Alie

“ Earth held no new thrills. But in the possession of this new, alien body he felt promises of strange, exotic joys.
A lawless exultation rose in him. He was a man without a world, free of all conventions or inhibitions of Earth, or of this strange planet, free of every artificial restraint in the universe. He was a god! With grim amusement he thought of his body moving in earth's business and society, with all the while an alien monster staring out of the windows that were George Campbell's eyes on people who would flee if they knew. ”

“ Thus when an atmosphere, Alien by chance to us, begins to heave, And noxious airs begin to crawl along, They creep and wind like unto mist and cloud, Slowly, and everything upon their way They disarrange and force to change its state. ”

“ The lute alone, and not the voices low
That sang of old to some forgotten touch.
The lamp I give, but not the glimmering flame
Some alien fire must light, some alien dusk
Enisle, ere it illume your land and sea.
The shell I give you, Ares, not the song
Of murmuring winds and waves once haunting it;
The cage, but not love’s wings that come and go. ”

“ More and more, besides, face to face with his little legion, reading over endless histories, handling the empty shells and playing with the silence—more and more he could see that he had never introduced an alien. ”

“ So that's the source of life, strength, what-have-you, of the aliens! They must have gotten pretty frantic out in the space wastes, looking for a planet that could afford them a life form that was tap-able. ”

“ But how, if the alien nature contradicts his own, fights with it, perplexes, and confounds it? How, again, if not one alien nature, but two, but three, but four, but five, are introduced within what once he thought the inviolable sanctuary of himself? ”

“ Lay beneath us as though death had reached out of the unknown to annihilate suddenly all living things upon this alien world, leaving in it only the cold and the silence and the death that enwrapped it now! Neptune—we had flown across the awful void toward it for week upon week, prepared to find within it any strange beings, any alien and terrible form of life, but never had we been prepared to find it without any life whatever—an utterly lifeless world! ”

“ As they managed to battle their way in through the lock, they looked bewildered for a moment, and then all of them, released from the frenzy of hate, collapsed into unconsciousness.
We were a bloody mess, every one of us, but not one of us was seriously hurt. The Aliens had outsmarted themselves. While I had looked like one of them, those parts of me—like my eye stalks—that had seemed to be most vulnerable, so that the Earthmen had gone after them, had turned out to be things like ears and noses. ”

“ The age-old creature lay flat upon the soft, caressing sand, the keen, sensitive impulse of its alien intelligence reaching out—probing the subconscious minds of the two sleeping Earthians! And it quivered and tensed as wave after wave of maddening terror swept through its being! ”

“ Here is a bulletin just handed to me. A Monolithian spokesman disclosed today that the first two-dozen aliens who landed on Earth have been joined by at least two hundred—I repeat, at least two hundred—more. ”

“ The long residential vistas I have named were within a quarter of an hour’s walk, but the alien was as truly in possession, under the high “aristocratic” nose, as if he had had but three steps to come. If it be asked why, the alien still striking you so as an alien, the singleness of impression, throughout the place, should still be so marked, the answer, close at hand, would seem to be that the alien himself fairly makes the singleness of impression. ”

“ On alien seraphim that seek with desperate wings,
Flown from their dying orb, the confines of thy heaven;
Yea, still thy whisper moves, and magically stirs
To life the shapeless dust in shattered sepulchers ”

“ The sun grew too distant to be of use, and out of the old Moon, the Pyramid aliens built a new small sun in the sky—a five-year sun that burned out and was replaced, again and again and endlessly again. ”

“ I found that I had a problem—I couldn't figure which one of my three stumpy legs to start walking with. I extended all my eyes and examined myself. I looked like an Alien wearing a checked kilt.
Unhappily, I tried to lick my labial fringes with my tongue—and suddenly realized that I had no tongue! It was an unnerving realization, even to me. But then I knew why the Aliens were transmitting hatred of themselves; any Earthman who knew what an Alien looked like would attack me on sight. ”

