And it seemed strange that anything at all could be frightening on such a day as this—a burnished summer day, with white clouds rimming the western horizon and the sky the color of pale blue silk, a day that had no moods, but was as commonplace as the cornfield earth.
After Mary had left, Peter went in the house and made his lunch. He sat by the window, eating it, and watched the neighbors come. They came by twos and threes, tramping across the pasture from all directions, coming to his pasture from their own farms, leaving the haying rigs and the cultivators, abandoning their work in the middle of the day to see the strange machine.
They stood around and talked, tramping down the thicket where he had found the machine, and at times their high, shrill voices drifted across to him, but he could not make out what they said, for the words were flattened and distorted by the distance.
From the stars, he’d said. From some place among the stars.
And if that be fantasy, he said, I have a right to it.
First contact, he thought.
And clever!
Let an alien being arrive on Earth and the women would run screaming for their homes and the men would grab their rifles and there’d be hell to pay.
But a machine—that was a different matter. What if it was a little different? What if it acted a little strangely? After all, it was only a machine.
It was something that could be understood.
And if it handed out free gifts, that was all the better.
After lunch, he went out and sat on the steps and some of the neighbors came and showed him what the machine had given them. They sat around and talked, all of them excited and mystified, but not a single one of them was scared.
Among the gifts were wrist-watches and floor lamps, typewriters and fruit juicers, sets of dishes, chests of silver, bolts of drapery materials, shoes, shotguns, carving sets, book ends, neckties, and many other items. One youngster had a dozen skunk traps and another had a bicycle.
A modern Pandora’s box, thought Peter, made by an alien intelligence and set down upon the Earth.
Apparently the word was spreading, for now the people came in cars.
Some of them parked by the road and walked down to the pasture and others came into the barnyard and parked there, not bothering to ask for permission.
After a time, they would come back loaded with their loot and drive away.
Out in the pasture was a milling throng of people. Peter, watching it, was reminded of a county fair or a village carnival.
By chore-time, the last of them had gone, even the neighbors who had come to say a few words with him and to show him what they’d gotten, so he left the house and walked up the pasture slope.
The machine still was there and it was starting to build something. It had laid out around it a sort of platform of a stone that looked like marble, as if it were laying a foundation for a building. The foundation was about ten feet by twelve and was set level against the pasture’s slope, with footings of the same sort of stone going down into the ground.
He sat down on a stump a little distance away and looked out over the peace of the countryside. It seemed more beautiful, more quiet and peaceful than it had ever seemed before, and he sat there contentedly, letting the evening soak into his soul.
The Sun had set not more than half an hour ago. The western sky was a delicate lemon fading into green, with here and there the pink of wandering cloud, while beneath the horizon the land lay in the haze of a blue twilight, deepening at the edges. The liquid evensong of birds ran along the hedges and the thickets and the whisper of swallows’ wings came down from overhead.
This is Earth, he thought, the peaceful, human Earth, a landscape shaped by an agricultural people. This is the Earth of plum blossom and of proud red barns and of corn rows as straight as rifle barrels.
For millions of years, the Earth had lain thus, without interference; a land of soil and life, a local corner of the Galaxy engaged in its own small strivings.
And now?
Now, finally, there was interference.
Now, finally, someone or something had come into this local corner of the Galaxy and Earth was alone no longer.
To himself, he knew, it did not matter. Physically, there was no longer anything that possibly could matter to him. All that was left was the morning brightness and the evening peace and from each of these, from every hour of each day that was left to him, it was his purpose to extract the last bit of joy in being alive.
But to the others it would matter—to Mary Mallet and her brother Johnny, to the little Smith boy who had gotten the baseball bat and mitt, to all the people who had visited this pasture, and to all the millions who had not visited or even heard of it.
Here, in this lonely place in the midst of the great cornlands, had come, undramatically, a greater drama than the Earth had yet known. Here was the pivot point.
He said to the machine: «What do you intend with us?»
There was no answer.
He had not expected one.
He sat and watched the shadows deepen and the lights spring up in the farm houses that were sprinkled on the land. Dogs barked from far away and others answered them and the cowbells rang across the hills like tiny vesper notes.
At last, when he could see no longer, he walked slowly back to the house.
In the kitchen, he found a lamp and lit it. He saw by the kitchen clock that it was almost nine o’clock—time for the evening news.
He went into the living room and turned on the radio. Sitting in the dark, he listened to it.
There was good news.
There had been no polio deaths in the state that day and only one new case had been reported.
«It is too soon to hope, of course,» the newscaster said, «but it definitely is the first break in the epidemic. Up to the time of broadcast, there have been no new cases for more than twenty hours. The state health director said …»
He went on to read what the health director said, which wasn’t much of anything, just one of those public statements which pretty generally add up to nothing tangible.
It was the first day in almost three weeks, the newscaster had said, during which no polio deaths had been reported. But despite the development, he said, there still was need of nurses. If you are a nurse, he added, won’t you please call this number? You are badly needed.
He went on to warm over a grand jury report, without adding anything really new. He gave the weather broadcast. He said the Emmett murder trial had been postponed another month.
Then he said: «Someone has just handed me a bulletin. Now let me see …»
You could hear the paper rustling as he held it to read it through, could hear him gasp a little.
«It says here,» he said, «that Sheriff Joe Burns has just now been notified that a Flying Saucer has landed on the Peter Chaye farm out near Mallet Corners. No one seems to know too much about it. One report is that it was found this morning, but no one thought to notify the sheriff. Let me repeat—this is just a report. We don’t know any more than what we’ve told you. We don’t know if it is true or not. The sheriff is on his way there now. We’ll let you know as soon as we learn anything. Keep tuned to this …»
Peter got up and turned off the radio. Then he went into the kitchen to bring in the lamp. He set the lamp on a table and sat down again to wait for Sheriff Burns.
He didn’t have long to wait.
«Folks tell me,» said the sheriff, «this here Flying Saucer landed on your farm.»
«I don’t know if it’s a Flying Saucer, Sheriff.»
«Well, what is it, then?»
«I wouldn’t know,» said Peter.
«Folks tell me it was giving away things.»
«It was doing that, all right.»
«If this is some cockeyed advertising stunt,» the sheriff said, «I’ll have someone’s neck for it.»