“Oh heavens,” moaned Horace Kirby, lifting his spoon. But still, he lifted it—out of a bowl of snotlike goo and then into his mouth, puckering his lips to scrape it clean.
But at least he was not puckering alone. For on either side of him, at one end of the clubroom’s long table, his colleagues were contending with their own goo, either digging in or swallowing violently or steeling themselves for the next hideous dose.
“Maintain an even pace, gentlemen,” advised Ludwig von Freunhoffer from the head of the table. “There is no advantage to dallying until the last minute and then having to bolt it. Since, as you know, leftovers are not an option.
“Nor are they for you,” the elderly doctor added, waving a slimy utensil at the table’s opposite end.
For there sat Marshall, also coping with breakfast, the only difference being that his consisted of perfectly golden, fruit-filled French toast accompanied by maple syrup, whipped cream, crispy bacon, potato nuggets, matchless coffee and a muffin.
Nevertheless, he was struggling with these delectables almost as much as the others were with what Lorak called “basic nutrition.” Filled with foreboding, he wasn’t hungry, and had to force himself through every luscious bite.
“So what in hell,” he heard Crennick growl at some point in the ordeal, “are we to make of this audience he’s getting? What could they tell him that we couldn’t in five seconds? They do research; we help. That's the arrangement, isn't it? And besides, what about that principle of association? Do they just ignore it whenever—”
“Myron, please,” said Khuldip. “You can bet they are listening. And your tone will only—”
“I just know I didn’t get any goddamn audience,” Crennick persisted.
“—will only bring us further adversity,” Khuldip sighed, having noticed the figure in the portal.
“Correct,” said that figure. “Your seven weeks of basic nutrition have now become nine, and will continue to increase should you maintain your disagreeable attitude.”
* * *
Moments later, Marshall was in a small gray room, in front of a large black rectangle, which hovered horizontally above the floor.
His only companion: Lorak. Who had donned once again his perplexingly pleasant persona.
“Before bringing you among us,” said the overseer, “we observed you in your native habitat. And thus noted your admirable interest in, as you call them”—he hesitated, or perhaps the translator did—“documentaries.”
Marshall’s fears scattered, chased away by surprise. He’d been monitored? In his basement? But how?
He had to admit, though, that when watching television, and not watching Star Trek, he was almost always watching documentaries.
“So you may be interested to learn,” Lorak continued, “that we too produce such programs, and have even made one concerning our activities on your planet.”
Now this was even more surprising. A documentary by aliens? Who knew what it might reveal.
Why, it might show decency behind the tyranny—might demonstrate, for instance, that they felt obliged to deal with humans in Lorak's usual manner, yet did so for a benign, even beneficial reason.
Maybe?
Possibly?
But no sooner had the rectangle burst into activity, emanating pictures and sounds, than he was wishing it hadn't. For it was displaying nothing except barbarity. People in raglike clothes being run through with swords, burned on pyres, beheaded by axes. Crowds cheering as sadistic punishments were inflicted on victims whose screams only magnified the onlookers' delight.
All of which grew worse when Lorak explained that these were actual scenes, recorded by his predecessors when first they surveyed the Earth.
Eventually, however, the awfulness ended, replaced by something far easier to stomach. A screenful of brownish haze. And within that haze, murky but unmistakable, another alien.
Unlike Lorak, this one had no protective suit. Nor was it a “junior” like the ones in the intake unit, as its authoritative voice and shimmering garment made clear.
“How regrettable that we must show you this,” the murky alien said. “It establishes, however, the essential nature of the human semi-sentients. You observe their mindless herding, their unspeakable viciousness. Their planet, on the other hand . . .”
Now the scene changed again, to show the Earth hanging in space.
“. . . is a rare find. Exactly what we have dreamed of, save for—”
With the flick of a hand, Lorak began to fast-forward through the production. “We shall summarize,” he said. “The commentator is describing your planet’s inadequacies: its frigid temperatures and toxic atmosphere. Plus, it lies at an inconvenient distance from the extremely large machines we generally use to modify worlds.”
“Nevertheless,” chimed in the commentator, returned to normal speed, “some time ago our scientists realized that this was an ideal place to test a new method of planetary reconditioning, one that does not require cumbersome equipment or, for that matter, almost any equipment at all.”
Marshall now saw the following in quick succession:
—An alien holding up a vial
—A fleet of spacecraft
—Vapor drifting from those spacecraft onto roofs and spires
—Steam engines puffing
—Factory smokestacks belching
—A man in a top hat smoking a cigar
“Initial results were most promising,” said the commentator as these images hurried along. “Once we introduced a few modified genes into a population of semi-sentients, they themselves began finding methods of transforming their atmosphere.”
Marshall was so shocked he interrupted the presentation.
“But wait! Think what this is implying. That the Industrial Revolution happened because of . . . modified genes? Something put in our DNA? How could anyone believe that?”
