Report on the Threatened City

Priority Flash One

All coordinates all plans all prints canceled. As of now condition unforeseen by us obtaining this city. Clear all programs all planners all forecasters for new setting on this information.

Priority

Base to note well that transmission this channel will probably be interrupted by material originating locally. Our fuel is low and this channel therefore only one now operative.

Summary of Background to Mission

Since our planet discovered that this city was due for destruction or severe damage, all calculations and plans of our department have been based on one necessity: how to reach the city to warn its inhabitants of what is to come. Observing their behavior, both through Astroviewers and from our unmanned machines launched at intervals this past year, their time, our commissioners for external affairs decided these people could have no idea at all of what threatened, that their technology, while so advanced in some ways, had a vast gap in it, a gap that could be defined, in fact, precisely by that area of ignorance--not knowing what was to befall them. This gap seemed impossible. Much time was spent by our technicians trying to determine what form of brain these creatures could have that made this contradiction possible--as already stated, a technology so advanced in one area and blank in another. Our technicians had to shelve the problem, as their theories became increasingly improbable and as no species known to us anywhere corresponds even at a long remove with what we believed this one to be. It became, perhaps, the most intriguing of our unsolved problems, challenging and defeating one department after another.

Summary of Objective this Mission

Meanwhile, putting all speculations on one side, attractive though they were, all our resources have been used, at top speed and pressure, to develop a spacecraft that could, in fact, land a team on this planet, since it was our intention, having given the warning, offered the information available to us but (we thought) not to them, which made the warning necessary, to offer them more: our assistance. We meant to help clear the area, transport the population elsewhere, cushion the shock to the area and then, having done what we have, after all, done for other planets, our particular mental structure being suited to this kind of forecasting and assistance, return to base, taking some suitable specimens of them with us, in order to train them in a way that would overcome the gap in their mind and, therefore, their science. The first part we achieved: That is, we managed, in the time set for it, to develop a spacecraft that could make the journey here, carrying the required number of personnel. It strained our own technology and postponed certain cherished plans of our own. But our craft landed here, on the western shore of the land mass, as planned, and without any trouble, seven days ago.

The Nature of the Problem

You will have wondered why there have been no transmissions before this. There have been two reasons. One: We realized at once that there would be heavier demands on our fuel than we had anticipated and that we would have to conserve it. Two: We were waiting to understand what it was we had to tell you. We did not understand the problem. For it was almost at once clear to us that all our thinking about "the gap in their mental structure" was off the point. We have never understood the nature of the problem. So improbable is it that we delayed communicating until we were sure. The trouble with this species is not that it is unable to forecast its immediate future; it is that it doesn't seem to care. Yet that is altogether too simple a stating of its condition. If it were so simple--that it knew that within five years its city was to be destroyed, or partly destroyed, and that it was indifferent--we should have to say: This species lacks the first quality necessary to any animal species; it lacks the will to live. Finding out what the mechanism is has caused the delay. Which I now propose to partially remedy by going into an account of what befell us, step by step. This will entail a detailed description of a species and a condition absolutely without precedent in our experience of the inhabited planets.

An Impossible Fact

But first, here is a fact that you will find hard to believe. We did not find this out at once, but when we did, it was a moment of focus in our investigation, enabling us to see our problem clearly. This city experienced a disaster, on a fairly large scale, about 65 years ago, their time.

A thought immediately suggests itself: Our experts did not know about this past disaster, only about the one to come. Our thinking is as defective in its way as theirs is. We had decided that they had a gap, that this gap made it impossible for them to see into the immediate future. Having decided this, we never once considered another possibility, the truth--that they had no gap, that they knew about the threatened danger and did not care. Or behaved as if they did not. Since we were unable to conceive of this latter possibility, we did not direct our thoughts and our instruments back in time--their time. We took it absolutely for granted, an assumption so strong that it prevented our effective functioning as much as these creatures' assumptions prevent them from acting--we knew (since we are so built ourselves) that it would be impossible for a disaster to have occurred already, because if we had experienced such a thing, we would have learned from the event and taken steps accordingly. Because of a series of assumptions, then, and an inability to move outside our own mental set, we missed a fact that might have been a clue to their most extraordinary characteristic--the fact that such a very short time ago, they experienced a disaster of the sort that threatens again, and soon.

The Landing

Our unmanned craft have been landing on their planet for centuries and have taken various shapes, been of varying substances. These landings were at long intervals until one year ago. These intervals were because, except for its unique destructiveness and belligerence, this species is not the most remarkable nor interesting of those made available to our study by our Technological Revolution in its Space Phase. But 12 times recently, during each of the periods their planet was at full light potential, we have landed craft, and each time close to the place in question. This was easy, because the terrain is semidesert and lightly populated. We chose material for the craft that would manifest as their substance light--which is why we always used maximum their planet light as landing times. These craft were visible, if at all, as strong moonlight. The craft we are using on this present mission, the 13th in this series, is of higher concentration, since it is manned.

We landed as planned. The sky was clear, the light of their moon strong. We knew at once that we were visible, because a herd of their young was near, some 50 or 60 of them, engaged in a mating ritual that involved fire, food and strong sound, and as we descended, they dispersed. Tapping their mind streams established that they believed our machine was extraterritorial but that they were indifferent--no, that is not an exact description, but remember, we are trying to describe a mind state that none of us could have believed was possible. It was not that they were indifferent to us but that indifference was generalized throughout their processes, felt by us as a block or a barrier. After the young creatures had gone, we surveyed the terrain and discovered that we were on high land rising to mountains, inland from the water mass on the edge of which stands a city. A group of older specimens arrived. We know now that they live nearby and are all varieties of agriculturalist. They stood quite close, watching the craft. An examination of their minds showed a different type of block. Even at that early stage, we were able to establish a difference in texture between their thought streams and those of the young, which we later understood amounted to this: The older ones felt a responsibility or a power to act, as members of society, while the young ones were excluded or had decided to exclude themselves. As this area of the planet turned into the sunlight, it was clear to us that our craft ceased to be visible, for two of these older creatures came so close we were afraid they would actually enter the concentration. But they showed an awareness of our presence by other symptoms--headache and (continued on page 250)threatened city (continued from page 110) nausea. They were angry because of this damage being done to them--which they could have alleviated by moving farther off; but at the same time, they were feeling pride. This reaction highlighted the difference between them and the young--the pride was because of what they thought we represented; for, unlike the young, they believed we were some kind of weapon, either of their own land mass or of a hostile one, but from their own planet.

