The Science Fiction of Mark Clifton Page 2

  I sat down at my desk and said aloud to myself. “The guy is a fake! As obvious as a high school boy’s drafting of a dollar bill.”

  I heard myself say that and wondered if I was going nuts, myself. What did I mean by fake? I shrugged. So I happened to see a bird I couldn’t read, that was all.

  Then it struck me. But that would be unique. I hadn’t had that experience for twenty years. Imagine the delight, after all these years, of exploring an unreadable!

  I rushed out of my office and back down the stairs to the street. Hallahan, the traffic cop, saw me running up the street and looked at me curiously. I signaled to him with a wave of a hand that everything was all right. He lifted his cap and scratched his head. He shook his head slowly and settled his cap back down. He blew a whistle at a woman driver and went back to directing traffic.

  I ran into the drugstore. Of course the guy wasn’t there. I looked all around, hoping he was hiding behind the pots and pans counter, or something. No guy.

  I walked quickly back out on the street and down to the next corner. I looked up and down the side streets. No guy.

  I dragged my feet reluctantly back toward the office. I called up the face again to study it. It did no good. The first mental glimpse of it told me there was nothing to find. Logic told me there was nothing to find. If there had been, I wouldn’t be in such a stew. The face was empty—completely void of human feelings or character.

  No, those weren’t the right words. Completely void of human—being!

  I walked on past the drugstore again and looked in curiously, hoping I would see him. Hallahan was facing my direction again, and he grinned crookedly at me. I expect around the neighborhood I am known as a character. I ask the queerest questions of people, from a layman’s point of view. Still, applicants sometimes tell me that when they asked a cop where w-as an employment agent they could trust they were sent to me.

  I climbed the stairs again, and walked into my waiting room. Margie looked at me curiously, but she only said, “There’s an applicant. I had him wait in your office.” She looked like she wanted to say more, and then shrugged. Or maybe she shivered. I knew there was something wrong with the bird, or she would have kept him in the waiting room.

  I opened the door to my office, and experienced an overwhelming sense of relief, fulfillment. It was he. Still, it was logical that he should be there. I run an employment agency. People come to me to get help in finding work. If others, why not he?

  My skill includes the control of my outward reactions. That fellow could have no idea of the delight I felt at the opportunity to get a full history. If I had found him on the street, the best I might have done was a stock question about what time is it, or have you got a match, or where is the city hall. Here I could question him to my heart’s content.

  I took his history without comment, and stuck to routine questions. It was all exactly right.

  He was ex-G.I., just completed college, major in astronomy, no experience, no skills, no faintest idea of what he wanted to do, nothing to offer an employer—all perfectly normal for a young grad.

  No feeling or expression either. Not so normal. Usually they’re petulantly resentful that business doesn’t swoon at the chance of hiring them. I resigned myself to the old one-two of attempting to steer him toward something practical.

  “Astronomy?” I asked. “That means you’re heavy in math. Frequently we can place a strong math skill in statistical work.” I was hopeful I could get a spark of something.

  It turned out he wasn’t very good at math. “I haven’t yet reconciled my math to—” he stopped. For the first time he showed a reaction—hesitancy. Prior to that he had been a statue from Greece—the rounded expressionless eyes, the too perfect features undisturbed by thought.

  He caught his remark and finished, “I’m just not very good at math, that’s all.”

  I sighed to myself. I’m used to that, too. They give degrees nowadays to get rid of the guys, I suppose. Sometimes I’ll go for days without uncovering any usable knowledge. So in a way, that was normal.

  The only abnormal part of it was he seemed to think it didn’t sound right. Usually the lads don’t even realize they should know something. He seemed to think he’d pulled a boner by admitting that a man can take a degree in astronomy without learning math. Well, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them take their degree without knowing how many planets there are.

  He began to fidget a bit. That was strange, also. I thought I knew even possible combination of muscular contractions and expansions. This fidget had all the reality of a puppet activated by an amateur. And the eyes—still completely blank.

  I led him up one mental street and down the next. And of all the false-fronted stores and cardboard houses and paper lawns, I never saw the like. I get something of that once in a while from a fellow who has spent a long term in prison and comes in with a manufactured past—but never anything as phony as this one was.

  Interesting aspect to it. Most guys, when they realize you’ve spotted them for a phony, get out as soon as they can. He didn’t. It was almost as though he were—well, testing; to see if his answers would stand up.

  I tried talking astronomy, of which I thought I knew a little. I found I didn’t know anything, or he didn’t. This bird’s astronomy and mine had no point of reconciliation.

  And then he had a slip of the tongue—yes he did. He was talking, and said, “The ten planets—”

  He caught himself, “Oh that’s right. There’s only nine.”

  Could be ignorance, but I didn’t think so. Could be he knew of the existence of a planet we hadn’t yet discovered.

  I smiled. I opened a desk drawer and pulled out a couple science fiction magazines. “Ever read any of these?” I asked.

  “I looked through several of them at the newsstand a while ago,” he answered.

  “They’ve enlarged my vision,” I said. “Even to the point where I could believe that some other star system might hold intelligence.” I lit a cigarette and waited. If I was wrong, he would merely think I was talking at random.

