Speaker 1: Circus by allan at one's nose. Just suppose, said Morgan,
Speaker 1: that I did believe ye. Just for argument, he glanced
Speaker 1: up at the man across the restaurant table. Where would
Speaker 1: we go from here? The man shifted uneasily in his seat.
Speaker 1: He was silent, staring down at his plate. Not a
Speaker 1: strange looking man, Morgan thought, read the ordinary in fact,
Speaker 1: a plain face, nose, a little too long, fingers a
Speaker 1: little too dainty, a souit that doesn't quite seem to fit.
Speaker 1: But all in all, a perfectly ordinary looking man. Maybe
Speaker 1: too ordinary, Morgan thought. Finally, the man looked up. His
Speaker 1: eyes were dark, with a haunted look in their depths
Speaker 1: that chilled Morgan a little. Where do we go? I
Speaker 1: don't know. I'll try to think it out and I
Speaker 1: get nowhere. But you've got to believe me, Morgen. I'm
Speaker 1: lost a minute. If I can't get help, I don't
Speaker 1: know where it's going to end. I'll tell you where
Speaker 1: it's going to end, said Morgan. It's going to end
Speaker 1: in a hospital, a mental hospital. They'll lock you up
Speaker 1: and they'll lose the key somewhere. He pulled himself another
Speaker 1: cup of coffee and sipped it scolding hot, and that,
Speaker 1: he added, will be that the place was dark and
Speaker 1: almost empty. Overhead, a rotary fan swished patiently. The man
Speaker 1: across from Morgan ran a hand through his dark hair.
Speaker 1: There must be some other way, he said, there has
Speaker 1: to be. All right, let's start from the beginning again.
Speaker 1: Morgan said, maybe we can pin something down a little better.
Speaker 1: You say your name is Parks, right, The man nodded.
Speaker 1: Jefferson heldman, Parks, if that helps any Helman was my
Speaker 1: mother's maiden name. All right, and you got into town
Speaker 1: on Friday, right, Parks nodded. Fine. Now go through the
Speaker 1: whole story again. What happened first? The man thought for
Speaker 1: a minute, as I said, First, there was a fall
Speaker 1: about twenty feet. I didn't break any bones, but I
Speaker 1: was shaken up and limping. The fall was near the
Speaker 1: highway going to the George Washington Bridge. I got over
Speaker 1: to the highway and tried to flag down a ride.
Speaker 1: How did you feel, I mean, was there anything strange
Speaker 1: that you noticed? Strange? Eyed widened, I was speechless at first.
Speaker 1: I hadn't noticed too much. I was concerned with the
Speaker 1: fool and whether I was hurt or not. I didn't
Speaker 1: really think about much else until I hobbled up to
Speaker 1: the highway and saw those cars coming. Then I could
Speaker 1: hardly believe my eyes. I thought I was crazy, but
Speaker 1: a car stopped and asked me if I was going
Speaker 1: into the city, and I knew I wasn't crazy. Boonan's
Speaker 1: mouth took a grim line. You understood the language. Oh yes,
Speaker 1: I don't see how I could have, but I did.
Speaker 1: We talked all the way into New York. Nothing very important,
Speaker 1: but we understood each other. His speech had an odd sound,
Speaker 1: but Morgan nodded, I know. I noticed. What did you
Speaker 1: do when you got to New York? Well, obviously I
Speaker 1: needed money. I had gold coin. There had been no
Speaker 1: way of knowing if it would be useful, but I'd
Speaker 1: taken it on chance. I tried to use it at
Speaker 1: a new stand first, and the man wouldn't touch it.
Speaker 1: Asked me if I thought I was a US treasury
Speaker 1: or something. When he saw that I was serious, he
Speaker 1: sent me to a money lender, a hog shop, I
Speaker 1: think he called it. So I found a place. Let
Speaker 1: me see the coins. Parks dropped two small gold discs
Speaker 1: on the table. They were perfectly smooth and perfectly round,
Speaker 1: tapered by where to a thin, blunt edge. There was
Speaker 1: no design on them, and no printing. Morgan looked up
Speaker 1: at the man sharply, what did you get for these parks?
Speaker 1: Shrugged too little. I susp packed two dollars for the
Speaker 1: small one, five for the larger. He should have gone
Speaker 1: to a bank. I know that now I didn't. Then, naturally,
Speaker 1: I assume that with everything else so similar, principles of
Speaker 1: business would also be similar. Morgan sighed and leaned back
Speaker 1: in his chair. Well, then, what puck spawed some more coffee?
Speaker 1: His face was very pale, Morgan thought, and his hands
Speaker 1: trembled as he raised the cup to his lips. Fright,
Speaker 1: maybe hard to tell. The man put down the cup
Speaker 1: and rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand.
Speaker 1: First I went to the Mayor's office, he said. I
Speaker 1: kept trying to think what anyone at home would do
Speaker 1: in my place. That seemed a good bed. I asked
Speaker 1: a poly man where it was, and then I went there.
