The Complete Short Stories: The 1960s (Part 1) (The Brian Aldiss Collection)

by Brian Aldiss

  Through sobs, Frances turned a big red face to George.

  ‘I gotta go to school this afternoon,’ she said. ‘Miss Angello would never forgive me if I missed my dancing.’

  George squatted on his haunches and spread his hands in appeal.

  ‘Look, sweetie, I want you to come with us. We’re going to do something so special, ever so special, better even than going to the zoo. This may be the most important day in your little life. Now you don’t think your old uncle would tell you wrong, do you?’

  ‘No … But … but it’s forward kicking this afternoon.’ And she dissolved into tears again.

  ‘It’s no good, George,’ Helen said. ‘We just can’t come, and that’s all about it.’

  ‘You are a lot!’ George said.

  ‘Well it’s no good being nasty, George. I mean how can we come?’

  ‘May I have a drink of water?’ George asked. He looked at his watch. It was 12.50. As Helen was filling the glass, baby Susan began to weep. Herbert hustled out into the back garden to rock the pram.

  When he returned, George said briskly, ‘One last appeal to your sense of proportion. The bloke that phoned this gen to the Mail, Ken Gillwood – you’ve met him, Herbert – he was in the “Gloucester Head” last month – he’s reliable. Before phoning through, he drove out on his motor bike to check details. He says this thing can only be a spaceship. It looks like a zeppelin sitting on end, and must be all of eighty feet high. It’s churned up the earth a bit and set light to a rick nearby. When Ken saw it at quarter to twelve there was no activity round it – no alien activity, that is, though the Newbury fire brigade had arrived to cope with the rick.

  ‘Now, Herb, you used to belong to a UFO club, and Helen and you thought you saw a flying saucer over Reading station once –’

  ‘It was Basingstoke, and it was when I was expecting Frances,’ Helen said, as though that disposed of that.

  ‘Okay, okay, we’ve all been young and foolish, but what I’m trying to say is that – no flattery – you’re an intelligent couple, with open minds. You’ve always known that visitors from another planet could come. Now they have come. I don’t doubt it, and you know how I used to scoff. Well, what I’m offering you is a free peep before half the country gets there or the police cordon the place off.

  ‘So, last time of asking, are you coming?’

  Helen and Herbert looked at each other.

  ‘It’s the children …’ Helen said.

  ‘No, it’s not that,’ Herbert said, ‘but look, George, have you considered it might be dangerous? You know as well as I do that if this thing has come from another planet, its crew will be armed with all sorts of super-weapons.’

  George held up a hand.

  ‘Enough, Herb. This is no time to be ignoble. You stay and mow the lawn in safety. I’m off.’

  ‘– but there may be misunderstandings. The aliens may not want trouble any more than we do –’

  ‘Okay, Herb, laddie. You’re the family man. Get the front door sandbagged. I’m off.’

  Sighing, he walked down the passage into the hall. As he went, he could hear Helen saying, ‘Why don’t you go, dear? There’s nothing to stop you going.’

  Ignoring them, George went out and climbed into his car. It was ten minutes past one. He had started up when Herbert came running to him.

  ‘Perhaps I’ll come,’ he said. ‘Helen’ll stay and look after the kids.’

  ‘Jump in,’ George said briefly. He slid forward to the edge of the lawn, backed round to the garage and had the car facing towards the gate when Helen came running onto the porch.

  ‘George … George, look, if Herb’s coming, I’d better come to. Do you mind?’

  ‘Jump in,’ George said.

  ‘Well, hang on while I get things organised, for goodness’ sake. I won’t be a minute.’

  She was not a minute. She was twenty-three minutes. The kitchen had to be seen to, the baby’s bottle had to be prepared and put into a vacuum flask, a note had to be left for the baker. Frances had to be taken to a neighbour for her lunch and was left with strict instructions about crossing the road at the zebra crossing on her way to school. The front door key was hidden under the front door mat for Eric when he returned, and a note was left for him (pinned next to the baker’s) explaining where everyone had gone and where the key was hidden. The washing was taken in off the line in case it rained.

