The Missing Disclaimer

Mr. Young came bounding into the office of Atomic Science Stories, waving a copy of the first issue in his hand. He stopped at the desk of the editor, Art Holderness.

"Holderness," he roared, his chins quivering, "you're fired!"

Holderness looked up in surprise. "Why?" he asked.

"Look at this contents page!"

Holderness looked at it. "What's the matter with it?"

"Don't you see anything wrong?"

"No. What shouldn't be there?"

"There isn't anything shouldn't be there, you idiot. There's something missing!"

"What?"

"Our announcement that the characters and situations in these stories bear no resemblance to actual persons living or dead."

"Oh."

"Is that all you have to say? Think of the libel suits! We'll be ruined. I don't know why I let myself be talked into adding a science fiction book anyway. Holderness, you're fired."

"But Mr. Young—"

"You have no idea the trouble we can get into leaving that announcement off. Get out of this office!"

K-17 removed a copy of Atomic Science Stories from the newsstand and went up to his hotel room. He sat down to read it.

He had been attracted by the picture of the space ship on the cover, because it reminded him very much of the one in which he had come to Earth from Rigel IV. And then, when he looked closer at it, he discovered that the four-tentacled purple creatures in the ship looked not a little like his fellow Rigelians.

This made him homesick, and so, in direct defiance of the orders he had received from his superiors, he pulled down the shades and turned off the gadget that set up the hypnotic field around him. Once more he was four-tentacled and purple, instead of two-armed and pink, and it felt good.

He began to read through the stories. The first of them concerned an invader from another planet who was on Earth disguised as a man.

Good Vog! K-17 thought to himself. They're on to us.

He looked over the story again. They had some of the details wrong, of course, such as saying that the Rigelians—whom they called the Capellans, for some strange reason—had mouths like octopi, whereas actually they had no mouths at all. But on the whole it was a circumstantial and convincing account of the capture of a Rigelian spy.

The story had taken place in Philadelphia. That meant they had M-22. This was serious. He picked up his magneto-oscillophone and called the home base on the other side of the moon.

"This is K-17," he reported. "I have just read in a Terran publication details of the capture of M-22."

"Impossible!" the voice snorted in his auditory nerve. "We have been receiving regular reports from M-22."

"They must have replaced him with a human spy," K-17 mused.

"Good Vog! Do you really think so?"

"It's the only explanation."

"Good work, K-17. We'll be on our guard."

K-17 hung up and sat down again to read further. The next story dealt with an Earth landing on Mars.

But Earthmen hadn't landed on Mars.

Or had they?

This situation was becoming complicated. K-17 thought over all the possibilities. Was it possible that this magazine contained only Fiction? The title of the thing was Atomic Science Stories. He remembered that he had read a similar magazine called Impossible Science Fiction. Was the distinction between "stories" and "fiction" significant? A fiction was obviously false; but a story could be any narrative, true or not. Did this mean—? Good Vog, he wished he knew more about Earth culture. But that was what he was here to find out. They knew nothing, absolutely nothing, about Earth people. And they didn't want to try to kill the inhabitants and take over the planet without knowing more about them.

He looked closely at the title page of Atomic Science Stories. He recalled that Impossible Science Fiction, which he had, of course, read every word of, carried an announcement that all the stories were fiction. He did not see any such announcement on the title page of Atomic. Doubt was wavering into certainty in his mind.

He telephoned the offices of the Young Publishing Co., which published the magazine. The secretary informed him that the editor, Mr. Holderness, had been discharged that very morning.

Discharged, K-17 meditated. Why discharged? Well, he told himself, if Earth had space travel and was keeping it a secret, and if a magazine violated its security precautions and published a story about it, of course they'd discharge the editor. If it was a fiction magazine, that would be different. But a magazine that printed stories—some of them true, like the one about the capture of M-22....

He called headquarters again, on his magneto-oscillophone. "Earth has space travel!" he announced breathlessly.

"What? Don't be silly." The voice in his auditory nerve was irritated.

"A magazine published an account of it, and the editor was discharged this morning for security reasons."

"What? Are you sure?"

"I just telephoned the office of the magazine and verified everything."

"Report to the saucer station immediately. You're coming back to headquarters. We'll get out the word to all our other operatives."

"Except M-22."

"Yes, of course. We'll have to leave him behind. It's really too bad. The planet offered such nice possibilities."

They hung up.

"No, Holderness," Mr. Fribble said, "our magazine can't use you either. We can't have an editor who's careless enough to leave off the standard disclaimer. Why, there's no end of trouble we'd get into without that little announcement."