6 (JULY 27, SUN.)
ALIEN,n.An American sovereign in his probationary state.
—Ambrose Bierce
It's pretty complicated to explain why a person who lives in New York State, as I do, has to go through New Jersey to get home from his office in New York City. It has to do with (1) the way New York's border slopes northwest from the city and (2) a straight line being the shortest distance between two points. People who half-grasp these phenomena remain convinced that my village, High Tor, N.Y., is a short drive from any old place in New Jersey.
John Hyatt, demon respecter of facts though he ordinarily is, was one of those so deluded when he called me on the telephone on Sunday morning and asked me if I'd mind taking a run over to Middle Valley, N.J.
"I'm aware it's your day off, Sam," John said, "but this is practically on your doorstep and I know you'd feel hurt if we didn't ask you to cover it personally."
This, of course, was the well-known malarky, but I told him, "I'm the original busman, John, but maybe you'd better fill me in. Just what is going on in Middle Valley, of all places?"
"It's these damn aliens, Sam. Incidentally, I want to thank you for phoning in that eyewitnesser yesterday on the jaywalker. I hear you missed the first act of the play on account of it, but it was a damn fine story and we appreciate it."
It had been a jaydriver, not a jaywalker, but I didn't correct him. "Think nothing of it, John. It'll all show up on my overtime slip."
He laughed. Not without pain, it seemed to me. World Wide is in a perennial economy drive and the wordovertimeis not one you use lightly in the business office. "We never boggle where a good story is concerned," John said. "You know that. And this Middle Valley thing—well, you're aware, I'm sure, that they've got this local blue law banning Sunday employment...."
Middle Valley, N.J., is a good hour's drive from High Tor, N.Y. It's less than twenty minutes via the Lincoln Tunnel from New York City, but I knew John would think I was being uncooperative if I mentioned it. I didn't argue with him. I told Mae I was on overtime, got in the Volkswagen and went.
New Jersey passed a law some years ago aimed at forcing Sunday closing on a group of merchants who sold used cars and major appliances in a string of roadside stores along well-traveled Route 17, which runs between New York City and the Catskill Mountain resorts. The idea was to protect the community merchant from this competition so he could have a day off. But the legislation was too broad and bogged down in courts. Its opponents charged, among other things, that it was discriminatory. What about the Jewish merchant, they asked, who religiously closed his place of business on Saturday, his Sabbath? Was he to be penalized by having to close on two days a week, while the Christian merchant closed only on one?
While the state law was being appealed, its opponents obtained an injunction and Sunday business continued. Some communities who had liked the state law during the brief time it was being enforced then passed local ordinances. Middle Valley was one such community with its own Sunday closing law.
Middle Valley is a residential, fairly well-to-do, predominantly Christian village of about 3,000 people. It has few stores, most of its residents doing their shopping in nearby towns. It does, however, have a drug store, a delicatessen, a gas station, a newsstand and a local milkman. The village fathers decreed that the strict law meant all these must close on Sunday.
No one objected except the druggist, the delicatessen owner (who had closed on Saturday for years), the newsdealer and the milkman. The citizens of Middle Valley found it not too inconvenient to order extra milk on Saturday to tide them over the week end, and they rather enjoyed driving a couple of miles to pick up the Sunday papers. It was a mark of distinction to live in the village that permitted no paid Sunday employment.
"Middle Valley's shut up tighter'n a drum today," the well-to-do, car-owning, Christian citizen could remark with pride as he paid for his paper across the village line.
The few who didn't own cars had to walk as far as two miles to catch the buses whose drivers were not allowed to stop in Middle Valley. No one asked them if they enjoyed their walks, especially on rainy Sundays.
Some of this I knew and some John Hyatt filled me in on. I learned a lot more after I got there, first having checked my gas to be sure I wouldn't be marooned there till Monday.
I parked near the center of town, in front of the delicatessen. Down the block were the newsdealer's, the drug store and a couple of real estate-and-insurance offices. All were closed.
I introduced myself to the man standing in front of the delicatessen. He told me his name:
"Simon Dorfman. This is my store. I closed it Friday at sundown. Religious reasons. I can't open today. Monkey business reasons. I'm thinking of opening today regardless. I'm considering it this minute. But I'm also considering ninety days in jail and $200 fine."
"Who would arrest you if you opened?" I asked him.
"Who? The cops. Who else?"
"Middle Valley police?"
"Joe Lyman and Fred Moffat. I've known them since they were boys. But they'd arrest me. They said so. It's not their fault."
"Then who would arrest them?" I asked Dorfman.
"What do you mean arrest them?"
"Aren't they paid employees? If you can't work on Sunday, how can they?"
He thought that over. "What's sauce for the goose, eh?"
"Why not?"
"But you're a reporter. You don't care if I get arrested as long as you get a story. Maybe I'll talk it over with my friend Hirsch the druggist."