  Then Helen just slipped upstairs, changed her dress and put something on her face. She did well to manage it all in twenty-three minutes.

  Coughing angrily as he flicked away the butt of his fourth successive cigarette, George helped her push the carry-cot into the back of the car. And then they were away. It was almost a quarter to two when they got onto the A4.

  Checking with the address he had been given, George turned off onto a side road before they reached Newbury race course. The traffic here was thick and slow-moving.

  ‘Do you think all these people have come to see …’ Herbert said, letting his voice fade away.

  ‘Why not? They’ve had time enough to get here,’ George said flippantly. The wait had made him cold, sardonic. Herbert, on the other hand, had become infected with excitement; or perhaps the sight of this line of cars had persuaded him that he was doing more than pursue a private delusion of his brother’s.

  ‘To think they actually landed in England!’ he exclaimed. ‘It’s the greatest event since the birth of Christ … Here, George, do you reckon there are any Russian spies about yet?’

  ‘One in the car behind,’ George said, referring to an Austin Countryman which was hooting imperiously.

  They rounded a bend in the lane, and there – a field away, beyond a heavy summer hedge – the upper half of the alien ship was visible, its nose pointing like a blunt spire up to the cloudy English skies.

  ‘That reminds me,’ Helen said, horror-struck, ‘I’ve asked the Vicar and Mrs Chadlington to tea this afternoon. In all the flap I quite forgot! You’ll have to turn back, George.’

  George laughed wildly.

  Herbert nudged him before he could say anything silly. ‘I just saw the vicar’s car ahead,’ he said. ‘He must have forgotten too.’

  The two men concentrated on the ship. It generated in their breasts the true thrill, the true wonder. That hull had nosed its way through unknown millions of miles of vacuum, to face Earth with a challenge – a hope – a threat – greater than any it had faced before. Standing silent in the rural landscape, it seemed to radiate a sense of its alien origins.

  ‘What the hell’s this?’ George said.

  The cars ahead were turning off the little side road into a dusty private road, to the gate of which George had now come. The gate was open, but a burly young man in a collarless shirt blocked the way. He held a cake tin bearing on the outside a crude picture of Windsor Castle and inside a pile of silver. Round his neck was a roughly written placard saying ENTRANCE FEE: ADULTS 1/- EACH, CARS 1/6, CHILDREN 6d.

  ‘What the hell’s this?’ George repeated, sticking his head out of the window to say it to the burly young man.

  ‘Entrance fee, shilling each, cars one and six, sir,’ said the youth cheerfully.

  ‘I can read, thank you. I’m questioning your right to rook me for going to look at that ship, which is certainly not your property.’

  The youth grinned widely.

  ‘I aren’t charging you for looking at the ship, sir, I’m charging you for coming on my father’s land. You can look from the road for nothing if you likes.’

  ‘It’s nothing but a damned swindle,’ George said. ‘You wait till the police come.’

  ‘Oh, we lets them in for nothing, sir.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, George, don’t argue. Let’s pay up and get in,’ Herbert said.

  With a bad grace, his temper not improved by more hooting from behind, George fished in his pocket and produced four and sixpence.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said the burly youth respectfully, ‘and the
babe in the back is another sixpence. We counts it as a child.’

  ‘It is a child, you fool!’

  ‘Then that’ll be another sixpence, sir, if you please.’

  Beyond speech, George paid up. They bumped down the dusty track and so into the field that contained the alien ship. Some thirty cars had already arrived and it was obvious there would soon be an overcrowding problem; the field was not large, and the half of it round the ship had been cordoned off by local police.

  The fire engine sat in the far corner of the field beside a still-smouldering remnant of rick. Its crew were sipping cups of tea brought from the farmhouse, or sucking ices – George saw that an enterprising vendor was already on the scene, doing a brisk trade in iced lollies.

  Leaving Susan to sleep peacefully in the back of the car, George, Herbert and Helen made their way over to the rope, standing as near as they could to the ship. They fell silent as they gazed at it.

