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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77718 ***
+
+
+
+
+                               Final Exam
+
+                           by Sam Merwin Jr.
+
+
+  _Sam Merwin’s entertaining, provocative, and warmly human little
+  yarns about spacemen and their foibles have enlivened our
+  pages--along with novelette-length stories of wider compass and
+  somewhat graver import--since that momentous hour when FANTASTIC
+  UNIVERSE was born out of the fire-mists of an island universe
+  hovering directly opposite the Pleiades. But seldom has he come up
+  with a shorter-length yarn quite as excitingly unusual as this._
+
+  =They had prepared a sturdy bomb shelter to protect the Great Man
+  from the Flying Saucers. But he had to see them with his own eyes.=
+
+
+
+
+They tried to make the Great Man go down into the
+lead-and-graphite-sheathed bomb shelter deep under the outwardly modest
+Midwestern house that was his “secret” summer residence. His aides, his
+secretary, the civilian-clothed bodyguards--all of them were insistent.
+
+“You’re much too valuable, sir” ...
+
+“It’s our sworn duty to protect you, sir” ...
+
+“We don’t know what _they_ are, sir....”
+
+The Great Man knew he was breaking the hearts of his official family by
+disobeying. But curiosity was one of the traits that had helped him to
+the top, and he had heard too much about “them”--although he had yet
+to see one of the alien visitors. He looked at his wife, and read in
+her serene gaze that she understood and approved. He said, to his chief
+aide: “If they’ve found us here, there’s not much sense in hiding, is
+there?”
+
+And, when no definite reply was forthcoming, he asked, “What is your
+theory as to their nature--and just how many of them are there?”
+
+“Denver reports half a dozen headed directly this way at an estimated
+two thousand miles per hour,” said the Air Force aide, his handsome
+face a rigid mask of disapproval. “That was five minutes ago.”
+
+“And their nature?” the Great Man repeated quietly.
+
+It was the Air Defense aide who answered him. “We don’t know, sir.
+They look simply like rather large, moving lights in the sky. But, as
+always, radar has picked up solid bodies.”
+
+“Thank you.” The Great Man glanced at the banjo clock on the
+flower-papered wall. “They should be here any minute then,” he said.
+“Gentlemen, I ask you to leave us alone. I have no wish to command you.”
+
+Obviously, this unorthodox request put an alarming spoke in the
+closely-meshed wheels of the armed defense plans. Sensing the
+uncertainty and dismay of everyone in the room, the Great Man said,
+“I wish you to observe, and report--but on no account are you to
+inaugurate hostile action. Is that clear?”
+
+“But what if they attack first?” The Air Force aide inquired anxiously.
+
+“I said you were not to _inaugurate_ hostile action,” was the Great
+Man’s quiet reply. “If they actually attack--and I doubt that they will
+from the past records--you are free to take whatever defensive measures
+you may consider necessary.”
+
+They left the room reluctantly, unhappily. The Great Man smiled at
+his wife. “Darling,” he said, “let’s go to the balcony. If those
+well-meaning friends of ours think they’re going to stop me from seeing
+my first flying saucers they’re tragically mistaken.”
+
+“Of course, dear,” his wife replied.
+
+She already had her knitting neatly stowed away in the needlepoint bag
+in which she customarily carried it. Now she removed her glasses and
+put them in their case, and rose quickly to her feet, still a trim,
+attractive figure of a woman despite her fifty years.
+
+As they walked toward the balcony, the Great Man wondered what he could
+have accomplished without her. Certainly, the nine years since their
+marriage had been his happiest--each a glowing milestone in his swift
+climb to political eminence.
+
+They stood side by side on the broad balcony, which was really the
+verandah roof, and looked out at the star-swept skies. Roughly gauging
+the direction with his eyes, the Great Man said, “If the reports are
+accurate, they should be coming from _there_.” He pointed toward the
+low flat sweep of the southwestern horizon.
