Invaders From Earth

7

June 31, 2044—Leap Year World Holiday, by the Permanent Calendar. The extra day, intercalated in the otherwise changeless calendar every four years to take up the slack of the six hours and some minutes the Permanent Calendar was forced to ignore.

A day of revelry, Kennedy thought. A day between the days, a day that was neither Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday nor Thursday, nor Friday, Saturday or even Sunday. A timeless day on which no one worked except for holiday double-pay, on which even the rules of civilization went into the discard heap for twenty-four hours. It fell between Saturday, June thirtieth and Sunday, July first and since this was a leap year there would be two nameless days instead of the usual one at the end of the year.

The Kennedys chose to spend their day at Joyland Amusement Park on the Floating Island in Long Island Sound. Privately, Kennedy detested the hustle and bustle of the World Holidays; but they were family customs, deeply embedded in his way of life, and he never dared to speak out against them.

The road was crowded. Bumper to bumper, deflector plate to deflector plate, the little enameled beetles clung together on the Thruway. Kennedy sweated behind the wheel. The air-conditioners labored mightily. At his side Marge looked fresh and gay in her light summer clothes, red halter and light blue briefs. Her legs glistened; she wore the newest aluminum sprayons.

“The Egyptians had a better slant on this leap year business,” he said. “Every year they saved up the fragment of a day that was left over, and let them pile up in the back room of the temple. Then every one thousand four hundred and sixty years all those quarter-days amounted to one full year, and there they were with a whole year that they didn’t figure into the calendars. The Sothic year. Of course, the seasons got pretty loused up while waiting for the Sothic year to come around, but that was okay. They held big festivals all that year. An eagle with painted wings was burned alive in a nest of palm branches to celebrate the event. And then the seasons came right again. Origin of the Phoenix legend.”

Marge giggled. Up ahead a car stalled in the furious heat and the radar eye of Kennedy’s automatic brake picked up the impulse and throttled the turbos; he and Marge rocked slightly forward as the car slowed to thirty.

“It was a fine system,” he went on. “And Egypt lasted long enough to celebrate two or three Sothic years. Emperor Augustus killed the Phoenix in 30 B.C. when he stabilized the Egyptian calendar. No more years of festival. We’re lucky to get a day once every four years.”

The car’s air-conditioners, whined sourly as the vehicle came to a complete halt. Marge said, “One thousand four hundred and sixty years ago America belonged to the Indians. Our ancestors were painting themselves blue and worshipping Druids in wicker baskets. And in the same amount of years hence we’ll all be forgotten. Sothic years won’t work nowadays; by the time the next one comes around nobody’ll remember to insert it in the calendar.”

“Sure they will. Otherwise you’ll have winter coming in May and summer in November and—” The congestion cleared ahead and he whisked the car on. The inside-out-side thermometer read sixty-nine inside the car, ninety-seven outside. The compass told him they were heading westward along the Thruway toward the Sound. Not a bad car at all, he thought, my battered old ’42 Frontenac. Hardly in the class with Haugen’s new Chevy-Caddy, of course, but ample for my purposes.

They reached another snag in the traffic pattern. Kennedy let go of the wheel and let his hand rest lightly on his wife’s cool knee.

“Ted?”

“Eh?”

“Let’s try to have a good time together today. Relaxed, Calm. Just having fun.”

“Sure, Marge. Today’s World Holiday. No ulcers today.” He flopped back against the cushion as the car started moving violently. “Damn! These holiday drivers!”

It had been a rough month. Rough, but exciting. He and Spalding had thrown themselves full force into the pseudo-colony on Ganymede. Endless reams of paper covered with biographical sketches of people who weren’t, thick dossiers on Ganymedean weather and the rigors of life in a dome and a million other things. It was like writing a story of space adventure, Kennedy thought, with one minor wrinkle: this wasn’t for the fantasy mags. It was going out over the newstapes and the fax sheets and people were gobbling it up.

It went like this:

“Ganymede, 23 May 2044—Another day passed in relative comfort for the Extraterrestrial Development and Exploration Corporation’s experimental volunteer station on the tiny world of Ganymede, after the heavy snowfall of yesterday. Lester Brookman, Colony Director, commented, ‘Except for the usual hazards of life on an alien world, we’re doing fine.’

“The colony’s one invalid was reported in good health. She is Mrs. Helene Davenant, thirty-one, wife of an atmospheric engineer, who suffered an appendicitis attack early yesterday morning. Colony Surgeon David Hornsfall operated immediately. Dr. Hornsfall said after the operation, ‘Mrs. Davenant is in good shape and there is no danger of complications. The low gravity will aid in her quick recovery and I hope to have her back at work in the hydroponics shed in a few days.’ The news eased fears of millions on Earth who were thrown into alarm by a premature report of peritonitis.”

