Robert Silverberg: Invaders From Earth

There were some awkward moments while he helped her put away the dinner dishes; twice, his eyes met hers and he flinched. He felt very tired. The Ganymede contract was going to occupy his attentions for more than a year, and it wasn’t going to be healthy for their marriage if they spent the next thirteen months bickering over the moral issues involved in his acceptance of the assignment.

He had long been proud of the fact that his wife had a mind of her own. Her independent thinking was one of the things he loved her for. But, he saw now, it could also get somewhat burdensome. Perhaps if we’d had children, he speculated. Maybe she wouldn’t be so touchy about Causes and Movements. But they had never had children, and probably never would.

They listened to music awhile—Kennedy only half-listening to the Boccherini quintet Marge loved so, and the Schubert octet. She was terribly fond of chamber music. Ordinarily, Kennedy was, too—but tonight it all seemed frilly and foolish.

At five to eight he suggested, “Let’s watch video, eh, Marge? We haven’t done that in ages. Let’s watch some comic, the way we used to years ago.”

“Anything you like, dear,” she said mechanically.

He dimmed the lights and switched the set on. It was a new set, hardly a year old, a forty-eight-inch job Kennedy had had installed in the wall opposite the couch. Again, a social necessity. They hardly watched it, normally.

A vortex of colored light swirled dizzyingly for an instant, and then the screen cleared. They had tuned in at the tail end of some program, and a gay, sprightly commercial was on. Kennedy found the dancing stick-figures offensive. He drew Marge close against him on the couch, but she was stiff and unresponsive.

The program ended. The time-bleep bleeped and a deep voice said, “Eight P.M., Eastern Standard Time. From coast to coast, Levree Radionic Watches keep you on time, all the time. No gears, no springs.”

Again the screen showed the color vortex. Another voice said, “The program normally scheduled for this hour has been canceled to bring you a special Government information release program.”

“Let me change the station,” Kennedy said. “This’ll just be dull junk. We need something funny tonight.”

She grasped his arm tightly. “No. Let’s see what this is, first. It may be important.”

An announcer appeared, white-toothed, neatly tanned, his mustache stained red and meticulously clipped. “Good evening,” he said. “This is Don Howell from your network newsroom, bringing you a special program covering the big news story of the day, the year, and possibly the century—the discovery of living intelligent beings on another world of this solar system.”

Kennedy stiffened. Already? he asked himself. They’re releasing it so soon?

“We must have missed the news bulletins,” Marge said.

“. . . was revealed by the President at 4:45 this afternoon, at a special press conference. The news electrified a world long fascinated by the possible existence of life in outer space. Details of the expedition are still coming in. However, it’s our privilege to present the first public showing of a special film taken by members of the Ganymede expedition!”

The film was the same one Kennedy had seen in Dinoli’s office earlier in the day. This time, though, a slick professional commentary had been dubbed in. The news-break, Kennedy thought, was apparently the work of a Dinoli second-level man who’d been preparing it for some days. He thought he recognized Ernie Watsinski’s touch in the commentary.

When the film reached the point at which the Ganymedean natives appeared, he heard Marge utter a little gasp. “Why, they’re like children!” she said. “Defenseless naked creatures! And these are the beings we’re going to make war on?”

“We’re just going to occupy their territory,” Kennedy said stubbornly. “And probably administer it for them. In the long run they’ll be a lot better off for it.”

“Unless they don’t want to be better off,” she said. “Or administered.”

Kennedy shook his head. The public knew, now, come tomorrow, the behind-the-scenes campaign would begin in the offices of S and D. What shall it profit a man, he wondered bleakly, if he gets promoted to second-level, and loses his own wife in the process?

He pulled her tight against him, and after a few moments of hesitation she turned from the screen to him, with what he hoped was unfaked warmth.

The next day was the fourth of May, 2044, and the first day of intensive work on what was rapidly becoming known around S and D as the Ganymede Contract.

The dramatic newsbreak of the night before seemed to be the universal topic of discussion; every telefax sheet, every news commentator, every cab driver, had his own set of opinions on the revelation. Kennedy thought of this time as a kind of primordially formless era, before the shrewd minds of Steward and Dinoli went to work shaping a clear-cut and unified public opinion from the present chaos.

They met in the office of Ernie Watsinski, second-level public-relations man, and, incidentally, Dinoli’s son-in-law. Watsinski was a tall, stoop-shouldered man of thirty-eight, weak-eyed, with a dome-like skull sparsely covered with sandy hair. Physically he was easy to overlook. But he had a razor-keen mind and an astonishing capacity for quick decisions. He had made second-level at the age of thirty-one, marrying Dinoli’s daughter the following year.

He affected twentieth-century functional by way of office furniture, and as a result his private room looked severely ascetic. He perched on the arm of a lemon-colored desk chair and glanced around the room. All eight of the third-level men were present, and Dave Spalding.

“How many of you saw the big newsbreak last night?” he asked. His voice was thin and high-pitched, but still somehow commanding. “All of you? Fine. That’s what we like to see here. I worked that program up myself, you know. With aid from Hubbel and Partridge.”

He slouched back in the chair, crossing his long spidery legs. “Your colleagues of the sixth- and seventh-level have been running gallups all morning. We’ve got some of the early results in. Seems almost everyone saw that spot last night, and the early gallups show tremendous interest focused on this Ganymede thing. Okay. The interest exists; it’s our job to channel it. That clear and pellucid?”

Without waiting for any response, he continued. “You’ve all been relieved of your present assignments. You’ll be working directly under me; the other three second-level men will be operating peripherally in the same general area, but the key work on this contract is going to come out of this office. I have this straight from Dinoli. Any questions? Good. Now, let’s toss this around for half an hour or so. First thing I want is a suggestion for a broad approach. Kennedy?”

Kennedy had been astonished by the sight of his own arm waving in the air. He recovered quickly and said, “I have an idea or two on our general slant, if that hasn’t already been determined.”

“It hasn’t. That’s what we’re here to do. Go on.”

“Well,” Kennedy said carefully, “My wife and I saw the program last night. Her reaction to the sight of the Ganymedeans was one of pity. They aroused her maternal protective instincts. I’d suggest we play to this, Ernie. The poor, childlike, innocent Ganymedeans who have to be taken over by our occupation forces for their own good.”

“Shrewd point, Kennedy. Let’s kick that around a little. Haugen?”

“I’m dead opposed,” Haugen said thickly. He twined his fleshy fingers together. “My wife reacted pretty much the same way Kennedy’s did. She even thought they were cute. The gallups will probably tell you that it was a universal reaction. Okay. We follow Kennedy’s plan and build the Ganymedeans up as babes in the woods. What happens if they decide to fight back? Suppose there’s a massacre bloodier than all get-out when we try to occupy Ganymede?”