+
+“Darling! Look over there!”
+
+There was controlled excitement in his wife’s soft voice.
+
+He followed her gaze a bit further north, and immediately saw
+them--one, two, three, and then three more--as they came sweeping
+earthward at an incredible speed.
+
+They looked like immense balls of light, slightly fuzzy around the
+edges, leaving faint trails of white fire in their wake.
+
+They were terrifyingly near--and they moved into silence. The Great
+Man knew that all around the house, in a complex involving many square
+miles, alert defenders were stationed--some at radar panels and others
+around electronic anti-aircraft cannon and Nike launchers, their
+weapons primed with atomic warheads. Yet the night was silent.
+
+A cricket chirped somewhere, but its song was quickly drowned in the
+faint unmistakable whine of a distant jet engine. The Air Force was on
+sky reconnaissance. The Great Man uttered a silent prayer that they
+would confine themselves to observation. There was another whine, and
+then another and another, each growing louder against the stars as the
+mysterious invaders swept rapidly closer.
+
+Although flying saucer stories had appeared in the press in waves, with
+long intervals between reports, in official circles that activity had
+not died down since their first sighting by Kenneth Arnold in 1947.
+Of late, more and more such activity had been reported. They had been
+seen over the big cities, as well as above more isolated regions.
+Unmistakably, it was a pattern of approaching climax.
+
+Over Europe, Africa, South America and behind the Iron Curtain as
+well as over North America, the Unidentified Flying Objects had been
+observed and had given birth to the wildest speculations.
+
+A disturbed Moscow had labeled them horror weapons of the imperialistic
+powers. And certain American journals had insisted they were
+super-Soviet aircraft that foreshadowed another and greater Pearl
+Harbor.
+
+But until now the Great Man had never seen one of them--had even
+disbelieved in their existence. He watched them swoop closer, ever
+closer, and his left arm sought the reassuring solace of his wife’s
+waist.
+
+“What are they?” he wondered aloud. “Where do they come from? What do
+they _want?_”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Suddenly the leading invader dropped with incredible swiftness, until
+it seemed to be hovering directly above them. A quartet of searchlight
+beams stabbed out and, for an instant, held it in a crossflare of light.
+
+The Great Man gasped. It was solid, and its billowing contours hinted
+at a complex simplicity that was, the Great Man sensed instinctively,
+beyond the inventive capacity of human technology at its most ingenious.
+
+Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, it was gone--and with it went the
+other lights. The Great Man realized he was gripping his wife far too
+tightly, and released her. He laughed, a bit shakily, and said, “Well,
+anyway, I’ve seen one of them close up.”
+
+“What do you think it was?” his wife asked quietly as they went back
+indoors. He shook his head. “I’m damned if I know,” he told her.
+“Darling, I think I’d better talk to Harlan. He may have an idea. Do
+you mind?”
+
+“Of course not,” she replied warmly. “Give him my love. And let me know
+what he thinks they are.”
+
+Harlan was not an official. A philosopher, a teacher, a writer, a
+brilliant theoretical astrophysicist, he was the Great Man’s closest
+friend and most trusted advisor. Independently wealthy, he had
+stubbornly refused to take any salaried post. “This way,” he had told
+the Great Man more than once, “I’m still my own master and can offer
+occasional suggestions that you won’t have to frown upon officially.”
+
+He had taken a house less than a mile from the Great Man’s inland
+residence. He did not seem to care at all that it was a comfortable,
+hideously ugly relic of the “big house” period that extended roughly
+from 1880 to 1910. It took the Great Man less than five minutes to
+reach it.
+
+As always on seeing him again after a month’s absence the Great Man
+was startled by his advisor’s outward youthfulness. Save for the grey
+that peppered his close-cropped hair, and the tiny crow’s-feet about
+his eyes, Harlan might have been a remarkably precocious, quite recent
+university graduate.
+
+More shaken than he cared to admit, the Great Man asked, “Did you see
+it, Harlan?”