"Let me know what you decide, Mr. Dorfman," I said. "I'll be around."
"Good. But listen. You want a real story? Go down two blocks that way and one to your left."
"What's there?"
"The Middle Valley Congregational Church. I don't want you to think I'm laughing at somebody else's religion, because I don't do that, but go down and see for yourself. Those men are there—from the spaceship. An interesting situation."
So that's where they were. I left him saying to himself, "Sauce for the gander. Why not?"
John Hyatt had said some Monolithians were in Middle Valley but he didn't know why. He imagined they were sight-seeing and he obviously hoped for something better. I was beginning to have the same hunch he must have had.
There was a crowd of about a hundred outside the Congregational Church. Most of the people appeared to be parishioners—well-dressed, upper-middle-class men and women. Their late-model cars were parked along the tree-shaded street. I squeezed my Volkswagen in among them.
A separate group of well-dressed people—all young men—stood outside the main entrance of the ivy-covered stone church. The minister was with them, talking heatedly. I made my way through gaps in the crowd of parishioners, who seemed anxious for some settlement to be reached but unwilling to become involved.
"... blasphemy," the minister was saying. His name, according to the outside bulletin board, was the Rev. James Lonsway Marchell.
"Not at all, Mr. Marchell," one of the young men said. "It's merely a question of law."
"God's law has called my flock to worship. Man's law shall not keep them from their devotions."
"Certainly not," the young man said. He was speaking fluent, unaccented English. "We have no quarrel with their wish to honor their deity in whatever way they choose. But you, Mr. Marchell, as a paid employee of this church, may not, under law, work on Sunday."
"Work!" the minister exclaimed. "It is the Lord's work I do!"
"But for a salary paid by men. You have admitted that to be a fact."
"By what right—" the minister said—"by what abrogation of authority do you come from millions of miles away to interfere in the affairs of this quiet, respectable, law-abiding village?"
"The very fact, sir, that you have chosen not to abide by the law has brought us here," the leader of the Monolithian group said. "We have solemnly sworn to uphold the laws of this country, and therefore the laws of each of its parts. We should be shirking our obligations to our adopted nation if we did less."
"You pervert the law—you mock it. You are heretics. Worse, you are the devil's henchmen. I have tried long enough to reason with you. Now stand aside. Again I tell you—I mean to enter my church!"
The minister started for the door but one of the Monolithians was there ahead of him. I was half afraid I was going to see Marchell start to disappear, but obviously the aliens had a variation on their protective weapon. The minister wanted to enter his church, not to harm anyone, and the shield took the form of a pliant, invisible wall that prevented Marchell from even hurting himself as he walked into it, apparently for the second time at least.
He was bounced back, staggering. Regaining his balance, he turned to address his parishioners:
"My friends, I have done all I can. I shall go now to my study and in solitude pray for guidance. These—creatures—I cannot call them men—have said you may worship as you choose. I invite those of you who wish to do so to enter this house of God and pray...."
The Monolithian at the door stood aside but fewer than a dozen of the congregation went in.
I considered talking to the Monolithians, but decided I'd better file a story first on what I had. I figured there'd be time to talk to them later. It looked like a long and memorable Sunday for Middle Valley.
I drove off to look for a telephone, hoping the village used the dial system and didn't depend on an illegal paid operator.
I found an outdoor telephone booth at the closed gas station. A young man was lounging next to it. He stepped in front of me as I reached to push open the door.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"You must be one of the aliens," I said, though from his appearance he could have been anyone.
"A U.S. Monolithian citizen, at your service," he said, smiling but continuing to bar my way. "Tate is my name."
"Kent's mine," I said. "I'm with World Wide. Just let me phone in my story, then I'd like to talk to you."
"I know who you are," he said. "But you may not telephone. It's the law."
"Look," I said, "it's ten to one Middle Valley doesn't have a telephone office. The call will go through Newark or someplace. Nobody in Middle Valley would be doing anything illegal."
"No," he said, "but you would."
"Oh, come on!" I was shocked. "Idon't live here. I'm just a New York reporter. I work for an international news organization. You must have heard of freedom of the press!"
Tate smiled and shook his head. "Mr. Kent, the law may be stupid but it is explicit. No paid employment of any kind is permitted in Middle Valley."
"Sure, sure," I said. "But what's it to you? This will be publicity for you. That's what you want, isn't it?"
"You misunderstand our motives, Mr. Kent. We are your good interplanetary neighbors, repaying your hospitality by observing all your laws, as we are sure you would if you were to visit our country."
"What you're really trying to do," I told him, "is to reduce us to absurdity."
"Don't put words in my mouth, Mr. Kent. Remember when you do dictate your story—and I believe the village border is a mere half-mile away—remember that you said that, not I."
"Half a mile? Come with me, will you? How did you know who I was?"
"I'll join you gladly. Mr. Dorfman told me about you."
