“Well, now,” I said. “It’s not that bad. I’m only a half-assed admiral. Sit down and finish your coffee.”
He started to comply, then froze again.
“Okay,” I said wearily. “If you must. But you will drive my secretary and me to the Pentagon?”
“Yes, sir,” he said through stiff lips.
“You must be a stranger here in Washington yourself,” I said. “I can’t conceive of a regular taxi driver reacting to a mere admiral.”
“I was in the Navy, sir, until two weeks ago. Ocean Navy.”
“That accounts for it,” I agreed.
I’d been rambling along with a double purpose; to finish our coffee and to bring him back down to Earth enough for it to be safe riding with him at the wheel. We seemed to accomplish both.
By comparison with the still-dazed people on the streets, he was as sharp as a tack. We climbed into his cab parked a quarter block up the street.
“You do know where the Pentagon is,” I said, as he pulled away from the curb.
He looked reproachfully at me through the rearview mirror.
ELEVEN
The people on the streets were beginning to move about more actively now. There were lines forming at the doorways of community kitchens for morning coffee. Here and there, other cars than our own were beginning to move. The morning duty was replacing the night’s dream.
I snapped on the taxi television set, and, as it warmed to life, one of the World Broadcasting Company’s commentators, powered by his own sense of duty or perhaps the long black whip in Harvey Strickland’s hand that could reach down anywhere in his organization to flick the bare buttocks of any laggard, was giving a run-down of happenings around the world.
Everywhere the pattern had been played out in the same way. Everywhere, at the same instant, the discs had fled and the globes pursued.
Yet there was a curious lack of something (enthusiasm, gladness, gratitude?) in the commentator’s voice. At first I thought he was characteristically underplaying it, just giving the facts, ma’am, and then I realized there was a deliberate reluctance to express a reaction—as if he hadn’t been informed as yet on company policy; and knew from experience that he’d better not have any opinion until he had been told what it ought to be.
Ah, he was a Good Boy, a true-blue Organization Man.
I was about to reach over and snap him off when a stir among the increasing crowds on the street distracted me. Over the cadenced tones of the commentator, I heard a hoarse scream from a man on the sidewalk. A hoarse ecstasy. And other voices took up the cry.
“They’re coming back! The globes!”
“I see one!”
“It’s coming!”
“There it is, see?”
“It’s coming!”
Without being told, the driver pulled over to the curb, and again I started to reach over to snap off the television, but saw the face of the commentator beginning to fade and a globe beginning to appear. There was a flickering, a streaking of colors, as if the broadcast engineer were trying to maintain control of his sound and picture in spite of overpowering interference. Interference won. The sapphire-blue globe with its star of radiant light steadied and glowed on the screen. I did not snap it off.
“I gotta see this,” the taxi driver said. The dream had overwhelmed the duty once more. He threw open the door and slid out of his seat to stand on the curb.
We were about to follow him, Sara and I, when a new voice came through the television speaker—a voice resonant, calm, reassuring…
“We come from the stars…”
The voice was in English—American English. My experienced personnel man’s ear caught a trace of sectional accent, but faint since it was overlaid with that spurious intonation belonging to no section which has been adopted by announcers as a badge of their calling.
“We mean you no harm…”
This was the second sentence. It was followed by another pause. Then came two short sentences. The streets outside were as still as a vacuum, except for this voice which penetrated everywhere, transcending the laws of electronic sound.
“We come as friends. We will not hurt you.”
I had a fleeting vision of an exploring anthropologist who comes upon some obscure tribe in the remoteness of untouched jungle; one who speaks simply and reassuringly at the edge of their village compound; who speaks as if to small and frightened children who might possibly harm themselves in panic of fear.
“We return as ambassadors from our fleet which has gone in pursuit of our enemy—your enemy.
“We ask permission to land at your capital city, Washington, District of Columbia, United States of America.
“We can spare only this one ship, with its crew of five, from the battle.
“We know you would prefer us to land at the United Nations, but there are compelling reasons why it must be Washington.
“We would give offense to none, by this, and hope you will grant our need.
“We will now withdraw to give you time for considering this petition.
“We will return in twenty-four hours, and wait the broadcasting of your permission, on any of your electronic channels.
“If you refuse, we will go away, without harming you.
“We hope you will not refuse. That you will permit us to land.
“We would like to meet you and greet you.”
There was another pause, while the motionless natives thought this over. Then again came the careful, reassuring sentences:
“We mean you no harm. We come as friends. We will not hurt you.”
The globe receded then. Fast, much faster than it had descended. As fast as the eye could alter its focus to follow. It ascended up into the golden light of morning, the heavenly blue of sky, and was gone.
There was dead silence in the streets for a moment after the voice ceased and the globe receded into the heavens.
Then a roar broke loose. There was no question of its welcome. The people were screaming in a frenzy of jubilation, embracing one another, pummeling one another.
I looked at Sara. There were tears in her eyes.