  His blank eyes changed. They were no longer Greek statue eyes. They were no longer blue. They were black, deep bottomless black, as deep and cold as space itself.

  “Where did I fail in my test?” he asked. His lips formed a smile which was not a smile—a carefully painted-on-canvas sort of smile.

  Well, I’d had my answer. I’d explored something unique, all right. Sitting there before me, I had no way of determining whether he was benign or evil. No way of knowing his motive. No way of judging—anything. When it takes a lifetime of learning how to judge even our own kind, what standards have we forjudging an entity from another star system?

  At that moment I would like to have been one of those space opera heroes who, in similar circumstances, laugh casually and say, “What ho! So you’re from Arcturus. Well, well. It’s a small universe after all, isn’t it?” And then with linked arms they head for the nearest bar, bosom pals.

  I had the almost hysterical thought, but carefully suppressed, that I didn’t know if this fellow would like beer or not. I will not go through the intermuscular and visceral reactions I experienced. I kept my seat and maintained a polite expression. Even with humans, I know when to walk carefully.

  “I couldn’t feel anything about you,” I answered his question. “I couldn’t feel anything but blankness.”

  He looked blank. His eyes were nice blue marble again. I liked them better that way.

  There should be a million questions to be asked, but I must have been bothered by the feeling that I held a loaded bomb in my hands. And not knowing what might set it off, or how, or when. I could think of only the most trivial.

  “How long have you been on Earth?” I asked. Sort of a when did you get back in town, Joe, kind of triviality.

  “For several of your weeks,” he w-as answering. “But this is my first time out among humans.”

  “Where have you been in the meantime?” I ask
ed.

  “Training.” His answers were getting short and his muscles began to fidget again.

  “And where do you train?” I kept boring in.

  As an answer he stood up and held out his hand, all quite correctly. “I must go now,” he said. “Naturally you can cancel my application for employment. Obviously we have more to learn.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “And I’m supposed to just pass over the whole thing? A thing like this?”

  He smiled again. The contrived smile which was a symbol to indicate courtesy. “I believe your custom on this planet is to turn your problems over to your police. You might try that.” I could not tell whether it was irony or logic.

  At that moment I could think of nothing else to say. He walked out of my door while I stood beside my desk and watched him go.

  Well, what was I supposed to do? Follow him?

  I followed him.

  Now I’m no private eye, but I’ve read my share of mystery stories. I knew enough to keep out of sight. I followed him about a dozen blocks into a quiet residential section of small homes. I was standing behind a palm tree, lighting a cigarette, when he went up the walk of one of these small houses. I saw him twiddle with the door, open it, and walk in. The door closed.

  I hung around a while and then went up to the door. I punched the doorbell. A motherly gray-haired woman came to the door, drying her hands on her apron. As she opened the door she said, “I’m not buying anything today.”

  Just the same, her eyes looked curious as to what I might have.

  I grinned my best grin for elderly ladies. “I’m not selling anything, either,” I answered. I handed her my agency card. She looked at it curiously and then looked a question at me.

  “I’d like to see Joseph Hoffman,” I said politely.

  She looked puzzled. “I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong address, sir,” she answered.

  I got prepared to stick my foot in the door, but it wasn’t necessary. “He was in my office just a few minutes ago,” I said. “He gave that name and this address. A job came in right after he left the office, and since I was going to be in this neighborhood anyway, I thought I’d drop by and tell him in person. It’s sort of rush,” I finished. It had happened many times before, but this time it sounded lame.

  “Nobody lives here but me and my husband,” she insisted. “He’s retired.”

  I didn’t care if he hung by his toes from trees. I wanted a young fellow.

  “But I saw the young fellow come in here,” I argued. “I was just coming around the corner, trying to catch him. I saw him.”

  She looked at me suspiciously. “I don’t know what your racket is,” she said through thin lips, “but I’m not buying anything. I’m not signing anything. I don’t even want to talk to you.” She was stubborn about it.

  I apologized and mumbled something about maybe making a mistake.

  “I should say you have,” she rapped out tartly and shut the door in righteous indignation. Sincere, too. I could tell.

  An employment agent who gets the reputation of being a right guy makes all kinds of friends. That poor old lady must have thought a plague of locusts had swept in on her for the next few day’s.

  First the telephone repair man had to investigate an alleged complaint. Then a gas service man had to check the plumbing. An electrician complained there was a power short in the block and he had to trace their house wiring. We kept our fingers crossed hoping the old geezer had never been a construction man. There was a mistake in the last census, and a guy asked her a million questions.

  That house was gone over rafter by rafter and sill by sill, attic and basement. It was precisely as she said. She and her husband lived there; nobody else.

  In frustration, I waited three months. I wore out the sidewalks haunting the neighborhood. Nothing.

  Then one day my office door opened and Margie ushered a young man in. Behind his back she was radiating heart throbs and fluttering her eyes.

  He was the traditionally tall, dark and handsome young fellow, with a ready grin and sparkling dark eyes. His personality hit me like a sledge hammer. A guy like that never needs to go to an employment agency. Any employer will hire him at the drop of a hat, and wonder later why he did it.

