When They Come from Space (20 page)

If economists expressed alarm over the disruption of normal trade, if scientists expressed alarm at the potential ocean-level rise because of all these melting snows, nobody heeded. Economists are about as accurate as weather forecasters or horse-race handicappers, and who pays any attention to scientists where there are miracles?

United States did find time to do a little muttering in Uncle Sam's beard. Figured on an area-for-area basis, certain other countries were receiving more miracles per square miles than we, and was that fair? Of course we were still ahead on a per capita basis—and so how you looked at it depended on whether you wanted to complain or brag.

Yes, indeed, the Starmen were varying the chemistry of the culture on the smear slide.

I looked at these changes with dread. They were so vast, with consequences beyond imagining—while man can tolerate only the smallest of change at any one time.

...It took a thousand years, fifteen hundred years, of placing the holy image exactly in the center of the canvas before man could tolerate the blasphemy of placing it slightly to one side.

...For fourteen hundred years Ptolemy's astronomic system of placing the Earth at the center of the universe satisfied the vanity of man, including his astronomers, before the courage of Copernicus to say it might not be so. And four hundred years after Copernicus, in the scientifically enlightened year of 1958, one third of American high-school students still believed the Earth to be at the center of the universe.

...Change one word on the label of a product, and although they cannot read it, five hundred million Chinese will refuse to buy it. How ignorant can those natives be? But—

...Oh yes, we once tried to put this thick catsup in a wide-mouth bottle so it would pour easily, and the company almost went broke—the American housewife refused to touch it because the shape of the container had been changed. It has taken us fifteen years to enlarge the neck of the bottle by one quarter of an inch. And—

...It takes ten years to change the lapel line of men's suits.

...Oh yes, we like to see fresh, new ideas and treatment in stories, but we can print only those exactly like those we have printed in the past.

...A popular song must be written in exactly thirty-two measures. State the theme in eight. Repeat it in the second eight. Bridge with another eight. Repeat the theme for the final eight. Otherwise a musician cannot play it, the people cannot learn to sing it.

...A man may take one step ahead of his culture and chance being called a genius. But if he takes two steps, he is certain to be called a menace, a madman, a fool.

...The humanist does not make even one step ahead, and thereby maintains his secure control of men's minds. No one knows, or cares, how the scientist thinks, so long as he continues to make things easier without really changing anything. So he may say, “If my theory doesn't work it must be wrong, and I must recast my notions about the true nature of this until I find a theory which will work.” If he gets any kick out of confounding himself with all this self-doubt, he's welcome to it so long as he doesn't disturb the certainties of the rest of us. But the humanist says, “I cannot be wrong. If my theory doesn't work someone else is at fault and must be punished.” In all man's history there has been taken not one single step forward from this attitude among the humanists.

And so I looked at these changes caused by the Starmen, and dreaded.

I should have known better. Past experience with a quarter million individuals should have taught me. I should have known that a man can receive only what his mind has been prepared to receive, that all else is ignored, or interpreted to suit his prior interpretation—that man can only accept change through it being interpreted as no change, or not knowing it is change.

Apparently I needed a reminder. Sara brought it into my office in the form of sample mail we were receiving—mail addressed to the Starmen, routed through us.

Our department's mail room had done an excellent job of classifying the letters according to type. There were some forty-six thousand letters and telegrams represented by the following:

"My corn patch is gittin purty dry. Rain on it. Yrs trule.

There were only four thousand five hundred antonym letters in this category:

"Urgent you not let it rain on Ladies Aid picnic for worthy cause."

A few hundred said something like:

"Have twenty dollars with bookie on long-shot, Sea War, in the second. 50/50 split with you if you make him win."

Some six thousand pleaded with them to use brand products in their next personal appearances, or came within the following patterns:

"Enclosed find eleven genuine simulated gold embossed lifetime passes to any theater showing our pictures. Usual requirement that you give your independent, unbiased opinion that picture is stupendous, colossal, gigantic applies. Lifetime passes absolutely guaranteed good for ninety days. Cancelable without notice."