And so it went, Kennedy thought. Emotional involvement. Soap opera on a cosmic scale. It was now a little over a month since the Kennedy-Spalding pseudo-colony had received its official unveiling, and in that month life with Marge had grown increasingly difficult.

It was nothing overt, of course. She never spoke of Kennedy’s work. But there were the silences in the evening where once there had been enthusiastic chatter, the slight stiffness of the jaws and lips, the fault aloofness. They were not close any more, and even their banter had a strained, artificial character.

Well, he thought, maybe she’d get over it. Dinoli and Watsinski and the others were excited about the things he was doing with the project; he was making big strides upward in the agency, and that had to be taken into account. And today being a holiday, he hoped he might be able to effect some sort of rapprochement between Marge and himself. He banked the car sharply and sent it rocketing up the arching ramp that took it to the Joyland Bridge.

Joyland covered forty sprawling acres on the Floating Island in the Sound—built at the turn of the century for the Peace Fair of 2000-2001. The island did not float now, of course; it was solidly anchored to the floor of the Sound. Once it had floated, though, at the time of the Fair, and the only way to get there was to take a ferry that would chase the island as it moved rapidly around the Sound on its peregrinations. But the upkeep of the giant engines that powered the island had been too great; thirty years ago they had been ripped out and the island anchored a mile off shore, but the old name still clung.

The bridge to the island was a shimmering thread painfully bright in the noonday sun. Kennedy paused at the toll bridge and watched the hundreds of cars creeping one after the other across the span. The under-level of the bridge was empty; by nightfall it would be packed with returning cars. He dropped his dollar in the tollkeep’s hands and spurred the car ahead, onto the bridge.

Crossing took fifteen minutes; parking the car, another fifteen. Finally he was free of routine, with a parking check in his pocket and a fun-hat on his head. Marge wore one too: a huge orange thing with myriad quivering paper snakes that gave her a Medusa-like appearance. His was more somber, a black and gray mortician’s topper. Elsewhere he saw Roman helmets and horned Viking domes. The place was crowded with fun-seekers in various degrees of nudity; custom prevented any indecencies, but in their attempts to evade the heat most people had stripped down to a minimum, except for those few bundled-up unfortunates who still feared overexposure to the sun.

A girl in her twenties wandered by, hatless, disheveled, wearing only a pair of briefs; she clutched her halter in one hand, a drink flask in the other. Marge pointed to her and Kennedy nodded. She started to reel forward; a moment later she would have fallen and perhaps been trampled underfoot, but a smiling guard in Joyland’s green uniform appeared from nowhere to catch her and gently drag her away into the shade. This is World Holiday, Kennedy thought. When we step outside ourselves and leave our ulcers home.

“Where do we begin?” Marge asked. It was the old problem: there was much to see, so many things to do. A gleaming sign advertised the next firing of the big rocket. There was a barren area on the west shore of the island where passenger rockets were fired; they traveled sixty or seventy miles up, gave the passengers a good squint at the spinning orb of Earth, and plunged back down to make a neat landing on the field. There hadn’t been a major accident since 2039, when a hundred people died through a slight miscalculation and cast a shadow over a gay Sunday afternoon. Price was ten dollars a head, but Kennedy had no desire to ride the rocket.

Elsewhere there were roller coasters, drink parlors, fun houses, side shows, a swimming pool, a waxworks. One building in the center of the gaming area specialized in a more private sort of fun; for three dollars a pleasure-seeker and his companion could rent a small air-conditioned room with a bed for an hour. For three dollars more, a girl could sometimes be supplied. This was World Holiday, and fun was unlimited.

They bought tickets for the roller coaster and strapped themselves in tight. The car was jet-powered; it took off with a lurching thrust and kept going down the track, up and around, nightmarishly twisting and plunging. There was always the added uncertainty of catching up with the car before yours; there was a shield, but it wasn’t very substantial, and you might just get a jet-blast from the preceding car. It didn’t happen often, of course.

At the end of the ride, dizzy, exhausted, they clung to each other and laughed. Arm in arm, they staggered across to a drink parlor and ordered double Scotches at the outside window. In the dimness within, Kennedy saw a man in his fifties plunging wildly around in an alcoholic dance; he leaped up in a final frenzy, started to fall toward the floor, and an ever-present Joyland guard appeared and scooped him up in mid-fall. Kennedy sipped his drink and smiled at Marge. She smiled back with what seemed like sincere warmth. He wondered.

They headed down the main concourse, past the cheap booths that in other years they had always ignored. But this time Marge stopped and tugged at his arm.

“Look at that one!”

“Come on, Marge—you know these things are all rigged. I want to go to the fun house.”

“No—hold it, Ted. Look.”

He looked. There was a new booth, one that he had never seen before. The flashy sign winked at them: Send A Letter To Ganymede.

A toothy, bare-chested carny man leaned forward over the counter, smiling jovially and inviting trade. Next to him a woman in yellow briefs and bandeau frowned in concentration as she filled out what seemed to be a telegram form.

“Come on, friends! Send your best wishes to the brave folks on Ganymede! Only one dollar for a ten-word message! Let them know how you feel about their valiant work!”

“See it, Ted?”

Kennedy nodded. “Let’s go over. I want to find out a few things.”

The carny man grinned at them. “Care to send a letter to Ganymede, friends? Only a dollar.” He shoved a yellow blank and a pencil at them.

The woman finished her message and handed it back. Kennedy caught only the heading at the top. It was addressed to Mrs. Helen Davenant, the appendicitis victim. A get-well message, he thought.

Quietly he said, “This is a new booth, isn’t it?”

“The newest in the place! Just put it up last week. And doing very well, too. Would you like—”

“Just a minute,” Kennedy said. “Whose idea was it? Do you know a Mr. Watsinski? Or Poggioli?”

“What are you, a detective? Come on, there are people waiting. Step right up, friends! Don’t go away, lady—the brave pioneers on Ganymede want to hear from you!”

At his left a fat, middle-aged woman was writing a letter that began, Dear Dr. Hornsfall—

“Let’s go, Ted,” Marge said suddenly.

“No. Just a second.” He yanked a dollar out of his wallet, slapped it down, and picked up a pencil. With quick sloppy strokes he wrote: Dear Director Brookman, Hope all is well with colony; too bad you’re just a publicity man’s soap bubble. Sincerely, Jasper Greeblefizz.

He handed over the filled-in sheet and said, “Here, make sure this gets delivered. Come on away from here, Marge.”

As he stepped out onto the main concourse again he heard the booth-tender’s raucous voice: “Hey, mister, you got too many words in this message! You only allowed ten words and you got fifteen!”

Kennedy ignored him. He grasped Marge tightly by the hand and walked on at a rapid clip.

“You think my letter will get there?” he asked tightly. “You think Director Brookman will answer it?”

She looked at him strangely. Sweat was running down her face and shoulders. “I don’t know why you’re so upset, Ted. It’s all part of the general picture, isn’t it? This is a very clever gimmick.”

“Yeah,” he said. He looked back and saw a line of people waiting to send letters to the brave pioneers on Ganymede. A very clever gimmick. Very clever.

A woman in her late thirties came running by, face frozen in a horrified smile. She wore bright blue lipstick that was smeared all over her face, and she was clutching her tattered halter together with one hand.

In hot pursuit came a much younger man with the bright fierce eyes of a satyr. He was yelling, “Come back, Libby, we still got half an hour paid for!”

Kennedy smiled crookedly. World Holiday. Step outside yourself and leave your ulcers behind. Girls who were the epitome of prudishness thought nothing of whipping off their halters and letting the breeze cool their breasts until the park police intervened. Sober second-level men could ease their tensions in a frenzied alcoholic jig.

But World Holiday was no holiday for him. There was no escaping Ganymede even out here. He was worse off than the carny men who had to work on World Holiday, he thought; at least they drew double pay.

Marge squeezed his hand. “You look funny. You’re all right, aren’t you, Ted?”

“Sure. Sure. The heat, that’s all. I’d be cooked without this hat.”

Somehow he pretended gaiety. They had another drink, and another. They looped the loop and rode the caterpillars and goggled at the sweating freaks in the sideshow, and had more drinks. They met Mike Cameron and his wife; the third-level man looked drunk and so did his blond wife. Jerrie Cameron brushed up against Kennedy in open invitation, but he ignored it. The Camerons reeled on toward the rocket. Kennedy and Marge had another drink.

Sometime later they bought tickets for the swimming pool, the one place in Joyland where nudity went unquestioned, and spent an hour bobbing in the warm, chlorinated water. Toward evening they watched the fireworks display and wandered down to the rocket-field to see the big missile come in for a landing.

Kennedy felt dizzy and when he looked at Marge she was smiling crookedly. They wearily retraced their steps to the exit. The Send A Letter To Ganymede booth was doing land-office business. The program was a success, Kennedy realized dimly; even Joyland recognized the impact of his Ganymede colony on the nation.

At the parking lot the attendant was dispensing sober-tabs for all drivers; you couldn’t get your car until you took one. Kennedy swallowed the tasteless little pellet and felt his mind clearing. His stomach began to knot again. He paused by his car, watching the purple and aureate brilliance of the fireworks in the dust-hung sky, listening to the big swoosh of the departing rocket.

The fun would go on all night. There was always Sunday for recuperating. But he felt no more desire for amusement, and drove home slowly and cautiously, with his hand grimly gripping the wheel. Marge was exhausted; she curled up into a fetal ball on the back seat and slept. Kennedy wondered about the Camerons, and if Jerrie had found the partner she so obviously was searching for.

Happy World Holiday to me, he thought tiredly. Happy, happy, happy.