“They didn’t demand anything,” she said. “They could have. They could have landed without asking permission. What’s to stop them? But they asked.”
“Um-hum,” I agreed. “And there’s going to be holy hell to pay because they’re landing here instead of at the United Nations. First mistake I’ve seen them make.”
“They said they had their reasons,” she reproved me.
“Um-hum,” I said. “I suppose they have. They’ve played it too cagey all along to pull a blooper like that unless they had a reason.”
Sara looked at me as if I were something white and crawling which had come out from under a rock.
How was I to know that while they were staging their big production over the major cities all over Earth, this had taken only part of their attention, and that the remainder of it had been engaged in sifting and sampling through the minds and emotions of human spectators below. That unshielding these minds and emotions had been one of the reasons for the production. That they were looking for a particular reaction to the production.
How was I to know that my doubt and cynicism of its reality were one of the first to register? That my being out of phase with my own kind brought me closer into phase with them?
How was I to know that their reason for landing in Washington was because that’s where I happened to be?
TWELVE
The Starmen’s diplomatic request for permission to land on the sovereign territory of the United States of America had come at 7:42 A.M.
At 8:00 A.M., the Home Office Policy Board of World Broadcasting Company (and affiliates) was assembled in their usual semicircle of seats facing Harvey Strickland’s empty desk in his penthouse office atop his New York W.B.C. skyscraper.
This time the boss did not keep them cooling their heels. Since the entire organization was poised like runners at the starting line
waiting for The Word to tell them when to start running, and in what direction, the chosen should be grateful for that—and they were. They murmured as much as he swept regally through the doorway in his purple dressing gown and took his throne seat before them. They hoped their gratitude got through to him.
They put it fervently into their bright and cheerful organization man’s “Good morning, H.S.” These few were permitted to H.S. him, a mark of his confidence in them. Most often he observed the important executive tradition and ignored their greetings, but this morning he gave them a cheerful nod as reward.
It revealed his mood and set the tone. It ensured, in advance, that their independently thought-out editorials, the factual news articles, the independent commentaries and feature articles, the colloquially worded amateur-writer sentiments of Constant Reader letters to the editor, all these would reflect, confirm by selected fact, buttress by independent column and commentator philosophies, and substantiate that the right thinking public were all in unanimous agreement with Harvey Strickland’s policy.
Harvey Strickland was jubilant. For all the power they had displayed, the Starmen had, nonetheless, revealed themselves as weak and uncertain. He, himself, would have landed, then and there, while the Earthmen were dazed and spent, when they had had no time to organize resistance or policy, at any time and place he chose to land without asking, without explaining. The Starmen had not done so, and were therefore—weak.
His confidence in his power and destiny all but overwhelmed him.
“They want something from us,” he said in his opening sentence. “They want it bad enough to beg us for it. They can’t take it, unless we’re willing to let them have it—whatever it is. Whatever happens, keep that in mind. We’ve got the upper hand. It’s up to us to keep it. It’s up to us to see that those knuckleheads down in Washington don’t give it away.”
He paused, and began to glare balefully at the editor in chief of his newspaper chain.
“Goddamn it, Jim!” he exploded. “Listen to me. You can’t listen while you’re taking notes. Goddamn it, do you have to take notes on something so elementary as that?”
Jim gulped, turned pale, and shoved his pad and pencil back into his pocket.
“Sorry, H.S.,” he murmured. “Every word you said was so vital, so…”
“Awright, awright,” Strickland shut him off, but he was not unpleased.
Jim carefully concealed a sigh of relief.
“Now, where were we in our discussion, gentlemen?” Strickland asked. “Okay,” he answered himself without pause. “We’ve got something they want, and we’ve got it right here in America. No place else, now. Remember that. Right here. Along with deciding whether we will let them have it—and at what price, remember that, gentlemen, at what price?—we’ve gotta fend off those thieving foreigners who will try to get in on it.”
He broke off to gaze in exasperation at the ceiling.
“Sometimes it’s too much,” he groaned. “It’s hard enough to get those knuckleheads in Washington to do the right thing, but at the same time we’ve gotta keep the foreign nations in their places, too.”
He squared his shoulders and became man enough to carry that extra burden.
“First question,” he resumed. “First things first. Shall we give them permission to land?”
Nobody answered. Naturally. They weren’t expected to. When the boss asked questions it was for the purpose of giving them the rare privilege of going into his mind, actually seeing the inner thoughts of genius, to see the technique of sheering away the nonessentials, getting right down to the bedrock of the problem. Oh, it seemed so easy when the boss did it. But they were not fooled; they’d tried it themselves from time to time, and well remembered the following scenes when he had shown them their mistakes.
“Shall we give them permission to land?” he repeated. “The answer is—yes. They’ve said they would go away if we didn’t. So far, we have to take them at their word. Within reason,” he chuckled slyly. “Within reason.” He stuck his tongue powerfully into one cheek. “We don’t know just what they want, want bad enough to beg for it. We’ll give ’em a chance to beg, before we make up our minds on letting ’em have it.”
