Final Exam

by Arthur Zirul

The ship seemed to hang motionless above the great, green planet. The harsh, unfiltered light of the planet’s mother star glinted on the silvery hull, highlighting the ragged edge of a huge hole in the stern of the vessel.

The occupants of the spaceship stood anxiously by their posts. Even the youngest novice among them knew that the ship had seen its last flight; it was finished. The engines were gone, vanished in the crackling horror of an atomic fire. The holocaust had begun accidentally in the fuel center. In a few milliseconds the screaming flames had torn through the main bulkheads, following the fuel lines to the stern exhaust ports, destroying everything in their path. In a flash of hellish fire it was all over. Only the isolated control deck, where the few survivors now stood, remained intact.

It was only a matter of hours till the magnetic claws of the planet would pull the ship down, faster and faster, until the friction against the atmosphere would turn it into a molten, pitted mass—unrecognizable save as its component elements.

Each individual stood alone with his thoughts, separated from his neighbors by the cold inches of the space armor he wore. The atmosphere had long since hissed away through the gaping wounds in the ship. The vessel was tomb silent without it. Only the suit intercoms kept them in communications.

The chief engineer, stationed by his useless panel, studied the young second navigator for a moment. The youngster was tense, nervous; his features through the glass of his armor revealed the fear that chewed at his control.

“Take it easy boy,” the engineer beamed at him through the intercom. “We’re lucky, you know.”

“Lucky?” the navigator shouted. “You call this lucky? Dying on some lump parsecs from home! If that’s luck, you can stick it in your stern tubes!”

“Lucky,” the engineer repeated. “This planet might not have been so convenient. We might have drifted in an orbit around that sun until our suit tanks gave out; and then—”

“Oh shut up!” The navigator turned quickly and walked to his table. He began checking his instruments in a vain attempt to be doing something. Suddenly he raised his head, and with his voice barely under control, cried:

“Why doesn’t the skipper say something? What’s he doing in that cabin?”

“Maybe he’s saying his prayers,” the engineer smirked.

The navigator threw his sextant viciously against the bulkhead.

“Shut up, I said!” he snapped.

“Now hear this! Now hear this!”

Each crewman straightened as the general call activated his individual receiver.

“The captain will address the crew. Attention, please.”

There was a pause, then the familiar voice of the skipper came through.

“Men, there is no need for me to remind you of the gravity of our situation. We have no power, and as we are without communications our chances for immediate rescue are practically nonexistent. The situation, however, is not entirely hopeless.”

The crew stirred in surprise and a murmur echoed through the intercom.

“As you know, we were blown off our course by the blast recoil. We are in a strange sector being drawn into the planet below us. The planetologist informs me that this world has an atmosphere similar to that of our home planet. The gravity and vegetation, too, are very similar. In short, if need be, we can manage to survive there. Even more important than that, however, we have discovered signs of a highly developed culture. The alien sociologist tells me that this planet shows all the earmarks of a seventh-level culture. If that is true, then it means we might very well be able to obtain aid in returning home!”

The babble in the phones grew to a hopeful crescendo for a moment before the captain’s voice resumed.

“Do not become too optimistic however; we have a serious problem before us first. Since we have no power, our ship’s degravitators are useless; therefore if we are to manage a landing at all we must rely upon our suit degravitators. In short, we will abandon ship just as soon as we enter the atmosphere.

“Since our course carries us on a shallow tangent with the planet, and our atmospheric speed will exceed several thousand units per hour, we will be widely scattered when we land. Also contributing to our wide dispersion will be the high surface winds of the planet. Even if we leave as quickly as possible to negate the other difficulties, the winds will fling us to all points of the compass; especially as we will be nearly weightless with our degravitators on. It is quite possible that we may be separated by as much as the diameter of the planet.

“In order that we maintain as much fighting force as possible we will tie ourselves together in groups of three; more than that may prove cumbersome and dangerous. Some of the groups may be lost in the oceans. Some may die elsewhere in landing. I can only hope and pray that we all make it.

“The chief navigator will issue maps to each group designating the rendezvous point on the planet for the entire crew. Proceed to that point as quickly as possible, by any means that you can manage. Good luck for now, and God be with you.”

Illustrated by Arthur Sussman

There was a faint click as the captain signed off. His voice in the intercom was replaced by the excited babble of the crew.

“All right men, knock it off!” the chief navigator ordered through the phones. “Here’s the dope on this operation.”

He walked among the crew handing out the freshly printed maps. The first officer spoke next.

“There are fifteen of us left; you will separate into groups of three, according to alphabetical order. Each group will tie themselves together with their emergency lines. When you are ready, arrange yourselves in jump order by the forward escape hatch and the main lock. Three groups to the locks, two to the hatch. You will stand by for degrav and jump signals. Any questions?”

“Yes, sir,” the junior navigator said. “Do we have to turn our degravitators on right away? Can’t we fall a while and then switch them on just before we land? That way we’ll be surer of narrowing our landing area, and of staying together.”

“I see you’ve never used escape gear before,” the first said a little impatiently. “Those suit degravitators work in inverse proportion to the height of the fall. The further you fall, the slower you go. The unit needs distance to build up its field. These suit jobs are uncontrollable. They have only one setting and that’s ‘on.’ You’ll need all the height you can get if you hope to build up any weightlessness with these ‘One-lungers.’ If you’re not careful, you’ll wind up spread out like a quart of jam in a 10-G pull out. Any other questions?”

“N-No, sir,” the young officer stammered.

“All right then, hop to, you birds,” the first ordered. “Be ready to shove off at count-off signal from the captain. The captain, the chief navigator, and myself will leave last through the escape hatch. Remember, rendezvous as quickly as possible. We will maintain the rendezvous point for ten time-cycles; about forty light-periods on this planet. If you can’t get back by then, you’re on your own. Stand by for count off!”

The groups were quickly formed and tied together. They waited t ensely by the hatches for the signal that would send them out and down to the unknown world below. The captain’s voice clicked on again.

“Ready now men, we will enter atmosphere in ten centiunits. Stand by for count-off from five centiunits after entrance.”

They waited in their little groups, arms about each other resembling small football huddles, the better to keep them in one tight mass when they left ship. The first faint whistle of the upper atmosphere through the hole in the stern alerted them for the count off.

“Ready! Degravs on!” the captain’s voice tinned through their earphones. “Five… four… three… two… one… NOW!”

Like spilled fruit the groups tumbled out of the hatches. In a few seconds they were all out and caught in the grip of the upper air currents. The winds snatched them up, tumbled them about like multi-legged bowling balls, and whipped them away into the blue distance even before their degravitator fields had reached full effect. By the time they had reached five thousand feet they had decelerated to a gentle fall. By then, however, they had been so widely scattered by the winds that no one group was in sight of another.

Two of the groups fell in the Pacific Ocean in the midst of a tropical storm. One of them washed up on the beach of Kauai Island, in the Hawaiian group, several hours later. More dead than alive, they managed to crawl out of their buoyant suits and into the palm jungle. The other group was lost forever in the wild sea. One landed in North America; in a suburb of New York. Another fell in the deserted, frozen wastes of Antartica. They were forced to leave the warm safety of their suits when their power packs ran out. They froze to death soon afterwards. The last group alighted near Kamkov, a small village in East Russia.

