Secret of the Green Invaders
Science Fiction Adventures – December 1956
(1956)*
Randall Garrett & Robert Silverberg
 (as by Robert Randall)
illustrated by Emsh

Centuries of alien conquest had made Earth a slave planet, and only a pitiful handful of men dared dream of rebellion. But they had a weapon they didn't even know about!

-

CHAPTER I

11 May 3035 

	"This whole situation is very amusing," Terrag Broz said. The Terran Administrator peered across his desk at his chief assistant without showing a trace of the amusement he claimed to feel. "But I think Orvid Kemron has been allowed to go far enough. Bring him here," lie snapped.

	"At once," said the other, rising to leave.

	"It took them a long time to get this far, Gornik," the Administrator said. He permitted himself a twisted smile.

	"Don't tell me you're getting sentimental at last," Nacomon Gornik said.

	"Hardly. You'd better get moving.

	Terrag Broz gestured toward the door, and his assistant left. Broz watched Gornik's green-furred body retreating down the corridor, and heard the deep bass rumble of his voice as he gave orders to a pair of Terran soldiers waiting in the corridor.

	The even clumping of four booted feet told him that the soldiers were on their way to fetch Orvid Kemron. Broz knew that the insurrectionist would be brought swiftly and silently to the Khoomish headquarters.

	"What happened to the men we caught?" Terrag Broz asked, as Gornik re-entered the office.

	"Still being held," Gornik replied.

	"And the bombs?"

	"They've all been detected and inactivated."

	"I hope so," Broz said grimly. "It would be too bad to have this lovely building blown sky-high after the Earthmen were so kind as to build it for us."

	The Administrator looked down, turning his attention to the neatly-arranged stacks of papers on his desk. He lifted off the uppermost and scanned it. "A complaint from Liverpool," he said. "Too much precipitation yesterday."

	His purple lips split in a broad grin. "A great pity," he said, chuckling. "We'll see how they'll like it when the time comes for us to throw hurricanes at them instead of spring rains. Maybe then Earth will think twice about having invited us to rule them."

	Nacomon Gornik glanced at his chief. "How long will that be, Terrag? How long do we have to wait?"

	"I don't know," the Administrator said. "I'm afraid that all depends on Orvid Kemron."

-

	"Orvid Kemron!"

	Someone was calling his name. He opened his eyes, and squeezed them closed immediately. Someone was shining a light into his face.

	"Wake up, Kemron," said the voice again. "Wake up. We don't have all night."

	Kemron opened his eyes a little. All he could see was the glare of the light and the muzzle of a stungun held in a pair of gloved hands. Behind the dazzle of the light, he could barely make out two figures.

	It was an effort to move from his bed. Finally, Kemron struggled up to full awareness and lifted himself from the bed.

	"Who are you? What do you want?"

	He knew good and well what they wanted.

	The day had been seven years in coming, but at last it was here. He wondered how long they had known about him. Seven years of hard work, of pretending to be something he was not, of scheming and planning—all shot to ashes. The alien rulers of Earth had nabbed him, and humanity's resistance movement would be left without its leader.

	"Where are we going?" he asked as he put on his clothes. "What's the idea of waking a man up in the middle of the night?"

	"Don't ask questions," said one of the men.

	Or were they men? They were wearing heavy coveralls, gloves, and hoods; they could easily be the Khoomish themselves. Yes, thought Kemron. I'm important enough to have the overlords come after me in person. He wished he knew whether there was green fur underneath the concealing cloth.

	He locked the magnetic clasp at his throat with slow deliberation.

	"Hurry it up," the taller of the two said. The stungun nudged Kemron's ribs.

	"Hold on, will you? Let me wash up a bit first." He walked to the washstand without waiting for any reply and plunged his head under the cold water. He rinsed a moment, then withdrew his head. After drying himself, he glanced up over his shoulder, noting the positions of the two armed men. They were waiting about ten feet away.

	I've got to get word through to the others that I'm caught, Kemron thought. But the Khoomish, he decided, had probably picked up his bomb-layers just as neatly as they'd snagged him. There wasn't much chance they'd missed anyone.

	Damn them!

	"Enough stalling. Come now or we'll take you," one guard said.

	"A minute. I'm thirsty."

	Kemron filled his drinking-glass, but instead of draining it he whirled and threw it at the hood of the taller guard, hearing it land with a pleasing thunk! In the same motion he jumped at the other guard.

	The uniformed figure went over surprisingly easily when Kemron leaped, and before he could regain control of himself Kemron had clubbed him senseless. But when he swung to deal with the other guard, he saw that the drinking-glass had had little effect.

	He stared at the stungun in the other's hand for a moment. Through his mind flashed the sudden remembrance of the dizzying pain of a stun-gun's beam. He could still hear Nella's scream in his memory—she had been shot down six months ago by a Khoomish guard after she had slugged another of the green-furred beings. Her nerves had been raw for three days.

	The alien's finger pressed the trigger and the darkness exploded into a brilliant flare of green.

-

	It was hard to tell one Khoomish from another, but there was no doubt in Kemron's mind that the steely-eyed, green-furred being who confronted him was Terran Administrator Terrag Broz. Kemron felt a sudden wave of fear wash over him, leaving him chilled and weak.

	The Administrator smiled grimly from behind his huge desk, showing the surprisingly human teeth back of his purple lips. But the expression in his eyes remained cold and forbidding.

	"You don't know how glad I am to see you, Mr. Kemron," he said, in an oddly soft voice. "Do sit down." He gestured with one hand, signalling the guards.

	One of them pulled up a chair for Kemron, and the other pushed him down into it. Kemron saw now that his two captors were Earthmen, members of the loyal army maintained by the Khoomish overlords.

	No doubt the guards thought he was the worst sort of traitor, since certainly they were aware he had been scheming to destroy the Khoomish—the beloved Khoomish, the green-furred saviors from the stars who had rescued Earth from anarchical chaos. Kemron saw the undisguised hatred in the eyes of both of them.

	He wanted to tell them that they were the real traitors, not he. But he knew they would only laugh and remind him of the provisional government. It had been Earth's only attempt at self-government in a thousand years, and a complete, miserable failure.

	It's not easy to overthrow a conqueror when the conquered welcome him with open arms, Orvid Kemron thought.

	The guards stepped back, their stunguns held ready. Terrag Broz reached out a thick forearm and flipped a switch on his desk. A sparkling array of lights brightened one wall. Kemron knew what they were: thousands of little electronic eyes, every one watching him. One wrong move, and a stunner would beam him down before he could do anything.

	One stunning was enough; Kemron had no craving for more. He still had a prodigious headache from the first.

	Terrag Broz looked at the guards. "You can go now. I don't think he'll do anything foolish."

	Kemron heard the door open and close softly behind him as the guards left. The Terran Administrator waited a long few minutes before speaking.

	"I might as well tell you," Broz said levelly, "that we've known about your underground for a long time, Mr. Kemron. It has been a source of constant amusement to us. It was only when you took the—ah—unkind action of attempting to destroy our headquarters that we were forced to take you into custody."

	Kemron said nothing. He found it almost impossible to bring his head up to meet the Khoomish's fiery eyes, and his own weakness irked him.

	Abruptly Broz punched out a question. "How many are there in your organization?" he asked.

	"I won't tell you," Kemron said stolidly.

	"Ah, well. There is no need to," the Administrator said. His smile widened. "There are exactly four hundred and sixty-eight men, including yourself."

	Kemron blinked. The fear inside him melted into dull despair. They hadn't missed a man.

