Way back in 1957 a science fiction magazine called Fantastic Universe published my short story No Bems Allowed, for which I received the munificent sum of a penny a word. A BEM, incidentally, is a Bug Eyed Monster, and the premise of the story, as I recall, was that no alien invasion of Earth could be successful because we had been conditioned by science fiction stories to expect a hero to emerge and save us all. I think this is still true. So long as there are white horses and shining armor there will always be heroes.

 

The silver ships came drifting down

As silent as the clouds

And landed softly in the fields

Surrounded by the crowds

Of curious who came to see

What it was all about

When suddenly the doors flung wide

Erasing any doubt

That here were monsters in the flesh

Antennaed and bug eyed

Who calmed the crowd with noxious gas

Except for those who tried

To rush the ships and save the world

Defiant unto death

While in the crowd one steel eyed man

Remarked under his breath

That –well you know just how it ends

The hero finds a way

To jam the Bems’ antennae that

Left them with naught to say

And after that he – well you know

With germs or something worse

He left the Bems a rotting heap

Their ships a waiting hearse

Their hyper drive he figured out

And sent the ships back home

A message in their language told

Them never more to roam

This part of Galaxy six eight

Four twenty two N A

For if they did he’d see to it

They’d not live out the day

Your heroes come when they are called

One knows not who they are

Until the day the monsters come

Then Katy bar the door