Alma, Amika, and Babla, the three members of the first group to jump, were sitting huddled by the bole of a Royal Palm tree intensely studying the map spread out before them. They paid scant attention to the warm beauty of the Hawaiian island about them. Their recent ordeal in the ocean had left their aesthetic senses somewhat dulled. They were still weak, though a few meals of coconuts and berries had added a good deal to their vigor.

“According to this map,” Amika pointed, “we’re a helluva distance from rendezvous point, almost a quarter of the circumference of this globe I’d say.”

“Most of that distance is water, too,” Alma observed. “After our tuss’e with that insane ocean I’ll be blasted if I’ll swim it.”

“We’ll have to try contacting the nearest intelligent life, and ask for help,” Babla said, as he rose and looked over the sunny beach.

“Doyou think that’s wise?” Amika asked, as Babla shot him a cold glance. “That is to say, I realize that you’re a trained alien sociologist and I’m just a crummy radio op, but I’d still hate to end up stuffed, in some barbarian’s museum.”

“We made a very careful study of this planet through our scopes before we landed,” Babla lectured a trifle coolly. “We discovered unmistakable signs of a very advanced culture. In fact, the captain placed our rendezvous point on the outskirts of the biggest city we could find; so that we could get assistance from the most obvious source—where the most inhabitants are.

“Need I remind you that the prime order of your Interstellar Manual states, in effect, when in need of aid contact the first intelligent species that possesses at least a fifth-level culture. A fifth-level, or higher culture, may be identified by the architectural criteria illustrated in the manual. The theory is simple; any culture advanced enough to build a fifth-level structure can be trusted to be intelligent enough to recognize your predicament and to offer aid.

“You must, of course, be extremely wary of barbaric, moron-level cultures; they understand only brute force. However, you may feel secure in the knowledge that once you identify an advanced culture you need not fear barbarians; the planet has by then progressed enough to have left its savage stages behind.”

“That’s all well and good for our star system,” Alma argued, “but remember, we’re in mighty strange waters; in fact we’re here purely by accident. As far as I know, nobody has ever seen this part of the galaxy before.”

“You talk like a child I” Babla snapped. “What held true on the more than one hundred planets we have occupied most certainly will hold true here. Enough of this nonsense, let’s get moving before darkness or we’ll never get to rendezvous point! Follow me, I think I see a road over there past that grove of trees.”

The two spacemen rose slowly and followed behind Babla as he led the way to the single-lane dirt road ahead.

Mike Honosura sat comfortably in a rocking chair on the front porch of his general store. He puffed lazily at his pipe and blew gray clouds into the dazzling Pacific sunset.

Lovely island, Kauai, he thought. Too bad my honorable grandparents chose to remain in Japan. They would have liked it here.

His flat, Oriental face was turned towards the road; he liked to watch the workers come in from the cane fields at night. Wiamea wasn’t much of a town, even for Kauai; but at least it offered some recreation. The workers liked it. They weren’t anywhere as fussy as the tourists, for which Honosura was most thankful. A movement in the bushes alongside the road caught his eye. He turned in time to see the three aliens step out onto the road. His eyes widened till they threatened to rupture the lids. His pipe fell from his suddenly slack-jawed mouth and clattered unheeded to the floor.

“My most Honorable Ancestral Gods,” he half whispered, “protect me!”

Hitch Pilitrovsky surveyed his little farm from the doorway of his thatched roof hut. The commissar of agriculture had permitted him to keep the land, mainly because it was too isolated on its rocky hillside to have been made part of the collective farm for the district. Ilitch’s arrangement with the State was simple: He did all the work and they shared the crop with him. They let him keep all he could eat. At the moment Hitch was daydreaming about the crop due for harvest. His eyes rested lovingly on the fat, waving grain.

“Ah, they will be proud of me this year,” he mused. “I shall have the biggest crop in the district, now, if only I didn’t have to give so much to the commissar, I could—”

He immediately put up his almost automatic mind censor and looked nervously about as if expecting the secret police to pop out of a haystack.

“Ilitch!” his wife called from inside the hut. “Come in to eat before the soup gets cold. What are you dreaming about out there?”

“Nothing, my love.” Ilitch sighed, as he looked in at his wife. She was a big woman, big as Melna, his horse. He had fallen in love with her the day he had seen her pitch four wagonloads of hay in a row. Now he found himself wondering if perhaps there weren’t other things about a woman that mattered also. He remembered seeing an American magazine during the war; the women in those pictures—weak as kittens, but, by Stalin, what—

The mind censor clicked in again.

As Ilitch turned to go in he chanced to look up. He stopped stock-still there in the doorway. Slowly floating down to his farm were three metal balls with corrugated tubes sticking out of them like arms and legs. The “arm” tubes were entwined about each other so that the three balls looked liked children at play. Hitch’s eyes followed them down while the rest of him stood there as if carved. They came to a gentle, vibrationless stop not ten feet from where he stood. The balls separated from each other almost immediately. A small glass section in the front of each began to screw outwards.

Cakna, Drul, and Druit climbed out of their suits and stretched thankfully. Almost as soon as they saw Ilitch, they went for their sidearms. Ilitch’s thatched hut was far from a fifth-level structure, and they weren’t going to take chances with barbarians, particularly not barbarians that size. But they had no need for their weapons. Ilitch’s staring eyes had suddenly become glassy; he slid down the door jamb, sat hard on the ground, and fell heavily forward in a dead faint.

The captain, the first officer, and the chief navigator landed closest to the rendezvous point. In fact, they were practically on it when they floated to Earth on a narrow strip of beach in the Gravesend section of Brooklyn. Since it was quite early in the morning at the time of their arrival, no one saw them land. By daylight, the three had shucked their spacesuits and were sitting on the beach munching their emergency rations. The captain spread out the map, studied it for a while and then looked down the bay towards Manhattan.

“Our rendezvous point is just a few land-units north of here. There’s a small clearing at the entrance to the harbor where I planned for us to meet. Across the harbor, there’s an island which is literally covered with seventh-level structures. We will make our contact with this planet’s civilization there.”

“Sir,” the chief navigator said, “why don’t we make our contact right here and now? I noticed a large number of seventh-level structures just a little to the east.”

“We might,” the captain nodded, “but I’d rather stick to interstellar protocol. We’ll wait for the rest of the crew to assemble before we make formal contact. Besides, I’d like to consult with the alien sociologist about this culture—if his group made it, that is.”

“Huge structures, aren’t they, sir?” the first officer observed as he sat staring at the distant buildings.

“Yes,” the captain agreed. “There must be millions of them in that city.”

So engrossed were they with the skyline, they didn’t see the little girl walking with schoolbooks in her arms on the sidewalk that paralleled the beach. They did hear her shriek of terror though and spun around with weapons at ready, in time to see her running back in the direction from which she had come. Her schoolbooks lay discarded where she had dropped them in her wild flight.