	Terrag Broz stretched up out of his seat, giving Kemron a view of his awe-inspiring bulk, and came to rest leaning on his knuckles. "Don't you think that's a rather small number of people to man a resistance movement?" the Khoomish asked. "Out of nearly four billion human beings, you have an underground which consists of something like one one-hundred thousandth of one percent of the total population. Not exactly what I would call a popular uprising."

	"We could have done it, though," Kemron said. "We could have done it."

	"Certainly," Broz agreed. "If you had blown up this building, our control over Earth would have snapped. Then mankind would have had to try governing herself, presumably with your party in control—and with the same disastrous results that occurred seven years ago, before we came."

	Kemron's eyes blazed angrily. "That's just it!" he protested. "At least mankind would be free! Even if we failed, it would be through our own faults, on our own shoulders—we'd be responsible ourselves. Suppose civilization did collapse? So what? We pulled ourselves out of barbarism once; we can do it again!"

	"I don't deny it," said the Khoomish. "But it seems to me an awful waste of time."

	"Waste of time!" The Earthman's voice was thick with anger. "We've wasted a thousand years already! First the Sslesor, then the Velks, and now you. One alien ruler after another! We're tired of being pawns in a galactic chess game, being shuttled back and forth from one set of interstellar aliens to another."

	"I see," Terrag Broz said smoothly. He folded his arms, and Kemron watched his fingers digging into the furry skin over his biceps. "You're tired of being ruled. You want another chance for yourselves. But the rest of the people on Earth don't seem to be tired of it—do they, Mr. Kemron?"

	The Khoomish smiled again. "No comment?" He paused, and his gleaming eyes narrowed. "The word describing your rebellion, Mr. Kemron, is—premature. A revolution now, with Earth solidly behind the Khoomish, would only lead you into the same futile trap that the earlier underground fell into."

	"Earlier underground?"

	"Of course. The same patterns of action recur over and over in humanity. Many other men have tried to overthrow their rulers. There have been others in the past ten centuries, all right. And during the rule of our predecessors, the Sslesor, the most nearly successful against them was a man you might have known. His name was Joslyn Carter."

	Kemron was amazed. Joslyn Carter? The head of the Provisional Government had also been a leader of the underground?

	"Joslyn Carter it was," the Khoomish said. "I had thought you might have been more well-informed about other members of your trade. Particularly Joslyn Carter..

-

CHAPTER II

3 July 3027

	Joslyn Carter leaned across his desk and pressed the phone stud before the sound of the attention chime had died from the air.

	"Carter here," he said, looking squarely into the pickup.

	"Priority call from Staten Island, sir," said the operator. "Viceroy Johnson is on the line."

	"Put His Munificence on," said Carter. Viceroy Johnson, he thought darkly. They took on Terrestrial names because we can't pronounce half the sibilances of their language. I wonder what the Johnsons think of that.

	He knew good and well what they thought of it. They loved it. The Sslesor had ruled nearly a thousand years, and most of the time had inspired nothing but affection from their Terran subjects—with occasional exceptions, such as Joslyn Carter.

	The Sslesor Viceroy's face faded into the screen. Carter dipped his head quickly in a half-polite gesture, then looked expectantly at the reflected image of the lizardlike being. The unblinking eyes stared back out of a gray-green face topped with a fantastic crest of bone.

	"Misster Josslyun Carter?" the overlord asked mildly.

	"Yes, sir," Carter acknowledged. He had to suppress a grin every time he heard a Sslesor speak. Even after a thousand years, they hadn't mastered English. And they never would; their mouths simply weren't constructed for it.

	"You will pleasse resserve time on the intercontinental circuit at ten-thirty hourss tomorrow for a sspessial an-nounssement. And you will pleasse advertisse that the Government will sspeak."

	"Yess, ssir," said Carter, with a straight face. "Is there anything else the people should know?"

	The Sslesor appeared to consider Carter's statement for a moment. "I believe not," he said finally. "That iss all."

	"Thank you, Your Munificence," Carter said.

	"Not at all," said the alien. The leathery, dry skin crinkled slightly around the corners of his mouth as though he were attempting a smile, but it didn't quite come off. Then the image collapsed from view, and Carter was left looking at a blank screen.

	"Goodbye, Misster Johnson," he barked viciously into the dead instrument.

	He punched a couple of buttons and then dialed. Another face came on the screen. This time, it was human, female, and pretty—a direct contrast to the Sslesor who had occupied the screen previously.

	"News Release Division," she said politely. "Yes, sir?"

	"This is Joslyn Carter. I want a release prepared immediately. Mark it Special. The Sslesor Administration has announced that a representative of the Sslesor will address the people of Earth at ten-thirty hours tomorrow. No other news has been released."

	"I have it, sir," said the girl, smiling.

	"Good enough, sweetheart. Now get it out. Distribution to all classifications." Carter cut the connection.

	He glanced at the wall clock. Fifteen hundred hours. Time to get moving, he thought. No sense hanging around the office any longer. If the rest of the Terran Intercontinental Communications Corporation couldn't get along without their president for the rest of the day, then Joslyn Carter hadn't trained them right. And that was the last thing that would worry Carter.

	He slid the desk closed and flipped the radioseal. Then he walked over to the wall, opened the hidden compartment and took out a highly illegal blaster, which he shoved into a hip holster. At any time the Sslesor might find out exactly what Carter was up to, and he didn't intend to make it easy for them to get him to their interrogation chambers.

	The thought of dying at the age of thirty-two was not particularly appealing, but he wasn't exactly afraid of it either. Actually, he didn't believe it would ever come to that. If a man is big enough, he can quit worrying about all the things that worry the little man.

	Carter was not only big financially and politically, he was big physically. He stood six feet three and carried a two hundred and ten pound load of hard muscle on a skeleton built for the job. His head sat firmly on a heavy-muscled neck and was topped by smoothly-brushed brown hair. His face looked as though it had been chiseled from hard basalt.

	The only thing on Earth bigger than Joslyn Carter was the thousand-year-old Sslesor government of the Terran Protectorate. And that was an entity of which Carter was not exactly fond.

	He pushed through the door and strode through the outer office.

	"I'm leaving for the day, Cindy," he told his secretary.

	"Good afternoon, Mr. Carter," she said, smiling.

	He blew her a kiss and headed for the elevator. When he reached street level, he entered an express tubeway, and ten minutes later he was in Passaic, New Jersey.

	The apartment house looked like any other apartment house. It differed from others in only two ways: its tenants, and its basement—or rather, its sub-basement.

	The sub-basement was much bigger than it should have been, and the tenants were all members of that curiously archaic but very exclusive social organization known as the United States Marines.

	Joslyn Carter walked through the lobby, stepped into the elevator, and went down to the basement. There he took a special key out of his pocket and punched it into a hole in the wall near the elevator doors. The elevator started up toward the top floor, the doors to the shaft sliding open. Carter climbed down the shaft below the elevator and thumbed a button on the wall. He gave the pickup a chance to take a good look at him. The door slid open and Carter walked inside.

	"Is General Onomodze here yet?" he asked the spectrally thin young man who stood guard at the door.

	"Not yet, sir," the man said, saluting.

	"Send him in as soon as he reports, Lieutenant. I'll be in my office."

	"Yes, sir."

	Carter walked down a hallway to an office which was labelled Gen. J. L. Carter, Commandant, USMC He unlocked the door and went in.

	Tomorrow's the day, he thought. He looked around the empty office. Tomorrow's the day we give it to them.

	Carter felt a shiver of anticipation. He had waited a quarter of a century for this day, ever since he had been old enough to realize that Earth was not free, that the Sslesor had been keeping the planet bound in velvet chains.

	The Sslesor held men down to Earth. Above all, they held Joslyn Carter down to Earth. He wanted the moon, the planets, the stars, and because he was Joslyn Carter he felt he had a right to have them. The Sslesor stood in the way.

