If you do—you do. But there are others of our race here. That’s point two.”
“Now come the threats and demands,” said Coburn.
“Perhaps.” But Dillon seemed to hesitate. “Dammit, Coburn, you’re a reasonable man. Try to think like us a moment. What would you do if you’d started to explore space and came upon a civilized race, as we have?”
Coburn said formidably, “We’d study them and try to make friends.”
“In that order,” said Dillon instantly. “That’s what we’ve tried to do. We disguised ourselves as you because we wanted to learn how to make friends before we tried. But what did we find, Coburn? What’s your guess?”
“You name it!” said Coburn.
“You Earth people,” said Dillon, “are at a turning-point in your history. Either you solve your problems and keep on climbing, or you’ll blast your civilization down to somewhere near a caveman level and have to start all over again. You know what I mean. Our two more spectacular interferences dealt with it.”
“The Iron Curtain,” said Coburn. “Yes. But what’s that got to do with you? It’s none of your business. That’s ours.”
“But it is ours,” said Dillon urgently. “Don’t you see, Coburn? You’ve a civilization nearly as advanced as ours. If we can make friends, we can do each other an infinite lot of good. We can complement each other. We can have a most valuable trade, not only in goods, but in what you call human values and we call something else. We’d like to start that trade.
“But you’re desperately close to smashing things. So we’ve had to rush things. We did stop that Bulgarian raid. When you proved too sharp to be fooled, we grew hopeful. Here might be our entering wedge. We hammered at you. We managed to make your people suspicious that there might be something in what you said. We proved it. It was rugged for you, but we had to let you people force us into the open. If we’d marched out shyly with roses in our hair—what would you have thought?”
Coburn said doggedly: “I’m still waiting for the terms. What do you want?”
The General said something plaintive from his chair. It was to the effect that Coburn still believed that Earth was in danger of conquest from space.
“Look!” said Dillon irritably. “If you people had found the trick of space travel first, and you’d found us, would you have tried to conquer us? Considering that we’re civilized?”
Coburn said coldly, “No. Not my particular people. We know you can’t conquer a civilized race. You can exterminate them, or you can break them down to savagery, but you can’t conquer them. You can’t conquer us!”
Then Dillon said very painstakingly: “But we don’t want to conquer you. Even your friends inside the Iron Curtain know that the only way to conquer a country is to smash it down to savagery. They’ve done that over and over for conquest. But what the devil good would savages be to us? We want someone to trade with. We can’t trade with savages. We want someone to gain something from. What have savages to offer us? A planet? Good Heavens, man! We’ve already found sixty planets for colonies, much better for us than Earth. Your gravity here is… well, it’s sickeningly low.”
“What do you want then?”
“We want to be friends,” said Dillon. “We’ll gain by it exactly what you Earth people gained when you traded freely among yourselves, before blocked currencies and quotas and such nonsense strangled trade. We’ll gain what you gained when you’d stopped having every city a fort and every village guarded by the castle of its lord. Look, Coburn: we’ve got people inside the Iron Curtain. We’ll keep them there. You won’t be able to disband your armies, but we can promise you won’t have to use them—because we certainly won’t help you chaps fight among yourselves. We’ll give you one of our ships to study and work on. But we won’t give you our arms. You’ll have your moon in a year and your whole solar system in a decade. You’ll trade with us from the time you choose, and you’ll be roaming space when you can grasp the trick of it. Man, you can’t refuse. You’re too near to certain smashing of your civilization, and we can help you to avoid it. Think what we’re offering.”
Then Coburn said grimly: “And if we don’t like the bargain? What if we refuse?”
Dillon carefully put the ash from his cigarette into an ashtray. “If you won’t be our friends,” he said with some distaste, “we can’t gain anything useful from you. We don’t want you as slaves. You’d be no good to us. For that reason we can’t get anything we want from the Iron Curtain people. They’ve nothing to offer that we can use. So our ultimatum is—make friends or we go away and leave you alone. Take it or leave it!”
There was a dead, absolute silence. After a long time Coburn said: “Altruism?”
Dillon grinned. “Enlightened self-interest. Common sense!”
There was a clicking in the ceiling. A metallic voice said: “Mr. Coburn, the conversation just overheard and recorded has to be discussed in detail on high diplomatic levels. It will take time for conferences—decisions— arrangements. Assuming that your guests are acting in good faith, they have safe conduct from the villa. Their offer is very attractive, but it will have to be passed on at high policy-making levels.”
Dillon said pleasantly, to the ceiling: “Yes. And you’ve got to keep it from being public, of course, until your space ships can discover us somewhere. It will have to be handled diplomatically, so your people are back of a grand offer to make friends when it happens.” He added wryly, “We’re very much alike, really. Coburn’s very much like us. That’s why—if it’s all right with you—you can arrange for him to be our point of confidential contact. We’ll keep in touch with him.”
The ceiling did not reply. Dillon waited, then shrugged. The Greek general spoke. He said that since they had come so far out from Salonika, it was too early to leave again. It might be a good idea to have a party. Some music would be an excellent thing. He said he liked Earth music very much.
A long time later Janice and Coburn were alone in the one room of the house which was not wired for sound. There were no microphones here.
Coburn said reluctantly in the darkness: “It sounds sensible all right. Maybe it’s true. But it feels queer to think of it….”
Janice pressed closer to him and whispered in his ear: “I made friends with that girl who passed for Helena. I like her. She says we’ll be invited to make a trip to their planet. They can do something about the gravity. And she says she’s really going to be married to the… person who was with her….” She hesitated. “She showed me what they really look like when they’re not disguised as us.”
Coburn put his arm around her and smiled gently. “Well? Want to tell me?”
Janice caught her breath. “I—I could have cried…. The poor thing—to look like that. I’m glad I look like I do. For you, darling. For you.”
THE SOLAR MAGNET
by Capt. S. P. Meek
The milling crowd in front of the Capitol suddenly grew quiet. A tall portly figure came out onto the porch of the building and stepped before a microphone erected on the steps. A battery of press cameras clicked. A newsreel photographer ground away on his machine. Wild cheers rent the air. The President held up his hand for silence. As the cheering died away he spoke into the microphone.
“My countrymen,” he said, “the Congress of the United States has met in extraordinary session and is ready to cope with the condition with which we are confronted. While they deliberate as to the steps to be taken, it is essential that you meet this danger, if it be a danger, with the bravery and the calm front which has always characterized the people of the United States in times of trial and danger. You may rest assured—”
A slightly built, inconspicuous man who had followed the President out onto the porch was surveying the crowd intently. He turned and spoke in an undertone to a second man who mysteriously appeared from nowhere as the first man spoke. He listened for a moment, nodded, and edged closer to the President. The first man slipped unobtrusively down the Capitol steps and mingled with the crowd.
“—that no steps will be neglected which may prove of value,” went on the President. “The greatest scientists
