Rath smiled bitterly. He should have anticipated this. NYRT and GM had had their differences in the past. Officially, there was cooperation between the two giant corporations. But for all practical purposes—
“The question is in terms of the Public Interest,” Rath said.
“Oh, certainly,” Mr. Bemis replied, with a subtle smile. Glancing at his tattle board, he noticed that several company executives had tapped in on his line. This might mean a promotion, if handled properly.
“The Public Interest of GM,” Mr. Bemis added with polite nastiness. “The insinuation is, I suppose, that drunken conductors are operating our jetbuses and helis?”
“Of course not. I was searching for a single alcoholic predilection, an individual latency—”
“There’s no possibility of it. We at Rapid Transit do not hire people with even the merest tendency in that direction. And may I suggest, sir, that you clean your own house before making implications about others?”
And with that, Mr. Bemis broke the connection.
No one was going to put anything over on him.
“Dead end,” Rath said heavily. He turned and shouted, “Smith! Did you find any prints?”
Lieutenant Smith, his coat off and sleeves rolled up, bounded over. “Nothing usable, sir.”
Rath’s thin lips tightened. It had been close to seven hours since the customer had taken the Martian machine. There was no telling what harm had been done by now. The customer would be justified in bringing suit against the Company. Not that the money mattered much; it was the bad publicity that was to be avoided at all costs.
“Beg pardon, sir,” Haskins said.
Rath ignored him. What next? Rapid Transit was not going to cooperate. Would the Armed Services make their records available for scansion by somatotype and pigmentation?
“Sir,” Haskins said again.
“What is it?”
“I just remembered the customer’s friend’s name. It was Magnessen.”
“Are you sure of that?”
“Absolutely,” Haskins said, with the first confidence he had shown in hours. “I’ve taken the liberty of looking him up in the telephone book, sir. There’s only one Manhattan listing under that name.”
Rath glowered at him from under shaggy eyebrows. “Haskins, I hope you are not wrong about this. I sincerely hope that.”
“I do too, sir,” Haskins admitted, feeling his knees begin to shake.
“Because if you are,” Rath said, “I will . . . Never mind. Let’s go!”
BY POLICE escort, they arrived at the address in fifteen minutes. It was an ancient brownstone and Magnessen’s name was on a second-floor door. They knocked.
The door opened and a stocky, crop-headed, shirt-sleeved man in his thirties stood before them. He turned slightly pale at the sight of so many uniforms, but held his ground.
“What is this?” he demanded.
“You Magnessen?” Lieutenant Smith barked.
“Yeah. What’s the beef? If it’s about my hi-fi playing too loud, I can tell you that old hag downstairs—”
“May we come in?” Rath asked. “It’s important.”
Magnessen seemed about to refuse, so Rath pushed past him, followed by Smith, Follansby, Haskins, and a small army of policemen. Magnessen turned to face them, bewildered, defiant and more than a little awed.
“Mr. Magnessen,” Rath said, in the pleasantest voice he could muster, “I hope you’ll forgive the intrusion. Let me assure you, it is in the Public Interest, as well as your own. Do you know a short, angry-looking, red-haired, red-eyed man?”
“Yes,” Magnessen said slowly and warily.
Haskins let out a sigh of relief.
“Would you tell us his name and address?” asked Rath.
“I suppose you mean—hold it! What’s he done?”
“Nothing.”
“Then what you want him for?”
“There’s no time for explanations,” Rath said. “Believe me, it’s in his own best interest, too. What is his name?”
Magnessen studied Rath’s ugly, honest face, trying to make up his mind.
Lieutenant Smith said, “Come on, talk, Magnessen, if you know what’s good for you. We want the name and we want it quick.”
It was the wrong approach. Magnessen lighted a cigarette, blew smoke in Smith’s direction and inquired, “You got a warrant, buddy?”
“You bet I have,” Smith said, striding forward. “I’ll warrant you, wise guy.”
