We stared at him, and he sat down on the high bench near the Maling converters. He looked old and he was tired, we could see. “Evil,” he said quietly. “Fear, hate, evil—which of the three is the father and which are the sons? I suppose fear is the father.”
“I’d always thought so,” Deering said, “though my education was almost completely confined to the technical. I’m rather skimpy on the humanities.”
“And I,” Jars said, and now looked at me. “But not you, Werig.”
“I don’t know them, sir,” I said. “Surface manifestations, as we’ve said before today. It would need a closer study. Their huddling is what intrigues me the most.”
One of the rare smiles came to Jars’ lined face as he looked at Deering. “Huddling, the lad says. If you don’t say it, I won’t, Arn.”
Deering smiled in return. “We’ll change the routine, this time; you say ‘love’ and I’ll say ‘fear’. But seriously, Jars, you fear these—people?”
“I fear them,” Jars said. “Scientifically, perhaps, they are tyros, but mechanically they are not. They have discovered forces and developed machines which they do not understand, and yet, have achieved efficiency with them. I fear any monster that powerful even though it is blind.”
“And you think there is a possibility of their becoming—aware of us within any determinable time?”
“I do. You will remember how quickly the Algreans developed, once they achieved unity? You will remember how quickly they became a threat?”
“Yes,” Deering said quietly, “and I have been trying a long time to forget what we did to that planetoid.”
“It was necessary for survival,” Jars said simply. “I think, by any standards, we would be the ones chosen to survive.”
Deering’s smile was cynical. “At least, by our standards. We had a closer communication with them. About the huddlers, we know only what we convert from their stronger video broadcasts. It is a device they seem to use more for entertainment than for information.”
Jars nodded, and stood up. “And love is their major entertainment, perhaps. Love and war. But we gabble. I had a plan in mind, a plan to put before the assembly.”
He had a plan, all right, and I was part of it. The humanities had been no major with me, but they didn’t want a scholar, they wanted a reporter, anyway. Or perhaps I could be called a recorder.
Jars talked and the assembly listened. They always do, when Jars talks.
And I was their boy, and went into a concentrated and complete briefing. They put me under the lucidate and poured it to me, night and day, all the information we had on the huddlers and all the theories based on that information.
They put me into a space sphere, and said “good luck” and do our people proud, young man. Oh, yes. And don’t fall in love. Oh, no. They’d pick me up, again, when they got a signal. They didn’t expect to wait too long for that, I guess, at the time.
The sphere was a relic of the Algrean business, and Algrea hadn’t been this much of a trip. But Mechanics said it would do, and it did.
I landed in the Pacific, about three-quarters of a mile off the Santa Monica yacht basin, and let the sphere float north for a while until I reached a secluded spot. In a small curve of the shore line, a few miles above Santa Monica, I beached her, and opened the dissolving cocks.
I watched her melt into the surging water, and turned to face the red and green light almost immediately overhead. I walked up from the beach to the road, not even knowing what they looked like. Their evolution should have matched ours, but who could be sure?
For all I knew, I might be a freak to them. I should have thought of that before dissolving the ship.
Above, the light changed from red to green and across the street, I saw a sign. This was Sunset Boulevard, and the Pacific Coast Highway. This was open country, but Los Angeles.
Along the Coast Highway, a pair of lights were bearing down on me, and they seemed to waver, as though the machine were under imperfect control.
I moved back, out of the way, and the light overhead turned to red. The car stopped about even with me, its motor running.
I couldn’t see the occupants nor the driver. The light changed, the car jerked, and the motor stopped.
“Damn,” somebody said. It was a female voice.
There was a grinding noise, and another damn, and then a head appeared through the open window on my side of the road.
It was a blond head, and what I could see of the face looked attractive.
“Are you sober?” she asked.
“Not always,” I answered. “Some times I’m quite cheerful. But I’m some distance from home, and have nothing to be cheerful about, at the moment.”
“Try not to be a Cerf,” she said angrily. “What I mean is, are you—have you been drinking?”
“Not recently, though I could use some water.” I could see her face more clearly now, and it was like the faces of our women, only prettier than most, I thought.
“Look,” she said, “I’m drunk. Could you drive this thing? Could you drive me home?”
“I’d be glad to,” I answered, “if you will tell me where you live.”
She gave me an address on Sunset, and this was Sunset, this lateral street, ending at the ocean. So, quite obviously, it was an address I could find.
I went over to climb in behind the wheel. There were two smells in that pretty car with the canvas top. One smell was of gasoline, the other was of alcohol.
“There’s obviously alcohol in the gasoline,” I said, “though that shouldn’t prevent it from igniting.”
“A funny, funny man,” she said. “Keep the dialogue to a minimum, will you, Bogart? I’m not exactly sharp, right now.”
I depressed the starter button, and the motor caught. I swung left onto Sunset, and started up the hill.
The car was clearly a recent model, but Jars had been wrong about the mechanical excellence of these huddlers. The machine simply had no life, no zest.
We drove past a shrine and around two curves, climbing all the while, past some huddled houses on the left, and the whole shining sea spread out on the right.
The woman said, “If you know a place where the coffee is drinkable, stop.”
“I have no money,” I said. Diamonds I had, a bagful of them, for we knew that huddlers treasured diamonds. But no money.
“I’ve got money,” she said. “I’ve got a hell of a lot more money than I have sense. Have you ever been in love, Bogart?”
“Never,” I said.
We were coming into a small huddled area, now. A sign read, Pacific Palisades.
“I have,” she said. “I still am. Isn’t it a miserable rotten world?”
“This one?” I asked, and then said quickly, “I mean—this part of it?”
“Any part of it,” she said. “I’ve seen most of it, and any part where there’s men is bad, Bogart.”
“My name,” I told her, “is not Bogart. My name is Fred Werig.”
“A pleasure, Fred,” she said. “My name is Jean Decker. And I’m beginning to feel better.”
“It couldn’t be my company,” I said, “so it must be the air. I haven’t seen any coffee places that are open.”
I caught a flare of light from the corner of my eye, and turned to see her applying flame to something in her mouth. I remembered from our history; she was smoking. It was a habit long dead where I came from.
And then I remembered what she’d said about being drunk, and knew that, too, as one of our long disused vices. What was it Akers had said about ‘being directed’? A theory, but discredited now, since our scientific advance. But this almost parallels evolution?