Hugo Awards: The Short Stories (Volume 1)
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1946
NOMINEES
THE WAVERIES
CORRESPONDANCE COURSE
The Ethical Equations
THE ETHICAL EQUATIONS
WHAT YOU NEED
WINNER
UNCOMMON SENSE
1951
NOMINEES
THE GNURRS COME FROM THE VOODVORK OUT
A SUBWAY NAMED MOBIUS
COMING ATTRACTION
BORN OF MAN AND WOMAN
WINNER
TO SERVE MAN
1954
NOMINEES
STAR LIGHT, STAR BRIGHT
IT’S A GOOD LIFE
THE SEVENTH VICTIM
A SAUCER OF LONELINESS
WINNER
THE NINE BILLION NAMES OF GOD
1955
WINNER
ALLAMAGOOSA
1956
WINNER
THE STAR
1958
WINNER
OR ALL THE SEAS WITH OYSTERS
1959
NOMINEES
THE MEN WHO MURDERED MOHAMMED
TRIGGERMAN
THE EDGE OF THE SEA
THE ADVENT ON CHANNEL TWELVE
THEORY OF ROCKETRY
RUMP-TITTY-TITTY-TUM-TAH-TE
SPACE TO SWING A CAT
NINE YARDS OF OTHER CLOTH
WINNER
THAT HELL-BOUND TRAIN
1960
NOMINEES
THE PI MAN
THE ALLEY MAN
THE MAN WHO LOST THE SEA
WINNER
FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON
1961
NOMINEES
MY SISTER’S BROTHER
WINNER
THE LONGEST VOYAGE
1963
NOMINEES
WHEN YOU CARE, WHEN YOU LOVE
1964
NOMINEES
CODE THREE
A ROSE FOR ECCLESIASTES
WINNER
NO TRUCE WITH KINGS
1966
NOMINEES
THE DOORS OF HIS FACE
“REPENT, HARLEQUIN!”
1967
NOMINEES
MAN IN HIS TIME
DELUSION FOR A DRAGON SLAYER
THE SECRET PLACE
MISTER JESTER
LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS
COMES NOW THE POWER
WINNER
NEUTRON STAR
1968
NOMINEES
AYE AND GORMORRAH
THE JIGSAW MAN
WINNER
I HAVE NO MOUTH
1969
NOMINEES
THE DANCE OF THE CHANGER
MASKS
ALL THE MYRIAD WAYS
WINNER
THE BEAST THAT SHOUTED LOVE
1970
NOMINEES
WINTER’S KING
NOT LONG BEFORE THE END
PASSENGERS
WINNER
TIME CONSIDERED AS A HELIX OF SEM-PRECIOUS STONES
1971
NOMINEES
BRILLO
JEAN DUPRES
CONTINUED ON NEXT ROCK
IN THE QUEUE
WINNER
SLOW SCULPTURE
1972
NOMINEES
THE BEAR WITH THE KNOT IN HIS TAIL
ALL THE LAST WARS AT ONCE
SKY
VASTER THAN EMPIRES AND MORE SLOW
THE AUTUMN LAND
WINNER
INCONSTANT MOON
1973
NOMINEES
WHEN IT CHANGED
WHEN WE WENT TO SEE THE END OF THE WORLD
WINNER
EUREMA’S DAM
THE MEETING
1974
NOMINEES
WITH MORNING COMES MISTFALL
WINGS
CONSTRUCTION SHACK
WINNER
THE ONES WHO WALK AWAY
1975
NOMINEES
THE FOUR-HOUR FUGUE
CATHADONIAN ODYSSEY
THE DAY BEFORE THE REVOLUTION
SCHWARTZ BETWEEN THE GALAXIES
WINNER
THE HOLE MAN
1976
NOMINEES
DOING LENNON
ROGUE TOMATO
SAIL THE TIDE OF MOURNING
CHILD OF ALL AGES
WINNER
CATCH THAT ZEPPELIN!
