17 x infinity 1963 antho.., p.8
17 X Infinity (1963) Anthology, page 8
“Really!”
“It turns my stomach,” said Mr. Erdig.
There was a trace of asperity in Mrs. Erdig’s voice. “I don’t see how you can be so sure that you are right and everyone else is wrong. Sometimes I feel that you disagree just for the pleasure of disagreeing—or of being disagreeable, if I must say it. It seems to me that every Martian should treasure our security and way of life above all else. And I can’t see what is so terribly wrong about hastening something that is bound to happen sooner or later in any case. If Earth folk were deserving, it would be another matter entirely—”
Mr. Erdig was not listening. Long years of association had taught him that when his wife began this kind of tidal wave of argument and proof, it could go on for a very long time indeed. He closed off her sound and his thoughts ranged, as they did so often, across the green meadows and the white-capped blue seas of Earth. How often he had dreamed of that wilderness of tossing and restless water! How wonderful and terrible it must be! There were no seas on Mars, so even to visualize the oceans of Earth was not easy. But he could not think about the oceans of Earth and not think of the people of Earth, the mighty cities of Earth.
Suddenly, his heart constricted with a pang of knife-like grief. In the old, unspoken language of Earth, which he had come to cherish so much, he whispered,
“Magna civitas, magna solitudo—”
The rocket was built and fitted with an atomic warhead—no difficult task for the technology of Mars. In the churches (their equivalent, that is) of Mars, a prayer was said for the souls of the people of Earth, and then the rocket was launched.
The astronomers watched it and the mathematicians tracked it. In spite of its somber purpose and awful destiny, the Martians could not refrain from a flush of pride in the skill and efficiency of their scientists, for the rocket crossed over the North Pole of Earth and landed smack in the Arizona desert, not more than five miles away from the chosen target spot.
The air of Mars is thin and clear and millions of Martians have fine telescopes. Millions of them watched the atomic warhead burst and millions of them kept their telescopes trained to Earth, waiting to witness the holocaust of radiation and flame that would signal atomic war among the nations of Earth.
They waited, but what they expected did not come. They were civilized beings, not at all blood-thirsty, but by now they were very much afraid; so some of them waited and watched until the Martian morning made the Martian skies blaze with burning red and violet.
Yet there was no war on Earth.
“I do wonder what could have gone wrong?” Mrs. Fllari said, looking up from the copy of Vanity Fair, which she was reading for the second time. She did not actually expect an answer, for her husband had become less and less communicative of late. She was rather surprised when he answered, “Can’t you guess?”
“I don’t see why you should sound so superior. No one else can guess. Can you?”
Instead of answering her, he said, “I envy you your knowledge of English—if only to read novelists like Thackeray.”
“It is amusing,” Mrs. Erdig admitted, “but I never can quite get used to the nightmare of life on Earth.”
“I didn’t know you regarded it as a nightmare.”
“How else could one regard it?”
“I suppose so,” Mr. Erdig sighed. “Still—I would have liked to read Caesar’s Conquest of Gaul. They have never broadcast it.”
“Perhaps they will.”
“No. No, they never will. No more broadcasts from Earth. No more television.”
“Oh, well—if they don’t start that war and wipe themselves out, they’re bound to be broadcasting again.”
“I wonder,” Mr. Erdig said.
The second rocket from Mars exploded its warhead in the wastelands of Siberia. Once again, Martians watched for hours through their telescopes and waited. But Mr. Erdig did not watch. He seemed to have lost interest in the current obsession of Mars, and he devoted most of his time to the study of English, burying himself in his wife’s novels and dictionaries and thesaurus. His progress, as his wife told her neighbors, was absolutely amazing. He already knew the language well enough to carry on a passable conversation.
When the Planetary Council of Mars met and took the decision to aim a rocket at London, Mr. Erdig was not even present. He remained at home and read a book—one of his wife’s English transcripts.
