The Collection (14 page)

"Why the hurry, now that you
^'
re here? Why
can
^'
t you stay long enough for our leaders, as you call them, to
talk to you in person?
^"

"Postponed. The reason is not important but it is
complicated, and I simply do not wish to waste time explaining."

"Assuming your decision is favorable, how will we get
in touch with you to let you know
our
decision? You know enough about
us, obviously, to know that I can
^'
t make it."

^"
We will know your decision through our
observers. One condition of acceptance is full and uncensored publication in
your newspapers of this interview, verbatim from the tape we are now using to
record it. Also of all deliberations and decisions of your government.
^"

"And other governments? We can't decide unilaterally
for the world.
^"

^"
Your government has been chosen for a
start. If you accept we shall furnish the techniques that will cause the others
to fall in line quickly—and those techniques do not involve force or the threat
of force."

"They must be
some
techniques," said the
colonel wryly, "if they'll make one certain country I don't have to name
fall into line quickly, without even a threat."

^"
Sometimes the offer of reward is more
significant than the use of threat. Do you think the country you do not wish to
name would like your country colonizing planets of far stars before they even
reach Mars? But that is a minor point, relatively. You may trust the
techniques."

"It sounds almost too good to be true. But you said
that you are to decide, here and now, whether or not we are to be invited to
join. May I ask on what factors you will base your decision?"

"One is that I am—was, since I already have—to check
your degree of xenophobia. In the loose sense in which you use it, that means
fear of strangers. We have a word that has no counterpart in your vocabulary:
it means fear of and revulsion toward
aliens.
I—or at least a member of
my race—was chosen to make the first overt contact with you. Because I am what
you could call roughly humanoid—as you are what I would call roughly humanoid—I
am probably more horrible, more repulsive to you than many completely different
species would be. Because to you, I am a caricature of a human being, I am more
horrible to you than a being who bears no remote resemblance to you.

"You may think you do feel horror at me, and revulsion,
but believe me, you have passed that test. There
are
races in the galaxy
who can never be members of the federation, no matter how they advance
otherwise, because they are violently and incurably xenophobic; they could
never face or talk to an alien of any species. They would either run screaming
from him or try to kill him instantly. From watching you and these
people"—he waved a long arm at the civilian population of Cherrybell not
far outside the circle of the conference—"I know you feel revulsion at the
sight of me, but believe me it is relatively slight and certainly curable. You
have passed that test satisfactorily."

"And are there other tests?"

"One other. But I think it is time that I—"
Instead of finishing the sentence, the stick man lay back flat on the sand and
closed his eyes.

The colonel started to his feet. 'What in
hell?"
he
said. He walked quickly around the mike's tripod and bent over the recumbent
extraterrestrial, put an ear to the bloody-appearing chest.

As he raised his head, Dade Grant, the grizzled prospector,
chuckled. "No heartbeat, Colonel, because no heart. But I may leave him as
a souvenir for you and you'll find much more interesting things inside him
than heart and guts. Yes, he is a puppet whom I have been operating—as your
Edgar Bergen operates his—what's his name?—oh yes. Charlie McCarthy. Now that
he has served his purpose, he is deactivated. You can go back to your place,
Colonel."

Colonel Casey moved back slowly.
^"
Why?
^"
he asked.

Dade Grant was peeling off his beard and wig. He rubbed a cloth
across his face to remove make-up and was revealed as a handsome young man. He
said,
^'
What he told you, or what you were told through him, was true
as far as it went. He is only a simulacrum, yes, but he is an exact duplicate
of a member of one of the intelligent races of the galaxy, the one toward whom
you would be disposed—if you were violently and incurably xenophobic—to be
most horrified by, according to our psychologists. But we did not bring a real
member of his species to make first contact because they have a phobia of their
own, agoraphobia—fear of space. They are highly civilized and members in good
standing of the federation, but they never leave their own planet.

^"
Our observers assure us you don
^'
t
have
that
phobia. But they were unable to judge in advance the degree of
your xenophobia and the only way to test it was to bring along something in
lieu of someone to test it against, and presumably to let him make the initial
contact."

The colonel sighed audibly. "I can't say this doesn't
relieve me in one way. We could get along with humanoids, yes, and will when we
have to. But I
^'
ll admit it
^'
s a relief to learn that the
master race of the galaxy is, after all, human instead of only humanoid. What
is the second test?
^"

"You are undergoing it now. Call me—" He snapped
his fingers.
^"
What
^'
s the name of Bergen
^'
s
second-string puppet, after Charlie McCarthy?"

The colonel hesitated, but the tech sergeant supplied the answer.
"Mortimer Snerd."

"Right. So call me Mortimer Snerd, and now I think it
is time that I—" He lay back flat on the sand and closed his eyes just as
the stick-man had done a few minutes before.

The burro raised its head and put it into the circle over
the shoulder of the tech sergeant. "That takes care of the puppets,
Colonel,
^"
it said.
^"
And now what
^'
s
this bit about it being important that the master race be human or at least
humanoid? What is a master race?
^"

He awoke when the alarm clock rang, but lay in bed a while
after he'd shut it off, going a final time over the plans he'd made for
embezzlement that day and for murder that evening.

Every little detail had been worked out, but this was the
final check. Tonight at forty-six minutes after eight he'd be free, in every
way. He'd picked that moment because this was his fortieth birthday and that
was the exact time of day, of the evening rather, when he had been born. His
mother had been a bug on astrology, which was why the moment of his birth had
been impressed on him so exactly. He wasn't superstitious himself but it had
struck his sense of humor to have his new life begin at forty, to the minute.