“What in the name of Jeleval was that?” the first asked in a frightened whisper.

“Did you see it, sir?” the navigator turned to the captain.

“Yes, I saw it.” The captain was visibly shaken.

The girl ran headlong into a patroling policeman. It took only a few hysterical words to send him racing back along the walk tugging under his blouse for his revolver.

“Listen! I think I hear it coming back!” the first reported.

“No, it’s another one,” the navigator said. “There it is now, coming towards us!”

The first cried, “Look at the size of the brute!”

The policeman skidded to a stop about ten yards from the trio. His face drained to a chalk-white for an instant; then he snapped his gun up lo firing position. The first shot went wild and kicked sand into the captain’s face.

“Take cover!” the captain yelled.

The three sprang apart with unbelievable swiftness, and flung themselves behind the nearest obstructions.

“Hold your fire,” the captain commanded. “Maybe we can reason with it.”

The policeman was debating with himself whether to go back for help, or to get the creatures by himself. He was no hero, but he shuddered to think of those things running loose in the city. Suddenly one of the creatures rose up from behind a rock and began to chatter unintelligibly at him. A .38 slug barely missed taking the captain’s head off.

“Take him with your paralyzer!” the captain shouted at the first officer. “It’s just our luck to run into an insane one.”

The policeman barely saw the blue beam that penciled out of the officer’s gun. With a choked gasp he fell hard to the beach and lay there, unmoving.

Mike Honosura breathed slowly. He could feel his heart hammering in his chest. He wanted to run, but the chill that radiated from his stomach seemed to freeze him where he sat. His eyes stayed riveted on the three beings as they waddled towards him. At first they looked like green, fuzz-covered beach balls, about two feet in diameter. As they drew closer he saw that they walked on short, purple stumps. Two fingered tentacles extended from under a small, saucer-eyed head that surmounted the ball shape. The creatures wore belts about the equators of their bodies. Fastened to the belts were several instruments; none of which Honosura was familiar with. Not that he was particularly interested in what they were wearing at the time.

When Alma, Amika, and Babla first caught sight of Honosura sitting there they recoiled with almost as much horror as Honosura had when he first saw them.

“In all my experience,” Babla said in a hushed voice, “I have never seen anything quite so terrifying. Can this be an example of the intelligent life native to this planet?”

“I doubt it.” The radio operator nervously fingered his blast pistol. “Besides, even if it were, my bet is that it’s barbarian. Look at those houses; they barely reach fourth-level, let alone fifth. I say shoot first and make apologies later.”

“You’re an idiot!” Babla barked. “I tell you we saw seventh-level structures on this planet. Use your reason, man, this place must represent some antiquated transitional phase from the lower levels. These creatures probably preserve it as some sort of museum. I personally assure you that seventh-level and fourth-level buildings simply do not coexist in the same culture. Now put up your blaster!”

Honosura began to move a little. He wanted to run more than he had ever wanted anything else before. He was just beginning to get his terror-frozen muscles under control again.

“Help! Help!” he screamed. “Call the sheriff! They are devils!”

“What do you suppose it wants?” Alma asked.

“Probably extending us some sort of greeting,” Babla guessed. “I’ll try talking to it, maybe it can lake us to the local leaders.”

At the sound of Babla’s chatter Honosura stopped screaming and resumed staring.

“Better use interstellar sign talk,” Alma nudged Babla. “I don’t think it understands our language.”

“Oh yes, stupid of me,” Babla flustered. “I’ll try sketches.”

Babla began to draw a triangle in the dusL of the road. His little experiment was cut short, however, by the sound of voices. Looking up, the three saw a herd of the terrestrials thundering down upon them.

“Hold your ground!” Babla ordered. “Don’t show fear under any circumstances!”

Ilitch’s wife, hearing the dull thud of her husband as he hit the ground, came out to investigate. One horrified shriek later she was bolting out of the rear door of the hut, over the fence, and on to the back of Meina, the horse, who had been quietly grazing in the field behind the house. With a shout and a kick the animal clattered off, almost as frightened as its mistress.

“Barbarians, no doubt of it,” Cakna, the second navigator, slated with finality as he checked the loads in his blaster.

“All, the certainty of youth,” Druit, the chief engineer, sighed. “I’ll admit that they’re ugly as sin, but did it ever occur to you, Cakna, that as far as they’re concerned we’re no beauties either. As a matter of fact we’re not even sure who the intellects around here are—barbarians or otherwise. There’s a thing there in the doorway; another thing came out a moment ago, scrambled on top of still another thing, and beat it. Which one of the three represents the leading intelligence of the planet?”

“If any,” Drul added. “Look, Cakna, I’ll admit that this set-up looks strange, but let’s remember that this is unexplored territory. We’ve never run into anything like it before—and neither has anyone else.”

“Check,” Druit agreed. “I say sit tight for a while. If the captain and the sociologist said that this is an advanced culture, I’ll string along with their judgment.”

“O.K. by me,” Cakna shrugged as he opened the map. “I’ll play it your way, but let’s do some local checking first. According to this map, I’d say we’re a long, long way from rendezvous. If we don’t get rolling soon, we’ll never make it in time.”

“Maybe we can pick up something from that one,” Druit suggested as he waved a tentacle towards Ilitch, who was still slumped in the doorway.

“Won’t hurt trying,” Cakna said as he folded his map and slipped the safety off on his blaster.

“Tch, tch, such nerves,” Druit chided.

The three creatures approached Ilitch slowly, alert for any movement from the unconscious Russian.

“Big, isn’t it?” Drul observed as they halted beside the man.

“Sure is!” Cakna said. “But why doesn’t it move? None of us took a shot at it, and yet it lays there as if it had been hit by a cruiser-size paralyzer.”

“You’re ship’s doctor, Drul,” Druit said, “what’s with it? Dead?”

“I doubt it, my guess is that it suffered a temporary nervous collapse when it first saw us. I guess we’re pretty hard to take for an alien mind. Especially one that has had no experience with interstellar races. It’s my personal opinion that it’ll be coming around soon; at least I’m reasonably certain it isn’t dead—too much body activity for that.”

“In that case, I guess the best thing we can do,” Druit proposed as he sucked his legs into his body till he was sitting on the ground, “is to stay put until this one wakes up or the other two return. We’ve got to make contact with someone if we’re to get to rendezvous, and these are as likely candidates as any.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Cakna sighed resignedly as he and Drul sat beside Druit. “Our best bet is to wait it out.”

When Hitch’s wife thundered irreverently into the office of the village commissar screaming her wild story, that worthy gentleman was sorely tempted to have her taken away to a State liquidation center for the insane. He even considered sending her husband along with her. He never did like Pilitrovsky anyway; besides he strongly suspected that Ilitch had been holding out grain. However, as the woman became more coherent, the commisar began to see that perhaps she had something there on her farm after all. He decided to investigate. If it turned out to be something big, he was sure to get a medal; if not, there was always Pilitrovsky to vent his rage upon.

And so it happened that a squad of pop-eyed Russian soldiers came upon Cakna, Druit, and Drul seated in a semicircle before a groggily conscious Pilitrovsky, drawing geometric figures in the dirt.