  ‘It’s not really as big as I’d imagined it,’ Herbert said disappointedly. ‘Still, it’s a beauty.’

  ‘Yes, it’s a beauty,’ George breathed. They all took it in in awe.

  ‘It makes me want to recite poetry,’ Helen said. ‘I can’t find any words of my own. “Now God be thanked who matched us to His hour,” you know …’

  Unboundedly grateful that at last they had reached a common and elevated mood, George said ‘Funnily enough, I was thinking of a bit of Rupert Brooke too. What is it? Something about “… and gentleness, In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.” But perhaps that’s not very appropriate.’

  They stared in silence again. Under this English heaven, the alien ship had acquired what appeared to be its first marking of the voyage: a white slash of bird dropping up by the nose. Otherwise its only other prominent feature was a round metal protrusion half way up its length, which they took to be a hatch. There were no ports visible. There was no sign of life.

  George started looking about for other newspaper men. Cudliffe, who was officially covering for the Mail, had presumably come and gone with his photographer. As yet there seemed to be nobody about from the London dailies.

  ‘Is your pal Gillwood still here?’ Helen asked, divining George’s thoughts.

  ‘No. He’s probably covering a Women’s Institute meeting by now. God, the irony of it all! Something world-shattering like this and not a flaming soul who matters is about: just a gaggle of local cops and a few sightseers who couldn’t care less. The thing landed at least three hours ago! If this was America, I bet the President would have been on the spot by now.’

  ‘To say nothing of the heavy tanks,’ added Herbert.

  ‘Well, it’s no use you men just criticising,’ Helen said. ‘All you ever do is talk. If this is your big moment, why not take it? Do something.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘You know as well as I do what they always do in the stories. Make some sort of signal or drawing to show them we’re civilised.’

  ‘We could try it,’ Herbert said doubtfully. ‘You mean, make a diagram of the solar system or demonstrate the square root of minus one?’

  George snorted.

  ‘You might just as well try to explain to them why some people call napkins “serviettes.” The principle behind that is as fundamental to human nature as maths is, and who’s to know what’s fundamental to their nature – fundamental enough to be expressed in pictures anyhow. Beside, how do we know the aliens see along the same bit of the radiation spectrum as we do? The lack of ports would suggest they don’t. But if they do, then it’s no good doing a damn thing till they open a window to watch it.’

  ‘Very logical, Mister Master Mind,’ Helen said, smiling. ‘Then how do you suggest we contact our visitors? And make it snappy because I think I can hear Susan crying.’

  George leant on the rope barrier with both hands and said ponderously, ‘There’s no problem, Helen. You see, you and young Herb don’t come to this with fresh minds. Mentally, fictionally, you’ve faced this wonderful arrival for years. Your UFO and SF magazines often tackle this very problem: How to contact the aliens. I say it’s no problem.’

  ‘Then why aren’t we shaking hands with them right now?’ Herbert asked.

  ‘Don’t make cheap jokes, Herb; they cost you too much. Look at it this way. This glorious ship is evidence of a great technological civilisation. This implies also a civilisation with as much goodwill as ours – any less and it would have blown itself to bits long before it got to making this ship. So then; intelligence plus civility equals reason. The boys in there are reasonable. More reasonable than we are.’

  ‘I’d have granted you that without being argued into it.’

  ‘I must go and see Susan and give her her bottle,’ Helen said. ‘I’m sure she’s crying.’

  She left as George continued his argument.

  ‘If the aliens are reasonable and if they can detect us at all, then they will be able to detect that we are reasonable.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Use your loaf! Would a crowd of animals or savages behave like this English crowd? Would it put up barriers to keep itself away from what it has come to see? Would it pay tokens at the gate? Would it let itself be kept in order by only half a dozen bobbies if it were motivated by blood lust? You know jolly well it wouldn’t! And another thing – look at the pattern of the English countryside, which we presume the aliens saw on their way down. Isn’t its neatness and organisation a perfect example of the triumph of reason over nature?’

  Herbert groaned, scratched his head, and ended up resting his hands on the rope in unconscious parody of his brother’s pose.

  ‘All this is obvious enough to you – and to me, of course. But why should it be obvious to really alien aliens?’

  ‘Because they must be reasonable to be here at all, whether they look like elephants, octopuses or bloody sunflowers. And however stupid and bourgeois and conventional you may find the assembly here in this field, it too is governed by reason – so conspicuously so that it is probably more evident to the boys in the ship than it is to us. Ergo, we don’t have to do a thing. We just wait until they’ve recovered from their journey and feel like communicating.’

  ‘I wonder if you’d mind not leaning on the rope, sir? I’m afraid with the ground being so hard the supports aren’t in very firm.’

  The speaker was a policeman. He smiled at the brothers apologetically and they immediately straightened up.

  ‘Sorry, constable,’ George said. ‘We’re just so interested in this spaceship. Have you got any details about it you can tell us?’

  ‘Can’t really say as I have, sir,’ the policeman said, obviously only too ready to stay and chat. ‘Of course it’s a nuisance, it being here, but just think if it had come down while the races were on. We have enough trouble with the traffic on the main road as it is.’

  Herbert nodded gravely and said in a solemn voice, ‘Is anyone being charged with obstruction?’

  ‘Obstruction? Well, no, sir. We don’t know who the thing belongs to, like, yet.’

  ‘The Martians, would you say?’

  The constable laughed delightedly, displaying enormous white teeth.

  ‘You didn’t really think it was a spaceship, did you, sir? Like on one of them television plays? It’s a good job nobody believes them or we’d all be hiding in air raid shelters by now.’

  ‘Where do you think it came from then?’ George demanded sharply.

  The constable dropped his voice. ‘We reckon we got a pretty good idea where it come from, although no one’s letting on yet. Now do you see that gent down by the hedge at the far end of the field, my side of the barrier? Sitting on a folding stool?’

  They marked him well. He was young, spruce, self- contained, probably a university man.

  ‘He came in a big Alvis saloon,’ the policeman continued impressively. ‘And there was two other men in with him. They’re in the farmhouse now, goodness knows what doing. Well, they’re from Harwell.’

  �
�Likely enough,’ George said. ‘It’s no distance from here.’

  ‘More than likely: certain. They’re from Harwell. It gives the whole game away, doesn’t it?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  The constable shook his head in pity for all persons unable to make deductions.

  ‘Why, sir, this here machine belongs to them. They’re up to all sorts of secret things at Harwell. I’ll be surprised if it doesn’t turn out to be worked by nuclear physics.’

  And having thus blinded the two brothers by science, he passed heavily on. As George and Herbert looked at each other and smiled sorrowingly, Helen returned carrying a newly-fed Susan.

  ‘I just heard a man in the crowd saying that your spaceship was made at Harwell, George,’ she told him. ‘Suppose it is an experimental plane or weapon …’

  ‘Come on, Helen, you know better than that. You’re talking like that copper. It’s a mark of ignorance to be unable to believe the unlikely.’

  ‘Well, I’d like to see inside first before I become too sure,’ she said.

  They stood about aimlessly, waiting for something to happen. From the spaceship itself there was no sign; the next diversion came from the other direction. The jib of a crane slid slowly between trees as it moved down the farm road. A great deal of shouting ensued. A small bulldozer appeared and demolished a stretch of bank, thus clearing a way for a procession of vehicles into the field.

  First came an AERE Harwell Mutt with its blue and grey panels, followed by a civil ambulance. The crane was next, a twenty ton lorry-mounted affair that lurched into the field in a business-like way. Another large vehicle followed, an RAF super-articulated ‘Queen Mary.’ Close behind it were two lorries loaded with kit – winches, cables and canvas slings were visible in one – while the rear of this procession was brought up by an Army wireless truck.

  ‘My God!’ Herbert exclaimed, pointing to the two lorries. ‘A Bomb Disposal unit! They’re never going to load the ship onto that “Queen Mary,” are they?’

  It soon became obvious that they were.

  ‘I just want to see what happens when they try to remove the charge,’ commented George with grim relish.