+
+“I saw,” said Harlan softly. Like the Great Man’s wife, the famed
+astrophysicist seemed built around an inner serenity that enabled him
+to meet each of life’s crises, firmly, rationally, and without foolish
+or fearful deviation.
+
+“What do you think?” the Great Man asked him.
+
+For a moment Harlan regarded his guest calmly from around the bowl of
+his pipe. Finally he said, “What _should_ I think? It occurs to me that
+what _you_ think is vastly more important.”
+
+The Great Man had risen and was pacing the floor. “Harlan,” he said.
+“I’m beginning to think the military is right. I’m beginning to believe
+that these UFO’s are of alien origin. From the steadily increasing and
+consistent pattern of their appearances, I can only conclude that they
+are the prelude to some sort of invasion from space.”
+
+“Who’d want this little planet?” Harlan asked, with ironic bitterness.
+“It is already despoiled, overpopulated....”
+
+“Not knowing the nature of our visitors,” said the Great Man, “and not
+knowing their needs or desires, how can we answer such a question?”
+He paused, regarding his host steadily for an instant. Then he said:
+“You’ll be glad to know I refused to permit hostile action, a stand
+which you yourself strongly urged me to take.”
+
+“Thank you,” said Harlan, simply and sincerely.
+
+Something in his tone stopped the Great Man in his tracks. “Thank you,”
+he said. “Why thank me? Harlan. Why are you staring at me like that?”
+
+Harlan held his gaze, and nodded slowly. “It’s true,” he said. “_I’m
+one of them._ We have techniques--hypnotics and the like--to make the
+records misleading. Don’t look so horrified, my friend. Although I am
+not of Earth, I’m human enough.”
+
+The Great Man sank into a chair, still staring in stunned horror at
+his advisor. “But Harlan,” he said, “why have you done this to _me_?
+Where are you from? What do you and your people want?” He felt a sick
+dizziness at the base of his brain, such as he had not felt since the
+last election had hung precariously in the balance.
+
+“You have asked me three questions,” was the reply, “and none of them
+simple.” A faint smile tugged at his lips. “However, I’ll try to answer
+them to the best of my ability. Why have I done this _to_ you? I
+scarcely believe, if you’ll think back over the past few years, that I
+have done anything _to_ you.
+
+“The advice I gave you was sincerely given and it was in the best
+interests of your country, and your world. I may as well tell you I
+became your advisor because I was assigned to the task on my own world.”
+
+The Great Man could only keep staring at Harlan, wondering what his
+real name was, and whether he was seeing him as a human being only
+because Harlan had planned it that way.
+
+Harlan went on quickly: “As to where we are from, I can only say the
+inhabited Galaxy. You see, there are hundreds of far-flung planets
+suitable for human life scattered among the stars of what you call the
+Milky Way.”
+
+“And precisely what do you want? Why are you invading Earth at this
+time?” the Great Man asked in a faraway voice.
+
+“All we want,” was the quiet reply, “is to see the people of your world
+become sufficiently mature to join the rest of us--without repeating
+some of the ghastly mistakes that certain other strong, primitive
+planetary societies have made. That is why I--and many others--have
+been given the assignment of trying to prepare you for your most
+difficult task--the early control of atomics.
+
+“You speak of ‘invasion.’ What you are witnessing is actually quite
+the reverse. We have done all we can on Earth. The rest is up to you.
+The vessels which you call flying saucers are actually here to take us
+home.”
+
+The Great Man was on his feet again, somehow more alarmed by Harlan’s
+last statement than by his previous fears. “But you’re leaving us in a
+terrifying mess,” he said. “Why can’t you keep on helping us a little
+longer. Why can’t you?”
+
+Harlan slowly shook his head. “We have guided you as far as we can,” he
+replied. “We cannot teach you to master yourselves. We have managed to
+bring you, without self destruction, to the final test. It will either
+take you to the stars or leave your planet a briefly glowing cinder in
+the skies. But we cannot take the examination for you.”