  His name was Einar Johnson. Extraction, Norwegian. The dark Norse strain, I judged. I took a chance on him thinking he had walked into a booby hatch.

  “The last time I talked with you,” I said, “your name was Joseph Hoffman. You were Teutonic then. Not Norse.”

  The sparkle went out of his eyes. His face showed exasperation and there was plenty of it. It looked real, too, not painted on.

  “All right. Where did I flunk this time?” he asked impatiently.

  “It would take me too long to tell you,” I answered. “Suppose you start talking.” Strangely, I was at ease. I knew that underneath he w-as the same incomprehensible entity, but his surface was so good that I was lulled.

  He looked at me levelly for a long moment. Then he said, “I didn’t think there was a chance in a million of being recognized. I’ll admit that other character we created was crude. We’ve learned considerable since then, and we’ve concentrated everything on this personality I’m wearing.”

  He paused and flashed his teeth at me. I felt like hiring him myself. “I’ve been all over Southern California in this one,” he said. “I’ve had a short job as a salesman. I’ve been to dances and parties. I’ve got drunk and sober again. Nobody, I say nobody, has shown even the slightest suspicion.”

  “Not very observing, were they?” I taunted.

  “But you are,” he answered. “That’s why I came back here for the final test. I’d like to know where I failed.” He was firm.

  “We get quite a few phonies,” I answered. “The guy drawing unemployment and stalling until it is run out. The geezik whose wife drives him out and threatens to quit her job if he doesn’t go to work. The plainclothes detail smelling around to see if maybe we aren’t a cover for a bookie joint or something. Dozens of phonies.”

  He looked curious. I said in disgust, “We know in the first two minutes they’re phony. You were phony also, but not of any class I’ve seen before. And,” I finished dryly, “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  “Why was I phony?” he persisted.

  “Too much personality force,” I answered. “Human beings just don’t have that much force. I felt like I’d been knocked flat on my . . . well . . . back.”

  He sighed. “I’ve been afraid you would recognize me one way or another. I communicated with home. I was advised that if you spotted me, I was to instruct you to assist us.”

  I lifted a brow. I wasn’t sure just how much authority they had to instruct me to do anything.

  “I was to instruct you to take over the supervision of our final training, so that no one could ever spot us. If we are going to carry out our original plan that is necessary-. If not, then we will have to use the alternate.” He was almost didactic in his manner, but his charm of personality still radiated like an infrared lamp.

  “You’re going to have to tell me a great deal more than that,” I said.

  He glanced at my closed door.

  “We won’t be interrupted,” I said. “A personnel history is private.”

  “I come from one of the planets of Arcturus,” he said.

  I must have allowed a smile of amusement to show on my face, for he asked, “You find that amusing?”

  “No,” I answered soberly, and my pulses leaped because the question confirmed my conclusion that he could not read my thoughts. Apparently we were as alien to him as he to us. “I was amused,” I explained, “because the first time I saw you I said to myself that as far as recognizing you, you might have come from Arcturus. Now it turns out that accidentally I was correct. I’m better than I thought.”

  He gave a fleeting polite smile in acknowledgment. “My home planet,” he went on, “is similar to yours. Except that we have grown overpopulated.”

&nbs
p; I felt a twinge of fear.

  “We have made a study of this planet and have decided to colonize it.” It was a flat statement, without any doubt behind it.

  I flashed him a look of incredulity. “And you expect me to help you with that?”

  He gave me a worldly wise look—almost an ancient look. “Why not?” he asked.

  “There is the matter of loyalty to my own kind, for one thing,” I said. “Not too many generations away and we’ll be overpopulated also. There would hardly be room for both your people and ours on Earth.”

  “Oh that’s all right,” he answered easily. “There’ll be plenty of room for us for quite some time. We multiply slowly.”

  “We don’t,” I said shortly. I felt this conversation should be taking place between him and some great statesman—not me.

  “You don’t seem to understand,” he said patiently. “Your race won’t be here. We have found no reason why your race should be preserved. You will die away as we absorb.”

  “Now just a moment,” I interrupted. “I don’t want our race to die off.” The way he looked at me I felt like a spoiled brat who didn’t want to go beddie time.

  “Why not?” he asked.

  I was stumped. That’s a good question when it is put logically. Just try to think of a logical reason why the human race should survive. I gave him at least something.

  “Mankind,” I said, “has had a hard struggle. We’ve paid a tremendous price in pain and death for our growh. Not to have a future to look forward to, would be like paying for something and never getting the use of it.”

  It was the best I could think of, honest. To base argument on humanity and right and justice and mercy would leave me wide open. Because it is obvious that man doesn’t practice any of these. There is no assurance he ever will.

  But he was ready for me, even with that one. “But if we are never suspected, and if we absorb and replace gradually, who is to know there is no future for humans?”

  And as abruptly as the last time, he stood up suddenly. “Of course,” he said coldly, “we could use our alternative plan: Destroy the human race without further negotiation. It is not our way to cause needless pain to any life form. But we can.