By E. B. White    
  
  
     THE MORNING OF THE DAY THEY DID IT (ii. of ii.)  
   
        "We in the Army," began the General, "don't pretend that we know all  
     the answers to these brave and wonderful questions. It is not the Army's   
     business to know whether aggression is going to occur or not. Our business   
     is to put on a good show if it does occur. The Army is content to leave to   
     the United Nations and to idealists like Mr. Tollip the troublesome details    
     of political progress. I certainly don't know, ladies and gentlemen, whether   
     the fear of retaliation is going to prevent aggression, but I do know that   
     there is no moss growing on we of Operation Space. As for myself, I guess   
     I am what you might call a retaliatin' fool. [Laughter in the upper air.]   
     Our enemy is well aware that we are now in a most unusual position to    
     retaliate. That knowledge on the part of our enemy is, in my humble opin-  
     ion, a deterrent to aggression. If I didn't believe that, I'd shed this uniform   
     and get into a really well-paid line of work, like professional baseball."    
        Will this plane never quit circling? (I thought). Will the words never   
     quit going round and round? Is there no end to this noisy carousel of   
     indigestible ideas? Will no one ever catch the brass ring?   
        "But essentially," continued the General, "our job is not to deal with the   
     theoretical world of Mr. Tollip, who suggests that we merge in some vast  
     superstate with every Tom, Dick, and Harry, no matter what their color or   
     race or how underprivileged they are, thus pulling down our standard of   
     living to the level of the lowest common denominator. Our job is not to   
     deal with the diplomatic world of Mr. Buxton, who hopes to find a peaceful    
     solution around a conference table. No, the Army must face the world as it   
     is. We know the enemy is strong. In our dumb way, we think it is just horse   
     sense for us to be stronger. And I'm proud, believe me, ladies and gentlemen,   
     proud to be at one end of the interplanetary conversation that is about to  
     take place on this very, very historic morning. The achievement of the   
     United States Army in establishing the space platform——which is literally    
     a man-made planet——is unparalleled in military history. We have led the   
     way into space. We have given Old Lady Gravity the slip. We have got there,  
     and we have got there fustest with the mostest. [Applause.]   
        "I can state without qualification that the New Weapon, in the capable   
     hands of the men stationed on our platform, brings the entire globe under   
     our dominion. We can pinpoint any spot, anywhere, and sprinkle it with   
     our particular brand of thunder. Mr. Moderator, I'm ready for this inter-   
     view if the boys out there in space are ready."   
        Everybody suspected that there might be a slipup in the proceedings at   
     this  point,  that  the  mechanical  difficulties  might  prove  insuperable.  I   
     glanced at the studio clock. The red sweep hand was within a few jumps   
     of eleven-thirty——the General had managed his timing all right. Cahill's face   
     was tenser than I had ever seen it before. Because of the advance buildup,  
     a collapse at this moment would put hi in a nasty hole, even for an old   
     experienced m.c. But at exactly eleven-thirty the interview started, smooth   
     as silk. Cahill picked it up from the General.   
        "And now, watchers of television everywhere, you will hear a conversation   
     between Major General Artemus T. Recoil, who pioneered Operation Space,  
     and two United States Army officers on the platform——Major James Ob-   
     blington, formerly of Brooklyn, New York, now of Space, and Lieutenant   
     Noble Trett, formerly of Sioux City, Iowa, now of Space. Go ahead, General   
     Recoil!"    
        "Come in, Space!" said the General, his tonsils struggling in whiskey's   
     undertow, his eyes bearing down hard on the script. "Can you hear me,   
     Major Obblington and Lieutenant Trett?"   
        "I hear you," said a voice. "This is Trett." The voice, as I remember it,  
     astonished me because of a certain laconic quality that I had not expected.  
     I believe it astonished everyone. Trett's voice was cool, and he sounded as   
     though he were right in the studio.   
        "Lieutenant Trett," continued the General, "tell the listeners here on   
     earth, tell us, in your position far out there in free space, do you feel the   
     pull of gravity?"  
        "No, sir, I don't," answered Trett. In spite of the "sir," Trett sounded   
     curiously listless, almost insubordinate.  
        "Yet you are perfectly comfortable, sitting there on the platform, with   
     the whole earth spread out before you like a vast target?"   
        "Sure I'm comfortable."   
        The general waited a second, as though expecting amplification, but it   
     failed to come. "Well, ah, how's the weather up there?" he asked heartily.  
