At the end of six months, the Decatur XII of the US Navy landed at Bristol’s base with urgent orders. Vice-Admiral Blanding, one of the leading space officers of Earth, inquired eagerly into the case and was even more intrigued than Bristol.
“You know what this means, Captain,” said Blanding. “We’ve got the jump on them —or will have. The Asian findings—”
“Asian?” said Bristol. “Are the Asians around here with us?” And he scanned the landscape in perplexity.
“No, no!” said Blanding. “Exactly two weeks after we got your dispatches about your find, an Asian exploration party located on Arachne precisely the same information. The people there had been jumped and slaughtered by some strange-looking beings shortly before the aliens landed here, about seventy-five years ago. Some race, with space travel, conducted a survey into our star area about seventy-five years ago. By just plain dumb luck, Earth escaped discovery. We wouldn’t have stood a chance. We’ve confederated with the Asians—”
“No!” said Bristol.
“It’s the truth! Why, man, you don’t realize! When your report reached Earth’s population, they surged around and demanded to know what was being done about it. When the Asians found what the natives said had happened on Arachne, Earth was knocked apart with riots. Plain panic!”
“But you mentioned a confederation—”
“Why, yes. Good lord, man, you’ve really been out of it, haven’t you? And yet you started it. Well, in brief, all that would stop the riots was a terrific program of prevention. The nations of Earth formed up a central council and began to combine their know-how. Up to then nobody knew what anybody else was doing about space technique and weapons. We combined not only our science and forces, we combined our governments. We’re all joined up and we’re putting out an effort which would stagger you. New weapons. New research. New space navies. And all this end of the galaxy is being scanned for more news. This planet and Arachne are the only two we’ve found so far where the invaders landed.”
“I’ve been doing all I could,” began Bristol, defensively.
“No, no! You’re important. You’re more important than I. They want you back there on that council. I’m up here as your relief. They want to know everything and you’re the man to tell them. We’ll lick this problem, Captain, or perish trying. With a little time, we’ll be able to knock any potential invader into the middle of the next galaxy before he knows what hit him. We’ll even invade their home planet if we have to. And we probably should because every evidence indicates that those guys are killers! Well, now, you know the story. Get your kit and jump into the ship. I’ve got my hands on things here and if your entombed invader can be found, be certain we’ll find him. Cheerio and bon voyage. You’ll find a mighty changed Earth but you’ll like it!”
And the admiral went swinging away to get on to his job. Bristol stood, stunned and blinking. Asia and the West confederated . All the nations of Earth in common government.
He abandoned his kit, except for a picture of his wife and the presentation sword he’d gotten when he left the academy, and swung aboard the destroyer.
“Shove off!” shouted Captain Bristol.
He had been used to the more plodding sort of vessel which had been built for capacity rather than speed and armament, and he found himself a little dazed at the way they passed comets. They retraced in twenty days what had taken him three hard months to cover the year before.
Bristol landed amid a sea of upturned white faces. Behind a motorcycle escort he was immediately taken to a meeting of the joint defense council, which had convened precipitately. Bristol was courteously given a seat at the lower end of the board and sat there blinking at beautiful uniforms and well-tailored clothes.
He was somewhat amazed to discover that he was not the first order of business. The Council of Nations which had been conducting the affairs of Earth was assembled here in force. And the first order of business was one which had evidently been left over from the previous afternoon. It had to do with the pooling of space warships.
They turned to him at last.
Captain Bristol stood, battered by the intense interest of the board.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “I trust I have not sent you any capricious data. Actually my evidence is slender and our searches have revealed nothing of interest other than continued confirmation of the story all over the planet. However, some of the data I have managed to extract from the natives there—and a very suborder of humanoid they are— has been prepared into this report.”
He read to them for some minutes, his voice penetrating a deeply interested silence. When he had finished he answered their questions. And then he made his final statement:
“We have very slender data here. Even this weapon they talk about is at best poorly described. But if you think the menace—”
“Captain Bristol,” said the council president, “we have every reason to suppose you are on the right track. The Asian report came shortly after yours and told of similar men in similar ships who wiped out thirty-five million people on Arachne by, it seems, bacteriological warfare. In this case the invader used a spray of some sort. While no relic of the visit has yet been found, the Asians are investigating every last scrap of evidence. Additionally we have located some vague rumors on other far planets. Out there”—he swept a hand at the huge star chart on the back wall: it was studded with tiny lights which showed where exploration parties were and small flags which showed where they had been—“out there we’ll get an answer. If we make a contact, we will be advised ahead of time. And we’ll be armed and ready. Thank you, Captain Bristol.”
In the days which followed, Bristol was in the middle of a maelstrom of activity. He found himself teamed with an Asian, Gletkin, whose experiences on behalf of the Asian government ranked him with Bristol as a fund of information.
The two of them, with a Swede named Pederson, made up a board of advice. They were whisked over the face of their world by the fastest and safest means available, giving judgment on structures, equipment, man-preservation in space and astrography.
Daily bulletins were issued over the world, giving news from various expeditions. The big star chart in the council chambers, matched in almost every home by an identical paper map, told the graphic story of search, search, search, null, null, null.
