EVIL EARTHS, page 15
very still now.
And then there was the sound of the door opening.
They both rose, like mournera at a funeral, and went
into the council chambers.
Again they sat in the thick chairs before the wall
of desks with the faces of the council looking across it
like defenders.
The pumps were beating, beating all through the room
and the quiet.
The President was standing. He faced Michael and
Mary, and seemed to set himlf as though to deliver a
blow, or to receive one.
"Michael and Mary," he said, his voice struggling
against a tightness, "we've considered a long time concerning
what is to be done with you and the report you
brought back to us from the galaxy." He took another
swallow of water. "To protect the sanity of the people,
we've changed your report. We've also decided that the
96
people must be protected from the possibility of your
spreading the truth, as you did at the landing field. So,
for the good of the people, you'll be isolated. All corn~
forts will be given you. After all, in a sense, you are
heroes and martyrs. Your scar tissue will be cultured as
it has been in the past, and you will stay in solitary confinement
until the time when, perhaps, we can migrate
to another planet. We feel that hope must not be destroyed.
And so another expedition is being sent out. It
may be that, in time, on another planet, you'll be able
ù to take your place in our society."
He paused. "Is there anything you wish to say?"
"Yes, there is."
"Proceed."
Michael stared straight at the President. After a long
moment, he raised his hand to the tiny locket at his
throht. '
"Perhaps, you remember," he said, "the lockets given
toevery member of the expedition the night before we
left. I still have mine." He raised it. "So does my wife.
They were designed to kill the wearer instantly and painlessly
if he were ever faced with a pain or a terror he
couldn't endure.
The President was standing again. A stir ran along
the barricade of desks.
"We can't endure the city," went on Michael, "or its
life and the ways of the people." He glanced along the
line of staring faces.
"If what I think you're about to say is true," said the
President in a shaking voice, "it would have been better
if you'd never been born."
"Let's face the facts, Mr. President. We were born
and haven't died--yet." A pause. "And we can kill ourselves
right here before your eyes. It'd be painless to us.
We'd be unconscious. But there would be horrible convulsions,
and grimaces. Our bodies would be twisted
and torn. They'd thresh about. The deaths you saw in
the picture happened a long time ago, in outer space.
You all went into hysterics at the sight of them. Our
deaths now would be close and terrible to see."
The President staggered as though about to faint.
There was a stirring and muttering and a jumping up
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along the desks. Voices cried out, in anger and fear.
Arms waved and fists pounded. Hands clasped and unclasped
and clawed at collars, and there was a per mell
rushing around the President. They yelled at each other
and clasped each .other by the shoulders, and then suddenly
became very still.
Now they began to step down from the raised line of
desks, the President leading them, and came close to
the man and woman, gathering around them in a wido
half circle.
Michael and Mary were holding the lockets close to
their throats. The half circle of people, with the President
at its centre, was moving closer and closer. They were
sweaty faces and red ones and dry white ones and hands
were raised to seize them.
Michael put his arm around Mary's wrist. He felt the
trembling in her body and the waiting for death.
"StopI" he said quietly.
They halted, in slight confusion, barely drawing back.
"If you want to see us die--just come a step closer ....
And remember what'll happen to you."
The faces began turning to each other and there was
an undertone of muttering and whispering. "A ghastly
thing Instant
Nothing to
do Space's broken
their
minds They'll
do it Eyes're
mad ....
What can
we do?... What?
. . ." The sweaty faces, the cold white ones, the flushed
hot ones: ail began to turn to the President, who was
staring at the two before him like a man watching himseff
die in a mirror.
"I command you," he
suddenly said, in a choked-voice, "to--to give me those---lockets!
It's your---duty!"
"We've only one duty,
Mr. President," said Michael sharply. 'Fo
ourselves."
"You're sick.
Give yourselves over to us. We'll help you."
"We've
made
our choice. We want an answer. Quickly! ow!"
The
President's body sagged. "W'hat--what is it you want?"
Michael
threw the words. "To go beyond the force fields
of the city. To go far out onto the Earth and live as
long as we can, and then to die a natural death."
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The half circle of faced turned to each other and
muttered and whispered again. "In the name of God ....
Let them go .... Contaminate us .... Like animals ....
Get them out of here .... Let them be finished ....
Best for us a/L... And them....'
There was a turning lo the President again and hands
thrusting him forward to within one step of Michael and
Mary, who were standing there close together, as though
attached.
Haltingly he said, "Go. Please go. Out onto the Earth
--to die. You will die. The Earth is dead out there. You'll
never see the city or your people again."
"We want. a ground car," said Michael. "And supplies."
"A ground car," repeated the President. "And supplies...'.
Yes."
"You can 'give us an escort, if you' want to, out beyond
the first range of mountains."
"There will be no escort," said the President firmly.
"No one has been allowed to go out upon the Earth or
to fly above it for many hundreds of years. We know it's
there. That's enough. We couldn't bear the sight of
it." He took a step back. "And we can't bear the sight of
you any longer. Go nmv. Quicklyl"
Michael and Mary did not let go of the lockets as they
watched the half circle of faces move backward, staring,
as though at corpses that should sink to the floor.
It was night. The city had been lost beyond the dead
mounds of Earth that rolled away behind them, like a
thousand ancient tombs. The ground car sat still on a
crumbling road.
