(1/15) The Golden Age of Science Fiction: An Anthology of 50 Short Stories

by Various

  No.

  Not in this case.

  Earth had nothing to sell to the tourists.

  Ever hear of baluts? The Melanesians of the South Pacific consider it a very fine delicacy. You take a fertilized duck egg and you bury it in the warm earth. Six months later, when it is nice and overripe, you dig it up again, knock the top off the shell the way you would a soft-boiled egg, and eat it. Then you pick the pinfeathers out of your teeth. Baluts.

  Now you know how the greatest delicacies of Earth's restaurants affected the Galactics.

  Earth was just a little too picturesque. The tourists enjoyed the sights, but they ate aboard their ship, which was evidently somewhat like a Caribbean cruise ship. And they bought nothing. They just looked.

  And laughed.

  And of course they all wanted to meet Professor John Hamish McLeod.

  When the news leaked out and was thoroughly understood by Earth's population, there was an immediate reaction.

  Editorial in Pravda:

  The stupid book written by the American J. H. McLeod has made Earth a laughingstock throughout the galaxy. His inability to comprehend the finer nuances of Galactic Socialism has made all Earthmen look foolish. It is too bad that a competent Russian zoologist was not chosen for the trip that McLeod made; a man properly trained in the understanding of the historical forces of dialectic materialism would have realized that any Galactic society must of necessity be a Communist State, and would have interpreted it as such. The petty bourgeois mind of McLeod has made it impossible for any Earthman to hold up his head in the free Socialist society of the galaxy. Until this matter is corrected....

  News item Manchester Guardian:

  Professor James H. McLeod, the American zoologist whose book has apparently aroused a great deal of hilarity in Galactic circles, admitted today that both Columbia University and the American Museum of Natural History have accepted his resignation. The recent statement by a University spokesman that Professor McLeod had "besmirched the honor of Earthmen everywhere" was considered at least partially responsible for the resignations. (See editorial.)

  Editorial, Manchester Guardian:

  ... It is a truism that an accepted wit has only to say, 'Pass the butter,' and everyone will laugh. Professor McLeod, however, far from being an accepted wit, seems rather to be in the position of a medieval Court Fool, who was laughed at rather than with. As a consequence, all Earthmen have been branded as Fools....

  Statement made by the American Senator from Alabama:

  "He has made us all look like jackasses in the eyes of the Galactics, and at this precarious time in human history it is my considered opinion that such actions are treasonous to the human race and to Earth and should be treated and considered as such!"

  Book review, Literary Checklist, Helvar III, Bornis Cluster:

  "Interstellar Ark, an Earthman's View of the Galaxy," translated from the original tongue by Vonis Delf, Cr. 5.00. This inexpensive little book is one of the most entertainingly funny publications in current print. The author, one John McLeod, is a member of a type 3-7B race inhabiting a planet in the Outer Fringes.... As an example of the unwitting humor of the book, we have only to quote the following:

  "I was shown to my quarters shortly before takeoff. Captain Benarly had assigned me a spacious cabin which was almost luxurious in its furnishings. The bed was one of the most comfortable I have ever slept in."

  Or the following:

  "I found the members of the crew to be friendly and co-operative, especially Nern Cronzel, the ship's physician."

  It is our prediction that this little gem will be enjoyed for a long time to come and will be a real money-maker for its publishers.

  * * * * *

  They haven't hanged me yet, McLeod thought. He sat in his apartment alone and realized that it would take very little to get him hanged.

  How could one book have aroused such wrath? Even as he thought it, McLeod knew the answer to that question. It wasn't the book. No one who had read it two and a half years before had said anything against it.

  No, it wasn't the book. It was the Galactic reaction to the book. Already feeling inferior because of the stand-offish attitude of the beings from the stars, the Homeric laughter of those same beings had been too much. It would have been bad enough if that laughter had been generated by one of the Galactics. To have had it generated by an Earthman made it that much worse. Against an Earthman, their rage was far from impotent.