The captain and the navigator covered the first officer with their blasters as he slowly approached the prone policeman. He studied the man for a while and then turned to the others.

“It’s out cold,” he reported. “But you’d better stay back till I examine its weapon; never can tell what’s in these things.”

He picked up the policeman’s revolver, examined it closely for a minute, opened the cylinder, and shook out the shells. He sniffed at the discharged cartridge case, rattled one of the unfired shells, and then finally, with extreme caution, he pried the slug out of its case with a pair of pliers from his belt. He spilled the powder out onto the sand and studied it for several seconds.

“All clear, sir!” he shouted as he turned to his companions. “Just a chemical explosive that propels a solid slug. Primitive, but deadly enough to kill us. I suggest we get back into our suits for safety’s sake till we’re a little surer of our ground.”

“You’re right,” the captain said as he holstered his blaster. “For all I know, we’ve landed in the middle of an insane asylum. There may be more of those maniacs running around.”

The trio returned to the armored spacesuits they had left by the edge of the sea, and climbed back inside them. They had barely locked their entrance plates and finished the operational check on their equipment when two police cars skid-marked to a stop in front of the beach sidewalk.

The schoolgirl had run home and had half frightened her mother to death with the story of what she had seen. The mother had immediately phoned the police who had responded with remarkable swiftness. Especially since they had already received two other calls from hysterical passersby who had seen the action on the beach from afar.

The police sergeant in charge of the operation was a tough old bird who had come up against many an unusual adversary in his day, but never anything like the three space-suited aliens who confronted him now. He cocked the bolt of his sub-machine gun, and with two other policemen covering him, he and his car companion slowly walked towards the beat patrolman who lay unconscious on the sand. They kept their eyes riveted on the three metal suits, ready to swing into action at the slightest movement from them. As they came abreast of the patrolman the sergeant’s companion knelt to examine the man.

“How is he?” the sergeant asked anxiously.

“Seems to be O.K., just out,” the other one said. He shifted his gaze back to the aliens, “What do we do now?”

“Get him back to safety,” the sergeant ordered with a jerk of his thumb. “Then we’ll see what we can do about opening them cans.”

As the sergeant crouched behind a dead tree stump the other man carried the unconscious policeman back to the squad cars.

“All right now!” the sergeant shouted as soon as his men had taken adequate cover. “Come out of those things, keep your hands folded behind your heads, and move slow!”

There was no answer.

“Come out or we’ll blow you out!” the sergeant shouted as he raised the machine gun.

The aliens still did not reply. Which wasn’t too surprising, since they could make no sense at all of the policeman’s speech.

“O.K., you asked for it!” The stuttering roar of the sergeant’s gun climaxed his threat.

As the slugs spanged off his armor the captain decided to take a little positive action, on the chance that he could frighten what he considered mad creatures into a more reasonable state of action. He unlimbered his blaster and fired through a port in his armor. The atomic-headed slug vaporized the sergeant’s tree stump and hurled him about twenty feet closer to the parked cars. Miraculously unhurt save for minor contusions he scrambled grotesquely for cover.

“Call headquarters!” he screamed at the radio cars. “Tell them to get a riot squad down here, and to call the army on it. These things are hot!”

Major Andrews reread the teletype he had just been handed. He pulled his mustache thoughtfully, put the message down, and picked up his desk phone.

“Hello, connect me with Captain Conner at G-2 please.” He spoke quickly, almost stumbling over his words as he massaged the worry lines in his forehead.

“Hello, Captain Conner speaking,” the phone announced.

“Conner?” The major sat up in his chair. “This is Andrews. I called to find out if you have received that report on those things we picked up near Fort Hamilton, in Brooklyn.”

“Yes I did,” Conner said. “I understand your boys had a job bringing them in.”

“Certainly did, we lost an armored car and a couple of acres of scenery before they ran out of ammo. We finally came up behind them with a landing barge and bulldozed them inside. The boys at Ordnance opened them up a few hours ago. The report covers what we found inside.”

“Huh, this ought to fill a few Sunday supplements,” Conner said.

“That’s what I called you about, Conner.” The major began to doodle nervously on his desk pad. “What’s chances of keeping this out of the papers?”

“Too late,” Conner said emphatically. “A couple of news camera men got there before the army did. The story is smeared over the front page of every daily in the country by now. What’s up?”

“According to the Medical Department they’re from outer space,” Andrews explained as he sketched leaping flames on his pad. “They also appear willing to communicate. In fact, Major Flacs, our head psychiatrist, and his staff, have been interrogating them for an hour. We found out that there were four other groups, besides their own, that landed.”

“Holy smoke!” Conner exclaimed. “Have you heard anything about the others?”

“Yes, I’ve just received a message from Schofield Barracks in Hawaii. We picked up another group of three in Wiamea, Kauai.”

“Have any trouble?”

“No, not much. Luckily there was a sheriff and a couple of deputies to hold the crowd back. The things seemed amiable enough, just wanted information. Seems they wanted to know how to get to Owl’s Head Park in Brooklyn.”

“Of all places,” Conner observed with a slight chuckle.

“They’re being flown here now,” Andrews said as he continued his doodling.

“Well, you don’t sound exactly hysterical about it.”

“I’m not. These creatures seem to have an extremely advanced scientific background. Judging from the effects of their sidearms at Gravesend, I can only guess at what their heavier weapons might be capable of. It’s obvious that a government could make excellent use of any information they might care to offer.”

“So?”

“So,” Andrews drew a mushrooming atom-bomb plume, “we have two of those teams. Three others have landed elsewhere on this planet… I was just wondering where, that’s all.”

As Conner had said, the newspapers had the story and they had no in-tendon of letting it go. Glaring headlines from coast to coast shouted the news that “mysterious saucer monsters” had been captured after a “titanic struggle” with the army in Brooklyn, and were being held for questioning by the state department. All that the army and the state department could do after the news had leaked out was to sit tight and await developments. The first signs of the approaching diplomatic storm came the next morning when a crowd of couriers arrived at the state department, with sealed messages, from practically every embassy in Washington. The sum and substance of a typical message was an offer of scientific assistance, from the embassy’s mother country, in the interrogation of the aliens. There was also a thinly veiled demand—if the assistance was not desired—for a representative to be present at every questioning session.

News photographers waited impatiently outside the Russian Embassy in order to photograph the courier they expected to leave with a message for the state department. No one was more surprised than the state department when no message was forthcoming. When there was still no message the second day, the conclusion reached by the state department was an obvious one.

“They must have one or more of the teams,” Halwit, the secretary of state, said as he stared vacantly out of his office window.

Stevans, his assistant, nodded. “That is probably why they are keeping out of the public eye right now. I imagine that they will be around later in an attempt to bargain—

trade information for information.

“I think you’re right.” Halwit frowned as he lit a cigarette. “From what we’ve been able to learn about the six we have, I’d say that they are the most important members of the crew. A point in our favor when it comes to trading information.”

“Why should we trade?” Stevans asked archly.

