Science Fiction - Daily Short Stories

I'm A Stranger Here Myself - Mack Reynolds

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Duration:: 12m
Broadcast on:: 22 Jul 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

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Sponsored by Chumbakasino, no purchase necessary. VGW Group, forward we're prohibited by law, 18 plus terms and conditions apply. I'm a stranger here myself. One can't be too cautious about the people one meets in 10 years. They're all weirdies of one kind or another. Me? No. I'm a stranger here myself. By Mac Reynolds. The Place de France is the town's hub. It marks the end of Boulevard Pasteur, the main drag of the westernized part of the city and the beginning of Rue de la Liberté, which leads down to the Grand Soco and the Medina. In a three-minute walk from the Place de France you can go from an ultra-modern, California-like resort to the Baghdad of Puran al-Racide. It's quite a town, Tanger. King-sized sidewalk cafes occupy three of the strategic corners on the Place de France. The Cafe de Paris is the best craft beer in town. It gets all the better custom and has three shoeshine boys attached to the establishment. You can sit on a Sunday morning and read the Paris edition of the New York Times Herald Tribune while getting your shoes done up like mirrors for 30 Moroccan francs, which comes to about five cents in its current exchange. You can sit there after the paper is read, sip your espresso and watch the people go by. Tanger is probably the most cosmopolitan city in the world. In native costume you'll see Berber and Reef, Arab and Blue Man, and occasionally Seneca Les from further south. In European dress you'll see Japs and Chinese, Hindus and Turks, Leviteins and Filipinos, North Americans and South Americans, and of course even Europeans, from both sides of the curtain. And Tanger, you'll find some of the world's poorest and some of the richest. The poorest will try to sell you anything from a shoeshine to their not very lily white bodies, and the rich will avoid your eyes, afraid you might try to sell them something. In spite of recent changes, the town still has its unique qualities. As a result of them, the permanent population includes smugglers and black marketeers, fugitives from justice and international con men, espionage and counter espionage agents, homosexuals, nymphomaniacs, alcoholics, drug addicts, displaced persons, ex-royalty, and subversives of every flavor. Local law limits the activities of a few of these. Like I said, it's quite a town. I looked up from my Herald Tribune and said, "Hello Paul, anything new cooking?" He sank into the chair opposite me and looked around for the waiter. The tables were all crowded and since mine was a face he recognized, he assumed he was welcome to intrude. It was more or less standard procedure at the cafe to perry. It wasn't a place to go if you wanted to be alone. Paul said, "How long your Rupert haven't seen you for donkeys years?" The waiter came along and Paul ordered a glass of beer. Paul was an easygoing, shallow-faced little man. I vaguely remembered someone saying he was from Liverpool and in exports. "What's in the newspaper?" he said disinterestedly. "Pogo and Albert are going to find a duel," I told him. And little Abner is becoming a rock-and-roll singer. He grunted. "Oh," I said. The intellectual type. I scanned the front page. The Ruskies have put up another man's satellite. "They have, eh?" "How big?" "Several times bigger than anything we Americans have." The beer came and looked good. So I ordered a glass, too. Paul said, "Whatever happened to those paltzy flying saucers? What flying saucers?" A French girl with bio with a poodle so finely clipped as to look as though it had been shaven. The girl was in the latest from Paris. If we pour in the place, we both looked after her. You know, what everyone was seeing a few years ago. It was too bad none of these bloodied man's satellites was up then. Maybe they would have seen one. "That's an idea," I said. We didn't say anything else for a while and I began to wonder if I could go back to my paper without rubbing him the wrong way. I didn't know Paul very well, but for that matter, there was completely seldom you ever got to know anybody very well in Tanger. Largely, cars were played close to the chest. My beer came and I played up tapas for both both. Tapas at the Cafe de Paris are apt to be potato salad, a few anchovies, olives, and possibly some cheese. Free lunch, they used to call it in the States. Just to say something, I said, "Where do you think they come from?" And when he looked blank, I added the flying saucers. He grinned from Mars or Venus or someplace. I said, "Too bad none of them ever crashed or landed in the Yale football field." And said, "Take me to your cheerleader" or something. Paul yawned and said, "That was always a trouble with those crackpot blokes explanations of them if they were aliens from space." So why not show themselves? I ate one of the potato chips. It'd been cooked and rancid all of a while. I said, "Oh, there are various answers to that one. We could probably sit around here and think or two or three if they made sense." Paul was mildly interested. Like what? Well, hell. Suppose, for instance, there's this big galactic league of civilized planets, but it's restricted, see? You're not eligible for membership until you, well, say, until you develop spaceflight. Then you're invited into the club. Meanwhile, they send secret missions down from time to time and keep an eye on your progress. Paul grinned at me. "I see, you read the same poxy stuff I do." A Moorish girl went by addressing a neatly tailored grey gelaba. European style high-heeled shoes and a pinkish silk veil so transparent you could see she wore lipstick. "Very provocative, dark eyes can be over