GRAND PRIZE

Originally published in Fantastic Universe, April 1958.

There are a few of us left.

Only a relative handful of us on Earth have escaped the infestation which spread that Sunday night from the television studio on West 67th Street in Manhattan.

* * * *

The master of ceremonies was, as usual, genial, polysyllabic Ted Massey.

“Masks all in place, panel?” he asked the four expert, permanent guessers on Who Am I?, telecast coast-to-coast. Also, by perverse fate, for the first time that night the show crossed under the Atlantic in the new cable to the BBC in London.

The panel nodded, fingering their masks.

“Then will our special guest come in, please!”

There was a murmur from the studio audience, then applause punctuated by wolf whistles.

“Am I correct in assuming that our guest is a beautiful young lady?” asked Specs Sullivan, mock-adjusting the eyeglasses painted on the front of his mask.

“Not so fast, please, Specs,” Ted Massey said. “First let me ask if our guest is familiar with the way we play the game.”

The guest, who was indeed a ravishing embodiment of femininity, nodded shortly and seated herself next to Massey under the giant banner advertising DRI, the waterless soap.

“Our guest knows the rules,” Massey said. “And so let us commence, though we shouldn’t, with Specs Sullivan, who broke the rules by speaking out of turn.”

“I stand humbly rebuked, Ted,” Specs remarked amiably, “All right, guest, are you a beautiful young lady?”

The gorgeous creature at Massey’s side turned to him with a shrug.

“I’ll answer for our guest, who is obviously embarrassed. If you could see her, Specs, it would be apparent to you that your question falls some considerable distance short of the facts.”

“You could say ‘Yes’, Ted, even if it’s not the longest word in the language. All right. Now, miss, judging by the applause, you’re someone I’d recognize if I weren’t so unfortunately masked. Is that right?”

“No,” she replied.

“One down!” Ted crowed. “Now, Lucy Drew, our charming and talented and highly perspicacious representative of the fourth estate. Lucy?”

Pert, bright Lucy Drew frowned and said, “Something’s peculiar here, Ted. First, if our guest is not someone we’d recognize—that is a celebrity—why are we masked? And if she isn’t a celebrity, you’ve neglected to give us the usual pittance of information about whether she’s salaried or self-employed.”

Ted Massey laughed with false heartiness. “Forgive me, Lucy and panel. While you would not recognize our guest by her appearance, there is about her a certain je ne sais quoi which requires that you wear masks. That will be clear later in the game. As for her occupation, Lucy, I should have given you that clue. I don’t seem to be entirely myself tonight. She is salaried.”

Lucy played blindly with a pencil. “I can’t put my finger on it, but you do sound a bit odd tonight, Ted. I’ll go on. Mystery Guest, do you work for a profit-making organization?”

“No,” the young woman answered promptly.

“Two down!” Ted Massey cried. “Now our distinguished novelist and man-about-town, Mr. Arthur Bennett. Arthur?”

“I’ll have to admit, Ted, that I’m as puzzled as Lucy by this change in our routine, but I’ll try. You used the phrase je ne sais quoi. Knowing you, Ted, I’m sure you wouldn’t have given us that hint if our guest was actually French. But I’ll ask this: Miss X, may I assume that you are not an American?”

“No.”

“Yes,” said Massey. “Our guest means yes, she is not an American. Go on, Arthur.”

“Very good. Now, we’ve established that you are a salaried employee of a non-profit-making organization. Do you by any chance work for a government?”

The young woman stared at Arthur Bennett as if she were trying to bore through his mask. So far she had not looked directly at the studio audience or into the television cameras.

“Yes,” she said.

“Excellent, Arthur,” Massey said. “Now all you have to do is establish which government.” The master of ceremonies smiled tentatively at their guest. She didn’t smile bake. She looked cold and businesslike.

“Well,” Arthur Bennett said, “it would be fitting, in view of the inauguration of Transatlantic television and the fact that our show is being seen right now in England on the BBC, if our guest were employed by the British government.”

“No,” the guest said decisively.

“Three down!” Massey said.

“But you’re not doing badly, panel. Not at all. Now we come to our fourth questioner, the vivacious star of stage, screen, television and et cetera, Millie Pennington. Millie?”

“I won’t try to guess what government it is our guest represents, Ted,” Millie Pennington said. “I’ll leave that to some of our world travelers. But let me ask this, Miss—Miss X: Are you in this country on a good will mission?”

“No!” The answer exploded out of the beautiful young woman.

“Well,” Millie said. “That’s emphatic enough.” She giggled nervously. “Do you mean you’re here on a bad will mission?”

“Yes,” the guest replied before Ted Massey could intervene. She smiled for the first time. It wasn’t a friendly smile.

There was a stir in the studio audience and the panelists moved their masked heads in confusion, whispering to each other.

“Really, Ted,” Millie said. “I don’t know what she means by that. I—I pass.”

“I think the meaning will be clear in time,” Massey said with professional smoothness. “I can only say now, panel, that our guest is not misleading you, though perhaps she could have phrased the answer to that last question more tactfully.” He turned to the young woman at his side and shook his head, frowning. She grinned at him and hissed something.

“Well,” Massey said, “we’re back to Specs Sullivan. Any ideas, Specs?”

“Maybe our guest is the wife of the Good Humor man,” Specs ventured. “The Bad Humor woman. No, but seriously—”

“I don’t like that man,” the mystery guest said quite audibly. “Let me—”

“Not yet,” Massey interrupted hastily. “Ha-ha. Let’s all play the game now. I’ll admit this is a tough one, panel—”

“I’ll say she’s tough,” Specs muttered.

“—and if Mr. Sullivan is through, well go on to Lucy Drew again. Four down, and time is racing along.”

“Hey!” Specs said. “I didn’t give up. That bad humor crack was just—”

“Four down,” Massey repeated firmly. “Lucy?”

“You are being an old meany tonight, Ted,” Lucy said. “I think it’s still Specs’ turn. What happened to the rules?”

“Five down!” Massey said, his voice rising. “Arthur?”

“Really, Ted,” Arthur Bennett said. “What’s got into you. We’re perfectly willing to play the game, but this is getting ridiculous. You can t—

“Six down!” A desperate edge had crept into Ted Massey’s voice. “Millie? Do you give up, too?”

“Why, no, of course not. I—”

“Yes, you do, you brainless clothes-horse. Seven down! Who’s next? Specs? You’ve disqualified yourself, you four-eyed idiot. Eight down!”

“Now just a minute!” Specs Sullivan stood up, quivering, and ripped off his mask. “This has gone far enough! You’ve insulted Miss Pennington, not to mention me, and I demand that you apologize at least to her.”

He picked up his glasses and put them on.

“You’re on camera, ladies and gentlemen!” somebody whispered loudly from among the technicians. “Please!”

“On camera or off,” Specs said, “this is a disgraceful performance—”

“Nine down!” Ted Massey cried. “Ten and out! You all lose! Everybody loses! Take off your masks, the rest of you. Go on, take them off and look at the mystery guest. Look!”

The others unmasked. They looked.

“I don’t know her,” Lucy Drew said. “And I must say I don’t know you, either, Ted. What is it? Are you ill?”

“He must be drunk,” Arthur Bennett said.

“Not drunk,” Ted Massey said.

He began to sob. “Not ill. Lost. First me, now you, then all. We’re all lost, and she wins the grand prize. She’s won the Earth for her government. Look at her. Look!”

He fell forward across his desk, crying “Lost, lost.”

The beautiful young woman looked in turn into the eyes of each of the panelists. She then looked for the first time into the camera’s lens.

Too late, someone rushed out and swung the camera away.

Before the program was cut off the air millions of people in the United States and Canada and hundreds of thousands more across the ocean in Britain had been fixed by her scornful, will-destroying gaze and watched in revulsion as she changed to her own alien shape.

* * * *

It spread from there.

Every glance into another’s eyes transmitted the cancer of alien possession.

Faster than the plague it traveled, north from the Canadian cities to the Arctic, south through Mexico to Central and South America, east from Britain to the Continent, north to Scandinavia, south through Italy and Spain and across the Mediterranean to Africa, east to Russia and Asia, along the island chain to Australia.

Lost.

The invasion is complete. Earth is conquered.

But not quite.

We, the few who escaped, are the hope.

We, the immune, who hid, listening, evading capture, then fled to this unnamed refuge.

We, the handful, who now plan in the darkness, as best we can, to repossess our conquered world.

We, the few, against the billions.

We, the blind.