+
+“I see.” The Great Man was humble beyond his habit. He was just
+beginning to realize how completely he had depended on Harlan to make
+his decisions for him. Without him ... and without his wife ... he
+would be like a small boy trying to run a business. A defiant spark
+flamed within him.
+
+“I could give orders to have you confined--to keep you here,” he said.
+
+But Harlan shook his head. “You couldn’t. I want you to leave me now.
+It will be easier that way. This is goodbye, my friend, unless fate
+wills us to meet out there.” He nodded toward the windows and the
+glowing night sky beyond.
+
+There was something in his manner which forbade disbelief. The Great
+Man shook his hand and, unexpectedly, there were tears in his eyes.
+Harlan put a sympathetic hand on his shoulder and said, “That is what
+will bring you through. You can love.”
+
+“Yes,” said the Great Man. “We can love. I only hope it is enough.”
+
+“It will have to be,” said Harlan, “for you have very little else.” And
+there was something--a warning, perhaps--in his tone which echoed in
+the Great Man’s ears long after he was back in the big car en route to
+his own house.
+
+The taut excitement of a half hour earlier had vanished. His aides and
+bodyguards were casual, and relaxed, as if nothing out of the ordinary
+had happened. Wondering, more than a little frightened, the Great Man
+went upstairs to the apartment he occupied with his wife. He called to
+her but she did not answer. He searched for her but she was not there.
+
+All at once, he _knew_. She, too, was one of them--the serene,
+wonderful woman who had, in a few short years, guided him from
+obscurity to the pinnacle, and whose quiet poise and steadfastness had
+brought him triumphantly through so much. When he looked in her closet,
+he was somehow not surprised to discover that his own things--his golf
+clubs and fishing gear--had replaced her removed garments.
+
+He wandered out on the balcony. All at once a light flashed down out
+of the sky and hovered low, no more than a half mile away, over what
+had been Harlan’s house. It hovered for an instant and then, suddenly,
+it was gone--and the Great Man felt alone as never before in his life.
+What had Harlan said--about love being enough? “It will have to be, for
+you have very little else.”
+
+The Great Man looked up at Orion, and the Big Dipper, and at Jupiter
+lurking low on the horizon. Somehow, he knew, mankind had passed a lot
+of tests, with a great deal of travail--and the big one still lay still
+ahead. He wondered about his opposite numbers around the Earth. Had
+they, too, had advisors from the stars?
+
+That, he decided, was one intangible he was going to have to take for
+granted. As he went back inside, he was formulating plans to bring
+them all together, to get them over the last hurdle safely. And for
+the first time he had the feeling that, elsewhere in the world, sad
+but still-important great men and women were sharing his thoughts and
+emotions. It wasn’t a bad thing to know. Not a bad thing at all.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber’s note:
+
+
+This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe, November 1955 (Vol. 4,
+No. 4.). Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
+copyright on this publication was renewed.