Speaker 1: But you didn't get to see him. No. I saw
Speaker 1: a secretary. She said the mayors was in conference and
Speaker 1: that I would have to have an appointment. She let
Speaker 1: me speak to another man, one of the mayor's assistants,
Speaker 1: and you told him no, I wanted to see the
Speaker 1: mayors himself. I thought that was the best thing to do.
Speaker 1: I waited for a couple of hours until another assistant
Speaker 1: came along and told me flatly that the mayors wouldn't
Speaker 1: see me unless I stated my business first. He drew
Speaker 1: in a deep breath. So I stated it, and then
Speaker 1: I was gently but firmly ushered back into the suite again.
Speaker 1: They didn't believe you, said Morgan, not for a minute.
Speaker 1: They laughed in my face. Morgan nodded, I'm beginning to
Speaker 1: get the pattern. So what did you do next? Next?
Speaker 1: I tried the police. I got the same treatment there,
Speaker 1: and only they weren't so gentle. They wouldn't listen either.
Speaker 1: They muttered something about cranks and their crazy notions, and
Speaker 1: when they asked me where I lived, they thought I
Speaker 1: was what did they call it? A wise guy? Told
Speaker 1: me to get out and not come back with any
Speaker 1: more wild stories. I see, said Morgan. Jefferson Parks finished
Speaker 1: his last bite of pie and pushed the plate away.
Speaker 1: By then, I didn't know quite what to do. I've
Speaker 1: been prepared for almost anything excepting this. It was frightening.
Speaker 1: I tried to rationalize it, and then I quit trying.
Speaker 1: It wasn't that I attracted attention or anything like that.
Speaker 1: Quite the contrary. Nobody even looked at me unless I
Speaker 1: said something to them. I began to look for things
Speaker 1: that were different, things that I could show them and say, see,
Speaker 1: this proves that I am telling the truth. Look at it.
Speaker 1: He looked up helplessly, and what did you find? Nothing? Oh,
Speaker 1: little things, insignificant little things. Your calendars, for instance. Naturally
Speaker 1: I couldn't understand your frame of reference, and the coinage,
Speaker 1: your stamp, your coins we don't and cigarettes, we don't
Speaker 1: have any such thing as tobacco, the man gave a
Speaker 1: short laugh. And your house dogs, we have little animals
Speaker 1: looked more like rabbits than poodles. But there was nothing
Speaker 1: any more significant than that, Absolutely nothing except yourself. Morgan said, ah, yes,
Speaker 1: I thought that over carefully. I looked for differences, obvious ones.
Speaker 1: I couldn't find any. You can see that just looking
Speaker 1: at me. So I searched for more supple things, skin texture, fingerprints,
Speaker 1: bone structure, body proportion. I still couldn't find anything. Then
Speaker 1: I went to a doctor. Morgan's eyebrows lifted. Good, he said,
Speaker 1: Parks shrugged tiredly. Not really. He examined me. He practically
Speaker 1: took me apart. I carefully refrained from saying anything about
Speaker 1: who I was or where I came from. JAS said
Speaker 1: I wanted a complete physical examination and let him go
Speaker 1: to it. He was thorough, and when he finished, he
Speaker 1: patted me on the back and said, Parks, you've got
Speaker 1: nothing to worry about. You're as fine, strapping as peacemen
Speaker 1: of a healthy human being as I've ever seen. And
Speaker 1: that was that. Parks laughed bitterly. I guess I was
Speaker 1: supposed to be happy with the verdict, and instead I
Speaker 1: was ready to knock him down. It was idiotic. It's
Speaker 1: a find reason it was infuriating. Morgan nodded sourly. Because
Speaker 1: you're not a human being, he said, that's right, I'm
Speaker 1: not a human being at all. How did it happen
Speaker 1: to pick this planet or this sun? Morgan asked curiously.
Speaker 1: There must have been a million others to choose from.
Speaker 1: Parks unbuttoned his collar and rubbed his double chin. Unhappily.
Speaker 1: I didn't make the choice. Neither did any one else.
Speaker 1: Travel by warp is a little different from the travel
Speaker 1: by the rocket. If fiction writers make so much of
Speaker 1: with a rocket vehicle, you pick your destination, make your calculations,
Speaker 1: and off you go. The WORP is blind, flying strictly blind.
Speaker 1: We send an handman's scanner ahead. It probes around more
Speaker 1: or less heat or miss until it to locate something
Speaker 1: somewhere that looks habitable. When its pots a likely looking place,
Speaker 1: we keep a tight beam on it and send it
Speaker 1: through a man's scout. He grins sourly like me. If
Speaker 1: it looks good to the scout, he signals back and
Speaker 1: they leap. If the WORP anchored for a sort of
Speaker 1: permanent gateway until we can get a transport beam built.
Speaker 1: But we can't control the directional and dimensional scope of
Speaker 1: the warp, there are an infinity of ways it can
Speaker 1: go until we have a guide beam transmitting from the
Speaker 1: other side. Then we can just scan a segment of
Speaker 1: space with the warp and the scanner picks up the beam.
