Space Visitor Read online

  Li Ching asked, “What’s the serious side of the news?” Obviously every religion in the world is in a crisis. Practically all of them base their teachings on the fact that a god, or gods, created all life.”

  “Well, part of the news is that the newsmen are out in the reception room and crowded halfway down the halls. There seem to be hundreds of them.” Foucault looked at Brecht. “You’d better start thinking your story through. I told them we’d let them in after breakfast. By the way, three or four of the magazines and news chains want to get in to see you first. They’re offering big money for an exclusive.”

  “To hell with that,” Brecht growled. “The moment I begin to make money out of this, the whole position I’ve assumed erodes.” He looked at Brett-James. “What else is on the news, Your Majesty?”

  Maje

  “Well, the Chinese are in favor of using a bit of torture on you, old chap. They call it, ever so gently, putting you to the question. The Soviets seem to think it’s a good idea. The American Civil Liberties Union is already up in arms in your defense. So is the Peruvian Embassy which, by the way, has demanded that you be released to their custody. The World Government League recommends that the whole world unite to meet the common problems.”

  “I’ll stay where I am,” Brecht said bitterly. “You don’t know the kind of politicians we have in my country. They’d probably sell me to the Chinese. What’s the World Government League?”

  “Just what it sounds like,” Zimmerman said. “They make some sense. There’s not a hell of a lot of them but they’re organized in just about every country.”

  In view of what had been said about torture, Li Ching was quick to add, “They are even in China, though underground. They are organized particularly among the intellectuals and professionals.”

  Mary Lou and Azikiwe were now present.

  “The various UFO organizations are having a field day, don’t you know?” Brett-James went on. “They’re vindicated, by George! They say that not only was the Earth visited millions of years ago but it is continually being scouted by alien life forms. And, they ask most ominously, for what sinister purposes?”

  “Jesus,” Zimmerman said. “Let’s have breakfast. There’ll be hell to pay soon enough when we let those media boys in.”

  “Just one other item,” Brett-James hastened to add. “The Racial Purists demand to know whether or not you peeked inside, and, if so, was there any indication of the color or other racial characteristics of the occupants.”

  Brecht shook his head in amazement. “I don’t know if there ever were any occupants. For all I know, the thing was robot controlled.” He led the way to the dining room, as the bell tinkled.

  Foucault went to answer it.

  He returned with two strangers. He said to Brett-James, “They’re here for you, Commander. From the Common Europe Embassy.”

  “Yes, of course,” Brett-James affirmed, eyeing the breakfast paraphernalia regretfully.

  The French-Moroccan turned back to the newcomers. “Your identification, please.” They handed it over and he went to the phone screen and dialed the Embassy of Common Europe. “Please give me your security officer.” He waited for a moment. “I have two men here at the Reunited Nations Building who have come for Commander Kingsley Brett-James. Will you please describe them for me in detail?” He listened and finally nodded. “Very well, thank you very much.”

  Kingsley Brett-James nodded too. “Perhaps I can get breakfast over there.”

  They were hardly out of the room when the phone screen hummed. Foucault raced for it. “Supposedly our calls are being screened. Nothing but really top priority.”

  He listened for a moment, then turned to Li Ching, frowning. “It’s the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China. They want you to report immediately, Doctor Li. I’ll get guards for you.”

  “Certainly,” she agreed, her voice low.

  They left the room; only Foucault returned. “Well, how about breakfast? You’ll probably all need it—especially you, Doctor Brecht. It’s going to be quite a day. They’re setting you up for television, among other things.”

  “Oh, great,” Brecht muttered.

  But the phone hummed again. Foucault answered it impatiently. His face registered concern as he turned to Mary Lou. “It’s a message for you, Ms. Pickett, relayed from Hopewell, South Carolina. Your mother is very ill and calling for you.”

  Mary Lou darted for her bedroom, to return in moments with her bag.