“Stop it!” Rath ordered. “Lieutenant Smith, thank you for your assistance. I won’t need you any longer.”
Smith left sulkily, taking his platoon with him.
Rath said, “I apologize for Smith’s over-eagerness. You had better hear the problem.” Briefly but fully, he told the story of the customer and the Martian therapeutic machine.
When he was finished, Magnessen looked more suspicious than ever. “You say he wants to kill me?”
“Definitely.”
“That’s a lie! I don’t know what your game is, mister, but you’ll never make me believe that. Elwood’s my best friend. We been best friends since we was kids. We been in service together. Elwood would cut off his arm for me. And I’d do the same for him.”
“Yes, yes,” Rath said impatiently, “in a sane frame of mind, he would. But your friend Elwood—is that his first name or last?”
“First,” Magnessen said tauntingly.
“Your friend Elwood is psychotic.”
“You don’t know him. That guy loves me like a brother. Look, what’s Elwood really done? Defaulted on some payments or something? I can help out.”
“You thickheaded imbecile!” Rath shouted. “I’m trying to save your life, and the life and sanity of your friend!”
“But how do I know?” Magnessen pleaded. “You guys come busting in here—”
“You can trust me,” Rath said.
Magnessen studied Rath’s face and nodded sourly. “His name’s Elwood Caswell. He lives just down the block at number 341.”
THE MAN who came to the door was short, with red hair and red-rimmed eyes. His right hand was thrust into his coat pocket. He seemed very calm.
“Are you Elwood Caswell?” Rath asked. “The Elwood Caswell who bought a Regenerator early this afternoon at the Home Therapy Appliances Store?”
“Yes,” said Caswell. “Won’t you come in?”
Inside Caswell’s small living room, they saw the Regenerator, glistening black and chrome, standing near the couch. It was unplugged.
“Have you used it?” Rath asked anxiously.
“Yes.”
Follansby stepped forward. “Mr. Caswell, I don’t know how to explain this, but we made a terrible mistake. The Regenerator you took was a Martian model—for giving therapy to Martians.”
“I know,” said Caswell.
“You do?”
“Of course. It became pretty obvious after a while.”
“It was a dangerous situation,” Rath said. “Especially for a man with your—ah—troubles.” He studied Caswell covertly. The man seemed fine, but appearances were frequently deceiving, especially with psychotics. Caswell had been homicidal; there was no reason why he should not still be.
And Rath began to wish he had not dismissed Smith and his policemen so summarily. Sometimes an armed squad was a comforting thing to have around.
Caswell walked across the room to the therapeutic machine. One hand was still in his jacket pocket; the other he laid affectionately upon the Regenerator.
“The poor thing tried its best,” he said. “Of course, it couldn’t cure what wasn’t there.” He laughed. “But it came very near succeeding!”
RATH STUDIED Caswell’s face and said, in a trained, casual tone, “Glad there was no harm, sir. The Company will, of course, reimburse you for your lost time and for your mental anguish—”
“Naturally,” Caswell said.
“—and we will substitute a proper Terran Regenerator at once.”
<
br /> “That won’t be necessary.”
“It won’t?”
“No.” Caswell’s voice was decisive. “The machine’s attempt at therapy forced me into a compete self-appraisal. There was a moment of absolute insight, during which I was able to evaluate and discard my homicidal intentions toward poor Magnessen.”
Rath nodded dubiously. “You feel no such urge now?”
“Not in the slightest.”
Rath frowned deeply, started to say something, and stopped. He turned to Follansby and Haskins. “Get that machine out of here. I’ll have a few things to say to you at the store.”
The manager and the clerk lifted the Regenerator and left.
Rath took a deep breath. “Mr. Caswell, I would strongly advise that you accept a new Regenerator from the Company, gratis. Unless a cure is effected in a proper mechanotherapeutic manner, there is always the danger of a setback.”
“No danger with me,” Caswell said, airily but with deep conviction. “Thank you for your consideration, sir. And good night.”
