Better to wait for the main air locks to open, for the planetary air to swirl in with millions of the little multipliers. Better to greet each one of them into the brotherhood of unified life and let them swirl out again to spread the message.
Then it would be done! Another world organized, complete!
He waited. There was the dull throbbing of the engines working mightily to control the slow dropping of the ship; the shudder of contact with planetary surface, then- He let the jubilation of the keen-thinkers sweep into reception, and his own jubilant thoughts answered them. Soon they would be able to receive as well as himself. Perhaps not these particular fragments, but the fragments that would grow out of those which were fitted for the continuation of life.
The main air locks were about to be opened- And all thought ceased.
Jerry Thorn thought, Damn it, something's wrong now.
He said to Captain Loring, "Sorry. There seems to be a power breakdown. The locks won't open."
"Are you sure, Thorn? The lights are on."
"Yes, sir. We're investigating it now."
He tore away and joined Roger Oldenn at the air-lock wiring box. "What's wrong?"
"Give me a chance, will you?" Oldenn's hands were busy. Then he said, "For the love of Pete, there's a six-inch break in the twenty-amp lead."
"What? That can't be!"
Oldenn held up the broken wires with their clean, sharp, sawn-through ends.
Dr. Weiss joined them. He looked haggard and there was the smell of brandy on his breath.
He said shakily, "What's the matter?"
They told him. At the bottom of the compartment, in one corner, was the missing section.
Weiss bent over. There was a black fragment on the floor of the compartment. He touched it with his finger and it smeared, leaving a sooty smudge on his finger tip. He rubbed it off absently.
There might have been something taking the place of the missing section of wire. Something that had been alive and only looked like wire, yet something that would heat, die, and carbonize in a tiny fraction of a second once the electrical circuit which controlled the air lock had been closed.
He said, "How are the bacteria?"
A crew member went to check, returned and said, "All normal, Doc."
The wires had meanwhile been spliced, the locks opened, and Dr. Weiss stepped out into the anarchic world of life that was Earth.
"Anarchy," he said, laughing a little wildly. "And it will stay that way."
By late 1950, my wife and I had come to the sad and reluctant conclusion that we were not going to have any children. There was nothing particularly wrong that anyone could find, but neither was anything happening.
My wife therefore decided we might as well adjust our way of life to childlessness and prepared to take a greater role in my continuing-to-expand writing career. It seemed to us that efficiency might be increased if we worked as a team. I would dictate my stories and she would type them.
I was a little dubious. It sounded great in theory, but I had never dictated a story. I was used to typing my stories and watching the sentences appear steadily, word by word. So I did not buy a dictating machine outright. I talked the salesman into letting me have it on thirty-day approval.
In the course of the next month, I dictated three stories into the machine, of which "Hostess" was one. It was a frightening experience that taught me a few things. For instance, I discovered that I participated in a story to a greater extent than I realized, when my wife came to me with a little plastic record and said "I can't type this."
I listened to the passage she objected to, one in which two of my characters were quarreling with greater and greater vehemence. I found that as they grew more emotional, so did I, and when their quarrel reached its peak, I was making nothing more than incoherent sounds of rage. I had to dictate that part over again. Heavens, it never happens when I type.
But it worked out well. When the stories were typed up, they sounded just like me; just as though I had typed them from the start. (At least so it seemed to me. You can read "Hostess" and judge for yourself.)
Naturally, I was delighted. I looked up the salesman and told him I would buy the machine. I made out a check for the entire payment in a lump sum.
Within a week, however, according to later calculation, we managed to get a child started. When the fact became unmistakable, we had a conversation in which my contribution consisted entirely of a frequently interjected "You're kidding!"
Anyway, the dictating machine was never used again, though we still own it. Four months after "Hostess" appeared, my son, David, was born.
First appearance-Galaxy Science Fiction, May 1951. Copyright, 1951, by World Editions, Inc.
Hostess
Rose Smollett was happy about it; almost triumphant. She peeled off her gloves, put her hat away, and turned her brightening eyes upon her husband.
She said, "Drake, we're going to have him here."
Drake looked at her with annoyance. "You've missed supper. I thought you were going to be back by seven."
"Oh, that doesn't matter. I ate something on the way home. But, Drake, we're going to have him here!"
"Who here? What are you talking about?"
"The doctor from Hawkin's Planet! Didn't you realize that was what today's conference was about? We spent all day talking about it. It's the most exciting thing that could possibly have happened!"
Drake Smollett removed the pipe from the vicinity of his face. He stared first at it and then at his wife. "Let me get this straight. When you say the doctor from Hawkin's Planet, do you mean the Hawkinsite you've got at the Institute?"
"Well, of course. Who else could I possibly mean?"
"And may I ask what the devil you mean by saying we'll have him here?"
"Drake, don't you understand?"
"What is there to understand? Your Institute may be interested in the thing, but I'm not. What have we to do with it personally? It's Institute business, isn't it?"
"But, darling," Rose said, patiently, "the Hawkinsite would like to stay at a private house somewhere, where he won't be bothered with official ceremony, and where he'll be able to proceed more according to his own likes and dislikes. I find it quite understandable."
"Why at our house?"
"Because our place is convenient for the purpose, I suppose. They asked if I would allow it, and frankly," she added with some stiffness, "I consider it a privilege."
"Look!" Drake put his fingers through his brown hair and succeeded in rumpling it. "We've got a convenient little place here-granted! It's not the most elegant place in the world, but it does well enough for us. However, I don't see where we've got room for extraterrestrial visitors."
Rose began to look worried. She removed her glasses and put them away in their case. "He can stay in the spare room. He'll take care of it himself. I've spoken to him and he's very pleasant. Honestly, all we have to do is show a certain amount of adaptability."
Drake said, "Sure, just a little adaptability! The Hawkinsites breathe cyanide. We'll just adapt ourselves to that, I suppose!"
"He carries cyanide in a little cylinder. You won't even notice it."
"And what else about them that I won't notice?"
"Nothing else. They're perfectly harmless. Goodness, they're even vegetarians."
"And what does that mean? Do we feed him a bale of hay for dinner?"
Rose's lower lip trembled. "Drake, you're being deliberately hateful. There are many vegetarians on Earth; they don't eat hay."