Warmaking Patterns

Everyone in the System knows that this species is in the process of self-destruction, or part destruction. This is endemic. The largest and most powerful groupings--based on geographical position--are totally controlled by their functions for warmaking. Rather, each grouping is a warmaking function, since its economies, its individual lives, its movements are all subservient to the need to prepare for or wage war. This complete dominance of a land area by its warmaking machinery is not always visible to the inhabitants of that area, as this species is able, while making war or preparing for it, to think of itself as peace-loving--yes, indeed, this is germane to our theme, the essence of it.

Rational Action Impossible

Here we approach the nature of the block, or patterning, of their minds--we state it now, though we did not begin to understand it until later. It is that they are able to hold in their minds at the same time several contradictory beliefs without noticing it. Which is why rational action is so hard for them. Now, the warmaking function of each geographical area is not controlled by its inhabitants but is controlled by itself. Each is engaged in inventing, bringing to perfection--and keeping secret from its own inhabitants as well as from the "enemy"--highly evolved war weapons of all sorts, ranging from devices for the manipulation of men's minds to spacecraft.

Subservient Populations

For instance, recent landings on their moon, much publicized by the geographical groupings that made them and followed breathlessly by the inhabitants of the whole planet, were by no means the first achieved by the said groupings. No, the first "moon landings" were made in secret, in service of one grouping's dominance in war over another, and the slavish populations knew nothing about them. A great many of the devices and machines used by the war departments are continuously under test in all parts of the earth and are always being glimpsed or even seen fully by inhabitants who report them to the authorities. But some of these devices are similar (in appearance, at least) to machines of extraterritorial origin. Citizens reporting "flying saucers"--to use one of their descriptive phrases--may as well have seen the latest of their own grouping's machines on test as one of our observation craft or observation craft from the Jupiter family. Such a citizen will find that after reaching a certain level in the hierarchies of officialdom, silence will blanket him and his observations--he will in various ways he repulsed, ridiculed or even threatened. As usually happens, a council of highly placed officials was recently ordered to take evidence and report on the by-now-innumerable sightings of "unidentified flying objects," but this council finished its deliberations with public words that left the situation exactly as it was before. The official report nowhere stated that there was a minority report by some of its own number. This is the level of behavior in their public representatives tolerated by them. Large numbers, everywhere on the planet, see craft like ours, or like other planets' craft, or war machines from their own or other geographical areas. But such is the atmosphere created by the war departments that dominate everything that these individuals are regarded as mentally inadequate or deluded. Until one of them has actually seen a machine or a spacecraft, he tends to believe that anyone who claims he has is deranged. Knowing this, when he does see something, he often does not say so. But so many individuals now have seen things for themselves that there are everywhere all kinds of dissident or sullen subgroupings. These are of all ages and they cut across the largest and most widespread subculture of them all, that of the young of the species who have grown up in a society of total war preparedness, are naturally reluctant to face a future that can only mean early death or maiming and who react in the way mentioned earlier, with a disinclination to take part in the administration of their various societies. The older ones seem much more able to delude themselves, to use words like peace when engaged in warlike behavior, to identify with their geographical areas. The young ones are clearer-minded, more easily see the planet as a single organism, but are also more passive and hopeless. We put forward the suggestion that the greater, or at least more purposive energy of the older ones may be because of their comparative narrowness and identification with smaller ideas. We are now able to explain why the young we met on the night we landed moved away. Some had already had the experience of insisting to the authorities that they had seen strange machines and objects of various kinds and of being discouraged or threatened. They would be prepared to publicize what they had seen in their own newssheets or to spread it by word of mouth; but, unlike their elders, most of whom seem unable to understand the extent to which they are subjugated to the needs of war, they would never put themselves in a position where their authorities could capture or question them. But the older ones of the area who had seen our previous 12 craft, which had all landed there, had evolved a different attitude. Some had reported what they had seen and had been discouraged. One or two, persisting, had been described as mad and had been threatened with incarceration. But, on the whole, they had taken the attitude of the authorities as a directive to mind their own business. Discussing it among themselves, they had agreed to keep watch on their own account, not saying too much about what they saw. In this group are two spies, who report to the war departments on what is seen and on the reactions of their fellow agriculturalists.

First attempt at a warning

Now we come to our first attempt to communicate a warning. Since the 20 or so elders were already on the spot and were unafraid, staying on the site where they believed we might redescend--they did not know it was only the strength of the sun's light that made us invisible--we decided to use them and again made contact with their thought streams, this time in an attempt to project our message. But there was a barrier, or at least something we could not understand, and it was time consuming for us. We were already aware that we might run short of power.

Incapacity for fear

Now, of course, we know we made a wrong assessment, for, expecting that the news of the expected disaster would jam their thought machinery in panic, we fed it in very carefully and slowly, taking an entire day and night. When we hit the block, or resistance, we put it down to fear. We were mistaken. This is perhaps the time to state a psychological law we consider basic to them: This is a species immune from fear--but this will be elaborated later, if the power holds. At the end of the day and night, still meeting the same resistance, we allowed ourselves another period of a day and a night to repeat the message, hoping that the fear--as we then saw it--would be overcome. At the end of the second period of transmitting, there was no change in their mental structure. I repeat, none. We know now what was far from our understanding then, that we were telling them something they already knew. As we were not prepared at that time to entertain that hypothesis, we decided that this particular group of individuals was for some reason unsuitable for our purposes and that we must try an altogether different type, and preferably of a different age group. We had tried mature individuals. We had already suspected what we since have confirmed, that in this species, the older they get, the less open they are to new thought material. Now, it so happens that the place where our craft descended is in an area much used for the before-mentioned mating rituals. Several times in the two day-and-night periods of our attempt with the older group, youngsters arrived in various types of metal machines from the city--and had quite soon gone away, sensing our presence, if they did not see us. They all arrived in daylight. But on the third day, as the sunlight went, four young ones arrived in a metal conveyance, got out of it and sat fairly close to us on a small rocky rise.