“ It almost never connotes anything alien.
It's as if the Monolithian philosophy has been thoroughly absorbed into our culture, while the aliens themselves have retreated into the background, content to keep a paternalistic eye on us. ”

“ The day was coming, not too many years away, when the first of the aliens would strike the Outer worlds. Then we would unite—on the League's terms if need be—to crush the invaders and establish mankind as the supreme race in the galaxy. ”

“ Nobody had ever seen an Alien—they invariably exploded to dust before they could be captured—but the horror of their senseless brutality was revealed in the hideous human corpses they left behind them.
Norden had been drafted while there was still optimism. Men could build a hundred ships to the Aliens' one, equally radar-proof, free from danger of magnetic or electronic detection, and nearly invisible in space. ”

“ Because of the latter half-memory, the people knew, without knowing why, that the slivers of light in the sky were ships, but there was not even a word in the language to name them.
The myriad voices of the planet, they cried, or whispered, or chattered in awed voices under the elms....
The piping whine of a senile hag: "The ancient gods! The day of the judging! Repent, repent...."
The panting gasp of a frightened fat man: "The alien! We're lost, we're lost! We've got to run for the hills!" ”

“ If he had been strapped to the table by unfamiliar aliens, if the scent of alien flesh—or non-flesh—had been strong in the room, if the fingers—or appendages—which greased his temples and clamped an electrode to each one had not felt like human fingers, if the men talking to him had spoken in voices too harsh or too sibilant for human vocal chords—if all that had been the case whatever composure still remained his would have vanished. ”

“ We feared the strange creatures from the alien craft. We did not kill them, but we felt it was as well they ... did not survive. Then, when the warships came, we realized our error. But we feared to speak. ”

“ Like all myths, they are partly true and partly false. I am neither god nor demon, but a being who came to Mars from another universe in former cycles. Though I am not immortal, my span of life is far longer than that of any creature evolved by the worlds of your solar system. I am governed by alien biologic laws, with periods of alternate slumber and wakefulness that involve centuries. ”

“ And these pictures positively, absolutely could not lie!
The man from the News asked, "What do you think of the aliens, Mister Nathen? Are they friendly? Do they look human?"
"Very human," said the thin young man. ”

“ Then he would either confess everything or—if the Monolithians were actually a race with a common, interlocking intelligence, as some people suspected—he would make a decision in Earth's favor which would be binding on all the other aliens. ”

“ There was never an official estimate of the deaths, but it was certain that well over three thousand of the aliens lost their lives before ever tasting a drop of cool Earth water, or knowing the shade of an Earth tree, the peaceful blue of an Earth sky. ”

“ Mighty battles between huge space armadas were but skirmishes in the galactic war, as the invincible aliens savagely advanced and the Earth team hurled bolt after bolt of pure ravening energy—until it appeared that the universe itself might end in one final flare of furious torrential power.... ”

“ And now it was sacred ground because the aliens were there too. The aliens, the only other intelligent race in the Galaxy ... cruel, hideous and repulsive monsters.
Contact had been made with them near the center of the Galaxy, after the slow, difficult colonization of a dozen thousand planets; and it had been war at sight; they'd shot without even trying to negotiate, or to make peace. ”

“ Aliens of a philosophic turn of mind, after passing through the state of surprise, not so much, even, at their being this or that, as at their being content or able to continue to be both at once, turned to looking for reasons. ”

“ The Aliens work by mental control. We've had everyone brought into this building, have double-checked them, and have sealed the doors with a time lock. It turned out that one of the men was missing—we'd only imagined he was among us when we assembled.
"We scoured the planet before we landed and saw no signs of the Aliens. We've seen no Alien ships land since we arrived. We have no idea where they are, except that there's one sizable area not far from here that we can't seem to penetrate. The only evidence we have that the Aliens arrived after we did is that they told us so. ”

“ The outward ways of wonder I have trod
Through alien lives ineffable. But none
Hath held the troublous marvel and surprise
That gleams and trembles in thy slightest nod,
Or sleeps between thy eyelids and thine eyes. ”

“ The traveller has to knock at every alien door to come to his own, and one has to wander through all the outer worlds to reach the innermost shrine at the end. ”

