The Second Fredric Brown Megapack

A Word From Our Sponsor

Looking at it one way, you could say that it happened a great many different times over a twenty-four hour period; another way, that it happened once and all at once.

It happened, that is, at 8:30 P.M. on Wednesday, June 9th, 1954. That means it came first, of course, in the Marshall Islands, the Gilbert Islands and in all the other islands—and on all the ships at sea—which were just west of the International Date Line. It was twenty-four hours later in happening in the various islands and on the various ships just east of the International Date Line.

Of course, on ships which, during that twenty-four hour period, crossed the date line from east to west and therefore had two 8:30 P.M.’s, both on June 9th, it happened twice. On ships crossing the other way and therefore having no 8:30 P.M. (or one bell, if we must be nautical) it didn’t happen at all.

That may sound complicated, but it’s simple, really. Just say that it happened at 8:30 P.M. everywhere, regardless of time belts and strictly in accordance with whether or not the area in question had or did not have daylight saving time. Simply that: 8:30 P.M. everywhere.

And 8:30 P.M. everywhere is just about the optimum moment for radio listening, which undoubtedly had something to do with it. Otherwise somebody or something went to an awful lot of unnecessary trouble, so to stagger the times that they would be the same all over the world.

Even if, at 8:30 on June 9, 1954, you weren’t listening to your radio—and you probably were—you certainly remember it. The world was on the brink of war. Oh, it had been on the brink of war for years, but this time its toes were over the edge and it balanced precariously. There were special sessions in—but we’ll come to that later.

Take Dan Murphy, inebriated Australian of Irish birth, being pugnacious in a Brisbane pub. And the Dutchman known as Dutch being pugnacious right back. The radio blaring. The bartender trying to quiet them down and the rest of the crowd trying to egg them on. You’ve seen it happen and you’ve heard it happen, unless you make a habit of staying out of waterfront saloons.

Murphy had stepped back from the bar already and was wiping his hands on the sides of his dirty sweat shirt. He was well into the preliminaries. He said, “Why, you—!” and waited for the riposte. He wasn’t disappointed. “—you!” said Dutch.

That, as it happened, was at twenty-nine minutes and twenty-eight seconds past eight o’clock, June 9, 1954. Dan Murphy took a second or two to smile happily and get his dukes up. Then something happened to the radio. For a fraction of a second, only that long, it went dead. Then a quite calm, quite ordinary voice said, “And now a word from our sponsor.” And there was something—some ineffably indefinable quality—in the voice that made everybody in the room listen and hear. Dan Murphy with his right pulled back for a roundhouse swing; Dutch the Dutchman with his feet ready to step back from it and his forearm ready to block it; the bartender with his hand on the bung starter under the bar and his knees bent ready to vault over the bar.

A full frozen second, and then a different voice, also from the radio, said “Fight.”

One word, only one word. Probably the only time in history that “a word from our sponsor” on the radio had been just that. And I won’t try to describe the inflection of that word; it has been too variously described. You’ll find people who swear it was said viciously, in hatred; others who are equally sure that it was calm and cold. But it was unmistakably a command, in whatever tone of voice.

And then there was a fraction of a second of silence again and then the regular program—in the case of the radio in the Brisbane pub, an Hawaiian instrumental group—was back on.

Dan Murphy took another step backwards, and said, “Wait a minute. What the hell was that?”

Dutch the Dutchman had already lowered his big fists and was turning to the radio. Everybody else in the place was staring at it already. The bartender had taken his hand off the bung-starter. He said, “—me for a — — ——. What was that an ad for?”

“Let’s call this off a minute, Dutch,” Dan Murphy said. “I got a funny feeling like that—radio was talking to me. Personally. And what the——business has a bloody wireless set got telling me what to do?”

“Me too,” Dutch said, sincerely if a bit ambiguously. He put his elbows on the bar and stared at the radio. Nothing but the plaintive sliding wail of an Hawaiian ensemble came out of it.

