Bill Brown - The Star Ducks

THE STAR DUCKS

Bill Brown
Science fiction is not, in general, unduly tender towards the human
race: its attitude to homo sapiens, sorrowful at best, tends at the
worst to be positively scathing. Now and again, however, the genre
does relax a little to show certain individuals floating serene, self-
sufficient and completely oblivious in the full glare of the eye of
eternity. Of such are the Alsops. The silence of the infinite spaces
means nothing to them, and never could: they eat the fowl, give the
bones to the dog, and are stolidly helpful about cameras. One may
deeply sympathise with Rafferty, but on the other hand… how nice
to be the Alsops!

Ward Rafferty's long, sensitive newshawk's nose alerted him for a

hoax as soon as he saw the old Alsop place. There was no crowd of
curious farmers standing around, no ambulance.
Rafferty left The Times press car under a walnut tree in the drive
and stood for a moment noting every detail with the efficiency that
made him The Times' top reporter. The old Alsop house was brown,
weathered, two-storey with cream-coloured filigree around the
windows and a lawn that had grown up to weeds. Out in back were
the barn and chicken houses and fences that were propped up with
boards and pieces of pipe. The front gate was hanging by one hinge

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but it could be opened by lifting it. Rafferty went in and climbed the
steps, careful for loose boards.
Mr. Alsop came out on the porch to meet him. "Howdy do," he said.
Rafferty pushed his hat back on his head the way he always did
before he said: "I'm Rafferty of The Times." Most people knew his
by-line and he liked to watch their faces when he said it.
"Rafferty?" Mr. Alsop said, and Rafferty knew he wasn't a Times
reader.
"I'm a reporter," Rafferty said. "Somebody phoned in and said an
airplane cracked up around here."
Mr. Alsop looked thoughtful and shook his head slowly.
"No," he said.
Rafferty saw right away that Alsop was a slow thinker so he gave
him time, mentally pegging him a taciturn Yankee. Mr. Alsop
answered again, "Noooooooooooo."
The screen door squeaked and Mrs. Alsop came out. Since Mr.
Alsop was still thinking, Rafferty repeated the information for Mrs.
Alsop, thinking she looked a little brighter than her husband. But
Mrs. Alsop shook her head and said, "Nooooooooooo," in exactly
the same tone Mr. Alsop had used.
Rafferty turned around with his hand on the porch railing ready to
go down the steps.
"I guess it was a phony tip," he said. "We get lots of them.
Somebody said an airplane came down in your field this morning,
straight down trailing fire."

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Mrs. Alsop's face lighted up. "Ohhhhhhhhhh!" she said. "Yes, it did
but it wasn't wrecked. Besides, it isn't really an airplane. That is, it
doesn't have wings on it."
Rafferty stopped with his foot in the air over the top step. "I beg
your pardon?" he said. "An airplane came down? And it didn't have
wings?"
"Yes," Mrs. Alsop said. "It's out there in the barn now. It belongs to
some folks who bend iron with a hammer."
This, Rafferty thought, begins to smell like news again.
"Oh, a helicopter," he said.
Mrs. Alsop shook her head. "No, I don't think it is. It doesn't have
any of those fans. But you can go out to the barn and have a look.
Take him out, Alfred. Tell him to keep on the walk because it's
muddy."
"Come along," Mr. Alsop said brightly. "I'd like to look the
contraption over again myself."
Rafferty followed Mr. Alsop around the house on the board walk
thinking he'd been mixed up with some queer people in his work,
some crackpots and some screwballs, some imbeciles and some
lunatics, but for sheer dumbness, these Alsops had them all beat.
"Got a lot of chickens this year," Mr. Alsop said. "All fine stock.
Minorcas. Sent away for roosters and I've built a fine flock. But do
you think chickens'll do very well up on a star, Mr. Rafferty?"
Rafferty involuntarily looked up at the sky and stepped off the
boards into the mud.
"Up on a what?"

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"I said up on a star." Mr. Alsop had reached the barn door and was
trying to shove it open. "Sticks," he said. Rafferty put his shoulder
to it and the door slid. When it was open a foot, Rafferty looked
inside and he knew he had a story.
The object inside looked like a giant plastic balloon only half
inflated so that it was globular on top and its flat bottom rested on
the straw-covered floor. It was just small enough to go through the
barn door. Obviously it was somebody's crackpot idea of a space
ship, Rafferty thought. The headline that flashed across his mind in
thirty-six point Bodoni was "Local Farmer Builds Rocket Ship For
Moon Voyage."
"Mr. Alsop," Rafferty said hopefully, "you didn't build this thing,
did you?"
Mr. Alsop laughed. "Oh, no, I didn't build it. I wouldn't know how
to build one of those things. Some friends of ours came in it. Gosh, I
wouldn't even know how to fly one."
Rafferty looked at Mr. Alsop narrowly and he saw the man's face
was serious.
"Just who are these friends of yours, Mr. Alsop?" Rafferty asked
cautiously.
"Well, it sounds funny," Mr. Alsop said, "but I don't rightly know.
They don't talk so very good. They don't talk at all. All we can get
out of them is that their name is something about bending iron with
a hammer."
Rafferty had been circling the contraption, gradually drawing closer
to it. He suddenly collided with something he couldn't see. He said