“Have to,” Halwit blew a smoke ring towards the ceiling, “no telling what they can find out. I think we’ll have to arrange a meeting wherein we can question all members of the crew that were found, including the Russian ones, under U.N. supervision.”

“Supposing they won’t agree to it?” Stevans asked.

“Then we’d better start worrying,” Halwit said as he carefully released another smoke ring.

Cakna, Druit, and Drul were near the point of exhaustion. They had been questioned, probed, and examined for forty-eight hours with barely a let-up. If nothing else, the relentless questioning had resulted in a limited vocabulary which at least allowed for some degree of sensible communication, via the blackboard in the examination room. The language was a group of pictographs based on elementary physical laws. It gave both the Soviets and the aliens a dictionary of several dozen picture words consisting of such terms as: up, down; near, far; light, heavy, et cetera.

“What sort of unfeeling savages are these?” Cakna asked angrily, during a lull in the questioning. “We’ve already told them how we happened to be here, and how important it is for us to get to rendezvous as soon as possible, and what do they do? They question us for time-unit upon time-unit until I feel as if I’ve just been pulled out of a combustion chamber. Besides that, they haven’t even offered us any food. What do they think we eat? Questions?”

“Cakna is right,” Druit admitted grudgingly. “These creatures are, beyond a doubt, savages. But this advanced culture they evidently possess—it just doesn’t jive with their barbarian personalities. I simply don’t understand it.”

“There is something gravely wrong on this planet,” Drul said. “I have never, in all my experience, come up against anything quite so freakish in a socio-cultural pattern as this one. Perhaps Babla could explain it; I can’t. A seventh level culture coupled with a second-level, savage, personality make-up—frankly, it frightens me.

“Well,” said Cakna, changing the subject, “it’s all well and good theorizing about alien races, but I’m slowly starving to death. Let’s try to get some food out of these things before I start chewing on them!!”

After attracting the Russians’ attention by waving his tentacles, Cakna tried pointing at the toothed orifice in the middle of his round body to indicate that he wanted food. When it was evident that the Soviets didn’t understand what he meant, he tried using the pictograph vocabulary to convey his meaning. The closest he could get to “eat” with the limited number of words at his disposal was to draw the symbols for “I live,” and “I absorb.” The Russians seemed to understand what he wanted then, and in a little while a wide variety of food and drink was set before the three.

“Are you sure they understood you?” Druit asked Cakna in an incredulous tone as he gazed at the fantastic spread of smoked fishes, caviars, vodka, and sweetmeats. “You don’t suppose they actually eat this garbage, do you?”

“Oh, it’s not as bad as all that,” Drul said as he nibbled testily at a candied pear. “They’re basically hydrocarbon life, as we are. This stuff may not be appetizing, but I think it’s digestible. I suggest we eat what we can, who knows when we’ll be fed again.”

The three aliens picked cautiously at each dish, trying to keep from gagging as they swallowed some particularly obnoxious tidbit. After a few minutes Druit took a sip of the vodka.

“WOW!” he shouted, as he quivered a tentacle. “Mail from home! I guess booze is booze anywhere!”

As he joyfully raised the bottle to his mouth again, Drul stopped him with a quick tentacle.

“Take it easy, Druit; we’ve got to keep our wits about us, save that stuff for later.”

Even as he spoke, the Russians wheeled in a huge, new blackboard, and one of them began to sketch furiously. He drew a large circle which he labeled with the pictograph for “Earth.” Then he sketched a finned cigar, which he evidently meant to portray a spaceship, about two feet from the Earth circle. He labeled the spaceship with the symbol that represented the three aliens. He drew a dotted line from the spaceship to Earth, and then redrew the spaceship, complete with the alien symbol, sitting atop the Earth circle. He chalked an arrow from the aliens’ spaceship to a vacant space on the circle, about six inches to the right. At the point of the arrow he quickly drew another finned cigar, and labeled that one with the symbol for Earthmen. Then he drew a dotted line, which he started at the new “Earthmen” spaceship, and ran it till it went clear off the blackboard. With a great gesture he then lettered the pictographs that meant: “Earthmen, down”; “Aliens, up”; “Earthmen, up.” The last two symbols he circled for emphasis. At that point he stood aside and looked questioningly at the aliens.

“I think he wants to know how to build a spacedrive,” Druit said as he turned to his two companions. “Think we ought to tell him what we know?”

“I imagine you’re right about the spacedrive part,” Drul put his candied pear down as he spoke, “but I also think we should keep our big mouths shut till we can get together with the others—or at least until we can find out if the others are still alive.”

He approached the blackboard, which one of the Russians quickly erased, and picked up a piece of chalk. First he drew the symbol that represented his group near one corner of the board; then he scattered four other similar symbols over the face of the blackboard. From each isolated symbol he drew an arrow to the center of the board. At the junction of all five arrows he put down the symbol that stood for the rendezvous point on the aliens’ map. He then sketched the spaceship around the rendezvous symbol.

“There,” he sighed with relief as he put down the chalk and returned to his companions, “I hope they understand from that that we have to join the rest of our crew at rendezvous point before we can give them the information they want for a spacedrive.”

Actually the Russians had inferred from Drul’s message that the aliens’ spaceship had actually landed at rendezvous point. At any event the aliens got the desired result. The Russians became very grave as they reached the conclusion that the Americans had the master share of the loot, as they had feared. One of them flipped a switch on an intercom and growled into the instrument.

“Instruct Ambassador Vladimir to start negotiations at once. Also alert the Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Bomber Wings as per plan G—in case the negotiations fail. We must get to those other aliens before it’s too late!”

The President sat back comfortably in his tall leather chair. He smiled, his first smile in several days, as he examined the paper in his hand.

“We’ve won!” he chuckled triumphantly. “We bluffed them, Halwit. We bluffed them out!”

The secretary of state’s mouth curled a little at the corners in a tired imitation of the President’s grin.

“I truly hope so. They’re so sly I sometimes wonder who wins when we cross diplomatic foils with them.”

“Don’t be so pessimistic, Halwit. We’ve had a couple of dark days lately, and now the sun is finally coming up. They’re willing to negotiate about getting these alien groups together. That can only mean that they couldn’t get the information they wanted from the aliens they had. Once we get all the groups together we’ll see to it that they don’t get that information.”

“Are you sure we can do it,” Halwit asked a bit cynically, “and still get the information we want?”

“Oh, I admit it will be tricky,” the President understated with a laugh, “but it’s worth a try. At least if we both get the same information, it will be a race to see who produces what first.”

“And then?”

The President shrugged. “I’m very much afraid that my sense of prophecy doesn’t stretch quite that far.”

He put the paper down, studied it again for a moment, and then he asked Halwit:

“When is the first meeting set for?”

“They called me just before I came here.” Halwit looked at his watch as he spoke. “Their aliens are being flown here now. We’re to get together with them tonight at the U.N. Center as soon as they arrive. Our aliens are at the U.N. now. They have been questioned steadily by our scientists. As you know, they show a marked reluctance to release any real information until they’re all together. Of course, the Russians don’t know that, which is a definite point in our favor. The situation is critical all right, but I think we can handle it. At least if we can’t, we’ll find out soon enough.”

