Free Nightmares & Geezenstacks by Fredric Brown

parthenogenetic children and borne them. Luckily for redressing the balance of the sexes, it had turned out that all parthenogenetically conceived children were males.
    “Martha thinks,” said Mrs. Ralston, “that Henry’s worrying about John, but she can’t think why. He’s such a good boy.”
    Dr. Graham suddenly and without knocking burst into the room. His face was white and his eyes wide as he stared at his colleague. “I was right,” he said.
    “Right about what?”
    “About John. I didn’t tell anyone, but do you know what he did when we ran out of drinks at the party last night?”
    Dr. Ralston frowned. “Changed water into wine?”
    “Into gin; we were having martinis. And just now he left to go water skiing—and he isn’t taking any water skis. Told me that with faith he wouldn’t need them.”
    “Oh, no ,” said Dr. Ralston. He dropped his head into his hands.
    Once before in history there’d been a virgin birth. Now fifty million virgin-born boys were growing up. In ten more years there’d be fifty million—Jaycees.
    “ No ,” sobbed Dr. Ralston, “ no! ”

CONTACT
    Dhar Ry sat alone in his room, meditating. From outside the door he caught a thought wave equivalent to a knock, and, glancing at the door, he willed it to slide open. It slid open. “Enter, my friend,” he said. He could have projected the idea telepathically, but with only two persons present, speech was more polite.
    Ejon Khee entered. “You are up late tonight, my leader,” he said.
    “Yes, Khee. Within an hour the Earth rocket is due to land, and I wish to see it. Yes, I know, it will land a thousand miles away, if their calculations are correct. Beyond the horizon. But if it lands even twice that far the flash of the atomic explosion should be visible, and I have waited long for first contact. For even though no Earthman will be on that rocket, it will still be first contact—for them. Of course our telepath teams have been reading their thoughts for many centuries, but—this will be the first physical contact between Mars and Earth.”
    Khee made himself comfortable in one of the low chairs. “True,” he said. “I have not followed recent reports too closely, though. Why are they using an atomic warhead? I know they think our planet is probably uninhabited, but still—”
    “They will watch the flash through their lunar telescopes and get a—what do they call it?—a spectroscopic analysis, which will tell them more than they know now (or think they know; much of it is erroneous) about the atmosphere of our planet and the composition of its surface. It is—call it a sighting shot, Khee. They’ll be here in person within a few oppositions. And then—”
    Mars was holding out, waiting for Earth to come. What was left of Mars, that is; this one small city of about nine hundred beings. The civilization of Mars was older than that of Earth, but it was a dying one. This was what remained of it, one city, nine hundred people. They were waiting for Earth to make contact, for a selfish reason and for an unselfish one.
    Martian civilization had developed in a quite different direction from that of Earth. It had developed no important knowledge of the physical sciences, no technology. But it had developed social sciences to the point where there had not been a single crime, let alone a war, on Mars for fifty thousand years. And it had developed fully the parapsychological sciences, the sciences of the mind, that Earth was just beginning to discover.
    Mars could teach Earth much. How to avoid crime and war, two simple things, to begin with. Beyond those simple things, telepathy, telekinesis, empathy…
    And Earth would, Mars hoped, teach them something even more valuable to Mars: how, by science and technology—which it was too late for Mars to develop now, even if they had the type of minds which would enable them to develop these things—to restore and rehabilitate a dying planet, so that an otherwise dying race