Second Attempt at a Warning

They looked like healthy, strong specimens, and we began to transmit our information, but in greater concentration than we had used with the older individuals. But in spite of the increased power, these four absorbed what we fed into them and reacted in exactly the same way as their elders. We did not understand this and, taking the chance of setting them into a panic flight, concentrated our entire message (which had taken two entire days and nights with the mature group) into the space of time between the sunlight's going and its return. Their minds did not reject what we said nor jam up in fear. They were voicing to one anothers in a mechanical way, what we were feeding into them. It sounded like this, over and over again--with variations:

"They say we have only five years."

"That's bad."

"Yeah, it's going to be real bad."

"When it comes, it's going to be the worst yet."

"Half the city might be killed."

"They say it might be as bad as that."

"Any time in the next five years, they say."

It was like pouring a liquid into a container that has a hole in it. The group of older ones had sat around for two days and nights repeating that the city was due for destruction, as if they were saying that they could expect a headache, and now these four were doing the same. At one point they stopped the monotone exchanges and one, a young female, accompanying herself on a stringed musical instrument, began what they call a song; that is, the vocalizations cease to be an exchange between two or more individuals, but an individual, or a group, very much enlarging the range of tones used in ordinary exchange, makes a statement. The information we fed into these four emerged in these words, from the young female:

We know the earth we live uponIs due to fall.We know the ground we walk uponMust shake.We know, and so ...We eat and drink and love,Keep high,Keep love,For we must die.

Phase I Abandoned

And they continued with their mating rituals. We then discontinued the emission of thought material, if for no other reason than that we had already used up a fourth of our power supply with no result. This, then, was the end of Phase I, which was the attempt to transfer the warning material into the brains of selected members of the species for automatic telepathic transmission to others. We set about Phase II, which was to take possession of the minds of suitable individuals in a planned campaign to use them as mouthpieces for the warnings. We decided to abandon the first phase in the belief that the material was running straight through their mental apparatus like water through sieves because it was so foreign to the existing mental furniture of their minds that they were not able to recognize what we were saying. In other words, we still had no idea that the reason they did not react was that the idea was a commonplace.

Phase II Attempted

Three of us therefore accompanied the four youngsters in their machine when they returned to the city, because we thought that in their company we would most quickly find suitable individuals to take over--we had decided the young were more likely to be useful than the mature. The way they handled this machine was a shock to us. It was suicidal. Their methods of transport are lethal. In the time it took to reach the suburbs of the city--between the lightening of the dark and the sun's appearance, there were four near collisions with other, equally recklessly driven vehicles. Yet the four youngsters showed no fear and reacted with the mechanism called laughter; that is, with repeated violent contractions of the lungs, causing noisy emission of air. This journey, their recklessness, their indifference to death or pain made us conclude that this group of four, like the group of 20 older ones, was perhaps untypical. We were playing with the idea that there are large numbers of defective animals in this species and that we had been unlucky in our choices. The machine was stopped to refuel and the four got out and walked about. Three more youngsters were sitting on a bench huddled against one another, in a stupor. Like all the young, they wore a wide variety of clothing and had long head fur. They had several musical instruments. Our four attempted to rouse them and partly succeeded: The responses of the three were slow and, it seemed to us, even more clumsy and inadequate. They either did not understand what was being said or could not communicate what they understood. We then saw that they were in the power of some kind of drug. They bad quantities of it and the four wished also to put themselves in its power. It was a drug that sharpens sensitivity while it inhibits ordinary response: The three were more sensitive to our presence than the four had been--they had not been aware of our presence in the vehicle at all. The three, once roused from their semiconsciousness, seemed to see, or at least to feel us, and directed toward us muttered sounds of approval or welcome. They seemed to associate us with the sun's appearance over the roof of the refueling station. The four, having persuaded the three to give them some of the drug, went to their vehicle. We decided to stay with the three, believing that their sensitivity to our presence was a good sign. Testing their thought streams, we found them quite free and loose, without the resistances and tensions of the others we had tested. We then took possession of their minds--this was the only moment of real danger during the whole mission. Your envoys might very well have been lost then, dissolving into a confusion and violence that we find hard to describe. For one thing, at that time we did not know how to differentiate between the effects of the drug and the effects of their senses. We now do know and will attempt a short description. The drug causes the mechanisms dealing with functions such as walking, talking, eating, and so on, to become slowed or dislocated. Meanwhile, the receptors for sound, scent, sight, touch are opened and sensitized. But for us, to enter their minds is in any case an assault, because of the phenomenon they call beauty, which is a description of their sense intake in an ordinary condition. For us, this is like entering an explosion of color; for it is this that is the most startling difference between our mode of perceiving and theirs: The physical structure of their level appears in vibrations of brilliant color. To enter an undrugged mind is hard enough for one of us; to keep one's balance is difficult. As it was, it might easily have happened that we were swept away in contemplation of vivid color.

Necessity to Condense Report, Power Failing

Although the temptation to dwell on this is great, we must condense this report if we wish to keep any use of this channel: The pressure of local material is getting very strong. In brief, then, the three youngsters, reeling with pleasure because of this dimension of brilliance we of course all know about through deduction but, I assure you, have never even approached in imagination, shouting and singing that the city was doomed, stood on the side of the road until one of the plentiful machines stopped for us. We were conveyed rapidly into the city. There were two individuals in the vehicle, both young, and neither reacted in any way to the warnings we were giving them through the minds or, rather, voices of our hosts. At the end of the rapid movement, we arrived in the city, which is large, populous and built around a wide indentation of the shore of the water mass. It is all extremely vivid, colorful, powerfully affecting the judgment, and it heightened the assault on our balance. We made a tentative decision that it is impracticable for our species to make use of this method: of actually possessing selected minds for the purpose of passing on information. It is too violent a transformation for us. However, since we were there, and succeeding in not being swept away into a highly tinted confusion of pleasure, we agreed to stay where we were and the three we were possessing left the vehicle and walked out into the streets, shouting out the facts as we thought them: that there was little doubt that at some moment between now and five years from now, there would be a strong vibration of the planet at this point and that the greater part of the city might be destroyed, with severe loss of life. It was early in the day, but many of them were about. We were waiting for some sort of reaction to what we were saying, interest at the very least; queries; some sort of response to which we could respons ourselves with advice or offers of help. But of the very many we met in that brief progress through the streets, no one took any notice at all, except for a glance or a short indifferent stare.

