“The army is sending out a team,” said one of the newsmen, “to haul in the alien. They want to have a good look at him.”
Spotlights mounted in trees cast a radiance over the area where the tunnel mouth had been. A generator coughed and sputtered in the darkness. Trucks pulled in, loaded up and left. On occasion a bullhorn roared out orders.
Dr. Windsor, with an instinct born of long practice, headed unerringly for the largest group of refugees huddled under a swaying street lamp. Most of them were standing on the pavement, but others sat on the curbs and small groups were scattered on the lawns.
Dr. Windsor came to a group of women: he always zeroed in on women. He had found them more receptive than men.
“I have come,” he said, “to offer you the comfort of the Lord. In times like this we should always turn to Him.”
The women stared at him in some amazement. Some instinctively backed away.
“I’m the Reverend Windsor,” he told them, “and I came from Washington. I go where I am called to meet a need. Would you pray with me?”
A tall, slender, grandmotherly woman stepped to the forefront of the group. “Please go away,” she said.
Dr. Windsor fluttered his hands, stricken off balance. “I don’t understand,” he said. “I only meant—”
“We know what you meant,” the woman told him, “and we thank you for the thought. We know you intend only kindness.”
“You can’t mean what you are saying,” said Dr. Windsor. “You cannot hope to deprive all the others—”
A man thrust through the crowd and took the pastor by the arm. “Friend,” he said. “Keep it down.”
“But this woman—”
“I know. I heard what you said to her and she to you. She speaks for all of us.”
“I fail to understand.”
“There is no need for you to understand. Now will you please go.”
“You reject me?”
“Not you, sir. Not personally. We reject the principle you stand for.”
“You reject Christianity?
“Not Christianity alone. We rejected all dogma a century ago. Our nonbelief is as firm a faith as is your belief. We do not thrust our principles on you. Will you please not thrust yours on us?”
“This is incredible,” said the Dr. Windsor. “I can’t believe my ears. I will not believe it. There must be some mistake. I had only meant to join with you in prayer.”
“But we no longer pray.”
Dr. Windsor turned, went blundering past the waiting newsmen, who had trailed after him. He shook his head, bewildered. It was unbelievable. It could not be right. It was inconceivable. It was blasphemous.
After all the years of man’s agony, after all the searching for the truth, after all the saints and martyrs, it could not come to this.
26. General Daniel Foote, commander at Fort Myer, was waiting with three other men in his office.
“You should not have come alone,” he said to Wilson. “I said so to the President—offered to send an escort—but he vetoed the idea. He said he wanted to draw no attention to the car.”
“There was little traffic on the road,” said Wilson.
The general shook his head. “These are unsettled times,” he said.
“General Foote, may I present Miss Alice Gale. Her father is the man who contacted us.”
The general said, “I am delighted to meet you, Miss Gale. These three gentlemen have told me something of your father. And Mr. Black. I’m glad you are along.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Black.
“I should like the privilege,” Alice said, “of introducing my own people. Dr. Hardwicke—Dr. Nicholas Hardwicke, Mr. Wilson, Mr. Black. Dr. Hardwicke is a sort of Albert Einstein of our time.”
The ungainly, bearlike man smiled at her. “You must not praise me unduly, my dear,” he said. “They’ll expect far too much of me. Gentlemen, I am very pleased to be here and to meet you. It is time we were getting on in this matter, which must be quite unpleasant to you. I am glad to see you reacting so promptly and so positively. Your president must be a most unusual man.”
“We think so,” Wilson said.
“Dr. William Cummings,” said Alice. “Dr. Hardwicke was a fellow townsman of ours, but Dr. Cummings came from the Denver region. My father and the others thought it would be best if he were with Dr. Hardwicke when they met your scientists.”
Cummings was small, bald, with a wrinkled, elfin face. “I am glad to be here,” he said. “We all are glad to be here. We must tell you how deeply we regret what happened at the tunnel.”
“And, finally,” said Alice, “Dr. Abner Osborne. He is a longtime family friend.”
Osborne put an arm about the girl’s shoulders and hugged her. “These other gentlemen,” he said, are physicists, but I’m a more lowly creature. I am a geologist. Tell me, my dear, how is your father? I looked for him after we came through, but couldn’t seem to find him.”
General Foote drew Wilson aside. “Tell me what you know of the escaped alien.”
“We’ve had no further reports. The assumption is it would head for the mountains.”
Foote nodded. “I think you may be right. We have had some rumors. They all came from the west. Harper’s Ferry. Strasburg. Luray. They must be wrong. Nothing could travel that fast. Are you absolutely sure there was only one of them?”
“You should know,” said Wilson curtly. “Your men were there. Our information is that one was killed. The other got away.”
“Yes, yes, I know,” said Foote. “We are bringing in the dead one.
The general was upset, thought Wilson. He was jittery. Was there something he knew that the White House didn’t know?
“Are you trying to tell me something, General?”
“No. Not at all,” he said.
The son of a bitch, Wilson thought. Foote had simply been trying for an insider scoop from the White House to use for small talk at the officers’ club.