+
+Obvious errors have been silently corrected in this version, but minor
+inconsistencies have been retained as printed.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77718 ***
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+      Final Exam | Project Gutenberg
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+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77718 ***</div>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowe100_1250" id="cover">
+  <img class="w20" src="images/cover.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> <div class="chapter"></div>
+
+<h1>
+Final Exam
+</h1>
+
+
+<p class="center p5">by <strong>Sam Merwin Jr.</strong></p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> <div class="chapter"></div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p><i>Sam Merwin’s entertaining, provocative, and warmly human little yarns
+about spacemen and their foibles have enlivened our pages—along
+with novelette-length stories of wider compass and somewhat graver
+import—since that momentous hour when FANTASTIC UNIVERSE was born out
+of the fire-mists of an island universe hovering directly opposite the
+Pleiades. But seldom has he come up with a shorter-length yarn quite as
+excitingly unusual as this.</i></p>
+
+<p><b>They had prepared a sturdy bomb shelter to protect the Great Man from
+the Flying Saucers. But he had to see them with his own eyes.</b></p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> <div class="chapter"></div>
+
+
+<p>They tried to make the Great Man go down into the
+lead-and-graphite-sheathed bomb shelter deep under the outwardly modest
+Midwestern house that was his “secret” summer residence. His aides, his
+secretary, the civilian-clothed bodyguards—all of them were insistent.</p>
+
+<p>“You’re much too valuable, sir” ...</p>
+
+<p>“It’s our sworn duty to protect
+you, sir” ...</p>
+
+<p>“We don’t know what <i>they</i> are, sir....”</p>
+
+<p>The Great Man knew
+he was breaking the hearts of his official family by disobeying. But
+curiosity was one of the traits that had helped him to the top, and he
+had heard too much about “them”—although he had yet to see one of the
+alien visitors. He looked at his wife, and read in her serene gaze that
+she understood and approved. He said, to his chief aide: “If they’ve
+found us here, there’s not much sense in hiding, is there?”</p>
+
+<p>And, when
+no definite reply was forthcoming, he asked, “What is your theory as to
+their nature—and just how many of them are there?”</p>
+
+<p>“Denver reports half
+a dozen headed directly this way at an estimated two thousand miles
+per hour,” said the Air Force aide, his handsome face a rigid mask of
+disapproval. “That was five minutes ago.”</p>
+
+<p>“And their nature?” the Great
+Man repeated quietly.</p>
+
+<p>It was the Air Defense aide who answered him.
+“We don’t know, sir. They look simply like rather large, moving lights
+in the sky. But, as always, radar has picked up solid bodies.”</p>
+
+<p>“Thank
+you.” The Great Man glanced at the banjo clock on the flower-papered
+wall. “They should be here any minute then,” he said. “Gentlemen, I ask
+you to leave us alone. I have no wish to command you.”</p>
+
+<p>Obviously, this
+unorthodox request put an alarming spoke in the closely-meshed wheels
+of the armed defense plans. Sensing the uncertainty and dismay of
+everyone in the room, the Great Man said, “I wish you to observe, and
+report—but on no account are you to inaugurate hostile action. Is that
+clear?”</p>
+
+<p>“But what if they attack first?” The Air Force aide inquired
+anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>“I said you were not to <i>inaugurate</i> hostile action,” was the
+Great Man’s quiet reply. “If they actually attack—and I doubt that they
+will from the past records—you are free to take whatever defensive
+measures you may consider necessary.”</p>
+
+<p>They left the room reluctantly,
+unhappily. The Great Man smiled at his wife. “Darling,” he said,
+“let’s go to the balcony. If those well-meaning friends of ours think
+they’re going to stop me from seeing my first flying saucers they’re
+tragically mistaken.”</p>
+
+<p>“Of course, dear,” his wife replied.</p>
+
+<p>She already
+had her knitting neatly stowed away in the needlepoint bag in which
+she customarily carried it. Now she removed her glasses and put them
+in their case, and rose quickly to her feet, still a trim, attractive
+figure of a woman despite her fifty years.</p>
+
+<p>As they walked toward
+the balcony, the Great Man wondered what he could have accomplished
+without her. Certainly, the nine years since their marriage had been
+his happiest—each a glowing milestone in his swift climb to political
+eminence.</p>
+
+<p>They stood side by side on the broad balcony, which was
+really the verandah roof, and looked out at the star-swept skies.
+Roughly gauging the direction with his eyes, the Great Man said, “If
+the reports are accurate, they should be coming from <i>there</i>.” He pointed
+toward the low flat sweep of the southwestern horizon.</p>
+
+<p>“Darling! Look
+over there!”</p>
+
+<p>There was controlled excitement in his wife’s soft voice.</p>
+
+<p>He followed her gaze a bit further north, and immediately saw them—one,
+two, three, and then three more—as they came sweeping earthward at an
+incredible speed.</p>
+
+<p>They looked like immense balls of light,
+slightly fuzzy around the edges, leaving faint trails of white fire in
+their wake.</p>
+
+<p>They were terrifyingly near—and they moved into silence.