1977
NOMINEES
A CROWD OF SHADOWS
WINNER
TRI-CENTENNIAL
1978
NOMINEES
TIME-SHARING ANGEL
WINNER
JEFFTY IS FIVE
1979
NOMINEES
STONE
COUNT THE CLOCK
VIEW FROM A HEIGHT
THE VERYSLOW TIME MACHINE
WINNER
CASSANDRA
1980
NOMINEES
giANTS
UNACCOMPANIED SONATA
CAN THESE BONES LIVE?
DAISY IN THE SUN
WINNER
THE WAY OF CROSS AND DRAGON
1981
NOMINEES
SPIDERSONG
OUR LADY OF THE SAUROPODS
WINNER
THE GROTTO OF THE DANCING DEER
1982
NOMINEES
THE QUIET
ABSENT THEE FELICITY AWHILE
WINNER
THE PUSHER
1983
NOMINEES
SUR
SPIDER ROSE
THE BOY WHO WATERSKIED TO FOREVER
IKE AT THE MIKE
WINNER
MELANCHOLY ELEPHANTS
1984
NOMINEES
THE PEACEMAKER
THE SERVANT OF THE PEOPLE
WONG’S LOST AND FOUND EMPORIUM
WINNER
SPEECH SOUNDS
THE WAVERIES
Frederic Brown
Definitions from the school-abridged Webster-Hamlin Dictionary 1998 edition:
wavery (WA-ver-i) n. a vader-slang
vader (VA-der) n. inorgan of the class Radio
inorgan (in-OR-gan) n. noncorporeal ens, vader
radio(RA-di-o) n.
1. class of inorgans
2. etheric frequency between light and electricity 3. (obsolete) method of communication used up to 1977
The opening guns of invasion were not at all loud, although they were heard by millions of people. George Bailey was one of the millions. I choose George Bailey because he was the only one who came within a googol of light-years of guessing what they were.
George Bailey was drunk and under the circumstances one can't blame him for being so. He was listening to radio advertisements of the most nauseous kind. Not because he wanted to listen to them, I hardly need say, but because he'd been told to listen to them by his boss, J. R. McGee of the MID network.
George Bailey wrote advertising for the radio. The only thing he hated worse than advertising was radio. And here on his own time he was listening to fulsome and disgusting commercials on a rival network.
"Bailey," J. R. McGee had said, "you should be more familiar with what others are doing. Particularly, you should be informed about those of our own accounts who use several networks. I strongly suggest . . ."
One doesn't quarrel with an employer's strong suggestions and keep a five
hundred dollar a week job.
But one can drink whisky sours while listening. George Bailey did.
Also, between commercials, he was playing gin rummy with Maisie Hetterman, a cute little redheaded typist from the studio. It was Maisie's apartment and Maisie's radio (George himself, on principle, owned neither a radio nor a TV set) but George had brought the liquor.
"-only the very finest tobaccos," said the radio, "go dit-dit-dit nation's favorite cigarette-"
George glanced at the radio. "Marconi," he said.
He meant Morse, naturally, but the whisky sours had muddled him a bit so his first guess was more nearly right than anyone else's. It was Marconi, in a way. In a very peculiar way.
"Marconi?" asked Maisie.
George, who hated to talk against a radio, leaned over and switched it off.
"I meant Morse," he said. "Morse, as in Boy Scouts or the Signal Corps. I used to be a Boy Scout once."
"You've sure changed," Maisie said.
George sighed. "Somebody's going to catch hell, broadcasting code on that wave length."
"What did it mean?"
"Mean? Oh, you mean what did it mean. Uh- S, the letter S. Dit-dit-dit is S. SOS is did-dit-dit dah-dah-dah dit-dit-dit."
"O is dah-dah-dah?"
George grinned. "Say that again, Maisie. I like it. And I think you are dah-dah-dah too."
"George, maybe it's really an SOS message. Turn it back on."
George turned it back on. The tobacco ad was still going. "-gentlemen of the most dit-dit-dit -ing taste prefer the finer taste of dit-dit-dit arettes. In the new package that keeps them dit-dit-dit and ultra fresh-"
"It's not SOS. It's just S's."