"Request you furnish our department-store chain with one gross real live Santa Clauses for coming Christmas season. Must have real ones. Kids are wise to phonies, pull off their beards and kick them in shins for not keeping last year promises. Causes much union grievance. For your information, enclosed is traditional editorial telling why belief in Santa Claus is necessary—and which says nothing at all about how sales would drop off, factories shut down, and newspaper (which carries the editorial) advertising space cut down without said belief. Absolutely necessary our citizens be kept believing there is a Santa Claus. As twig is bent tree will grow. Fight communism. Send us real Santa Clauses. We pay union scale."

Unfortunately, statistics on the following kind of letter were incomplete, since loyal mail clerks had been tearing them up before it was realized we should keep an impartial check:

"Toiling masses greet their comrades from space. Party requires you make unmistakable statement against grasping capitalists within next twenty-four hours. No excuses, or you know what."

But there were one hundred and twenty-four thousand letters of the following kind:

"Eyes of blue, five-feet two, Bette Lou, and she's pretty too. That's just a little rime the boys made up to teese me with, and I guess it does tell you what I'm like, but it didn't make me stuck up, not a bit. I don't think if a girl is inteligunt and beautiful, crushinglly divistatinglly beautiful she doesn't need to be stuck up. Do You? Anyway Im not, not a bit, stuck up I mean.

"I feel it is my sacred duty to write you and tell you what the nice girls in my town are saying about you, and everybody will be saying it soon, but everybody, if they arent allready. I guess you know we have been keping pretty close tabes on you fellas, ha! ha!

"Seriously, we watched you go to bed, and we watched you get up, whenever the TV was working, when you was here. I guess you know everybody in the world is keping watch out for you, so if youd done what regular fellas do, I guess we'd know about it. Like I said, people are begining to talk.

"Youve been here more than a week now, and none of you fellas have gone to bed with any girls, if you know what I mean. So I guess you know from that what people must be saying about you, if you know what I mean. I dont beleev it, what theyre saying about you, if you know what I mean. Anyway, even if you were, well if you found out what it was like to have a real feminin girl, if you know what I mean, you wouldn't be any more.

"Anyway that is why I think it is my scared duty. You wouldnt have to marry me afterwards, if you know what I mean, that is, if you didnt want to. But Ill bet youd want to after you found out how much fun you could have with a real feminin nice girl, if you know what I mean. Ha! Ha!

"I hope I havent been to suttle about what I mean if you know what I mean. But Im a nice girl and nice girls dont come right out and tell men what theyre always thinking about. Theres only one of me and theres five of you fellas, but dont fight. Just draw straws or something. I have got lots of nice girl friends. They are not as cruchinglly beautiful as I am, but they are real feminine girls and All Right, if you know what I mean.

"Some people are saying you fellas are angles from heaven. If you are angles then thats why you havent gone to bed with any girls because angles arent suppose to know about such things, if you know what I mean. So if you dont take me up on my Supreem Sacrafise I wont believe what people are saying about you not being regular fellas, if you know what I mean. Ill believe its because you are angles and my feelings wont be hurt a bit. Well not much anyhow, because there are plenty of nice boys around here Ill have you know, and there allright too, and I dont have to throw myself at nobody, if you know what I mean.

"So as they say if you want it come get it or Ill throw it in the garbage, if you know what I mean. But if youre angles then you dont know what I mean. Cruchinglly, devistatinglly yours,"

I looked up from reading the last letter. I looked a question at Sara, who was sitting across the desk from me. I asked a question with my eyes.

"Yes,” she answered. “I've read them. Quite a few more like them, just to see if they were representative, as the mail room claims."

I wondered if my face showed the same inner sickness as hers.

"People,” I commented unhappily.

"People,” she agreed.