Capture by the Authorities

Soon there was a screeching and a wailing, which we at first took to be the reaction of these creatures to what we were saying, some sort of warning, perhaps, to the inhabitants, or statements that measures toward self-preservation must be taken; but it was another vehicle, of a military sort, and the three (we) were taken up from the streets and to a prison because of the disturbance we were making. This is how we understood it afterward. At the time, we thought that the authorities had gathered us in to question us as to the revelations we had to make. In the hands of the guards, in the street and the military vehicle and the prison, we kept up a continuous shouting and crying out of the facts and did not stop until a doctor injected our three hosts with some other drug, which caused them instantly to become unconscious. It was when we heard the doctor talking to the guards that we first heard the fact of the previous catastrophe. This was such a shock to us that we could not then take in its implications. But we decided at once to leave our hosts, who, being in any case unconscious, would not be any use to us for some time, even if this method of conveying warnings had turned out to be efficacious--and it obviously was not--and make different plans. The doctor was also saying that he had to treat large numbers of people, particularly the young ones, for "paranoia." This was what our three hosts were judged to be suffering from. Apparently, it is a condition when people show fear of forthcoming danger and try to warn others about it and then show anger when stopped by authority. This diagnosis, together with the fact that the doctor and the authorities knew of the coming danger and of the past catastrophe--in other words, that they consider it an illness or a faulty mental condition to be aware of what threatens and to try to take steps to avoid or soften it--was something so extraordinary that we did not then have time to evaluate it in depth, nor have we had time since to do so, because-- And finally, to end this news flash, a real Heart-Warmer. Five ordinary people, not rich folks, no, but people like you and me, have given up a month's pay to send little Janice Wanamaker, the child with the hole in the heart, to the world-famed heart center in Florida. Little Janice, who is two years old, could have expected a long life of invalidism; But now the fairy wand of love has changed all that and she will be flying tomorrow morning to have her operation, all thanks to the five good neighbors of Artesia Street--... the expected interruptions on this wave length; but, as we have no way of knowing at which point the interruption began, to recapitulate, we left the doctor and the guards in discussion of the past catastrophe, in which 200 miles of ground was ripped open, hundreds of people were killed and the whole city was shaken down in fragments. This was succeeded by a raging fire.

Humor as a Mechanism

The doctor was discussing humorously (note previous remarks about laughter, a possible device for release of tension to ward off or relieve fear and, therefore, possibly one of the mechanisms that keep these animals passive in the face of possible extinction) that for some years after the previous catastrophe, this entire geographical grouping referred to the great fire, rather than to the earth vibration. This circumlocution is still quite common. In other words, a fire being a smaller, more manageable phenomenon, they preferred, and sometimes still prefer, to use that word, instead of the word for the uncontrollable shaking of the earth itself. A pitiable device, showing helplessness and even fear. But we emphasize here again that everywhere else in the System, fear is a mechanism to protect or to warn, and in these creatures, the function is faulty. As for helplessness, this is tragic anywhere, even among these murderous brutes, but there is no apparent need for them to be helpless, since they have every means to evacuate the city altogether and to-- The new suburb planned to the west. This will house 100,000 people and will be open in the autumn of next year fully equipped with shops, cinemas, a church, schools and a new motorway. The rapid expansion of our beautiful city, with its unique climate, its setting, its shore line, continues. This new suburb will do something to combat the overcrowding and--

The Jettisoning of Phases I, II and III

In view of the failure of Phases I and II, we decided to abandon Phase III, which was planned to be a combination of I and II--inhabiting suitable hosts to use them as loud-speakers and, at the same time, putting material into available thought streams for retransmission. Before making further attempts to communicate, we needed more information. Summarizing the results of Phase II, when we inhabited the three drugged young, we understood we must be careful to assume the shapes of older animals, and those of a technically trained kind, as it was clear from our experience in the prison that the authorities disliked the young of their species. We did not yet know whether they were capable of listening to the older ones, who are shaped in the image of their society.

Inability to assess Truth

While at that stage we were still very confused about what we were finding, we had at least grasped this: that this species, on being told something, has no means of judging whether or not it is true. We on our planet assume, because it is our mental structure and that of all the species we have examined, that if a new fact is made evident by material progress, or by the new and hitherto unexpected juxtaposition of ideas that explains it, then it is accepted as a fact, a truth--until and evolutionary development bypasses it. Not so with this species. It is not able to accept information, new material, unless it is from a source it is not suspicious about. This is a handicap to its development that is not possible to exaggerate. We choose this moment to suggest, though of necessity briefly, that in future visits to this planet, with information of use to this species (if it survives), infinite care must be taken to prepare plenipotentiaries who resemble in every respect the most orthodox and harmless members of the society. For it is as if the mechanism fear has been misplaced from where it would be useful--preventing or softening calamity--to an area of their minds that makes them suspicious of anything but the familiar. As a small example, in the prison, because the three young animals were drugged and partly incoherent, and because (as it has become clear to us) the older animals who run the society despise those who are not similar to the norms they have standardized, it would not have mattered what they said. If they had said (or shouted or sung) that they had actually observed visitors from another planet (they had, in fact, sensed us, felt us) as structures of finer substance manifesting as light--if they had stated they had seen three roughly man-sized creatures shaped in light--no notice at all would have been taken of them. But if an individual from that section of their society especially trained for that class of work (it is an infinitely subdivided society) had said that he had observed with his instruments (they have become so dependent on machinery that they have lost confidence in their own powers of observation) three rapidly vibrating light structures, he would at least have been credited with good faith. Similarly, great care has to be taken with verbal formulation. An unfamiliar fact described in one set of words may be acceptable. Present it in a pattern of words outside what they are used to and they may react with all the signs of panic--horror, scorn, fear.