"Like a teakettle or-say, George, maybe it's just some advertising gag."
George shook his head. "Not when it can blank out the name of the product. Just a minute till I-"
He reached over and turned the dial of the radio a bit to the right and then a bit to the left, and an incredulous look came into his face. He turned the dial to the extreme left, as far as it would go. There wasn't any station there, not even the hum of a carrier wave. But:
"Dit-dit-dit," said the radio, "dit-dit-dit."
He turned the dial to the extreme right. "Dit-dit-dit." George switched it off and stared at Maisie without seeing her, which was hard to do.
"Something wrong, George?"
"I hope so," said George Bailey. "I certainly hope so." He started to reach for another drink and changed his mind. He had a sudden hunch that something big was happening and he wanted to sober up to appreciate it. He didn't have the faintest idea how big it was. "George, what do you mean?"
"I don't know what I mean. But Maisie, let's take a run down the studio, huh? There ought to be some excitement."
April 5, 1977; that was the night the waveries came.
It had started like an ordinary evening. It wasn't one, now.
George and Maisie waited for a cab but none came so they took the subway instead. Oh yes, the subways were still running in those days. It took them within a block of the MID Network Building.
The building was a madhouse. George, grinning, strolled through the lobby with Maisie on his arm, took the elevator to the fifth floor and for no reason at all gave the elevator boy a dollar. He'd never before in his life tipped an elevator operator.
The boy thanked him. "Better stay away from the big shots, Mr. Bailey," he said. "They're ready to chew the ears off anybody who even looks at 'em."
"Wonderful," said George.
From the elevator he headed straight for the office of J. R. McGee himself.
There were strident voices behind the glass door. George reached for the knob and Maisie tried to stop him. "But George," she whispered, "you'll be fired!"
"There comes a time," said George. "Stand back away from the door, honey."
Gently but firmly he moved her to a safe position. "But George, what are you-?"
"Watch," he said.
The frantic voices stopped as he opened the door a foot. All eyes turned toward him as he stuck his head around the corner of the doorway into the room.
"Dit-dit-dit," he said. "Dit-dit-dit."
He ducked back and to the side just in time to escape the flying glass as a paperweight and an inkwell came through the pane of the door.
He grabbed Maisie and ran for the stairs.
"Now we get a drink," he told her.
The bar across the street from the network building was crowded but it was a strangely silent crowd. In deference to the fact that most of its customers were radio people it didn't have a TV set but there was a big cabinet radio and most of the people were bunched around it.
"Dit," said the radio. "Dit-dah-d'dah-dit-danditdah dit-"
"Isn't it beautiful?" George whispered to Maisie.
Somebody fiddled with the dial. Somebody asked, "What band is that?" and somebody said, "Police." Somebody said, "Try the foreign band," and somebody did. "This ought to be Buenos Aires," somebody said. "Dit-d'dah-dit-" said the radio.
Somebody ran fingers through his hair and said, "Shut that damn thing off." Somebody else turned it back on.
George grinned and led the way to a back booth where he'd spotted Pete Mulvaney sitting alone with a bottle in front of him. He and Maisie sat across from Pete.
"Hello," he said gravely.
"Hell," said Pete, who was head of the technical research staff of MID.
"A beautiful night, Mulvaney," George said. "Did you see the moon riding the fleecy clouds like a golden galleon tossed upon silver-crested whitecaps in a stormy-"
"Shut up," said Pete. "I'm thinking."
"Whisky sours," George told the waiter. He turned back to the man across the table. "Think out loud, so we can hear. But first, how did you escape the booby hatch across the street?"
"I'm bounced, fired, discharged."
"Shake hands. And then explain. Did you say dit-dit-dit to them?"
Pete looked at him with sudden admiration. "Did you?" "I've a witness. What did you do?"
"Told 'em what I thought it was and they think I'm crazy."
"Are you?"
"Yes."
"Good," said George. "Then we want to hear-" He snapped his fingers. "What about TV?"
