Because I hold myself responsible in large measure for the imminent destruction of our planet, I'm writing this hasty narrative of my role in order for survivors, if any, to read. To increase the odds that it will be discovered, I will send it out over every electronic network I can log onto, requesting all users to download it and place the hard copy in a fireproof container, as I will be doing.
I'm not sure what benefit to future generations I expect this account to produce. If, after thousands of years of recorded history, humanity hasn't grasped the lesson that every war is the product of folly, I can't imagine what it will take to convince us. Obviously, the reduction of our globe to a cinder isn't dramatic enough to prove the point.
Folly is too mild a word for the chain of events that brought us to this pass, so I leave it to my reader to come up with one that aptly describes how the human race turned its first encounter with extraterrestrial aliens from an historic opportunity to a debacle that has no precedents, I am certain, in the history of the universe.
The visit of Garto and the Drunians to our world has been so thoroughly documented in every medium that I will not tire the reader with needless repetition. Instead I will include with this letter a copy of Garto's autobiography and a videotape of the television movie adaptation. As I place them in the box I permit myself an ironic smile, for it is these very items that have led us to the brink of incineration.
On the day it was reported that a spaceship had touched down in New Guinea, I was scheduled to have lunch with one of my oldest friends in the publishing business, Bob Gorenstein of Random House. The news had come over the radio and because of the remoteness of the location, the only eyewitness account had been phoned in by the Masefields, the family whose plantation had been flattened by the 600 ton mass of the Drunians' "travel disk." I doubt if anyone on our planet within earshot of a radio or television talked about anything else that morning, and in fact by noon the first of an endless crop of alien jokes was already bouncing over the phone lines between Hollywood and New York. And so when Bob called me that morning to set up our lunch, he was ready with his quip.
"I'm surprised to find you in," he said. "I thought you'd already be on a plane to New Guinea to sign these guys."
"I hate representing celebrities," I said. "Even celebrities from outer space."
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