Rath shrugged and walked to the door.
“Wait!” Caswell called.
Rath turned. Caswell had taken his hand out of his pocket. In it was a revolver. Rath felt sweat trickle down his arms. He calculated the distance between himself and Caswell. Too far.
“Here,” Caswell said, extending the revolver butt-first. “I won’t need this any longer.”
Rath managed to keep his face expressionless as he accepted the revolver and stuck it into a shapeless pocket.
“Good night,” Caswell said. He closed the door behind Rath and bolted it.
At last he was alone.
Caswell walked into the kitchen. He opened a bottle of beer, took a deep swallow and sat down at the kitchen table. He stared fixedly at a point just above and to the left of the clock.
He had to form his plans now. There was no time to lose.
Magnessen! That inhuman monster who cut down the Caswell goricae! Magnessen! The man who, even now, was secretly planning to infect New York with the abhorrent feem desire! Oh, Magnessen, I wish you a long, long life, filled with the torture I can inflict on you. And to start with . . .
Caswell smiled to himself as he planned exactly how he would dwark Magnessen in a vlendish manner.
ALL THE THINGS YOU ARE
Nothing was simpler than the First Contact Code . . . “Monkey See, Monkey Do” . . . and it was Man who had to be the monkey!
THERE ARE regulations to govern the conduct of First Contact spaceships, rules drawn up in desperation and followed in despair, for what rule can predict the effect of any action upon the mentality of an alien people?
Jan Maarten was gloomily pondering this as he came into the atmosphere of Durell IV. He was a big, middle-aged man with thin ash-blond hair and a round worried face. Long ago, he had concluded that almost any rule was better than none. Therefore he followed his meticulously, but with an ever-present sense of uncertainty and human fallibility.
These were ideal qualifications for the job of First Contacter.
He circled the planet, low enough for observation, but not too low, since he didn’t want to frighten the inhabitants. He noted the signs of a primitive-pastoral civilization and tried to remember everything he had learned in Volume 4, Projected Techniques for First Contact on So-called Primitive-pastoral Worlds, published by the Department of Alien Psychology. Then he brought the ship down on a rocky, grass-covered plain, near a typical medium-sized village, but not too near, using the Silent Sam landing technique.
“Prettily done,” commented Croswell, his assistant, who was too young to be bothered by uncertainties.
Chedka, the Eborian linguist, said nothing. He was sleeping, as usual.
Maarten grunted something and went to the rear of the ship to run his tests. Croswell took up his post at the viewport.
“HERE THEY come,” Croswell reported half an hour later. “About a dozen of them, definitely humanoidal.” Upon closer inspection, he saw that the natives of Durell were flabby, dead-white in coloration, and deadpan in expression. Croswell hesitated, then added, “They’re not too handsome.”
“What are they doing?” Maarten asked.
“Just looking us over,” Croswell said. He was a slender young man with an unusually large and lustrous mustache which he had grown on the long journey out from Terra. He stroked it with the pride of a man who has been able to raise a really good mustache.
“They’re about twenty yards from the ship now,” Croswell reported. He leaned forward, flattening his nose ludicrously against the port, which was constructed of one-way glass.
Croswell could look out, but no one could look in. The Department of Alien Psychology had ordered the change last year, after a Department ship had botched a first contact on Carella II. The Carellans had stared into the ship, become alarmed at something within, and fled. The Department still didn’t know what had alarmed them, for a second contact had never been successfully established.
That mistake would never happen again.
“What now?” Maarten called.
“One of them’s coming forward alone. Chief, perhaps. Or sacrificial offering.”
“What is he wearing?”
“He has on a—a sort of—will you kindly come here and look for yourself?”
Maarten, at his instrument bank, had been assembling a sketchy picture of Durell. The planet had a breathable atmosphere, an equitable climate, and gravity comparable to that of Earth. It had valuable deposits of radioactives and rare metals. Best of all, it tested free of the virulent microorganisms and poisonous vapors which tended to make a Contacter’s life feverishly short.