Dan Murphy stepped to the bar beside him. He said, “What the devil were we fighting about?”

“You called me a——” Dutch reminded him.

“And I said,-you.”

“Oh,” Murphy said. “All right, in a couple minutes I’ll knock your head off. But right now I want to think a bit. How’s about a drink?”

“Sure,” Dutch said.

For some reason, they never got around to starting the fight.

Take, two and a half hours later (but still at 8:30 P.M.), the conversation of Mr. and Mrs. Wade Evans of Oklahoma City, presently in their room at the Grand Hotel, Singapore, dressing to go night-clubbing in what they thought was the most romantic city of their round-the-world cruise. The room radio going, but quite softly (Mrs. Evans had turned it down so her husband wouldn’t miss a word of what she had to say to him, which was plenty).

“And the way you acted yesterday evening on the boat with that Miss—Mamselle Cartier—Cah-tee-yay. Half your age, and French. Honestly, Wade, I don’t see why you took me along at all on this cruise. Second honeymoon, indeed!”

“And just how did I act with her? I danced with her, twice. Twice in a whole evening. Dammit, Ida, I’m getting sick of your acting this way. And beside—” Mr. Evans took a deep breath to go on, and thereby lost his chance. “Treat me like dirt. When we get back—”

“All right, all right. If that’s the way you feel about it, why wait till we get back? If you think I’m enjoying—”

Somehow that silence of only a fraction of a second on the radio stopped him. “And now a word from our sponsor…”

And half a minute later, with the radio again playing Strauss, Wade Evans was still staring at it in utter bewilderment. Finally he said, “What was that?” Ida Evans looked at him wide-eyed. “You know. I had the funniest feeling that that was talking to us, to me? Like it was telling us to g-go ahead and fight, like we were starting to.”

Mr. Evans laughed a little uncertainly. “Me, too. Like it told us to. And the funny thing is, now I don’t want to.” He walked over and turned the radio off. “Listen, Ida, do we have to fight? After all, this is our second honeymoon. Why not—listen, Ida, do you really want to go night-clubbing this evening?”

“Well—I do want to see Singapore, a little, and this is our only night here, but—it’s early; we don’t have to go out right away.”

I don’t mean of course, that everybody who heard that radio announcement was fighting, physically or verbally, or even thinking about fighting. And of course there were a couple of billion people who didn’t hear it at all because they either didn’t have radio sets or didn’t happen to have them turned on. But almost everybody heard about it. Maybe not all of the African pygmies or all of the Australian bushmen, no, but every intelligent person in a civilized or semicivilized country heard of it sooner or later and generally sooner.

And the point is, if there is a point, that those who were fighting or thinking of fighting and who happened to be within hearing distance of a turned-on radio…

Eight-thirty o’clock continued its way around the world. Mostly in jumps of an even hour from time-zone to time-zone, but not always; some time-zones vary for that system—as Singapore, on the half hour; as Calcutta, seven minutes short of the hour. But by regular or irregular intervals, the phenomenon of the word continued its way from east to west, happening everywhere at eight-thirty o’clock precisely.

Delhi, Teheran, Baghdad, Moscow. The Iron Curtain, in 1954, was stronger, more impenetrable than it had ever been before, so nothing was known at the time of the effect of the broadcast there; later it was learned that the course of events there was quite similar to the course of events in Washington, D. C., Berlin, Paris, London…

Washington. The President was in special conference with several members of the cabinet and the majority and minority leaders of the Senate. The Secretary of Defense was speaking, very quietly: “Gentlemen, I say again that our best, perhaps our only, chance of winning is to get there first. If we don’t, they will. Everything shows that. Those confidential reports of yours, Mr. President, are absolute proof that they intend to attack. We must—”

A discreet tap on the door caused him to stop in mid sentence.

The President said, “That’s Walter—about the broadcast,” and then louder, “Come in.”