"Whether it's some kind of science we don't understand, yet, or miracles we'll never understand, it doesn't change a thing,” I said. “I thought it was really going to bollox up the works, but it doesn't. Before the Starmen, people looked to science for miracles. They didn't know how the scientist got them, they didn't want to know, they didn't listen when he tried to tell them. All they wanted was the miracle, not a lot of instruction which would be work to understand. Well, now they've got the miracles from another source, without any instruction on how to go and do likewise. But there's no real difference, no real change from then to now."

"I guess people will go right on being people,” she agreed, as if that would comfort me.

Apparently Shirley, and Dr. Gerald Gaffee, and Dr. Kibbie had also been busy, behind the scenes, working for my comfort.

The three of them walked into the office, at that moment, without appointment. The two men had broad, happy grins for me, and file folders of papers in their right hands. Shirley's beautiful, old homely face was wreathed in misty smiles, and she was looking at me as a mother might look at a favored son. She also carried a file folder in her right hand, and a big dry-goods box in under her left arm. I wondered fleetingly if her motherly instincts had gone so far as to start buying suits for me.

As ranking seniority in my department, she stepped forward first.

"Galaxy Admiral Kennedy,” she said solemnly. “I present you with the official document making you Galaxy Admiral.” She flipped the file folder open, laid it on my desk, and, surely enough, there were the words, the signatures, the seal. “Those publicity-seeking—uh—people down in Space Navy wanted to be in on the presentation, but I convinced them you'd want it kept in the family, first, before all the hoopla of television, newsreel, and the rest of it. I hope that was right, Galaxy Admiral, sir."

"That was exactly right, Shirley,” I managed to gasp. “For my part, I could skip the hoopla entirely."

"Well, sir, we mustn't go too far,” she admonished.

Then she laid the big dry-goods box on the desk top and whisked off the lid. I saw the midnight blue of textile within the box, and a gleam of brass and braid. Much brass and braid.

"Your uniform,” she said proudly. “I thought you'd want it right away."

I looked down at my white shirt, which had been fresh this morning when I put it on, but wasn't now. I looked down at my faded slacks, which, aeons ago, had been pressed.

"I suppose that's part of the penalty of being a Galaxy Admiral,” I said, and already felt a twinge of nostalgia for the good old civilian days. “I hope it fits."

"Oh, it will fit,” she answered confidently. “I made N-462 give me your exact measurements."

I opened my eyes wide at that calm statement.

"You knew?” I asked.

"Sure, I knew he was a cop,” she said. “But it was better to have him where I could keep an eye on him than to let him run loose. In his own way, he was doing his job. He had all your measurements down to the last quarter inch."

"I hope not all of them, Shirley,” I said solemnly.

The old gal blushed, and for the first time since I'd known her, she broke into a rumbling roar of laughter.

"You kill me,” she chuckled. “You always have. Right from that first morning."

Dr. Gerald Gaffee, standing behind her, and next in line, gave a loud “Harrumph!"

Shirley blushed again and stiffened.

"Excuse me, sir,” she stammered, “I didn't mean to get familiar."

"Stay familiar, Shirley,” I said softly. “I like it that way better."

"Yes, sir,” she said, too formally, but the motherly pride was still in her eyes. I supposed I'd have to settle for that.

Now Gerald stepped forward. He too flipped open a file folder and laid it on the desk.

"Dr. Ralph Kennedy,” he said solemnly. “Here is your Ph.D. in extraterrestrial psychology."

I looked at the name of the famous university, and the signatures at the bottom of the scroll. It was no purchased quickie that I need ever be ashamed of.

"How is this possible?” I asked. “It doesn't merely say ‘Honorary.’”

"In view of your contact with the extraterrestrials,” he murmured. “The only Terrestrial who has had private conferences with the extraterrestrials..."

"I'm glad,” I said simply. “There've been some things I've wanted to tell you. And now I can, now that I'm in the union."

He also blushed.

Dr. Kibbie then stepped forward and laid his gift on the desk.

"Another two billion,” he crowed happily. “A special committee, with special war emergency powers..."

"Good God,” I said. “I haven't finished spending the last two billion, yet."

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