The Man From Beyond

THE EARTHMAN'S STORY

I, Morgan Grate of the planet Earth, am writing this as a warning to the inha­bi­tants of Venus. Have nothing to do with Earth if you can help it – but if you must, be careful. Above all I warn you to have no dealings with the two greatest com­panies of Earth.

If you do, you will come to hate Earth and her people as I do – you will come to think of her, as I do, as the plague spot of the uni­verse. Sooner or later, emissaries will come – represen­tatives of either Metallic Industries of Inter­national Chemicals will attempt to open nego­tia­tions. Do not listen to them.

However honeyed their words or smooth their phrases distrust them, for they will be liars and the servants of liars. If you do trust them you will live to regret it and your children will regret it and curse you. Read this and see how they treated me, Morgan Gratz.

My story is best started from the moment when I was shown into the Directors' Room in the huge building which houses the execu­tive of Metallic Industries. The secre­tary closed the tall double doors behind me and announced my name.

“Gratz, sir.”

Nine men seated about a glass-topped table turned their eyes upon me simul­taneously but I kept my gaze on the chair­man who topped the long table.

“Good morning, Mr. Drakin,” I said.

“Morning, Gratz. You have not met our other directors, I believe.”

I looked along the row of faces. Several I recog­nized from photo­graphs in the illu­strated papers. Others I was able to iden­tify, for I had heard them described and knew that they would be present. There is no mystery about the directors of Metallic Industries Incorporated.

Among them are several of the world's richest men and to be mounted upon such pinnacles of wealth means conti­nual exposure to the flood­lights of publicity. Not only was I fami­liar with their appear­ances but in common with most I was fairly conversant with their histo­ries. I made no comment, so the chair­man conti­nued.

“I have received your reports, Gratz, and I am pleased to say that they are model docu­ments – clear and concise – a little too clear, I must own, for my peace of mind. In fact, I confess to appre­hen­sion and, in my opinion, the time has come for deci­sive measures. How­ever, before I suggest the steps to be taken I would like you to repeat the gist of your reports for the benefit of my fellow-direc­tors.”

I had come prepared for this request and was able to reply without hesitation.

“When it first became known to Mr. Drakin that Inter­national Chemi­cals proposed to build a ship for the navi­gation of space, he approached me and put for­ward certain propo­si­tions. I, as an employee of Inter­national Chemi­cals, being concerned in the work in question, was to keep him posted and to hand on as much infor­ma­tion, tech­nical and other­wise, as I could collect without arousing suspicion.”

“Moreover, I was to find out the purpose for which Inter­national Chemicals intended to use her. I have carried out the first part of my orders to the chair­man's satis­faction but it is only in the last week that I have been able to discover her desti­nation.”

I paused. There was a stir among the liste­ners. Several leaned for­ward with increased inte­rest.

“Well,” demanded a thin, predatory-faced man on the chair­man's right, “what is it?”

“The intention of the company,” I said, “is to send their ship, which they call the Nuntia, to Venus.”

They stared at me. Save for Drakin, to whom this was not news, they appeared dumb­founded. The cada­verous-look­ing man was the first to find his voice.

“Nonsense!” he cried. “Prepos­terous! Never heard of such a thing. What proof have you of this ridi­cu­lous state­ment?”

I looked at him coldly.

“I have no proof. A spy rarely has. You must take my word for it.”

“Absurd. Fantastic non­sense. You stand there and seriously ex­pect us to believe on your own, unsupported state­ment, that I.C. intends to send this machine to Venus? The moon would be unlikely enough. Either they have been fooling you or you must be raving mad. I never heard such rubbish. Venus, indeed!”

I regarded the man. I liked neither his face nor his manners.

“If Mr. Ball sees fit to challenge my report,” I said. “This, I gentle­men, will scarcely sur­prise you, for you must know as well as I that Mr. Ball has been com­pletely imper­vious to all new ideas for the past forty years.”

The ema­ciated Mr. Ball goggled while several of the others hid smiles. It was rarely that his millions did not extract syco­phancy but I was in a strong position.

“Insolence,” he spluttered at last. “Damned insolence, Mr. Chair­man. I demand that this man—“

“Mr. Ball,” interrupted the other coldly, “you will please to con­trol yourself. The fact that Gratz is here at all is a sign not only that I believe him but what I consider his news seriously to concern us all.”

“Nonsense. If you are going to believe every fairy story that a paid spy —”

“Mr. Ball, I must ask you to leave the con­duct of this matter to me. You knew, as we all did, that I.C. was building this ship and you knew that it was intended for space-travel. Why should you dis­be­lieve the report of its desti­na­tion? I must insist that you control your­self.”

Mr. Ball subsided, muttering indefi­nite threats. The chair­man turned back to me. “And the purpose of this expe­dition?”