As with so many of her husband’s recent habits, his truancy was shocking to Mrs. Erdig, and she took it upon herself to lecture him concerning his duties to Mars and Martians—and in particular, his deplorable lack of patriotism. The word was very much in use upon Mars these days.
“I have more important things to do,” Mr. Erdig finally replied to her insistence.
“Such as?”
“Reading this book, for instance.”
“What book are you reading?”
“It’s called Huckleberry Finn. Written by an American—Mark Twain.”
“It’s a silly book. I couldn’t make head or tale of it.”
“Well—”
“And I don’t see why it’s important.”
Mr. Erdig shook his head and went on reading.
And that night, when she tinned on the Intertator, the Erdigs learned, along with the rest of Mars, that a rocket had been launched against the City of London . . .
After that, a whole month passed before the first atomic warhead, launched from the Earth, exploded upon the surface of Mars. Other warheads followed. And still, there was no war on the Planet Earth.
The Erdigs were fortunate, for they lived in a part of Mars that had still not felt the monstrous, searing impact of a hydrogen bomb. Thus, they were able to maintain at least a semblance of normal life, and within this, Mr. Erdig clung to his habit of reading for an hour or so before bedtime. As
Mrs. Erdig had the Intertator on almost constantly these days, he had retreated to the Martian equivalent of a man’s den. He was sitting there on this particular evening when Mrs. Erdig burst in and informed him that the first fleet of manned space-rockets from Earth had just landed on Mars—the soldiers from Earth were proceeding to conquer Mars, and that there was no opposition possible.
“Very interesting,” Mr. Erdig agreed.
“Didn’t you hear me?”
“I heard you, my dear,” Mr. Erdig said.
“Soldiers—armed soldiers from Earth!”
“Yes, my dear.” He went back to his book, and when Mrs. Erdig saw that for the third time he was reading the nonsense called Huckleberry Finn, she turned out of the room in despair. She was preparing to slam the door behind her, when Mr. Erdig said,
“Oh, my dear.”
She turned back into the room. “Well—”
“You remember,” Mr. Erdig said, just as if soldiers from Earth were not landing on Mars that very moment, “that a while back you were complaining that you couldn’t make any sense out of an English word—righteous?”
“For heaven’s sake!”
“Well, it seemed to puzzle you so—”
“Did you hear a word I said?”
“About the ships from Earth? Oh, yes—yes, of course. But here I was reading this book for the third time—it is a most remarkable book—and I came across that word, and it’s not obscure at all. Not in the least. A righteous man is pure and wise and good and holy and just—above all, just. And equitable, you might say. Cato the Censor was such a man. Yes—and Cato the Martian, I do believe. Poor Cato—he was fried by one of those hydrogen bombs, wasn’t he? A very righteous man—”
Sobbing hysterically, Mrs. Erdig fled from the room. Mr. Erdig sighed and returned to his novel.
THE SPACEMAN COMETH
HENRY GREGOR FELSEN
How curious, the coincidence that Mr. Felsen’s story should, by accident of alphabet, follow immediately on the heels of Mr. Fast’s! Witness this sentence from the Felsen story: “For it has always been the Adnaxian custom, when a new planet is discovered, to destroy the planet before it can commit an act of aggression.” At least, though, the Adnaxians used no phony moral alibis to excuse their foreign policy . . . But read on, and see what Mr. Felsen does with his brand of beings from another world!
Perhaps it should be admitted that in this particular tale, tomorrow really isn’t so different. There’s just more of it: and that is exactly why it’s here, because it is just as disturbing to our complacency to read how we seem to others from a different world system, as are some of the more unusual imaginations about the future that make up the balance of this book.
I was trying to compose the speech I was to make at our town assembly, and like most writers I was gazing out of the window looking for inspiration in the sky. I was looking at a small white cloud when an Adnaxian flying saucer sailed across my line of vision and disappeared in the direction of Razza’s Woods.
