Arthur Clarke - No Morning After

“I can just see them listening to me,” said Bill. “Why don’t you go and talk to the president?”

“Because yours was the only mind we were able to contact. Others seemed closed to us: we don’t understand why.”

“I could tell you,” said Bill, looking at the nearly empty bottle in front of him. He was certainly getting his money’s worth. What a remarkable thing the human mind was! Of course, there was nothing at all original in this dialogue: it was easy to see where the ideas came from. Only last week he’d been reading a story about the end of the world, and all this wishful thinking about bridges and tunnels through space was pretty obvious compensation for anyone who’d spent five years wrestling with recalcitrant rockets.

“If the sun does blow up,” Bill asked abruptly—trying to catch his hallucination unawares—’what would happen?”

“Why, your planet would be melted instantly. All the planets, in fact, right out to Jupiter.”

Bill had to admit that this was quite a grandiose conception. He let his mind play with the thought, and the more he considered it, the more he liked it.

“My dear hallucination,” he remarked pityingly, “if I believed you, d’you know what I’d say?”

“But you must believe us!” came the despairing cry across the light-years.

Bill ignored it. He was warming to his theme.

“I’d tell you this. It would be the best thing that could possibly happen . Yes, it would save a whole lot of misery. No one would have to worry about the Russians and the atom bomb and the high cost of living. Oh, it would be wonderful! It’s just what everybody really wants. Nice of you to come along and tell us, but just you go back home and pull your old bridge after you.”

There was consternation on Thaar. The Supreme Scientist’s brain, floating like a great mass of coral in its tank of nutrient solution, turned slightly yellow about the edges—something it had not done since the Xantil invasion, five thousand years ago. At least fifteen psychologists had nervous breakdowns and were never the same again. The main computer in the College of Cosmophysics started dividing every number in its memory circuits by zero, and promptly blew all its fuses.

And on Earth, Bill Cross was really hitting his stride.

“Look at me ,” he said, pointing a wavering finger at his chest. I’ve spent years trying to make rockets do something useful, and they tell me I’m only allowed to build guided missiles, so that we can all blow each other up. The sun will make a neater job of it, and if you did give us another planet we’d only start the whole damn thing all over again.”

He paused sadly, marshalling his morbid thoughts.

“And now Brenda heads out of town without even leaving a note. So you’ll pardon my lack of enthusiasm for your Boy Scout act.”

He couldn’t have said “enthusiasm” aloud, Bill realized. But he could still think it, which was an interesting scientific discovery. As he got drunker and drunker, would his cogitation—whoops, that nearly threw him!—finally drop down to words of one syllable?

In a final despairing exertion, the Thaams sent their thoughts along the tunnel between the stars.

“You can’t really mean it, Bill! Are all human beings like you?”

Now that was an interesting philosophical question! Bill considered it carefully—or as carefully as he could in view of the warm, rosy glow that was now beginning to envelop him. After all, things might be worse. He could get another job, if only for the pleasure of telling General Porter what he could do with his three stars. And as for Brenda—well, women were like streetcars: there’d always be another along in a minute.

Best of all, there was a second bottle of whisky in the Top Secret file. Oh, frabjous day! He rose unsteadily to his feet and wavered across the room.

For the last time, Thaar spoke to Earth.

“Bill!” it repeated desperately. “Surely all human beings can’t be like you!”

Bill turned and looked into the swirling tunnel. Strange—it seemed to be lighted with flecks of starlight, and was really rather pretty. He felt proud of himself: not many people could imagine that.

“Like me?” he said. “No, they’re not.” He smiled smugly across the light-years, as the rising tide of euphoria lifted him out of his despondency. “Come to think of it,” he added, “there are a lot of people much worse off than me. Yes, I guess I must be one of the lucky ones, after all.”

He blinked in mild surprise, for the tunnel had suddenly collapsed upon itself and the whitewashed wall was there again, exactly as it had always been. Thaar knew when it was beaten.

“So much for that hallucination,” thought Bill. “I was getting tired of it, anyway. Let’s see what the next one’s like.”

As it happened, there wasn’t a next one, for five seconds later he passed out cold, just as he was setting the combination of the file cabinet.

The next two days were rather vague and bloodshot, and he forgot all about the interview.

On the third day something was nagging at the back of his mind: he might have remembered if Brenda hadn’t turned up again and kept him busy being forgiving.

And there wasn’t a fourth day, of course.