"William Tenn - The Liberation of Earth" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tenn William)

The Liberation of Earth
William Tenn

This, then, is the story of our liberation. Suck air and grab clusters. Heigh-ho, here is the tale.
August was the month, a Tuesday in August. These words are meaningless now, so far have we
progressed; but many things known and discussed by our primitive an-cestors, our unliberated,
unreconstructed forefathers, are devoid of sense to our free minds. Still the tale must be told, with all of
its incredible place-names and vanished points of reference.
Why must it be told? Have any of you a better thing to do? We have had water and weeds and lie
in a valley of gusts, So rest, relax and listen. And suck air, suck air.
On a Tuesday in August, the ship appeared in the sky over France in a part of the world then known
as Europe. Five miles long the ship was, and word has come down to us that it looked like an enormous
silver cigar.
The tale goes on to tell of the panic and consternation among our forefathers when the ship abruptly
materialized in the summer-blue sky. How they ran, how they shouted, how they pointed!
How they excitedly notified the United Nations, one of their chiefest institutions, that a strange metal
craft of incredible size had materialized over their land. How they sent an order here to cause military
aircraft to surround it with loaded weapons, gave instructions there for hastily grouped scientists, with
signaling apparatus, to approach it with friendly gestures. How, under the great ship, men with cameras
took pictures of it; men with typewriters wrote stories about it; and men with concessions sold models of
it.
All these things did our ancestors, enslaved and unknowing, do.
Then a tremendous slab snapped up in the middle of the ship, and the first of the aliens stepped out
in the complex tripodal gait that all humans were shortly to know and love so well. He wore a metallic
garment to protect him from the effects of our atmospheric peculiarities, a garment of the opaque, loosely
folded type that these, the first of our liberators, wore throughout their stay on Earth.
Speaking in a language none could understand, but booming deafeningly through a huge mouth about
halfway up his twenty-five feet of height, the alien discoursed for exactly one hour, waited politely for a
response when he had finished, and, receiving none, retired into the ship.
That night, the first of our liberation! Or the first of our first liberation, should I say? That night,
anyhow! Visualize our ancestors scurrying about their primitive intricacies: playing ice-hockey, televising,
smashing atoms, red-baiting, conducting giveaway shows, and signing affidavitsтАФall the incredible
minutiae that made the olden times such a frightful mass of cumulative detail in which to liveтАФas
com-pared with the breathless and majestic simplicity of the present.


The big question, of course, wasтАФwhat had the alien said? Had he called on the hu-man race to
surrender? Had he announced that he was on a mission of peaceful trade and, having made what he
considered a reasonable offerтАФfor, let us say, the north polar icecapтАФpolitely withdrawn so that we
could discuss his terms among ourselves in relative privacy? Or, possibly, had he merely announced that
he was the newly appointed ambassador to Earth from a friendly and intelligent raceтАФand would we
please direct him to the proper authority so that he might submit his credentials?
Not to know was quite maddening.
Since decision rested with the diplomats, it was the last possibility which was held, very late that
night, to be most likely; and early the next morning, accordingly, a delegation from the United Nations
waited under the belly of the motionless starship. The delegation had been instructed to welcome the
aliens to the outermost limits of its collective linguistic ability. As an additional earnest of mankind's
friendly inten-tions, all military craft patrolling the air about the great ship were ordered to carry no more
than one atom bomb in their racks, and to fly a small white flagтАФalong with the U.N. banner and their
own national emblem. Thus did our ancestors face this, the ultimate challenge of history.