  Foucault was back on the phone. “Two guards immediately to escort Ms. Pickett to Hopewell, South Carolina. Use one of the Reunited Nations aircraft.”

  Azikiwe called, “Sorry, Mary Lou,” but the American was gone.

  The man behind the desk was not young. He said wearily “Commander Brett-James?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Please be seated. It is a pleasure to meet you. I have seen snapshots of you as a baby, more times than I appreciated at that point.”

  “Sir?”

  “I was your father’s wing man, during what history now calls the Battle of Britain.” His shoulders seemed to sag. “Looking back, we were little more than children ourselves. But we were in fighter craft, pursuit planes. Hurricanes.”

  “Yes, sir,” Brett-James said. “I knew that my father died in a Hurricane.”

  “Yes, he did. It was my fault.”

  Brett-James said nothing.

  “It is a story too long to tell at this time. The Buzz-Bombs were coming in, the V-ls. They were very fast. You had time for one pass at one plane, then they were gone. There were six Heinkels in the vicinity but your father went in. You see, the Buzz-Bomb was headed for Petersberg, where his family—including you—and mine lived. He depended on me to cover him, since I was his wing man. He finished off the robot-craft and then when he saw I was having trouble with the Jerries, he came back. He shouldn’t have. He had lost too much altitude. He was a sitting duck. He should have hit for home, hedge-hopping.”

  The man sighed. “He was my best friend, Kingsley.” He paused. “I am, by the way, Field Marshal Worthington. Retired, of course. Last night, in view of my former connections with your family, I was hurried from my home in Kent, put upon a supersonic plane, and sent here to plead with you.”

  “Plead, sir?”

  “You are an Englishman. Great Britian is now part of Common Europe, but you are still an Englishman. The nation that gets to that spacecraft first will dominate the world. I, for one, have no desire to be dominated by any of the other world powers. Commander Brett-James, we need your help.”

  “Sir, I don’t know where the extraterrestrial spaceship is.” He hesitated before adding, “Even if I did, I am not sure I would reveal it. I am rapidly coming to the same stand Doctor Brecht has taken.”

  The Field Marshal said urgently, “Commander, you now do not know where the spaceship is. But you are a close intimate of Brecht—every effort must be brought to bear———”

  Kingsley Brett-James was on his feet, shaking his head.

  After a second’s pause, the older man also stood. He turned and faced the door behind him, but Brett-James could understand every word. “Commander, there is someone else who has flown from England to plead for your assistance. He is, of course, traveling incognito. May I present you to your sovereign, King Charles.”

  A middle-aged man attired in a business suit entered.

  Commander Kingsley Brett-James snapped to attention.

  Li Ching’s two Reunited Nations guards parked themselves at the entrance to the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China, and she went in alone.

  She was obviously expected. Her escort was a nervous embassy official who conveyed her to an office occupied only by Foreign Minister Yuan Lung, who politely stood upon her entry. He dismissed her guide, then bowed slightly to his visitor.

  “Welcome, Comrade Li,” he said in Mardarin, not Esperanto.

  She nodded. “Comrade Foreign Minister.”

  “Please b
e seated before the phone screen. There is a message from Peking for you.”

  Frowning, she sat in front of the screen. It lit up, and the face was well known to her, although she had never met the man.

  “Comrade Li, the People’s Republic is in danger. Our space program is not as advanced as that of the imperialist powers nor of the Soviet Complex. However, we have sufficient equipment to send a space vessel to Luna, excavate the visitor from the stars, and return it here to China. All Party members in a position to aid in this task must be utilized. If we are not the first to recover this spaceship, the People’s Republic is doomed, Comrade Li. Foreign Minister Yuan Lung will give you the details of your task.”

  Li Ching said emptily, “Yes, Comrade Chairman.’.’

  The face faded.

  Yaun Lung had been standing during the time the Chairman of the Communist Party of the People’s Republic was talking. Now he reseated himself and regarded Li Ching thoughtfully. He said, “It is understood, Comrade Li, that before embarking to Luna, you were put under hypnosis to assure your complete affection for and cooperation with your colleagues from other countries.”