Durell was going to be a valuable neighbor to Earth, provided the natives were friendly—and the Contacters skillful.
MAARTEN WALKED to the viewport and studied the natives. “They are wearing pastel clothing. We shall wear pastel clothing.”
“Check,” said Croswell.
“They are unarmed. We shall go unarmed.”
“Roger.”
“They are wearing sandals. We shall wear sandals as well.”
“To hear is to obey.”
“I notice they have no facial hair,” Maarten said, with the barest hint of a smile. “I’m sorry, Ed, but that mustache—”
“Not my mustache!” Croswell yelped, quickly putting a protective hand over it.
“I’m afraid so.”
“But, Jan, I’ve been six months raising it!”
“It has to go. That should be obvious.”
“I don’t see why,” Croswell said indignantly.
“Because first impressions are vital. When an unfavorable first impression has been made, subsequent contacts become difficult, sometimes impossible. Since we know nothing about these people, conformity is our safest course. We try to look like them, dress in colors that are pleasing, or at least acceptable to them, copy their gestures, interact within their framework of acceptance in every way—”
“All right, all right,” Croswell said. “I suppose I can grow another on the way back.”
They looked at each other; then both began laughing. Croswell had lost three mustaches in this manner.
While Croswell shaved, Maarten stirred their linguist into wakefulness. Chedka was a lemurlike humanoid from Eboria IV, one of the few planets where Earth maintained successful relations. The Eborians were natural linguists, aided by the kind of associative ability found in nuisances who supply words in conversation—only the Eborians were always right. They had wandered over a considerable portion of the Galaxy in their time and might have attained quite a place in it were it not that they needed twenty hours’ sleep out of twenty-four.
Croswell finished shaving and dressed in pale green coveralls and sandals. All three stepped through the degermifier. Maarten took a deep breath, uttered a silent prayer, and opened the port.
A low sigh went up from the crowd of Durellans, although the chief—or sacrifice—was silent. They were indeed hum
anlike, if one overlooked their pallor and the gentle sheeplike blandness of their features—features upon which Maarten could read no trace of expression.
“Don’t use any facial contortions,” Maarten warned Croswell.
Slowly they advanced until they were ten feet from the leading Durellan. Then Maarten said in a low voice, “We come in peace.”
CHEDKA TRANSLATED, then listened to the answer, which was so soft as to be almost undecipherable.
“Chief says welcome,” Chedka reported in his economical English.
“Good, good,” Maarten said. He took a few more steps forward and began to speak, pausing every now and then for translation. Earnestly, and with extreme conviction, he intoned Primary Speech BB-32 (for humanoid, primitive-pastoral, tentatively nonaggressive aliens).
Even Croswell, who was impressed by very little, had to admit it was a fine speech. Maarten said they were wanderers from afar, come out of the Great Nothingness to engage in friendly discourse with the gentle people of Durell. He spoke of green and distant Earth, so like this planet, and of the fine and humble people of Earth who stretched out hands in greeting. He told of the great spirit of peace and cooperation that emanated from Earth, of universal friendship, and many other excellent things.
Finally he was done. There was a long silence.
“Did he understand it all?” Maarten whispered to Chedka.
The Eborian nodded, waiting for the chief’s reply. Maarten was perspiring from the exertion, and Croswell couldn’t stop nervously fingering his newly shaven upper lip.
The chief opened his mouth, gasped, made a little half turn, and collapsed to the ground.
It was an embarrassing moment and one uncovered by any amount of theory.
The chief didn’t rise; apparently it was not a ceremonial fall. As a matter of fact, his breathing seemed labored, like that of a man in a coma.
Under the circumstances, the Contact team could only retreat to their ship and await further developments.
Half an hour later, a native approached the ship and conversed with Chedka, keeping a wary eye on the Earthmen and departing immediately.
“What did he say?” Croswell asked.
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