	Tomorrow's the day, he thought.

-

	The first thing he did was to put on his uniform. He cared hardly at all for the thing, but it was as much a part of the job as the title—and the title was important.

	When he was fully dressed, resplendent in his ribbons and decorations, he turned to look at himself in the mirror. He found himself unashamedly approving his appearance. He had to admit that the, uniform looked good on him. It gave some of the men the appearance of having just stepped out of a comic opera or a historical novel, depending on the individual. Carter, on the other hand, looked as if he thoroughly belonged in the red, white, blue, and gold outfit.

	Actually, he hadn't the foggiest notion of what the medals were for; they went with the uniform. But, what the hell—they looked pretty.

	He transferred the blaster to the dress holster and pulled up his chair to the desk. Then he opened the radioseal and activated the controls.

	He began to study once more his plans for blasting the Sslesor off the face of the Earth. He'd checked them forty times before, but now Onomodze had finally reduced them to Keslian calculus formulas, and he could run them through the computer for their last check. Not that he was worried about them; he trusted his own judgment a lot farther than he trusted a machine.

	The tape slid into the computer, and the tiny relays in the brain began rustling like dry leaves being stepped on. In his own mind, Carter could see the implications of the equations clearly. For the first time in ten centuries, the United States Marines were ready to attack.

	After the violent atomic destruction of the middle of the Twenty-First century, Earth was in no condition to fight off any alien invader; Earthmen couldn't even fight each other. So, when the Sslesor landed their ships all over the planet one bright July day in 2076, they had no trouble in assuming control.

	But the United States Marine Corps, or at least a small core of them, led by Major General Jonathan Redmond, had not chosen to disband. Nearly ten thousand officers and men had dedicated themselves to keeping the flame of Terran independence alive. But the original ideals of General Redmond's group had been all but forgotten during the thousand years of Sslesor occupation. After all, the Sslesor, in their long centuries of benevolent rule, had ended war and other frictions. They had brought peace and security to Earth for the first time.

	Gradually, the Corps had become merely a pleasant hobby; its members grew bound up in its pageantry, its rituals, and its uniforms without ever thinking seriously of the motive for its organization. Even the ringing slogan, Down With the Sslesor, was all but forgotten.

	To most of its members, the Corps had become an ancient and honorable brotherhood—a secret social society that was joined partly because of the little-boy-stealing-apples feeling that grown men got from being members of such an organization.

	That is, until Joslyn Carter came along.

-

	A rap came at the door.

	"Come in!" Carter said.

	A tall, lean, dark-faced man stepped in through the door and snapped to attention.

	"Lieutenant General Onomodze reporting for duty, sir."

	"Close the door and relax, Kelvin," Carter said, pleased to see his second-in-command. "There's no one watching."

	Onomodze grinned and slid the door shut. "The place will be full of men pretty soon," he said. "I wouldn't want them to think I had no respect for the ancient traditions."

	Carter waved him to a chair. "I'm running those equations of yours through the calculator."

	Onomodze blinked. "You mean you haven't done it before this? Great Snell, Joslyn, we're supposed to go into action tomorrow!"

	Tomorrow, Carter, thought, picking up the word and rolling it through his mind. Tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow. For a fraction of a second he allowed himself to daydream about the consummation of his long campaign, but he snapped himself rigidly back.

	"I beat my brains out to get those plans reduced to Keslian equations," Onomodze was saying, "so we'd know there'd be no slip-ups, and—"

	Carter cut him off. "If those plans don't work, none of them will. All the machine can do is assure us of maximum probability. Whether the thing actually works or not will depend on how the men react, not on our timing. The weak point in the whole affair is coordination and cooperation on an interpersonal level."

	"They'll follow your orders," Onomodze said.

	"I know that. That's not the point. Mankind has been saying 'yes sir' and 'no sir' to the Sslesor for so long that I'm not sure how people are going to react once the Sslesor are gone. Perhaps, with the control taken off—"

	Onomodze spread his hands. "If you can't handle them, no one can."

	Carter ignored that. He looked up at the wall clock. "I think you said you didn't want to make a bad impression on the men. You'd better get your uniform on; we can't have an unfrocked lieutenant general running around tonight."

	As Kelvin Onomodze dressed, Carter watched the answer tape slide out of the calculator. The printer clucked animatedly as it stamped the symbols out.

	As his eyes scanned the sliding tape, Joslyn Carter's grim smile broadened. Finally, the printer gave one last snick-snick and stopped.

	Carter jerked the tape out. "This is it," he said triumphantly. "We've got maximum probability of success. Taking all the factors into account, there won't be a Sslesor left alive on Earth within two days."

	Onomodze took the tape and looked at it. "It looks good, Joslyn. We long-suffering Earthmen may whip the baddies yet."

	"Very funny," said Carter dryly. "It simply means that, after being stagnant for a thousand years, the human race is going to start moving again."

	"Yeah," said Onomodze.

	"We've become so stagnant we stink."

	Another rap sounded at the door. Carter grinned lightly. The ancient ritual of door-knocking was but one of the many that had held over in the millenium-old organization of the United States Marines.

	Carter said softly: "When we get rid of the Sslesor, I'm going to have an announcer put on that door." Then he called, "Come in!"

	Onomodze's dark face twisted into a quick grin, which faded as the door opened and the tall, twig-thin figure of Major Hollister walked in.

	The Major snapped to attention. "Major Hollister reporting for duty, sir."

	"At ease," said Carter. "Any word on the Staten Island pickup, Major?"

	"Yes, sir. It's been installed. You can watch everything, either from here or from your Manhattan office."

	"Good. Are the men all here yet?"

	"No, sir, but they will foe within ten minutes."

	"Fine, Major," said Carter. "I'll want to talk to them as soon as possible."

	"Yes, sir." Hollister did an about-face and disappeared through the door.

	"Good man," said Onomodze as soon as the door closed. "But he's so stiff I'm afraid he'll crack every time he moves."

	Carter looked at the tape again. "We won't know until noon tomorrow."

-

	Five hundred men stood silently at rigid attention in the vast assembly room. Their uniforms glittered with the ancient pageantry of the twenty-first century; gold braid, medals, various brightly-colored insignia, and the bars, leaves, and eagles on their shoulders all vied with each other to dazzle the eye. The uniforms were anything but conservative, but the men wearing them gave them a hard, determined solidity that took away the stigma of gaudiness.

	"Gentleman," Carter said, addressing them from a raised dais at the end of the room: "As the New York Division of the Corps, you will have the most important job on Earth tomorrow." He smiled, and a touch of irony crept into his voice. "Tomorrow, the Fourth of July rolls around again."

	A special tomorrow, he said silently.

	A sardonic smile flickered across Onomodze's face. The Corps had planned their first uprising on 4 July 2088, eleven years after the landing of the Sslesor. It had failed miserably. Since then, a ritual "revolution" had been planned every July Fourth, generally a private affair of which the Sslesor never heard. A ritual failure went with each one. But this time, Joslyn Carter was going to change the last half of the formula.

	"You've all been instructed on what is to be done, and I want you to keep in mind that every man jack of you has a job to do, from the rawest lieutenant right on up to the General Staff. If you do your job and do it well, there won't be any chance of failure.

	"The Sslesor have grown lax in the past few centuries. They don't think we have the ability to revolt. And, thanks to that, we've managed to do something that has never been done before—we've stolen a nuclear bomb and planted it under the Government buildings on Staten Island. And our timing will be almost perfect. Tomorrow, for some reason, most of the Sslesor bigwigs are going to be concentrated on the Island. At high noon exactly, the bomb will be detonated. And that will be our signal to move in.

