Divine Intervention

by Robert Sheckley

  The Earthship, with its sleeping troopers and its card-playing officers, hurtled on through space. Several time periods passed without event. Vargas wanted to know why it was taking so long. Hurtevurt rechecked his calculations and told him they were almost there. Vargas went to report this to Supreme Commander Gatt. While he was reporting, the Intelligence Meter sounded off. The planet Magellanic lay dead ahead.

  “Go get ‘em, tiger,” Gatt said to Vargas.

  “But I don’t know how,” Vargas said. “An entire planet… .”

  “You remember how we used to sack cities, don’t you?”

  Vargas grinned and nodded. How could he forget.

  “Just go to Magellanic and do the same thing. It’s just the scale that changes.”

  There was really no way of finding out in advance how much armament the alien occupiers of Magellanic might put up against them. Vargas decided to try a bold yet conservative tactic. He’d just go in and take over the joint. What the hell, it had worked for the Hittites.

  The great ship from Earth roared down through the atmosphere. Hurtevurt pointed out the leading city on the planet, the one from which all power emanated. That made it convenient. Vargas sent out five thousand shock troops armed with horrifying and instantaneous weapons. The remaining five thousand were kept in reserve. As it turned out, they weren’t needed.

  General Vargas wrote home soon after the successful conquest of Magellanic:

  Dear Lupe, I promised to tell you about the invasion. It went very well. So well, in fact, that at first we suspected some sort of treachery. We airdropped a first force of a thousand picked men, armed to the teeth, into the big square in the middle of the main city here, which is called Megalopolis. Our boys landed during a folk dancing festival and there was quite a bit of confusion, as you can imagine, since the population thought our boys were demonstrating war dances. We cleared that up soon enough.

  The remaining four thousand troopers of the first wave came down just outside the city, since there was no room to pack them into the town square. The lads marched into Megalopolis in good order, and they got an enthusiastic greeting from the citizens, who seemed delighted to see them.

  The Magellanics took in the situation quickly, and had flowers and paper streamers handy to give our boys a proper welcome. There were no unfortunate incidents, aside from several local women getting trampled in their eagerness to show our boys a nice welcome.

  Magellanic is a very nice planet, prosperous, and with a nice climate except at the poles where we don’t go. We have seen no signs of the alien invaders that Hurtevurt told us about. Either they are holed up in the hills, or they all left when our ship approached.

  Now it is a week later. We have been very busy and I am writing hastily so this letter can go out with the first load of booty which we’re sending to Earth.

  Our Art Squads have done a fine job of combing the planet. As we promised the men, the first haul is theirs.

  Frankly, the stuff doesn’t look like much. But we’ve collected whatever we can find in the way of furniture, postage stamps, gold, silver, and precious stones, and that sort of thing.

  It’s too bad that we have to ship it all back to Earth at government expense and sell it for the troops. But that’s what we promised and otherwise they might mutiny.

  We’re also sending back some of the local food surpluses. I just hope there’s a market for cranko nuts and pubble fruit back on Earth. Personally, lean do without it.

  I forgot to mention, we are sending back to Earth our first draft of Magellanic workers. We had no trouble collecting them. A lot of people on this planet have volunteered to do stoop labor in the fields and unskilled crap work in the factories for starvation wages. This is useful because nobody on Earth wants to do that stuff anymore.

  I’ll write again soon. Much love, my baby vulture.

  Six months later, Vargas received the following message from General Gatt, now on Earth fulfilling his duties as Supreme Leader and Total Commander:

  Getulio, I’m dashing this off in great haste. We need a total change in policy and we need it fast. My accountants have just brought me the news that our occupation is costing us more than it is bringing in by a factor often. I don’t know how this happened. I always thought one made a profit out of winning a war. You know I’ve lived by the motto, “To the victor goes the spoils.”

  But it isn’t working that way here. The art treasures we brought back have brought in very little on Earth’s art market. In fact, leading art critics have declared that the Magellanics are in apre-artistic stage of their development! We can’t sell their music, either, and their furniture is both uncomfortable to sit in, ugly to look at, and tends to break easily.

  And as if that isn’t bad enough, now we have all these Magellanics on Earth doing cheap labor. How can cheap labor not be cost- efficient? My experts tell me we’re putting millions of Earth citizens out of work, and using up all our tax revenue because the first thing a Magellanic does when he gets here is go on the dole until he finds a really good job.

  That’s the trouble, you see. They’re not content to stay in the cheap labor market. They learn fast and now some of them are in key positions in government, health, industry. I wanted to pass a law to keep them out of the good jobs, but my own advisers told me that was prejudiced and nobody would stand for it.

  So listen, Getulio, stop at once from sending any more of them to Earth. Be prepared to take back all the ones I can round up and ship back to you. Prepare an announcement saying that the forces of Earth have succeeded in their goal of freeing the Magellanics from the cruel conquerors who had been pressing their faces into the dirt and now they’re on their own.

  As soon as you can, sooner if possible, I want you to pull all our troops out, cancel the war, end the occupation, and get yourself and your men home as fast as you can.