Time was running out on him, in any case. As a lawyer who
specialized in handling estates, a lot of money passed through his hands—and
some of it had passed into them. A year ago he'd "borrowed" five
thousand dollars to put into something that looked like a sure-fire way to
double or triple the money, but he'd lost it instead. Then he'd
"borrowed" more to gamble with, in one way or another, to try to
recoup the first loss. Now he was behind to the tune of over thirty thousand;
the shortage couldn't be hidden more than another few months and there wasn't a
hope that he could replace the missing money by that time. So he had been
raising all the cash he could without arousing suspicion, by carefully
liquidating assets, and by this afternoon he
^'
d have running-away
money to the tune of well over a hundred thousand dollars, enough to last him
the rest of his life.

And they'd never catch him. He'd planned every detail of his
trip, his destination, his new identity, and it was foolproof. He'd been
working on it for months.

His decision to kill his wife had been relatively an
afterthought. The motive was simple: he hated her. But it was only after he'd
come to the decision that he'd never go to jail, that he'd kill himself if he
was ever apprehended, that it came to him that—since he'd die anyway if
caught—he had nothing to lose in leaving a dead wife behind him instead of a
living one.

He
^'
d hardly been able to keep from laughing at
the appropriateness of the birthday present she
^'
d given him
(yesterday, a day ahead of time); it had been a new suitcase. She'd also talked
him into celebrating his birthday by letting her meet him downtown for dinner
at seven. Little did she guess how the celebration would go after that. He
planned to have her home by eight forty-six and satisfy his sense of the
fitness of things by making himself a widower at that exact moment. There was a
practical advantage, too, of leaving her dead. If he left her alive but asleep
she'd guess what had happened and call the police when she found him gone in
the morning. If he left her dead her body would not be found that soon,
possibly not for two or three days, and he
^'
d have a much better
start.

Things went smoothly at his office; by the time he went to
meet his wife everything was ready. But she dawdled over drinks and dinner and
he began to worry whether he could get her home by eight forty-six. It was
ridiculous, he knew, but it had become important that his moment of freedom
should come then and not a minute earlier or a minute later. He watched his
watch.

He would have missed it by half a minute if he'd waited till
they were inside the house. But the dark of the porch of their house was
perfectly safe, as safe as inside. He swung the black-jack viciously once, as
she stood at the front door, waiting for him to open it. He caught her before
she fell and managed to hold her upright with one arm while he got the door
open and then got it closed from the inside.

Then he flicked the switch and yellow light leaped to fill
the room, and, before they could see that his wife was dead and that he was
holding her up, all the assembled birthday party guests shouted
"Surprise!"

Dhar Ry sat alone in his room meditating. From outside the
door he caught a thought wave equivalent to a knock, and, glancing at the door,
he willed it to slide open.

It opened. “Enter, my friend.” he said. He could have projected
the idea telepathically; but with only two persons present, speech was more
polite.

Ejon Khee entered. “You are up late tonight, my leader,” he
said.

“Yes, Khee. Within an hour the Earth rocket is due to land,
and I wish to see it. Yes, I know, it will land a thousand miles away, if their
calculations are correct. Beyond the horizon. But if it lands even twice that
far the flash of the atomic explosion should be visible. And I have waited long
for first contact. For even though no Earthman will be on that rocket, it will
be the first contact - for them. Of course our telepath teams have been reading
their thoughts for many centuries, but this will be the first
physical
contact
between Mars and Earth.
^”

Khee made himself comfortable-on one of the low chairs. “True,”
he said. “I have not followed recent reports too closely, though. Why are they
using an atomic warhead? I know they suppose our planet is uninhabited, but
still -”

“They will watch the flash through their lunar telescopes
and get a -- what do they call it? - a spectroscopic analysis. That will tell
them more than they know now (or think they know; much of it is erroneous)
about the atmosphere of our planet and the composition of its surface. It is -
call it a sighting shot, Khee. They’ll be here in person within a few oppositions.
And then -”

Mars was holding out, waiting for Earth to come. What was
left of Mars, that is;
this one small city of about nine hundred beings.
The civilization of Mars was older than that of Earth, but it was a dying one. This
was what remained of it: one city, nine hundred people. They were waiting for
Earth to make contact, for a selfish reason and for an unselfish one.

***

Martian civilization had developed in a quite different
direction from that of Earth. It had developed no important knowledge of the
physical sciences, no technology. But it had developed social sciences to the
point where there had not been a single crime, let alone a war, on Mars for
fifty thousand years. And it had developed fully the parapsychological sciences
of the mind, which Earth was just beginning to discover.

Mars could teach Earth much. How to avoid crime and war to
begin with. Beyond those simple things lay telepathy, telekinesis, empathy ...

And Earth would, Mars hoped, teach them something even more
valuable to Mars: bow, by science and technology - which it was too late for
Mars to develop now, even if they had the type of minds which would enable them
to develop these things - to restore and rehabilitate a dying planet, so that
an otherwise dying race might live and multiply again.

Each planet would gain greatly, and neither would lose.

And tonight was the night when Earth would make its first
sighting shot. Its next shot, a rocket containing Earthmen, or at least an
Earthman, would be at the next opposition, two Earth years, or roughly four
Martian years, hence. The Martians knew this, because their teams of telepaths
were able to catch at least some of the thoughts of Earthmen, enough to know
their plans. Unfortunately, at that distance, the connection was one-way. Mars
could not ask Earth to hurry its program. Or tell Earth scientists the facts
about Mars” composition and atmosphere which would have made this preliminary
shot unnecessary.