“I think,” said Wilson, “that we had best get started back.”
Once more in the car, Black sat in front with the driver. Wilson and Osborne took the jump seats.
“You may think it strange,” said Osborne, “that there’s a geologist in the group.”
“I had wondered,” Wilson said. “Not that you aren’t welcome.”
“It was thought,” said Osborne, “that there might be some questions about the Miocene.”
“Anent our also fleeing our time, you mean?”
“It is one way in which the problem could be solved.”
“Are you trying to tell me that you were fairly sure some of the aliens would get through? That enough of them might get through for us to be forced to leave?”
“Certainly not,” said the geologist. “We had hoped none would get through. We had set up precautions. I can’t imagine what could have gone wrong. I’m not inclined to think that this single alien—”
“But you don’t know.”
“You’re right. They’re clever. And capable. Some of our biologists could tell you more.”
“Then why this feeling we should go back into the Miocene?”
“You’re nearing a danger point,” said Osborne. “Our historians could explain it better than I can, but all the signs are there. Oh, I know that our having dropped in on you will alter your future to a point—but our effect may have come too late for you to avoid one great danger.
“What you’re talking about is the economic and social collapse. Alice briefed us on it—Washington and the White House are gone in your time. I suppose New York as well, and Chicago and all the rest of the major cities both here and abroad—”
“You’re top-heavy,” said Osborne. “You’ve gotten out of balance. I think it’s gone too far to stop. You have a runaway economy and the social cleavages are getting deeper by the day.”
“And going back to the Miocene would put an end to it?”
“It would be a new start:”
“I’m not
so sure,” said Wilson. Up in the front Black raised his voice. “It’s time for the President’s speech. Want me to turn on the radio?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. The next voice was Henderson’s.
“. . . little lean tell you. So I am not going to keep you long. We are still in the process of sorting out the facts and I would be doing you a disservice if I told you less—or more—than facts. You may be assured that your government will level with you. As soon as we know anything for certain, you are going to know it, too. We’ll pass it on to you.
“These things we do know. Among us are refugees, apparently from some five hundred years in our future. All details are not yet clear—we do not, for instance, know their exact method of transportation or arrival—but the essential facts are as I have stated them to you. The refugees do not intend to stay here. As soon as possible they intend to go on, to leave us as they came. But to do so they need our help. Not only our help in building equipment and installations, but our help in supplying the bare basics that will enable them to start over again. For economic reasons which everyone must understand, we, in conjunction with the rest of the world, cannot refuse to help them. Not that we would refuse in any case. They are our children’s children, several times removed. They are our flesh and blood and we cannot withhold assistance. How we will go about helping them is now under consideration. There are problems and they must and will be solved. There must be no delay and our effort must be wholehearted. It will call for sacrifice and devotion from everyone of you. There are many details you should be told, many questions that must occur to you. These all will be fully given and fully answered later—there is not time to put everything before you this evening. After all, this all began happening only a few hours ago. It has been a busy Sunday.”
The voice was confident, resonant, with no hint of desperation—with even a touch of humor in these last words—and, thought Wilson, there must be in the man a certain sense of desperation. No other President before him had ever been called upon to make such an outlandish announcement. Henderson was still a polished politician. He still could sell himself, still could reassure the nation. Hunched forward on the jump seat, Wilson felt a sudden surge of pride in him.
“All of you know by now,” the President continued, “that two alien life forms came through what has become known as a time tunnel in Virginia. One was killed, the other escaped. I must be honest with you and say that we have no subsequent word of it. We are pressing all efforts to find and destroy it and while it may take a little time, we will do exactly that. I ask you most urgently not to place too much emphasis upon the fact that an alien is loose upon the Earth. It is only one of the many problems we face tonight—and not the most important. Given the sort of cooperation that I know we can expect from you we will solve them.”
He paused and for a moment Wilson wondered if that was all—although he knew it would not be, for the President had not said good night.
The voice took up again. “I have one unpleasant thing to say and, unpleasant as it may be, I know that on due consideration you’ll realize, I think, that it is necessary for the good of all of us. I have, just a few minutes ago, signed an executive order declaring a national emergency. Under that order a bank and trading holiday has been declared. This means that no banks or other financial institutions will open their doors for business or transact any business until further notice. Under the order all trading in stocks, shares, bonds and commodities, will be suspended until further notice. All prices, salaries and wages will be frozen. This, of course, is an intolerable situation and cannot exist for long. Because of this, it is only an emergency order that will be lifted as soon as the Congress and other branches of the government can implement rules and regulations imposing such restraints as are necessary under the situation that has been imposed upon us. I hope that you will bear .with us over the few days the executive order will be in force. It was only with the utmost reluctance that I decided it was necessary.”
Wilson let out his breath slowly, not realizing until then that he had caught and held it.
There’d be unsheeted hell to pay, he knew. From the country and the White House press corps. For Christ’s sake, Steve, you could have tipped us off. You could have let us know . . . And they would not believe him when he told them he had not known himself.