The President’s confidential secretary came in. “Everything is ready, Mr. President,” he said. “You said you wished to hear it yourself. These other gentlemen—?”

The President nodded, “We’ll all go,” he said. He stood, and then the others. “How many sets, Walter?”

“Six. We’ve turned them to six different stations; two in this time belt, Washington and New York; two in other parts of this country, Denver and San Francisco; two foreign stations, Paris and Tokyo.”

“Excellent,” said the President. “Shall we go and hear this mysterious broadcast that all Europe and Asia are excited about?”

The Secretary of Defense smiled. “If you wish. But I doubt we’ll hear anything. Getting control of the stations here—” He shrugged.

“Walter,” said the President, “has there been anything further from Europe or Asia?”

“Nothing new, sir. Nothing has happened there since eight-thirty, their time. But confirmations of what did happen then are increasing. Everybody who was listening to any station at eight-thirty heard it. Whether the station was in their time zone or not. For instance, a radio set in London which happened to be turned to Athens, Greece, got the broadcast at eight-thirty, London—that is, Greenwich—time. Local sets in Athens tuned to the same station had heard it at eight-thirty Athens time—two hours earlier.”

The majority leader of the Senate frowned. “That is patently impossible. It would indicate—”

“Exactly,” said the President drily. “Gentlemen, shall we adjourn to the room where the receiving sets have been placed? It lacks five minutes of—eight-thirty.”

They went down the hall to a room hideous with the sound of six receiving sets tuned to six different programs. Three minutes, two minutes, one—Sudden silence for a fraction of a second. From six sets simultaneously the impersonal voice, “And now a word from our sponsor.” The commanding voice gave the one-word command.

Then, again, the six radio sets blared forth their six different programs. No one tried to speak over that sound. They filed back into the conference chamber.

The President looked at the Secretary of Defense. “Well, Rawlins?”

The Secretary’s face was white. “The only thing I can think of that would account for it—” He paused until the President prodded him with another “Well?”

“I’ll grant it sounds incredible, but—a space-ship? Cruising around the world at the even rate of its period of revolution—a little over a thousand miles an hour. Over each point which it passes—which would be at the same hour everywhere—it momentarily blanks out other stations and puts on its own broadcast.”

The Senate’s majority leader snorted. “Why a space ship? There are planes that can travel that fast.”

“Ever hear of radar? With our new installations along the coast anything going over up to a hundred miles high would show. And do you think Europe hasn’t radar too?”

“And would they tell us if they spotted something?”

“England would. France would. And how about all our ships at sea that the thing has already passed over?”

“But a space ship!”

The President held up his hand. “Gentlemen. Let’s not argue until we have the facts. Reports from many sources are even now coming in and being sifted and evaluated. We’ve been getting ready for this for over fifteen hours now and I’ll see what’s known already, if you’ll pardon me.”

He picked up the telephone at his end of the long conference table, spoke into it briefly and then listened for about two minutes before he said, “Thank you,” and replaced the receiver.

Then he looked straight down the middle of the conference table as he spoke. “No radar station noticed anything out of the ordinary, not even a faint or blurred image.” He hesitated. “The broadcast, gentlemen, was heard uniformly in all areas of the Eastern Time Zone which have daylight saving. It was uniformly not heard in areas which do not have daylight saving, where it is now seven-thirty P.M.”

“Impossible,” said the Secretary of Defense.

The President nodded slowly. “Exactly. Yet certain reports from borders of time zones in Europe led us to anticipate it, and it was checked carefully. Radio receivers were placed, in pairs, along the borders of certain zones. For example, a pair of receivers were placed at the city limits of Baltimore, one twelve inches within the city limits, the other twelve inches outside. Two feet apart. They were identical sets, identically tuned to the same station, operated from the same power source. One set received ‘a word from our sponsor’; the other did not. The set-up is being maintained for another hour. But I do not doubt that—” He glanced at his wrist watch. “—forty-five minutes from now, when it will be eight-thirty o’clock in the non-daylight-saving zones, the situation will be reversed; the broadcast will be received by the set outside the daylight saving zone border and not by the similarly tuned set just inside.”

