"Why not?"
"But you're a reporter. You don't care if I get arrested as long as
you get a story. Maybe I'll talk it over with my friend Hirsch the
druggist."
"Let me know what you decide, Mr. Dorfman," I said. "I'll be around."
"Good. But listen. You want a real story? Go down two blocks that way
and one to your left."
"What's there?"
"The Middle Valley Congregational Church. I don't want you to think I'm
laughing at somebody else's religion, because I don't do that, but go
down and see for yourself. Those men are there--from the spaceship. An
interesting situation."
So that's where they were. I left him saying to himself, "Sauce for the
gander. Why not?"
John Hyatt had said some Monolithians were in Middle Valley but he
didn't know why. He imagined they were sight-seeing and he obviously
hoped for something better. I was beginning to have the same hunch he
must have had.
There was a crowd of about a hundred outside the Congregational
Church. Most of the people appeared to be parishioners--well-dressed,
upper-middle-class men and women. Their late-model cars were parked
along the tree-shaded street. I squeezed my Volkswagen in among them.
A separate group of well-dressed people--all young men--stood outside
the main entrance of the ivy-covered stone church. The minister was
with them, talking heatedly. I made my way through gaps in the crowd of
parishioners, who seemed anxious for some settlement to be reached but
unwilling to become involved.
"... blasphemy," the minister was saying. His name, according to the
outside bulletin board, was the Rev. James Lonsway Marchell.
"Not at all, Mr. Marchell," one of the young men said. "It's merely a
question of law."
"God's law has called my flock to worship. Man's law shall not keep
them from their devotions."
"Certainly not," the young man said. He was speaking fluent, unaccented
English. "We have no quarrel with their wish to honor their deity in
whatever way they choose. But you, Mr. Marchell, as a paid employee of
this church, may not, under law, work on Sunday."
"Work!" the minister exclaimed. "It is the Lord's work I do!"
"But for a salary paid by men. You have admitted that to be a fact."
"By what right--" the minister said--"by what abrogation of authority
do you come from millions of miles away to interfere in the affairs of
this quiet, respectable, law-abiding village?"
"The very fact, sir, that you have chosen not to abide by the law has
brought us here," the leader of the Monolithian group said. "We have
solemnly sworn to uphold the laws of this country, and therefore the
laws of each of its parts. We should be shirking our obligations to our
adopted nation if we did less."
"You pervert the law--you mock it. You are heretics. Worse, you are
the devil's henchmen. I have tried long enough to reason with you. Now
stand aside. Again I tell you--I mean to enter my church!"
The minister started for the door but one of the Monolithians was there
ahead of him. I was half afraid I was going to see Marchell start to
disappear, but obviously the aliens had a variation on their protective
weapon. The minister wanted to enter his church, not to harm anyone,
and the shield took the form of a pliant, invisible wall that prevented
Marchell from even hurting himself as he walked into it, apparently for
the second time at least.
He was bounced back, staggering. Regaining his balance, he turned to
address his parishioners:
"My friends, I have done all I can. I shall go now to my study and
in solitude pray for guidance. These--creatures--I cannot call them
men--have said you may worship as you choose. I invite those of you who
wish to do so to enter this house of God and pray...."
The Monolithian at the door stood aside but fewer than a dozen of the
congregation went in.
I considered talking to the Monolithians, but decided I'd better file
a story first on what I had. I figured there'd be time to talk to them
later. It looked like a long and memorable Sunday for Middle Valley.
I drove off to look for a telephone, hoping the village used the dial
system and didn't depend on an illegal paid operator.
* * * * *
I found an outdoor telephone booth at the closed gas station. A young
man was lounging next to it. He stepped in front of me as I reached to
push open the door.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"You must be one of the aliens," I said, though from his appearance he
could have been anyone.
"A U.S. Monolithian citizen, at your service," he said, smiling but
continuing to bar my way. "Tate is my name."
"Kent's mine," I said. "I'm with World Wide. Just let me phone in my
story, then I'd like to talk to you."
"I know who you are," he said. "But you may not telephone. It's the
law."
"Look," I said, "it's ten to one Middle Valley doesn't have a telephone
office. The call will go through Newark or someplace. Nobody in Middle
Valley would be doing anything illegal."
"No," he said, "but you would."
"Oh, come on!" I was shocked. "_I_ don't live here. I'm just a New York
reporter. I work for an international news organization. You must have
heard of freedom of the press!"