	"I would like to have the General Staff meet in my office immediately. Dismissed."

-

	When the Staff arranged themselves around the conference table, Carter wasted no time with preliminaries.

	"All right," he said. "Let's go through this once more." He flicked a switch. A map of the world appeared on the big wall screen. Several points were outlined in red. Carter pressed a stud, and an arrow appeared beside one of the circles.

	"Arizona," he said. "North American spaceport. All mined and ready to blast." He looked at one of the generals, a tall, lean man with a thin mustache. "Jaxin, what do you do?"

	"The port goes at 1000 hours," Jaxin said. "We go in immediately afterwards and mop up."

	"Check," Carter said. He touched the controls and the arrow moved to another spot.

	"Eisenhowergrad, Russia. Chung?"

	General Chung stood up.

	"2230 hours. Almost the same as the Arizona deal, with one exception. We blast and then go in for mop-up. But at the same time we release dorma gas into the air intake of the Sslesor ship Swiziss, which will be in the repair docks. That will give us a usable interstellar ship."

	"Check." Again the control was moved. The arrow appeared in the middle of the Australian subcontinent. "Miklowd?"

	General Miklowd said: "That's Main Base. We blow up only the administrative building; we don't destroy the field itself. Gas will be sprayed all over the place, so we won't go in for the mop-up until an hour after the attack." He stopped.

	.Carter raised an eyebrow and glared at the General. "Fine. Is there any special hour you plan to do all this?"

	The General flushed and looked sheepish. "That will be at exactly 0200 on the morning of the fifth of July," he replied crisply.

	Carter nodded. "All .right. That takes care of the spaceports. Now let's get a check on the rest of the Sslesor concentrations. And I want all of you to keep in mind that we must—must strike simultaneously all over the planet. That will be at twelve noon here in New York City."

	When everything was perfectly clear to every man there, Joslyn Carter snapped off the map. He put his knuckles on the desk and leaned forward.

	"Remember, gentlemen, this is not only the chance of a lifetime, but the chance of a millennium. Never before in the history of the Sslesor Occupation have so many important Sslesor occupied one building. If we bollix this one up, we'll never get another chance. Perhaps even our descendants never will. All right. Let's get going. You've only got a little over sixteen hours to get to your posts!"

	"What about human casualties?" General Miklowd asked. "When we jump the Sslesor, we're going to—"

	"Forget it, Miklowd," Carter snapped, silently cursing the General for a fool. "We can't worry about things like that. If there happen to be some humans in the way of our bombs, we'll just have to call them martyrs and put up a great big monument." He smiled coldly. "We're wasting time, gentlemen. Tomorrow is almost here."

	They filed out slowly. Carter watched the retreating figures until the last had gone and the door slid shut.

	He was right and Miklowd was wrong, he thought. The people in the way didn't mat-ter. If they were stupid enough to get in the way, they merited what they got. It was cruel—even Carter admitted that to himself. But it was necessary. The first goal was driving the Sslesor off Earth, and any means would do to accomplish that end.

	He looked at his watch. In fifteen hours plus, Earth would be free, and it was going to be up to him to keep the show moving from there on. Well, Carter thought, it's what I've dreamed of for years, and there's no point getting worried about it now.

	He wondered if the Sslesor enjoyed ruling Earth.

-

CHAPTER III

4 July 3027

	Carter sat before an imposing array of television screens, keeping check on the progress in each of the cities where a major uprising was scheduled. He had passed an uneasy night since the last staff meeting; it was 1020 the next morning.

	Chung was complaining from Eisenhowergrad that there might be difficulties in taking over the Sslesor ship, but Carter refused to listen.

	"There's no bug so big you can't step on it, Chung. I'll expect a report from you at 1205 telling me you've got the ship." He clicked the screen off and turned to the next, where Jaxin's face was visible.

	"How does it look in Arizona, Jaxin?" Carter barked.

	"Fine, sir. Men are deployed all around the outside of the invasion ring. We'll move in just as soon as the port blows.

	But I'm worried about the radiation, sir—"

	"Damn the radiation!" said Carter. "Your suits are going to be adequate for the job. I checked the specifications myself."

	"Yes, sir," Jaxin said weak-

	As Carter turned to the third screen, the door to his office opened and his secretary entered. In a quick motion he shut off his communicators, blanking out the puzzled face of Miklowd from Australia.

	"What is it, Cindy?"

	"That Sslesor hookup, sir. The one Viceroy Johnson arranged for yesterday. They're ready to go, Mr. Carter."

	Carter looked at his watch. "Blast it, yes. It's time, isn't it? All right, let it go through."

	"Yes, sir."

	He turned on the local screen. Let's hear what the reptiles have to say, he thought. It'll be the last time I'll be hearing them hissing at me.

	The features of Viceroy Johnson appeared on the screen. The Sslesor leader cleared his throat and began abruptly to speak, in the dry, high-pitched whine that was so familiar to Earth. Carter heard the door open and close as Onomodze entered.

	"People of Earth," the Sslesor began pompously, "People of the Sslesor Protectorate of Earth: thiss day iss indeed a ssad one."

	"What the hell is this?" Onomodze whispered.

	"Quiet," Carter said.

	"It iss a ssad day both for you and for oursselves," the Sslesor went on. "A day which bringss an unhappy parting, a day which terminates a thoussand yearss of joyful co-exisstence."

	Carter shot an amazed glance at Onomodze.

	"In the ten centuries that we have administered your planet, we have allowed you to remain ignorant of the exisstence of other galactic races. But," continued the Sslesor, "there are such races. One of them is the Velks, a warlike, imperialisstic people with which the Sslesor have contended for almost two thoussand of your yearss. Thiss sstruggle hass at lasst been terminated."

	The Sslesor paused. It was easy to see that what he had to say was difficult for him, and not only linguistically. His gray-green reptilian face reflected deep humiliation.

	"The ssettlement, unfortunately, iss in favor of the Velks," he went on sadly. "In sshort, we have been defeated.

	I have, therefore, the unpleassant duty of reporting that, as a part of the peace ssettlement we have been compelled to make, it has become necesssary to transsfer many of our planetary holdingss to the Velkan Empire. Earth, I am deeply ssorrowed to reveal, iss among that group."

	Carter felt his face go white. He stared at the screen almost unseeingly for a moment, experiencing a sensation completely unfamiliar to him, that of absolute bewilderment.

	"The Sslesor withdrawal has already been largely effected," said the Viceroy. "Most of our property hass by now been removed. The final withdrawal," the Sslesor said, "will be completed thiss evening, at which time none of our people will remain on Earth.

	"In clossing, I wish to ssay, on behalf of my fellow Sslesor, that we are truly ssorry that thiss ssad parting of the wayss musst come. We wissh you joy under your new masterss."

	The screen went blank.

	Kelvin Onomodze leaned back in his chair and began to laugh. It started deep in his chest as a sort of rich rumbling chuckle and then grew in volume until it seemed to shake the room.

	"Brother!" he said, when he was able to talk again. "This is the funniest thing I've ever heard of! Big deal! Ten thousand men work like fiends to rid the Earth of the Sslesor. Fierce determination! Boldness! The master stroke is ready! Ready—aim—fffft! The Sslesor are ready to go—good-bye!"

	He started laughing again, tears streaming down his brown face.

	Carter jumped to his feet, quivering. "Shut up, Kelvin! This is no time to knock yourself silly laughing. There's plenty to do yet!"

	He flipped on the multiple-channel communicator. The screens around him flashed into life, and the generals mirrored in them all tried to talk at once.

	"Quiet!" snapped Carter. "You've all heard what the Viceroy said. Now we know why there were so many big-shot Sslesor on Staten Island.

