“Which poses another problem for us,” said Whiteside. “Hundreds, if not thousands, of visitors taking over fields, planting them and then driving off the rightful owners. The farmers will be up in arms about that.”
“To start with,” said the President, “I had a queasy feeling about the visitors, a sort of gone-in-the-gut reaction. I think part of this, maybe all of it, was due to the fact that essentially I am a pure and simple political animal. I have political nerve endings. I twitch at every threat. I still realize that this business of the visitors, if I make one wrong move, could kill me politically. But, gradually, I have come to the belief that the two of us, we and the visitors, can get along together. They seem to think very much like us. If we could only communicate with them, I’m sure a solid understanding could be reached. The fact that 101 planted pine seeds re-enforces my thinking. The planting of a crop attests to a feeling for agriculture and the conservation of resources. In this way, too, their thinking parallels ours.”
Allen started to speak, then hesitated.
“You were about to say something,” said the President.
“That’s right,” said Allen. “I wondered if I should, but I guess there’s no reason that I shouldn’t. Perhaps of little significance, but to me intriguing. You remember when that first visitor came down at Lone Pine it landed on a car, crushing it.”
“Yes, I do remember. There was no one in it, luckily. We wondered what became of the owner, why he, or she, never came forward.”
“Exactly,” said Allen. “We hauled in the car, if you recall.”
“Yes, I do,” said the President. “Well, now we know. From the license plate. The owner is a young forestry student at the University of Minnesota. His name is Jerry Conklin. A few days after the incident, he came back to Minneapolis. So far as we can learn, he never told anyone about his car being totalled. He has not filed an insurance claim for the loss of the car. For a time, apparently, he acted fairly normally, but now that we have learned who he is, he has disappeared. The FBI is now looking for him.”
“What do you expect to learn when you find him?” Whiteside asked.
“I don’t really know. You have to admit, however, that his reaction has been strange. There must be some reason he told no one what happened. And it’s strange that he has not filed an insurance claim. He has not even made an inquiry as to who hauled away his car. I can’t get rid of the feeling that he may know something that could be helpful to us.”
“When you find him,” said the President, “and I suppose you will, go easy on him. From where I sit, he’s committed no crime except to keep his mouth shut.”
41. MINNEAPOLIS
The phone was ringing when Kathy came into her apartment.
She answered it, and then, “Jerry, where are you? You sound excited—or upset. I can’t tell which. What is going on?”
“I’ve been trying to reach you,” he said. “I called your apartment and your office. The office told me you were at Lone Pine and I tried Lone Pine. You had already left.”
“I just got back,” she said. “Just this minute. From the airport. Are you in town? You don’t sound as if you’re in town. Your voice is faint and there is noise on the line.”
“I’m in Iowa. At a place called Dick’s Landing. It’s on the Mississippi, opposite what is called the Winnishiek Bottoms. You ever heard of that?”
“Not Dick’s Landing. The Winnishiek, vaguely. I have heard it mentioned. What in the world . . .”
“Kathy, I went to that farm in Iowa. I talked with 101. It took me in again . . .”
“It remembered you?”
“I think so. We didn’t really talk. It told me, it showed me. I got the impression that what it told me is important. But whether it is important to us or to 101 and the other visitors, I can’t be sure.”
“But Dick’s Landing? And the Winnishiek?”
“It told me a location. Showed me where to go. I don’t know what’s here. Well, actually, I do—I know at least part of it. There’s a place called Goose Island. Three of the visitors are there. But I don’t know why it’s important. I only know it is. That is what 101 impressed upon me. That I must go there. I want you with me, Kathy. If there is something important, you should be in on it from the first. You’ve been with this visitor story from the first.”
“O.K.,” said Kathy, “as fast as I can. I’ll start out right now. Give me directions. Tell me how to get to this Dick’s Landing. I’ll be there in a few hours.”
42. MINNEAPOLIS
For days, they had kept their vigil, but now the vigil ended. The group of Lovers who, on the day the visitor had landed on the airstrip, had fought their way onto the field, stood in stricken silence and watched the visitor slowly lift off the runway and sail away into the sky.
“We failed,” said one of them, a gaunt young man with stringy hair and an aesthetic face.
“We did not fail,” said the willowy girl who stood beside him. “It felt our love. I know it felt our love.”
“But it made no sign. It did not take us up. It took others up . . .”
An airport guard, one of the many who manned the barricades that had been thrown around the visitor, said, to no one in particular, “Let’s break it up. It’s ended now. Why don’t you all go home.”
“Because we are already home,” said the youth with the aesthetic face. “The Earth is home. The universe is home.”
“I can’t understand these kids,” said the guard to a fellow guard. “Can you understand them? Christ, they been here for days, just hunkering down with the sappy expression on their faces.”
“No,” said the other guard. “I don’t understand them. I never even tried to.”
“Now let’s clear out,” said the first guard to the band of Lovers. “The show is over, folks. There’s nothing left for you.”
The crowd began breaking up, slowly drifting off the field.