Tate smiled and shook his head. "Mr. Kent, the law may be stupid but
it is explicit. No paid employment of any kind is permitted in Middle
Valley."
"Sure, sure," I said. "But what's it to you? This will be publicity for
you. That's what you want, isn't it?"
"You misunderstand our motives, Mr. Kent. We are your good
interplanetary neighbors, repaying your hospitality by observing all
your laws, as we are sure you would if you were to visit our country."
"What you're really trying to do," I told him, "is to reduce us to
absurdity."
"Don't put words in my mouth, Mr. Kent. Remember when you do dictate
your story--and I believe the village border is a mere half-mile
away--remember that you said that, not I."
"Half a mile? Come with me, will you? How did you know who I was?"
"I'll join you gladly. Mr. Dorfman told me about you."
He climbed into the car and I phoned the desk from a drug store in
the neighboring community of Valley Center, N.J. The store was doing
a thriving business in Sunday papers, ice-cream sodas, hot coffee,
cigarettes and other typical druggist's goods.
I gave John Hyatt his story heavy on the quotes, the way he likes them,
adding a bit about my own encounter with the Monolithian. He made
me spin it out at length for a sidebar. I didn't tell him Tate was
standing just outside the booth, listening to every word. I was afraid
John would have interviewed the hell out of him, keeping me hanging
around all day.
I came out of the booth, perspiring from its closeness. "How about a
coke?" I asked Tate. "We won't get one back in Middle Valley."
"Good idea," he said. We sat at a table and a waitress took our order.
"That a Bond suit?" I asked the alien. "Two pair of pants?"
"Simon Ackerman," he said, smiling. "One pair."
"Then you're not one of the original dozen from Burning Tree."
"No. I'm one of the Central Park unit."
"How do you like it here? What do you think of Earth-women?" I figured
I might as well get it asked and over with.
"Very tempting," Tate said. "Remember, we've been a long time enroute."
"How long?"
"Three years."
The cokes came, in tall glasses, heavily iced, with straws.
"What would you do to a vending machine that sold an illegal coke?" I
asked Tate.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Never mind. I'm glad you didn't put the whammy on me back there at
the gas station. I saw what your pal did to that convertible in Times
Square."
"Did you?" He beamed. "Quite an example, wasn't it? It was a pleasure
to uphold that law."
"Rough on the car, but the idiot had it coming. Do you mean you're not
enjoying what you're doing in Middle Valley?"
"There are degrees," he said, taking a sip of his coke. "It was a
pity Mr. Marchell was prevented from holding his service. We are not
antireligious, as he asserted in the heat of his anger."
"He was prevented by your people," I reminded him.
"By our people upholding local law," he insisted.
I decided he wasn't quibbling, and said, "Let's get back to where you
came from. You said you were three years on the way. Did you know where
you were going when you started?"
"Oh, yes. Earth. Sol's third planet. You invited us in 1945."
"Invited you?"
"So to speak. That was Earth's Atomic Year One, you will recall."
"You mean you detected the first explosion?"
"We detect them all. You were the fourth known planet to achieve that
level of development. We believe we were the second, in Monolithia."
"The second?" I asked. "Did the people from the first one visit you?"
"The first planet failed to see the potentialities for evil. It
destroyed itself. When we had achieved space travel we visited its
remains. It was a graphic example to us. We determined then that human
life was too rare a commodity to be squandered."
"You think we're too infantile to prevent our own destruction?"
"We think you need guidance. We got it second-hand from Planet I. We
were too late to help Planet III. You're IV."
"You mean Planet III destroyed itself, too?"
"So to speak. It's a dead world. Planets II and IV--Monolithia and
Earth--are the only advanced worlds left. It's our duty to preserve
them."
"What do you mean 'so to speak'?" I asked him. "What do you mean
'advanced'?" I was making full notes and Tate had been watching me fill
page after page of copy paper.
He finished his coke. "I've said enough for now." He sounded adamant,
and to keep him from drying up entirely I switched the subject slightly:
"How come you speak such good English?"
"English, Japanese, Monolithian, Tildonian (that was one of Planet
III's languages)--they're all human tongues. It's merely a matter of
adaptation. We don't click any more, you notice. That's a Monolithian
trait, but easily de-emphasized."
I scribbled away and he watched me tolerantly, sucking on a piece of
ice.
"You know I'm going to quote you. How shall I describe you? As a
Monolithian spokesman?"
"If you like. We're all spokesmen. We have--to use a diplomatic
phrase, but an accurate one--an identity of views on this urgent
matter. Shall we go?"