	"But if you think this thing is over, you're wrong. If anything, it just makes the job tougher."

	He paused for a moment to outline his new plan to himself. Then, reassured, he plunged ahead.

	"Here are your orders: The explosives, naturally, will not be detonated. Seal all the detonators to make sure they don't go off prematurely. But don't defuze the mines! We'll leave them there for the Velks—whoever they are."

	"What if the Velks look for them?" Chung asked. "Might they not suspect the Sslesor of pulling a trick like that?"

	"I doubt it," Carter said. "This seems to be an honorable withdrawal. And even if the Velks do find the mines and think the Sslesor did it—so what?"

	Chung nodded, but said nothing.

	"Meanwhile," Carter continued, "keep your men ready. As soon as the Sslesor leave, take over. Grab control of everything, lock, stock, and barrel. When the Velks come, we want to be in complete charge of everything. Got that? All right, I'll leave it up to you individually to figure out the best way of getting your men into the Sslesor's various headquarters. At the same time, you'll have to make sure that there aren't any demonstrations from the citizens. I'll try to take care of that from this end. Got it? Fine. Clear."

	He snapped off the transmitter and flipped on an intercom. "Cindy! Get me all the tape recordings of every speech made by the Sslesor in the past fifty years or so. I want full vision and audio stuff. Get a call to Production and send Fless up here. Snap!"

	"Yes, sir," said the girl.

	After she left, Onomodze, who had finally stopped laughing, said, "I don't get it."

	"Simple. There's only one way we can legally take over," Carter said. "And that's to have the Sslesor tell Earth that they're leaving us in charge. And that's exactly what they're going to have done, once we get through doctoring the tapes."

	Onomodze grinned again, "I might have expected something like that. But what about the Velks?" he wanted to know.

	"We'll figure that out later. Right now, we don't have enough data. We don't know a thing about the Velks except their name, and you can bet your sweet life that the Sslesor won't say anything about them that we can depend on. We probably won't get anything out of them at all. But we must be in charge when they get here."

	The door slid open, and a small, elderly man with a fringe of gray hair around his balding head came in.

	"Fless, I've got a job for you/" Carter said. "We've got some plain and fancy splicing to do, and we have to make it look as natural as possible. As soon as Cindy brings in the tapes, I'll show you what we want. It'll take a lot of hard work between now and then, but the future of mankind depends on its working."

	"I understand, sir," Fless said blandly.

	"Good." Carter turned around to Onomodze. "Kelvin, you hop down to the Battery and take over there. Send General Preskit over to take full charge of the Brooklyn force. I want all five hundred men on Staten Island within ten minutes after the last Sslesor ship leaves."

	Onomodze stood up, white teeth flashing behind his grin. "All right, Joslyn. We'll have fun. We can at least pretend we're chasing them off the planet."

	Carter took no notice. "Get moving. I've got other things to do," he said.

	As Onomodze left, Carter's secretary pushed a cart in through the door, bearing roll after roll of microtape. "Here's the tapes you asked for, Mr. Carter."

	Carter surveyed the cart and nodded. "Good. Let's get started, Fless. What we have to do is put together a speech."

-

	The speech went out over the airwaves just as the last Sslesor ship lifted toward the sky. It had taken careful cutting and judicious blending of hundreds of tapes, but the result was good.

	As far as anyone who heard and believed it was concerned, Viceroy Johnson, leader of the retiring Sslesor, gave the whole government of Earth over to Joslyn Carter. And by the time the synthetic speech was over, the Marines had landed on Staten Island and were in command of the vast empty buildings that the retreating Sslesor had left behind.

	Thus, on 4 July 3027, human beings were in control of Earth for the first time in nearly a thousand years.

	"Now what?" Onomodze asked.

	Joslyn Carter looked out the window at the darkening sky. "Now we've got to prove that human beings are capable of standing on their own two feet. I think they are. If our ancestors hadn't bombed themselves almost out of existence a thousand years ago, I don't think the Sslesor would have had a chance of taking over. But they came in at just the right time, and by the time we were on our feet again, nearly everyone had grown used to being ruled by them."

	"One thing I never did figure out," Onomodze said. "Just why did they want control of Earth, anyway? They let us go on about our business, for the most part. They didn't want to colonize, and they didn't want to trade. They didn't want slaves. What did they want?"

	Carter shrugged. "If you'll tell me how an alien mind works, I'll answer your question. Until then, we'll just have to let the question ride."

	He looked at his watch. "I want these buildings searched tonight—searched thoroughly. If the Sslesor left anything important behind, I want to see it. They couldn't possibly have taken everything with them."

	Onomodze nodded. "Will do."

	Carter paced anxiously up and down. "Now, the Velks. We'll have to concentrate on them. We don't know what they're like, except that they are harder to deal with than the Sslesor—since they beat the Sslesor—but you can bet your life that no new race is going to take over Earth if I can help it. Not now while we've got a moment of freedom."

	"Yes, I—" Onomodze was cut off by the frantic chiming of a communicator.

	Carter switched on the screen, and General Chung's face appeared. His leathery face looked flushed, and a grin was spread all across it.

	"General Carter," he said excitedly, "we got the Swiziss after all!" 

	"What?"

	"Yes! Evidently the thing wasn't in condition to take off, so the Sslesor just left it here. Maybe we can eventually figure out how their interstellar drive works, and—"

	"Unlikely," Carter said, frowning. "What does it look like inside?"

	Chung lost his grin. "I'm afraid it looks pretty empty. There do seem to be some sort of engines inside, but there are whole sections missing, too. But I thought maybe—"

	"I'm glad we got it, Chung," Carter agreed. "But I don't think the Sslesor would have left it behind if it were any good. And what's more, I—"

	Suddenly, Chung's image wavered and vanished. It was replaced by a wavering pattern of meaningless lights.

	A voice came out of the speaker, a gentle, wet sort of voice.

	"Your pardon, please. As this was the only channel available, we were forced to—ah—break in. This is Fulf Quish speaking for the Velkan government. We should like to have a word with the Earth government. 

	Carter glanced at Onomodze quizzically, and said, "You are addressing Joslyn Carter, present head of the Terran Provisional Government."

	"Ah, so. We are happy to make contact. Our ship is at this moment orbiting above your atmosphere. We will land tomorrow morning if you would be so kind as to meet with our representatives."

	"Very well," said Carter, trying to peer behind the shifting pattern of lights to see what the new aliens looked like.

	He told them exactly how to spot Staten Island and where to land. There was a long pause, and then Fulf Quish's voice came again.

	"We have photographed the spot you describe. We will be there tomorrow. Goodbye."

	Carter stared at the blank screen for a moment. He felt a burst of irrational anger because Earth, and more specifically Joslyn Carter, should be subjected to non-human overlords from somewhere out in the galaxy; it seemed virtually a direct insult to him.

	He looked at Onomodze, who was waiting patiently for some reaction from Carter. "That was short and to the point. We'll have to be ready for them, Kelvin."

	"Why not simply set off the bomb as soon as they land?"

	Carter shook his head. "Strategically unsound. We have only one nuclear bomb; we don't know how many more ships they may have out there. I don't like the tone of that guy's voice. He sounded too—"

	"Polite?"

	"Yes," said Carter. "Something like that. I wonder what the Velks are going to be like."

-

CHAPTER IV

5 July 3027 

	They were nothing like the Sslesor. The Velks were squat, four-legged, multi-tentacled beings with soft, mushy voices. They wore breathing masks which effectively concealed their faces from view.

	One of the five who faced Joslyn Carter and his General Staff across the conference table waved a tentacle in the air and said:

	"As I understand you, then, Earthman, your group represents the human race?"

	Carter nodded.

	Fulf Quish burbled something to his companions, who waved their tentacles frenziedly and burbled back. Then the Velk said, "You must pardon my poor control of your language. I am only a translator; the rest of our mission did not have the time to learn any of your native tongues."

	"You speak very well," Carter said carefully.

	"I presume you have questions to ask?" the Velk asked, in its wet-sounding voice.

	"We do," agreed Carter.

	"What sort of government do you intend to set up? I assume you will be using the buildings evacuated by the Sslesor, won't you?"

	Fulf Quish waved a tentacle in negation. "Oh, not at all. Not at all. I'm afraid you misunderstand us."

	"How so?"

	"We do not come here for the purpose of governing at all."

	"I'm afraid I don't quite see your point," said Carter.

	The alien paused as if considering his next phrases very carefully. "I fear that, isolated as you are from the main stream of galactic culture, you don't appreciate your position. The Sslesor held your planet for a thousand of your years because it was a strategic military base. That situation no longer prevails, since you are now well within the boundaries of the Velkan Commonwealth. In the settlement with the Sslesor, we acquired some two thousand additional planets, of which—excuse me—Earth is one of the least important strategically. I hope you'll pardon me when I speak so bluntly?"

	Carter nodded. He sat perfectly still, wondering what new surprise was going to descend on him.

	"In addition," went on the Velk, "we are a very democratic people. We believe in allowing each planet within the Commonwealth to have its own government. It is very difficult for us to exercise direct control over all our planets. Our outposts are too widely spread as it is. Therefore, we must reluctantly decline to place representatives on all of our possessions. We simply do not have enough men. You see our position?"

	Carter folded his hands and tried not to look at the uniformed men around him. "And so?" he asked cautiously.

	"And so," continued the being, "we have not come here to govern, but merely to inform you that you are now wards of the Velkan Commonwealth, with the same privileges tendered to other members." He paused. "We will be unable to keep a representative on your planet at present. It is possible—possible, mind you, not probable—that we will be able to spare someone to act as proconsul a little later. But that must wait. Ten year, no. Twenty, no. But we might be able to provide a representative for you in, perhaps, fifty years. Not before. Frankly, we cannot spare a single man now."

	"You're simply going to leave us alone, is that it?" Carter asked, trying to keep the shock out of his voice.

	"Exactly so," said Fulf Quish. "We must leave for Quange—a planet in one of our other new systems—immediately, and so I must bid you farewell."

	Carter stared, amazed. He felt a sense of deep frustration at the way action was continually being snatched from his hands. First the Sslesor had obligingly pulled out an hour before Carter was to have blasted them; now the Velks refused to exercise their rights over Earth. The ends were satisfactory, but the means irked him.

	"But who is to govern Earth?" Carter asked.

	"That is for you to decide. This planet is now in the hands of its natives. From this moment on, my friend, the planet is yours—you Earth-men shall act as our custodians as of now. Govern yourselves well."

	The five Velks rose and left the building. Through the window, Carter watched them move back to the spaceship on their oddly-jointed legs, their tentacles waving gently.

	Onomodze rubbed the tip of his nose with a long forefinger. "Well, may I be eternally cursed," he said softly.

-

20 July 3027 

	President Joslyn Carter scribbled his signature on another paper and shoved it into the outgoing slot.

	"I don't get you," said Onomodze.

	"I said that we don't seem to be getting anywhere, and we have to," Carter said. "It's unfortunate that you're the only one around here I trust sufficient enough to talk to, because you don't seem to understand what I tell you any more."

	"Hold it, Joslyn. I heard what you said. Now explain it in words of not more than three syllables so that a stupid blot like me can understand what goes on inside that great mind of yours."

	Carter tapped his finger on the desktop. "Listen: potentially, humanity is the most powerful and most vital of the three races that we know to exist in the galaxy."

	"How do you figure that?" Onomodze asked.

	"The way they act!" Carter waved a hand in the general direction of the sky. "Kelvin, until this happened I didn't realize how utterly insipid the Sslesor and the Velks are. We put up with the Sslesor so long that we got used to them; we never questioned their orders because they had tamed that out of us—almost. But the only reason they could take over Earth was because we were so weak a thousand years ago. A thousand years is a long time—plenty of time for the Sslesor to become a pushover for the Velks, or any other younger and stronger race.

	"Then come our friends the Velks. Can you imagine the idiocy level required for them to leave any race so potentially dangerous as humanity alone and unwatched for another fifty years?

	"The Sslesor kept the status quo just where they wanted it. They haven't changed themselves in ten centuries that we know of—and probably a lot longer than that. That proves just one thing—they're decadent. As for the Velks, they just don't seem very bright. And, both sides are conducting an interstellar war as if it were a chess game.

	"If we can get started again, we'll have them both beaten in a thousand years—less than that, perhaps. We'll eventually figure out the secret of the drive on that spaceship. There were plenty of clues scattered about. We just can't recognize them yet, that's all. When we do, we'll be on a par with both of them, and I'm betting we get a long way ahead of them. But—"

	"But right now, we can't get anybody to move," Onomodze finished for him.

	Carter nodded. "I can't get any cooperation from anyone! They all seem to want to go along their own way. We might just as well be dumping our executive orders into a wastebasket chute as releasing them. And since the United States Marine Corps is no longer a secret society, a lot of people aren't interested in it any more. They don't get any thrill out of it."

	Onomodze's face was unusually grim. "It isn't often I've heard you talk this way, Joslyn."

	"I know. But for the first time I'm starting to have a few worries. What the hell are we going to do?"

-

12 October 3027

	The regional governor of the British Isles announced that, since the United States Marine Corps had shown how well old-fashioned things work in government, he was restoring the monarchy, and had taken the title of King Pedro the First.

	The news reached Staten Island late in the afternoon of 12 October, and was immediately forwarded to Major Hollister. Major Hollister took the report to Lieutenant General Onomodze, who waited nearly a day before he dared show it to Carter.

	By that time Scotland had seceded from the new United Kingdom. The Duke of Ireland remained coldly aloof.

-

4 January 3028 

	"I have here," said Onomodze, "a petition from the Pretender to the Governorship of Mexico City. He insists that the Earth Government restore him to his rightful position."

	Joslyn Carter grabbed the paper and tore it to shreds. "What did you say to him?" he demanded.

	"I told him that if the two Lieutenant Governors could get together long enough to throw out the new Governor, we would send down troops, provided the troops would go."

	"Stop grinning like a blithering jackass, Kelvin!" said Carter. "Don't you realize that the whole Earth is falling to pieces in front of us? Politically, we're about where Europe was in 900 A.D."

	"I can't help it," Onomodze said, still grinning. "It's funny, even if it is tragic. No one will take orders from anyone else. 'Who are you to tell me what to do? You're just another Earthman.' I've just about reached the point where I'm ready to toss in the towel myself. I think I'll become an Emperor—that's a nice title. The Emperor of South Staten Island. You can have the north half."

	"Aaaahh! Shut up!" snapped Carter.

-

7 March 3028 

	"It's not that we're not capable of governing them," Carter said gloomily, as the Terran Provisional Government rolled into its eighth and probably final month. "We know how to do it. It's that they are incapable of being governed by us."

	"We should have known it, Joslyn," Onomodze said. "We should have called in all the Regional Governors and—"

	"Don't bother," Carter said. "It's .too late to start telling me how it should have been done. Even if we'd done it that way, it wouldn't have worked."

	He glanced up as Hollister entered the room. "What now?"

	"We've lost Chicago," Hollister said. "Our men just got chased out by Duke Richard."

