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Title: Final exam
Author: Sam Merwin Jr.
Illustrator: Mel Hunter
Release date: January 16, 2026 [eBook #77718]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: King-Size Publications, Inc, 1955
Credits: Tom Trussel (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FINAL EXAM ***
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 FINAL EXAM ***
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