QUOTA FOR CONQUEST

Originally published Galaxy Science Fiction, May 1957.

The young man from Alfaduriesta was magnificent, as young men from Alfaduriesta go. He had a powerful chest which tapered to a narrow waist, muscular thighs and calves and somewhat oversized feet. His head, admittedly, was small for the body, but not grotesque, and he had the usual number of eyes—three.

That was the trouble, the eyes. Most of the people he would be among had only two eyes, and he had to mingle. His chest, though massive, was flexible and he could disguise it by breathing shallowly. But he couldn’t hide the third eye except under an awkward bandage. The Durien Fathers had goofed that one.

“Go among them and multiply,” the Durien Fathers had instructed him before they folded him into the fiery sphere and hurled him through space from the core gun. “Earthwomen are a fun-loving, nubile lot and their men are stupid. Make love to the women and avoid the men, and when you have ten thousand sons, we will attack.”

The young man from Alfaduriesta, whose name was Fadur, had asked if the scheme was biologically sound and they had shown him scrolls from the scrollery and flasks from the laboratory and spectrostrobioscopic slides from the observatory. These added nothing to his knowledge, but they were an impressive array which gave him more confidence.

“But will their women love me?” Fadur had asked. All the Durien Fathers had winked their upper eyes and the Father-in-Chief had led him to the paternal disguiser.

Soon after that, he was in the downtube, on his way to the spacehurl.

* * * *

Now, fully dressed and bandaged, Fadur sat on the sand at Miami Beach and considered his mission. All around him were the fun-loving, nubile women and the stupid, underdeveloped men. There were children, too, but not many.

There would have to be ten thousand male children of his own, he reflected. Simple arithmetic meant at least thirty thousand loves, to allow for the incidence of female offspring and for the percentage of alliances which would be unproductive for one reason or another.

Fadur felt a touch of panic and transferred his gaze to the sea. It looked flat and dull without the perspective of his bandaged third eye. It had been out there—two hundred miles out—that the fiery sphere had plopped him. The Durien Fathers had goofed that one, too. It had been a long swim.

A pleasant maiden strolled past, idly crunching the sand with her toes, and gave Fadur a look. It was the first look he’d had all day and he sprang to his feet and bowed. She stopped and giggled.

“Do me the honor to converse,” he said. He thought he put it rather well.

The girl giggled again. “Sure. Why not? Where are you from, India?”

“India, yes,” Fadur said. “Sit, please. Where are you from?”

“Dumont, New Jersey,” she said. “You’re a long way from home. Do you like it here?”

“Yes. And I like you. Shall we hold hands, as a prelude?” The Fathers had warned him the preliminaries must be subtle.

All at once, the girl was goggling frightenedly at him. “I’m fifteen years old and that’s my father over there. I don’t think I better sit. I think I better walk. Have a nice visit. So long.”

“So long,” said Fadur, confused by the evaporation of a promising friendship. Fifteen years was not the optimum age, apparently.

He got to his feet and moved away from both the girl and her father who, he noticed, was not underdeveloped in the slightest.

Somebody said “Ouch!” He saw that he had stepped on a portion of the anatomy of someone partially buried in the sand. Only the face was visible, and only a bit of that, hidden under a big straw hat, dark glasses and nose shield.

There was lipstick on the mouth, so it must be a woman.

She raised her head and said mildly, “Clumsy oaf.”

“Ten thousand pardons,” Fadur said, bowing.

“One is enough.” The red lips smiled. “Cover up the toesies again, will you?”

Fadur bent and patted sand over the feet, then sat.

“That’s better,” the woman said. “I burn easily is why I’m all mummified up. What happened to your forehead? Cut yourself diving?”

“Yes. I am clumsy, as you have learned.” He thought that was rather good.

“But you make amends nicely. You’re not an American, are you? Where are you from, Spain?”

“Yes. A long way from home. Where are you from?”

“Baltimore, Ohio, and my name is Mary Smith. It really is! What’s yours?”

“Fadur.” This is excellent progress, he thought. He wondered what kind of body she would bring out of the sand and what kind of preliminaries would be appropriate.

“That doesn’t sound like a Spanish name—Fadur,” she said. “Spaniards have names with lots of things like de las and ys in them.”

“Originally I am from distant India.”

“That explains it.” Her expression could not be seen under her paraphernalia. “We have an Indian colony in Baltimore and I can say without reservation that they’re very nice people.”