The heavy Russian bomber dove with a roar at La Guardia field. The pilot gunned his engines and made an initial pass at the main runway, barely thirty feet off the ground, in a grand attempt to show off his prowess as a pilot. He lifted it into an almost vertical climb at the end of the buzzing run, twisted into a tight left bank, and fish tailed down onto the runway against the wind.

The airport officials sighed in audible relief when he finally came to a halt at the far end of the runway and cut his engines. Even as the bomber’s belly hatch swung open, a bulky army van quickly backed up to the plane with its rear doors open. Under cover of the dark night, and a cordon of M.P.’s, the aliens were swung out of the plane and into the truck in specially-built slings.

“Take it easy, knucklehead!” Cakna winced as he was bumped against the truck by an overanxious soldier.

“Relax, Cakna,” Druit stretched his tentacles in relief after his confinement in the plane, “they don’t understand a word you’re saying.”

“It seems to me they don’t understand much of anything!” Cakna observed sourly. “Did you see the way that dim wit flew us in here? I could fly an engine crate better than that!” “I’d venture to say that machine worship plays a large part in their religious make-up,” Drul said. “They obviously believe that the machine will protect them no matter what they do. As a result, they show a marked disregard for their own safety whenever they operate a machine.”

“It’s beyond me how these characters ever developed any kind of culture!” Cakna said as he rubbed at his bruise. “I’m no psychologist, but for my money they’re all screwballs!”

The doors of the van were slammed shut and the truck started off with a squeal of tires. So quickly had the whole operation been performed that no one outside of those present were even aware that anything of importance had occurred. Less than ten minutes after the bomber had landed, the van was bouncing off over the field—giving the three aliens a few more reasons to find fault with the crudities of the civilization—behind its motorcycle escort.

The van threaded its way through the back streets of New York with its escort, in order to avoid the public gaze as much as possible. After an hour’s travel it drove up an underground ramp in the U.N. Center at 49th Street, and pulled up to an unloading dock deep in the heart of the structure. The van doors opened and a squad of heavily armed soldiers stalked out, with rifles at port arms, to form an armed corridor down which the three aliens were wheeled in custom-built carts to the elevators. They were whisked upwards for several seconds, and then they were rolled out into a vast chamber. There were seats, vacant at the moment, built against the walls in the manner of a hospital observation hall for students. In the center of the room, like six medicine balls, sat the two “American” teams.

“There’s the skipper!” Cakna shouted; his waving tentacles caused his military escort to point their rifles nervously at his middle.

The reunion of the nine aliens left the Earthmen openmouthed and staring. Their staccato chatter and entwining of tentacles suggested mutual suicide rather than greeting; but the soldiers had been warned to leave them alone as much as possible—unless they made an aggressive move towards one of the interviewing scientists.

“Jumping Jeleval! I never expected to see you boys again!” The captain whipped his tentacles around the heads of Drul and Druit in his joy.

The three newcomers leaped off their carts and ran about the room throwing their tentacles around the heads of the other six, shouting greetings at the same time. After the first wild jubilation of their reunion died down, Cakna asked: “What about the others, the other two teams. Any word?”

The group fell silent for a moment.

“Nothing.” The captain blinked his huge eyes in a sign of remorse. “I’m afraid they’re dead. It seems that you boys were the only other group found, aside from us. Of course there’s always a chance, but I wouldn’t bear any false hopes. This whole planet was alerted when we were found. I’m sure that some word of the others would have been sent here by now if they had been seen. So far there has been nothing.”

After another silent moment Drul changed the subject with:

“What do you think of our chances, sir? These things don’t strike me as being the most rational creatures I’ve ever seen.”

“I say they’re barbarians,” Cakna Stated flatly.

“Then where did they get a seventh-level culture from?” The captain sat as he spoke, and motioned the others to do the same.

“Perhaps they are degenerating mentally, due to some cosmic radiation,” Cakna said. “I noticed a strong sunspot activity on this planet’s mother star.”

“Perhaps,” the captain chuckled, “but I rather doubt it. No, this planet’s disease is more complicated than that. Babla and I have been going over the evidence we’ve been able to glean from these interviews, and I think we’ve hit upon a workable theory. Maybe you three can add to it.”

The nine aliens rolled themselves into a small circle and prepared to listen.

“The way Babla and I see it,” the captain resumed, “the creatures on this planet are scientifically and mentally advanced enough—their science and architecture speak for themselves. They do, however, show a marked retardation in their emotional make-up. They demonstrate the remarkable paradox of being gregarious by nature, and, at the same time, finding it emotionally impossible to live together. Why? The reason escaped us for a while until one of their interviewing scientists gave us a clue.

“He said that we were the first things, outside of meteorites, ever to come to them from outer space. Thal was the answer. Every other civilization we have ever come across, our own included, always had the same thing in common—no matter how they varied in other aspects. Periodically, from I heir earliest days, they had been contacted by some outside enemy. You are all acquainted with the common varieties of space plagues: the bacterial clouds and space lice that travel in swarms through the interplanetary voids. The planets’ civilizations were forced to unify against the common enemy that threatened them all. This planet, being so far removed from the regular routes of the space vermin, has never been faced with an outside enemy. As a consequence, they have never unified.

“Naturally, while their science progressed, their emotional sense of interreliance deteriorated, till today they have degenerated into quibbling, neurotic groups. Instead of trying to unite, and resolve their common problems, they compete with each other—in order to protect themselves, from themselves.”

“I think you’ve hit it, captain.” Drul twitched a tentacle in agreement. “I’d say your theory is sound, but what can we do about helping them? Even more important than that, what can we do about helping ourselves? I hardly feel that our position is exactly rosy.”

“I believe,” the captain looked about him significantly, “we can solve both of those problems at the same time.”

The U.N. Scientific Committee, which had been appointed to question the aliens, sat in closed conference. They had been bickering for hours as to the procedure to be followed during the questioning. Each scientist was eager to ask questions only about those fields in which he personally was interested. To boot, the Americans were trying desperately to steer the questions away from those dealing with the aliens’ spacedrive and weapons. The Russians, of course, were pressing just as desperately to have those questions asked first. The issue, which threatened to resolve itself in a fist fight, was finally settled by the Chilean scientists, with the suggestion that the first questions deal with the history of the aliens’ trip, with emphasis on their reasons for coming to Earth.

With the problem of the first questions settled, the scientists filed into the examination room. The interview started immediately. As every question and answer had to be transposed through several stages of blackboard symbols and sign language, the progress of the exam was agonizingly slow.

Several hours after the start of the interrogation a white-faced professor dashed out of the hall with a sweat soiled notebook in his hand. He shoved the pad at the girl typist, who had been stationed at the door of the hall since the examination had begun.

“Have a copy of this sent to every member of the Security Council as quickly as possible!” he gasped. “It is of the utmost importance that we get action on this at once!”