veil. We both look after her." I said, "Or here's another one. Suppose you have a very advanced civilization on, say, Mars." "Not Mars. No air. And too bloody dry to support life." "Don't interrupt, please," I said, with mocking severity. This is a very old civilization, and as the planet began to lose its water and air, it was drawn to ground. It uses hydroponics and so forth. Husbands its water and air. Isn't that what we do in a few million years if Earth wants its water and air? I suppose so, he said. Anyway, what about them? Well, they observe how man is going through a scientific boom, an industrial boom, a population boom, a boom period. Any day now, he's going to have a practical spaceship. Meanwhile, he's got the H-bomb, and the way he beats on the drums on both sides of the curtain, he's not against using it if he could get away with it. Paul said, "I got it, so they're scared and are keeping an eye on us." I said an old one. I read that a dozen times, disturbed different. I shifted my shoulders. Well, it's one possibility. I've got a better one. How's this? There's this alien life form that's way ahead of us. The civilization is so old, they don't have any record of when it began or how it was in the only days. They've gone beyond things like war and depressions and revolutions and greedful power, earning these things, giving us a bad time here on Earth. They're all like scholars, get it? As some of them are pretty jolly well taken by Earth, especially the way we are right now, with all these problems, get it? Things developing so fast we don't know where we're going or how we're going to get there. I finished my beer and clapped my hands from Mooly. How do you mean where we're going? Well, take half the countries in the world today. They're trying to industrialize, modernize, catch up with the advanced countries, look at Egypt and Israel and India and China and Yugoslavia and Brazil and all the rest, trying to drag themselves up to the level of the advanced countries and all using different methods of doing it. But look at those so-called advanced countries, up to their bottoms and problems, juvenile delinquents, climbing crime and suicide rates, the loony bins full of the balmy, unemployed, fed of war, spending all their money on armaments instead of things like schools. All the bloody mess of it. Why, a man for miles would be fascinated like. Mooly came shuffling up in his babush slippers and we both ordered another schooner of beer. Paul said seriously, you know. There's only one big snag in this sort of talk. I've sorted the whole thing out before and you always come up against this brick wall. Where are they? These observers or scholars or spies or whatever they are. Sooner or later we'd name one of them, you know, Scotland Yard or the FBI or Russia's Secret Police or the French Suroutet or Interpol. This world is so deep in police, counter espionage outfits and security agents that an alien would slip up in time no matter how trained he'd been. Sooner or later he'd slip up and they'd nab him. I shook my head, not necessarily. The first time I even considered this possibility it seemed to me that such an alien would base himself in London or New York. Somewhere where he could use the libraries for research and get the daily newspapers and the magazines, be right in the center of things. But now I don't think so. I think he'd be right here in Tangier. Why Tangier? It's the one town in the world where anything goes. Nobody gives a damn about you or your affairs. For instance, I've known you a year or more now and I haven't the slightest idea how you make your living. That's right, Paul admitted. And this town you seldom even ask a man where he's from. He could be British, a white Russian, a Basque, a Sikh and no one could care less. Where are you from, Rupert? California, I told him. No, you're not, he grinned. I was taken aback. What do you mean? I felt your mind probe back a few minutes ago when I was talking about Scotland Yard or the FBI possibly fleshing out an alien. Telepathy is a sense not trained by the humanoids. If they had it, your job and mine would be considerably more difficult. Let's face it, in spite of these human bodies we're disguised in, neither of us is humanoid. Where are you really from, Rupert? Older Baron, I said. How about you? Didn't it? He told me, shaking. We had a laugh and ordered another round of beer. What are you doing here on Earth, I asked him. Researching for one of our meat truss. We're protein eaters, humanoid fleshy considered quite a delicacy. How about you? Scouting the place for thrill tourists. My job is to go around to these backward cultures and help stir up intertribal or international conflicts, all according to how advanced they are. Then our tourists come in, well shielded of course, and get their kicks watching it. Paul frowned. That sort of practice could spoil an awful lot of good meat. End of "I'm a Stranger Here Myself" by Mac Reynolds. An official message from Medicare. A new law is helping me save more money on prescription drug costs. You may be able to save too. With Medicare's extra help program, my premium is zero and my out-of-pocket costs are low. Who should apply? Single people making less than $23,000 a year, or married couples who make less than $31,000 a year. Even if you don't think you qualify, it pays to find out. Go to ssa.gov/extrahelp, paid for by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Step into the world of power, loyalty and luck. I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse. With family, canollies, and spins mean everything. Now, you wanna get mixed up in the family business. Introducing the Godfather at ChompaCasino.com. Test your luck in the shadowy world of the Godfather's slots. Someday, I will call upon you to do a service for me. 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