Invaders from Nowhere

Chapter IV. Specimens

THE scientist, Ngat, called for them the next day and continued questioning. All went well until he inquired about earthly religions. Butland jumped up and gave him a hell-fire-and-damnation sermon. When he could get a word in edgewise, Ngat insisted that this would never do; Butland would have to go somewhere else so that the questioning of Kitty Blake could proceed. Butland demurred. Ngat got up and, regretfully, gave him a violent push toward the wall. Butland fell off the edge of the yellow disk that constituted the floor of the upper story of the inquisition-sphere. He threw up an arm to break the shock of hitting the wall of the sphere. But he hurtled right through. Wham!

He was lying on the floor of the biggest sphere he had seen yet. It was divided into several stories. Each one was full of exhibits. It was evidently a museum.

An Alan helped Butland up. It said: "Did you trip? I was expecting you, but I did not think you would arrive so precipitously."

Butland gave up trying to figure out the rationale of this world, where nothing seemed to follow the ordinary sequence of cause and effect. He let the Alan—an assistant of some sort of Ngat—show him the exhibits in the cases.

One series of cases held a row of things that were Alans at one end and lizardlike things at the other.

"Evolution," said the Alan."These are reconstructions of our remote ancestors. Do you understand?"

"Unh." Here too, the godless delusion of evolution was held! Butland did not have the energy to argue the matter though. Suppose he asserted the world had been created in six days, as he had really believed; what would he say when his guide brought up the fact that this was another world?

"This," said the guide as they climbed to another floor, "is an exhibit of forms of life from other terms of the universal series—of which your universe is one." There were a lot of cases, each containing a thing, sometimes with two legs and some times with many; sometimes with wings, sometimes with fins, and sometimes with tentacles. Some of them were mounted beside their skeletons, the skeleton and the mounted skin in the same attitude.

THE guide pointed to a thing rather like a devil with bat-wings."This one is from the x to the nth powerth term of the series. The planet in that term corresponding to Ala is very large, though of low density. Hence the atmospheric pressure is enormous—several hundred times that of Ala and your world, which have similar surface conditions. Since the surface gravity is not much greater than that here, while the atmosphere is much denser, a flying organism of that size is quite practical. These are an intelligent people—much more so than you of earth; they even compare in some ways with the Alans."

Butland asked: "Is that a real specimen or an imitation made of wax?"

"Oh, a real one of course."

"How did he die?"

"He was killed specially," said the Alan.

"Oh. You mean you killed an intelligent being just to mount in your museum?"

"But naturally! It was done painlessly; our society for the prevention of cruelty to non-Alans saw to that. Ah, I see they have moved the cases to make room for the next two specimens." So they had. There was an obvious gap.

Butland shuddered."Let's look at something else," he said.

The guide showed him cases full of mechanical objects. These, he explained, were old-fashioned weapons. The planet had not had a real war in a long time, and had practically eliminated crime. Butland thought uncomfortably that if this were true, the Alans were superior. The guide said: "This one projects a ball of steel at high speed, so that it penetrates deeply into the body of any organism that it hits and kills it. There is a package of the propellant and some of the balls."

Butland asked: "If a ball of steel from it penetrated into you, would it kill you?"

"Undoubtedly," said the guide. Just then a siren wailed somewhere. The guide flung himself down on the floor and did pushups. When he had done ten, he looked up reproachfully at Willard Butland."What no, obeisance to the great lord Ng?"

"No. I serve the true God, and don't bow down to false ones."

The Alan scrambled up."Oh, you are very much mistaken! You will go to the place of never-ending pleasure when you die."

"What?"

"The place of never-ending pleasure, where bad people go."

Butland said: "We believe in something called Hell for sinners, but nobody ever described it as a place of pleasure. It's hot. You sizzle. Where's the punishment in never-ending pleasure?"

"You just experience pleasure without cease for a few thousand years and you'll see. We can imagine nothing more wearying. But look, even if you are of an inferior people that is barely able to reason, will you not put your faith in Ng?"

"No," said Butland. They argued for a while. Butland had never been proselytized, but he gave a good theological account of himself.

THEN he remembered the arguments wherewith Rex Piper always used to upset him.

He said: "You say that Ng is omnipotent?"

"Yes," said the Alan.

"And omniscient?"

"Yes."

"And all-good?"

"Yes."

"And he made everything?"

"Yes."

"But still evil exists?"

"Y-yes, "

"Well, who made the evil, then?"

The Alan was stumped, as Butland had been on previous occasions. The Alan fidgeted nervously. Finally he threw himself down on the yellow floor, kicking his heels and wailing in his own language.

"What are you saying?" asked Butland.

The Alan left off his wailing long enough to translate. These were an indomitably polite race."I was begging Ng's pardon for having doubted him! This is terrible! Nobody ever brought up that point of yours before! I must go to our learned doctors, to have the truth expounded!"

"You'd better take me back to my room first."

The Alan did so. Kitty Blake had already returned. Butland told her what had happened to him. He added: "If I ever gambled, I'd bet you that we're the next two specimens to go in their museum."

"That sounds likely, Will. When do you suppose they'll kill us?"

"I suppose when they've finished questioning us. There won't be anything malicious about it."

"Maybe we can stall; keep the questions going."

During the following days they practiced the technique of stalling on the unfortunate Ngat; speaking slowly, digressing widely, and holding interminable arguments with each other over trivial points.