Those Eyes

 “How many thousands of people would've worked on that alien ship since '48? Picture these retired coots, playing golf, puttering in the garage, running Rotary fundraisers .... and all this time repressing the urge to blab the story of the century?

 “All of 'em? In today's America? Come on, friend. Let's put aside this Hangar 18 crap and get back to UFOs, where at least there's something worth arguing about!

*

I yearn to swoop down and give this talk-show scientist a taste of “proof.” I will curdle the milk on his doorstep and give him nightmares. I'll play havoc with his utilities. I will...

 I'll do nothing. I don't wish to see this golden ship evaporate like dew on a summer's morn. Our numbers are too small and Fyrfalcon has decreed -- we must show ourselves only to receptive ones, whose minds can still be molded in the old ways.

 I look up at the moon's stark, cratered landscape. Our home of refuge, of exile. Even there, they followed us, these New Men. An ectoplasmic vapor is all that remains where some of our kind once tried putting fright to their explorers. We learned a hard lesson then -- that astronauts are not like argonauts of old.

 Their eyes were filled with that mad, skeptical glow, and none can stand before it.

*

“This is Professor Joe Perez, sitting in for Talkback Larry. You're on the air.

 “Yes? Uh huh?... Well folks, seems our next caller wants to talk about so-called Ancient Visitors. I'm game. Let's pick apart those 'gods' and their fabulous chariots.

 “Ooh, they taught ancient Egyptians to build pyramids! And golly, they had some of my own ancestors scratch stick figures on a stony plateau in Peru! To help spaceships find landing pads, right? I guess the notion's barely plausible, till you ask... why?

 “Why would anyone want such ridiculous “landing pads,” when they could've had much better? Why not open a small trade college and teach our ancestors to pour cement? A few electronics classes and we could've made arc lamps and radar to guide their saucers through anything from rain to locusts!

 “... What? They were here to help us? Well thanks a lot, you alien gods you! Thanks for neglecting to mention flush toilets, printing presses, democracy, or the germ theory of disease!  Or ecology, leaving us to ruin half the planet before finally catching on!  Hell, if someone had just shown us how to make simple glass lenses, we could've done the rest. How much ignorance and misery we'd have escaped!

 “You'd credit human innovations like architecture and poetry, physics and empathy, to aliens? ... Really? ... Well I say you insult our poor foremothers and dads, who crawled from the muck, battling superstition and ignorance every step of the way, until we may at last be ready to clean up our act and look the universe in the eye. No, friend. If there were ancient astronauts, we owe them nada, zip, nothing!

 “... What's that? ... Well the same to you, pal ... No, forget it. I don't want to talk to you anymore. Go worship silly, meddlesome star-gods if you want to. Next caller, please.”

*

Although we barely understand its principles, we approve of this innovation, radio. It is like the ancient campfire, friendly to gossip and tall tales.

 But tonight this fellow vexes me. His voice plucks the air-streams, sharper than glass, more searing than iron. He asks why we did not teach useful things, back when humans were as children in our hands! Ungrateful wretch. What are baubles such as lenses, compared to what we once gave men? Vividness! Mystery! Terror!  Make one night seem to last a hundred years, and what cared some poor peasant about mere plagues or pestilence?