Speaker 1: He shook his head wearily when new at it, Morgan,
Speaker 1: we've only tried a few dozen runs. We're not too
Speaker 1: far ahead of view in technology. We've been using rocket
Speaker 1: vehicles just like yours for over a century. That's fine
Speaker 1: for a solar system, but it's not much good for
Speaker 1: the stars. When the Worp principle was discovered, it looked
Speaker 1: like the answer, but something went wrong. The scanner picked
Speaker 1: up this planet, and I was coming through, and then
Speaker 1: something blue. Next thing I knew, I was falling. When
Speaker 1: I try to make contact again, the scanner was gone.
Speaker 1: And you found things here the same as back home,
Speaker 1: said Morgan, the same. Your planet and mine are practically twins,
Speaker 1: similar cities, similar technology, everything, The people are the same,
Speaker 1: with precisely the same anatomy and physiology, the same sort
Speaker 1: of laws, the same institutions, even compatible languages. Can't you
Speaker 1: see the importance of it. This planet is on the
Speaker 1: other side of the universe from mine, with the first
Speaker 1: intelligent life we have yet encountered anywhere. But when I
Speaker 1: try to tell your people that I am a native
Speaker 1: of another star system, they won't believe me. Why should,
Speaker 1: they asked Morgan, you looked like a human being, you
Speaker 1: talk like one, you eat like one, you act like one.
Speaker 1: What you're asking them to believe is utterly incredible. But
Speaker 1: it's true, Morgan shrugged. So it's true. I won't argue
Speaker 1: with you, But as I asked before, even if I
Speaker 1: did believe you, what do you expect me to do
Speaker 1: about it? Why pick me of all the people you've seen?
Speaker 1: There was a desperate light in Bark's eyes. I was tired,
Speaker 1: tired of being a laughed at, tired of having people
Speaker 1: looking at me as though I lost my wits when
Speaker 1: I tried to tell them the truth. You were here,
Speaker 1: you were alone, so I started talking, and then I
Speaker 1: found out you wrote stories. He looked up eagerly. I've
Speaker 1: got to get back, Morgan, some how. My life is there,
Speaker 1: my family, and think what it would mean to both
Speaker 1: of our words contact with another intelligent race, combine our knowledge,
Speaker 1: our technologies, and we could explore the galaxy. He leaned forward,
Speaker 1: his thin face intense. I need money and I need help.
Speaker 1: I know some of the mathematics of the war principle,
Speaker 1: know some of the design, some of the power and
Speaker 1: wiring principles. You have engineers here, technologists, physicists. They could
Speaker 1: fill in what they don't know and build a guide beam.
Speaker 1: But they won't do it if they don't believe me.
Speaker 1: Your government won't listen to me, they won't appropriate any money.
Speaker 1: Of course, they won't they've got a war or two
Speaker 1: in their hands. They have public welfare and atomic bombs
Speaker 1: and rockets to the moon to sing their money into.
Speaker 1: Morgan stared at the man. But what can I do?
Speaker 1: You can write, That's what you can do. You can
Speaker 1: tell the word about me. You can tell exactly what
Speaker 1: has happened. I know how public interest can be aroused
Speaker 1: in my word. It must be the same in yours.
Speaker 1: Morgan didn't move, He just stared. How many people have
Speaker 1: you talked to? He asked? A dozen, a hundred, maybe
Speaker 1: a thousand, And how many believed you? None? You mean,
Speaker 1: nobody would believe you, not one soul until I talk
Speaker 1: to you. And then Morgan was laughing, laughing bitterly, tears
Speaker 1: rolling down his cheeks. And I'm the one man who
Speaker 1: couldn't help you if my life depended on it. He gasped.
Speaker 1: You believe me, Morgan nodded sadly. I believe you. Yes.
Speaker 1: I think your work brought you through to a parallel
Speaker 1: universe of your own planet, not to another star. But
Speaker 1: I think you're telling the truth. Then you can help me.
Speaker 1: I'm afraid not. Why not, because I'd be worse than
Speaker 1: no help at all. Jefferson. Parks gripped the table, his
Speaker 1: knuckles white. Why, he cried hoarsely. If you believe me,
Speaker 1: why can't you help me? Morgan pointed to the magazine
Speaker 1: lying on the table. I write, yes, he said, sadly,
Speaker 1: ever read stories like this before? Parks picked up the
Speaker 1: magazine glanced at the bright covert. I barely looked at it.
Speaker 1: You should look more closely. I have a storry in
Speaker 1: this issue. The readers thought it was very interesting. Morgan grinned,
Speaker 1: go ahead, look at it. The Stranger from the Stars
Speaker 1: leafed through the magazine, stopped at the page that carried
Speaker 1: Rogers Morgan's name. His eyes caught the first paragraph, and
Speaker 1: he turned white. He set the magazine down with a
Speaker 1: trembling hand. I see, he said, and the life was
Speaker 1: gone out of his voice. He spread the pages viciously,
Speaker 1: read the lines again. The paragraph said, just suppose, said Martin,
Speaker 1: that I did believe you? Just for argument? He glanced
Speaker 1: up at the man across the table. Where do we
Speaker 1: go from here? End of circus? By allan ed one
Speaker 1: knows