Although I now live in Center Valley, Iowa, with my earthborn wife and two children, and I have assumed the disguise of a middle-aged male human, I was born on the planet Adnaxas and lived there for several hundred earth-years. When I was forced to flee my home planet several earth-years ago, I escaped in a space ship that I stole from the
Adnaxian Air Force. That’s why I know what it was I saw.
It was no accident that the Adnaxian pilot was heading for Razza’s Woods. I had parked my old flying saucer out there at treetop level, and although I had rendered it invisible to human eyes, I knew the saucerman must have spotted it and was coming down to investigate.
I had a great and terrible feeling of despair.
Until this moment I had been certain that I was the only Adnaxian who knew about earth. I had first come here to scout earth for destruction, but to use an old Adnaxian expression, I had goofed. I happened to fall in love with a girl I met in a drugstore.
Because of that and certain difficulties I encountered when I returned to Adnaxas to make my report, I had fled back to earth, married the girl, and settled down to a quiet fife in a small town.
But now the earth had been discovered by another Adnaxian, and I knew too well what that meant. The pilot would return to Adnaxas with his report. Within hours there would be a fleet of bombers on their way through space. For it has always been the Adnaxian custom, when a new planet is discovered, to destroy the planet before it can commit an act of aggression. After that a team of scientists is put to work examining the planet fragments to determine whether it would have been a hostile or a friendly planet.
My duty was clear. Somehow I had to prevent the saucerman from returning to Adnaxas, so that the existence and location of earth would remain unknown to my ruthless home planet.
But how?
My minds, conscious, subconscious and Adnaxian, refused to function. The only plan that came to me was to surrender myself, start back toward Adnaxas with the saucerman, and somehow destroy him and myself before we reached that planet. The thought of leaving my wife and children forever made me so unhappy I groaned aloud.
“Is something wrong, dear? Are you ill?”
I turned. My wife was standing in the doorway, a look of concern on her face and a dustcloth in her hand.
“I’m all right,” I said mournfully. “It’s this speech I have to make.” I seized this lie and went on bravely, “I can’t think of any ideas. I think I’ll take a little walk. I might get an idea that way.”
“I’m sure you’ll think of something,” my wife said. “A good long walk will clear your head. Sitting in here and smoking so much, no wonder you can’t think.”
I went to her and took her in my arms. “Goodby, darling,” I said, trying to keep my voice under control. I gave her a last, long, loving kiss.
“Where, are the children?” I asked quietly. “I’d like to say goodby to them too.”
“What’s the matter with you?” my wife asked. “You’re only going for a little walk. The way you act, one would think you were taking a trip to the moon.”
The moon—when I reached that satellite my trip would just have started. But my wife thought I was an earthman, and this was no time to explain that for the last ten years she had been married to a being from outer space, and that I was leaving her in order to save the world. I mean, you just can’t come out and tell your wife something like that after ten years. Chances are she wouldn’t believe half of it.
I sighed and said the last earthwords that would ever pass my lips: “Yes, dear.” Then I left the house and began my tragic journey out of this world.
‘Take your hat!” my wife shouted after me. “If you go walking around bareheaded, I’m the one who has to listen to your complaining about your sinus trouble!”
I pretended not to hear her and went off thinking bitter thoughts. What an inglorious beginning to a mission whose goal was the salvation of earth. I was willing to make the sacrifice, but how awful that I could tell no one, not even my wife. I had to walk away from my loved ones as though for a little while, and never return. They would wait, wonder, worry, and finally decide I had deserted them. In time I would be declared dead, my children would be grown and my wife married to someone else. When I was thought of, it would be unkindly. Take my hat? It was a new hat, and expensive. Better to leave it. Perhaps it would fit the head of her next husband. It was the least I could do.
When I reached Razza’s Woods, I took one last human look around, then reverted to my Adnaxian shape, which made me invisible to earthmen’s eyes. As I did so I was seized by the most terrible pains, and I was terrified by a tearing sound that seemed to come from my body. And then, suddenly, I felt better. I looked down at myself and understood. Ten years of good earth home cooking had taken their toll, and I had outgrown my old Adnaxian Air Force uniform. The sudden change had popped my buttons and split my trousers. I sighed, and lost another button.