Adaptation to their norm for Their Dominant Animals

We incarnated as two males of mature age. We dressed ourselves with the attention to detail they find reassuring. An item of clothing cut differently from what is usual for older animals will arouse disapproval or suspicion. Sober tones of color are acceptable; bright tones, except in small patches, are not. We assure you that if we had dressed even slightly outside their norm, we could have done nothing at all. It is the dominant males who have to restrict their choice of clothing. Women's garb is infinitely variable, but always changing, suddenly and dramatically, from one standardized norm to another. The young can wear what they please as long as they are not part of the machinery of government. The cutting and arranging of their head fur is also important. Women and the young enjoy latitude in this, too, but we had to see that our head fur was cut short and kept flattened. We also assumed a gait indicating soberness and control, and facial expressions that we had noted they found reassuring. For instance, they have a way of stretching the lips sideways and exposing the teeth in a sort of facial arrangement they call a smile that indicates that they are not hostile, will not attack, that their intentions are to keep the peace.

Thus disguised, we walked about the city engaged in observation, on the whole astounded that so little notice was taken of us. For while we were fair copies, we were not perfect, and a close scrutiny would have shown us up. But one of their characteristics is that they, in fact, notice very little about one another; it is a remarkably unnoticing species. Without arousing suspicion, we discovered that everybody we talked to knew that a disturbance of the earth was expected in the next five years, that while they "knew" this, they did not really believe it, or seemed not to, since their plans to live as if nothing whatsoever was going to happen were unaltered and that a laboratory or institute existed to study the past upheaval and make plans for the forthcoming one-- ... At the baseball game this Afternoon, a Portion of the Scaffolding gave way and 60 People were killed. There have been messages of sympathy from the president, her majesty the queen of great britain and the pope. The manager of the sports stadium was in tears as he said: "This is the most terrible thing that I have ever seen. I keep seeing those dead faces before my eyes." The cause of the accident is that the building of the stands and their maintenance, and the provision of crush barriers, are subject to maximum profit being earned by the owners. The fund set up as the corpses were carried from the stadium has already reached $200,000 and more keeps Pouring--

The Institute

We entered the Institute for Prognosis and Prevention of Earth Disturbance as visitors from Geographical Area 2--one allied at this time with this area and, therefore, welcome to observe its work.

A short description of this organization may be of use: There are 50 of their most highly skilled technicians in it, all at work on some of the most advanced (as advanced as ours in this field) equipment for the diagnosis of vibrations, tremors, quakes. The very existence of this institute is because of the knowledge that the city cannot survive another five years--or is unlikely to do so. All these technicians live in the city, spend their free time in it--and the institute itself is in the danger area. They are all likely to be present when the event occurs. Yet they are all cheerful, unconcerned and--it is easy to think--of extreme bravery. But after a short time in their company, discussing their devices for predicting the upheaval, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that like the youngsters in the machine for transportation, who steer it in such a way that they are bound to kill or maim themselves or others, they are in some way set not to believe what they say--that they are in danger and will most certainly be killed or maimed together with the rest of the population-- The fire broke out at dawn, when few people were in the streets, and was so powerful that it reached the fourth story from the basement in minutes. The scores of people in the building were driven upward by the fire, A few Managing to negotiate the fire escapes, which were mostly engulfed in flames. An unknown man in the street penetrated the building, in spite of the smoke and the flames, and rescued two small Children left crying on the second floor. Another two minutes and it would have been too late. He instantly plunged back into the inferno and brought out an old woman on his back. In spite of protests from the by-now large crowd, He insisted on re-entering the flaming building and was last seen at a second-floor window from which he threw down a baby to the people below. The baby will survive, but the unknown hero fell back into the flames and--

A Basic Mechanism

We believe we have established one of their mechanisms for maintaining themselves in impotence and indecision. It is precisely this: that they do continuously discuss and analyze. For instance, the technicians of this institute are always issuing warnings to the city's officials and to the populace. Their prognoses, one after another, come true--that minor vibrations are likely to occur in this or that area--yet warnings continue to be issued, discussion goes on. So accustomed have they become to this state of affairs that we found it was not possible to discuss active means for prevention with them. They would have become suspicious that we were some sort of troublemaker. In short, they do not find frightening discussion about the timing, the nature, the power of probable earth convulsions, but they are hostile to suggestions about the possible transfer of population or rebuilding of the city elsewhere. We have said that this is an infinitely subdivided society: It is the institute's task to warn, to forecast, not its responsibility to suggest solutions. But this mechanism--the role of talk--is only part of a much deeper one. We now suspect that a great many of the activities that they themselves see as methods of furthering change, saving life, improving society are, in fact, methods of preventing change. It is almost as if they were afflicted with a powerful lassitude, a lack of vital energy, which, in fact, must resist change, because it is so easily exhausted. Their infinite number of varieties of oral, verbal activity are expenditures of vital energy. They are soothed and relieved by stating a problem, but, having done this, seldom have the energy left to act on their verbal formulations. We have even concluded that they feel that by stating a problem, it becomes in some way nearer solution-- protests that the three skyscrapers on third street are to be pulled down in order to build three much higher buildings, instead of putting the money into providing low-rate accommodation for the city's poor, of which recent surveys reveal there are 1,000,000 or more, nearly a quarter of the total population, and all in Accommodations so inadequate that-- ... for instance, debates, discussions, verbal contests of all sorts, public and private, continue all the time. All their activities, public and private, are defined in talk, public or private. It is possible that they are so constituted that for them, an event has not occurred at all unless it has been discussed, presented in words-- 35 conventions in the month of may alone totaling 75,000 delegates from every part of the continent, while at the same time, the tourist figures for may topped those for any previous may. This year is already a record for conventions and tourism generally, proving that the attractions of our city, its situation, its climate, its amenities, its reputation for hospitality, ever increase in every part of the civilized globe. It is essential to step up the building of new hotels, motels and restaurants and to-- ... the one thing they do not seem able to contemplate is the solution that has seemed to us obvious ever since we observed their probable future and decided to devote so much of our own planet's resources to trying to help our sister planet--to evacuate the city altogether. This is incredible, we know. Of course, you will find it so.