The girl propped up the pad, quickly slipped a stencil sheet into her typewriter, typed the official heading and routine information at the top, glanced at the first page of the pad and began to pound furiously:

Gentlemen:

Following is a condensed and anglicized version of the interview of the nine extraterrestrial aliens held under United Nations supervision. It is the opinion of the interviewers that this information is of vital importance to the security of Earth. We therefore suggest an immediate meeting of the Security Council in order to determine a proper course of action.

Note:

All Alien answers were given by one individual who appeared to be the leader of the group.

Q. Where are you from?

A. The Great and All Powerful Empire of the Universe.

Q. I mean, where are you from specifically, what planet or star?

A. We are from everywhere. We fill the Universe.

Q. Where did you take off from?

A. I cannot give you that information.

Q. Why can’t you? We have no way of reaching your world.

A. I cannot be sure of that until you have been thoroughly investigated.

Q. By you?

A. No.

Q. By others of your kind?

A. Yes.

Q. When will they arrive?

A. Soon.

Q. Why did you come?

A. To discover if you are ready for the Test.

Q. What sort of test?

A. To see if you are fit to join the Empire.

Q. What does this test consist of?

A. You will be exposed to a weapon of a basic nuclear fission design. If you can nullify the effects of this weapon, then you will have proved that your science is advanced enough to enter into the Universal Alliance, which is the Empire.

Q. What if we cannot nullify the effects of this weapon?

A. Then you will be destroyed by it.

Q. Can we refuse to take the test?

A. Yes, in that case you shall be isolated from the rest of the Universe as a subnormal planet.

Q. Just what will this isolation mean to us?

A. We will supervise your science and culture until you will be able to pass the Test.

Q. Does that mean that you will give us the benefits of your advanced science?

A. Yes.

Q. Will we be required to pay for this service?

A. Yes, we have a vast empire and, as a consequence, vast expenses. Each student planet is expected to pay its own way.

Q. What are we to use as payment? We have no common medium of exchange.

A. On the contrary, you can reimburse us with an abundance of a very valuable commodity.

Q. What is that?

A. Expendable labor units. You will provide us with several million slaves.

Nobody knew how the story had leaked out. Perhaps one of the U.N. scientists had talked indiscreetly; or it could have been that the columnist who had released it had contacts in higher places than people had imagined. Whatever the reason, the story was spread over the face of every newspaper in the world within three days: ALIENS DEMAND SLAVES. They screamed to a frightened world population: SLAVES OR DIE, ALIENS SAY.

Since newspapers invariably distorl the facts for a cryptic headline, a world-wide panic almost ensued. Several bloody riots burst forth, particularly in those countries where slavery, or near slavery, was common. The people there knew what to fear. It was bad enough on Earth, but to be surrendered to the whims of alien slave masters was too much to bear. The situation was rapidly becoming dangerous.

Politburo Chairman Torsky stood stiffly on the balcony. His hands patted each other impatiently behind his back as he looked down at the mob milling in the street below. Several people lay unconscious or dead among the rioters, victims of frantic police action. Torsky finally snorted angrily, turned and stamped into the room.

“Stupid sheep!” he bellowed at the uneasy government officials gathered there. “They will turn Moscow into a shambles!”

“They are frightened, sir,” an aide said timidly.

“Frightened of what!” Torsky roared at the unfortunate man. “Of nine animated circus balloons? Do they think we’d trade them off as slaves? We have enough labor battalions in Siberia to supply the aliens for a century!”

“Yes, your excellency,” the Propaganda Minister smiled apologetically, “but we’ve been keeping those labor battalions a secret from the public. As the leader himself pointed out, it would not be wise for the people to know just how many of them do… uh… become wards of the Slate. As far as those comrades outside are concerned, I’m afraid that they show a startling lack of confidence in the ability of their government to protect them. They feel that they will be the first to be sent to the aliens.”

“Perhaps,” Torsky sneered, “your propaganda is not as effective as your reports would have us believe.”

The Propaganda Minister coughed nervously and hurriedly returned to an examination of his portfolio.

“Has that scientist Chilko come yet?” Torsky bellowed at his secretary as he paced the room.

“Yes, your excellency, he arrived a moment ago. Shall I have him sent in?”

“Yes, yes, send him in at once!” Torsky sat down heavily behind his huge desk.

The scientist Chilko was a thin, bespectacled man. His slouch and red-rimmed eyes bespoke the killing hours of labor he had just finished. He bowed slightly to the group in the room.

“Well, what have you found out?” Torsky thumped his desk impatiently. “Can we do it?”

Chilko removed his glasses slowly and stood there for a moment as if afraid to speak; finally he straightened a bit and said, “I am truly sorry, your excellency, but we cannot do it. So far we have found no way at all to nullify the effects of atomic fission.”

“What!” Torsky roared. “What are we paying you for? What did you get all those medals for? You’re a traitor to your country!”

An uneasy silence filled the room while Torsky fumed. Chilko grew red as the chairman called him every degrading name in his repertoire. Finally he quieted down, stared at Chilko for a while, and asked, in an oddly restrained voice:

“Is there no chance Chilko? Haven’t you come across anything?”

“As a matter of fact, your excellency,” Chilko answered, “we do have a theory of reducing nuclear fission temperature, but I’m afraid that we are not far enough along in our research to effectively corroborate it. If, however, we can enlist the aid of another scientist, perhaps—”

“Who is the man you want?” Torsky sat up quickly. “You shall have him immediately.”

“He is an American, named Hartnell, your excellency. Perhaps you have heard of him, he is a very famous nuclear physicist. I am certain that with him we might be able to—”

“Are you out of your mind, Chilko?” Torsky twisted irritably in his chair. “That is out of the question.”

“Then I’m afraid that there is truly no hope at all, your excellency.” As Chilko turned to leave, Torsky waved a restraining hand at him.

“Wait a moment, Chilko, where in America can we get in touch with this scientist?” Torsky pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed as the tension of the past few days began to tell on him. “Perhaps our ambassador in Washington will be able to do something for you, through the United States Government.”

The secretary of state handed the message to Balfort, the head of the secret service, and waited for the reaction.

“Well, I’ll be damned!” he muttered through a broad smile. “The Reds are offering their co-operation on this bomb nullifier project. I never thought they’d ever co-operate in anything.”

“Think we can risk it?” Halwit asked anxiously.

Balfort looked through the thick smoke of his cigar and shook his head as he spoke.

“I don’t know now, there’s no doubt they’re a slippery bunch. Did you ask Hartnell about our side of it?”

“I called him an hour ago,” Halwit said. “He told me we’re still stymied on the nullifier project. He also said that he would be very happy to confer with Chilko. Claims he met Chilko back in the ’20s and rated him a top man in the field. He’s all for the idea.”

“Those intellects never are much on politics,” Balfort grunted as he rubbed his chin in thought. “Personally, I say no deal. We have too much to lose. We’re way ahead of them in atomics, and I’ll just bet that those Reds would love to get a peek at the insides of our labs.”

“Beware the Greeks bearing gif is,” Halwit quoted.

“Exactly,” Balfort agreed. “I say, wait it out. If our lab boys can’t lick it, no one can.”