“We realize you may find it hard to accept,” said Lorak. “But ask yourself: How is it that of all the cultures in your history, only one developed the gas-emitting technologies shown here?”
Marshall thought of ancient Greece, Rome and China, and had to admit it was puzzling that none had progressed as far, technologically, as eighteenth-century Europe.
“And ask yourself also,” said Lorak, replaying the image of the man with the cigar, "how it is that none of you made a habit of this activity until after our intervention.”
“The American Indians . . . ,” Marshall began, but trailed off, realizing his error.
“Certain groups may have engaged in it occasionally and ritualistically,” said Lorak, “but not continually and compulsively. Have you any idea how healthful the products of such combustion are?”
“What? How can you say that? Countless studies have shown—”
“We mean, to us.”
“Oh.”
“You must acknowledge,” said Lorak, “that something makes you crave, as you might term it, alien air.”
Marshall thought of camp fires, his granddad's pipe, the comforting aroma of gasoline.
Then of an objection he couldn’t imagine anyone refuting.
“But if this were true,” he said, “then how could there be environmentalists? Or environmental laws? Or places where the air has improved? From a human perspective at least.”
Instead of arguing, however, Lorak just navigated onward through the documentary. To a part where the commentator seemed agitated—where he was waving a spindly arm above his mottled head. “How dare anyone suggest we abandon the project!” he was shouting. “Just because it has taken longer than expected? Just because the urge to burn hydrocarbons has flagged in some of the humans? Yes, we concede, a few resist our influence. But who can claim that experimental efforts are without setbacks? Or that we are without recourse? Look!”
And all of a sudden the viewer was looking down into a vast enclosure—a cylinder at least fifty feet across and a hundred high. The inner wall of this cylinder was dotted with balconies. Each of these held a gurney. And alongside each gurney stood two bipeds, one of them a suited alien, while the other . . .
Marshall squinted forward, but there could be no doubt. The other biped beside each gurney? Was a colleague. For there was Khuldip and there von Freunhoffer and there Kirby and there Quinn.
Then, slowly, the base of the cylinder began to change. It became a spiral, which spiraled open, allowing people, weightless, to come rising through. Unfamiliar people this time, limp and floppy, some upside down, some right-side up, some jackknifed, some twirling. There were men and women, children and adults, whites, blacks, Asians, and as they drifted upward, like bubbles, the aliens on the balconies chose among them. An alien would point at one, and that one would drift towards the pointer’s platform, settling on its gurney.
“Our work continues,” said the commentator, as aliens and colleagues, tools in hand, leaned over their subjects. “At present we are perfecting a new genetic modification, delivered by a virus, which erases any tendency among these primitives to maintain their former atmosphere. But beyond that, it makes them clamp down on such efforts. They themselves will put an end to the backsliding. So that before long . . .”
Marshall saw his planet in transition—from blue and white to mud brown and putty gray.
“A pleasing spectacle, is it not?” said the commentator. “Yet not nearly so pleasing as the one that follows, which, though likewise a dramatization, depicts just as surely the future that is almost ours.”
A small vehicle swept towards the altered planet. Arriving, it dove into a sludge of cloud, so that the camera trailing it registered only brownness and grayness. But then silhouettes emerged—of buildings, towers, bridges—all vaguely visible through the dense and ubiquitous fog.
“Does this remind you of anything?” asked the commentator. “Of Zeta Reticuli, perhaps?
“And yet, it is in some ways superior to our beloved homeworld.
“Cleaner. Sweeter smelling.
“And, above all . . .
“Available for settlement.
“By someone like you.”
The vehicle had landed. A hatch was opening and someone was climbing out. Someone in gray coveralls, with a balloonish head and coal-black teaspoon eyes.
“No need to seek shelter. Why not stroll for a while?” suggested the commentator as if counseling the new arrival, who, as if taking the advice, headed to an area where blackish clumps littered the ground. Zooming in, the camera revealed tangled tendrils, from which broad leathery flaps gracelessly sprawled.
“Look,” said the commentator. “Marsh flowers!
“And look . . .”
A small, knobby octopede—part toad, part spider—was climbing onto a flap.
“A marsh salamander! Did you not nurture one in your youth? I know I did.
“And fret not for its safety, esteemed viewer, or for your own when you come here. For we can assure you that all the noxious flora and fauna that used to infest this world, whether land dwelling or maritime, fully bestial or semi-sentient, will have been eliminated simply by the change of atmosphere.”
A close-up showed the visitor looking around, seemingly unsure of its next move.
“Now, strictly speaking,” said the commentator, “interplanetary travelers should await official clearance before—”
Coming to a decision, the being grasped its head, or rather its headgear, and with an upward motion thrust it off.
“But in a paradise like this, who would bother?”
The alien, the Zetan, inhaled. It inhaled again. Extending its arms, it emitted a loud, poultry-esque cackle. It turned its face to the putty sky and took many more healthy, happy breaths.