in a Cadillac behind them started blowing his horn for the colossal aircraft to clear the way. Heroically, the 747 pilot refrained from firing up the #2 engine and melting the idiot into slag.
In Lebanon, the PLO demanded to know if the aliens were Jewish. Zurich asked if they valued gold. Hollywood begged for the rights to film their life story. New Zealand longed to hear their favorite lamb recipes. Poland asked how many of them it took to change a lightbulb. At first, the Pope declared the alien beings devils, then angels, devils again, Protestants, and then he was unavailable for comment.
The independent countries of South America found themselves in a quandary. The aliens had landed in the much hated United States of America. If the creatures proved hostile, then this might be their big chance to help destroy the filthy Yankee pigs. But if the aliens were friendly, America might receive advanced technology that could make them undisputed masters of the world, someone you don't want mad at you. How they should act was solved by the brilliant political strategy of aligning themselves with Switzerland. With much eagerness, the always neutral Swiss bankers accepted this commission as they had so many others, positive that, somehow, they could make a buck out of it.
Ireland got drunk.
England ordered out for tea.
Italy got drunk.
Japan sent out industrial spies.
France paid its UN dues.
In a small Arab nation, a fanatical Moslem leader stood on the balcony of a tall minaret and told his faithful followers assembled below that while they could handle the evil American devils, blue monsters from space was an entirely different matter. So in order to save his nation, he would have to destroy it with a hydrogen bomb. He raised the detonator switch for all to see. Oddly, the crowd in the courtyard below didn't react very favorably to this idea.
While they were breaking down the locked door to the minaret, their ex-beloved leader said a prayer and pressed the detonation switch. This only resulted in a loud click, as his aides had long ago stolen the plutonium from the bomb and sold it for drugs. When the howling mob of outraged Arabs finally reached the top of the prayer tower, the Moslem zealot saved them from the messy task of tearing him into bloody gobbets by simply diving over the ornate metal railing of the balcony and falling to his death.
* * *
Meanwhile, orbiting high above the troubled Earth was a large golden rectangle about the size and shape of an industrial packing crate. Skimming along the very edge of the planet's atmosphere, the strange box passed unnoticed by the incredible profusion of spy satellites that filled the sky, and by the ground-based military radar installations that stared directly at it with blind electronic eyes.
Those who had placed the enameled machine in orbit had been assured by their research staff that the box was, on the exterior, a perfect reproduction of a scientific device made by something called Westinghome Industries, and this was true. But the design had come from the wrong division of the international conglomerate. The golden rectangle was the exact duplicate of a Westinghome refrigerator; from the exposed cooling grid on the back, to the price tag on the door handle. (The technical staff had wondered about the function of those items, but had included them anyway in the noble interest of Science and to promote job security, which was a basic urge in most sentient beings throughout the known galaxy.)
At the present moment, that refrigerator-shaped device was receiving some very curious transmissions from the normally peaceful world below. Hungrily, the machine consumed the incoming signals as fast as it could, chewed up the data into byte sized pieces, digested them thoroughly, and then burped out a most unappetizing answer.
Crystal programming cubes, nestled in multi-compartment ionized tin power trays, became activated and the rectangle began to rotate about, until it
In Lebanon, the PLO demanded to know if the aliens were Jewish. Zurich asked if they valued gold. Hollywood begged for the rights to film their life story. New Zealand longed to hear their favorite lamb recipes. Poland asked how many of them it took to change a lightbulb. At first, the Pope declared the alien beings devils, then angels, devils again, Protestants, and then he was unavailable for comment.
The independent countries of South America found themselves in a quandary. The aliens had landed in the much hated United States of America. If the creatures proved hostile, then this might be their big chance to help destroy the filthy Yankee pigs. But if the aliens were friendly, America might receive advanced technology that could make them undisputed masters of the world, someone you don't want mad at you. How they should act was solved by the brilliant political strategy of aligning themselves with Switzerland. With much eagerness, the always neutral Swiss bankers accepted this commission as they had so many others, positive that, somehow, they could make a buck out of it.
Ireland got drunk.
England ordered out for tea.
Italy got drunk.
Japan sent out industrial spies.
France paid its UN dues.
In a small Arab nation, a fanatical Moslem leader stood on the balcony of a tall minaret and told his faithful followers assembled below that while they could handle the evil American devils, blue monsters from space was an entirely different matter. So in order to save his nation, he would have to destroy it with a hydrogen bomb. He raised the detonator switch for all to see. Oddly, the crowd in the courtyard below didn't react very favorably to this idea.
While they were breaking down the locked door to the minaret, their ex-beloved leader said a prayer and pressed the detonation switch. This only resulted in a loud click, as his aides had long ago stolen the plutonium from the bomb and sold it for drugs. When the howling mob of outraged Arabs finally reached the top of the prayer tower, the Moslem zealot saved them from the messy task of tearing him into bloody gobbets by simply diving over the ornate metal railing of the balcony and falling to his death.
* * *
Meanwhile, orbiting high above the troubled Earth was a large golden rectangle about the size and shape of an industrial packing crate. Skimming along the very edge of the planet's atmosphere, the strange box passed unnoticed by the incredible profusion of spy satellites that filled the sky, and by the ground-based military radar installations that stared directly at it with blind electronic eyes.
Those who had placed the enameled machine in orbit had been assured by their research staff that the box was, on the exterior, a perfect reproduction of a scientific device made by something called Westinghome Industries, and this was true. But the design had come from the wrong division of the international conglomerate. The golden rectangle was the exact duplicate of a Westinghome refrigerator; from the exposed cooling grid on the back, to the price tag on the door handle. (The technical staff had wondered about the function of those items, but had included them anyway in the noble interest of Science and to promote job security, which was a basic urge in most sentient beings throughout the known galaxy.)
At the present moment, that refrigerator-shaped device was receiving some very curious transmissions from the normally peaceful world below. Hungrily, the machine consumed the incoming signals as fast as it could, chewed up the data into byte sized pieces, digested them thoroughly, and then burped out a most unappetizing answer.
Crystal programming cubes, nestled in multi-compartment ionized tin power trays, became activated and the rectangle began to rotate about, until it
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