“A casual word, you call it.”
“That is all. To a couple of well-selected people. We won’t name them. You choose them for yourself.”
“I think I know,” said the senator. “You don’t even need to tell me. Now, answer me one thing.”
“Yes, of course,” said Porter. “Has there been a weapons test?”
“Yes, there has been. The results are classified.”
“And in such a case we must hold tight control of the visitors.”
“I would say so, sir.”
“Well, now,” said the senator, “on close examination it seems to me my conscience is quite clear. And my duty plain to see. You have told me nothing, naturally. Just a slight slip of the tongue, of which I took no notice.”
“In that case,” said Porter, “I shall be getting back.” He said to Alice, “I thank you for the food.”
“The both of you,” said Alice, “are despicable.”
50. THE UNITED STATES
There was talk at breakfast tables. “Herb, I always told you. Some good, I said, would come of the visitors. I always told you that, but you didn’t think so. And now they’ll be giving us free cars.”
“There ain’t nothing free. Not in this world, there ain’t nothing free. You pay, one way or another, for everything you get.”
“But the paper says so.”
“The paper doesn’t know. That’s just what the paper thinks. The piece in the paper says it might be so. I won’t count on no free car until I see it standing in the driveway.”
“And it doesn’t need any gasoline. It doesn’t even need a road. You can fly it if you want to.”
“There’ll be bugs in it. Just you wait and see. There’s bugs in all new models. And this flying business. Just try to fly it and you’ll break your neck.”
“You never believe nothing. Nothing good, that is. You’re just a cynic. All you believe is bad. The paper says the visitors are doing it out of gratitude.”
“Just tell me, Liza, what I’ve ever done for a visitor. Why should they feel gratitude to me? I ain’t turned a hand to help one.”
“Not gratitude to you, Herb. Not to you personally. Anyone you ever helped would die of shock. No one expects you to be any help at all. They’d fall down dead if you were any help. The visitors feel grateful to all of us just because we’re here, just because we live on this planet. They want to do something for us. Not just for you, but for everyone.”
There was talk in the ghetto streets. “Hey, man, you hear about them cars?”
“What cars?”
“Them cars the visitors are about to give us.”
“Nobody gonna give us cars.”
“It says so in the paper.”
“Not us, man. Maybe some honkeys will get some cars. We won’t get no cars. All we’ll get is screwed.”
“Maybe it’ll be different this time. Them visitors are different kinds of folk. Maybe they won’t screw us.”
“Listen, man, get rid of that idea. Everybody screws us.”
And in an assembly worker’s home in a Detroit suburb:
“Joe, you think it’s true about the cars?”
“I don’t know. How should I know? It’s just what the paper says. The paper could be wrong.”
“But if it isn’t wrong? What if it isn’t wrong? What if there really will be cars?”
“Christ, Jane, how should I know?”
“You would lose your job. A lot of people would lose their jobs. Ford and Chrysler and all the other companies can’t go on making cars if there are free cars being handed out.”
“The visitor-cars might not be any good. Run for a while and stop and once they stop, what do you do for repairs? They’re just some newfangled idea. Maybe some new advertising gimmick. I don’t think the visitors are making them. Someone else is making them and some PR jerk has cooked up this story to attract attention. Some day them PR people will carry things too far and maybe this is it.”
“You can’t lose your job, Joe. We can’t afford to have you lose your job. There’s the house payments and the car payments and the kids need winter clothes.”
“Don’t worry so much, Jane. There have been all these flashy foreign cars and the assembly line keeps running.”
“But these aren’t foreign cars, Joe. And they are free.”
“There ain’t nothing free,” said Joe.
There was subdued panic in the banks, in the board rooms, in the unmanned brokerage offices. In a surge of selling on foreign exchanges, the dollar dropped spectacularly. The British and French governments scheduled a hurried joint consultation. The West German government officially called for support of the United States by other nations of the world. Strange stirrings took place behind the Kremlin walls, but foreign correspondents, even the old Moscow hands, had only a confused idea of what might be going on.
On Capitol Hill, in Washington, out of a flurry of meaningless motion, some sentiment developed for the drafting of a bill that would make it illegal for citizens to accept any sort of gifts from aliens. And a rumor grew . . .
“What do you know about this report that there has been a weapons test?” Senator Knox asked Senator Davenport when the two met just outside the chamber.
“Very little,” said Davenport. “I just now got wind of it.”
“How it got out, I don’t know,” said Knox. “It’s supposed to be top secret.”
“There may be nothing to it,” said Davenport.
“I can’t believe that to be true,” said Knox. “It seems to be authentic. I’m beginning to think we should back the administration on this visitor issue. No matter how we stand on other matters. If we’ve got something from the visitors . . .”
“I’m inclined to go along with you,” said Davenport. “Seems to me we should stay hanging in there. Although, I still am not too sure how much credence to give the rumor.”
“Just on the chance that it is true,” said Knox, “I would favor doing what we can. In the area of national security, we can’t let the country down.” On a small river in the wilds of Minnesota, Frank Norton bent to the paddle, heading for the bridge where he had parked his car.
