The Perfect Host by Theodore Sturgeon Page A

adaptation of the Hungarian baby fission engine. The radio circuits are American, except for the scanning relay, which is Russian. And those technicians—I’ve never seen such a bunch. Davis, Li San, Abdallah, Schechter, O’Shaughnessy—he comes from Bolivia, by the way, and speaks only Spanish—Yokamatsu, Willet, Van Cleve. All of these men, all these designs and materials, and all the money that make up these satellites, have been found and assembled from all over the earth in only the last few weeks. There were miracles of production during the Second War, Leroy, but nothing to match this.”
    The colonel shook his head dazedly. “I never thought I’d see it happen.”
    “You’ll see more surprising things than this before we’re done,” said the scientist happily. “Now I’ve got to get back to work.”
    That was the week the second Outsider arrived. It took up a position in the celestial south, not quite opposing its fellow, and it lay quietly, breathing. If there was converse between them, it was not detectable by any known receiver. It was the same apparent size and had the same puzzling effect on radar and photographic plates as its predecessors.
    In Pakistan, an unfueled airplane took off from a back-country airstrip, flew to twenty thousand feet, and came in for a landing. The projector which was trained on it had no effect on the approaching aircraft in the moment it took the plane to disappear behind ahillock and reappear on the other side. There was a consequent momentary power loss, and the plane lost too much altitude and had to make another pass. The wind direction dictated a climbing turn to the north, and the beam from the projector briefly touched the antenna of an amateur radio operator called Ben Ali Ra. Ben Ali Ra’s rig exploded with great enthusiasm, filling the inside of his shack with spots and specks of fused metal, ceramic, and glass. Fortunately for him—and for the world—he was in the adjoining room at the time, and suffered only a deep burn in his thigh, which was struck by a flying fragment of a coil-form.
    This was the first practical emergence of broadcast power.
    Ben Ali was aware of the nature of the experiments at the nearby field, having eavesdropped by radio on some field conversations. He was also aware of certain aims and attitudes held by the local authority. Defying these, he left the area that night, on foot, knowing that he would be killed if captured, knowing that in any event his personal property would be confiscated, and in great pain because of his wound. His story is told elsewhere; however, he reached Benares and retained consciousness long enough to warn the International Police.
    The issue was not that broadcast power was a menace; it had a long way to go before it could be used without shouting its presence through every loudspeaker within miles. The thing that brought the I.P. down in force on this isolated, all but autonomous speck on the map was the charge that the inventors intended to keep their development to themselves. The attachment of the device and all related papers by the Planetary Defense Organization was a milestone of legal precedent, and brought a new definition of “eminent domain.” Thereafter no delays were caused by the necessity of application to local governments for the release of defense information; the I.P. investigated, confiscated, and turned the devices in question over to the Planetary Defense Organization, acting directly and paying fairly all parties involved. So another important step was taken toward the erasure of national lines.
    Two weeks before the arrival of the third Outsider—excluding the one which had been shot down—the last of the twenty-seven satellitestook up its orbit, and the world enjoyed its first easy breath since the beginning of the Attack, as it was called.
    Because of high-efficiency circuits and components, the fuel consumption of the electronic set-up in the satellites was very small. They held