The captain was nervous but determined. "Yes, sir. I had the distinct feeling that the being that sent the message felt sorry for us."
The SupSpaceCom's face had gone red with indignation.
It was three years before another of the aliens was sighted. Three hurried, crowded, harassed years during which all the Solar System's resources were devoted to building and arming a huge space fleet and rushing space defenses. The total wars of the Twentieth Century paled in comparison to the all out efforts made to prepare for this conflict.
The second view of the alien ship was similar to the first. This, time the Pendleton, a four-man scout returning to the Venus base after a patrol in the direction of Sirius, held the intruder in its viewer for a full five minutes. Once again, no estimation of its distance nor size could be made. All instruments pertaining to such detection seemed to fail to function properly.
And again the alien had sent a message—seemingly, at least, by telviz. We are no danger to you, mankind. Seek your destiny in peace. Your troubles are from within.
The Pendleton would have attempted to follow the strange craft, but her fuel tanks were nearly dry and she had to proceed to Venus. Her captain's report made a sensation.
In a way, the whole business had been a good thing for Markham Gray. As a free lancing journalist, he'd had a considerable advantage. First, he was more than usually informed on space travel and the problems relating to it, second, he had been present at—in fact, had made himself—the first sighting of the aliens.
His articles were in continuous demand in both magazines and newspaper supplements; editors clamored for additional material from his voco-typer. There was but one complaint against his copy—it wasn't alarmist enough, sensational enough. Humanity had been whipped into a state of hysteria, an emotional binge, and humanity loved it.
And it was there that Markham Gray refused to go along. He had agreed with poor Captain Post, now serving a life sentence in the Martian prison camps; there had been no sign of hostility from the alien craft. It was man who was preparing for war—and Gray knew of no period in history in which preparations for war did not eventually culminate in one.