“Maybe you should go up to the room and take a nap now, darling.”
Luke pretended to hesitate. “Well—maybe later. If I get actually sleepy. Right new I fell sort of dull and logy but I doubt if I could sleep.”
“Okay. Anything special you’d like to do?”
“Hew about a few games of badminton? That just might tire me out enough so I could sleep a few hours.”
It was a little windy for badminton, but they played for half an hour—that made it half-past eight—and then Luke yawned and said that now he really was sleepy. “Maybe you’d better come up with me,” he suggested, “If you want to get anything from the room, you can, and then you won’t leave to bother me until time for lunch, if I sleep that long.”
“You go ahead; there’s nothing I’ll want. I promise not to bother you till twelve.”
He kissed her briefly, wishing it could be a longer kiss since he might not see her again for a while, and went into the building and up to the room.
He sat down at the typewriter first and wrote a note to her, telling her he loved her but that there was something important he had to do, and not to worry because he’d be back soon.
Then he found Margie’s purse and took enough money to pay cab fare into town in case he could catch a cab. It would save time if he could, but even if he had to walk all the way to the bank he could be there by eleven and that would be in plenty of time.
Then he looked out of the window to see if he could find Margie on the grounds, and couldn’t. Tried the window at the end of the hall and couldn’t see her from there either. But when he went quietly downstairs he heard her voice coming from the open doorway of Dr. Snyder’s office. “…not really worried,” he heard her saying, “but he did act just a bit strange. I don’t think, though, that he…”
He let himself quietly out of the side door and strolled to the back corner of the grounds where a grove of trees hid the fence from the buildings.
His only danger now was that someone outside the fence might see him climb it, and phone the police or the sanitarium.
But no one did.
18.
It was the fifth day of August, 1964. A few minutes before 1 P.M. in New York City. Other time zones, other times, all over the world. This was to be the big moment, maybe.
Yato Ishurti, Secretary-General of the United Nations, sat alone in a small studio at Radio City. Ready and waiting.
Hopeful and frightened.
The throat mike was in place. There were stopples in his ears to prevent aural distraction once he had started to speak. And he would close his eyes, too, the instant the man behind the control room window nodded to indicate that he was on the air, so he could not be subject to visual distraction either.
Remembering that the mike was not yet activated, he cleared his throat as he watched the little glass window and the man behind it.
He was about to speak to the largest audience that had ever listened to the voice of one man, ever, anywhere.
Barring a few savages and children too young to talk or to understand, just about every human being on Earth would listen to him—either directly or through the voice of a translator.
Hurried as they had been, preparations had been exhaustive. Every government on Earth had cooperated fully, and every active radio station in the world would pick up and rebroadcast what he had to say. Every active radio station and many that had been abandoned but quickly reactivated for the purpose. And all the ships at sea.
He must remember to speak slowly and to pause at the end of each sentence or few sentences so the thousands of translators who would relay the broadcasts in non-English-speaking countries could keep up with him.
Even tribesmen in the most primitive countries would hear; arrangements had been made wherever possible to have natives come in and listen to on-the-spot translations at the nearest receiving sets. In civilized countries every factory and office not already closed by the Depression would be closed down while employes gather around radios and P.A. systems; people staying home who had no radios were requested to join neighbors who had.
As near as matters, three billion people would be hearing him. And, as near as matters, one billion Martians. If he succeeded he would become the most famous—But lshurti pulled his mind quickly away from that selfish thought. He must think of humanity, not of himself. And if he succeeded he must retire at once, not try to capitalize on success.
If he failed—But he must not think about that either. No Martian seemed to be present in the studio, none in the part of the control room he could see through the little window.
He cleared his throat again, and just in time. He saw the man beyond the control room window flick a switch and then nod to him.
Yato Ishurti closed his eyes, and spoke.
He said: “People of the world, I speak to you and through you to our visitors from Mars. Mostly I speak to them. But it is necessary that you listen too, so that when I have spoken you can answer a question that I shall ask you.”
He said: “Martians, you have not, for whatever reason of your own, taken us into your confidence as to why you are here among us.
“Possibly you are truly vicious and evil and our pain gives you pleasure.
“Possibly your psychology, your pattern of thinking, is so alien to ours that we could not understand even if you tried to explain to us.
“But I do not believe either of these things ”
He said: “If you really are what you seem or pretend to be, quarrelsome and vindictive, we would find you, at least on rare occasion, arguing or fighting among yourselves.
“This we have never seen or heard.
“Martians, you are putting on an act, pretending to be something that you are not.”
Across Earth, there was a stir as people moved. Ishurti said: “Martians, you have an ulterior purpose in doing what you have been doing. Unless your reason is beyond my power to comprehend, unless your purpose is beyond the scope of human logic, it can and must be one of only two things.
“It can be that your purpose is good; that you came here for our good. You knew that we were divided, hating one another, warring and ever on the verge of final war. It can be that you reasoned that, being what we are, we could be united only by being given a common cause, and a common hatred that transcends our hatreds of one another and makes them now seem so ridiculous that they are difficult for us to remember.
“Or it is possible that your purpose is less benevolent, but still not inimical. It is possible that, learning we stand—or stood—on the verge of space travel, you do not want us on Mars.
“It could be that, on Mars, you are corporeal and vulnerable and that you are afraid of us; you fear that we might try to conquer you, either soon or centuries from now. Or perhaps we merely bore you—certainly our radio programs must have—and you simply do not want our company on your planet.”
He said: “If either of those basic reasons is the real one, and I believe that one or the other of them is, you knew that merely telling us to behave ourselves or to stay away from Mars would antagonize us rather than accomplish your purpose.
“You wanted us to see for ourselves and to volunteer to do as you wish.
“Is it important that we know or guess correctly which of these two basic purposes is your true one?
“Whichever it is, I will prove to you that you have accomplished it.”
He said: “I speak, and I shall now prove that I speak, for all the peoples of Earth.”
He said: “We pledge that we are through fighting among ourselves.
“We pledge that we shall not, we shall never, send a single spaceship to your planet—unless someday you invite us to, and I think that we might need persuading, even then.”