Read Ebook: Meeting at the Summit by Jorgensen Ivar

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 125 lines and 6691 words, and 3 pages

The President sat down and looked about. He was in a small, well-furnished room, pastelled in a light shade of green complimenting the young man's uniform, and he got the flash of an idea that color was very important in the scheme of whatever science brought this transposition about.

There was a soft whirring sound. The President said, "May I ask where we are?"

"Certainly, sir. We are in a small ship. We are crossing your country at around one hundred thousand of your feet."

"At what speed?"

This gave the young man pause. "It would be very hard to translate into terms with which you are familiar. I would say roughly the speed of light. The major time-lapse is consumed in ascent and descent."

The President showed great interest. "Tell me this--we were moved from my study through some scientific process I won't ask you to explain, but why weren't we carried the entire distance to Ranier in that manner?"

The young man pondered. "That is of course difficult for you to understand. And quite difficult for me to explain so allow me to put it this way. When planning a trip from Washington to New York, you walk from your office to your car, and ride in the car from your residence to the airport."

"I see--a matter of slower speeds over short distances."

"In a way, but more so a matter of practicality. You could hardly bring the car into your office nor the aircraft onto your front lawn."

The President let it rest there. He said, "One more thing--why was I not contacted directly in this matter?"

This embarrassed the young man. "Wherever we go, sir, we attempt to conform to customs and manner existing in that place. We understood that to reach The President of the United States, one always proceeds through channels."

The President smiled. The humming sound ceased. The young man arose, forestalling further questions.

"This way, if you will be so kind."

The President and the Press Secretary followed the young man from the room into a low corridor. The walls of this passage were transparent and the President caught his breath at the grandeur outside. He got the impression they were moving from the small ship to a larger one perched precariously on the edge of an abyss. Below, under bright moonlight, lay the snow-covered approaches to Ranier and her sister peaks. A view of overpowering majesty such as few men had ever seen. One of the reasons, the President thought, why some men join the air force.

They entered another room, this one with a blue motif, through another door that opened automatically on approach, and into one of pastel green.

This room was somewhat larger but no more ornate nor less efficiently furnished than the others. A streamlined, oval desk sat in its center from the far side of which a man arose and held forth his hand.

He was slim as a reed and had snow-white hair. He gave the impression of ripe years yet with no physical indications of this other than a head of beautiful snow-white hair. Perhaps, the President thought, this indication was an illusion. And perhaps the aura of power emanating from the man was also an illusion but the President would not have been willing to bet on it.

Rex nodded to the young man in the pastel-red uniform. The latter bowed slightly, turned and left the room. Rex turned his dark eyes--almost feminine in their beauty--on the President. His quick smile was even more impersonal now. "Shall we get to the business at hand, or could you do with a little refreshment first?"

"I'd prefer the former," The President said briefly.

"Good. I imagine your aide told you some of it, but I'd better recap that and then go on."

Rex nodded briefly in The Press Secretary's direction. It was the silvery-haired man's first acknowledgement of his presence.

"You are probably curious as to who I am and just what the Seventh Sector is. I'll tell you. The Seventh Sector is a team denoting a certain part of the known universe. It contains approximately nine-hundred thousand solids of a twenty-million-ton weight or over. Eleven of these solids supports animate life at around the evolutionary stage of your own--or higher. Do you follow me?"

When The President was slow in answering, Rex said "I suggest you lay aside any mental resistance and take all statements I make as fact."

"Why should I do that?"

"Because my deceiving you would be pointless and because I must transfer a great deal of information to your mind in a very short time."

The President said nothing and Rex went on. "As Director of this sector, it is my job to check the development on its various planets and make progress reports to the Council."

"And this Council is located--?"

"Many light years from here--at the hub of the known universe, but that is not important."

"I thought perhaps we--or our representatives might someday--"

"Appear before it? I'm afraid not. I fear you are treading the path of those who once inhabited your neighbor planet, Mars."

"Then life does exist--or did--on Mars?"

"Oh yes, but we were forced to eliminate it."

The President spoke calmly. "Then you are able to depopulate whole planets?"

"Whole systems if necessary. Let me explain. When conditions are right, life inevitably comes into existence upon a planet. The entities involved are always pretty much as you and I, physically, because conditions produce a ruling race of our structure or do not produce life at all.

"The problem, Mr. President, lies in the spiritual. Every race on every inhabited planet is given the intelligence and desire to evolve upward spiritually but they do not always succeed. A time limit is set on this so that the inhabitants of each planet arrive finally at an evolutionary crisis."

The President thought of nuclear fission, the atom bomb, mankind's incredible progress over the last two hundred years. "And you have come to aid us in spiritual development?"

"On the contrary. You have had all the guidance necessary--far more than those on most planets--more than did your neighbors on Mars. I have come to annihilate you."

The President hid his shock well. "If killing me will--"

"Annihilate life on the planet. You see, Mr. President, there comes a time when each inhabited planet must join the Council--when it reaches a point at which its existence affects the great family of planets. If at that time, its state of affairs and development are negative, its population is eradicated for the greater good."

"May I ask two questions?" The President said.

"You may."

"Thank you. First, why do you contact only me with this news? I am the titular head of only one nation on this planet. There are many others."

"I would rather reserve the answer to that question."

"Very well, the second. How can we affect a family of inhabited planets the existence of which we are not even aware. Planets with which we have no contact whatever?"

"In a few short years you would know of their existence--you would not only be able to contact them--you would visit them and they would visit you."

"And just how would we affect them adversely?"

"That should be apparent. Your present state of dwarfed spirituality is made clear by your background of violence and injustice. I refer to your planet rather than to your nation. Practically all your scientific progress has come as a result of war. Nations that lose a war on your planet study and invent and discover like demons possessed for tools with which to win the next one. Do you deny that at this moment your planet is little more than an armed camp?"

"No," The President said sadly. "I cannot deny this."

"Then you realize why we cannot let you move out into space, carrying with you the greed, the envy, the hatred, the violence that stalks the corridors of your history."

There was no doubt in the President's mind that this remarkable man could back up his every word. His statements were not idle threats. The President said, "But your accusations are not entirely just. You make no mention of our great progress toward spiritual goals in the past hundred years--even the past fifty have seen marked changes in that direction."

"I have noted that. It is what caused me to make this contact with you. Ordinarily, no such contact would have been made. I would have checked the planet, reported it to the Council, and annihilation would have been automatic."

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet