Short Fiction, Mack Reynolds [best book reader txt] 📗

There was no time to go into the whys and wherefores of Loo’s mission. It must be approximately the same as his own. “There are some private apartments in this direction,” he said over his shoulder. “They must be quartered⁠—”

A door off the corridor opened and a tall, thin, ludicrously garbed man⁠—

Hank pulled himself up quickly, both mentally and physically. It was no man. It was almost a man⁠—but no.

Loo’s weapon was already at the alert.

The newcomer unhurriedly looked from one of them to the other. Then down at the Russian guard sprawled on the floor behind them.

He said in Russian, “Always violence. The sadness of violence. When faced with crisis, threaten violence if outpointed. Your race has much to learn.” He switched to English. “But this is probably your language, isn’t it?”

Loo gaped at him. The man from space was almost as dark complected as the Negro.

The extraterrestrial stepped to one side and indicated the room behind him “Please enter, I assume you’ve come looking for us.”

They entered the ornate bedroom.

The extraterrestrial said, “Is the man dead?”

Loo said, “No. Merely stunned.”

“He needs no assistance?”

“Nothing could help him for half an hour or more. Then he’ll probably have a severe headache.”

The extraterrestrial had even the ability to achieve a dry quality in his voice. “I am surprised at your forebearance.” He took a chair before a baroque desk. “Undoubtedly you have gone through a great deal to penetrate to this point. I am a member of the interplanetary delegation. What is it that you want?”

Hank looked at Loo, received a slight nod, and went into his speech. The space alien made no attempt to interrupt.

When Hank had finished, the extraterrestrial turned his eyes to Loo. “And you?”

Loo said, “I represent the British Commonwealth rather than the United States, but my purpose in contacting you was identical. Her Majesty’s government is anxious to consult with you before you make any binding agreements with the Soviet complex.”

The alien turned his eyes from one to the other. His face, Hank decided, had a Lincolnesque quality, so ugly as to be beautiful in its infinite sadness.

“You must think us incredibly naive,” he said.

Hank scowled. He had adjusted quickly to the space ambassador’s otherness, both of dress and physical qualities, but there was an irritating something⁠—He put his finger on it. He felt as he had, some decades ago, when brought before his grammar school principal for an infraction of school discipline.

Hank said, “We haven’t had too much time to think. We’ve been desperate.”

The alien said, “You have gone to considerable trouble. I can even admire your resolution. You will be interested to know that tomorrow we take ship to Peiping.”

“Peiping?” Loo said blankly.

“Following two weeks there we proceed to Washington and following that to London. What led your governments to believe that the Soviet nations were to receive all our attention, and your own none at all?”

Hank blurted, “But you landed here. You made no contact with us.”

“The size of our expedition is limited. We could hardly do everything at once. The Soviet complex, as you call it, is the largest government and the most advanced on Earth. Obviously, this was our first stop.” His eyes went to Hank’s. “You’re an American. Do you know why you have fallen behind in the march of progress?”

“I’m not sure we have,” Hank said flatly. “Do you mean in comparison with the Soviet complex?”

“Exactly. And if you don’t realize it, then you’ve blinded yourself. You’ve fallen behind in a score of fields because a decade or so ago, in your years between 1957 and 1960, you made a disastrous decision. In alarm at Russian progress, you adopted a campaign of combating Russian science. You began educating your young people to combat Russian progress.”

“We had to!”

The alien grunted. “To the contrary, what you should have done was try to excel Russian science, technology and industry. Had you done that you might have continued to be the world’s leading nation, until, at least, some sort of world unity had been achieved. By deciding to combat Russian progress you became a retarding force, a deliberate drag on the development of your species, seeking to cripple and restrain rather than to grow and develop. The way to win a race is not to trip up your opponent, but to run faster and harder than he.”

Hank stared at him.

The space alien came to his feet. “I am busy. Your missions, I assume, have been successfully completed. You have seen one of our group. Melodramatically, you have warned us against your enemy. Your superiors should be gratified. And now I shall summon a guide to return you to your hotels.”

A great deal went out of Hank Kuran. Until now the tenseness had been greater than he had ever remembered in life. Now he was limp. In response, he nodded.

Loo sighed, returned the weapon which he had until now held in his hand to a shoulder holster. “Yes,” he said, meaninglessly. He turned and looked at Hank Kuran wryly. “I have spent the better part of my life learning to be an ultra-efficient security operative. I suspect that my job has just become obsolete.”

“I have an idea that perhaps mine is too,” Hank said.

In the morning, the Progressive Tours group was scheduled to visit a cooperative farm, specializing in poultry, on the outskirts of Moscow. While the bus was loading Hank stopped off at the Grand Hotel’s Intourist desk.

“Can I send a cable to the United States?”

The chipper Intourist girl said “But of course.” She handed him a form.

He wrote quickly:

Sheridan Hennessey
Washington, D.C.

Mission accomplished
more satisfactorily
than expected.

Henry Kuran

The girl checked it quickly. “But your name is Henry Stevenson.”

“That,” Hank said, “was back when I was a cloak and dagger man.”

She blinked and looked after him as he walked out and climbed aboard the tourist bus. He found an empty seat next to Char Moore and settled into it.

Char said evenly, “Ah, today you have time from your amorous pursuits to join the rest