we can’t get any of that information at all. I have had a long talk with Middleton. He tells me that Clonar will speak freely to no one but you. You, apparently, are the only one who can get him to tell what we want to know.

  “I am willing, therefore, to let you resume your association with Clonar, visit him any time you wish at the hospital and later at the Base, where he will be taken. I want only one thing in exchange. You will draw him into scientific discussion regarding the things we want to know. This will be taken down on tape records and analyzed by our technicians.

  “As soon as we have this, and as soon as we can satisfy ourselves that Clonar’s mission is not one of enemy intelligence, we will turn him loose and he will be as free as you are. I should think you would be as anxious as we are to reach this point.”

  “But it doesn’t have to be done that way. Let him be free now. Get out of his ship; let him try to reach his own people. He’ll give you what you want.”

  “You are forgetting one thing,” said the General, “or else it was incorrectly reported to me. Hornsby told me that Clonar was very anxious, at the time he showed the two of you through the ship, to determine that the power plant was completely destroyed. Hornsby says that he was very pleased when he saw that it was, obviously not wanting it to fall into our hands. Did you observe such a reaction?”

  With a depressing accuracy Ron did recall that moment. He recalled his own agreement with Clonar’s pleasure in that destruction. But was it possible that the reason Gillispie assigned to it was more accurate than his own assumption? Ron wondered.

  “I see that you do remember,” said Gillispie. “In view of that, do you suppose we could obtain the information that we want in a straightforward manner?”

  “I don’t know,” said Ron reluctantly. “At the time I, too, was satisfied that Hornsby was not going to get at the power plant. I don’t believe it was Clonar’s intent that no Earthmen should have that information.”

  “But you don’t know that for sure.”

  “No.”

  “Then will you try what I suggested and see what comes of it?”

  Ron considered silently. In the long run, if Clonar were in the clear, it would be harmless enough. If

  Clonar were deceiving them, it had better be found out as soon as possible.

  At that moment the door opened without warning and Anne walked in. The General rose and smiled easily.

  “Hello, Anne,” said Ron. “You’ve met General Gillispie, I understand.”

  “Yes, we’ve met,” she said. There were disturbed fires in the depths of her eyes.

  “How’s Clonar this morning?” said Ron.

  “He’s able to be up, which is something.”

  “What got you so riled up?” said Ron. “Did Clonar do something?”

  “Don’t you know? Hasn’t he told you?”

  “Told me what?”

  “About the story that Dan was going to write?”

  “No.”

  “You had better let me explain,” said Gillispie. “I haven’t reached that point yet. You see, I met your reporter friend and Anne at the hospital and I had to tell them that orders were already in Washington to kill any stories on this.”

  “You’re suppressing news of the saucer and Clonar?” exclaimed Ron.

  “We could hardly do less,” said Gillispie. “It is unfortunate that you told so many people in the town, but the news will not be given out nationally until we officially release it.”

  “You won’t even let the public make a judgment on this,” said Ron slowly.

  “I’m sorry,” said the General almost regretfully, “but I am subject to military orders.”

  He left shortly with Ron’s promise to let him know about helping in the proposed plan.

  When he was gone, Anne put the box of components from the ship on Ron’s desk.

  “What did Clonar say about these?” said Ron.

  “Useless. He said he could never thank you enough for your attempt, but he must have sworn for ten solid minutes in his own language when he saw they had been torn apart. He said the essential secret is not in the components themselves but in their assembly and calibration. That is something that cannot be done without instruments available only on his home planet.”

  “What else did he have to say? Have they tried to pump him?”

  “No. But, Ron, he cried while we were there. He broke down and sobbed like a little kid, and he is a kid. He’s like us, trying to assume the attitude of being grown up but not quite pulling it off.

  “He was as proud as the dickens because his father took him along on the trip. Imagine your father the captain of a great ocean liner and taking you into the crew. That’s what it was like for Clonar.”

  Ron told her the plan Gillispie wanted him to take part in.

  “It’s mean,” said Anne. “It’s just plain mean.”

  He watched her, the dark eyes so friendly and forthright that she couldn’t imagine anything of dishonesty in Clonar. He scanned the round, smooth curve of her face and the shining black hair tumbling about her shoulders.

  “Anne, do you feel sure we can trust Clonar?”

  She looked startled, almost as if he had slapped her. “Trust Clonar! What in the world do you mean?”

  “I’m trying to see it the way Gillispie figures. He’s no fool. He’s a very brilliant man. He says that we can’t know. And we can’t. Not in the same way that Pete, for example, knows.

  “Why can’t people have instincts for understanding the way dogs do? And I was thinking a little while ago that kids have the same things. Why do we have to lose it when we grow up?”

  “Well, I haven’t lost it,” snapped Anne. “And if there is any more of that kind of talk out of you, Ron Barron, you and I have come to a parting of the ways. But good!”

  Chapter 12 Betrayal

  After Anne left, Ron went into the house and called Dan Gibbons regarding the censorship on Clonar’s story.

  “Does Gillispie have the right to do that?” he said. “Isn’t there anything we can do about it?”

  “I’ve called my boss in Chicago,” said Dan. “He’s working on it to get the censorship lifted. But we just can’t go ahead and print the story when the order is to kill it.”

  “What did you think about Clonar? How does he strike you?”

  “Well, that’s about like asking Columbus what he thought of America, or Balboa what he thought of the Pacific. It takes more than a day or two to get it into your head that you have seen and actually talked with a guy from the stars.”

  “Do you think he’s on the level?”

  “Sure. Why not? Has Gillispie been filling you full of gunk about monsters from Mars?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Don’t listen to him, kid. Clonar’s a good Joe.”

  “I just wanted to know how you felt,” said Ron. “I’m sticking by him, but it’s going to take more tha
n me and Anne. The guy needs friends, and we’re going to have to round him up some.”

  “Count on me. I’ll let you know how this story deal comes out, and if I’m able to push through any release on it.”

  Ron debated with himself during the next hours of the afternoon. General Gillispie was on his way to the Air Base. When he got there Ron would call him. It was inevitable. He felt as if pressure he could not resist were forcing him against his will.

  While he waited, he tried almost frantically to think of another answer than the one the General wanted. He could not.

  “I’ve decided to go along with you,” he said as he finally put the call through. “I’ll visit Clonar in the morning and do the best I can to obtain the information you want.”

  “Fine—I hoped that would be your answer, Ron. I assure you that you will not regret giving your cooperation in this matter.”

  In the evening, he paced restlessly about the house, feeling irritable. All initiative had been taken from him in regard to helping Clonar, and he was figuratively bound hand and foot. He considered getting out the car and seeing if Anne wanted to go for a ride, then he remembered that she still had the car, having taken it back home because he hadn’t felt like driving that afternoon.

  While he thought of this, there was a sudden clamor on the front porch and the doorbell jangled persistently. He recognized the voices as he opened the door.

  Anne was there with Stan and George and a couple of the girls, Agnes Williams and Paula Corwin.

  “Thought we’d come over and cheer up the old crip,” said Stan. “Anne tells me you have some records we haven’t heard. Of course, you’ll be delighted to watch the rest of us dance a bit while you sit on the side lines, no doubt.”

  Ron grinned. “Sure, come on in. You can find your way to the dungeon. I’ll be along in a minute.”

  He limped out to the kitchen where Mrs. Barron was cleaning up the dinner dishes.

  “Are there any sandwich makings, Mom?”