“They should never have let them in,” said the second guard. “It was against all rules. Someone could have gotten killed.”
“There wasn’t any danger,” said the first guard. “The strip was closed. If they hadn’t been let in, we’d had a running fight that might have gone on for days to keep them out of here. The commission thought this was the better way. I’ll say this much for the kids; once they were let out here, they behaved themselves. They never caused trouble.”
The second guard said, “They were loving it. They were showing it their love. Did you ever hear such goddamn foolishness?”
The other guard grunted in disgust.
By this time, the visitor was a small speck in the western sky.
In the Tribune newsroom, Gold put the phone back in the cradle. He said to Garrison, “The one on Highway 12 is gone, too. Lifted off and left about the same time as the one at the airport.”
“Almost as if there were some sort of signal, telling them to go,” said Garrison. “I wonder what it is they’re up to.”
“This is the second phase,” said Gold.
“What do you mean—the second phase?”
“Well, the first phase was when they came and looked us over. They’ve finished with that. Now they’re doing something else.”
“How do you reach that conclusion?”
“I don’t know, Johnny. I’m just guessing.”
“Maybe they are finished with what they came to do. They may be going into space, forming up again, getting set to go off someplace else. This may be the last we will see of them.”
Hal Russell, the wire editor, came shuffling up the room. He stopped at the city desk. “A story just came in on the wires,” he said. “They’re leaving everywhere. It’s not only here.” Garrison said to Gold, “Why don’t you phone Lone Pine. Find out what’s happening there.”
Gold picked up the phone and began dialing.
Garrison asked Russell, “Anything else? Any hints? Any speculation?”
“Nothing,” said Russell. “Just that they are leaving. Those that
have been around for days are leaving.”
“Damn!” said Garrison. “How do you handle such a story? There’s a story here. Someone has to dig it out and I’d like it to be us. I know there is a story, but how can it be gotten at?”
“Jay and Kathy,” said Russell. “They’re the ones who know the most about the visitors. They may have some suggestions.”
“Kathy’s not here,” said Garrison. “She’s off on some wild goose chase. Phoned me last night. Said she was onto something that might be big. Wouldn’t tell me what it was. Said I’d have to trust her. Al will be pissed off. He practically ordered me to get her back from Lone Pine. And here she’s gone again.” Garrison sighed heavily.
He looked around the city room. “Where the hell is Jay?” he asked. “He’s not at his desk. Is there anyone who might know where he is? How about you, Annie?”
The city desk secretary shook her head. “He’s not signed out. I don’t know where he is.”
“Maybe he’s in the can,” said Russell.
Gold hung up the phone and said, “The visitors at Lone Pine have disappeared too. Some of the youngsters are still there, chomping at the bales.”
“What does Norton think of it?” asked Garrison.
“I didn’t talk with Norton. I talked with Stiffy. He’s holding down the office. Norton is out of town. Took off this morning for a canoe trip into the primitive area.”
43. WASHINGTON, D.C.
Porter waited for the members of the press to get comfortably settled, then he said, “I have no statement to make. I imagine that the most of you know that the visitors have disappeared. I would suspect that most of your questions will be aimed in that direction. I’ll answer as I can, but I doubt I can be helpful.”
“Mr. Porter,” said the New York Times, “one possible answer that must have occurred to almost everyone is that our visitors have gone back into space, probably preparatory to proceeding somewhere else. Can you give us any indication if this might be true?”
“Mr. Smith, I can’t,” said Porter. “The same thought occurred to us. NASA is watching for any indication. Our space station is on the alert and so, I suppose, is the Soviet station. So far there is no word. But we must realize there is a large area up there to cover. The only possibility of seeing anything would be if the visitors formed into another mass, as was the case when they came to Earth.”
“If the Soviet station saw something, would they communicate the information to us?”
“I can’t be sure, of course. I rather think they would.”
“Dave,” said the Washington Post, “this may sound like a loaded question and I hope that you . . .”
“The Post,” said Porter, “never asks a loaded question.”
An outburst of laughter drowned out the Post. Porter lifted a hand for silence.
“Go ahead,” he said. “I’ll stipulate, in advance, that it is not a loaded question.”
“What I wanted to ask,” said the Post, “is this: I think it is no secret that the appearance of the visitors posed some rather bothersome problems, political and otherwise, for the administration. Can you tell me if their disappearance might be of some relief to you?”
“I was wrong,” said Porter. “This is a loaded question. However, I’ll try to answer it with whatever honesty I can muster. It seems to me that we may be premature in assuming that the disappearance means we’ve seen the last of the visitors. There is a possibility they have only shifted their bases of operation to more remote areas. As to whether the administration would heave a sigh of relief at their going, the answer must be iffy. I can’t deny the visitors gave us some occasion for worry. We had a problem dumped in our lap that no one had ever faced before. There was no precedent to serve as a guide for us in our dealing with them. We had some difficulty in assessing their impact on the various segments of the population. At times, I don’t mind telling you, we were completely baffled. But I think that, over all, the situation was handled not too badly.