+The Great Man knew that all around the house, in a complex involving
+many square miles, alert defenders were stationed—some at radar panels
+and others around electronic anti-aircraft cannon and Nike launchers,
+their weapons primed with atomic warheads. Yet the night was silent.</p>
+
+<p>A cricket chirped somewhere, but its song was quickly drowned in the
+faint unmistakable whine of a distant jet engine. The Air Force was on
+sky reconnaissance. The Great Man uttered a silent prayer that they
+would confine themselves to observation. There was another whine, and
+then another and another, each growing louder against the stars as
+the mysterious invaders swept rapidly closer.</p>
+
+<p>Although flying saucer
+stories had appeared in the press in waves, with long intervals between
+reports, in official circles that activity had not died down since
+their first sighting by Kenneth Arnold in 1947. Of late, more and
+more such activity had been reported. They had been seen over the big
+cities, as well as above more isolated regions. Unmistakably, it was a
+pattern of approaching climax.</p>
+
+<p>Over Europe, Africa, South America and
+behind the Iron Curtain as well as over North America, the Unidentified
+Flying Objects had been observed and had given birth to the wildest
+speculations.</p>
+
+<p>A disturbed Moscow had labeled them horror weapons of the
+imperialistic powers. And certain American journals had insisted they
+were super-Soviet aircraft that foreshadowed another and greater Pearl
+Harbor.</p>
+
+<p>But until now the Great Man had never seen one of them—had
+even disbelieved in their existence. He watched them swoop closer,
+ever closer, and his left arm sought the reassuring solace of his
+wife’s waist.</p>
+
+<p>“What are they?” he wondered aloud. “Where do they come
+from? What do they <i>want?</i>”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Suddenly the leading invader dropped with
+incredible swiftness, until it seemed to be hovering directly above
+them. A quartet of searchlight beams stabbed out and, for an instant,
+held it in a crossflare of light.</p>
+
+<p>The Great Man gasped. It was solid,
+and its billowing contours hinted at a complex simplicity that was, the
+Great Man sensed instinctively, beyond the inventive capacity of human
+technology at its most ingenious.</p>
+
+<p>Then, as suddenly as it had appeared,
+it was gone—and with it went the other lights. The Great Man realized
+he was gripping his wife far too tightly, and released her. He laughed,
+a bit shakily, and said, “Well, anyway, I’ve seen one of them close
+up.”</p>
+
+<p>“What do you think it was?” his wife asked
+quietly as they went back indoors. He shook his head. “I’m damned if
+I know,” he told her. “Darling, I think I’d better talk to Harlan. He
+may have an idea. Do you mind?”</p>
+
+<p>“Of course not,” she replied warmly.
+“Give him my love. And let me know what he thinks they are.”</p>
+
+<p>Harlan
+was not an official. A philosopher, a teacher, a writer, a brilliant
+theoretical astrophysicist, he was the Great Man’s closest friend
+and most trusted advisor. Independently wealthy, he had stubbornly
+refused to take any salaried post. “This way,” he had told the Great
+Man more than once, “I’m still my own master and can offer occasional
+suggestions that you won’t have to frown upon officially.”</p>
+
+<p>He had
+taken a house less than a mile from the Great Man’s inland residence.