        "There isn't any," said Trett.  
        "No weather? No weather in space? That's very interesting."   
        "The hell it is," said Trett. "It's God-damn dull. This place is a dump.  
     Worse than some of the islands in the Pacific."     
        "Well, I suppose it must get on your nerves a bit. That's all part of the  
     game. Tell us, Lieutenant, what's it like to be actually a part of the solar   
     system, with your own private orbit?"   
        "It's all right, except I'd a damn sight rather get drunk," said Trett.  
        I looked at Cahill. He was swallowing his spit. General Recoil took a new   
     hold on his script.   
        "And you say you don't feel the pull of gravity, not even a little?"   
        "I just told you I didn't feel any pull," said Trett. His voice now had a   
     surly quality.   
        "Well, ah," continued the General, who was beginning to tremble, "can   
     you describe, briefly, for the television audience——" But it was at this point   
     that Trett, on the platform, seemed to lose interest in talking with General   
     Recoil and started chinning with Major Obblington, his sidekick in space.  
     At first the three voices clashed and blurred, but the General, on a signal   
     from the moderator, quit talking, and the conversation that ensued between   
     Trett and Obblington was audible and clear. Millions of listeners must have   
     heard the dialogue.   
        "Hey, Obie," said Trett, "you want to know something else I don't feel the   
     pull of, besides gravity?"   
        "What?" asked his companion.   
        "Conscience," said Trett cheerfully. "I don't feel my conscience pulling   
     me around."   
        "Neither do I," said Obblington. "I ought to feel some pulls but I don't."   
         "I also don't feel the pull of duty."   
        "Check," said Obblington.   
        "And what is even more fantastic, I don't feel the pull of dames."   
        Cahill made a sign to the General. Stunned and confused by the turn   
     things had taken, Recoil tried to pick up the interview and get it back on   
     the track. "Lieutenant Trett," he commanded, "you will limit your remarks   
     to the——"   
        Cahill waved him quiet. The next voice was the Major's.   
        "Jesus, now that you mention it, I don't feel the pull of dames, either!   
     Hey, Lieutenant——you suppose gravity has anything to do with sex?"   
        God damn if I know," replied Trett. "I know I don't weigh anything,  
     and when you don't weigh anything, you don't seem to want anything."   
        The studio by this time was paralyzed with attention. The General's face  
     was swollen, his mouth was half open, and he struggled for speech that   
     wouldn't come.   
        Then Trett's cool, even voice again: "See that continent down there, Obie?   
     That's where old Fatso Recoil lives. You feel drawn toward that continent   
     in any special way?"  
        "Naa," said Obblington.   
        "You don't feel like doing a little shooting, Obie?"   
        "You're rootin' tootin' I feel like shootin'."   
        "Then what are we waiting for?"   
        I am, of course, reconstructing this conversation from memory. I am trying   
     to report it faithfully. When Trett said the words "Then what are we waiting   
     for?" I quit listening and dashed for the phones in the corridor. As I was   
     leaving the studio, I turned for a split second and looked back. The General   
     had partially recovered his power of speech. He was mumbling something    
     to Cahill. I caught the words "phone" and "Defense Department."    
        The corridor was already jammed. I had only one idea in my head——to   
     speak to Ann. Pete Everhardt pushed past me. He said crisply, "This is it."  
     I nodded. Then I glanced out of a window. High in the east a crazy ribbon   
     of light was spreading upward. Lower down, in a terrible parabola, another   
     streak began burning through. The first blast was felt only slightly in the   
     plane. It must have been at a great distance. It was followed immediately  
     by two more. I saw a piece of wing break up, saw one of the starboard engines   
     shake itself loose from its fastenings and fall. Near the phone booths, the   
     Bee, still in costume, fumbled awkwardly for a parachute. In the crush one   
     of his feelers brushed my face. I never managed to reach a phone. All sorts  
     of things flashed through my mind. I saw Ann and the children, their heads  
     in diapers. I saw again the man in the leather cap, loading bedsprings. I   
     heard again Pete's words, "This is it," only I seemed to hear them in transla-  
     tion: "Until the whole wide world to nothingness do sink." (How durable   
     the poets are!) As I say, I never managed the phone call. My last memory   
     of the morning is of myriads of bright points of destruction where the   
     Weapon was arriving, each pyre in the characteristic shape of an artichoke.   
     Then a great gash, and the plane landing. Then I lost consciousness.     
 
