The Complete Short Stories: The 1950s. Brian Aldiss

a moment’s pause, the tiny lump behind his ear throbbed and a shadowy voice answered: ‘Hello, Stevens, Earth Centre here. We’ve been listening out for you. How are you doing?’

      ‘The trial is on. I don’t think I’m making out very well.’ His lips were moving slightly; he covered them with his hand, standing as if deep in cogitation. It looked, he thought, very suspicious. He went on: ‘I can’t say much. For one thing, I’m afraid they will detect this beam going out and regard our communication as infringing their judical regulations.’

       ‘You don’t have to bother about that, Stevens. You should know that a sub-radio beam is undetectable. Can we couple you up with the big brain as pre-arranged? Give it your data and it’ll come up with the right answer.’

       ‘I just would not know what to ask it, Earth; these boys haven’t given me a lead. I called to tell you I’m going to throw up the game. They’re too powerful! I’m just going to put them the old preservation plea: that every race is unique and should be spared on that account, just as we guard wild animals from extinction in parks – even the dangerous ones. OK?’

      The reply came faintly back: ‘You’re on the spot, feller; we stand by your evaluation. Good luck and out.’

      Stevens looked round at the expressionless faces. Many of the beings present had gigantic ears; one of them possibly – probably – had heard the brief exchange. At that he made his own face expressionless and spoke aloud.

      ‘I have nothing more to say to you,’ he announced. ‘Indeed, I already wish I had said nothing at all. This court is a farce. If you tried all the insects, would they have a word to say in their defence? No! So you would kill them – and as a result you yourself would die. Insects are a vital factor. So is Man. How can we know our own potentialities? If you know yours, it is because you have ceased to develop and are already doomed to extinction. I demand that Man, who has seen through this stunt, be left to develop in his own fashion, unmolested.

      ‘Gentlemen, take me back home!’

      He ended in a shout, and carried away by his own outburst expected a round of applause. The silence was broken only by a polite rustling. For a moment, he thought Mordregon glanced encouragingly at him, and then the figures faded away, and he was left standing alone, gesticulating in an empty hall.

      A robot came and led him back to the automatic ship.

      In what was estimated to be a month, Stevens arrived back at Luna One and was greeted there by Lord Sylvester as he stepped from the galactic vessel.

      They pumped each other heartily on the back.

      ‘It worked! I swear it worked!’ Stevens told the older man.

      ‘Did you try them with reasoning?’ Sylvester asked eagerly.

      ‘Yes – at least, I did my best. But I didn’t seem to be getting anywhere, and then I chucked it up. I remembered what you said, that if they were masters of the galaxy they must be practical men to stay there, and that if we dangled before their variegated noses a practical dinkum which they hadn’t got they’d be queuing up for it.’

      ‘And they hadn’t got an instantaneous communicator!’ Sylvester exclaimed, bursting into a hoot of laughter.

      ‘Naturally not, the thing being an impossibility, as our scientists proved long ago! But the funny bit was, Syl, they accidentally told me they hadn’t got one. And I didn’t even have to employ that argument for having no mind-readers present.’

      ‘So that little bit of recording we fixed up behind your ugly great ear did the trick?’

      ‘It sounded so absolutely genuine I almost believed it was the real thing,’ Stevens said enthusiastically. ‘I’m convinced we’ve won the day with that gadget.’

      And then, perversely, the sense of triumph that had buoyed him all the way home deserted him. The trick was no longer clever: to have duped the Ultralords gave him suddenly nothing but disappointment. With listless surprise at this reaction, he realized he knew himself less well than he had believed.

      He glanced at the gibbous Earth, low over Luna’s mountains: it was the colour of verdigris.

      All the while, Sylvester chattered on excitedly.

      ‘Phew! You knock at least nine years off the ten I’ve aged since you left! When do we get the verdict, Dave? – the mighty Yea or Nay!’

      ‘Any time now – but I’m convinced the Ultralords are in the bag. Some of the mammoth ears present must have picked your voice up.’

      Sylvester commenced to beat Stevens’s back again. Then he sobered and said: ‘Now we’ll have to think about stalling them when they come and ask for portable sub-radios. Still, that can wait; after all, we didn’t actually tell them we had them! Meanwhile, I’ve been stalling off the news-hounds here – the Galactics can’t prove more awkward than they’ve been. Then the President wants to see you – but before that there’s a drink waiting for you, and Edwina is sitting nursing it.’

      ‘Lead the way!’ Stevens said, a little more happily.

      ‘You look a bit gloomy all of a sudden,’ Sylvester commented. ‘Tired, I expect?’

      ‘It has been a strain …’

      As he spoke, the door of his transport slammed shut behind him and the craft lifted purposefully off the field, silent on its cosmic drive. Stevens waved it a solemn farewell and turned away quickly, hurrying with Sylvester across to the domes of Luna One. A chillness was creeping over him again.

      Our Council of the Ultralords must be certain it pronounces the correct verdict when aliens such as Stevens are under examination; consequently, it has to have telepaths present during the trials. All it asks is, simply, integrity in the defendants – that is the simple touchstone: yet it is too difficult for many of them. The men of Earth tortured themselves chasing phantoms, cooking up chimeras. Stevens had integrity, yet would not trust to it. Those who are convicted of dishonesty perish; we have no room for them.

      The robot craft swung away from Luna and headed at full speed towards Earth, the motors in its warhead ticking expectantly, counting out the seconds to annihilation.

      And that, of course, would be the end of the story – for Earth at least. It would have been completely destroyed, as is usual in such distressing cases, but Mordregon, who was amused by Stevens’s bluff, decided that, after all, the warped brains of Earthmen might be useful in coping with the warped brains of the enemy Eleventh Galaxy. He called it ‘an expedient war-time measure’.

      Quietly, he deflected the speeding missile from its target, ordering it to return home. He sent this message by sub-radio, of course; dangerous aliens must necessarily be deluded at times.

       Dumb Show

      Mrs. Snowden was slowly being worn down. She had reached the stage now where she carried about with her a square of card on which the word DON’T was written in large letters. It was kept tucked inside her cardigan, ready to be produced at a moment’s notice and flashed before Pauline’s eyes.

      The ill-matched pair, the grubby girl of three and the shabby-elegant lady of fifty-eight, came up to the side door of their house, Pauline capering over the flagstones, Mrs. Snowden walking slowly with her eyes on the bare border. Spring was reluctantly here, but the tepid earth hardly acknowledged it; even the daffodils had failed to put in an appearance this year.

      ‘Can’t understand it at all,’ Mrs. Snowden told herself. ‘Nothing ever happens to daffodils.’ And then she went on to compile a list of things that nevertheless might have happened: frost – it had been a hard winter; soil-starvation – no manure since the outbreak of hostilities, seven years ago; ants; mice; cats; the sounds – that seemed most likely. Sound did anything, these