“Mr. President,” said Reynolds, “we have less than two hours to get your talk shaped up.”
“Certainly,” said the President. “I am sorry to have held you up. Steve, you stay a moment, please.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Howard, following Reynolds toward the door.
“Now, where were we?” said the President. “Oh, yes, I was saying that we need to get to work on the matter of the tunnels. I plan to have some of our physicists and engineers come in and confer with “your people.”
“Does that mean that you will help us?” .
“I would think so, although at the moment I’m in no position to make a positive commitment. But I don’t see much else that we can do. We can’t keep you here. We can’t possibly absorb you into our population. The first step would seem to be to talk with your physicists and find out what’s involved. Until we know that we can’t do any planning. And there’s also the matter of selecting sites.”
“We have that all worked out,” said Gale. “Our geologists have made a study of the Miocene terrain. Stable land surfaces have been pinpointed and mapped out. We can’t be entirely sure, of course, but our people, operating within their best knowledge, have done at least the preliminary work.”
“Then,” said Henderson, “we won’t have to worry about that. But we do need something to get started on.”
“The men you want to talk with,” said Gale, “were among the first to come through the tunnel. I can give you their names, but I’ll have to go with whoever is sent to contact them. Without me they’d refuse to come. You can understand our situation, sir. We could take no chances of our men or their information falling into other than official hands.”
Henderson frowned. “I’m reluctant to let you leave. You can, of course, walk out of here any time you wish—you are in no way detained. But our information so far is sketchy. You have done an excellent job of supplying us with it, of course, but new situations can arise.”
“I understand,” said Gale. “Alice, perhaps. They know her and if she carried a note from me on a White House letterhead—”
“That would be fine,” said the President, “if she would be willing. Steve, I wonder if you’d undertake to accompany her.”
“Certainly, sir. But my car’s not here. Judy drove it home.”
“You can have a White House car and driver. Perhaps we’d better send along a secret service man. It may seem a silly precaution, but a lot is riding on this.”
He put up his hand and made a gesture of wiping his face.
“I hope to God, Mr. Gale,” he said, “that you and I, your people and our people, can work together on this. This is just the beginning of it. It’s going to get rough. There’ll be all sorts of pressure, all kinds of frenzied screaming. Have you got a good strong back and a good thick skin?”
“I think I have,” said Gale, trying to sound sure of himself.
23. The attorney general’s visitor was an old and valued friend. They had been roommates at Harvard and in the years since then had kept in touch. Reilly Douglas knew that in large part he owed his cabinet appointment to the good offices and perhaps the political pressure commanded by Clinton Chapman, a man who headed one of the nation’s most prestigious industrial complexes and was a heavy contributor to the party’s funds.
“I know this must be a busy time for you,” Chapman told Douglas, “and under the circumstances I’ll take very little of your time.”
“It’s good to see a friendly face,” said Douglas. “I don’t mind telling you I don’t go along with all that’s supposed to be happening. Not that there’s nothing to it, for there is. But we’re rushing into things. The President has accepted at face value this story of time traveling and—while I can see no other explanation at the moment—it seems to me there should be some further study of the matter before we commit ourselves.”
“Well, now,” said Chapman, “I agree with you—I couldn’t agree more completely. I called in some of my physicists this afternoon. You know, of course, that among our several branches, we have a respectable corps of research people. Well, as I was saying, I called a few of them together earlier today and we did some brain-storming on this time-tunnel business—”
“And they told you it was impossible.”
“Not exactly that,” said Chapman. “Not quite that at all. Not that any of them can see how it’s done, but they told me—and this is something that sure surprised me—that the nature of time flows has been a subject of some quiet study and scholarly dispute for a number of years. They talked about a lot of things I didn’t understand and used terms I’d never heard before and some that have slipped my mind. They talked about the principle of wave retardation and causality and there was quite a lot of discussion about time-symmetrical field equations and the upshot of it all seemed to be that while, on the basis of present knowledge and research what seems to be happening is plain impossible, there is really nothing hard and fast that says it can’t be done.”
“So what Gale says could be true,” said Douglas. “There seems no other explanation, but my point is that we should not move until we know it’s true. And, personally, while I could think of no other explanation, I found a great deal of difficulty in believing it.”
“Just exactly what,” asked Chapman, “is the government thinking about doing? Building new tunnels, I understand, and sending the people of the future still farther back in time. Do they have any idea of what it’s going to cost? Or how long it might take?”
“They have no idea,” said Douglas. “Not a single figure. No inkling of what’s involved. But if anything can be done we will have to do it. The people from the future can’t be kept here. It would be impossible to contain them. Somehow we must get rid of them.”
“My hunch,” said Chapman, “is that it will cost a bundle. And there’ll be hell’s own uproar about the money it will take. The public is more tax conscious than it has ever been and something like this could bring about a confiscatory tax.”