Looking up through the ear's driving blister, they saw
the stars sunk into the blue black ocean of space; saw
the path of the Milky Way along which they had rushed,
while they had been searching frantical/y for the plae
of salvation.
"If any one of the other coup/es had made it back,"
said Mary, "do you think they'd be with us?"
"I think they'd either be with us," he said, "or out in
space again---or in prison."
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She stared ahead along the beam of headlight that
stabbed out into the night over the decaying road.
"How sorry are you," she said quietly, "coming with
me?"
"All I know is, if I were in space for long without
you, I'd kill myself."
"Are we going to die out here, Michael?" she said,
gesturing toward the wall of night that stood at the end
of the headlight, "with the land?"
He turned from her, frowning, and drove the ground
car forward, watching the headlights push back the
dark
They followed the crumbling highway all night until
light crept across the bald and cracked hills. The morning
sun looked down upon the desolation ten feet above
the horizon when the car stopped. They sat for a long
time then, looking out upon the Earth's parched and inflamed
skin. In the distance a wall of mountains rose
like a great pile of bleached bones. Close ahead the rolling
plains were motionless waves of dead Earth with a
slight breeze stirring up little swirls of duSt.
"I'm getting out," she said.
"I haven't the slightest idea how much farther to go,
or why," said Michael shrugging. "It's all the same. Dirt
and hills and mountains and sun and dust. It's really not
much different from being out in space. We live in the
car just like in a space ship. We've enough concentrated
supplies to last for a year. How far do we go? Why?
When?"
They stepped upon the Earth and felt the warmth of
the sun and strolled toward the top of the hill.
"The air smells clean," he said.
"The ground feels good. I think I'll take off my shoes."
She did. "Take off your boots, Michael. Try it."
Wearily he pulled off his boots, stood in his bare feet.
"It takes me back."
"Yes," she said and began walking toward the hilltop.
He followed, his boots slung around his neck. "There
was a road somewhere, with the dust between my toes.
Or was it a dream?"
100
"I guess when 'the past is old enough," she said, "it
becorhes a dream."
He watched her footprints in the dust. "God, listen tø
the quiet.'
"I can't seem to remember so much quiet around me.
There's always been the sound of a space ship, or the
pumps back in the cities."
He did not answer but continued to watch her footsteps
and to feel the dust squishing up between his toes.
Then suddenly:
"MaryI"
She stopped, whirling around.
He was staring down at her feet.
She followed his gaze.
"It's grass?' He bent down. "Three blades."
She knelt beside him. They touched the green blades.
"They're new," he said.
ù The stared, like religious devotees, concentrating upon
some sacred obiect.
He rose, pulling her up with him. They hurried to the
top of the hill and stood very still, looking down into a
valley. There were tiny patches of green and little
trees sprouting, and here and there, a pale flower. The
green was in a cluster, in the centre of the valley and
there was a tiny glint of sunlight in its centre.
"Oh!"
Her hand found his.
They ran down the gentle slope, feeling the patches of
green touch their feet, smelling a new freshness in the
air. And coming to the little spring, they stood beside it
and watched the crystal water that trickled along the valley
floor and lost itself around a bend. They saw a furry,
little animal scurry away and heard the twitter of a bird
and saw it resting on a slim, bending branch. They
heard the buzz of a bee, saw it light on a pale flower at
their feet and work at the sweetness inside.
Mary knelt down and drank from the spring.
"It's so cool. It must come from deep down."
"It does," he said. There were tears in his eyes and a
tightness in his throat. "From deep down."
"We can live here, Michaell"
Slowly he looked all around until his sight stopped at
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the bottom of a hill. "We'll build our house juse beyond
those rocks. We'll dig and plant and you'll have the
child!"
"Yes!" she said. "Oh yes?'
"And the ones back in the city will know the Earth
again. Sometime we'll lead them back here and show
them the Earth is coming alive." He paused. "By following
what we had to do for ourselves, we've found a way
to save them."
They remained kneeling in the silence beside the pool
for a long time. They felt the sun on their backs and
looked into the clean depth of the water deeply aware of
the new life breathing all around them and of themselves
absorbing it, and at the same time giving back to it the
life that was their own.
There was only this quiet and breathing and warmth toward
the base of the hill where he had dided to build
the house.
102
III
ù
Dark They Were and
Golem-Eyecl
William Tenn: DOWN AMONG
THE DEAD MEN
107
R. A. Lafferty: AMONG THE
HAIRY EARTHMEN
133
Fritz Leiber: LATER THAN YOU
THINK
145
This is the section where most of the aliens on Earth congregate.
Of course, there are aliens and aliens, and hero
are three special varieties.
We have already met one special variety of alien, tho
mutant. The mutant really functions much better in a story
than any monstrous being from Jupiter or other planets
because he is a part of us, as well as being apart. A
naughty alien from elsewhere in the galaxy, near or far, is
likely to work as an externalisation of evil. So that any humans
he finds himself up against function as Goodies.
Or it works the other way round. If the alien comes as a
'.Goodie, then the humans ranged against him are cast as
Baddies.
We understand well enough that human beings, either
separately or in the mass, are neither all good nor all bad,
and it is a misrepresentation of fundamental experience to
imply otherwise. (Of course, that does not matter, or can
even be turned to advantage, in certain types of story.)
TV's two most famous sf series, "Star Trek" and "Dr.
Who" have markedly different approaches to this question
of the externalisation of evil. In "Star Trek," Earthmen,
