50 in 50

"How is it you speak English so well?" Gwenn said.

"That comes later too, if you will bear with me." He strolled back and forth, marking his points on his fingers. "Firstly, I come from a distant planet around a sun a good number of parsecs from here. We're doing a survey and I was assigned this section of the galaxy. When I first saw your world I was most impressed. Green, as you can well imagine, is a favorite color of ours. I set the recorders rolling and made as complete a record as I could in a limited time. That would be a bit over two hundred of your years."

"You don't look that old," Gwenn said.

"Different life spans, you know. I won't tempt your credibility by giving my real age."

"I'm twenty-two," she said.

"How very nice. Now, if I might continue. I recorded everything as I have been trained to do, learned a few of your languages — I do pride myself on a certain linguistic ability — and bit by bit I came to a singularly horrifying realization. The human race is — was I should say a rather nasty piece of work."

"You're not much of a charmer yourself either, Greeny," Frank called out. Horace chose to ignore the outburst.

"By that I mean to say yours is a most successful race, strong, intelligent, fertile, most successful indeed. It was the way that you obtained that success that was so frightening. You are killers."

"Survival," Frank said firmly. "We had no other choice. Eat or be eaten, kill or be killed. Survival of the fittest."

"I'll not argue with that. There is of course only one way for any race to survive and I appreciate the point. It's what a race does after it has taken over a world that interests me. Ours became the dominant race on our planet many aeons ago. Since then we have preserved the other species, the rule of peace and law has prevailed. Whilst your people, while wiping out the other species, were still not satisfied and continued to kill one another as well. I found it most depressing?"

"No one asked your opinion," Frank said.

"Of course. But I still know what I observed and it not only depressed me, but made me worried as well. My planet is not that distant; astronomically speaking; and it was within reason that you might find us one day. And if you did you would probably try to kill us as well."

"I don't think there is much chance of that now.” Gwenn said, dropping into the swing and looking unhappy once again.

"Yes, it may be a theoretical point now, but it must be considered nevertheless. So there was I, an intelligent and peaceful individual, a vegetarian who would never consider harming as much as a fly, there was I worrying about the possible destruction of my world. It was a moral dilemma as you can see.”

"No I can't," Frank said, shaking his head. Then he snapped his head up. "Say — did you have anything to do with what happened to the world?"

"I'll get to that in a moment."

"A simple yes or no now will do."

"Nothing is ever that simple. Please hear me out. It was most dramatic you see, for there I was firmly mounted on the horns of this dilemma. And no one to help me decide. The voyage home is quite a long one and by the time I would have made it and consulted with my superiors and they had made their minds up, well you people might very well have made your own starships and have been on the way to visit us. No, I had to make my mind up right there and then. If I did nothing you would build your ships and come and destroy us. There I was, a creature of peace, thinking the unthinkable."

"You did blow up the world!" Frank said, striding forward.

"Please! No violence!" Horace said, raising his hands and shying away. "I can't stand violence.” Frank stopped, wanting to hear the rest, yet his fists were still clenched. "Thank you, Frank. As I was saying I was thinking the unthinkable. I could not resort to violence to make peace — or could I? If I did nothing my people would be destroyed. So it came down to a choice between which race was to survive. Yours or mine. So of course when it was phrased that way the answer was clear. Mine. Since we are far older and more intelligent, generally more interesting and attractive than you are. And peaceful."

"So you blew up our world," Frank said in a low voice.

"That wasn't very peaceful," Gwenn said.

"No I suppose that it wasn't. But it was just an isolated case, really. After a great many centuries of peace in the past, and of course many more to come in the future."

"Why are you here?" Frank asked. "Why are you telling us this?"

"Why — to apologize of course. I'm very sorry it had to work out like this."

"Not half as sorry as we are, you bright green son of a bitch."

"Well if I thought you weren't going to be gentlemanly about it I wouldn't have come."

Frank lunged forward, but Gwenn came between them stopping him.

"Frank, please," she begged. "I can't bear the thought of any more violence. I shall scream. And you did this all by yourself, Mr. Horace?"

"Horace, a forename, if you please. Yes I did. I take all of the responsibility."