I had little time to mourn that which had once been my dashing figure. I heard blasts from a couple of shotguns—they couldn’t have been more than a few hundred yards away—and at almost the same moment the Adnaxian saucer skimmed over my head and came to rest in the clearing where I stood. The moment it touched earth the pilot rendered it invisible to human eyes.
I heard excited voices and the sound of men crashing through the brush. In a moment Dave Nichols and Jack Wilson burst into the clearing carrying their guns and looking eagerly from side to side.
“He fell right in here,” Dave shouted. “I got him with both barrels. Biggest damn’ Canada goose you ever saw!”
“Canada goose my foot,” Jack said. “I hit him after you missed, and it was a big canvasback duck. I saw those markings as clear as anything.”
“Well, he ain’t here,” David said. “And we’d better keep looking. He won’t go far with my lead in him.”
“Your lead!” Jack yelled. “You mean my lead.”
Arguing violently, my two neighbors moved on. The hatch on the saucer opened slowly and the saucerman looked around cautiously. Then he stepped out, clutching an Adnaxian molecule pistol in one hand and a thick briefcase in the other.
Knowing that one burst from the pistol could destroy the whole county, I hurried forward. “Don’t shoot!” I cried in Adnaxian.
The saucerman aimed his pistol at me. “Don’t shoot,” I repeated. “I am one of you.”
The saucerman lowered the pistol which, I now saw, he was holding by the wrong end. “Eureka!” he exclaimed. “I have found you! Squadron Leader Ex-my-ex, I presume?”
“Yes,” I said. “I am Ex-my-ex.”
The saucerman looked at my tattered uniform and potbelly. “You’ve changed,” he said a little sadly, putting away his pistol. “But then, I suppose it’s a wonder you’re alive at all, exiled here millions of light years away from civilization. Don’t you know me?”
I looked at him closely. “The pseudopodia are familiar, but I can’t remember the name,” I said lamely.
“My-ex-ex,” he said. “University of Adnaxas. You were a student of mine in cosmichemistry.”
“Of course,” I said. “Now I remember. But what are you doing here, sir?”
“Looking for you, by order of the Presidex,” he said. “He’s quite anxious to get you back.”
I shuddered. I had seen what happened to Adnaxians who had displeased the Presidex.
“When you fled,” My-ex-ex went on, “popular opinion held that you were lost forever in space. But a few of us felt that you actually had a remote planet tucked up your sleeve. After the military gave up the search, some of us scientists were given the job of finding you. Since I knew you personally, I was chosen to make the first search-flight. And I seem to have found you. Stroke of luck, that, what?”
“For you,” I said resignedly. “I’ll return with you, sir. I suppose we might as well start back now.” I was ready. The sooner we started, the sooner I could destroy us both in space.
“That’s not possible,” Professor My-ex-ex said, parting his brief case. “My orders were, if I found you on a new planet, to investigate the planet and bring back a complete report for the Presidex—so he’ll know how to deal with the new planet, you know.”
I knew. Hadn’t I “dealt” with other planets myself? I’d destroyed fourteen singlehanded before fleeing Adnaxas. And now, earth was next.
But there was a ray of hope. Professor My-ex-ex had always been a good sort, a little vague at times, but kind. If I could show him what a fine place earth was, and how nice the people were, and let him see the peaceful charm of my family life, perhaps he would be moved to pity and spare us. Perhaps he would allow me to remain on earth, and not even report earth’s existence to Adnaxas. It was worth a try. If I failed, there was always the violent ending in midspace.
“Now,” Professor My-ex-ex said briskly, “I trust you will assist me in my mission, which was communicated to me orally by the Secretary of Space. I can put in a good word for you when we return to Adnaxas, you know.”
“I am yours to command, sir,” I said, beginning my campaign to make him think kindly of earth.
“Good. Now, since you have managed to survive on this planet for some time, I take it you have had some contact with the natives.”