51. WASHINGTON, D.C.
The science advisor said to Jerry Conklin, “You, Mr. Conklin, tell a fascinating story.”
“I came here to tell it,” said Jerry, “under protest. Had it not been for Kathy and Garrison at the Tribune, I would have refused to come. They persuaded me that by coming here I would be performing a public duty. So I came and now I’ve told what I have to tell and it’s up to you. I don’t give a damn if you believe it or not.”
“Mr. Conklin,” said the President, “no one here has indicated disbelief. For myself, at this point, I’m ready to believe almost anything.”
“I’d like to point out,” said Porter, “that the story is much more than fascinating. I think, Dr. Allen, that you made an extremely bad choice of words. What Mr. Conklin tells us does explain one thing—how he was able to go straight to the location where the cars were being made. No one else knew or could have told him. The old river rat knew the visitors had landed on Goose Island, but he didn’t know what they were doing there. You couldn’t have paid him enough to go and find out. He was scared spitless of them.”
Allen said, “I did not mean to seem to doubt what he said.”
“It sounded to me as if you did,” said Jerry.
Whiteside rumbled at Jerry, “I would say, young man, that it took a fair amount of guts to sit down and tell us what you have. You had decided to keep quiet about it and I can understand why you did. I think I would have done the same.”
“What he has told us, essentially, is that a sort of communication with the visitors is possible,” said the President, “but a one-sided conversation and on the terms of the visitor. A visitor, when the necessity arises, can have some limited conversation with us, but we can’t with them.”
“I told 101 to tone down its communication,” said Jerry, “and, appare
ntly, it understood.”
“Did you try to talk further with it?” asked the President.
“Certainly, sir. I asked it why it showed me where to go, what I would find there, why it wanted me to go.”
“And it didn’t answer you?”
“Not only didn’t it answer; it also threw me out. But this time not as violently as was the case the first time when it heaved me out into a tree. This time it set me down, rather gently, on the ground.”
“This time it apparently wanted to be sure you would be able to go where it wanted you to go.”
“I would suppose so, Mr. President, but I don’t think that’s all of it. The first time, I was only an alien organism, along with other alien organisms, that it wanted to have a look at. The second time I was—I was about to say an old friend, and that’s not it, of course. More like an acquaintance. Someone it knew. Someone it could use.”
“Possibly one that it could use again.”
“I’m not sure about that. I can tell you this; I’m not going to hunt down 101 again.”
“If we asked you to?”
“What the hell would be the use of it?” asked Whiteside. “He has told us what the score is. We don’t ask it; it tells us. As it stands, there’d be no possibility of establishing conversation. It talks to us, if you can call it talking, but we don’t talk to it.”
“There have been stories,” said the President, “of other people being taken up.”
“I think you can discount those stories,” said Allen. “For years, people have been telling about being taken up by the UFOs. So far as can be determined, it has largely been cult stuff, all of it self-serving. What these people claim the UFOs have told them is so unimaginative, such fuzzy thinking and patently such human thinking that, instinctively, you know it’s a fabricated human story. If you really communicated with an alien, the result would not come out uniquely human. The concepts of such a conversation probably would be mind-boggling, which perhaps is an understatement. A large part of what one heard would not be understood.”
“So you think all the taken-up tales now are either cult imagining or downright lies?” asked Porter.
“Certainly,” Allen told him. “I’m convinced that Mr. Conklin is the only one who has been taken up. What he tells us fits the pattern of alien communication.” He said to Jerry, “There were no words. I think you said there were no words.”
“That’s right,” said Jerry. “Only pictures in my mind. At times, thoughts in my mind, but I couldn’t tell if they were my thoughts or were something else.”
“Well, let’s say you went back to 101 again. You say you won’t and I don’t suppose you will. But let us say you did. Do you think it would take you up again?”
“Only if it had something that it wanted to tell me,” Jerry said. “Only if there were a chore it wanted me to do.”
“You’re convinced of that?”
“Utterly convinced. I feel very keenly that it used me.”
“And, yet, Miss Foster tells us of the handshake she got from 101.”
“It was more than a handshake,” said Kathy. “More personal than a handshake. A kiss, perhaps. I didn’t realize what it was at the time. I thought, first a handshake, for that was the easiest way to characterize it. A handshake of gratitude, of thanks, of recognition maybe. To let me know that it knew I existed and was there. But now I know it was more than that. It was, I am sure, a sign of real affection. I think that impression is reenforced by their making of the cars. They’re not just showing off. Not trying to awe us or impress us. Not threatening us with a demonstration of what they can do. Not even paying us for letting them eat our trees. It’s a show of deep affection for us. Maybe like Santa Claus. Maybe like giving a special friend a birthday gift. Like a young man buying roses for his girl.”
“You make a good case for them,” said the President. “And yet, if this keeps on, it will ruin us.”
“Let’s say, Mr. President, that a fond parent buys candy for her child,” said Kathy, “not knowing, never having been told, what candy may do to a child’s teeth. It’s the same with the visitors. It’s not knowing, that is all. They’re only trying to be nice, not aware of what their niceness does to us.”
