Summary: Japan, little ocean town. A
strange large metal man appears out of nowhere on the shore. Two
Japanese men and two members of the US navy have a little
disagreement over who should be able to take over the questioning of
this strange metal man that had come from the bottom of the sea. Some
money exchanges hands and the US soldiers are able to persuade the
others that the metal man should come with them. After a few days of
questioning and promises of diamonds, pearls, and secret advanced
technology the metal man explodes leaving no trace behind. In the
final scene we find out that the metal man was in fact a man dressed
in an old suit designed for working on high voltage powerlines that
one of the Japanese soldiers had sold earlier. And the only man who
could translate for the metal man, also the one who bought that suit,
was now on the board of directors of a large stock company selling
stocks on the future diamonds and pearls exported from the ocean
depths.
I think there are two important aspects of this story to talk about.
First, the US Navy being left holding nothing and the Japanese
characters having some similarities with post revolutionary Russian
characters. Considering the time that this story was written I can
see it being well received.
The second aspect
is the desire of people to benefit financially from pretty much
everything. If aliens landed on earth tomorrow I do not think it
would be that much of a stretch to think that plenty of people would
be trying to at the very least sell tickets to watch the landing.
Then maybe some attempts to privatize new technology and rare
artifacts and photo opportunities. That is, after the governments get
done fighting over who gets to claim the position of Earth
representative.
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