"The Hoaxters" by Richard Wilson (from Galaxy Science Fiction, June 1952; reprinted in the collection Those Idiots from Earth, 1957)
Sam and Alex, lone researchers on a lone asteroid, are bored. They have already spent three months of their hitch with absolutely no results for their work, which consisted of hand rolling pieces of the asteroid in search of something -- they have note been told what they are looking, or why they are looking for it, or even why they must do the searching by hand rather than by using the technology that is available. They are bored and feel useless and are homesick. The asteroid, for all intents and purposes, is devoid of life; the only living thing is a tiny one-celled organism that buries itself deep within the asteroid, presumably feeding on some element in the soil -- Sam and Alex called the organisms "vizzies," for "invisibles."
Every day for the past three months, they have been broadcasting their results to Earth, always with the dame four words: "All well. Progress nil." Then, because he was bored, Alex want to change the daily message to: "All well. Progress...Break for urgent. S.O.S. Research Station Nineteen. Attack on station by alien life form from coordinates zero four eight x two seven. Request patrol craft blast spot as own armament ineffective." Sometime boredom needs some excitement to break things up. Sam was reluctant, feeling that Alex's scenario (which postulated an attack by one of Jupiter's patrol ship) would blow up in their faces. He suggested an attack by the vizzies, rising from the ground in some sort of migratory pattern and forming an unspecified multi-cellular threat. That sounded even better to Alex.
Not only did the patrol come and leave an o-bomb crater a quarter of mile wide, but they were followed by reporters covering the event.
The two managed to pull off their hoax, but soon they got bored again, and like the boy who cried wolf...
And now officials began to consider the "attacks" to be "problematical." Although official reports backed up Sam and Alex's story, in private the patrol and the corporation just did not believe them.
And then Sam and Alex learned that they really did not known anything about the vizzies...
A cute story about man-made hysteria and its consequences, although this time with a redeeming ending.
Richard Wilson (1920-1987) was a journalist and long-time news director. A founder of the legendary science fiction group The Futurians in the 1930s, He was the author of some 120 short stories and three well-regarded satirical science fiction novels. Wilson was instrumental in having prominent science fiction authors donate their papers to the George Arents Research Library of Syracuse University, now acknowledged as "the most important collection of science fiction manuscripts and papers in the world." Wilson received Nebula Award in 1968 for his novellette "Mother to the World," and tow other of his stories have been nominated for Nebula Awards. "In his later years, Wilson reportedly made it clear to colleagues that he remained too content in his professional life to continue seriously in a writing career." [John Clute] His writing was marked by a polished professionalism, often with a gentle satiric and humorous edge. One can do far worse than seek out his writing.
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