	"Duke Richard," Carter repeated, almost grinning a little despite himself. "Duke Richard of Chicago. I like that," Carter said. "This whole blasted planet is splitting up into dukedoms and earldoms and squirearchies and everything else. And we're no better; what we laughingly call the Provisional Government is nothing more than a noisier dukedom than the rest."

	Onomodze unrolled the map that lay on the desk. "Here," he said. "Look at the checkerboard here." He pointed to the dots of color spotting the map, each indicating a township or country where some tiny independent kingdom had been set up, in defiance of the Carter government. "As long as it's all over, we can laugh about it," Onomodze said.

	"No!" roared Carter. "No. Don't ever treat it as a joke. It's a tragedy, Kelvin, even more tragic than the original conquest by the Sslesor. Because here we're on our own again, and we're flubbing it completely."

	"I'm sorry," Onomodze said. "I didn't mean to joke about it."

	Carter got up and walked to the window. "We didn't go wrong anywhere," he said. "We did everything the right way. When the Velks pulled out on us, we took over and announced that we were the new government of Earth. We had the administrative machinery all set up."

	"Right here," said Hollister. He pointed to the bound copy of the constitution Carter had promulgated. "A government rules by consent of the governed. And we couldn't get consent."

	"It wasn't our fault," Onomodze said. "We have a natural leader here, in Joslyn. He knows exactly what to do and how to do it. But it was like a poker game in which one man had a royal flush, and having everyone else drop out before he can bet. Our royal flush is Joslyn, but he has to have someone else in the game with him for the royal flush to mean anything. We can't force people to accept our rule."

	"It's not our fault at all," Carter said. "All those little dukes are going to find out the same thing I did."

	"What's that?"

	"Look: for a thousand years the Sslesor ruled us, telling us what to do at every step of our way," Carter said, "We grew terribly dependent on them—so dependent that now every Earthman is firmly convinced that he can be ruled properly only by benevolent lizards from the stars. The Sslesor did such a good job of ruling that the people just won't believe we can do as well ourselves. Those dukes are finding it out, too. Just as they refused to accept our authority, so their own subjects are refusing to accept theirs. As fast as a duchy gets going, it subdivides. Our friend Duke Richard of Chicago is going to find himself the Duke of eight or nine square blocks in a month's time, and then maybe one block."

	"That means anarchy coming," Onomodze said.

	"Exactly," said Carter. "We'd just better be ready to get out of the way when the roof blows off."

-

CHAPTER V

20 March 3028

	Things grew steadily worse during the next weeks. New York became the scene of a pitched battle between the Earl of Manhattan and the Overlord of West Brooklyn, with Staten Island as the prize. Carter and his government, cooped up in the old Sslesor Administration Building on the Island, waited uneasily and wondered which ruler would get to them first.

	All pretense at governing was dropped now. The Provisional Government had been dead almost from the start, with Earthmen unable to accept the fact that other Earth-men could successfully take the place of the Sslesor. Carter had had no control over the local governments at all.

	"We might just as well call the Sslesor back," Carter said-.

	"Because we're heading for a glorious war now, with everybody fighting everybody else and no one quite sure what the shooting's all about."

	"We can't get the Sslesor back," Onomodze pointed out. "And the Velks won't be bothered with us. That means we're on our own."

	"At last," said Carter. "And rapidly heading toward the junkpile. But we can't give up," he said, suddenly fierce again.

	"Why not?" the other demanded. "It's all over for us now. We've had our chance and botched it. Now we can sit back and watch the fireworks."

	"That's exactly what we can't do," Carter snapped. "We're the only men capable of putting Earth together, you and I and a handful of top Marine Corps men. We've known that since before the Sslesor left. We're still able to do the job."

	"But they won't listen to us," Onomodze protested.

	"I think I have an idea." Carter sat quietly for a long time. "Let's start from the beginning once more," he said.

	"Let's analyze the whole situation all over again."

-

1 April 3028 

	The Carter government made its formal resignation a week later. It was, of course, an empty gesture, but at least the thing had been carried out according to protocol. The hundreds and thousands of local rulers reacted jubilantly to the news.

	Earth was, therefore, in an official state of anarchy when the Khoomish arrived.

	Their huge, gleaming ship put down without advance warning on Staten Island, in the great plaza that lay before the ruins of the Sslesor Administration Building. A well-placed bomb had levelled the former headquarters both of the Sslesor and of the Provisional Government, but the Provisional Government had prudently foreseen this and had been elsewhere at the time.

	Thus, only a handful of Terrans were on hand to witness the landing of the Khoomish, attracted by the sight of the ship hovering over the Island and sinking down to land.

	The Khoomish were tall, powerful, green-furred aliens with thin purple lips and magnificent blazing eyes. They were far more imposing to the war-weary Terrans than either the reptilian Sslesor or the nondescript Velks.

	They emerged from their ship and, taking no notice of the curious knot of Terrans around them, calmly went about the business of setting up a complex, involuted piece of machinery about eight feet high. Then, the biggest and most majestic-looking of the aliens approached the machine that had been set up and spoke incomprehensible syllables into it.

	The machine translated his speech to what was by now a fairly large and interested gathering of Earthmen as:

	"People of Earth: Your time of troubles is over. We have come from the stars to aid you."

	The bald announcement caused a ripple of conversation to wash through the crowd. Then the Khoomish leader went on to explain that the machine before them was a thought-translator which converted English into the Khoomish tongue and vice versa, and went on to request that the leaders of the local governments be brought to see them at once.

	When the news reached them, the Duke of Lower Manhattan and the Imperator of Astoria were engaged in treaty negotiation. They held a hurried conference and decided to speak to the alien leader together.

	"My name is Terrag Broz," the huge green-furred creature said when the two rulers approached. "While waiting for you, I have had the opportunity of learning your language—a singularly clumsy one, may I add."

	The Imperator introduced the Duke, and then himself.

	"You are the rulers of this area, I take it," Broz said.

	They nodded.

	"Might I inquire, how many subjects does each of you possess?"

	The two rulers exchanged worried glances. In the past weeks, their domains had been shrinking at an exponential rate. When the Imperator of Astoria had seceded from the Dominion of Queens, he had boasted some four thousand loyal subjects. But since the establishment of the Free State of Long Island City, that number had diminished somewhat, and a threatened Republic of Inner Astoria would make further inroads. The Duke of Lower Manhattan had undergone similar experience.

	"I take it from your silence," the Khoomish said, "that you have seen difficult times lately. In short, that the condition of your planet has been degenerating rapidly into utter anarchy since Earth's abrupt and, may I say, unwanted liberation."

	"That's not true at all!" the Duke began, but the Imperator nudged him to be quiet.

	"It is true," he admitted. He was a short, gray-haired man with close-clipped hair, who had been a provincial administrator under the Sslesor. "I would venture to predict, sir, that within a year's time I'll have no more than one subject—if that many. And that one will be myself. Everyone wants to be a king," he said, sighing.

	The Khoomish grinned broadly. "Precisely. And that is why we have come. We offer you a strong, efficient government, a centralized administration, a unified planet. Throw in your lot with us and we will see that you are placed high in the ranks of the ruling echelon—as high, of course, as it will be possible for a Terran to rise."

	After a whispered consultation, the two rulers agreed to submit to the authority of the Khoomish.

	By nightfall, the Khoomish had all of New York except a recalcitrant section of the Bronx.

	In a week's time, they were being acclaimed as saviors throughout the United States of America, as duke after duke willingly resigned his uneasy throne to them.

	Within two months, the Earthmen had completely yielded their battered planet to the Khoomish. Even the most stubborn conceded that it was better to be ruled benevolently by aliens than badly by one's self. In fact, most Earthmen had believed that all along.

	Work proceeded apace on an immense central headquarters to house Earth's new rulers.