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"ouch" and rubbed his shin.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you, Mr. Rafferty," Mr. Alsop said, "they got a
gadget on it that won't let you get near, some kind of a wall you
can't see. That's to keep boys away from it."
"These friends of yours, Mr. Alsop, where are they now?"
"Oh, they're over at the house," Mr. Alsop said. "You can see them
if you want to. But I think you'll find it pretty hard talking to them."
"Russians?" Rafferty asked.
"Oh, no, I don't think so. They don't wear cossacks."
"Let's go," Rafferty said in a low voice and led the way across the
muddy barnyard toward the house.
"These folks come here the first time about six years ago," Mr.
Alsop said. "Wanted some eggs. Thought maybe they could raise
chickens up where they are. Took 'em three years to get home. Eggs
spoiled. So the folks turned right around and come back. This time I
fixed 'em up a little brooder so they can raise chickens on the way
home." He suddenly laughed. "I can just see that little contraption
way out there in the sky full of chickens."
Rafferty climbed up on the back porch ahead of Mr. Alsop and went
through the back door into the kitchen. Mr. Alsop stopped him
before they went into the living room.
"Now, Mr. Rafferty, my wife can talk to these people better than I
can, so anything you want to know you better ask her. Her and the
lady get along pretty good."
"Okay," Rafferty said. He pushed Mr. Alsop gently through the
door into the living room, thinking he would play along, act naive.

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Mrs. Alsop sat in an armchair close to a circulating heater. Rafferty

saw the visitors sitting side by side on the davenport, he saw them
waving their long, flexible antennae delicately, he saw their
lavender faces as expressionless as glass, the round eyes that
seemed to be painted on.
Rafferty clutched the door facings and stared.
Mrs. Alsop turned toward him brightly.
"Mr. Rafferty," she said, "these are the people that came to see us in
that airplane." Mrs. Alsop raised her finger and both the strangers
bent their antennae down in her direction.
"This is Mr. Rafferty," Mrs. Alsop said. "He's a newspaper reporter.
He wanted to see your airplane."
Rafferty managed to nod and the strangers curled up their antennae
and nodded politely. The woman scratched her side with her left
claw.
Something inside Rafferty's head was saying, you're a smart boy,
Rafferty, you're too smart to be taken in. Somebody's pulling a
whopping, skilful publicity scheme, somebody's got you down for a
sucker. Either that or you're crazy or drunk or dreaming.
Rafferty tried to keep his voice casual. "What did you say their
names are, Mrs. Alsop?"
"Well, we don't know," Mrs. Alsop said. "You see they can only
make pictures for you. They point those funny squiggly horns at
you and they just think. That makes you think, too - the same thing
they're thinking. I asked them what their name is and then I let them
think for me. All I saw was a picture of the man hammering some

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iron on an anvil. So I guess their name is something like Man-Who-

Bends-Iron. Maybe it's kind of like an Indian name."
Rafferty looked slyly at the people who bent iron and at Mrs. Alsop.
"Do you suppose," he said innocently, "they would talk to me-or
think to me?" Mrs. Alsop looked troubled.
"They'd be glad to, Mr. Rafferty. The only thing is, it's pretty hard at
first. Hard for you, that is."
"I'll try it," Rafferty said. He took out a cigarette and lighted it. He
held the match until it burned his fingers. "Just throw it in the coal
bucket," Mr. Alsop said. Rafferty threw the match in the coal
bucket. "Ask these things… ah… people where they come from," he
said.
Mrs. Alsop smiled. "That's a very hard question. I asked them that
before but I didn't get much of a picture. But I'll ask them again."
Mrs. Alsop raised her finger and both horns bent toward her and
aimed directly at her head.
"This young man," Mrs. Alsop said in a loud voice like she was
talking to someone hard of hearing, "wants to know where you
people come from."
Mr. Alsop nudged Rafferty. "Just hold up your finger when you
want your answer."
Rafferty felt like a complete idiot but he held up his finger. The
woman whose husband bends iron bent her antenna down until it
focussed on Rafferty between the eyes. He involuntarily braced
himself against the door facings. Suddenly his brain felt as though it
were made of rubber and somebody was wringing and twisting and

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pounding it all out of shape and moulding it back together again

into something new. The terror of it blinded him. He was flying
through space, through a great white void. Stars and meteors
whizzed by and a great star, dazzling with brilliance, white and
sparkling stood there in his mind and then it went out. Rafferty's
mind was released but he found himself trembling, clutching the
door facings. His burning cigarette was on the floor. Mr. Alsop
stooped and picked it up.
"Here's your cigarette, Mr. Rafferty. Did you get your answer?"
Rafferty was white.
"Mr. Alsop!" he said. "Mrs. Alsop! This is on the level. These
creatures are really from out there in space somewhere!"
Mr. Alsop said: "Sure, they come a long way."
"Do you know what this means?" Rafferty heard his voice
becoming hysterical and he tried to keep it calm. "Do you know this
is the most important thing that has ever happened in the history of
the world? Do you know this is… yes, it is, it's the biggest story in
the world and it's happening to me, do you understand?" Rafferty
was yelling. "Where's your phone?"
"We don't have a telephone," Mr. Alsop said. "There's one down at
the filling station. But these people are going to go in a few minutes.
Why don't you wait and see them off? Already got their eggs and
the brooder and feed on board."
"No!" Rafferty gasped. "They can't go in a few minutes! Listen, I've
got to phone - I've got to get a photographer!"
Mrs. Alsop smiled.