He glanced around the table and his face was set and white. “Gentlemen, what is happening tonight all over the world is beyond science—our science, at any rate.”

“It can’t be,” said the Secretary of Labor. “Damn it, Mr. President, there’s got to be an explanation.”

“Further experiments—much more delicate and decisive ones—are being arranged, especially for the non-daylight-saving areas of the Pacific Time Zone, where we still have four hours to arrange them. And the top scientists of California will be on the job.” The President took out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead. “Until we have their reports and analyses, early tomorrow morning, shall we adjourn, gentlemen?”

The Defense Secretary frowned. “But, Mr. President, the purpose of our conference tonight was not to discuss this mysterious broadcast. Can we not get back to the original issue?”

“Do you really think that any major step should even be contemplated before we know what happened tonight—is happening tonight, I should say?”

“If we don’t start the war, Mr. President, need I point out again who will? And the tremendous—practically decisive—advantage of taking the first step, gaining the offensive?”

“And obey the order in the broadcast?” growled the Secretary of Labor. “Why not? Weren’t we going to do just that anyway, because we had to?”

“Mr. Secretary,” the President said slowly. “That order was not addressed to us specifically. That broadcast was heard—is being heard—all over the world, in all languages. But even if it was heard only here, and only in our own language, I would certainly hesitate to obey a command until I knew from whom that command came. Gentlemen, do you fully realize the implications of the fact that our top scientists, thus far at any rate, could not conceivably duplicate the conditions of that broadcast? That means either one of two things: that whoever produced the phenomenon is possessed of a science beyond ours, or that the phenomenon is of supernatural origin.”

The Secretary of Commerce said softly, “My God.”

The President looked at him. “Not unless your god is either Mars or Satan, Mr. Weatherby.”

The hour of 8:30 P.M. had, several hours before, reached and passed the International Date Line. It was still 8:30 P.M. somewhere but not of June 9th, 1954. The mysterious broadcast was over.

It was dawn in Washington, D. C. The President, in his private office, was still interviewing, one after another, the long succession of experts who had been summoned—and brought by fast planes—to Washington for the purpose.

His face was haggard with weariness, his voice a trifle hoarse.

“Mr. Adams,” he said to the current visitor, “you are, I am given to understand, the top expert on electronics—particularly as applied to radio—in this country. Can you offer any conceivable physical explanation of the method used by X?”

“X?”

“I should have explained; we are now using that designation for convenience to indicate the—uh—originator of the broadcast, whether singular or plural, human, extraterrestrial, or supernatural—either diabolical or divine.”

“I see. Mr. President, it could not have been done with our knowledge of science. That is all I can say.”

“And your conclusion?”

“I have none.”

“Your guess, then.”

The visitor hesitated. “My guess, Mr. President, outrageous as it seems, is that somewhere on Earth exists a cabal of scientists of whom we do not know, who have operated in secret and carried electronics a step—or several steps—beyond what is generally known.”

“And their purpose?”

“I would say, again a guess, their purpose is to throw the world into war to enable them to take over and rule the world. Indubitably, they had other—and more deadly—devices for later use, after a war has weakened us.”

“Then you do not believe war would be advisable?”

“My God, no, Mr. President!”

“Mr. Everett,” said the President. “Your theory of a cabal of scientists corresponds with one I heard only a few minutes ago from a colleague of yours. Except for one thing. He believes that their purpose is evil—to precipitate war so they can take over. You believe, if I understand you correctly, that their purpose is benevolent.”

“Exactly, sir. For one thing, if they’re that good in electronics, they’re probably that good in other fields. They wouldn’t need to precipitate a war in order to take over. I think they are operating secretly to prevent war, to give mankind a chance to advance. But they know enough of human nature to know that men are pretty apt to do the opposite of what they are told. But that’s psychology, which is not my field. I understand you are also interviewing some psychologists?”

