Although the finances of these two men are generally unstable, relying as they do primarily on tips and the uncertain tempers of innately hostile diners, they each did manage to procure at considerable expense, a highly directional array of antennae able to focus a beam to within one or two degrees of arc. On the very next Friday, by means of crude triangulation, Sam and Irving determined that the origin of the clicks was not some Israeli source (as they had expected), but appeared to come from a position in the sky, roughly corresponding to the position of the planet, Mars.
Irving was so unnerved by his discovery, that he could neither eat nor sleep for days. The weakness engendered by his regimen produced a purpose tremor in his right hand that made it hazardous for him to lower a plate of hot soup, and indeed resulted in the near scalding of a customer. It was obvious of course that for the first time a clear-cut indication of the existence of sentient human life on Mars had come to the fore. But why was the message in Hebrew? Irving Pirokin decided to break the pact of secrecy which he and cousin Sam had tentatively entered into, and he showed the translated message to his brother-in-law, Ephraim Zeitz, now Dr. Zeitz, then a theological student specializing in the history of the Lost Tribes of Israel.
Zeitz poured himself into his project, using his time and resources without stint and finally came up with the theory, which, with certain minor changes, is still considered the most likely explanation of the affair of the clicks.
“As is well known,” writes Dr. Zeitz, “the image of ‘a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night,’ could well have represented a primitive atomically energized rocket. We know from the Old Testament how preoccupied the Israelites were with survival, inasmuch as the general evil-doings of mankind had already led the Lord to the near annihilation of mankind by flood. It is quite logical, therefore, that a more advanced group of Israelites, the Lost Tribes, were not transported by Tiglathpilaser as is popularly supposed. By utilizing methods of locomotion involving their atomic knowhow, they managed to breach the barrier of space travel and land on other planets, among them Mars.”
Dr. Zeitz sent an elaboration of this position to the Pentagon, where a prematurely negative response was elicited. But when a field investigator verified the clicks at Irving Pirokin’s receiver, the full machinery of the military was belatedly put into motion. Despite all attempts at keeping the story secret, it was broken to the press by a relative who received twenty-five dollars for scoring a news beat for the metropolitan tabloid in question. It was in this way that the military missions of hostile powers first became apprised of the cryptic clicks.
It soon became apparent that the only place where the mysterious signals could be detected was either at Sam’s rig or at Irving’s rig. But this phenomenon was easily explained by the vagaries of the layers of the Ionosphere, which often produce these apparent freaks of unique reception. More disturbing was the torrent of criticism which began to erupt in an attempt to demolish the hypothesis of Dr. Zeitz.
“Surely Mars cannot hold these Israelites,” wrote one scholar. “The surface temperature of Mars is too high to sustain life and the absence of C02 in the atmosphere would make the preparation of carbonated water, a staple in the ancient Hebrew diet, impossible.”
“But,” rebutted Dr. Zeitz, “it is this very lack of C02 in the atmosphere that proves my hypothesis. Carbon dioxide is rare on Mars because it is being collected and confined to vessels of carbonated beverage which are sealed.”
In the interest of complete honesty, we must make mention of those German scholars who have raised the counter hypothesis which conjectures that the Hyksos were the space migratory group. Utilizing what little is known of the Hyksos alphabet, they have decoded the message to read “streitwagen,” the German word for “chariot,” the invention of which is commonly credited to the Hyksos.
The debate rages on and the military intelligence groups of both East and West are now engaged in exhaustive surveys of the Martian question. At the present writing, it is almost certain that the West is in the driver’s seat, chiefly on the data furnished by the Pirokins.
And what of the Pirokins, themselves? They are both still hard at work on their odd jobs.
“Even a scientist must eat,” says Irving Pirokin. But they are not lionized by their neighbors. Perhaps the familiarity of daily, intimate contact makes the breeding of contempt inevitable.
Max Flenner, a neighborhood haberdasher who is admittedly not on good terms with Irving since he was the recipient of the soup-spilling incident, says the following: “Irving was always weak in the head. Every Friday they chop liver in the back and he picks up the clicks.” We shook our head in doubt.
“That hardly accounts for the same signals being picked up by his cousin in Philadelphia.”
Mr. Flenner raised his eyebrows in disdain. “They don’t chop liver in Philadelphia?”
And of course, science sometimes does “catch up with science fiction.” All of a sudden, everybody’s racing into space, and nobody’s writing about it: at least not science fiction. (Don’t hardly get much sci-fi about helicopters or television any more, either.) But—
“The universe that lies about us, visible only in the privacy, the intimacy of night, is incomprehensibly vast. Yet the conclusion that life exists across this vastness seems inescapable. We cannot yet be sure whether or not it lies within reach, but in any case, we are a part of it all; we are not alone!”
So ends the all-time best nonfiction SF-adventure book, We Are Not Alone, by Walter Sullivan, science editor of The New York Times.
Here’s how it begins: “In November, 1961, the most august scientific body in the United States convened a meeting at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia. While it was not held in secret, in the official sense, every effort was made to avoid publicity because of the sensational nature of the question to be discussed.
“The subject was ‘intelligent Extraterrestrial Life.’ Yet this was no gathering of wild-eyed dreamers. The convener was the Space Science Board of the National Academy of Sciences. The host was one of the world’s most distinguished astronomers, and several others among the eleven men present were internationally recognized leaders in their highly diverse fields.
“The subjects in which the conferees were expert all bore, in some way, on the problem of whether there is intelligent life elsewhere than on earth and, if so, how to communicate with such beings. The participants shared a strong feeling that such civilizations exist. ...”
THE TWERLIK
Jack Sharkey
It lay like a blanket over the cool gray sands, its fibrous substance extended to ultimate length in all directions, like a multispoked umbrella shorn of its fabric.
From each of its radiated arms—or legs; the Twerlik could employ them as it chose—innumerable wirelike filaments stretched outward at right angles to these limbs, flat upon the gray sands. And from them in turn jutted hairlike cilia, so that the entire body—had it been suitably stained and raised against a contrasting backdrop—resembled nothing so much as an enormous multiplumed fan, open to a full circle and laid over an area of ten square miles. Yet weighed upon Earth scales, its entire mass would have been found to tilt the needle barely beyond the one-pound mark. And its arms and filaments and cilia clung so tightly to the sand, and were so pallid of hue, that even were a man to lie face down upon it and stare with all his might, he would not be certain he saw anything but sand beneath him.