Weapon-making changed radically. Pocket flame-throwers, cuff-button bombs, two-pound cannon which would throw a million-foot-pound force behind a projectile— Military organizations died as an evolved science and became a dynamic, planned operation. And more: all the nationalities of Earth were recruited into specialized units, taught a common fighting tongue.
“Lord,” said Bristol, “if this is all for naught and we never find those invaders, there isn’t a political entity left that will have an independent army.”
“Political entities be damned,” said Gletkin. “Let’s get out there and review those new oxygen bottles!”
By golly,” said Bristol one day, as he and his two companions were reviewing the graduating class of the Space Academy in Paris—giving them a sweeping inspection which left many of the youngsters pale before the threat that they might not pass even after these months of training— “by golly, we’ve penetrated the hub of the Galaxy, Gletkin.” He flipped the message in his hand just given him by a runner. “That means that we’ve done fifty percent of the search without result.”
“Who cares how long or how far?” said Gletkin. “We’ll find them!”
“They might not exist,” said Bristol.
“Bah!” said Gletkin. “Young man, you look puny to me. Jump that hurdle over there fifty times. Now you, sonny—”
Day by day, week by week. And Bristol, each time he reported to the council, saw the big star map. The lights were increasing, the flags were a multitude now. On a spindle before it were dispatches which told of rich land and richer planets than Earth, strange beasts, great forests, empires.
“Captain, please appoint an expedi
tion coordinator,” said the president of the council.
“But I thought your staff—”
“No, I mean old expeditions,” said the president. “There may be data from those wildcat days we can use.”
It was big and hot in the council chamber. The room was packed today. Bristol got up to leave. But the great black doors opened and Commander Godolphin stood there.
He was haggard from long voyaging and he came unsteadily across the room. He saw Bristol and brightened. Godolphin turned and motioned in another officer, an Asian, equally travel-stained.
“Gentlemen,” said Bristol, standing, “I believe we have news here. My second-in-command.”
Godolphin flinched at the straining necks and peering eyes. But he came forward and put an envelope in Bristol’s hand. Behind him the Asian officer stood uncertainly, saw no member of his own nation that he recognized and dropped an envelope of his own before Bristol.
The captain took them, broke their seals and scanned them.
“Gentlemen,” said Bristol gravely, getting to his feet again, “I have here some news of the greatest importance.” He drew a breath and poured out the envelope.
Five items fell to the table from Godolphin’s package. They were a pair of glare-goggles, an ancient army pistol, a rifle, a ration can and a small dog tag.
“Make your report, Commander,” said Bristol.
Self-consciously, Godolphin said, “We found him at the end of a tunnel which had been closed by a landslide. He’d crawled halfway through the debris and died there, trying to get out. He was wearing an old-style cloth spacesuit and khaki and he had this stuff on him.”
Bristol said, “This dog tag reads:
“TSU CHIANG-LO
TUBEMAN, FIRST CLASS
GREATER ASIAN ARMY.”
Gletkin leaned over and stared at it. He blinked. “That’s right! That’s what it says!” And he grabbed up the Asian package.
Only three items fell out: an old space boot, a brass cartridge for a Garand rifle and an empty poison gas cylinder.
The Asian messenger looked uncomfortable as Gletkin glared at him.
“We found them in the mud,” said the messenger. “They’d sunk beside the place where we figured the spaceship had landed. We panned all the dirt and got these.”
Bristol looked quietly at the silent hall. He could feel the sag and sudden absence of all effort or care. He spoke slowly.
“I think, gentlemen,” said Bristol, “that this is a case of cross-purposes. In the first days of exploration we were terribly suspicious of one another as nations. We never published our records or findings because our governments forbade it, trying to keep new planets to themselves. Because planets never kept the same names long and were rediscovered often and because good space navigation had not yet been invented, nobody knew where he’d been for sure. And the Asians found the remains of our expedition to what they called Arachne and we found the remains of one of their men on what we called New Chicago. The records were never properly coordinated. And so we have lost. There never was an invader.”
Silence lasted long then. But suddenly the council’s president stood. He looked sweepingly about the chamber and he turned and looked back at the wall.
“There never was?” he said in a challenging tone. “There never was? And we’ve reorganized an entire planet, entire sciences, all mankind! And we’ve sent our ships scurrying across hundreds of thousands of light-years to strange new lands. There never was?”
The council members looked at him. A thrill of excitement began to course through the room.
“Gentlemen!” cried the president of the council of all nations. “Gentlemen, WE are the invaders from space!”
The Automagic Horse
The Automagic Horse
IT ain’t the principle of the thing, it’s the money,” said Gadget O’Dowd. “The day when I can build you a reasonable facsimile of Man o’ War for ten thousand dollars, I’ll know recession is here!”
Mike Doyle, the assistant chief of the Technical Division of the Property Department of United Pictures, slumped sadly behind his desk, looking at Gadget. Ordinarily they were friends but they had reached an impasse. Mike prided himself upon an ancestry which included somebody who had kissed the Blarney stone.
