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

course, of course, if that is your desire.” He signaled to the bodyguard who had accompanied the alien to the assemblage.

A dull roar was beginning to emanate from the thousands gathered in the tremendous hall, murmuring, questioning, disbelieving.

Viljalmar Andersen felt that he must say something. He extended a detaining hand. “Now you are here,” he said urgently, “even though by mistake, before you go can’t you give us some brief word? Our world is in chaos. Many of us have lost faith. Perhaps⁠ ⁠…”

Dameri Tass shook off the restraining hand. “Do I look daft? Begorry, I should have been a-knowin’ something was queer. All your weapons and your strange ideas. Faith, I wouldn’t be surprised if ye hadn’t yet established a planet-wide government. Sure, an’ I’ll go still further. Ye probably still have wars on this benighted world. No wonder it is ye haven’t been invited to join the Galactic League an’ take your place among the civilized planets.”

He hustled from the rostrum and made his way, still surrounded by guards, to the door by which he had entered. The dog and the cat trotted after, undismayed by the furor about them.

They arrived about four hours later at the field on which he’d landed, and the alien from space hurried toward his craft, still muttering. He’d been accompanied by a general and by the President, but all the way he had refrained from speaking.

He scurried from the car and toward the spacecraft.

President McCord said, “You’ve forgotten your pets. We would be glad if you would accept them as⁠—”

The alien’s face faded a light blue again. “Faith, an’ I’d almost forgotten,” he said. “If I’d taken a crature from this quarantined planet, my name’d be nork. Keep your dog and your kitty.” He shook his head sadly and extracted a mouse from a pocket. “An’ this amazin’ little crature as well.”

They followed him to the spacecraft. Just before entering, he spotted the bedraggled horse that had been present on his landing.

A longing expression came over his highly colored face. “Jist one thing,” he said. “Faith now, were they pullin’ my leg when they said you were after ridin’ on the back of those things?”

The President looked at the woebegone nag. “It’s a horse,” he said, surprised. “Man has been riding them for centuries.”

Dameri Tass shook his head. “Sure, an’ ’twould’ve been my makin’ if I could’ve taken one back to Carthis.” He entered his vessel.

The others drew back, out of range of the expected blast, and watched, each with his own thoughts, as the first visitor from space hurriedly left Earth.

The Galactic Ghost

Despite the widely publicized radar posts encircling our nation and the continuously alerted jet squadrons at its borders, the space ship was about to land before it was detected.

It settled gracefully, quietly, onto an empty field in northern New Jersey. And so unexpected was the event, so unbelievable the fact that man was being visited by aliens from space, that it was a full half hour before the first extra was on the streets in New York, and forty minutes before the news buzzed through the Kremlin.

It might have taken considerably longer for man in earth’s more isolated areas to hear of the event had not the alien taken a hand at this point. Approximately an hour after the landing, into the mind of every human on earth, irrespective of nation, language, age, or intellect, came the thought telepathically:

We come in peace. Prepare to receive our message.

It was a month before the message came.

During that period, more than ninety-nine percent of the earth’s population became aware of the visitor from space. Radio, television, newsreel, telegraph and newspapers reached the greater number; but word of mouth and even throbbing drums, played their part. In four weeks, savages along the Amazon and shepherds in Sinkiang knew that visitors from the stars had arrived with a message for man.

And all awaited the message: scientist and soldier, politician and revolutionist, millionaire and vagrant, bishop and whirling dervish, banker and pickpocket, society matron and street walker. And each was hoping for one thing, and afraid he’d hear another.

All efforts at communication with the alien ship had failed. The various welcoming delegations from the State of New Jersey, from the United States, and even from the United Nations, were ignored. No sign of life aboard was evident, and there seemed no means of entrance to the spacecraft. It sat there impassively; its tremendous, saucer-like shape seemed almost like a beautiful monument.

At the end of a month, when worldwide interest in the visitor from space was at its height, the message came. And once again it was impressed upon the mind of every human being on earth:

Man, know this: Your world is fated to complete destruction. Ordinarily, we of the Galactic Union would not have contacted man until he had progressed much further and was ready to take his place among us. But this emergency makes necessary that we take immediate steps if your kind is to be saved from complete obliteration.

In order to preserve your race, we are making efforts to prepare another planet, an uninhabited one, to receive your colonists. Unfortunately, our means for transporting you to your new world are limited; only a handful can be taken. You are safe for another five of your earth years. At the end of that period we will return. Have a thousand of your people ready for their escape.

The President of the United States lifted an eyebrow wearily and rapped again for order.

“Gentlemen, please!⁠ ⁠… Let us get back to the fundamental question. Summed up, it amounts to this: only one thousand persons, out of a world population of approximately two billions, are going to be able to escape the earth’s destruction. In other words, one out of every two million. It is going to be most difficult to choose.”

Herr Ernst Oberfeld tapped his glasses fretfully on the conference table. “Mr. President, it need not be quite as bad as all that. After all,