“Yes,” said the President, wearily.

“Then, if I understand you correctly, Mr. Corby,” said the President, “you believe that the command to fight was designed to produce the opposite effect, whoever gave it?”

“Certainly, sir. But I must admit that all of my colleagues do not agree with me. They make exceptions.”

“Will you explain the exceptions?”

“The major one is the possibility that the broadcast was of extra-terrestrial origin. An extra-terrestrial might or might not know enough of human psychology to realize that the command in question is likely—if not certain—to have the opposite effect. A lesser possibility is that—if a group of Earth scientists, operating secretly, produced the broadcasts, they might have concentrated on the physical sciences as against the mental, and be ignorant of psychology to the extent that—well, they would defeat their purpose.”

“Their purpose being to start war?”

“Not my opinion, Mr. President. Only a consideration. I think they are trying to prevent war.”

“In which case the command was psychologically sound?”

“Yes. And that is not opinion solely. Mr. President, people have been awake all night organizing peace societies, not only here, but all over the world.”

“All over?”

“Well—we don’t know, of course, what is going on behind the Iron Curtain. And circumstances are different there. But in my opinion, a movement for peace will have arisen there, too, although it may not have been able to organize, as elsewhere.”

“Suppose, Mr. Corby, your idea of a group of benevolent scientists—or ones who think they are benevolent scientists—are back of it. What then?”

“What then? We’d damn well better not start a war—or anybody else either. If they’re that good in electronics, they’ve got other stuff. They’ll like as not utterly destroy whatever country makes an aggressive move first!”

“And if their purpose is malevolent?”

“Are you joking, Mr. President? We’d be playing right into their hands to start a war. We wouldn’t last ten days.”

“Mr. Lykov, you are recommended to me as the top expert on the psychology of the Russian people under Communism. What is your opinion as to how they will react to what happened last night?”

“They’re going to think it’s a Capitalist plot. They’re going to think we did it.”

“What purpose could they conceivably think we had?”

“To trap them into starting a war. Of course they intended to start one anyway—it’s just been a question of which of us started it first, now that, since their development of atomics, they’ve had time to stock-pile—but they probably think right now that for some reason we want them to make the first move. So they won’t; at least not until they’ve waited a while.”

“General Wilkinson,” said the President, “I know it is early for you to have received many reports as yet from our espionage agents in Europe and Asia, but the few that you have received—indicate what?”

“That they’re doing just what were doing, sir. Sitting tight and wondering. There have been no troop movements, either toward borders or away from them.”

“Thank you, General.”

“Dr. Burke,” said the President, “I have been informed that the Council of United Churches has been in session all night. From the fact that you look as tired as I feel, I judge that is correct.”

The most famous minister in the United States nodded, smiling faintly. “And is it your opinion—I mean the opinion of your council—that last night’s occurrence was of supernatural origin?”

“Almost unanimously, Mr. President.”

“Then let’s ignore the minority opinion of your group and concentrate on what you almost unanimously believe. Is it that the—we may as well call it miracle, since we are discussing it on the assumption that it was of supernatural origin—was of divine or diabolical origin? More simply, was it God or the devil?”

“There, Mr. President, we have an almost even split of opinion. Approximately half of us believe that Satan accomplished it somehow. The other half that God did. Shall I outline briefly the arguments of either faction?”

“Please.”

“The Satan group. The fact that the command was an evil one. Against the argument that God is sufficiently more powerful than Satan to have prevented the manifestation, the Satan group countered quite legitimately that God—in his infinite wisdom—may have permitted it, knowing the effect is likely to be the reverse of what Satan intended.”

“I see, Dr. Burke.”