+He did not seem to care at all that it was a comfortable, hideously
+ugly relic of the “big house” period that extended roughly from 1880
+to 1910. It took the Great Man less than five minutes to reach it.</p>
+
+<p>As
+always on seeing him again after a month’s absence the Great Man was
+startled by his advisor’s outward youthfulness. Save for the grey that
+peppered his close-cropped hair, and the tiny crow’s-feet about his
+eyes, Harlan might have been a remarkably precocious, quite recent
+university graduate.</p>
+
+<p>More shaken than he cared to admit, the Great Man
+asked, “Did you see it, Harlan?”</p>
+
+<p>“I saw,” said Harlan softly. Like
+the Great Man’s wife, the famed astrophysicist seemed built around an
+inner serenity that enabled him to meet each of life’s crises, firmly,
+rationally, and without foolish or fearful deviation.</p>
+
+<p>“What do you
+think?” the Great Man asked him.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment Harlan regarded his guest
+calmly from around the bowl of his pipe. Finally he said, “What <i>should</i>
+I think? It occurs to me that what <i>you</i> think is vastly more important.”</p>
+
+<p>The Great Man had risen and was pacing the floor. “Harlan,” he said.
+“I’m beginning to think the military is right. I’m beginning to believe
+that these UFO’s are of alien origin. From the steadily increasing and
+consistent pattern of their appearances, I can only conclude that they
+are the prelude to some sort of invasion from space.”</p>
+
+<p>“Who’d want this
+little planet?” Harlan asked, with ironic bitterness. “It is already
+despoiled, overpopulated....”</p>
+
+<p>“Not knowing the nature of our visitors,”
+said the Great Man, “and not knowing their needs or desires, how can
+we answer such a question?” He paused, regarding his host steadily for
+an instant. Then he said: “You’ll be glad to know I refused to permit
+hostile action, a stand which you yourself strongly urged me to take.”</p>
+
+<p>“Thank you,” said Harlan, simply and sincerely.</p>
+
+<p>Something
+in his tone stopped the Great Man in his tracks. “Thank you,” he said.
+“Why thank me? Harlan. Why are you staring at me like that?”</p>
+
+<p>Harlan
+held his gaze, and nodded slowly. “It’s true,” he said. “<i>I’m one of
+them.</i> We have techniques—hypnotics and the like—to make the records
+misleading. Don’t look so horrified, my friend. Although I am not
+of Earth, I’m human enough.”</p>
+
+<p>The Great Man sank into a chair, still
+staring in stunned horror at his advisor. “But Harlan,” he said, “why
+have you done this to <i>me</i>? Where are you from? What do you and your
+people want?” He felt a sick dizziness at the base of his brain, such
+as he had not felt since the last election had hung precariously in the
+balance.</p>
+
+<p>“You have asked me three questions,” was the reply, “and none
+of them simple.” A faint smile tugged at his lips. “However, I’ll try
+to answer them to the best of my ability. Why have I done this <i>to</i> you?
+I scarcely believe, if you’ll think back over the past few years, that
+I have done anything <i>to</i> you.</p>
+
+<p>“The advice I gave you was sincerely given
+and it was in the best interests of your country, and your world. I may
+as well tell you I became your advisor because I was assigned to the
+task on my own world.”</p>
+
+<p>The Great Man could only keep staring at Harlan,
+wondering what his real name was, and whether he was seeing him as a
+human being only because Harlan had planned it that way.</p>
+
+<p>Harlan went on
+quickly: “As to where we are from, I can only say the inhabited Galaxy.
+You see, there are hundreds of far-flung planets suitable for human
+life scattered among the stars of what you call the Milky Way.”</p>
+
+<p>“And
+precisely what do you want? Why are you invading Earth at this time?”
+the Great Man asked in a faraway voice.</p>
+
+<p>“All we want,” was the quiet
+reply, “is to see the people of your world become sufficiently mature
+to join the rest of us—without repeating some of the ghastly mistakes
+that certain other strong, primitive planetary societies have made.
