Chapter 2
"You understand your mission, Newton?" the voice asked. "You are to establish yourself on Earth. In time you will receive instructions. Then you will attack. You will not see us, your masters, again until the atmosphere has been sufficiently chlorinated. In the meantime, serve us well."
He stumbled out toward the docks, then looked about for Mary Ann. He saw her at last behind the ropes, her lovely face in tears.
Then she saw him. Waving frantically, she called his name several times. Pembroke mingled with the crowd moving toward the ship, ignoring her. But still the woman persisted in her shouting.
Sidling up to a well-dressed man-about-town type, Pembroke winked at him and snickered.
"You Frank?" he asked.
"Hell, no. But some poor punk's sure red in the face, I'll bet," the man-about-town said with a chuckle. "Those high-strung paramour types always raising a ruckus. They never do pass the interview. Don't know why they even make 'em."
Suddenly Mary Ann was quiet.
"Ambulance squad," Pembroke's companion explained. "They'll take her off to the buggy house for a few days and bring her out fresh and ignorant as the day she was assembled. Don't know why they keep making 'em, as I say. But I guess there's a call for that type up there on Earth."
"Yeah, I reckon there is at that," said Pembroke, snickering again as he moved away from the other. "And why not? Hey? Why not?"
Pembroke went right on hating himself, however, till the night he was deposited in a field outside of Ensenada, broke but happy, with two other itinerant types. They separated in San Diego, and it was not long before Pembroke was explaining to the police how he had drifted far from the scene of the sinking of the _Elena Mia_ on a piece of wreckage, and had been picked up by a Chilean trawler. How he had then made his way, with much suffering, up the coast to California. Two days later, his identity established and his circumstances again solvent, he was headed for Los Angeles to begin his save-Earth campaign.
* * * * *
Now, seated at his battered desk in the shabby rented office over Lemark's Liquors, Pembroke gazed without emotion at the two demolished Pacificos that lay sprawled one atop the other in the corner. His watch said one-fifteen. The man from the FBI should arrive soon.
There were footsteps on the stairs for the third time that day. Not the brisk, efficient steps of a federal official, but the hesitant, self-conscious steps of a junior clerk type.
Pembroke rose as the young man appeared at the door. His face was smooth, unpimpled, clean-shaven, without sweat on a warm summer afternoon.
"Are you Dr. Von Schubert?" the newcomer asked, peering into the room. "You see, I've got a problem--"
The four shots from Pembroke's pistol solved his problem effectively. Pembroke tossed his third victim onto the pile, then opened a can of lager, quaffing it appreciatively. Seating himself once more, he leaned back in the chair, both feet upon the desk.
He would be out of business soon, once the FBI agent had got there. Pembroke was only in it to get the proof he would need to convince people of the truth of his tale. But in the meantime he allowed himself to admire the clipping of the newspaper ad he had run in all the Los Angeles papers for the past week. The little ad that had saved mankind from God-knew-what insidious menace. It read:
ARE YOU IMPERFECT?
LET DR. VON SCHUBERT POINT OUT YOUR FLAWS
IT IS HIS GOAL TO MAKE YOU THE AVERAGE FOR YOUR TYPE
FEE--$3.75
MONEY BACK IF NOT SATISFIED!
THE END
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from _Amazing Science Fiction Stories_ January 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.