I was only able to suggest that it was to esta­blish claims over terri­tories as sources of supplies. He nodded and turned to address the rest.

“You see, gentle­men, what this will mean? It is scarcely neces­sary to remind you that I.C. are our greatest rivals, our only consi­der­able rivals. The over­lapping of interests is inevi­table. Metals and chemi­cals obviously cannot be expected to keep apart. They are inter­dependent. It can­not be any­thing but a fight for survi­val between the two com­panies.”

“At present we are evenly balanced in the matter of raw mate­rials – and probably shall be for years to come. But – and this is the im­por­tant point – if their ship makes this trip success­fully what will be the results?”

“First, of course, they will annex the richest terri­tories on the planet with their raw materials, and later import these mate­rials to Earth. Mind you, this will not take place at once – but make no mis­take, it will come, sooner or later, as inevi­tably as tomorrow.”

“Once the trip has been success­fully made the inven­tors will not rest until they have found a way of carry­ing freight between the two worlds at eco­nomic rates. It may take them ten years to do it, it may take them a cen­tury, but sooner or later, do it they will.”

“And that, gentle­men, will mean the end of Metallic Indus­tries.”

There was a pause during which no one spoke. Drakin looked around to see the effect of his words.

“Gratz has told me,” he conti­nued, “that I.C. is convin­ced their ship is capable of the journey. Is that not so?”

“It is,” I con­firmed. “They have com­plete faith in her and so have I.”

Old John Ball's voice rose again. “If this is not non­sense why have we let it go on? Why has I.C. been allowed to build this vessel with­out inter­ference? What is the good of having a man there who does noth­ing to hinder the work?” He glared at me.

“You mean?” inquired Drakin.

“I mean that this man has been excel­lently placed to work sabo­tage. Why has there been none? It should be simple enough to cause an ‘accidental’ explosion.”

“Very simple,” agreed Drakin. “So simple that I.C. would jump to it at once. Even if there were a genuine acci­dent they would sus­pect that we had a hand in it. Then we should have our hands full with an expen­sive ven­detta. Further­more I.C. would recommence building with additional precautions and it is possible that we might not have a man on the inside.

“I take it that we are all agreed that the Nuntia must fail – but it must not be a suspi­cious failure. The Nuntia must sail. It is up to us to see that she does not return.”

“Gratz has been offered a posi­tion aboard her but has not as yet returned a defi­nite answer. My sugges­tion is that he should accept the offer with the object of seeing that the Nuntia is lost. The details I can leave to him.”

Drakin went on to elabo­rate his plan. Directly the Nuntia had left, Metallic Indus­tries would begin work on a space-flyer of their own. As soon as possible she would follow Venus. Mean­while I, having settled the Nuntia, would await her arrival.

In the unlikely event of the planet being found inha­bited I was to get on good terms with the natives and endea­vour to influence them against I.C. When the second ship arrived I was to be taken off and brought back to Earth while a party of M.I. men remained to survey and annex terri­tory. On my return I would be suffi­ciently rewarded to make me rich for life.

“You will be doing a great work for us,” he concluded, “and we do not forget our servants.” He looked me straight in the eye as he said it. “Will you do it?”

I hesitated. “I would like a day or so to think it over.”

“Of course. That is only natural. But there is not a great deal of time to spare – will you let me have your answer by this time tomorrow? It will give us a chance to make other arrange­ments in case you refuse.”

“Yes, sir. That will do.”

With that I left them. As to their further deli­be­ra­tions I can only guess. And my guesses are bitter.

Beyond an idea that it would appear better not to be too eager, I had no reason for putting off my answer. Already I had deter­mined to go – and to wreck the Nuntia. I had waited many years to get in a blow at I.C., and now was my chance.

Ever since the death of my parents I had set my mind on injur­ing them. Not only had they killed my father by their negli­gence in the matter of unshielded rays but they had stolen his inven­tions and robbed him by prolonged liti­ga­tion.

Enough, you say, to make a man swear revenge. But it was not all. I had to see my mother die in poverty when a few hundred dollars would have saved her life – and all our dollars had gone in fighting I.C.

After that I changed my name, got a job with I.C. and worked – hard. Mine was not going to be a paltry revenge. I was going to work up until I was in a respon­sible posi­tion, one from which my blows could really hurt them.

I had allied myself with Metallic Indus­tries because this was their biggest rival and now I was given a chance to wreck the ship to which they had pinned such faith. I could have done that alone but it would have meant exile for the rest of my life. Now M.I. had smoothed the way by offering me passage home.

Yes, I was going to do it. The Nuntia should make one trip and no more.

But I'd like to know just what it was they decided in the Board Room after I left.