He climbed into the car and I phoned the desk from a drug store in the neighboring community of Valley Center, N.J. The store was doing a thriving business in Sunday papers, ice-cream sodas, hot coffee, cigarettes and other typical druggist's goods.
I gave John Hyatt his story heavy on the quotes, the way he likes them, adding a bit about my own encounter with the Monolithian. He made me spin it out at length for a sidebar. I didn't tell him Tate was standing just outside the booth, listening to every word. I was afraid John would have interviewed the hell out of him, keeping me hanging around all day.
I came out of the booth, perspiring from its closeness. "How about a coke?" I asked Tate. "We won't get one back in Middle Valley."
"Good idea," he said. We sat at a table and a waitress took our order.
"That a Bond suit?" I asked the alien. "Two pair of pants?"
"Simon Ackerman," he said, smiling. "One pair."
"Then you're not one of the original dozen from Burning Tree."
"No. I'm one of the Central Park unit."
"How do you like it here? What do you think of Earth-women?" I figured I might as well get it asked and over with.
"Very tempting," Tate said. "Remember, we've been a long time enroute."
"How long?"
"Three years."
The cokes came, in tall glasses, heavily iced, with straws.
"What would you do to a vending machine that sold an illegal coke?" I asked Tate.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Never mind. I'm glad you didn't put the whammy on me back there at the gas station. I saw what your pal did to that convertible in Times Square."
"Did you?" He beamed. "Quite an example, wasn't it? It was a pleasure to uphold that law."
"Rough on the car, but the idiot had it coming. Do you mean you're not enjoying what you're doing in Middle Valley?"
"There are degrees," he said, taking a sip of his coke. "It was a pity Mr. Marchell was prevented from holding his service. We are not antireligious, as he asserted in the heat of his anger."
"He was prevented by your people," I reminded him.
"By our people upholding local law," he insisted.
I decided he wasn't quibbling, and said, "Let's get back to where you came from. You said you were three years on the way. Did you know where you were going when you started?"
"Oh, yes. Earth. Sol's third planet. You invited us in 1945."
"Invited you?"
"So to speak. That was Earth's Atomic Year One, you will recall."
"You mean you detected the first explosion?"
"We detect them all. You were the fourth known planet to achieve that level of development. We believe we were the second, in Monolithia."
"The second?" I asked. "Did the people from the first one visit you?"
"The first planet failed to see the potentialities for evil. It destroyed itself. When we had achieved space travel we visited its remains. It was a graphic example to us. We determined then that human life was too rare a commodity to be squandered."
"You think we're too infantile to prevent our own destruction?"
"We think you need guidance. We got it second-hand from Planet I. We were too late to help Planet III. You're IV."
"You mean Planet III destroyed itself, too?"
"So to speak. It's a dead world. Planets II and IV—Monolithia and Earth—are the only advanced worlds left. It's our duty to preserve them."
"What do you mean 'so to speak'?" I asked him. "What do you mean 'advanced'?" I was making full notes and Tate had been watching me fill page after page of copy paper.
He finished his coke. "I've said enough for now." He sounded adamant, and to keep him from drying up entirely I switched the subject slightly:
"How come you speak such good English?"
"English, Japanese, Monolithian, Tildonian (that was one of Planet III's languages)—they're all human tongues. It's merely a matter of adaptation. We don't click any more, you notice. That's a Monolithian trait, but easily de-emphasized."
I scribbled away and he watched me tolerantly, sucking on a piece of ice.
"You know I'm going to quote you. How shall I describe you? As a Monolithian spokesman?"
"If you like. We're all spokesmen. We have—to use a diplomatic phrase, but an accurate one—an identity of views on this urgent matter. Shall we go?"
I sensed that he had dried up.
"I'd pay for the cokes," he said, "but it seems too small an amount to charge to the Monolithian Embassy."
I dropped two dimes at the cashier's counter.
We heard sirens as I drove back into Middle Valley. Smoke was climbing into the sky. I traced it to a burning house and parked a block away. Tate and I ran to the edge of the crowd watching the fire.
"It's the Waddell house," somebody said. It was a big house probably worth about fifty thousand. The smoke was billowing out of a room at the back.
"Who's Waddell?" I asked.
Tate knew. "He's president of the village council. As a matter of fact, he's chiefly responsible for the Sunday closing law."
"That's great," I said, making notes again. "What a story! And now his house is going to burn down because it's against the law to put the fire out. What's his first name?"
"Everett."
A fire engine screamed around a corner and men jumped from it, trailing a hose behind them. Other equipment followed. Within a minute the hose was attached to a hydrant and water was pouring on the fire.
"Hey!" I said to Tate. "What's the idea? Why aren't you stopping them? They're working in Middle Valley on Sunday, aren't they? Aren't they paid employees just like the minister and me?"
"No," the alien said. "Unfortunately for your story and your fine sense of irony, these are not paid employees. They're volunteer firemen."