  Nobody understood why the book was funny, of course. The joke was over their heads, and that made human beings even angrier.

  He remembered a quotation from a book he had read once. A member of some tribal-taboo culture--African or South Pacific, he forgot which--had been treated at a missionary hospital for something or other and had described his experience.

  "The white witch doctor protects himself by wearing a little round mirror on his head which reflects back the evil spirits."

  Could that savage have possibly understood what was humorous about that remark? No. Not even if you explained to him why the doctor used the mirror that way.

  Now what? McLeod thought. He was out of a job and his bank account was running low. His credit rating had dropped to zero.

  McLeod heard a key turn in the lock. The door swung open and Jackson entered with his squad of U.B.I. men.

  "Hey!" said McLeod, jumping to his feet. "What do you think this is?"

  "Shut up, McLeod," Jackson growled. "Get your coat. You're wanted at headquarters."

  McLeod started to say something, then thought better of it. There was nothing he could say. Nobody would care if the U.B.I. manhandled him. Nobody would protest that his rights were being ignored. If McLeod got his teeth knocked in, Jackson would probably be voted a medal.

  McLeod didn't say another word. He followed orders. He got his coat and was taken down to the big building on the East River which had begun its career as the United Nations Building.

  He was bundled up to an office and shoved into a chair.

  Somebody shoved a paper at him. "Sign this!"

  "What is it?" McLeod asked, finding his voice.

  "A receipt. For two thousand dollars. Sign it."

  McLeod looked the paper over, then looked up at the burly man who had shoved it at him. "Fifty thousand Galactic credits! What is this for?"

  "The royalty check for your unprintably qualified book has come in, Funny Man. The Government is taking ninety-eight per cent for income taxes. Sign!"

  McLeod pushed the paper back across the desk. "No. I won't. You can confiscate my money. I can't stop that, I guess. But I won't give it legal sanction by signing anything. I don't even see the two thousand dollars this is supposed to be a receipt for."

  Jackson, who was standing behind McLeod, grabbed his arm and twisted. "Sign!" His voice was a snarl in McLeod's ear.

  Eventually, of course, he signed.

  * * * * *

  "'Nother beer, Mac?" asked the bartender with a friendly smile.

  "Yeah, Leo; thanks." McLeod pushed his quarter across the bar with one hand and scratched negligently at his beard with the fingers of the other. Nobody questioned him in this neighborhood. The beard, which had taken two months to grow, disguised his face, and he had given his name as McCaffery, allowing his landlord and others who heard it to make the natural assumption that he was of Irish descent.

  He was waiting. He had been forced to move from his apartment; nobody wanted that dirty so-and-so, Professor McLeod, around. Besides, his money was running short. He had never seen the two thousand. "You'll get that when the Galactic bank cashes your royalty check," he had been told. He was waiting.

  Not hiding. No. That wasn't possible. The U.B.I. could find him easily when they wanted him. There was no place he could have hidden from them for very long. A man needs friends to stay hidden from an efficient police organization for very long, and John Hamish McLeod had no friends. "Jack McCaffery" had, since he was a pleasant kind of fellow who made friends
easily when he wanted them. But he had no illusions about his new friends. Let them once suspect, however faintly, that Good Old Jack McCaffery was really that Professor McLeod, and the game would be up.

  The U.B.I. would find him again all right, whenever it wanted him. And McLeod hoped it would be soon because he was down to his last hundred bucks.

  So he waited and thought about fifty thousand Galactic credits.

  The mathematics was simple, but it conveyed an awful lot of information. To make fifty thousand credits from one thousandth of one percent royalties on a book selling at five credits the copy, one must needs sell a billion copies. Nothing to it.

  5X·10to the power of -5 = 5·10to the power of 4

  Ergo: X = 10to the power of 9

  McLeod drew the equations on the bar with the tip of a wet forefinger, then rubbed them out quickly.

  A billion copies in the first year. He should have seen it. He should have understood.

  How many planets were there in the galaxy?

  How many people on each planet?

  Communication, even at ultralight velocities, would be necessarily slow. The galaxy was just too big to be compassed by the human mind--or even by the mind of a Galactic, McLeod suspected.

  How do you publish a book for Galactic, for galaxy-wide, consumption? How long does it take to saturate the market on each planet? How long does it take to spread the book from planet to planet? How many people were there on each planet who would buy a good book? Or, at least, an entertaining one.

  McLeod didn't know, but he suspected that the number was huge. McLeod was a zoologist, not an astronomer, but he read enough on astronomy to know that the estimated number of Earth-type planets alone--according to the latest theory--ran into the tens of millions or hundreds of millions. The--

  A man sat down on the stool next to McLeod and said something loud enough and foul enough to break the zoologist's train of thought.

  "Gimme a shot, Leo," he added in an angry voice.

  "Sure, Pete," the bartender said. "What's the trouble?"

  "Tourists," Pete said with a snarl. "Laffin' attus alla time like we was monkeys inna zoo! Bunch 'em come inta day." He downed his whiskey with a practiced flip of the wrist and slammed it on the bar. Leo refilled it immediately. "I shunt gripe, I guess. Gotta haffa credit offen 'em." He slapped down a five dollar bill as though it had somehow been contaminated.

  The bar became oddly quiet. Everyone had heard Pete. Further, everyone had heard that another shipload of Galactics had landed and were, at the moment, enjoying the sights of New York. A few of them knew that Pete was the bell-captain in one of the big midtown hotels.

  McLeod listened while Pete expounded on the shame he had had to undergo to earn half a credit--a lousy five bucks.

  McLeod did some estimating. Tourists--the word had acquired an even more pejorative sense than it had before, and now applied only to Galactics--bought nothing, but they tipped for services, unless the services weren't wanted or needed. Pete had given them information that they hadn't had before--where to find a particular place. All in all, the group of fifteen Galactics had given out five or six credits in such tips. Say half a credit apiece. There were, perhaps, a hundred Galactics in this shipload. That meant fifty credits. Hm-m-m.

  They didn't need anyone to carry their bags; they didn't need anyone to register them in hotels; they didn't need personal service of that kind. All they wanted to do was look. But they wouldn't pay for looking. They had no interest in Broadway plays or the acts in the night-clubs--at least, not enough to induce them to pay to see them. This particular group had wanted to see a hotel. They had wandered through it, looking at everything and laughing fit to kill at the carpets on the floor and the electric lighting and such. But when the management had hinted that payment for such services as letting them look should be forthcoming, they had handed half a credit to someone and walked out. Then they had gone to the corner of Fifty-first and Madison and looked for nothing.

  Fifty credits for a shipload. Three shiploads a year. Hell, give 'em the benefit of the doubt and say ten shiploads a year. In a hundred years, they'd add another fifty thousand to Earth's resources.

  McLeod grinned.

  And waited.

  * * * * *

  They came for him, eventually, as McLeod had known they would.

  But they came long before he had expected. He had given them six months at the least. They came for him at the end of the third month.

  It was Jackson, of course. It would have to be Jackson. He walked into the cheap little room McLeod had rented, followed by his squad of men.

  He tossed a peculiar envelope on the bed next to McLeod.

  "Letter came for you, humorist. Open it."

  McLeod sat on the edge of the bed and read the letter. The envelope had already been opened, which surprised him none.

  It looked very much like an ordinary business letter--except that whatever they used for paper was whiter and tougher than the paper he used.

  He was reminded of the time he had seen a reproduction of a Thirteenth Century manuscript alongside the original. The copy had been set up in a specially-designed type and printed on fine paper. The original had been handwritten on vellum.

  McLeod had the feeling that if he used a microscope on this letter the lines and edges would be just as precise and clear as they appeared to the naked eye, instead of the fuzziness that ordinary print would show.

  The way you tell a synthetic ruby from a natural ruby is to look for flaws. The synthetic doesn't have any.

