Final Exam by Sam Merwin Jr. _Sam Merwin’s entertaining, provocative, and warmly human little yarns about spacemen and their foibles have enlivened our pages--along with novelette-length stories of wider compass and somewhat graver import--since that momentous hour when FANTASTIC UNIVERSE was born out of the fire-mists of an island universe hovering directly opposite the Pleiades. But seldom has he come up with a shorter-length yarn quite as excitingly unusual as this._ =They had prepared a sturdy bomb shelter to protect the Great Man from the Flying Saucers. But he had to see them with his own eyes.= They tried to make the Great Man go down into the lead-and-graphite-sheathed bomb shelter deep under the outwardly modest Midwestern house that was his “secret” summer residence. His aides, his secretary, the civilian-clothed bodyguards--all of them were insistent. “You’re much too valuable, sir” ... “It’s our sworn duty to protect you, sir” ... “We don’t know what _they_ are, sir....” The Great Man knew he was breaking the hearts of his official family by disobeying. But curiosity was one of the traits that had helped him to the top, and he had heard too much about “them”--although he had yet to see one of the alien visitors. He looked at his wife, and read in her serene gaze that she understood and approved. He said, to his chief aide: “If they’ve found us here, there’s not much sense in hiding, is there?” And, when no definite reply was forthcoming, he asked, “What is your theory as to their nature--and just how many of them are there?” “Denver reports half a dozen headed directly this way at an estimated two thousand miles per hour,” said the Air Force aide, his handsome face a rigid mask of disapproval. “That was five minutes ago.” “And their nature?” the Great Man repeated quietly. It was the Air Defense aide who answered him. “We don’t know, sir. They look simply like rather large, moving lights in the sky. But, as always, radar has picked up solid bodies.” “Thank you.” The Great Man glanced at the banjo clock on the flower-papered wall. “They should be here any minute then,” he said. “Gentlemen, I ask you to leave us alone. I have no wish to command you.” Obviously, this unorthodox request put an alarming spoke in the closely-meshed wheels of the armed defense plans. Sensing the uncertainty and dismay of everyone in the room, the Great Man said, “I wish you to observe, and report--but on no account are you to inaugurate hostile action. Is that clear?” “But what if they attack first?” The Air Force aide inquired anxiously. “I said you were not to _inaugurate_ hostile action,” was the Great Man’s quiet reply. “If they actually attack--and I doubt that they will from the past records--you are free to take whatever defensive measures you may consider necessary.”