“Gadget,” said Mike, “we pay you two thousand dollars a week to be a construction genius. Look at what you’ve done in the past. And now you’re trying to balk at a lousy little old mechanical horse.”
Gadget reached into the pocket of his ninety-dollar sport jacket, pulled out a thousand-dollar platinum cigarette case and offered Mike one of his special-made smokes. Mike refusing, Gadget lit his own with a diamond-studded lighter. He smoked pensively.
Gadget was slender, redheaded, snub-nosed and Irish. He was trying to look frank just now, but for all that, he could not quite hide a single fact about himself—he was a man who harbored an enormous secret.
He had been christened George Carlton O’Dowd and he had enough university degrees to comfortably paper a large office. He could have been the chief of any number of vast epoch-making research organizations but instead he was an effect specialist for United Pictures. The reason was highly classified. And it demanded money.
“This budgeteering will ruin me yet,” said Gadget. “It is getting so a man can’t make a dishonest dollar unless he’s first cousin to the president of this company. I can’t make a horse that will do what you want unless you up that budget. And that’s final!”
Mike Doyle got up and sat down again on the edge of his desk. He was earnest and persuasive. “Now listen, Gadget, have a heart. I can’t help what these men in the upper echelon are trying to do. They give me my assignments and tell me what I am supposed to do. And that’s that. Look at the spot we are in. The script says here”—and he tapped it “that Miss Morris has to gallop a horse out of the middle of a burning barn, bust through the doors and escape from Peter Butler who’s got the place ringed with his gunmen.
“Now, Gadget, you know doggone well that the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals ain’t going to let us use no live horse. This scene has gotta be big, with lots of flame, and the roof caves in immediately after the stuntman gets out of there. Now if he didn’t get a chance to batter the doors down and the roof fell in and it was a live horse we was using, the SPCA would be down on us like a load of blockbusters. You just plain got to give us a decent horse. You know what happened to Diana and the Devil?”
“No,” said Gadget, disinterestedly, “what?”
“Well, that little dog they used in there that was supposed to rescue the kid out of the duck pond up and got pneumonia and died. The SPCA got ladies’ aid societies all over the country to ban that picture. It must have cost us a million and a half. Gadget, you just got to get us that horse!”
“If the Wall Street boys upstairs want to give a dog pneumonia and lose a million and a half, that’s their lookout,” said Gadget. “I’ve got to think about my overhead.”
“And you got to think about your old age,” said Mike. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’m a friend of yours. I’ll call up McDonnell and see if he won’t stretch that budget to fifteen thousand.”
Gadget waited while Mike had his secretary put through the call. McDonnell was in the studio barbershop and it took two or three minutes to reach him. Gadget fidgeted while Mike talked.
“But you know how it is,” Mike was saying. “I tell you, Mr. McDonnell, even horse meat has gone up. The special-effects man is in here now and he tells me that it can’t be done for a cent less than twenty thousand bucks.” There were long silences interspersed with grunts from Mike. He occasionally winked at Gadget. “All right,” said Mike. “If that’s all you’ll do, that’s all you’ll do. I know you got people on your neck, too. All right, Mr. McDonnell. Yes, that’s the movie business. Goodbye, sir.” Mike hung up and turned to Gadget.
“I got it up to eighteen thousand dollars. If you can’t do it for that, we’ll have to
use stuntmen in a horse skin.”
Gadget threw away his cigarette with sudden decision. He was all lightness and cheer now. He had expected fifteen thousand dollars as a top figure. His head was already working with plans of what he would do to that horse. He patted Mike affectionately on the shoulder and went out. He gave the secretaries a few wicked winks as he passed them, and he started whistling the moment he was out in the sunshine.
Hands deep in his pockets, Gadget sauntered on down toward the gate. He was just veering off course to pick a carnation from the Stage Six garden for The Buccaneer when he heard his name excitedly called behind him.
He turned to find himself pursued by Mike. He sadly shut his mental ledgers.
“Just a minute, Gadget,” said Mike, out of breath. “McDonnell must have got kicked around in the front office. He called back to say that he’d have to put an accountant on the job with you.”
“An accountant!” gaped Gadget, his snub nose getting belligerent.
“I can’t help it,” said Mike. “Things are getting tough all over.”
Gadget finally shrugged. “Well, that’s the movie business. So long, Mike.” And he wandered toward the gate, the carnation forgotten, gloom overcasting the sun.
Tony, his gardener-butler-chauffeur, a weasel-faced little man who played gangster parts whenever Central Casting could find him in its enormous files, popped out to open the door for him.
“What’sa matter, Gadget?” said Tony.
“We have an accountant coming up to hold a club over our heads,” gloomed Gadget. “‘Don’t use so much ink.’ ‘You’ve used up your allotment of screwdrivers for Tuesday,’” mimicked Gadget. “‘I’m sure two drops and not three drops of machine oil would do just as well.’ Blah! Movie business!”
“Things could be woise,” said Tony, popping in back of the wheel and sending the Horch sports phaeton out through the gate like a lightning bolt. “I picked up two bucks on Roamin’ Baby in the fifth at Santa Anita.”