  “Yes, Comrade Yuan. All of us were. It is standard procedure in the Ozma Department.”

  “And you became the mistress of Doctor Zimmerman, who is presumably not sympathetic to the Party?”

  “Yes, Comrade.”

  “It will be necessary, perhaps, to switch your affiliation to Warner Brecht.”

  “But———”

  He said smoothly, “We have our own doctors here, Comrade Li. They will return you to a hypnotized state and remove the post-hypnotic suggestions implanted in your mind. You will then be free to exercise your party duties without this insidious pressure. You will receive instructions from two of our security comrades. Among other things, they will give you some small pills. When you are alone with Werner Brecht, you will see that he takes one. Perhaps in a drink, preferably alcoholic; within five minutes it will act. It is a truth serum, devised by our comrade scientists. He will answer anything you ask him.”

  Li Ching said miserably, “But Comrade Yung, he does not know how to describe the location of the rock ledge where the vessel is hidden. He could lead someone there, but he couldn’t describe the route.”

  “Yes he could,” the other insisted. “This serum works on the subconscious as well as the conscious. At least it will elicit enough details to get us near enough to find the spaceship. For instance, does it lie to the north of the Observatory, or the south, east or west? Implanted in his mind is the exact route he takes to get to it. Have him describe, word for word, every turn he takes, every hill, every gully he crosses. You will be given a small electronic bug. His complete description of his path to the rock ledge will be recorded. It will be enough.”

  He touched a button on his desk.

  “That will be all, Comrade Li. The People’s Republic is depending upon you. Our security comrades will answer any questions you may have.”

  “But this isn’t the way to the airport!”

  “No, Ms. Pickett,” the guard on her left replied. “We’re going to the Octagon. So far as we know, there is nothing wrong with your mother’s health.”

  “What?”

  The other guard now spoke. “We wished to remove you from the Reunited Nations Building without your companions suspecting your real destination. It must be obvious to all of you that Commander Brett-James and Doctor Li Ching were taken to their embassies to be pressured into revealing whatever they can about the location of the spaceship. We don’t want your companions, particularly Brecht, to know that your government is also soliciting help.”

  She said indignantly, “What a cruel manner in which to accomplish your mission. How do you think I felt when I got that message?”

  Both of them nodded wearily. “This world is getting cruder by the minute, Ms. Pickett,” one said. “How would you like the Soviet Complex or the People’s Republic to have first grabs on the technological information that might be in that thing?”

  She didn’t answer.

  They were waved through at the Octagon. The chauffeur of their limousine had opaqued the windows so that no one could see in. They sped down the guarded highway, into the guarded entry point, through the narrower, tunnel-like road in the interior, down the ramp to the autopark. A quartet of men, submachine gun armed, guarded the vicinity where the limousine came to a halt. Mary Lou emerged, followed by her two guards.

  “This way, Ms. Pickett.” One preceded her, his partner came behind, and the four armed men brought up the rear, looking this way and that way, as though momentarily expecting danger’ right there in the Octagon. It was the same silly ultra-security of the day before, she thought bitterly.

  They wound their way through the basements eventually ending up at the door to a small office, through which she was ushered—alone. The occupant was standing when she entered.

  She recognized him. In actuality, he was her ultimate boss.

  He strode forward and shook her hand warmly. “Ms. Pickett, I am General Hugh Hoffman, of the American Space Program.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Please excuse the cavalier method by which you were brought here, Ms. Pickett.” He spoke in English; his accent was the same as hers. He gestured her to a chair across from his desk, and returned to his own.

  He regarded her for a moment, then said, “An ancestor of mine, a Colonel Hoffman, fell under your great-grandfather at the famous charge at Gettysburg, during the War Between the States.”

  She didn’t know how to respond to that.