“You’re getting at something, Clint.”
“Yes, I suppose I am. A gamble, you might say.”
“You always gambled well,” said Douglas.
“It’s going to take a lot of money,” Chapman said.
“Tax money,” Douglas said.
“I know. Tax money. And that could mean we’ll lose the election a year from now. You know I’ve always been rather generous in my campaign contributions and have rarely asked for favors. I’m not asking for one now. But under certain circumstances I would be willing to make what I think of as a somewhat more substantial contribution. Not only to the party, but to the country.”
“That would be very generous of you,” said Douglas, not entirely sure that he was happy with the turn the talk had taken.
“I’d have to have some figures and some facts, of course,” said Chapman, “but unless the cost is higher than I could manage, I think I would be agreeable to taking over the construction of the tunnels. That is, if the tunnels can be built.”
“In return for which?”
“In return for which,” said Chapman, “I should like exclusive future license for the building of tunnels and the operation of them.”
Douglas frowned. “I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t be certain of the legality of an arrangement of that sort. And there is the international angle—”
“If you applied yourself to it,” said Chapman, “you could figure out a way. I am sure you could. You’re a damn good lawyer, Reilly.”
“There must be something I am missing. I don’t see why you should want the license. What good would the tunnels be?”
“After all of this is over,” Chapman said, “people will be considerably intrigued with the idea of traveling in time. A brand new way of traveling. A way of getting to places they could never get to before.”
“But that’s insane!”
“Not as insane as you might think. Imagine what a sportsman would be willing to pay for the privilege of goi
ng back to prehistoric days for a spot of hunting. Universities would want to send teams of paleontologists back to the Age of Reptiles to study and photograph the dinosaurs. Classical historians would sell their souls to go back and learn what really happened at the siege of Troy.”
“And the church,” said Douglas, rather acidly, “might want a first-class ticket for a seat at the Crucifixion.”
“I suppose that, too,” Chapman agreed. “And, as you imply, there would be times when it might get slightly sticky. Rules and regulations would have to be worked out and certain safeguards set up not to change the course of history, but—”
“It wouldn’t work,” said Douglas, flatly. “Time traveling, we are told, works in only one direction, back toward the past. Once you go back you can’t return.”
“I’m not so sure of that,” said Chapman. “Maybe that’s what you were told. Maybe that’s true now. But my physicists assured me this afternoon that if you can move in time at all, you can move in both directions. They were sure of that. Sure it could be worked out. It simply makes no sense, they said, that the flow would go only one way. If you can go into the past you certainly can go into the future. That’s what we have right now.”
“Clint, I can’t go along on this.”
“You can think about it. You can see how things develop. You can keep me well informed. If it should work out, there would be something very worthwhile in it for you.”
24. “So now you’ll explain to me, perhaps,” said Alice Gale, “what a picnic is. You told me this afternoon you had been going on a picnic.”
The secret service man hunched forward on the seat. “Has Steve been talking picnic to you? Don’t ever chance it with him.”
“But, Mr. Black,” she said, “I don’t even know what a picnic is.”
“It’s fairly simple,” Wilson told her. “You pack a lunch and you go out in a park or woods and you eat it there.”
“But we did that in our own time,” she said. “Although we did not call it picnic. I don’t think we called it anything at all. I never heard it called anything at all.”
The car rolled slowly down the drive, heading for the gate. The driver sat stiffly erect. The car slowed to a halt and a soldier came to the driver’s window. Other military men were stationed by the gate.
“What is going on?” asked Wilson. “I hadn’t heard of this.”
Black shrugged. “Someone got the wind up. This place is closed in tight. It’s stiff with military. Mortars are scattered through the park and no one knows what else.”
“Does the President know about it?”
“I’m not sure,” said Black. “No one might have thought to tell him.”
The soldier stepped back and the gate came open and the car went through. It proceeded silently along the street, heading for the bridge.
Wilson peered through the window. “Where is everyone?” he asked. “A Sunday night and the tourist season and there’s no one here.”
“You heard the news,” said Black.
“Of course I heard the news.”
“Everyone’s holed up. Everyone’s indoors. They expect an alien to come leaping at them.”
“We had such lovely places where we could go on picnics,” said Alice Gale. “So many parks, so much wild land. More open spaces than you have. Not as crowded as you have it now, although somehow I like it crowded. There are so many people—there is so much to see.”
“You are enjoying it,” said Wilson.
“Yes, of course. Although I have the feel of guilt in my enjoyment. My father and I should be with our people. But I was telling you of our time. It was a good age to live in. Until the aliens came, of course. And even then, in the earlier days, before there were so many of them. They were not at our throats all the time, you know, except in the last few years. Although I don’t think we ever were unaware of them. We always talked about them. We never really forgot them, no matter what. All my life, I think, they have been in my mind. There were periods in the later years when we were obsessed with them. We continually looked over our shoulders to see if they were there—we were never free of them. We talked of them and studied them.”