  This letter was a Galactic imitation of a Terran business letter.

  It said:

  Dear Mac,

  I am happy to report that your book, "Interstellar Ark," is a smash hit. It looks as though it is on its way to becoming a best seller. As you already know by your royalty statement, over a billion copies were sold the first year. That indicates even better sales over the years to come as the reputation of the book spreads. Naturally, our advertising campaign will remain behind it all the way. Congratulations.

  Speaking of royalty checks, there seems to be some sort of irregularity about yours. I am sorry, but according to regulations the check must be validated in the presence of your Galactic Resident before it can be cashed. Your signature across the back of it doesn't mean anything to our bankers.

  Just go to your Galactic Resident, and he'll be happy to take care of the matter for you. That's what he's there for. The next check should come through very shortly.

  All the best,

  Clem.

  Better and better, McLeod thought. He hadn't expected to be able to do anything until his next royalty check arrived. But now--

  He looked up at Jackson. "All right. What's next?"

  "Come with us. We're flying to Hawaii. Get your hat and coat."

  McLeod obeyed silently. At the moment, there was nothing else he could do. As a matter of fact, there was nothing he wanted to do more.

  It was no trouble at all for Professor McLeod to get an audience with the Galactic Resident, but when he was escorted in by Jackson and his squad, the whole group was halted inside the front door.

  The Resident, a tall, lean being with a leathery, gray face that somehow managed to look crocodilian in spite of the fact that his head was definitely humanoid in shape, peered at them from beneath pronounced supraorbital ridges. "Is this man under arrest?" he asked in a gravelly baritone.

  "Er ... no," said Jackson. "No. He is merely in protective custody."

  "He has not been convicted of any crime?"

  "No sir," Jackson said. His voice sounded as though he were unsure of himself.

  "That is well," said the Resident. "A convicted criminal cannot, of course, use the credits of society until he has become rehabilitated." He paused. "But why protective custody?"

  "There are those," said Jackson, choosing his words with care, "who feel that Professor McLeod has brought disgrace upon the human race ... er ... the Terrestrial race. There is
reason to believe that his life may be in danger."

  McLeod smiled wryly. What Jackson said was true, but it was carefully calculated to mislead.

  "I see," said the Resident. "It would appear to me that it would be simpler to inform the people that he has done no such thing; that, indeed, his work has conferred immense benefits upon your race. But that is your own affair. At any rate, he is in no danger here."

  He didn't need to say anything else. Jackson knew the hint was an order and that he wouldn't get any farther with his squad.

  McLeod spoke up. "Subject to your permission, sir, I would like to have Mr. Jackson with me."

  The Galactic Resident smiled. "Of course, professor. Come in, both of you." He turned and led the way through the inner door.

  * * * * *

  Nobody bothered to search either of them, not even though they must know that Jackson was carrying a gun. McLeod was fairly certain that the gun would be useless to Jackson if he tried to assert his authority with it. If Clem had been able to render the U.B.I.'s eavesdropping apparatus inoperable, it was highly probable that the Galactic Resident would have some means of taking care of weapons.

  "There are only a few formalities to go through," the Resident said pleasantly, indicating chairs with a gesture. The room he had led them to didn't look much different from that which would be expected in any tastefully furnished apartment in New York or Honolulu.

  McLeod and Jackson sat down in a couple of comfortable easy-chairs while the Resident went around a large desk and sat down in a swivel chair behind it. He smiled a little and looked at McLeod. "Hm-m-m. Ah, yes. Very good." It was as though he had received information of some kind on an unknown subject through an unknown channel, McLeod thought. Evidently that was true, for his next words were: "You are not under the influence of drugs nor hypnotic compulsion, I see. Excellent, professor. Is it your desire that this check be converted to cash?" He made a small gesture. "You have only to express it, you see. It would be difficult to explain it to you, but rest assured that such an expression of will--while you are sitting in that chair--is impressed upon the structure of the check itself and is the equivalent of a signature. Except, of course, that it is unforgeable."