“This is one side of my two-part response. The second part is that after some days of dealing with the problem, we had fairly well come to the conclusion that our people could get along with the visitors and that there might be some benefit derived from them. I, personally, will feel rather strongly, if indeed the visitors are gone, that we are the poorer for their going. Perhaps there was much we might have learned from them.”
“You say there was much we might have learned from them,” said the Kansas City Star. “Would you care to amplify on that?”
“Only to point out,” said Porter, “that in them we were in contact with an alien race from which we might have learned a new technology, might have gained some fresh perspective, might have learned of principles and ways of thought of which we, to this point, have been ignorant.”
“Can you be more specific? Dr. Allen, for some days now, has been working on the dead visitor. Might not he have come up with some specific information that could be useful to us?”
“Nothing about which we can be certain,” said Porter. “I told you a few days ago that the creature’s structure is based on cellulose, but in a form with which we are unfamiliar, and with which, more than likely, we’ll remain unfamiliar for some time. One possibility is that if we can learn the secret of this alien cellulose, the procedure by which the cellulose is changed into the bodies of the visitors, we may be able to utilize cellulose as a substitute for many of our decreasing nonrenewable resources.”
“Back there a ways,” said the Chicago Tribune, “you suggested the visitors might be changing their bases to more remote areas. By that, do you mean they are hiding out?”
“I didn’t say that, Harry, and you know I didn’t.”
“But the implication appeared to be there. Why would you think they might be hiding out?”
“First of all, I didn’t say they were hiding out. If they should be, my answer is that I have no idea.”
“Mr. Porter,” said the New York Times, “it would seem, on the surface at least, that it would be reasonable to assume the visitors may be putting a second phase of their operation into effect. First they came and spent some time observing us. Now they have made another move, disappearing, perhaps as a prelude to launching another . . .”
“Mr. Smith, you are asking me to speculate upon a speculation,” said Porter, “and the only answer I can have to that is that I have no reaction. It is true that your speculation does seem to have some validity—as you say, on the surface at least. But I have no kind of information that would justify an answer.”
“Thank you, sir,” said the Times. “I thought it was a question that should be asked.”
“I am glad you asked it,” Porter told him.
“Dave, I think we should proceed with this further,” said the Milwaukee Journal. “I think the point raised by the Times is a good one. I was about to ask a similar question. These things have looked us over. They may have a much better idea of what makes us tick than we can know, perhaps enough information to determine what their next step should be.”
“I did not question the validity of the query, as Mr. Smith well knows,” said Porter. “I agree that it is a consideration we should hold in mind. But with no information that would justify a response to it, I don’t think I should try to answer it. There is only one objection to the viewpoint that I can think of. It makes it seem that the visitors are plotting against us, that they may have some hostile motive and are developing strategy to carry it out. So far, they have not been hostile.”
“But we can’t know what their motives may be.”
“That is right. We cannot know their motives.”
“Your phrase ‘more remote regions’ intrigues me,” said the Los Angeles Times. “Mr. Secretary, are there all that many remote regions left in the United States?”
“I’m sorry now that I employed that phraseology,” said Porter. “I think all of you are making too much of it. What I had in mind was that the visitors have disappeared from the more dense
ly populated areas. They may begin to appear elsewhere, but, if so, we have no word of it. As to your question about remote areas, I should say there are still a lot of them. Vast forest regions still exist in New England, in northern Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. There are similar areas in other states as well. In mountainous regions, particularly in the Rockies, there are a number of remote areas, which also is true of the southwestern deserts.”
“It seems to me that you are convinced they’ve not actually disappeared, that they’ve not gone back to space,” said the Washington Post. “Why do you seem so convinced of this?”
“I wasn’t aware that my personal reaction was showing through so clearly,” said Porter. “This is not an official position and if you use it, I hope you will make it clear it is not. My own thinking is that the visitors would be unlikely this soon to leave a planet where they’ve found the natural resource they apparently were seeking. It is probable that not too many planets would be found where they could discover plant life that would produce as much cellulose as our forests do.”
“So, having found it, you think they would stick around for a while.”
“That is my thinking, not necessarily the administration’s thinking.”
“Throughout this entire visitor situation,” said the INS, “the administration has maintained what I think can be described as a hopeful, perhaps even an optimistic, mood. There must have been many trying times for you, but still you always seem to have struck that note of optimism. Can you tell me if the thinking is as optimistic as it seems?”
“What you are trying to ask,” said Porter, “is whether the optimism you say you detected was merely a political optimism or was it real?”
“Thank you, Dave, for completing my question for me.”
“I think,” said Porter, “that under any circumstance, the tendency might have been to remain optimistic for purely political reasons. But I can tell you, without quibble, that a true feeling of optimism has existed. The visitors did not act in a hostile manner. It appeared to us that they were trying to determine how they should act toward us. Almost never did they violate any of our basic rules of conduct. It seemed that they were trying to be decent. I think the feeling existed in the White House that they would not willingly do anything to harm us.
The Complete Serials Page 175