Alien Archives. Robert Silverberg

been born; many of them have vague memories of the liquid state, and some can recall as far back as the vapor state. I think we’ve stumbled over something important, thanks to Emerak.”

      “This is wonderful!” Ullowa said. “Here’s our opportunity to study newborn entities firsthand.”

      “It’s a relief to find some people younger than myself,” Emerak said sardonically. “I’m so used to being the baby of the group that it feels peculiar to have all these infants around.”

      “It’s quite glorious,” Ullowa said, as he propelled himself over the ground to where Skrid was examining one of the beings. “It hasn’t been for a million ten-years that a newborn has appeared on our world, and here we are with billions of them all around.”

      “Two million ten-years, Ullowa,” Skrid corrected. “Emerak here is of the last generation. And no need for any more, either, not while the mature entities live forever, barring accidents. But this is a big chance for us—we can make a careful study of these newborn ones, and perhaps set up a rudimentary culture here, and report to the Council once these babies have learned to govern themselves. We can start completely from scratch on the Third Planet. This discovery will rank with Kodranik’s vapor theory!”

      “I’m glad you allowed me to come,” said Emerak. “It isn’t often that a youngster like me gets a chance to—” Emerak’s voice tailed off in a cry of amazement and pain.

      “Emerak?” questioned Skrid. There was no reply.

      “Where did the youngster go? What happened?” Ullowa said.

      “Some fool stunt, I suppose. That little speech of his was too good to be true, Ullowa.”

      “No, I can’t seem to locate him anywhere. Can you? Uh, Skrid! Help me! I’m—I’m—Skrid, it’s killing me!”

      The sense of pain that burst from Ullowa was very real, and it left Skrid trembling. “Ullowa! Ullowa!”

      Skrid felt fear for the first time in more eons than he could remember, and the unfamiliar fright-sensation disturbed his sensitively balanced mind. “Emerak! Ullowa! Why don’t you answer?”

      Is this the end, Skrid thought, the end of everything? Are we going to perish here after so many years of life? To die alone and unattended, on a dismal planet billions of miles from home? Death was a concept too alien for him to accept.

      He called again, his impulses stronger this time. “Emerak! Ullowa! Where are you?”

      In panic, he shot beams of thought all around, but the only radiations he picked up were the mindless ones of the newly born.

      “Ullowa!”

      There was no answer, and Skrid began to feel his fragile body disintegrating. The limbs he had been so proud of—so complex and finely traced—began to blur and twist. He sent out one more frantic cry, feeling the weight of his great age, and sensing the dying thoughts of the newly born around him. Then he melted and trickled away over the heap, while the newborn snowflakes of the Third World watched uncomprehending, even as their own doom was upon them. The sun was beginning to climb over the horizon, and its deadly warmth beat down.

       EN ROUTE TO EARTH

      This is another early story—I wrote it In March of 1957—but a whole world of professional experience separates “The Silent Colony” from “En Route to Earth.” The first story was the work of an eager, hopeful amateur, just setting out on a risky writing career, who had sold only one previous story, to the Scottish magazine Nebula. But by the time I had written “En Route to Earth”, less than four years later, I was an established writer with some two hundred published stories behind me and editors asking me for new stories almost every day.

      One of those editors was Robert. W. Lowndes, who had given me my first sale to an American s-f magazine in 1954 when he bought “The Silent Colony.” By 1957 Lowndes and I had become good friends, with shared interests not only in science fiction but in classical music and much else. He frequently used my work in his three s-f titles (Future, Science Fiction Stories, and Science Fiction Quarterly), as well as in his detective-story magazine and even, occasionally, in one of his sports-fiction pulps or his western-story magazine.

      Lowndes edited so many magazines that he had their covers printed in batches, four titles at a time, and usually asked some writer to do a story based on a cover illustration that had already been painted, rather than doing it, as was more common, the other way around. In those years I was one of the writers he frequently called upon for such tasks. One day in March of 1957 he showed me a new painting by the prolific Ed Emshwiller that was going to be the cover for the August 1957 issue of Science Fiction Quarterly. It showed the stewardess of a space-liner being beckoned by one of the passengers—but the stewardess had blue skin, the passenger had three heads, and various other alien beings could be seen in the background.

      “Easy,” I said. “This is going to be fun.” And I went home and wrote “En Route to Earth,” which Lowndes published a few months later.

      BEFORE THE FLIGHT, THE CHIEF stewardess stopped off in the women’s lounge to have a few words with Milissa, who was making her first extrasolar hop as stewardess of the warpliner King Magnus.

      Milissa was in uniform when the chief stewardess appeared. The low cut, clinging plastic trimmed her figure nicely. Gazing in the mirror, she studied her clear blue skin for blemishes. There were none.

      “All set?” the chief stewardess asked.

      Milissa nodded, a little too eagerly. “Ready, I guess. Blastoff time’s in half an hour, isn’t it?”

      “Yes. Not nervous, are you?”

      “Nervous? Who, me?” Somewhat anxiously she added, “Have you seen the passenger list?”

      “Yes.”

      “How’s the breakdown? Are there—many strange aliens?” Milissa said. “I mean—”

      “A few,” the chief stewardess said cheerfully. “You’d better report to the ship now, dear.”

      The King Magnus was standing on its tail, glimmering proudly in the hot Vegan sun, as Milissa appeared on the arching approach-ramp. Two blueskinned Vegan spacemen lounged against the wall of the Administration Center, chatting with a pilot from Earth. All three whistled as she went by. Milissa ignored them, and proceeded to the ship.

      She took the lift-plate up to the nose of the ship, smiled politely at the jetman who waited at the entrance, and went in. “I’m the new stewardess,” she said.

      “Captain Brilon’s waiting for you in the fore cabin,” the jetman said.

      Milissa checked in as per instructions, adjusted her cap at just the proper angle (with Captain Brilon’s too-eager assistance) and picked up the passenger list. As she had feared, there were creatures of all sorts aboard. Vega served as a funnel for travelers from all over the galaxy who were heading to Earth.

      She looked down the list.

      Grigori—James, Josef, Mike. Returning to Earth after extended stay on Alpheraz IV. Seats 21–22.

      Brothers vacationing together, she thought. How nice. But three of them in two seats? Peculiar!

      Xfooz, Nartoosh. Home world, Sirius VII. First visit to Earth. Seat 23.

      Dellamon, Thogral. Home world, Procyon V. Business trip to Earth. Seat 25.

      And on down the list. At the bottom, the chief stewardess had penciled a little note:

      Be courteous, cheerful, and polite. Don’t let the aliens frighten you—and above all, don’t look