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"Well, Mr. Rafferty, we tried to get them to stay over for supper but
they have to go at a certain time. They have to catch the tide or
something like that."
"It's the moon," Mr. Alsop said with authority. "It's something about
the moon being in the right place."
The people from space sat there demurely, their claws folded in
their laps, their antennae neatly curled to show they weren't
eavesdropping on other people's minds.
Rafferty looked frantically around the room for a telephone he knew
wasn't there. Got to get Joe Pegley at the city desk, Rafferty
thought. Joell know what to do. No, no, Joe would say you're drunk.
But this is the biggest story in the world, Rafferty's brain kept
saying. It's the biggest story in the world and you just stand here.
"Listen, Alsop!" Rafferty yelled. "You got a camera? Any kind of a
camera. I got to have a camera!"
"Oh, sure," Mr. Alsop said. "I got a fine camera. It's a box camera
but it takes good pictures. I'll show you some I took of my
chickens."
"No, no! I don't want to see your pictures. I want the camera!"
Mr. Alsop went into the parlour and Rafferty could see him
fumbling around on top of the organ.
"Mrs. Alsop!" Rafferty shouted. "I've got to ask lots of questions!"
"Ask away," Mrs. Alsop said cheerily. "They don't mind."
But what could you ask people from space? You got their names.
You got what they were here for: eggs. You got where they were

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from…
Mr. Alsop's voice came from the parlour.
"Ethel, you seen my camera?"
Mrs. Alsop sighed. "No, I haven't. You put it away."
"Only trouble is," Mr. Alsop said, "haven't got any films for it."
Suddenly the people from space turned their antennae toward each
other for a second and apparently coming to a mutual agreement,
got up and darted here and there about the room as quick as
fireflies, so fast Rafferty could scarcely see them. They scuttered
out the door and off toward the barn. All Rafferty could think was:
"My God, they're part bug!"
Rafferty rushed out the door, on toward the barn through the mud,
screaming at the creatures to stop. But before he was half-way there
the gleaming plastic contraption slid out of the barn and there was a
slight hiss. The thing disappeared into the low hanging clouds.
All there was left for Rafferty to see was a steaming place in the
mud and a little circle of burnt earth. Rafferty sat down in the mud,
a hollow, empty feeling in his middle, with the knowledge that the
greatest story in the world had gone off into the sky. No pictures, no
evidence, no story. He dully went over in his mind the information
he had :
"Mr. and Mrs. Man-Who-Bends-Iron…" It slowly dawned on
Rafferty what that meant. Smith! Man-Who-Bends-Iron on an anvil.
Of course that was Smith… "Mr. and Mrs. Smith visited at the
Alfred Alsop place Sunday. They returned to their home in the
system of Alpha Centauri with two crates of hatching eggs."

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Rafferty got to his feet and shook his head. He stood still in the mud
and suddenly his eyes narrowed and you knew that the Rafferty
brain was working-that Rafferty brain that always came up with the
story. He bolted for the house and burst in the back door.
"Alsop!" he yelled. "Did those people pay you for those eggs?"
Mr. Alsop was standing on a chair in front of the china closet, still
hunting for the camera.
"Oh, sure," he said. "In a way they did."
"Let me see the money!" Rafferty demanded.
"Oh, not in money," Mr. Alsop said. "They don't have any money.
But when they were here six years ago they brought us some eggs
of their own in trade."
"Six years ago!" Rafferty moaned. Then he started. "Eggs! What
kind of eggs?"
Mr. Alsop chuckled a little. "Oh, I don't know," he said. "We called
them star ducks. The eggs were star shaped. And you know we set
them under a hen and the star points bothered the old hen something
awful."
Mr. Alsop climbed down from the chair.
"Star ducks aren't much good though. They look something like a
little hippopotamus and something like a swallow. But they got six
legs. Only two of them lived and we ate them for Thanksgiving."
Rafferty's brain still worked, grasping for that single fragment of
evidence that would make his city editor - and the world - believe.
Rafferty leaned closer. "Mr. Alsop," he almost whispered, "you

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wouldn't know where the skeletons of the star ducks are?"

Mr. Alsop looked puzzled. "You mean the bones? We gave the
bones to the dog. That was five years ago. Even the dog's dead
now."
Rafferty picked up his hat like a man in a daze.
"Thanks, Mr. Alsop," he said dully. "Thanks."
Rafferty stood on the porch and put on his hat. He pushed it back on
his head. He stared up into the overcast; he stared until he felt dizzy
like he was spiralling off into the mist.
Mr. Alsop came out, wiping the dust off a box camera with his
sleeve.
"Oh, Mr. Rafferty," he said. "I found the camera."

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