Indifference to Loss of Life

We can only report what we find--that at no point have the inhabitants of this city even considered the possibility of abandoning it and moving to an area that is not absolutely certain to be destroyed. Their attitude toward life is that it is unimportant. They are indifferent to their own suffering, assume that their species must continuously lose numbers and strength and health by natural disasters, famine, constant war. That this attitude goes side by side with infinite care and devotion to individuals or to small groups seems to us to indicate-- The Donated Sum is to be used to build a Memorial, to be erected in the square. It will be in the shape of a column, with the head of William Underscribe, The deceased, in relief on one side.

Laid to RestUpon the Breastof NatureGone but not Forgotten

Will be carved on the other. Joan Underscribe, who lost her husband five years ago, has worked seven days a week from six A.M. Until ten at night at the avenue motel to earn the sum necessary for this simple but moving memorial. She has jeopardized her health, she claims. The five years of unremitting toil have taken their toll. But she has no regrets. He was the best husband a woman ever had, she told our reporter-- ... on the point of deciding there was nothing we could do against such total indifference to their condition; but since they are at least prepared to talk about situations, we devised a plan-- The Biggest Entertainment Ever, Combining the World's Top Circuses, Ice Shows, Nonstop Pop Concerts for the entire week, Day and Night, Not to mention three operas from the World's greatest, The British National Theater Company in that perennial attraction, The International Cultural Star Ace, The Three Sisters, which will be attended by our own First Lady and her charming daughters and a Glittering array Of Stars, Including Bob Hope--... "calling a conference" is to gather a large number of individuals in one place, in order to exchange verbal formulations. This is probably their main anxiety-calming mechanism; they certainly resort to it on every occasion, whether under that name, called by governments, administrative bodies, authorities of all kinds, or under other names, for very often this procedure is social. For instance, a conference can be called a party and be for pleasure, but discussion on a theme or themes will be, in fact, the chief activity. The essential factor is that many of the creatures assemble in one place, to exchange word patterns with others, afterward telling others not present what has occurred--The City's Conservation year is over and must be counted a remarkable success. It burned an awareness of what we can expect so deeply into all our minds and hearts that interest is now not likely to fade. A conference to--... opinion.

Their Education

The ability to define these, and to differentiate them from those of other people's, forms a large part of their education. When two of these creatures meet for the first time, they will set about finding out what opinions the other holds and will tolerate each other accordingly. Nonstimulating, easily tolerated opinions can also be called "received ideas." This means that an idea or a fact has been stamped with approval by some form of authority. The phrase is used like this: "That is a received idea." "Those are all received ideas." This does not necessarily mean that the idea or fact has been acted on nor that behavior has been changed. Essentially, a received idea is one that has become familiar, whether effective or not, and no longer arouses hostility or fear. The mark of an educated individual is this: that he has spent years absorbing received ideas and is able readily to repeat them. People who have absorbed opinions counter to the current standard of ideas are distrusted and may be called opinionated. This description is earned most easily by women and young people.

By that time, we were well known to everyone in the institute as Herbert Bond, 35 years old, male, and John Hunter, 40 years old, male. We had learned enough to avoid the direct "Why don't you take such and such steps?" since we had learned that this approach caused some sort of block or fault in their functioning, but approached like this: "Let us discuss the factors militating against the taking of such and such a step"; for instance, making sure that new buildings were not erected close to the areas where tremors or vibrations must occur.

This formulation was initially successful, evoking the maximum amount of animated talk without arousing hostility. But very shortly, strong emotion was aroused by phrases and words of which we list a few here: profit motive, conflicting commercial interests, vested interests, capitalism, socialism, democracy--but there are many such emotive words. We were not able to determine, or not in a way that our economic experts would recognize as satisfactory, the significance of these phrases, since the emotions became too violent to allow the conference to continue. The animals would certainly have begun to attack one another physically. In other words, the range of opinion (see above) was too wide to be accommodated. Opinion, that is, on matters to do with disposal and planning of population. Opinion concerning earth disturbance was virtually unanimous.

Barbaric System of Town Planning unique in our system, but see histories of planets 2 and 4

It appears that their population disposal, their city planning, is not determined by the needs of the people who live in an area but is the result of a balance come to by many conflicting bodies and individuals whose reason for participating in such schemes is self-interest. For instance: Before the violence engendered by this subject closed the conference, we had gathered that the reason a particularly large and expensive group of buildings was built directly in the line of maximum earth disturbance was that that part of the city commands high "rents"--that is, people are prepared to pay more to live and work in that area than elsewhere. Nor can the willingness of the builders and planners to erect buildings in the maximum danger area be put down to callousness, since in many cases the individuals concerned themselves live and work there-- The Emergency Unit at the Hospital in which a team of ten Doctors and Nurses works around the clock to save lives that would have been lost as recently as five years ago--and are Still lost in Hospitals not Equipped with Emergency Units. The Patients are usually the victims of car accidents or street fights and arrive at the unit in a state of severe shock. Since as short a delay as five minutes can make the difference between life and death, Treatment is started as the patient is lifted out of the Ambulance--... as a good deal of the anger was directed against their own young, we left the institute and returned to the center of the city, where we again made contact with the young.

