Very gently, the Martians selectively erased Jean’s memory so that all she remembered the next morning, when she woke up a half a mile from a Mohave gas station, was that she had been abducted by aliens from another world and taken aboard a flying saucer.
The authorities wanted to put her in a nut house, of course. But I sent a squad of lawyers to spring her, since she was under contract to my movie studio. The studio assumed responsibility for her, and my lawyers assured the authorities that she was about to star in a major motion picture. The yokels figured it had all been a publicity stunt and turned her loose. I actually did put her into a couple of starring roles, which ended her career with the IRS, although I figured that not even the Feds would have had anything to do with Jean after the tabloids headlined her story about being abducted by flying saucer aliens. I took good care of her, though. I even married her, eventually. That’s what comes from hanging around with Martians.
See, the Martians have a very high ethical standard of conduct. They cannot willingly hurt anybody or anything. Wouldn’t step on an ant. It’s led to some pretty near scrapes for us, though. Every now and then somebody stumbles onto them and the whole secret’s in jeopardy. They could wipe the person’s brain clean, but that would turn the poor sucker into a zombie. So they selectively erase only the smallest possible part of the sucker’s memory.
And they always leave the memory of being taken into a flying saucer. They tell me they have to. That’s part of their moral code, too. They’re constantly testing us—the whole human race, that is—to see if we’re ready to receive alien visitors from another world. And to date, the human race as a whole has consistently flunked every test.
Sure, a handful of very special people know about them. I’m pretty damned proud to be among that handful, let me tell you. But the rest of the human race, the man in the street, the news reporters and preachers and even the average university professor—they either ridicule the very idea that there could be any kind of life at all on another world or they get scared to death of the possibility. Take a look at the movies we make!
“Your people are sadly xenophobic,” Jazzbow told me more than once, his big liquid eyes looking melancholy despite that dumbbell clown’s grin splitting his face.
I remembered Orson Welles’ broadcast of The War of the Worlds back in Thirty-eight. People got hysterical when they thought Martians had landed in New Jersey, although why anybody would want to invade New Jersey is beyond me. Here I had real Martians zipping all over the place and they were gentle as butterflies. But no one would believe that; the average guy would blast away with his twelve-gauge first and ask where they came from afterward.
So I had to convince the President that if he sent astronauts to the moon, it would have catastrophic results.
Well, my people and Kennedy’s people finally got the details ironed out and we agreed to meet at Edwards Air Force Base, out in the Mohave. Totally secret meeting. JFK was giving a speech in LA that evening at the Beverly Wiltshire. I sent a company helicopter to pick him up there and fly him over to Edwards. Just him and two of his aides. Not even his Secret Service bodyguards; he didn’t care much for having those guys lurking around him, anyway. Cut down on his love life too much.
We met in Hangar Nine, the place where the first Martian crew was stashed back in Forty-six, pretty battered from their crash landing. That’s when I first found out about them. I was asked by Prof. Schmidt, who looked like a very agitated young Santa Claus back then, to truck in as many refrigeration units as my company could lay its hands on. Schmidt wanted to keep the Martians comfortable, and since their planet is so cold he figured they needed mucho refrigeration. That was before he found out that the Martians spend about half their energy budget at home just trying to stay reasonably warm. They loved southern California! Especially the swimming pools.
Anyway, there I am waiting for the President in good old Hangar Nine, which had been so Top Secret since Forty-six that not even the base commander’s been allowed inside. We’d partitioned it and decked it out with nice furniture and all the modern conveniences. I noticed that Jazzbow had recently had an interociter installed. Inside the main living area we had put up a big water tank for Jazzbow and his fellow Martians, of course. The place kind of resembled a movie set: nice modern furnishings, but if you looked past the ten-foot-high partitions that served as walls you saw the bare metal support beams crisscrossing up in the shadows of the ceiling.
Jazzbow came in from Culver City in the same limo that brought Prof. Schmidt. As soon as he got into the hanger he unhooked his exoskeleton and dived into the water tank. Schmidt started pacing nervously back and forth on the Persian carpeting I had put in. He was really wound up tight: letting the President in on this secret was an enormous risk. Not for us, so much as for the Martians.
It was just about midnight when we heard the throbbing motor sound of a helicopter in the distance. I walked out into the open and saw the stars glittering like diamonds all across the desert sky. How many of them are inhabited? I wondered. How many critters out there are looking at our Sun and wondering if there’s any intelligent life there?
Is there any intelligent life in the White House? That was the big question, far as I was concerned.
Jack Kennedy looked tired. No, worse than that, he looked troubled. Beaten down. Like a man who had the weight of the world on his shoulders. Which he did. Elected by a paper-thin majority, he was having hell’s own time getting Congress to vote for his programs. Tax relief, increased defense spending, civil rights—they were all dead in the water, stymied by a Congress that wouldn’t do spit for him. And now I was going to pile another ton and a half on top of all that.
“Mr. President,” I said as he walked through the chilly desert night from the helicopter toward the hangar door. I sort of stood at attention: for the office, not the man, you understand. Remember, I voted for Nixon.
He nodded at me and made a weary smile and stuck out his hand the way every politician does. I let him shake my hand, making a mental note to excuse myself and go to the washroom as soon as decently possible.
As we had agreed, he left his two aides at the hangar door and accompanied me inside all by himself. He kind of shuddered.
“It’s cold out there, isn’t it?” he said.
He was wearing a summer-weight suit. I had an old windbreaker over my shirt and slacks.
“We’ve got the heat going inside,” I said, gesturing him through the door in the first partition. I led him into the living area and to the big carpeted central room where the water tank was. Schmidt followed behind us so close I could almost feel his breath on my neck. It gave me that crawly feeling I get when I realize how many millions of germs are floating through the air all the time.
“Odd place for a swimming tank,” the President said as soon as we entered the central room.
“It’s not as odd as you think,” I said. Jazzbow had ducked low, out of sight for the time being.
My people had arranged two big sofas and a scattering of comfortable armchairs around a coffee table on which they had set up a fair-sized bar. Bottles of every description, even champagne in its own ice bucket.
“What’ll you have?” I asked. We had decided that, with just the three of us humans present, I would be the bartender.
Both the President and Schmidt asked for scotch. I made the drinks big, knowing they would both need them.
“Now what’s this all about?” Kennedy asked after his first sip of the booze. “Why all this secrecy and urgency?”
I turned to Schmidt, but he seemed to be petrified. So absolutely frozen that he couldn’t even open his mouth or pick up his drink. He just stared at the President, overwhelmed by the enormity of what we had to do.
So I said, “Mr. President, you have to stop this moon program.”
He blinked his baggy eyes. Then he grinned. “Do I?”
“Yessir.”
“Why?”
“Because it will hurt the Martians.”
“The Martians, you said?”
“That’s right. The Martians,” I repeated.
Kennedy took another sip of scotch, then put his glass down on the coffee table. “Mr. Hughes, I had heard that you’d gone off the deep end, that you’ve become a recluse and something of a mental case—”
Schmidt snapped out of his funk. “Mr. President, he’s telling you the truth. There are Martians.”
Kennedy gave him a “who are you trying to kid” look. “Professor Schmidt, I know you’re a highly respected astronomer, but if you expect me to believe there are living creatures on Mars you’re going to have to show me some evidence.”
On that cue, Jazzbow came slithering out of the water tank. The President’s eyes goggled as old Jazzie made his painful way, dripping on the rug, to one of the armchairs and half collapsed into it.