"Same thing. Same sound on audio and the pictures flicker and dim with every dot or dash. Just a blur by now."
"Wonderful. And now tell me what's wrong. I don't care what it is, as long as it's nothing trivial, but I want to know."
"I think it's space. Space is warped."
"Good old space," George Bailey said.
"George," said Maisie, "please shut up. I want to hear this."
"Space," said Pete, "is also finite." He poured himself another drink. "You go far enough in any direction and get back where you started. Like an ant crawling around an apple."
"Make it an orange," George said.
"All right, an orange. Now suppose the first radio waves ever sent out have just made the round trip. In seventy-six years."
"Seventy-six years? But I thought radio waves traveled at the same speed as light. If that's right, then in seventy-six years they could go only seventy-six light-years, and that can't be around the universe because there are galaxies known to be millions or maybe billions of light-years away. I don't remember the figures, Pete, but our own galaxy alone is a hell of a lot bigger than seventy-six light-years."
Pete Mulvaney sighed. "That's why I say space must be warped. There's a short cut somewhere."
"That short a short cut? Couldn't be."
"But George, listen to that stuff that's coming in. Can you read code?"
"Not any more. Not that fast, anyway."
"Well, I can," Pete said. "That's early American ham. Lingo and all. That's the kind of stuff the air was full of before regular broadcasting. It's the lingo, the abbreviations, the barnyard to attic chitchat of amateurs with keys, with Marconi coherers or Fessenden barreters-and you can listen for a violin solo pretty soon now.
I'll tell you what it'll be."
"What?"
"Handel's Largo. The first phonograph record ever broadcast. Sent out by Fessenden from Brant Rock in late 1906. You'll hear his CQ-CQ any minute now. Bet you a drink."
"Okay, but what was the dit-dit-dit that started this?"
Mulvaney grinned. "Marconi, George. What was the most powerful signal ever broadcast and by whom and when?"
"Marconi? Dit-dit-dit? Seventy-six years ago?"
"Head of the class. The first transatlantic signal on December 12, 1901. For three hours Marconi's big station at Poldhu, with two-hundred-foot masts, sent out an intermittent S, dit-dit-dit, while Marconi and two assistants at St. Johns in Newfoundland got a kite-born aerial four hundred feet in the air and finally got the signal. Across the Atlantic, George, with sparks jumping from the big Leyden jars at Poldhu and 20,000-volt juice jumping off the tremendous aerials-"
"Wait a minute, Pete, you're off the beam. If that was in 1901 and the first broadcast was about 1906 it'll be five years before the Fessenden stuff gets here on the same route. Even if there's a seventy-six light-year short cut across space and even if those signals didn't get so weak en route that we couldn't hear them-it's crazy."
"I told you it was," Pete said gloomily. "Why, those signals after traveling that far would be so infinitesimal that for practical purposes they wouldn't exist. Furthermore they're all over the band on everything from microwave on up and equally strong on each. And, as you point out, we've already come almost five years in two hours, which isn't possible. I told you it was crazy."
"But-"
"Ssshh. Listen," said Pete.
A blurred, but unmistakably human voice was coming from the radio, mingling with the cracklings of code. And then music, faint and scratchy, but unmistakably a violin. Playing Handel's Largo.
Only suddenly it climbed in pitch as though modulating from key to key until it became so horribly shrill that it hurt the ear. And kept on going past the high limit of audibility until they could hear it no more.
Somebody said, "Shut that God damn thing off." Somebody did, and this time nobody turned it back on.
Pete said, "I didn't really believe it myself. And there's another thing against it, George. Those signals affect TV too, and radio waves are the wrong length to do that."
He shook his head slowly. "There must be some other explanation, George. The more I think about it now the more I think I'm wrong."
He was right: he was wrong.
"Preposterous," said Mr. Ogilvie. He took off his glasses, frowned fiercely, and put them back on again. He looked through them at the several sheets of copy paper in his hand and tossed them contemptuously to the top of his desk. They slid to rest against the triangular name plate that read: