The bulletin came through blurred with fear. “Somebody is dancing on our graves,” said Charleroi. His gaze lifted to include the entire Earth. “This will make a fine mausoleum.”
“Your words are strange,” she said. “Yet there is that in your manner which I find pleasing . . . Come closer, stranger, and explain yourself.”
I stepped back and withdrew my sword from its scabbard. Beside me, I heard a metallic hiss; Ocpetis Mam had drawn his sword, too, and now he stood with me, back to back, as the Megenth horde approached.
“Now shall we sell our lives dearly, Jon Westerley,” said Ocpetis Mam in the peculiar guttural hiss of the Mnerian race.
“Indeed we shall,” I replied. “And there will be some more than one widow to dance the Passagekeen before this day is through.”
He nodded. “And some disconsolate fathers will make the lonely sacrifice to the God of Deteriorations.”
We smiled at each other’s staunch words. Yet it was no laughing matter. The Megenth bucks advanced slowly, implacably, across the green and purple moss-sward. They had drawn their raftii—those long, curved, double-pointed dirks that had struck terror in the innermost recesses of the civilized galaxy. We waited.
The first blade crossed mine. I parried and thrust, catching the big fellow full in the throat. He reeled back, and I set myself for my next antagonist.
Two of them came at me this time. I could hear the sharp intake of Ocpetis’s breath as he hacked and hewed with his sword. The situation was utterly hopeless.
I thought of the unprecedented combination of circumstances that had brought me to this situation. I thought of the Cities of the Terran Plurality, whose very existence depended upon the foredoomed outcome of this present impasse. I thought of autumn in Carcassone, hazy mornings in Saskatoon, steel-colored rain falling on the Black Hills. Was all this to pass? Surely not. And yet—why not?
We said to the computer: “These are the factors, this is our predicament. Do us the favor of solving our problem and saving our lives and the lives of all Earth.”
The computer computed. It said: “The problem cannot be solved.”
“Then how are we to go about saving Earth from destruction?”
“You don’t,” the computer told us.
We left sadly. But then Jenkins said, “What the hell—that was only one computer’s opinion.”
That cheered us up. We held our heads high. We decided to take further consultations.
The gypsy turned the card. It came up Final Judgement. We left sadly. Then Myers said, “What the hell—that’s only one gypsy’s opinion.”
That cheered us up. We held our heads high. We decided to take further consultations.
You said it yourself: “ ‘A bright blossom of blood on his forehead.’ You looked at me with strange eyes. Must I love you?”
It all began so suddenly. The reptilian forces of Megenth, long quiescent, suddenly began to expand due to the serum given them by Charles Engstrom, the power-crazed telepath. Jon Westerley was hastily recalled from his secret mission to Angos II. Westerley had the supreme misfortune of materializing within a ring of Black Force, due to the inadvertent treachery of Ocpetis Marn, his faithful Mnerian companion, who had, unknown to Westerley, been trapped in the Hall of Floating Mirrors, and his mind taken over by the renegade Santhis, leader of the Entropy Guild. That was the end for Westerley, and the beginning of the end for us.
The old man was in a stupor. I unstrapped him from the smoldering control chair and caught the characteristic sweet-salty-sour odor of manginee—that insidious narcotic grown only in the caverns of Ingidor—whose insidious influence had subverted our guardposts along the Wall Star Belt.
I shook him roughly. “Preston!” I cried. “For the sake of Earth, for Magda, for everything you hold dear—tell me what happened.”
His eyes rolled. His mouth twitched. With vast effort he said, “Zirn! Zirn is lost, is lost, is lost!”
His head lolled forward. Death rearranged his face.
Zirn lost! My brain worked furiously. That meant that the High Star Pass was open, the negative accumulators no longer functioning, the drone soldiers overwhelmed. Zirn was a wound through which our life-blood would pour. But surely there was a way out?
President Edgars looked at the cerulean telephone. He had been warned never to use it except in the direst emergency, and perhaps not even then. But surely the present situation justified? . . . He lifted the telephone.
“Paradise Reception, Miss Ophelia speaking.”
“This is President Edgars of Earth. I must speak to God immediately.”
“God is out of his office just now and cannot be reached. May I be of service?”
“Well, you see,” Edgars said, “I have this really bad emergency on my hands. I mean, it looks like the end of everything.”
“Everything?” Miss Ophelia asked.
“Well, not literally everything. But it does mean the destruction of us. Of Earth and all that. If you could just bring this to God’s attention—”
“Since God is omniscient, I’m sure he knows all about it.”
“I’m sure he does. But I thought that if I could just speak to him personally—”
“I’m afraid that is not possible at this time. But you could leave a message. God is very good and very fair, and I’m sure he will consider your problem and do what is right and godly. He’s wonderful, you know. I love God.”
“We all do,” Edgars said sadly.
“Is there anything else?”
“No. Yes! May I speak with Mr. Joseph J. Edgars, please?”
“Who is that?”
“My father. He died ten years ago.”
“I’m sorry, sir. That is not permitted.”
“Can you at least tell me if he’s up there with you people?”
“Sorry, we are not allowed to give out that information.”
“Well, can you tell me if anybody is up there? I mean, is there really an afterlife? Or is it maybe only you and God up there? Or maybe only you?”
“For information concerning the afterlife,” Miss Ophelia said, “kindly contact your nearest priest, minister, rabbi, mullah, or anyone else on the accredited list of God representatives. Thank you for calling.”
There was a sweet tinkle of chimes. Then the line went dead. “What did the Big Fellow say?” asked General Muller.
“All I got was double-talk from his secretary.”
“Personally, I don’t believe in superstitions like God,” General Muller said. “Even if they happen to be true, I find it healthier not to believe. Shall we get on with it?”
They got on with it.
Testimony of the robot who might have been Dr. Zach:
“My true identity is a mystery to me, and one which, under the circumstances, I do not expect to be resolved. But I was at the Jenghik Palace. I saw the Megenth warriors swarm over the crimson balustrades, overturn the candelabra, smash, kill, destroy. The governor died with a sword in his hand. The Terran Guard made their last stand in the Dolorous Keep, and perished to a man after mighty blows given and received. The ladies of the court defended themselves with daggers so small as to appear symbolic. They were granted quick passage. I saw the great fire consume the bronze eagles of Earth. The subject peoples had long fled. I watched the Jenghik Palace—that great pile, marking the furthest extent of Earth’s suzerainty, topple soundlessly into the dust from which it sprung. And I knew then that all was lost, and that the fate of Terra—of which planet I consider myself a loyal son, despite the fact that I was (presumably) crafted rather than created, produced rather than born—the fate of divine Terra, I say, was to be annihilated utterly, until not even the ghost of a memory remained.
“You said it youself: ‘A star exploded in his eye.’ This last day I must love you. The rumors are heavy tonight, and the sky is red. I love it when you turn your head just so. Perhaps it is true that we are chaff between the iron jaws of life and death. Still, I prefer to keep time by my own
watch. So X fly in the face of the evidence, I fly with you.
“It is the end, I love you, it is the end.”
1973
WELCOME TO THE STANDARD NIGHTMARE
In Nova 2 Robert Sheckley wrote a story that put paid to the classic space opera. At least he would have checked the further publication of more of this bombastic form of science fiction if the authors of these works read anything other than their own stories. Oh well. Perhaps he will have better luck in polishing off the “war of the worlds” theme that began (and mostly ended) with the H.G. Wells book of the same title.
JOHNNY BEZIQUE WAS a spaceship driver for SBC Explorations, Inc. He was surveying a fringe of the Seergon Cluster, which at that time was terra incognita. The first four planets showed nothing interesting. Bezique went to the vicinity of the fifth. The standard nightmare began then.
His ship’s loudspeaker came on, apparently activated by remote control. A deep voice said, “You are approaching the planet Loris. We presume that you intend to put down here.”
“That’s right,” Johnny said. “How come you speak English?”
“One of our computers deduced the language from inferential evidence available during your approach to our planet.”
“That’s pretty good going,” Johnny said.
“It was nothing,” the voice said. “We will now speak directly to your ship’s computer, feeding it landing orbit, speed and other pertinent data. Is that agreeable to you?”
“Sure, go ahead,” Johnny said. He had just made Earth’s first contact with alien life. That was how the standard nightmare always began.
John Charles Bezique was a bandy-legged little man with ginger-colored hair and an irascible disposition. He was mechanically competent at his job. He was also conceited, disputatious, ignorant, fearless and profane. In short, he was perfectly suited for deep-space exploration. It takes a particular kind of man to endure the shattering immensities of space and the paranoid-inducing stresses of threats from the unknown. It takes a man with a large and impervious ego and a consistently high degree of aggressive self-confidence. It takes a kind of a nut. So exploring spaceships are piloted by men like Bezique, whose self-complacency is firmly based upon unconquerable self-conceit and supported by impenetrable ignorance. The Conquistadores had possessed that psychic makeup. Cortez and his handful of cutthroats conquered the Aztec empire by not realizing that the thing was impossible.
Johnny sat back and watched as the control panel registered an immediate change in course and velocity. The planet Loris appeared in his viewplate, blue and green and brown. Johnny Bezique was about to meet the folks next door.
It’s nice to have intelligent neighbors, speaking intergalactically, but it’s not nice if those neighbors are a great deal smarter than you are, and maybe quicker and stronger and more aggressive, too. Neighbors like that might want to do things for us or to us or about us. It wouldn’t necessarily have to go that way, but let’s face it, it’s a tough universe, and the primordial question is always, who’s on top?
Expeditions were sent out from Earth on the theory that, if there is anything out there, it would be better for us to find them, rather than to have them come dropping by on us some quiet Sunday morning. Earth’s standard nightmare scenario always began with contact with a formidable alien civilization. After that, there were variations. Sometimes the aliens were mechanically advanced, sometimes they had incredible mental powers, sometimes they were stupid but nearly invincible—walking plant people, swarming insect people and the like. Usually they were ruthlessly amoral, unlike the good guys on Earth.
But those were minor details. The main sequence of the nightmare was always the same: Earth contacts a powerful alien civilization, and they take us over.
Bezique was about to learn the answer to the only question that seriously concerned Earth: Can they lick us or can we lick them?
So far, he wouldn’t care to make book on the outcome.
On Loris you could breathe the air and drink the water. And the people were humanoid. This, despite the fact that the Nobel-prize winner Serge Von Blut had stated that the likeliness of this was contraindicated to the tune of 1093 to one.
The Lorians gave Bezique a hypnopaedic knowledge of their language and a guided tour around their major city of Athisse, and the more Johnny saw the gloomier he got, because these people really had an impressive setup.
The Lorians were a pleasant, comely, stable, inventive and progressive people. They had had no wars, rebellions, insurrections or the like for the last five hundred years, and none seemed imminent. Birth and death-rates were nicely stabilized: there were plenty of people, but enough room and opportunity for everyone. There were several races, but no racial problems. The Lorians had a highly developed technology, but also maintained a beautiful ecological balance. All individual work was creative and freely chosen, since all brute labor had been given over to self-regulating machines.
The capital city of Athisse was a cyclopean place of enormous and fantastically beautiful buildings, castles, palaces and the like, all public of course, and all visually exciting in their bold asymmetry. And this city had everything—bazaars, restaurants, parks, majestic statues, houses, graveyards, funparks, hot-dog stands, playgrounds, even a limpid river—you name it, they had it. And everything was free, including all food, clothing, housing and entertainment. You took what you wanted and gave what you wanted, and it all balanced out somehow. Because of this there was no need for money on Loris, and without money you don’t need banks, treasuries, vaults or safe-deposit boxes. In fact, you don’t even need locks: on Loris all doors were opened and closed by simple mental command.
Politically, the government mirrored the near-unanimous collective mind of the Lorian people. And that collective mind was calm, thoughtful, good. Between public desire and government action there was no discernible distortion, gap or lag.
In fact, the more Johnny looked into it, the more it seemed that Loris had just about no government at all, and what little it did have governed mostly by not governing. The closest thing to a ruler was Veerhe, Chief of the Office of Future Projections. And Veerhe never gave any orders—he just issued economic, social and scientific forecasts from time to time.
Bezique learned all of this in a few days. He was helped along by a specially assigned guide named Helmis, a Lorian of Johnny’s age whose wit, forbearance, sagacity, gentleness, irrepressible humor, keen insights and self-deprecatory manner caused Johnny to detest him immeasurably.
Thinking it all over in his beautifully appointed suite, Johnny realized that the Lorians came about as close to human ideals of perfection as you could expect to find. They seemed to be really fine people, and paragons of all the virtues. But that didn’t change Earth’s standard nightmare. Humans, in their perversity, simply do not want to be governed by aliens, not even wonderfully good aliens, not even if it is for Earth’s own good.
Bezique could see that the Lorians were a pretty unaggressive stay-at-home people with no desire for territory, conquest, spreading their civilization, and other ego-trips. But on the other hand, they seemed smart enough to realize that unless they did something about Earth, Earth was sure as hell going to do something about them, or kick up a lot of dust trying.
Of course, maybe it would be no contest; maybe a people as wise and trusting and peaceful as the Lorians would have no armament to speak of. But he learned that that was an incorrect assumption on the following day, when Helmis took him to look at the Ancient Dynasty Spacefleet.
This was the last heavy armament ever built on Loris. The fleet was a thousand years old and all seventy ships worked as if they had been built yesterday.
“Tormish II, last rules of the Ancient Dynasty, intended to conquer all civilized planets,” Helmis said. “Luckily, our people matured before he could launch his project.”
“But you’ve still got the ships around,” Johnny said.
Helmis shrugged. “They’re a monument to our past irrational
ity. And practically speaking, if someone did try to invade us . . . we could perhaps cope.”
“You just might be able to at that,” Johnny said. He figured that one of those ships could handle anything Earth might put into space for the next two hundred years or so. No doubt about it, the Lorians had a lot going for them.
So that was life on Loris, just like the standard nightmare scenario said it would be. Too good to be true. Perfect, dismayingly, disgustingly perfect.
But was it really so perfect? Bezique had the Earthman’s abiding belief in the doctrine that every virtue had its corresponding vice. This he usually expressed as: “There’s gotta be a loop-hole in this thing somewhere.” Not even God’s own heaven could run that well.
He looked at everything with a critical eye. Loris did have policemen. They were referred to as monitors, and were excruciatingly polite. But they were cops. That implied the existence of criminals.
Helmis set him straight on that. “We have occasional genetic deviants, of course, but no criminal class. The monitors represent a branch of education rather than of law enforcement. Any citizen may ask a monitor for the ruling on a pertinent question of personal conduct. Should he break a law inadvertently, the monitor will point this out.”
“And then arrest him?”
“Certainly not. The citizen will apologize, and the incident will be forgotten.”
“But what if a citizen breaks the law over and over again? What do the monitors do then?”
“Such a circumstance never arises.”
“But if it did?”
“The monitors are programmed to take care of such problems, if they should ever arise.”
“They don’t look so tough to me,” Johnny said. Something didn’t quite convince him. Maybe he couldn’t afford to be convinced. Still . . . Loris worked. It worked damned well. The only thing in it that didn’t work right was John Charles Bezique. This was because he was an Earth-man—which is to say, an unbalanced primitive. Also, it was because Johnny was getting increasingly morose, depressed and savage.
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