“ Stranger, where goest thou, in the sad raiment of a pilgrim, with shattered sandals retaining the dust and mire of so many devious ways! With thy brow that alien suns have darkened, and thy hair made white from the cold rime of alien moons? Wanderest thou in search of the cities greater than Rome, with walls of opal and crystal, and fanes more white than the summer clouds, or the foam of hyperboreal seas? ”

“ The alien corn was bad, but still she had always been used to that; but the alien paddy, the alien maize, is more disheartening, to say nothing of the alien people, when I want so very much to be with you, with whom I could find nothing alien. I know we shall die of old age before we meet again. ”

“ A boy-scout called at the house and produced an official paper asking for the names and addresses of any aliens who might be residing in the house. We have one such alien, a German maid for the children, a most unwarlike and inoffensive alien. ”

“ Long before the five-hour examination was over, the hopes of Technicist 9th Class Narant far transcended any he had experienced in the past three months. The aliens had almost human potential. They were fun-loving, kindly, clannish. ”

“ We were specially trained in techniques for establishing mental contact with alien intelligent life forms. Well, we found some planets with life upon them, all right. But it was primitive life, not worth bothering about. ”

“ 'Is that question in the interests of science, too?' 'It would be,' he said, without taking notice of my irritation, 'interesting for science to watch the mental changes of individuals, on the spot, but...' 'Are you an alienist?' I interrupted. ”

“ The strong man in his strength when confronted by this alien invasion [86] can battle with it, or when the contest is hopeless, he can retire before it. The world is open to him, and in other lands beyond the seas he may find that fair field for his energies which is denied him in the land of his birth. ”

“ It was at times like these that this young man, born into a chaotic world of alien beings intent upon inexplicable courses of action, inspired by unknown and possibly sinister ideals, was upon the point of dashing his head with maniac energy against those heavy ancient stones which, by comparison, seemed less foreign to his distracted soul. ”

“ They had wooed Earth with understanding patience and superlative guile—and Earth had fallen into their hands like a lovesick virgin! There never had been any real opposition, and what there was had been completely ineffective. Most of those who had opposed the aliens were out of circulation, imprisoned in correctional institutions, undergoing rehabilitation. ”

“ Mankind is faced with such a possibility in this unusual science fiction novel. In a future age of interplanetary travel new worlds and alien races are awaiting discovery and a decision must be made. Who will be the first interstellar explorers—and make the first alien contact? ”

“ But under it all they were men, penetrating the land of desolation and mockery and silence, puny adventurers bent on colossal adventure, pitting themselves against the might of a world as remote and alien and pulseless as the abysses of space. ”

“ I think that never in all space and time could there have been a moment as strange as that one, when the mighty fleet of our galaxy lay prow to prow with this other mighty fleet from the dark, unguessed mysteries of outer space. All about us lay the cold, lightless blackness of the eternal void, with the great galaxy's colossal rampart of flaming suns stretched across the heavens behind us alone blazing in that blackness, the great Cancer cluster at its edge, just behind us, flaming with all the glory of its mass of gathered suns. ”

“ In the glowing globe now appeared our universe, a great galaxy of stars floating in space like their own. Swiftly, with shifting thoughts, I showed them its throngs of peopled worlds, the traffic that swept between its suns, the ordered life of its teeming, dissimilar races. Then as my thoughts shifted again they saw the first five thousand serpent-ships rushing in upon that galaxy, destroying all our fleet and settling upon the suns and worlds of the Cancer cluster, saw us fleeing inward and then turning to capture one of the serpent-ships by boarding it in mid-space. ”

“ Trained in the precise methods of the physical sciences, he had long fought against the fascination of the immense puzzles which the archeologists were trying to solve, but no man could long escape. In the quiet, starlit blackness there rang the ancient memories of a planet vibrant with life, a planet of strange tongues and unknown songs—a planet that had died so violently that space was yet strewn with its remains—so violently that somewhere the echo of its death explosion must yet ring in the far vaults of space. ”