  I forgot to mention, these Magellanics are unbelievablyfertile. The ones here on Earth need only about three months from impregnation to birth. They have a whole lot of triplets and quintuplets, too. Getulio, we have to get rid of these moochers fast, before they take over our planet and eat us out of house and home.

  Close up and come home. We’ll think of something new.

  When Vargas told the news to Captain Arnold Stone, his Chief Accountant, he asked for an accounting to show how much profit they had been showing during their stay on Magellanic.

  “Profit?” Stone said with a short, sardonic laugh. “We’ve been running at a loss ever since we got here.”

  “But what about the taxes we imposed?”

  “Imposing is one thing, collecting is another. They never seem to have any money.”

  “What about the Magellanic workers on Earth? Don’t they send back some of their wages?”

  Stone shook his head. “They invest every cent of it in Earth tax-free municipal bonds. They claim it’s an ancient custom of theirs.”

  “I never liked them from the start,” Vargas said. “I always knew they’d be trouble.”

  “You got that right,” Stone said.

  “All right, get someone in Communications to prepare an announcement for the population here. Tell them that we’ve done what we came here to do, that is, free them from the cruel hand of whoever it was who was oppressing them. Now we’re going away and they can do their own thing and lots of luck.”

  “That’s a lot,” Stone said. “I’d better get the boys in intelligence to help with the wording.”

  “Do that,” Vargas said. “And tell somebody to get the ships ready for immediate departure.

  That was the idea. But it didn’t work out that way.

  That afternoon, as Vargas sat in his office playing mumbly peg with his favorite Philippine bolo knife and dreaming of being back with Lupe, there was a flash of brilliance in the middle of the floor. Vargas didn’t hesitate a moment when he saw it. He dived under the desk to avoid what he assumed was an assassination attempt.

  It was sort of nice, under the desk, e
ven though it was not a particularly sturdy desk, Magellanic furniture-building being what it was. Still, it gave Vargas a feeling of protection, and time to unhol- ster his ivory-handled laser blaster.

  A voice said, “If you try to use that on me, you are going to be very sorry.”

  Vargas peered out and saw, standing in the middle of his office, the characteristic metal skin and flashing eyes of the Galactic Effectuator.

  “Oh, it’s you,” Vargas said, getting out from under the table with as much dignity as circumstances allowed. He reholstered his firearm, took his seat at his desk again, and said, “Sorry about that, Galactic Effectuator. I thought it might be an assassination team. Can’t be too careful, you know. Now, what can I do for you?”

  “The first thing,” the Galactic Effectuator said, “is not to try zapping me again. We let you get away with it once. Try again and the Galactic Forces will nuke you back to the Stone Age. If you think I’m kidding, take a look out the window.”

  Vargas looked. The sky was dark with ships. They were big ships, as you’d expect of a Galactic Force.

  “I want to apologize for zapping you earlier,” Vargas said. “I was acting on bad advice. I’m glad you’ve come. You’re just in time to hear me declare the end of Earth’s occupation. Maybe you’d like to watch us get out of here and go home.”

  “I know that is what you are planning,” the Effectuator said. “I’m here to tell you it’s not going to be quite as easy as that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Galactic policy is to keep the status quo, whatever it is. We were unable to prevent you from declaring war on Magellanic. That is the one mistake you’re allowed. You’ve got this place, now you have to keep it.”

  “Believe me,” Vargas said, “this sort of thing will never happen again. Can’t we just apologize and forget it?”

  “No,” said the Effectuator. “You can’t get out of it as easily as that. War was your idea, not ours. Now you’re stuck with it.”

  “But the war’s over!”

  “According to Galactic Rules, the war is only over when those you attacked say it’s over. And I can assure you, the Magellanics are very satisfied with things as they are.”

  “I’m starting to get the feeling,” Vargas said, “that these Magellanics tricked us. That Hurtevurt and his story! It reminds me of something to do with a bird. But I can’t quite remember what.”

  “Permit me to refresh your memory,” the Effectuator said. “I have made a study of birdlife throughout the galaxy, so I know there is a bird called the cuckoo on your planet. It lays its egg in other birds’ nests and they take care of it. That is what the Magellanics have done to you Earth folks.”

  “What in hell are you talking about?” Vargas said, his voice blustery but shaky.

  “They get you to take over their planet. They get you to take their surplus workforce to your own world. Once there, you can’t get rid of them. But that’s what you get for trying to practice charity without taking thought for the consequences.”

  “Charity, hell! We were doing war!”

  “In the Galactic view,” the Effectuator said, “war is a form of charity.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “We believe that war entails a number of selfless and exemplary actions. First there’s the duty of rapine, which we define as the willingness to transfer large quantities of your planet’s best sperm to a civilization that badly needs it. Your troops have done well that way. Next there’s the duty of pillage, which is the act of cleansing the artistic life of a conquered people by carting away vast quantities of their inferior art treasures in order to unblock their creative self-expression and allow them to produce newer, better works. Finally we have the duty of education and self-improvement, which you have performed by taking in large numbers of Magellanic’s surplus and idle population to your own planet, where you support them until they are smart enough to put your own people out of work.”

  Vargas thought for a while, then shrugged and said, “You got it right, Galactic Effectuator. But how do we end it?”

  “That’s always the difficult part,” the Effectuator said. “Maybe, with some luck, you can find some other planet that’ll be crazy enough to take over both your planet and Magellanic. That’s the only way you’re going to get off the hook.”

  That is how, upon entering Galactic Civilization, Earth gave up war forever. And that is why there are Earthmen on all the civilized planets of the galaxy. They can be found on the street corners of dusty alien cities. They speak all languages. They sidle up to you and say, “Listen, Mister, would you like to take over a planet with no trouble at all?”

  Naturally, no one pays them the slightest attention. Even the newer civilizations have learned that war costs too much and charity begins at home.

  Wormworld

  Dear Robert,

  I can’t tell you how thrilled I am that you and I have been able to establish telepathic contact across the vastness of space. I still can hardly believe that I am in communication with an alien creature. Not that it is entirely unexpected. Many of the intelligent worms of my world believe that other worlds exist with intelligent worms living in them. Most of us also admit the possibility (some say probability) that there are intelligent races out there that are not worms at all, not even vermiform, but really quite different. Many of us have been working toward telepathic contact with these hypothetical other-worlders.

  From your description of yourself (which I didn’t completely understand) you seem to possess a high degree of bilateral symmetry. So do we. Some of our best theoreticians have long predicted Necessary Degrees of Symmetry as a precondition for intelligent life. I must question a rather astounding statement you made in your recent communication. You told me that you are a nonworm intelligent creature from another solid world who makes neither worm- hole nor nonwormhole, but instead moves around on the outside of your world, in contact with its surface!

  At least, I think that’s what you were saying!

  Now, the idea that you are a nonworm intelligence communicating to me from another world is easy enough for me to grasp. But that you live on the outer surface of your world, rather than inside, where one would normally expect even a nonworm alien intelligence to live…

  Is that really where you live? On the surface?

  Please clarify! It’s really important for me to get this straight, for reasons I’ll explain in my next communication. Just now I have to sign off rather hurriedly and do some urgent tunnel-redirecting. Hope to hear from you soon.

  Good to hear from you again. If I understand you correctly, you assert that you are a solid, three-dimensional creature, like me, but living on the outside of your world. And you also assert (or rather, I infer from your statements) that you know not only the shape of your world, but also its volume, radius, surface dimensions, and so forth.

  Frankly, that’s hard to believe.

  Is that what you meant?

  Are you really a creature from some distant planet, or another worm somewhere playing tricks on me?

  Talking with you has given me difficulties. The other worms know I’m sending out a powerful vibration aimed and tightly focused out into space. A lot of worms do that. But I keep on tracking a single area (your world), and that leads other worms to ask if I’ve gotten obsessive or just what the hell I think I’m doing.

  Making up believable tales about why I’ve locked my beam onto a single distant source is easier than telling worms that I’m in contact with a being who lives on the surface of a sphere.

  But to hell with the difficulties. As far as I’m concerned this is fascinating stuff. It is extremely interesting to hear tales of wonder from different far-off places, and perhaps it doesn’t really matter if those places really exist, or maybe somehow, somewhere, somewhen, everything that can be imagined has to exist.

  I have to sign off now. I promised Jill that I’d do parallel wormholes with her on a hexagonal grid that she thought up all by herself. Arti
stically speaking, I suppose it isn’t much, but it gives me great pleasure to do figures with her. We’ve made a lot of good parallel wormhole designs together in the last few hundred units, that gal and I.

  Do you have mates in your world, Robert? Do you suffer the unending conflict between self-preservation and consummation?

  Listen, Robert, philosophy interests me, as it seems to do you. You tell me that you discuss these matters just for the fun of it, not because you’re a professional at it. It’s the same with me. I’m an artist, and I don’t know what I’m talking about half of the time, and I’m glad that it’s the same for you, as you told me. I didn’t really want to contact some giant godlike intellect Out There; I think I just wanted to find a friend, someone to tell the story of my life to, someone the story of whose life I want to hear.

  What I’m trying to get at is this Robert, that I want to exchange knowledge with you, but I’m not an expert on anything except the art that I do. I gather it’s the same for you. Then good for us! Professional worm philosophers and scientists usually assume that one of them is going to make contact with their intellectual counterpart when contact is finally established between inhabitants of different worlds. Isn’t it nice that it’s happened to a couple of experimental pattern-makers like us?

  Robert, are you a funny looking creature living in accord with weird and special laws of nature? Or am I? Or are we both?

  I look forward to hearing from you soon.

  Hi. It’s me again.

  Well, I made an attempt at communicating with one of my fellow-worms about you not long ago. I didn’t figure I’d have much luck at it (and how right I was!) but I had to try. Maybe it was silly of me, but I must tell you that worms are very preoccupied with that sort of thing, perhaps because of the physically isolated lives we lead.

  On the other hand, worms, despite their passion for science and metaphysics, and their pressing need for the findings of both, tend to be skeptical about anything they haven’t thought up themselves or actually experienced, except for the lunatic fringe that will believe anything.