“You,say you studied them,” said Wilson. “Exactly how did you study them? Who studied them?”
“Why,” she said, “biologists, of course. At times they came into possession of an alien’s body. And the psychologists and psychiatrists also examined what they could. The evolutionists—”
“Evolutionists?”
“Certainly, evolutionists. For these aliens were very strange evolutionary. They seemed to be consciously in control of their evolutionary processes. There are occasions when you are inclined to suspect they can order their evolutionary processes. My father, I think, explained some of this to you. In all their long history they apparently gave up no advantage they had gained. They made no compromises. They kept what they had and needed and added whatever else they could develop. This, of course, means that they can adapt to almost any condition or situation. They respond almost instantly to stresses and emergencies.”
“You almost sound,” said Black, “as if you—well, not you, perhaps, but your people—might admire these creatures.”
She shook her head. “We hated them and feared them. That is quite apparent, for we ran away from them. But, yes, I suppose we might have felt something like awed admiration, although we did not admit it. I don’t think anyone ever said it.”
“Lincoln is coming up ahead,” said Wilson. “You know about Lincoln, of course.”
“Yes,” she said. “My father has been staying in Lincoln’s bedroom.”
The memorial loomed ahead, softly lit against the night. The statue sat brooding in the marble chair.
The car moved past and the memorial was left behind.
“If we can find the time,” said Wilson, “in the next few days, we’ll go out to see it. Or have you seen it? You said the White House no longer existed where you came from.”
“It did not, nor did the memorial,” she said. “Part of it is left, but less than half. The stones have crumbled.”
“What is this?” asked Black.
“In the time the people of the tunnel came from,” said Wilson, “Washington had been destroyed. The White House is a wilderness.”
“But that’s impossible. I don’t understand. A war?”
“Not a war,” said Alice Gale. “It’s hard to explain, even if you know history and I have only small understanding of it. But I have read a little. Economic collapse, perhaps, is the best name for what happened. Probably some ethical collapse occurred as well. A time of mounting inflation that reached ridiculous heights, matched by a mounting cynicism, a loss of faith in government, which contributed to the failure of government, a growing gap of resources and understanding between the rich and poor—all these brought about a social disaster. Not in this nation alone, but in all the major powers. One after one they fell. The economy was gone—governments vanished and mobs ran in the street. Blind mobs struck out—not at anything in particular but at anything at all. You must excuse me, please—I tell it very badly.”
“And this is all ahead of us?” asked Black.
“Not now,” said Wilson. “Not any more it isn’t. Or at least it doesn’t have to be. We’re on a different time track now.”
“You,” said Black, “are as bad as she is. You don’t either one, make sense.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Black,” said Alice.
“Don’t mind me,” said Black. “I’m not the intellectual sort. I’m just an educated cop. Steve will tell you that.”
25. The Reverend Dr. Angus Windsor was a good man. He stood in grace and was distinguished in good works. He was pastor of a church that had its roots in wealth, a. long history and a certain elegance, yet this did not prevent him from going where the need was greatest—outside his own parish, certainly, for in that particular parish need was seldom evident. He was seen in the ghettos and was present where the young demonstration mar
chers had fallen beneath the clubs of the police. When he heard of a family that had need of food he showed up at the door with a bag of groceries and before he left managed to find a few dollars in his pockets that he could get along without. He was a regular visitor at prisons and the lonely old folks put away to die in rest homes were familiar with his stately tread, his stooped shoulders, his long white hair and patient face. That he was not at all adverse to good publicity, sometimes even seemed to court it, was held against him by some of the influential members of his congregation, who subscribed to the belief that this characteristic was unseemly in him. But he went his way without paying attention to this criticism. He was once supposed to have told an old, dear friend that it was a small price to pay for the privilege of doing good—although whether he meant by price the publicity or the criticism was not entirely clear.
So it was thought by the newsmen present not at all unusual when, late in the evening, he appeared at the site where the tunnel had been closed upon the emergence of the aliens.
The newsmen clustered around the old man.
“What are you doing here, Dr. Windsor?” asked one of them.
“I came,” said Dr. Angus, “to offer to these poor souls the small shreds of comfort is in my power to dispense. I had a little trouble with the military. I understand they are letting no one in. But I see they permit you people here.”
“Some of us talked our way through. Others parked a mile or so away and walked.”
“The good Lord interceded for me,” said Dr. Angus, “and they let me through the barricade.”
“How did He intercede for you?”
“He softened their hearts toward me and they let me come. But now I must speak to these poor folks.”
He motioned at the scattered groups of refugees standing in the yards and along the street.
The dead alien lay on its back, its limp tentacles lying snakelike along the ground. Most of the human bodies at the tunnel mouth had been moved. A few still made shadowed lumps covered by blankets. The gun lay where it had been toppled on its side.
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