+That is why I—and many others—have been given the assignment of trying
+to prepare you for your most difficult task—the early control of
+atomics.</p>
+
+<p>“You speak of ‘invasion.’ What you are witnessing is actually
+quite the reverse. We have done all we can on Earth. The rest is up
+to you. The vessels which you call flying saucers are actually here
+to take us home.”</p>
+
+<p>The Great Man was on his feet again, somehow more
+alarmed by Harlan’s last statement than by his previous fears. “But
+you’re leaving us in a terrifying mess,” he said. “Why can’t you keep
+on helping us a little longer. Why can’t you?”</p>
+
+<p>Harlan slowly shook his
+head. “We have guided you as far as we can,” he
+replied. “We cannot teach you to master yourselves. We have managed to
+bring you, without self destruction, to the final test. It will either
+take you to the stars or leave your planet a briefly glowing cinder in
+the skies. But we cannot take the examination for you.”</p>
+
+<p>“I see.” The
+Great Man was humble beyond his habit. He was just beginning to realize
+how completely he had depended on Harlan to make his decisions for
+him. Without him ... and without his wife ... he would be like a small
+boy trying to run a business. A defiant spark flamed within him.</p>
+
+<p>“I
+could give orders to have you confined—to keep you here,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>But Harlan shook his head. “You couldn’t. I want you to leave me now. It
+will be easier that way. This is goodbye, my friend, unless fate wills
+us to meet out there.” He nodded toward the windows and the glowing
+night sky beyond.</p>
+
+<p>There was something in his manner which forbade
+disbelief. The Great Man shook his hand and, unexpectedly, there were
+tears in his eyes. Harlan put a sympathetic hand on his shoulder and
+said, “That is what will bring you through. You can love.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” said
+the Great Man. “We can love. I only hope it is enough.”</p>
+
+<p>“It will have
+to be,” said Harlan, “for you have very little else.” And there was
+something—a warning, perhaps—in his tone which echoed in the Great
+Man’s ears long after he was back in the big car en route to his own
+house.</p>
+
+<p>The taut excitement of a half hour earlier had vanished. His
+aides and bodyguards were casual, and relaxed, as if nothing out of the
+ordinary had happened. Wondering, more than a little frightened, the
+Great Man went upstairs to the apartment he occupied with his wife.
+He called to her but she did not answer. He searched for her but she
+was not there.</p>
+
+<p>All at once, he <i>knew</i>. She, too, was one of them—the
+serene, wonderful woman who had, in a few short years, guided him from
+obscurity to the pinnacle, and whose quiet poise and steadfastness had
+brought him triumphantly through so much. When he looked in her closet,
+he was somehow not surprised to discover that his own things—his golf
+clubs and fishing gear—had replaced her removed garments.</p>
+
+<p>He wandered
+out on the balcony. All at once a light flashed down out of the sky
+and hovered low, no more than a half mile away, over what had been
+Harlan’s house. It hovered for an instant and then, suddenly, it was
+gone—and the Great Man felt alone as never before in his life. What
+had Harlan said—about love being enough? “It will have to be, for you
+have very little else.”</p>
+
+<p>The Great Man looked up at Orion, and the
+Big Dipper, and at Jupiter lurking low on the horizon. Somehow, he knew,
+mankind had passed a lot of tests, with a great deal
+of travail—and the big one still lay still ahead. He wondered about his
+opposite numbers around the Earth. Had they, too, had advisors from the
+stars?</p>
+
+<p>That, he decided, was one intangible he was going to have to
+take for granted. As he went back inside, he was formulating plans to
+bring them all together, to get them over the last hurdle safely. And
+for the first time he had the feeling that, elsewhere in the world, sad
+but still-important great men and women were sharing his thoughts and
+emotions. It wasn’t a bad thing to know. Not a bad thing at all.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="transnote">
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_note">
+    Transcriber’s note:
+  </h2>
+
+
+
+<p>This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe, November 1955 (Vol. 4,
+No. 4.). Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
+copyright on this publication was renewed.</p>
+
+<p>Obvious errors have been silently corrected in this version, but minor
+inconsistencies have been retained as printed.</p>
+</div>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77718 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for eBook #77718
+(https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77718)