As the days passed, the situation worsened. Communiques from the aliens revealed that their group of testers would arrive any day. The moment of decision was coming closer. The world had to choose between annihilation or slavery. The temper of the public was ugly. It had slowly switched from fear to anger. The populaces of the world were demanding co-operation on the part of their governments in order to reach some sort of common decision. The U.N., as usual, was deadlocked, since its two most important members refused to agree on a policy. The Russians screamed that the United States was ready to sacrifice the world because they refused to co-operate on the nullifier. The United States claimed that the Russians were only after more atomic information to further their own cause. It was Hartnell, the physicist, who finally broke the deadlock. He went to see the President.

The President was not happy. He frowned at his clasped hands and silently cursed the day he was nominated at the National Convention. Professor Hartnell sat facing the President’s desk.

“That is the story in brief, sir,” he said. “There is no sense in deluding ourselves about the future. We have reached an impasse. We’ve spent so much time increasing the destructivness of the bombs, we find it difficult to think in terms of nullifying them.”

“Be that as it may,” the President said, “but I still cannot see why you insist on Chilko. You must realize that reversing our policy like that will prove very embarrassing.”

Hartnell shrugged. “If we are to get anywhere at all on this thing, we need some fresh thinking. We must have every qualified nuclear fission man in the world on this project, and, government policy not withstanding, that means Chilko.” The professor examined his nails as he paused. “Of course, if the President prefers to prepare slave lists instead—”

The President winced involuntarily. “All right, professor, you win—but I wonder how kindly the history books will treat me for this one.”

The Hartnell-Chilko theory of antifission fields was born three weeks later. Scientists of a dozen different nationalities worked on it desperately, day and night, until the problem was finally cracked. But the aliens threw a monkey wrench into the works at the last moment.

Hartnell slammed his desk phone down viciously and leaped to his feet.

“This is impossible!” he fumed at Chilko. “We could never build the nullifier in that short a time.”

“But the aliens claim that their, testing group will arrive next week,” the Russian said. “What can we do? All we have is an untested theory. We need time to build the machine.”

Hartnell slapped the desk hard and shouted, “We will get the time. We shall go to see the aliens this very minute. Surely if we show them that we already have the theory, which I’m sure is correct, and that we need only the time to apply its principles mechanically, they will grant us the stay. At any rate, it is certainly worth a try!”

He snatched up his phone and quickly dialed the U.N. laboratory where the aliens were being kept.

“Hello, this is Hartnell speaking. I want to arrange an immediate interview with the aliens… That is right, slates and all… We will be there in half an hour.”

When Hartnell and Chilko arrived at the interrogation hall with their portfolios, everything was ready for the interview. By this time the problem of communication with the aliens had been much simplified. A very efficient pictograph system had been worked out that allowed the interview to progress almost as quickly as if both groups could actually speak to each other. The alien captain and his crew sat on one side of a conference table on low stools. The two Earth scientists sat opposite them. Hartnell and the captain both used large slates upon which they wrote their pictographs. Hartnell wrote first.

“We wish to delay the test.”

“I do not know if we can do that,” the captain wrote. “We work on a close schedule, there are several other planets waiting for our examiners.”

“We have good reason for our request,” Hartnell’s chalk flew over his slate. “We already have the theory of nuclear fission nullification. We need only the time to build and test the machinery necessary to do the work.”

“Can you prove what you say?” the captain asked.

In answer Hartnell handed him a sheaf of his notes, hastily written in pictographs. The captain examined them for a moment, and then handed them to the other aliens. They chattered together for a while, and then the captain wrote:

“Your theory is correct, I believe that we can grant you a stay on the strength of it.”

Hartnell and Chilko sat back and broke into wide grins.

“However, there are a few complications,” the captain continued.

The scientists sat forward again.

“In order to delay the Test we must contact our central office. As you know, our spaceship has been unfortunately destroyed. We have no way of communicating with the proper authorities.”

“Can’t we help you?” Hartnell asked. “I am sure that we could build a transmitter for you, if you would but give us enough information to do so.”

The captain did not answer immediately; instead he conferred with his crew again for several minutes. Finally he wrote:

“We have decided that, since your case is unique in the point that we accidentally lost our means of communications—for which you cannot be blamed—we would not be committing a breach of regulations in giving you enough information to build the necessary transmitter.”

Within five days, ten of the best electronics men available had assembled the aliens’ transmitter from schematics drawn for them by the captain. It was not a particularly large affair, being small enough to fit inside an army radar van. It did require, however, almost the entire output of the U.N.’s power plant to run it.

Newspapers and radios blared forth the joyous news of the reprieve. There were celebrations throughout the world, the like of which had not been seen since VJ day. Whistles blew and people danced in the streets. When the day arrived for the aliens to send their message, a million people jammed the mall in front of the U.N. building. The transmitter’s radar van had been parked in front of a reviewing stand that held dozens of internationally famous men. The aliens themselves were grouped around the transmitter’s control rack that was mounted at the rear of the truck. They were being photographed by forests of cameras and televised to millions of people as they prepared to contact their world. Amika, the radio operator, checked the transmitter thoroughly.

“Not a bad job,” he reported to the captain. “It should work fine. What do you want me to send, sir?”

The captain handed him a slip of paper. Amika read it and reached for the transmitter key.

As Amika tapped out the interstellar code, the first officer turned to the captain and asked: “Do you think they’ll come for us, sir?”

“I’m certain of it,” the captain reassured him. “Once they pick up that code the Guard ships will be here as fast as their overdrives will allow.”

The first officer looked out at the whirring cameras and the pushing crowds.

“Will we ever return, sir?”

The captain turned his head Lo the crowd. “Oh, I don’t know. I gave them a two-year reprieve. It might be fun, at that, to come back and see how our little experiment in world nationalization worked out. At any rate, I’m certain that our Trade Commission will be interested in that nullifier thing of theirs. It looks as if it might work at that.”

Twenty light-years across the galaxy an alien substation operator stretched his tentacles in weariness as he sat before his quiet equipment. Suddenly a red light flashed as a multiple light speed beam flashed an S.O.S. into the receiver. A recorder started immediately and an audio converter changed the signals into words.

“Disabled ship. Disabled ship,” the speaker blared. The operator swiveled in his chair and listened intently. “This is Flight 425 out of Central calling. I repeat, Flight 425 out of Central. Requesting immediate assistance. Disabled in a fuel explosion at 0745 T.U. on the 13th day of Jeleval. Drifted off course into the general area of Sector III. Suffered seventy per cent casualties in the explosion and bailed out. Have been stranded among an aberrated civilization for several time-periods. Were forced to fabricate a story about a Galactic Empire and an Atomic Test in order to trick them into building a transmitter for us. This is the first opportunity we have had to communicate. Will leave transmitter keyed in to act as homing beam for you. Please send aid immediately. The chow here is awful.

Captain Jula of Nark,

Commanding.”

The operator removed the recording cube from its machine and placed it in the relay slot that fed to Galactic Guard headquarters. As he pushed the button that activated the relay transmitter he smiled an alien smile.

“Those Guard boys,” he muttered to himself, “trust them to get their hides out of a pickle.”

Content

Final Exam
by Arthur Zirul