The Institute Found not Useful

The young ones working at the institute in menial and assistive positions were all of a different subculture, patterned on the older animals in clothing and behavior. The young animals we met in the city were in herds, or smaller groups, and not easily contacted by Herbert Bond and John Hunter, who, being older and dressed in the uniform of the dominant males, were suspected of being spies of some sort. We therefore reincarnated ourselves as two youngsters, male and female, having agreed to spend a fourth of what was left of our supply of power in trying to persuade them to agree on one issue and to act on it. For, like their elders, they discuss and talk and sing endlessly, enjoying pleasurable sensations of satisfaction and agreement with others, making these an end in themselves. We suggested that in view of what was going to happen to the city, they, the young ones, might try to persuade all those of their age to leave and live elsewhere, to make for themselves some sort of encampment, if to build a new city was beyond their resources, at any rate, a place in which refugees would be welcomed and cared for.

Failure with the Young

All that happened was that a number of new songs were sung, all of a melancholy nature, all on the theme of unavoidable tragedy. Our encounter with these young ones was taking place on the beach and at the time of the fading of the sunlight. This is a time that has a powerfully saddening effect on all the animals. But it was not until afterward that we understood we should have chosen any time of the day but that one. There were large numbers of young, many with musical instruments. Half a dozen of them converted the occasion into a conference (see above) by addressing the mass not as their elders do, through talking, but through singing--the heightened and emotional sound. The emotion was of a different kind from that at the conference at the institute. That had been violent and aggressive and nearly resulted in physical attack. This was heavy, sad, passive. Having failed to get them to discuss, either by talking or by singing, a mass exodus from the city, we then attempted discussing how to prevent individuals from massing in the most threatened areas (we were on one at the time) and how, when the shock occurred, to prevent mass deaths and injuries and how to treat the injured, and so forth.

Despair of the Young

All these attempts failed. We might have taken a clue from the drugged condition of the three whose minds we at first occupied and from the indifference to death of the four in the metal conveyance. We have concluded that the young are in a state of disabling despair. While more clear-minded, in some ways, than their elders--that is, more able to voice and maintain criticism of wrongs and faults, they are not able to believe in their own effectiveness. Again and again, on the beach, as the air darkened, versions of this exchange took place:

"But you say you believe it must happen, and within five years."

"So they say."

"But you don't think it will?"

"If it happens, it happens."

"But it isn't if--it will happen."

"They are all corrupt, what can we do? They want to kill us all."

"Who are corrupt?"

"The old ones. They run everything."

"But why don't you challenge them?"

"You can't challenge them. They are too strong. We have to evade. We must be fluid. We must be like water."

"But you are still here, where it is going to happen."

"So they say."

A song swept the whole gathering. It was now quite dark. There were many thousands massed near the water.

It will happen soon,So they say,We will not live to fightAnother day.They are blind. They have blown our mind. We shall not live to fight,We live to die.

Mass Suicides

And hundreds of them committed suicide--by swimming out into the water in the dark, while those who stood on higher ledges by the water threw themselves in -- A Donation of $500,000 to build a bird sanctuary in the park. This will have specimens of every known species in the World. It is hoped that species threatened with extinction due to Man's cruelty and unconcern will find this sanctuary a useful bank from which they can replenish and strengthen varieties under threat--... very low stock of power. We decided to make one last attempt, to concentrate our material in a single place. We decided to leave the herds of young and to return to the older animals, since these were in authority. Not to the institute, since we had proved their emotional instability. It was essential to choose a set of words that would not cause emotion--a received idea.

Now, the idea that the behavior of an individual or a group can be very different from its, or their, self-description is already part of their mental furniture and is enshrined in many timeworn word sets. For instance, "Don't judge by what he says but by what he does."

We decided to reinforce this soothing received idea with another of their anxiety-reducing devices. We have already noted that a conference is such a device. A variety of this is to put ideas into heightened or emotional sound, as was done by the young on the beach. We decided that neither of these was suitable for our last attempt. We considered and discarded a third that we have not yet mentioned. This is when disturbing or unpalatable ideas are put into ritual form and acted out in public to small groups or relayed by a technical device, "television," which enables visual images to be transmitted simultaneously to millions of people. A sequence of events that may fall outside their formal code of morality, or be on its border line, will be acted out, causing violent approval or disapproval--it is a form of catharsis. After a time, these sequences of acted-out events become familiar and are constantly performed. This way of trying out, of acclimatizing unfamiliar ideas, goes on all the time, side by side with ritual acting out of situations that are familiar and banal--thus making them appear more interesting. This is a way of making a life situation that an individual may find intolerably tedious and repetitive more stimulating and enable him to suffer it without rebelling. These dramas, of both the first and the second kind, can be of any degree of sophistication. But we decided on a fourth mechanism or method: a verbal game. One of their games is when sets of words are discussed by one, two or more individuals, and these are most often transmitted through the above-mentioned device.

We had reassumed our identities as Herbert Bond and John Hunter, since we were again contacting authority, and approached a television center with forged credentials from a geographic area called Britain, recently a powerful and combative subspecies, which enjoys a sort of prestige because of past aggressiveness and military prowess.

Laughter, Functions of, See Above

We proposed a game of words, on the theme "Don't judge by words but by actions." The debate took place last night. To begin with, there was a good deal of laughter, a sign that should have warned us. This was not antagonistic, "laughing at," which is found disagreeable but which, in fact, is much safer a reaction than "laughing with," which is laughter of agreement, of feeling flattered. This is commonly evoked by ideas that are still minority ideas, and the minorities consider that they are in advance of the mass. The aggressive and hostile laughter is, in fact, a safer reaction because it reassures onlookers that a balance is being kept, whereas the sympathetic laughter arouses feelings of anxiety in those watching, if the ideas put forward are challenging to norms accepted by them. Our thesis was simple and as already outlined: that this society is indifferent to death and to suffering. Fear is not experienced, or not in a way that is useful to protect society or the individual. No one sees these facts, because all the sets of words that describe behavior are in contrast to the facts. The official sets of words are all to do with protection of oneself and others, caution about the future, pity and compassion for others. Throughout all this--that is, while we developed our thesis--we were greeted by laughter.

