John Wyndham - The Midwich Cuckoos

For half an hour or so I listened to a discourse on the erratic and unsatisfactory phylogeny of mankind, which Zellaby concluded with an apology for his inadequate coverage of a subject which was not susceptible to a condensation into half a dozen sentences, as he had attempted.

'However,' he added, 'you will have gathered that the conventional assumption has more lacunae than substance.'

'But if you invalidate it, what then?' I inquired.

'I don't know,' Zellaby admitted, 'but I do refuse to accept a bad theory simply on the grounds that there is not a better, and I take the lack of evidence that ought, if it were valid, to be plentiful, as an argument for the opposition – whatever that may be. As a result I find the occurrence of the Children scarcely more startling, objectively, than that of the various other races of mankind that have apparently popped into existence fully formed, or at least with no clear line of ancestral development.'

So dissolute a conclusion seemed unlike Zellaby. I suggested that he probably had a theory of his own.

Zellaby shook his head.

'No,' he admitted modestly. Then he added: 'One has to speculate, of course. Not very satisfactorily, I'm afraid, and sometimes uncomfortably. It is, for instance, disquieting for a good rationalist, such as myself, to find himself wondering whether perhaps there is not some Outside Power arranging things here. When I look round the world, it does sometimes seem to hold a suggestion of a rather disorderly testing-ground. The sort of place where someone might let loose a new strain now and then, and see how it will make out in our rough and tumble. Fascinating for an inventor to watch his creations acquitting themselves, don't you think? To discover whether this time he has produced a successful tearer-to-pieces, or just another torn-to-pieces and, too, to observe the progress of the earlier models, and see which of them have proved really competent at making life a form of hell for others... You don't think so? – Ah, well, as I told you, the speculations tend to be uncomfortable.'

I told him:

'As man to man, Zellaby, not only do you talk a great deal, but you talk a great deal of nonsense, and make some of it sound like sense. It is very confusing for a listener.'

Zellaby looked hurt.

'My dear fellow, I always talk sense. It is my primary social failing. One must distinguish between the content, and the container. Would you prefer me to talk with that monotonous dogmatic intensity which our simpler-minded brethren believe, God help them, to be a guarantee of sincerity? Even if I should, you would still have to evaluate the content.'

'What I want to know,' I said firmly, 'is whether, having disposed of human evolution, you have any serious hypothesis to put in its place?'

'You don't like my Inventor speculation? Nor do I, very much. But at least it has the merit of being no less improbable, and a lot more comprehensible than many religious suggestions. And when I say "Inventor", I don't necessarily mean an individual, of course. More probably a team. It seems to me that if a team of our own biologists and geneticists were to take a remote island for their testing-ground they would find great interest and instruction in observing their specimens there in ecological conflict. And, after all, what is a planet but an island in space? But a speculation is, as I said, far from being a theory.'

Our circuit had taken us round to the Oppley road. As we were approaching the village a figure, deep in thought, emerged from Hickham Lane, and turned to walk ahead of us. Zellaby called to him. Bernard came out of his abstraction. He stopped and waited for us to catch up.

'You don't look,' remarked Zellaby, 'as though Torrance has been helpful.'

'I didn't get as far as Dr Torrance,' Bernard admitted. 'And now there seems to be little point in troubling him. I've been talking with a couple of your Children.'

'Not with a couple of them,' Zellaby protested gently. 'One talks with either the Composite Boy, or the Composite Girl, or with both.'

'All right. I accept the correction. I have been talking with all the Children – at least, I think so, though I seemed to detect what one might call a strong Zellaby flavour in the conversational style of both boy and girl.'

Zellaby looked pleased.

'Considering we are lion and lamb, our relations have usually been good. It is gratifying to have had some educational influence,' he observed. 'How did you get on?'

'I don't think "get on" quite expresses it,' Bernard told him. 'I was informed, lectured, and instructed. And, finally, I have been charged with bearing an ultimatum.'

'Indeed – and to whom?' asked Zellaby.

'I am really not quite sure. Roughly, I think, to anyone who is in a position to supply them with air transport.'

Zellaby raised his brows. 'Where to?'

'They didn't say. Somewhere, I imagine, where they will be able to live unmolested.'

He gave us a brief version of the Children's arguments.

'So it really amounts to this,' he summed up. 'In their view, their existence here constitutes a challenge to authority which cannot be evaded for long. They cannot be ignored, but any government that tries to deal with them will bring immense political trouble down on itself if it is not successful, and very little less if it is. The Children themselves have no wish to attack, or to be forced to defend themselves -'

'Naturally,' murmured Zellaby. 'Their immediate concern is to survive, in order, eventually, to dominate.'

' – therefore it is in the best interests of all parties that they should be provided with the means of removing themselves.'

'Which would mean, game to the Children,' Zellaby commented, and withdrew into thought.

'It sounds risky – from their point of view, I mean. All conveniently in one aircraft,' I suggested.

'Oh, trust them to think of that. They've considered quite a lot of details. There are to be several aircraft. A squad is to be put at their disposal to check the aircraft, and search for time-bombs, or any such devices. Parachutes are to be provided, some of which, picked out by themselves, are to be tested. There are quite a number of similar provisos. They've been quicker to grasp the full implications of the Gizhinsk business than our own people here, and they aren't leaving much scope for sharp practice.'

'H'm,' I said. 'I can't say I envy you the job of pushing a proposition like that through the red tape. What's their alternative?'

Bernard shook his head.

'There isn't one. Perhaps ultimatum wasn't quite the right word. Demand would be better. I told the Children I could see very little hope of getting anyone to listen to me seriously. They said they would prefer to try it that way first – there'd be less trouble all round if it could be put through quietly. If I can't put it across – and it is pretty obvious I shall not be able to by myself – then they propose that two of them shall accompany me on a second approach.

'After seeing what their "duress" could do to the Chief Constable, it isn't a pleasant prospect. I can see no reason why they should not apply pressure at one level after another until they reach the very top, if necessary. What's to stop them?'

'One has, for some time, seen this coming, as inevitably as the change of the seasons,' Zellaby said, emerging from his reflections. 'But I did not expect it so soon – nor do I think it would have come for years yet if the Russians had not precipitated it. I would guess it has come earlier than the Children themselves would wish, too. They know they are not ready to face it. That is why they want to get away to some place where they can reach maturity unmolested.

'We are presented with a moral dilemma of some niceness. On the one hand, it is our duty to our race and culture to liquidate the Children, for it is clear that if we do not we shall, at best, be completely dominated by them, and their culture, whatever it may turn out to be, will extinguish ours.