The declaration of a national emergency was such a logical step that the media men should have guessed it—he, himself, should have thought of it. But he hadn’t. He wondered if the President had talked it over with anyone and he doubted that he had. There hadn’t been much time and there had been other things to talk about.
The President was saying good night to his listeners.
“Good night, Mr. President,” said Wilson and wondered why the others looked at him so strangely.
27. The office was dark except for the feeble light from the clacking wire machines ranged along the wall. Wilson crossed to his desk and sat down. He leaned forward to snap on the desk lamp, then pulled back his hand. He had no need of light and there was healing in the dark. He leaned back in his chair—for the first time since this afternoon nothing was pressing him, but inside him still throbbed the nagging sense that he should be up and doing.
The President, Steve thought, should long since have been in bed. It was nearly midnight and well past his usual bedtime and he had missed his nap in the afternoon. Samuel Henderson was getting too old for this sort of thing. He had seemed drawn and haggard when the refugee scientists had been escorted to his office to be introduced to the men from the National Academy.
“You heard my speech, Steve?” the President had asked when the others were gone.
“In the car.”
“What do you think? Will the country go along?”
“Not at first. Not willingly. But when they think about it, I believe they will. Wall Street will raise a lot of dust.”
“Wall Street,” Henderson had said, “is something I can’t afford to give my time to right now.”
“You should be heading for bed, Mr. President. It’s been a long, hard day.”
“Directly. First I have to talk with Treasury, and Sandburg phoned to ask if he could come over.”
Directly. . . But it would be hours before Henderson got to sleep.
Somewhere in some secret room the scientists were talking. Out there in the vastness of the nation—of the world, in fact—people from the future were walking from their tunnels. In the mountains to the west an alien horror skulked in the night.
The whole scene still was unbelievable. Everything had happened too fast—no man had been given time to catch up with it. In a few hours people would be waking to a new day that in many respects would be utterly unlike any day before in all of human history—face problems and dilemmas no man or woman had ever faced before.
Light showed through the crack under the doors that led into the press lounge. Some media men would still be there, although they were not working. There was no sound of typewriters. Steve remembered that he had never gotten to eat his sandwiches. He had put two of them on a plate and had taken a bite out of one when Brad Reynolds had rushed into the lounge with his story of the alien’s escape. Now that he thought of it Steve realized that he was hungry. There might be some sandwiches left, although they would be dry by now—and for some reason he wanted to stay here in the dark, alone, with no necessity of talking to anyone at all.
Although, perhaps, he should see what was on the wires. He sat for a moment longer, unwilling to move, then got up and went across the room to the bank of teletypes. AP first, he thought. Good, old stolid AP. Never sensational, usually solid.
Yards of copy had been spilling out of the machine. It was running down into wads of folded paper on the floor.
A new story was just starting.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP)—A search is being pressed tonight in the mountains west of here for the alien who escaped from a time tunnel in Virginia a few hours ago. There have been numerous reports o
f sightings, but none can be confirmed. There is reason to believe that most of them arose from fertile and concerned imaginations. A number of troops and contingents from many police and sheriff’s departments are being deployed into the area, but there is little hope that a great deal can be done before daylight. . .
Wilson hauled in the copy paper, let it fall and curl up before his feet. He read rapidly.
LONDON, ENGLAND (AP)—As dawn came this morning ministers were still in conference at the residence of the Prime Minister. Throughout the night there had been a steady coming and going . . .
NEW DELHI, INDIA (AP)—For the last ten hours people and wheat have continued to pour out of the tunnels from the future. Both present problems. . .
NEW YORK, NY. (AP)—Evidence multiplied throughout the night that dawn may bring an explosion of protest and rioting, not only in Harlem, but in many other minority areas of the city. Fears that the heavy influx of refugees from the future may bring about a reduction in food allotments and other welfare benefits are expected to spark widespread demonstration. All police leaves have been canceled and the police force has been notified that its personnel must be prepared to work around the clock . . .
WASHINGTON, DC. (AP)—The President’s action declaring a business holiday and freezing wages and prices was both attacked and praised . . .
Moscow, Madrid, Singapore, Brisbane, Bogota, Cairo, Kiev—and then:
NASHVILLE, TENN (AP)—The Rev. Jake Billings, noted evangelist, today called for a crusade to “bring the people of the future back into the arms of Christ.”
He issued the call from his headquarters here after learning that a group of refugees who had come through the now-closed time tunnel near Falls Church, Va., had refused the ministrations of the Rev. Dr. Angus Windsor, a celebrated churchman of Washington, D.C., giving as their reason that they had turned their backs, not on Christianity alone, but on all religion.
“They came to us for help,” said the Rev. Billings, “but the help that they are seeking is not the help they should be given. Rather than helping them, as they ask, to go farther back in time, we should help them to return to the brotherhood of Christ. They are fleeing from the future for their lives, but they have already lost a thing far more precious than their lives. How their rejection of Christ may have come about I have no way of knowing. I do know that it is our duty to point out to them the road of devotion and of righteousness. I call upon all Christians to join me in my prayers for them.”
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