Into the microphone of the TD linguistics machine, Dillingsworth was saying over and over again, 'We're friends. We're peaceful.' To Stanley he said, 'Is this thing working or not ? ... We're friends. We come to your world in peace. We will hurt no one.'
'It takes time,' Stanley explained. 'Keep at it. See, what it has to do is take the visual images connected to the intrinsically meaningless words, images which flash up in your brain as you speak, and transmit replicas of those visual images directly to the brain of...'
'I know how it works,' Dillingsworth said brusquely. 'I'm just anxious for it to get started before he bolts. You can see he's getting ready to.' Into the microphone he once agan said, 'We're friends. We come in peace.
All at once the Peking man spoke.
From the audio section of the linguistics machine a strangled noise sounded; recorded automatically, it was immediately repeated as the tape-deck rewound and played it back.
'What'd he say ?' the little businessman from Kansas City demanded, looking around at everyone.
'What'd he say ?'
Dillingsworth said into the mike, 'Are you our friend, too ? Are you friends with us as we are with you ?'
Going over to Jim Briskin, Sal put his hand on his shoulder and said 'Jim, I want to talk to you.'
'For God's sake, later,' Jim answered.
'Now,' Sal said. 'It can't wait.'
Jim groaned. 'Jesus, man, are you out of your head ?'
'No, I'm not,' Sal said evenly. 'It's everyone else here who is. Including you. Come on.' He took hold of Jim by he shoulder and propelled him forcibly from the group, off to one side of the road.
'Listen,' Sal said. 'How do you define man ? Go on, define man for me.'
Staring at him Jim said. 'What ?'
'Define man! I'll do it, then. Man's a tool-making animal. Okay, what's all this - for example, that cart and that hat and that package and that robe ? Plus the ship we saw and that glider with that compressor and turbine ? Tools. All of them, broadly speaking. So what does that make that damn creature sitting up there at the tiller of that cart ? I'll tell you: it makes him a man, that's what. So he's ugly-looking; so he has a low forehead and beetling brows and he isn't too bright.
But he's bright enough to get in under the wire and qualify, that's how bright he is goddam it. I
mean, my god, he's even built roads. And...' Sal vibrated with rage.'... he even shot down our QB
satellite!'
'Look,' Jim began, wearily, 'this is no time ...'
'It's the only time. We have to get out of here. Back across and forget what we saw.' But, of course, as Sid well knew., it was hopeless. The 'hopper, for instance, belonged to TD, was piloted by a TD employee to whom Sal Heim could give no orders. Only Stanley could, and obviously Stanley had no intention of leaving; he was standing by the linguistics machine, fascinated. 'Let me ask you this,' Sal panted. 'If they're men, and you admit they are, how're we going to deny them the vote ?'
After a pause Jim said, 'Is that actually what you're worrying about ?'
'Yes,' Sal said.
Turning, Jim walked back to join the group. Without a word. Sal Heim watched him go.
'He's going to be voting,' Sal said, aloud but to himself. I can see it coming. And then you know what ? Mixed marriages. Between us and them. Let's go home; please, let's go home. Okay ?' No one stirred. 'I don't want to foresee it, but I do,' Sal said. 'Can I help that ? So I'm a prophet. Hell, don't blame me; blame that thing sitting up there on that cart. It's his fault. He shouldn't even be existing.'
From the audio circuit of the linguistics machine a guttural, hoarse voice whispered,'... friend.'
Frantically, Dillingsworth turned to those around him and said, 'It was him; that was not feedback from what I put in.'
"They don't even have radio, here,' Sal Heim said.
In his N'York office, the private investigator Tito Cravelli received a puzzling bulletin from his contact at TD, Earl Bohegian: 'First report from 'hopper to TD. World inhabited by apes.'
Taking a calculated risk, Cravelli dialed Terran Development through regular vidphone channels.
When he reached TD's switchboard, he matter of factly asked to speak to Mr. Bohegian.
'How could you be so foolish as to call me direct ?' Bohegian asked nervously, when the call was put through to his office.
'Explain your message,' Tito said.
'They're educated apes,' Bohegian said, leaning close to the vidscreen and speaking in a low, urgent voice. 'You know, missing links.'
'Dawn men,' Tito said, finally understanding. He felt his heart skip a beat. 'Go on, Earl, I want to hear it all; keep talking and if you ring off, I'll call you right back, so help me God.'
Earl Bohegian muttered, 'The report was given to old Leon Turpin; he's examining it right now on floor twenty. They're trying to decide if they want to shut the 'scuttler down and wall the rent up or not. But I don't think they're gonna, not from what I've heard.'
'No,' Tito agreed. "They won't. There's too much to gain by leaving it open.'
'But they are sort of upset. Who isn't ? Imagine; here we took it for granted that humans like ourselves ...'
'Did the 'hopper specifically state which variety of sub-Homo sapiens it is ?' Cravelli asked, trying to remember his college anthropology.
'Peking man. Does that sound right ?'
Cravelli bit his lip. "That's a hell of a low-grade type. One of the lowest, Now, if it had been Cro-
Magnon or even Neanderthal. ...' That would be another matter. After all, the Palestine archeological discoveries were proof that Homo sapiens and Neanderthal had already interbred, tens of thousands of years in the past. And it had evidently done no harm; the Homo sapiens genetic strain had dominated.
"They're going to bring one back,' Bohegian said. "They've already got one inside the 'hopper, the scuttlebutt says down in the washroom at the end of my hall. And they're in lin-com with it.
It's docile, one exec told me just now. Scared out of its wits.'
'Of course it would be,' Cravelli said. 'They probably remember us from their past, remember getting rid of us.' Just as we got rid of them in our world, he thought. Wiped them utterly out.
'And now we're back,' he said. 'It must seem like black magic to them: ghosts from a hundred thousand years ago, from their own Stone Age. Jeez, what a situation!'
'I've got to ring off,' Bohegian said. 'I told you everything anyhow, Tito. When there's more...'
'Okay,' Tito Cravelli said and broke the connection.
I wonder if they'll be able to pilot that jet-hopper back across the Atlantic and then back through the rent to our world, he conjectured. Or will the Peking people get them along the way ? Good question.
This is going to work havoc with the November election, he said to himself, broodingly. Who could have possibly anticipated something like this ? Once more Tito Cravelli saw his Attorney
Generalship receding, along with Jim Briskin’s election.
These parallel worlds are a knotty problem, he realized. I wonder how many exist. Dozens ?
With a different human sub-species dominant on each ? Weird idea. He shivered. God, how unpleasant ... like concentric rings of hell, each with its own particular brand of torment.
And then he thought suddenly: Maybe there's one in which a human type superior to us, one we know nothing about, dominates; one which, in our own world, we extinguished at its inception.
Blotto, right off the bat.
Somebody ought to tinker with a 'scuttler with that in mind, Tito decided. But then, it occurred to him, they'd show up here, just the way we're appearing in Peking man's orderly little universe.
And we'd be finished. We wouldn't be able to survive the competition.
Just, he thought, as Peking man isn't going to be able to stand up to us for long.
The poor clucks. They don't know what's in store for them; their time is limited, now. Because their ancestral foe has reappeared - and right in their midst, with TV, rocket-ships, laser rifles, Hbombs, all kinds of devices inconceivable to their limited mentalities. They spent a million or two years developing a gas compressor, and what good is it going to do them, now that the chips are down ? Them and their wooden gliders that travel a hundred feet and then have to land again.