Worst Contact

by Hank Davis

  I turned back to the alien in his shiny sphere. “Listen carefully,” I said. “Let’s get down to business. You are willing to keep on paying if we provide you entertainment?”

  “Gladly,” said the creature. “You keep us entertained, we give you what you want.”

  “Instead of one of everything, you will make us many of one thing?”

  “You show it to us,” the creature said. “You let us know how many.”

  “Steel?” asked Mack. “You can make us steel?”

  “No recognize this steel. Show us. How made, how big, how shaped. We make.”

  “If we keep you entertained?”

  “That right.” the creature said.

  “Deal?” I asked.

  “Deal,” the creature said.

  “From now on? No stopping?”

  “As long as you keep us happy.”

  “That may take some doing,” Mack told me.

  “No, it won’t,” I said.

  “You’re crazy!” Mack yelped. “They’ll never let us have them!”

  “Yes, they will,” I answered. “Earth will do anything to cinch this planet. And don’t you see, with this sort of swap, we’ll beat the cost. All Earth has to do is send out one sample of everything we need. One sample will do the trick. One I-beam and they’ll make a million of them. It’s the best deal Earth has ever made.”

  “We do our part,” the creature assured us happily. “Long as you do yours.”

  “I’ll get that order right off now,” I said to Mack. “I’ll write it up and have Jack send it out.”

  I stood up and headed back toward camp.

  “Rest of it,” the creature said, motioning over his shoulder.

  I swung around and looked.

  There was another mass of stuff coming in, keeping fairly low. And this time it was men—a solid press of men.

  “Hey!” cried Mack. “You can’t do that! That just isn’t right!”

  I didn’t need to look. I knew exactly what had happened. The aliens had duplicated not only our equipment, but the men as well. In that crowd of men were the duplicates of every one of us—everyone, that is, except myself and Greasy.

  Horrified as I might have been, outraged as any human would be, I couldn’t help but think of some of the situations that might arise. Imagine two Macks insisting on bossing the operation! Picture two Thornes trying to get along together!

  I didn’t hang around. I left Mack and the rest of them to explain why men should not be duplicated. In my tent, I sat down and wrote an imperative, high-priority, must-deliver order for five hundred peepers.