  He mused, “My family has observed the military traditions ever since. My grandfather fought in the F

  the First World War, my father died with Patton in the Second. I myself fought as a young man in the Asian War. It is a noble tradition.”

  “I never thought much of the military myself,” Mary Lou said tartly. “It turns people into professional killers. Something like robbers, only robbers don’t particularly want to kill you; they just want your valuables. The military exists to kill people.”

  He leaned back and looked at her. “That’s one way of seeing it,” he acknowledged. “But how would you like the Russkies or the Gooks to get to that spaceship first, Ms. Pickett?”

  She said, “I haven’t the vaguest idea of what they might find inside.”

  “We don’t either, but some of our double-domes have already come up with certain ideas. For instance, it would seem possible that a culture advanced enough to send a space probe to Earth might have a method of preventing nuclear explosions. With such information in our hands, a potential enemy would be at our mercy.”

  “What potential enemy?”

  He sighed. “Ms. Pickett, the world has been at peace for some time, but it is a shaky peace. Our war with the Soviet Complex or possibly China will yet be fought. We need every advantage we can collect.”

  “What do you expect of me?”

  “You sleep with Doctor Brecht, do you not?”

  “Werner Brecht is my lover.”

  “Excellent,” he told her. “You will remain tonight in an apartment here in the Octagon, to continue the pretense that you have flown to South

  Carolina to see your mother. Tomorrow you will return to the Reunited Nations Building with the news that she has recovered. Doctor Brecht, we understand, is not particularly nationalistically inclined. As a patriotic American, you will do everything you can to persuade him to lead an American expeditionary force to the alien spacecraft.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Lacking only Mary Lou, the team with Foucault in attendance were gathered around the large TV screen in the living room of the penthouse suite.

  Werner Brecht was shaking his head in disbelief.

  Senator Bull Armanroder was speaking. “If there is one intelligent species out there, there are most likely more. According to Shklovski and Sagan in their book Intelligent Life in the Universe, the number of civilizations substantially ahead of
our own in this galaxy is perhaps between fifty thousand and one million. The Rand Corporation, in a detailed analysis done by Stephen Dole, determined the mathematical probability of fourteen stars within twenty-two light years of our sun that could have intelligent life. The nearest is Alpha Centauri A and B which are but four-point-three light years from Earth.

  The Senator hesitated for a moment for emphasis. And then, “Friends, we must prepare to meet the challenge of these alien cultures. It has been postulated that aliens more advanced than we are would be less warlike, but that might be unrealistic. Fearing for their own security, they might blast us with super-weapons from these space probes which we already know they have. They might use biological fumigation, or they might even have the power to trigger an explosion in our sun, turning it into a nova which would bake the Earth.

  “Friends, United America must prepare. We must begin construction of a space fleet to patrol outer space and turn aside any potential enemies. We must find new weapons, greater weapons than the H-Bomb.

  “If and when we make contact with the aliens, we must work out some kind of weapons systems limitations with them. We might possibly work toward an agreed number of spacecraft permissible in certain volumes of space…”

  “Jesus Christ,” Max Zimmerman exclaimed in disgust.

  “… We could keep the communications channel open, an interstellar hot line to prevent a misunderstanding of events, such as an off-course spaceship.”

  Brecht reached out and dialed another station. “An interstellar hot line, yet. What a hot line! It would take four-point-three years minimum to get a message one way, another four-point-three years to get an answer. “What a mentality!”

  Zimmerman said slowly, “There are some other angles on that, Kraut. A lot of capable scientists have been speculating on this whole thing. A Professor Gerald Feinberg did a paper called ‘On the Possibility of Faster Than Light Particles’ in which he points out that the theory of relativity doesn’t say that nothing can travel faster than light; it says nothing can travel at the speed of light. Feinberg points out that the speed of light is a limiting velocity, but a limit has two sides. He imagines entities which can only travel faster than light. The problem would be, of course, to jump over the speed of light barrier to the other side.”