Tonight Ry, the leader (as nearly as the Martian word can be translated), and Khee, his administrative assistant and closest friend, sat and meditated together until the time was near. Then they drank a toast to the future—in a beverage based on menthol, which had the same effect on Martians as alcohol on Earthmen—and climbed to the roof of the building in which they had been sitting. They watched toward the north, where the rocket should land. The stars shone brilliantly through the thin atmosphere…
In Observatory No. 1 on Earth’s moon, Rog Everett, his eye at the eyepiece of the spotter scope, said triumphantly, “Thar she blew, Willie. And now, as soon as the films are developed, we’ll know the score on that old planet Mars.” He straightened up—there’d be no more to see now—and he and Willie Sanger shook hands solemnly; it was a historical occasion.
“Hope it didn’t kill anybody. Any Martians, that is. Rog, did it hit dead center in Syrtis Major?”
“Near as matters. The pix will show exactly but I’d say it was maybe a thousand miles off, to the south. And that’s damn close on a fifty-million-mile shot. Willie, do you really think there are any Martians?”
Willie thought a second and then said, “No.”
Willie was right.
A Word From Our Sponsor
Looking at it one way, you could say that it happened a great many different times over a twenty-four hour period; another way, that it happened once and all at once.
It happened, that is, at 8:30 P.M. on Wednesday, June 9th, 1954. That means it came first, of course, in the Marshall Islands, the Gilbert Islands and in all the other islands—and on all the ships at sea—which were just west of the International Date Line. It was twenty-four hours later in happening in the various islands and on the various ships just east of the International Date Line.
Of course, on ships which, during that twenty-four hour period, crossed the date line from east to west and therefore had two 8:30 P.M.’s, both on June 9th, it happened twice. On ships crossing the other way and therefore having no 8:30 P.M. (or one bell, if we must be nautical) it didn’t happen at all.
That may sound complicated, but it’s simple, really. Just say that it happened at 8:30 P.M. everywhere, regardless of time belts and strictly in accordance with whether or not the area in question had or did not have daylight saving time. Simply that: 8:30 P.M. everywhere.
And 8:30 P.M. everywhere is just about the optimum moment for radio listening, which undoubtedly had something to do with it. Otherwise somebody or something went to an awful lot of unnecessary trouble, so to stagger the times that they would be the same all over the world.
Even if, at 8:30 on June 9, 1954, you weren’t listening to your radio—and you probably were—you certainly remember it. The world was on the brink of war. Oh, it had been on the brink of war for years, but this time its toes were over the edge and it balanced precariously. There were special sessions in—but we’ll come to that later.
Take Dan Murphy, inebriated Australian of Irish birth, being pugnacious in a Brisbane pub. And the Dutchman known as Dutch being pugnacious right back. The radio blaring. The bartender trying to quiet them down and the rest of the crowd trying to egg them on. You’ve seen it happen and you’ve heard it happen, unless you make a habit of staying out of waterfront saloons.
Murphy had stepped back from the bar already and was wiping his hands on the sides of his dirty sweat shirt. He was well into the preliminaries. He said, “Why, you—!” and waited for the riposte. He wasn’t disappointed. “—you!” said Dutch.
That, as it happened, was at twenty-nine minutes and twenty-eight seconds past eight o’clock, June 9, 1954. Dan Murphy took a second or two to smile happily and get his dukes up. Then something happened to the radio. For a fraction of a second, only that long, it went dead. Then a quite calm, quite ordinary voice said, “And now a word from our sponsor.” And there was something—some ineffably indefinable quality—in the voice that made everybody in the room listen and hear. Dan Murphy with his right pulled back for a roundhouse swing; Dutch the Dutchman with his feet ready to step back from it and his forearm ready to block it; the bartender with his hand on the bung starter under the bar and his knees bent ready to vault over the bar.
A full frozen second, and then a different voice, also from the radio, said “Fight.”
One word, only one word. Probably the only time in history that “a word from our sponsor” on the radio had been just that. And I won’t try to describe the inflection of that word; it has been too variously described. You’ll find people who swear it was said viciously, in hatred; others who are equally sure that it was calm and cold. But it was unmistakably a command, in whatever tone of voice.
And then there was a fraction of a second of silence again and then the regular program—in the case of the radio in the Brisbane pub, an Hawaiian instrumental group—was back on.
Dan Murphy took another step backwards, and said, “Wait a minute. What the hell was that?”
Dutch the Dutchman had already lowered his big fists and was turning to the radio. Everybody else in the place was staring at it already. The bartender had taken his hand off the bung-starter. He said, “—me for a — — ——. What was that an ad for?”
“Let’s call this off a minute, Dutch,” Dan Murphy said. “I got a funny feeling like that—radio was talking to me. Personally. And what the——business has a bloody wireless set got telling me what to do?”
“Me too,” Dutch said, sincerely if a bit ambiguously. He put his elbows on the bar and stared at the radio. Nothing but the plaintive sliding wail of an Hawaiian ensemble came out of it.
Dan Murphy stepped to the bar beside him. He said, “What the devil were we fighting about?”
“You called me a——” Dutch reminded him.
“And I said,-you.”
“Oh,” Murphy said. “All right, in a couple minutes I’ll knock your head off. But right now I want to think a bit. How’s about a drink?”
“Sure,” Dutch said.
For some reason, they never got around to starting the fight.
Take, two and a half hours later (but still at 8:30 P.M.), the conversation of Mr. and Mrs. Wade Evans of Oklahoma City, presently in their room at the Grand Hotel, Singapore, dressing to go night-clubbing in what they thought was the most romantic city of their round-the-world cruise. The room radio going, but quite softly (Mrs. Evans had turned it down so her husband wouldn’t miss a word of what she had to say to him, which was plenty).
“And the way you acted yesterday evening on the boat with that Miss—Mamselle Cartier—Cah-tee-yay. Half your age, and French. Honestly, Wade, I don’t see why you took me along at all on this cruise. Second honeymoon, indeed!”
“And just how did I act with her? I danced with her, twice. Twice in a whole evening. Dammit, Ida, I’m getting sick of your acting this way. And beside—” Mr. Evans took a deep breath to go on, and thereby lost his chance. “Treat me like dirt. When we get back—”