“Miss, that may all be true,” said Whiteside, “but they got me scared. I still think that a few well-placed . . .”
“Henry,” the President said, sharply, “not now. Later, if you insist on talking about it, but not now.”
“Let’s get back to this business of taking up,” said Allen. “To talk with someone, it appears, they have to take a person up. Mr. Conklin, can you think of any way they might be persuaded to take up—say, myself, or the President?”
“They wouldn’t take you up,” said Jerry. “They simply would ignore you. No matter what you did, they’d pay no attention to you.”
“I would think that you are right,” said Allen. “They’re good at doing that. They’ve ignored us ever since they came. I have found myself wondering just how they perceive us. I’ve rather thought at times that they might see us as charming pets or as pitiful forms of life they must be careful not to step on. But, actually, I sense it’s neither one of these. Miss Foster seems to think they have affection for us. After all, we allowed them to land on the planet where there was cellulose to save them from racial extinction. The cellulose allowed them to have young and if there had been no young, I would suppose the race finally would have died. If we give them human emotions, which I doubt they have, they then would feel gratitude. With all due respect to Miss Foster’s viewpoint, I can’t feel they’re all that thankful. The point is that there is no way we can stop them from chopping down our trees. I am inclined to believe they have, rather than gratitude, an irrepressible business ethic, although they would not think of it as that. I know I phrase this clumsily. I think they are obsessed with making full and honest payment for anything they take. I think that’s what they are doing.”
“To sum up,” said the President, “there does seem to be an outside chance that given time, we might be able to talk with our visitors. But it will take time, apparently, an awful lot of time, and more patience than we have. The one thing we haven’t got is time. Would the others of you say that is a fair assessment?”
“I subscribe to it,” said Whiteside. “That’s the whole thing, all wrapped up, and we haven’t got the time. Our time is all run out.”
“We can weather it,” said the President, as if he might be talking to himself. “We’ve got to weather it. If nothing else happens, if it’s no more than the cars, we can muddle through. I have had some encouraging phone calls from leaders in the business world and the Congress seems more inclined to go along with us than I had thought they would.” He said to Porter, “I take it, from what I hear, that you talked with Davenport.”
“Yes, I did,” said Porter. “A friendly interchange.”
“Well, then,” said the President, “I think this does it. Unless,” he said, looking at Kathy and Jerry, “you have something else to add.”
They shook their heads.
“Nothing, Mr. President,” said Jerry.
“We thank you for coming to see us,” the President told them. “You have done us a very useful service. Now we can see more clearly the problems that we face. You may rest assured that nothing you have told us will go beyond this room.”
“I’m grateful to you for that,” said Jerry.
“The plane is waiting for you,” said the President. “We’ll drive you to the field any time you wish. Should you wish to remain in Washington, however, for a day or two . . .”
“Mr. President,” said Kathy, “we must be getting back. I have my job and Jerry has his thesis.”
52. MINNEAPOLIS
“This place feels like a wake,” said Gold. “We’re hip deep in news of great significance. The whole damn world going down the drain. The dollar almost worthless. Foreign governments howling doom. All the diplomats tight-lipped. The business community white-face
d. The kind of stuff we thrive on. Yet where is all the joy of a newsroom bristling with news, where all the jubilation?”
“Oh, shut up,” said Garrison. “The White House expresses confidence,” said Gold. “Says we will see it through. There’s a prime example of whistling down a dark and lonely street.”
Garrison said to Annie, “You have any idea when Kathy and Jerry will be getting in?”
“In another couple of hours,” she told him. “They’re probably taking off right now. But Kathy will have nothing for us. She told me when she called there’d not be any story.”
“I expected that,” said Garrison. “I had hoped, of course . . .”
“You’re a blood sucker,” Gold told him. “You suck your people dry. Not a drop left in them.”
“It’s not working out the way it should,” said Annie.
“What’s not working out?” asked Garrison.
“This business with the visitors. It’s not the way it is in pictures.”
“By pictures, I suppose you mean the movies.”
“Yes. In them it works out right, but just in the nick of time. When everyone’s given up every hope and there seems no chance at ail. Do you suppose that now, just in the nick of time . . .”
“Don’t count on it,” said Gold.
“Look,” said Garrison, “this is the real thing. This is really happening. This is no fantasy dreamed up by some jerk producer who knows, in his secret, stupid heart that happiness is holy.”
“But if they’d just talk to us,” said Annie.
“If they’d just go away,” said Gold, and he shook his head slowly. The phone rang.
Annie picked it up, listened for a moment and then took it down and looked at Garrison.
“It’s Lone Pine,” she said. “Mr. Norton. On line three. He sounds funny. There’s something wrong up there.”
Garrison grabbed his phone off the cradle. “Frank,” he said, “is there something wrong? What is going on?” Norton’s words came tumbling along the line. “Johnny, I just got back from my trip. I looked at the papers on my desk. Can it be true? About the cars . . .”
The Complete Serials Page 179