"I am."
They all turned at the sound of that voice, and rose as Joe Waters
strode in. Just thirty years old, athletic, brilliant. He was
accompanied by a wizened character in a baggy brown suit and crumpled
felt hat.
"Gentlemen." Joe said, and bowed. They all sat down.
"A friend," he explained, indicating his companion. "Name of Mike."
"Friend _and_ buddy," Mike said in a whiskey-hoarse voice.
"We thought you understood, Dr. Waters," Moskov said, eyeing Mike
distastefully, "that this was to be a secret conference."
M. Tourneau, who had a sensitive nose, shifted his chair slightly away
from the bum.
Joe said, "I met Mike in a bar last night and he's been with me since.
I like his unsophisticated point of view."
"Bar!" Sir Manly exclaimed, visibly shaken.
"Bar." Joe answered. "For the same reason I'm here now." He leaned
forward.
"I happened to be looking at the moon with my girl when they blew it
up." His eyes narrowed at the memory. "She started to cry, and was
still at it when we got back to her apartment. That's when I went to
a bar to get drunk. It's also one reason I'm here. When they take the
moon away from lovers, it's the last straw!"
"Give 'em hell, kid!" Mike rasped. Joe silenced him with a wave of his
hand, and Mike slouched down in his chair looking hurt.
"Mr. Conrad," Moskov said, "will you be good enough to give Dr. Waters
the latest developments?"
"All right. Joe, you know what's happened this past week."
Joe nodded.
"In case you didn't get the overall picture--their ships," he jerked
a thumb at the whine passing back and forth above, "have completely
blanketed the world. They have destroyed every means of defense we've
used against them. Atomic anti-aircraft, even, hasn't fazed them in the
least.
"Yesterday they sent for us. The head of their expedition told us who
they are, and it accounts, perhaps, for their anthropoidal appearance.
They are from Jupiter, so it's not inconceivable after all that similar
forms of life should become dominant in the same solar system.
"They are easily twice our size--and if ability to learn and speak
fluently in a half hour, each of the three languages represented here
means anything, they have a proportionate I.Q.
"Their leader, Slan, says his title means he is the crown prince
of the royal Jovian family. Slan was nothing if not courteous and
chivalrous. He told us yesterday he would give us a sporting chance for
survival--why, I can't imagine. Apparently this expedition is like a
glorified fox hunt to them.
"We are to choose a person to represent the world in an intellectual
duel with him. If we win, they withdraw completely, never to bother us
again. If we lose, then, he said, we're not worth saving and we'll be
completely destroyed--hunted individually, which to them is great sport.
"To prove they could do it, he had his ship's guns turn on the moon.
You saw what happened--disintegrated completely."
"Them crumbs!" Mike grated. "We'll murder 'em, Joe!"
"Quiet, Mike."
Mike grumbled, pulled out a cigarette paper and tobacco and rolled his
own.
"That's why we've called on you," Conrad said.
"Waters," Sir Manly said, "the world rests on your shoulders."
"You have every qualification," M. Tourneau put in.
"Your brilliant theories in symbolic logic and theoretical
mathematics," said Sir Manly.
"Chess champion of the world," Moskov added respectfully.
"Your contributions to astrophysics," Conrad said.
"And don't you guys ferget--he won the decathlon when he was just a
high school kid. He'll murder them bums!"