These games have audiences invited to the places where they are played, so that the makers of the ritual can judge the probable reaction of the individuals outside all over the city in front of their television. The laughter was loud and prolonged. Opposing Herbert Bond and John Hunter, professors of words from Britain, were two professors of words from the local university. They have rules of debate, the essence of which is that each statement must have the same weight or importance as the preceding. The opposing professors' statements, of equal length as ours, stated the opposite view and were light and humorous in tone. Our turn coming again, we proved our point by stating the facts about this city's behavior in the face of a certain disaster--but we did not get very far. As soon as we switched from the theoretical, the general, to the particular, the laughter died away and violent hostility was shown. There is a custom that if people watching a ritual dislike it, they send hostile messages to the relay point. What Herbert Bond and John Hunter said caused so much violent emotion that the technical equipment used for listening to these messages broke down. While the two local professors maintained the calmness of manner expected during these games, they were nervous and, the ritual over, they said they thought they would lose their employment. They were hostile to us, as being responsible. They complained that as "foreigners," we did not realize that these rituals must be kept light in tone and general in theme.

When we two got to the door of the building, there was a mob outside, mostly of older animals, very hostile. The managers of the ritual game pulled us back and took us up to the top of the building and set guards on us, as apparently the mob was angered to the point of wishing to kill us--again, the focus of their anger was that we were foreign. We complied, since there was no point in creating further disorder and--bring your Deceased to us, who are Friends of your Family, Friends in your Distress. Treated with all Reverence, Cared for as you cared when mother, father, husband, wife, brother or little sister was still with you, the sleeping one will be borne to the last home, laid gently to rest in a plot where flowers and birds will always play and where you can visit and muse ... in your Leisure hours, you will always have a haven where your thoughts can dwell in loving happiness on your departed friends, who-- ... We are running very short of power. There is nothing more we can do. This mission must be regarded as a failure. We have been able to achieve nothing. We have also failed to understand what is the cause of their defectiveness. There is no species like this one on any other planet known to us.

As the guards on our place of detention relaxed their vigilance, we simply dematerialized and returned to the craft. They will think we escaped or perhaps were the subjects of kidnaping by the still-hostile crowd that we could see from the top of the building where--shocking and disgusting program that offended in a way no other program has in this commentator's memory. It is not what was said by our two visitors, it was the way it was said. After all, we all have to live with "The facts" that they so naively seem to imagine are a revelation to us. For sheer bad taste, crudity of tone, ugliness of manner and insensitivity to the deeper feelings of the viewers, nothing can be compared with professors bond and hunter last night.

Departure from the Planet

We are now reassembled as our original six and will shortly be returning. We have a tentative conclusion. It is this: that a society that is doomed to catastrophe, and that is unable to prepare for it, can expect that few people will survive except those already keyed to chaos and disaster. The civil, the ordered, the conforming, the well-tempered can expect to fall victim at first exposure. But the vagabonds, criminals, mad, extremely poor will have the means to survive. We conclude, therefore, that when, within the next five years, the eruption occurs, no one will be left but those types the present managers of society consider undesirable, for the present society is too inflexible to adapt--as we have already said, we have no idea why this should be so, what is wrong with them. But perhaps concealed in this city are groups of individuals we did not contact, who saw no reason to contact us, who not only foresee the future event but who are taking steps to--

The West Coast Examiner

Sam Baker, a farmer from Long Ridge, said he saw a "shining round thing" take off 100 yards away from his fence yesterday evening as the sun went down. Says Sam: "It rose into the air at such a rate it was almost impossible to follows it with my eyes. Then it disappeared." Others from the same area claim to have seen "unusual sights" during the past few days. The official explanation is that the unusually vivid sunsets of the past month have caused strong reflections and mirages off rocks and stretches of sand.

Military sector III to H.Q.

(Top confidential)

The UFO that landed some time in the night of the 14th, and was viewed as it landed, remained stationary for the entire period of seven days. No one was seen to leave the UFO. This is exactly in line with the previous 12 landings in the same spot. This was the 13th UFO of this series. But this was rather larger and more powerful than the previous 12. The difference registered by Sonoscope 15 was considerable. This UFO, like the previous 12, was only just visible to ordinary vision. Our observer, farmer Jansen H. Blackson, recruited by us after the first landing a year ago, volunteered that this one was much more easily seen. "You had to stare hard to see the others, but I saw this one coming down, also lifting off, but it went up so fast I lost it at once." The suggestion from M 8 is that all 13 are observation craft from the Chinese. The view of this section is that they are from our Naval Department 15, and it is my contention that as they have no right of access to this terrain, which is under the aegis of War Department 4, we should blast them to hell and gone next time they try it on.

Air Force 14 to Center

The alightings continue--number 13 last week. This was also unmanned. Confirm belief Russian origin. Must report also two further landings to the south of the city, both in the same place and separated by an interval of three weeks. These two craft identical with the series of 55 alighting to north of city last year. The two southern landings coincided with the disappearance of 11 people, five the first time, six the second. This makes 450 people gone without trace during the past two years. We suggest it is no longer possible to dismiss the fact that the landings of these craft always mean the disappearance of two to ten people with the word coincidence. We must face the possibility that all or some are manned, but by individuals so dissimilar in structure to ourselves that we cannot see them. We would point out that Sonoscope 4 is only just able to bring these types of craft within vision and that, therefore, the levels of density that might indicate the presence of "people" might escape the machine. We further suggest that the facetiousness of the phrase Little Green Men might mask an attitude of mind that is inimical to a sober evaluation or assessing of this possibility.

Confirm at earliest if we are to continue policy of minimizing these disappearances. We can still find no common denominator in the type of person taken off. The only thing they all have in common is that they were, for a variety of reasons, somewhere in the areas in which these craft choose to descend.

The West Coast Examiner

Our observer at filling station Lost Pine reports that groups of people are driving south out of the city to the area where the latest UFOs are known to descend and take off. Last night they numbered over 50,000.

Air Force 14 to Center

In spite of Total Policy 19, rumors are out. We consider it advisable to cordon off the area, although this might precipitate extreme panic situation. But we see no alternative. The cult called Be Ready for the Day is already thousands strong and sweeping the city and environs. Suggest an announcement that the area is contaminated with a chance leak of radioactivity.