He felt that the conversation was getting away from him and wished he’d had time to take the course in Advanced English (Idiomatic, Regional References).

“Perhaps we could go to a place and drink whiskey,” he suggested, recalling that facet of his indoctrination.

“Not whiskey,” she said. “I’m a triple sec and quinine girl myself. What kind of place did you have in mind?”

She unburied her arms and began to push the sand away. Fadur helped, noticing as he did that the body seemed entirely acceptable.

* * * *

Fadur and Mary Smith sat in a booth in an overcool, overdim cocktail lounge. She had changed into a pale violet gown whose color made him think of Alfaduriesta’s pastureland, where grazed the war animals.

The animals were getting disgustingly fat in their idleness. It had been nearly three rotachrons since they’d been saddled and armored in earnest, and then for a short, unsatisfactory conquest. It had lasted barely long enough for Fadur to rise to lance-major.

But there had been compensation. Fadur’s post-battle prowess among the women of the sacked cities had been noted by his superiors. So when the choice of a young officer for Mission Earth came to be made, Fadur qualified hands down.

He was not sure he was capable of achieving the quota set for him, but in the tradition of his service, he was prepared to die, if necessary, trying.

So to work, he told himself, sipping the triple sec and quinine water. He found it not unlike the solution he had sometimes put in his eyes with the three-pronged eyedropper to refresh them during battle. Now this was his battle, he thought, looking at the woman from Baltimore, Ohio. She was more than fifteen, he judged by the maturely attractive face, and presumably fatherless.

Back of the third eye, two crenellations and a convolution away, Fadur’s alarmer sounded.

“Pardon me,” he said. The alarm was a faint clicking in his skull. He went to a telephone booth, closed the door, dialed Weather and listened instead to the clicking.

Reception was terrible. He got the impression of trouble—even danger—all right, but the Durien Fathers weren’t reaching him with details. He had only a vague sense that they were trying to tell him there was another agent on Earth. But why? To help him? To spy on him to be sure he did his job?

Or was it an enemy agent from Tryluria, Myachanacia or Dob? But surely those worlds would not interfere with Alfaduriesta’s plans for Earth conquest. They were so many light-eons away, they couldn’t care less. Besides, Alfaduriesta had whipped two of them decisively in wars and the third, Myachanacia, was so puny that Fadur had to laugh to think of it making trouble for his great world.

He was still laughing when he returned to Mary Smith. “It was my traveling companion from Spain. I had to see if he had need of anything before he leaves for Texas. He needs nothing. He is very happy, having found a beautiful woman.”

He held her gaze as he sat down, his face becoming serious.

“I am very happy, too,” he said softly.

She smiled encouragingly. “Are you here for business or pleasure, Mr. Fadur?”

“Business,” he said. “But perhaps pleasure will also enter into it.”

Fadur wasn’t sure how long it was before she suggested that they move on. He hadn’t yet adjusted to Earth time. He did know he’d given the waiter a number of the green paper rectangles the paternal disguiser had provided and received some metal disks in return. Mary Smith had helped him with the money, as it was called, and expressed surprise that he had so many with pictures of a bearded man named Grant.

The place they moved on to was Mary’s apartment.

* * * *

Matters were progressing very well, he thought. Mary sat on a couch and, by degrees, Fadur relaxed until his head was in her lap.

She was tracing the outlines of his face with pleasantly tickling fingertips when things began to go wrong.

“Must you wear that bandage?” she asked.

“Yes. It is an ugly cut.”

“Then let me change the dressing for you. I used to be a student nurse.”

“No!” He sat upright. She must be the spy the clickings had warned him about.

“Oh, come on. It won’t take a minute.”

“No!” He stood and backed away.

She got up and came toward him and he bolted out the door, his third eye throbbing under the bandage.

He came out blinking into the street, surprised to find it was still daylight. This heartened him and he took a relatively deep breath, being careful not to strain the alien clothing too far. He might still be able to make a start on his mission today.

He must, in fact, for his morale’s sake.

Fadur’s two-thirds vision didn’t see the convertible racing down the street. It flung him to the ground as brakes squealed.

Three young men piled out of the car and helped him to his feet, feeling for broken bones. There were none, but they said they’d take him to a hospital just in case. Within seconds, he was in the back seat, being raced away.

Two of the men sat in the front, not talking. The third was in the back with Fadur, looking at him solicitously. “That was a nasty spill,” he said. “You must be a mass of bruises.”

“Actually, no,” Fadur said. “I am really not hurt.”

“Nothing serious, I’m sure. We’re all medical students, as a matter of fact, and we’d know. But it’s always best to let the hospital have a look.”

“I should prefer not to,” Fadur said as firmly as he could without seeming rude. “I assure you there is nothing wrong.”

The medical student conferred with his companions in the front seat.

“All right, if you’re sure,” the driver said. “But I think we ought to keep an eye on you for a while. We were just going for a drive. Why don’t you come along?”

“Delighted,” Fadur agreed politely, though he should have been getting on with his mission. Now if they had been three young women…

As they left the city behind, the car spurted ahead. Fadur relaxed in the back seat and breathed the fine clean wind—which gradually loosened his bandage and then blew it away.

The man from Alfaduriesta did not notice immediately how the scenery sharpened for him as three-thirds vision returned. Not until his companions, one after another, stared at him did he realize he had been unmasked.

He clapped a palm over the eye in his forehead. With his other eyes, he awaited the reactions of the three young men. At least they had not turned away in disgust.

He was grateful for that.

The convertible slowed, then stopped at the side of the road. The driver turned in his seat. His tone was almost conversational. “I did see a third eye in your forehead, didn’t I?”

“Yes,” Fadur said warily. Useless to deny it. His other eyes watched them. He was prepared to fight them like the warrior he was if they even suspected he was an alien bent on conquest of their world.

“You poor guy. So that’s why you wore the bandage. What you need is an operation.”

“An operation?”

“To remove the third eye. Make you look like everybody else.”

“Maybe he doesn’t want to look like everybody else, Ben,” the man next to the driver said. “Maybe that third eye is his living. You with the circus up at Sarasota?”

“No,” said Fadur. He was glad he wouldn’t have to fight these friendly people who not only did not suspect him but were anxious to help him. They might be useful. Slowly he moved his hand away from the third eye.

The medical students looked at it with professional interest. Asking his permission, they took turns examining it.

Fadur decided on frankness. Not much, but enough to appeal to them on a plane which they, as virile young men, would understand.

“With three eyes, I can see the young ladies much better,” he explained, “but they do not choose to see me.”

“That’s rough,” the man next to him said. “That really is. We ought to do something about that. You ought to, Ben. You’re the one who’s going to be the plastic surgeon.”

Ben frowned and examined the eye again. “Hell of a series of operations. But a little cosmetic disguise for a one-night stand—a snap!”

“Do you mean it would not be difficult?” Fadur asked. “That I could perhaps disguise the eye myself?”

“Easy,” Ben said, “once I showed you how.” He turned to the others. “Men, it’s a time for action. I propose that we make amends for running him down by guaranteeing him a girl tonight.”

“Hear, hear,” the others said.

“I therefore further propose that we head back to the hospital for the necessary materials, then to the beer store for the necessary beer, then to my apartment. And when our friend is fixed up eye-wise, we’ll fix him up further with one of the pleasantest little babes he ever laid two or more eyes on.”

* * * *

“Don’t put all the alcohol in the punch, George,” Ben said. “We need some of it for Faddy’s cosmetology.”

The fact that Fadur’s third eye was set deep in its socket made it relatively easy to disguise. Fadur, who had resigned himself to answering to Faddy or Fade, watched his mirror image closely as the work progressed. He asked an occasional question and was allowed to do some of the job.

As Ben worked on him, the other two medical students prepared for the party. George and Ralph had already used the telephone and four young ladies were on tap. Ralph was to fetch them in the convertible as soon as Ben was satisfied that Fadur would pass inspection.

“For Pete’s sake, don’t get the colloid mixed up with the calves’ brains!” Ben yelled at George, who was puttering at the buffet. “Faddy, work in some more of that pigment. That’s it. Ralph, we’re almost finished. You can get the girls now.”

“You’re the doctor,” Ralph said. He went.

Ben stood back to admire his work. “Now for the finishing touches. It’s all built up, but it’s still a little grainy. Know what’s good for that? Good old pancake makeup. The sins that stuff covers up!”

They were having a drink in celebration when Ralph returned with the girls. He introduced them to Fadur: Marie, Lily, Taffy and Joyce.

They were all quite acceptable, Fadur thought, but Taffy seemed to him to be the most exciting. He was pleased when the boys told him she had been invited especially for him. She had a better figure than the other girls and her hair was long, unlike the boyish cuts of the others. He especially liked the heavy bangs that fell across her forehead.

He also liked the friendly way she took his arm and her laughter as they helped themselves at the buffet. He found that he was quite hungry and was glad to see her eat well, too. In fact, everything she did made him feel at home.

He looked at the other men to smile his thanks to them for what they had done, especially Ben, and they grinned back and nodded. Wonderful people, he thought. What a pity he and his ten thousand sons must one day make war on them. It was ironic that their kindness to him would be the means by which Alfaduriesta would bring them to their knees, but war is full of ironies. The mission was going well at last.

He was confident that the friendly Taffy would also be kind to him and thus be the first to help him fill his quota. Everything about the party—the falling level of the punch bowl, the gradual putting out of lights—was leading in that direction.

The last lamp winked out. There were a few laughs, then silence.

Taffy’s body was soft against his. This was the moment, the first of ten thousand. He was about to guide her to an unoccupied corner he had strategically noted earlier—when all the lights came on, blindingly.

The nubile Taffy was holding a weapon aimed directly at his hidden third eye. He blinked the other two in surprise. The other girls had gone, but the three men were there, each with a pistol trained on him.

Ben broke the silence. “Shall we introduce ourselves? You are—”

“Fadur, a traveler from India.” He sought to brazen it out, but in spite of himself, he inhaled and his chest expanded threateningly.

“None of that,” Ben warned. “It just makes you a bigger target, Lance-Major Fadur of Alfaduriesta.”

Ralph was grinning. “First intergalactic spy,” he said, “and a rather stupid one.”

Fadur’s chest deflated. The Durien Fathers had really goofed. “Who are you?” he asked miserably.

“No harm in telling you now, Lance-Major. I’m Ben Haskill of C.I.A. This is Ralph Peddiford of M.I.5 and this is Georgi Rakov of Red Army Intelligence.”

“But how—?” Fadur began. Surely he had not given himself away. He had been so careful.

“You had the misfortune to come to Earth during the International Geophysical Year,” Ben told him, “when every telescope in the world was tracking the artificial satellites. You were under surveillance from the minute you entered Earth’s atmosphere.”

Fadur felt numb. “Who is the girl?”

“You should know better than we. She’s from your system, not ours.”

Taffy, smiling insultingly, lifted the bangs he had admired so. From the middle of her forehead, a third eye gleamed triumphantly at him.

“You’re not from Alfaduriesta!” Fadur cried. “We have no traitors among us.”

“Not Alfaduriesta,” the girl said. She took a deep breath and her bosom swelled magnificently. “It’s good to be oneself again. I am Tafi of Myachanacia, the planet of women. You invaded and sacked Tryluria and Dob, but you never dared attack Myachanacia. You knew we’d swallow you up.”

“Ridiculous! Alfaduriesta fears no one.”

“Except us,” Tafi said. “You knew that if your soldiers carried on at Myachanacia in their usual way, you’d leave us with the strain we needed to make us great. You did not dare supply the missing gene whose absence has kept our men weak and our courageous women not quite strong enough. But now we have you, Lance-Major Fadur.”

Her meaning was unmistakable. Fadur appealed to his fellow males. “I plead extraterritoriality. You can’t let her kidnap me and—It’s humiliating.”

“We have no jurisdiction over you,” Ben Haskill told him. “Tafi has. She came to us openly and brought a warrant. Our governments have consulted and agreed to honor it. It seems only justice. Besides, none of our countries wants any part of your ten thousand three-eyed babies. We happen to be prejudiced in favor of two.”

“Don’t let her take me! I’ll do anything you say. I’ll be good!”

“You’d better be,” Tafi said. “Because on Myachanacia, your quota won’t be a mere ten thousand. According to your reputation, that should be a fitting life sentence.”

As Fadur was herded to Tafi’s spaceship, there was a clicking in his skull. Then, for the first time since he had left, Alfaduriesta was in clear contact.

“Lance-Major Fadur, attention to orders,” the message said. “Return immediately. Operation Earth canceled. Reason: potential threat from Myachanacia, where our agent reports plans for secret weapon posing ultimate invasion.”

Fadur supposed he should feel flattered. His chest expanded a bit as he looked sideways at the beautiful Tafi and thought of her millions of equally beautiful love-starved sisters.

What the stupid Durien Fathers didn’t know, but what Fadur knew all too well, was that he wag the secret weapon.