“And the opposing group. The fact that, because of the perversity of human nature, the ultimate effect of the command is going to be good rather than stupid. Against the Satan group’s argument that God could not issue an evil command, even for a laudable purpose, the counter-argument is that man cannot understand God sufficiently to place any limitation whatever upon what He can or cannot, would or would not, do.”

The President nodded. “And does either group advocate obeying the command?”

“Definitely not. To those who believe the command came from Satan, disobedience is automatic. Those who believe the command came from God aver that those who believe in Him are sufficiently intelligent and good to recognize the command as divine irony.”

“And the Satan group, Doctor—do they believe the devil is not smart enough to know that his command may backfire?”

“Evil is always stupid, Mr. President.”

“And your personal opinion, Dr. Burke? You have not said to which faction you belong.”

The minister smiled. “I am one of the very small faction which does not accept that the phenomenon was of supernatural origin at all, either from God or the devil.”

“Then whom do you believe X to be, Doctor?”

“My personal guess is that X is extra-terrestrial. Perhaps as near as Mars, perhaps as far as another Galaxy.”

The President sighed and said, “No, Walter, I simply cannot take time out for lunch. If you’ll bring me a sandwich here, I’ll have to apologize to my next visitor or two for eating while I talk. And coffee, lots of coffee.”

“Certainly, sir.”

“Just a minute, Walter. The telegrams that have been coming in since eight-thirty last night—how many are there now?”

“Well over forty thousand, sir. We’ve been working at classifying them, but we’re several thousand behind.”

“And?”

The presidential secretary said, “From every class—ministers, truck drivers, crackpots, business leaders, everybody. Offering every theory possible—but pretty much only one conclusion. No matter who they think instigated that broadcast or why, they want to disobey its command. Yesterday, I would say that nine-tenths of our population was resigned to war; well over half thought we ought to start it first. Today—well, there’s always a lunatic fringe; about one telegram out of four hundred thinks we should go to war. The others—well, I think that today a declaration of war would cause a revolution, Mr. President.”

“Thank you, Walter.”

The secretary turned at the doorway. “A report from the army recruiting corps—enlistments thus far today have been fifteen—throughout the entire country. An average day for the past month, up to noon, was about eight thousand. I’ll send in your sandwich, sir.”

“Professor Winslow, I hope you will pardon my eating this sandwich while we talk. You are, I am told, professor of semantics at New York University, and the top man in your field?”

Professor Winslow smiled deprecatingly. “You would hardly expect me to agree to that, Mr. President. I presume you wish to ask questions about last night’s—uh—broadcast?”

“Exactly. What are your conclusions?”

“The word ‘fight’ is hardly analyzable. Whether it was meant in fact or in reverse is a matter for the psychologists—and even they are having grave difficulty with it, until and unless they learn who gave that command.”

The President nodded.

“But, Mr. President, the rest of the broadcast, the phrase in another voice that preceded the command. ‘And now a word from our sponsor’—that is something which should give us something to work on, especially as we have studied it carefully in many languages, and worked out fully the connotation of every word.”

“Your conclusion?”

“Only this; that it was carefully worded, designed, to conceal the identity of the broadcaster or broadcasters. Quite successfully. We can draw no worthwhile conclusions.”

“Dr. Abrams, has any correlating phenomenon been noticed at your or any other observatory?”

“Nothing, Mr. President.” The little man with the gray goatee smiled quietly. “The stars are all in their courses. Nothing observable is amiss with the universe. I fear I can give you no help—except my personal opinion.”

“Which is?”

“That—regardless of the meaning, pro or con, of the command to fight—the opening phrase meant exactly what it said. That we are sponsored.”

“By whom? God?”

“I am an agnostic, Mr. President. But I do not rule out the possibility that man isn’t the highest natural being in the universe. It’s quite large, you know. Perhaps we’re an experiment conducted by someone—in another dimension, anywhere. Perhaps, generally speaking, we’re allowed to go our way for the sake of the experiment. But we almost went too far, this time, toward destroying ourselves and ending the experiment. And he didn’t want it ended. So—” He smiled gently. “—a word from our sponsor.”