	And sanity had returned to the Earth for the first time since the Sslesor had unexpectedly departed.

-

11 May 3035

	Orvid Kemron glared across the desk at Terrag Broz.

	"All right," he said. "You took advantage of the right moment to come down and take possession of Earth. You waited until the Provisional Government had failed miserably and Earth was in complete chaos. And those sheep—" He waved in an all-inclusive gesture. "—were wildly enthusiastic about it. They thought that the only way any of us would survive would be to be ruled by a set of galactic overlords. Any set at all would do."

	"And you rebelled," Broz said. "Just as Joslyn Garter rebelled—or tried to—against the Sslesor. But even if Carter had actually managed to blast the Sslesor government, the same thing would have happened. Earth was—and is—not ready to govern itself on such short notice. It's not that Earthmen have had any of the vigor and fire bred out of them; it's simply that they have been relying on exterior government for so long that they don't know how to handle themselves without it.

	"Like any energetic, potentially brilliant child who is suddenly deprived of parental care and told to shift for himself, the human race went hogwild," he said.

	"And what if our rebellion had gone through?" Kemron asked.

	"The same thing would have happened," said the Khoomish leader. "Earth would have fallen into anarchy again.

	"I will certainly agree that humanity would, in time, pull itself back together for another try at the stars, but by that time it would perhaps be too late. Why spend another thousand years regaining what Earth has right now?"

	Kemron closed his eyes and massaged the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger. "I suppose that means that Earth will never again govern herself," he said slowly. 

	"And I suppose it means that I will be shot."

	"Wrong on both counts," Broz smiled. "Earth will govern herself again. And we're certainly not going to harm you. We need you, and more like you. But you were as I said, a little premature."

	"Premature?" Kemron looked blank.

	The Khoomish nodded. "That's what I said. Like Joslyn Carter, you rebelled at a time when you didn't have a united planet behind you. No one hated the Sslesor but Carter and his Marines. No one hates us but you and your underground. You're making the same mistakes that Carter did, and that's why we had to drag you out of bed in the middle of the night. It wouldn't have done for you to drive us off the Earth tomorrow. Wait until you are ready—then strike."

	"I don't understand," said Kemron. His confused mind felt as though it were spinning in silly little circles.

	"It's very simple," Broz continued. "If we can make the rest of the human race hate us enough, they'll drive us off and be ready to follow wholeheartedly the leader of the group that drives us off. Do you follow me?"

	"Yes," Kemron, said hesitantly, "yes, I think I understand, but why? Why do you want to do this? Don't you want to rule Earth? I don't think I'd be very intelligent if I trusted the word of a Khoomish that his race was as altruistic as all that."

	At that Broz grinned. "I'm glad I didn't underestimate you. I—" He stopped as the door to the office opened.

	Behind him, Kemron heard footsteps. Another Khoomish walked over to Broz" desk and put a sheaf of papers on the hard, shiny top.

	"What's this about our race being altruistic?'" the newcomer asked, grinning.

	Broz looked back at Kemron. "You know our Vice Administrator, Nacomon Gornik, I think?"

	Kemron nodded blankly, looking from one to the other.

	"I assure you," Broz said, "that the race to which we belong is the least altruistic—in that sense—of any of the three races we know to exist in the galaxy. And yet, in another manner of speaking, we—"

	He didn't get a chance to finish. Kemron leaped to his feet, and strangely enough, the automatics did not shoot him down.

	"Three races! You! I get it! I get it!" He slapped a hand against his forehead. "My God! Why didn't I see it before? Why didn't anyone else see it?"

	"Because they weren't looking for it," said Broz.

	"They weren't in any condition to," Gornik added. "They couldn't even bring themselves to admit that the possibility might exist."

	"Who are you?" Kemron asked sharply.

	"I am Joslyn Carter," said the green-furred being. "And this is Kelvin Onomodze."

-

	Kemron nodded. "But why? Why this insane masquerade?"

	"Not insane," Broz-Carter said. "It's the most terribly sane thing we've done yet. All my earlier actions were based on the faulty premise that one determined, capable group of men could, if properly led, take over Earth.

	"It wasn't. A thousand years of Sslesor rule had seen to that. What we are trying to do now will take thirty years or more of re-education. The answer to the anarchistic tendencies of Earth was obvious: we would have to turn into a set of galactics ourselves. We would have to provide Earth with what it wanted in order to rule it properly."

	"I see," said Kemron. "Very neat. But if Earthmen are, as you say, too stagnant to rule themselves now, what makes you think we can ever do it? Isn't it just possible that we'll simply sink lower into stagnation?"

	Broz-Carter shook his head. "Not at all. The very fact that anarchy nearly got us was proof of that. If we really were a stagnating race, we would have ruled ourselves without any difficulty. As it is, there is enough difference, even now, between various groups to allow them to quarrel with each other. And that'-s a very hopeful sign."

	"But why tell me? How do I fit in?" Kemron asked.

	"We told you for the purpose of self-preservation, for one thing," Carter admitted. "We have no desire to get killed when the rebellion finally does come. For another thing, this is the sort of rebellion that requires close cooperation in the upper echelons of both factions if it is to be successful.

	"Things are running very smoothly under the Khoomish now. We've picked up all the pieces and put them back together, but we need help to keep them together.

	"You're the only one who knows we're only Earthmen wearing green fur. But we don't want to keep the job for a thousand years. We want to be overthrown—desperately.

	"But not yet. We want to be overthrown by a united movement of Earthmen, not a little hole-in-the-ground movement like yours.

	"We've been waiting for you, Orvid. We deliberately made it easy; we set a trap to catch an underground movement. You'll have to expand—form a real Earth faction to overthrow us. Drive us out! Send us packing! But not yet. Not until you're strong enough. And that's going to be a long time."

	"I feel as if the roof's caved in on me," Kemron said.

	"That's the way I felt," said Carter. "First when the Sslesor pulled out, then when the Velks crossed us up, and finally when the provisional government turned out to be such a complete failure. And I hope I feel it one more time—in a slightly different way—the day Orvid Kemron comes blasting into this building with an army of Earthmen at his back and tells us he's taking over."

	Kemron's eyes glowed. "How long? When?"

	"According to my calculations, thirty years. We don't dare take much longer."

	"Why the rush?" Kemron asked, frowning suddenly.

	Carter's green-furred face became grim. "The Velks," he said. "They said they'd come back. And then, too, there's the chance that the Sslesor might regain this section of the galaxy. Or there may be another race out there somewhere. Human beings have never been to the stars, and it looks as though we're going to have to have a hell of a lot of fight in us to get our share when we do. I don't think the others have a chance if we're united and working together towards that goal. If we have the tools to fight with, we'll win."

	He jabbed a forefinger at Kemron to emphasize his point: "But God help us if they find us in the same condition of helplessness that we were in when the Sslesor found us a thousand years ago."

	"What do I do now?" Kemron asked.

	"Go home and get some sleep." Carter told him. "We'll get in touch with you later to begin making complete plans for the first phase. Now get out of here fast. The guards will take you home."

	"All right—Joslyn." Kemron stood up. "I'll wait until I can talk to you before making any further plans."

	He turned and headed toward the door. Carter watched him go.

	"I think he'll do," he said, after the door shut.

	"I hope so," said Onomodze. "It'll be a pleasure to take these getups off again."

	"Don't worry. If I know Orvid Kemron, he'll have us on our way back to Khoom soon enough. Wherever Khoom is, that is."

	"You're sure of that?"

	"I'm positive," said Carter. ''He'll have most of Earth behind him when we get through with them. They're going to want to skin us alive."

	Onomodze looked down at the fur on his arm. "That won't be too soon for me."

The End
sleipnir 3/04/2012