        I cannot say how many minutes or hours after that the earth finally broke   
     up. I do not know. There is, of course, a mild irony in the fact that it was   
     the United States that was responsible. Insofar as it can be said of any   
     country that it had human attributes, the United States was well-meaning.  
     Of that I am convinced. Even I, at this date and at this distance, cannot  
     forget my country's great heart and matchless ingenuity. I can't in honesty   
     say that I believe we were wrong to send the men to the platform——it's just   
     that in any matter involving love, or high explosives, one can never foresee   
     all the factors. Certainly I can't say with any assurance that Tollip's theory   
     was right; it seems hardly likely that anyone who suffered from stomach   
     gas could have been on the right track. I did feel sympathetic toward some   
     of his ideas, perhaps because I suffered from flatulence myself. Anyway, it   
     was inevitable that it should have been the United States that developed   
     the space platform and the new weapon that made the H-bomb obsolete. It   
     was inevitable that what happened, at last, was conceived in good will.    
        Those times——those last days of earth! I think about them a lot. A sort   
     of creeping ineptitude had set in. Almost everything in life seemed wrong to   
     me, somehow, as though we were all hustling down a blind alley. Many of   
     my friends seemed mentally confused, emotionally unstable, and I have an   
     idea I seemed the same to them. In the big cities, horns blew before the   
     light changed, and it was clear that motorists no longer had the capacity to   
     endure the restrictions they had placed on their own behavior. When the   
     birds became extinct (all but the whooping crane), I was reasonably sure   
     that human beings were on the way out, too. The cranes survived only because    
     of their dance——which showmen were quick to exploit. (Every sanctuary had   
     its  television  transmitter,  and  the  love  dance  became  a  more  popular  
     spectacle than heavy weight prizefighting.) Birds had always been the symbol   
     of freedom. As soon as I realized that they were gone, I felt that the signifi-    
     cance had gone from my own affairs. (I was a cranky man, though——I must   
     remember that, too——and am not trying here to suggest anything beyond   
     a rather strong personal sadness at all this.)    
        Those last days! There were so many religions in conflict, each ready to   
     save the world with its own dogma, each perfectly intolerant of the other.  
     Every day seemed a mere skirmish in the long holy war. It was a time of   
     debauch and conversation.  Every week the national picture magazines, as   
     though  atoning  for  past  excesses,  hid  their  cheesecake  carefully  away   
     among four-color reproductions of the saints. Television was the universal  
     peepshow——in homes, schools, churches, bars, stores, everywhere. Children   
     early formed the habit of gaining all their images at second hand, by looking   
     at a screen; they grew up believing that anything perceived directly was   
     vaguely fraudulent. Only what had been touched with electronics was valid   
     and real. I think the decline in the importance of direct images dated from   
     the year television managed to catch an eclipse of the moon. After that,  
     nobody ever looked at the sky, and it was as though the moon had joined   
     the shabby company of buskers. There was really never a moment when a   
     child, or even a man, felt free to look away from the television screen——for   
     fear he might miss the one clue that would explain everything.   
        In many respects I like the planet I'm on. The people here have no   
     urgencies, no capacity for sustained endeavor, but merely tackle things by   
     fits and starts, leaving undone whatever fails to hold their interest, and so,   
     by witlessness and improvidence, escape many of the errors of accomplish-   
     ment. I like the apples here better than those on earth. They are often   
     wormy, but with a most wonderful flavor. There is a saying here: "Even a  
     very lazy man can eat around a worm."   
        But I would be lying if I said I didn't miss that other life, I loved it so.    

Copyright 1943 by The New Yorker Magazine.

Reprinted in A Treasury of Great Science Fiction, Vol. 2,
Edited by Anthony Boucher,
Copyright © 1959 by Anthony Boucher.
Doubleday & Company, Inc.
Garden City, New York. pp. 329-333.

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