The President leaned forward across the desk, almost spilling his coffee. “But, if that is true, was the word meant?”

“I think that whether it was meant—in the sense in which you mean the word ‘meant’—is irrelevant. If we have a sponsor, he must know what its effect will be, and that effect—whether it be war or peace—is what he wanted to achieve.”

The President wiped his forehead with his handkerchief.

“How do you differentiate this—sponsor from the being most people call God?”

The little man hesitated. “I’m not sure I do. I told you I was an agnostic, not an atheist. However, I do not believe He sits on a cloud and has a long white beard.”

“Mr. Baylor, I particularly wish to thank you for coming here. I am fully aware that you, as head of the Communist Party in the United States, are against everything I stand for. Yet I wish to ask you what the opinion of the Communists here is of the broadcast of yesterday evening.”

“There is no matter of opinion. We know what it is.”

“Of your own knowledge, Mr. Baylor, or because Moscow has spoken?”

“That is irrelevant. We are perfectly aware that the Capitalistic countries instigated that broadcast. And solely for the purpose of inciting us to start the war.”

“And for what reason would we do that?”

“Because you have something new. Something in electronics that enabled you to accomplish what you accomplished last night and that is undoubtedly a decisive weapon. However, because of the opinion of the rest of the world, you do not dare to use it if you yourselves—as your warmongers have been demanding, as indeed you have been planning to do—start the war. You want us to start it and then, with world opinion on your side, you would be able to use your new weapon. However, we refuse to be propagandized.”

“Thank you, Mr. Baylor. And may I ask you one question strictly off the record? Will you answer in the first person singular, not plural, your own personal, private opinion?”

“You may.”

“Do you, personally, really believe we instigated that broadcast?”

“I—I do not know.”

“The afternoon mail, Walter?”

“Well over a hundred thousand letters, Mr. President. We have been able to do only random sampling. They seem to be about the same as the telegrams. General Wickersham is anxious to see you, sir. He thinks you should issue a proclamation to the army. Army morale is in a terrible state, he says, and he thinks a word from you—”

The President smiled grimly. “What word, Walter? The only single word of importance I can think of has already been given—and hasn’t done army morale any good at all. Tell General Wickersham to wait; maybe I’ll be able to see him within a few days. Who’s next on the list?”

“Professor Gresham of Harvard.”

“His specialty?”

“Philosophy and metaphysics.”

The President sighed. “Send him in.”

“You actually mean, Professor, that you have no opinions at all? You won’t even guess whether X is God, devil, extra-galactic superman, terrestrial scientist, Martian—?”

“What good would a guess do, Mr. President? I am certain of only one thing—and that is that we will never know who or what X is. Mortal or immortal, terrestrial or extra-galactic, microcosmic or macrocosmic, four dimensional or twelve, he is sufficiently more clever than we to keep us from discovering his identity. And it is obviously necessary to his plan that we do not know.”

“Why?”

“It is obvious that he wants us to disobey that command, isn’t it? And who ever heard of men obeying a command unless they knew—or thought they knew—who gave it? If anybody ever learns who gave that command, he can decide whether to obey it or not. As long as he doesn’t know, it’s psychologically almost impossible for him to obey it.”

The President nodded slowly. “I see what you mean. Men either obey or disobey commands—even commands they think come from God—according to their own will. But how can they obey an order, and still be men, when they don’t know for sure where the order came from?”

He laughed. “And even the Commies don’t know for sure whether we Capitalists did it or not. And as long as they’re not sure—”

“Did we?”

The President said, “I’m beginning to wonder. Even though I know we didn’t, it doesn’t seem more unlikely than anything else.” He tilted back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. After a while he said softly, “Anyway, I don’t think there’s going to be a war. Either side would be mad to start it.”

There wasn’t a war.