The policy board nodded in agreement with the wise decision.
“Cautious optimism, gentlemen. That will be our policy. We greet them as distinguished foreigners have to be greeted. Distinguished foreigners with their hand out. We don’t notice that they’ve got their hand out; not right away. We think they’re coming to see us because they like us. I guess all you fellows know that routine well enough.
“Now official Washington will want to make a big hoopla out of the visit. Maybe even more than usual. We’ll go along with that. Just remember not to get carried away. The knuckleheads down there have the habit of getting carried away, like kids when their team wins the game. We’ve gotta keep a little rein on them, keep them from giving away the country. Welcome Stranger, but cagey, see? Any questions?”
He didn’t expect any. They always told him he was so clear and explicit that there weren’t any questions left to ask. But this time there was one. It came from the head of his legal department.
“I’m sure you’ve already thought out the legal implications involved in their pre-emption and use of our broadcasting facilities without license or permission, H.S.,” the man said. “Our department will want to be briefed.”
Strickland hadn’t thought of that before; after all, it had been considerably less than an hour since the deed, and even a genius can’t think of everything at once.
“Sure, sure, Bob,” he answered genially. “But the same policy goes for your department. Let’s don’t file suit right off. Just hold back a little on that. We just might need that little item, at some point when we get down to negotiating.”
He began to chuckle. He could visualize the quandary of the Supreme Court when it came to deciding that one.
His face darkened. Goddamn Supreme Court. If it weren’t for the Supreme Court… You think you have a man right where you want him; he sits up and begs properly, he jumps through the hoop for you; so, all right, you think it is safe enough to let him get appointed to the Supreme Court. And then what happens? All at once, damn it, he discovers he’s a man. All at once he decides other people are men, too—and that man has certain inalienable rights, and that among these are…
He drew a deep breath. Not to let fury cloud his judgment at a time like this. Time to face up to whatever they might do when he slapped them in the face with a lawsuit against the Starmen for violating his legal rights. He began to chuckle again. This time, he was a man with certain inalienable rights and all that crap. The Starmen weren’t men, well, not human men, anyhow. Wow! Suppose that goddamn Supreme Court had to distinguish between a man’s rights, and a—well, whatever they were. What a precedent that one would set. Because then that precedent could be used to settle other questions, such as, well, such as—is a Negro really a man? Wow!
“You’re right in there, Bob,” he complimented his legal head. “Yes, sir. They sure laid themselves wide open when they just took over our broadcasting facilities for their own use, without so much as a by-your-leave. Start working on it, but hold back. Wait for the time. Any more questions?”
And still there was another.
“What if they’re not human?” asked one of the world-renowned commentators who had made his reputation in crusading courageously for home, flag, and mother. “What if they’re—well, say, green spiders?”
A derisive titter greeted this absurdity, but the commentator, noted for his original thinking, stood his ground. He was relieved that the boss accepted the question seriously.
“It sounded like a human voice,” Strickland said thoughtfully. “But they could have a machine of some kind. We’ve got machines, you know, that will turn a printed page into a spoken voice; so I guess they might be that far along too. That don’t mean they’re human. Of course,” and now he displayed one of those rare gli
mpses of how deep his learning really went, “our best philosophers have all agreed that life on other worlds would have to develop the same kind of human body and human mind as we have, if it was ever to amount to anything. The philosophers we’ll pay any attention to, anyhow, all say that.
“Still, we got to be grown-up about this. We gotta be—big. They just might turn out to be—well, as you say, green spiders.
“So just barely touch on that. Hint that the public ought to be prepared, just in case. Not enough that anybody can claim we came right out and said they were green spiders, in case they aren’t, but hint. They’re distinguished visitors and all that. We got to be grown-up enough, cosmopolitan enough, not to notice whatever’s wrong with them.
“Now, any more questions?” This time he stood up and turned to leave the room.
There were no more questions.
Within an hour, his private plane landed him at the Washington airport. There was no company car there to pick him up. He made a mental note of that. It showed that already his Washington organization was going to pieces. Of course he hadn’t let his New York staff know he was leaving, or his Washington staff know he was coming—he didn’t hafta account for his movements to the damn underlings—but they should have guessed he might come to Washington to see everything for himself, and had a car there just in case.
Time for that, later.
He picked up a cab at the airport.
“You got a reservation at the Hotel Brighton?” asked the driver.
Strickland didn’t answer him, but this was a gabby one and didn’t seem fazed by the silence.
“You better have!” the driver rambled on, as he threaded his way through the outgoing traffic. “They’ve already started turning people away. All the hotels have started doing that. I swear I don’t see how so many people got here so fast. But they did—and, oh brother, they’re still coming. There’ll be sleeping in the streets tonight, Mom,” he crooned the line, and his shoulders shook with anticipatory laughter.
Strickland began to wonder, himself, where all the people could have come from. He couldn’t remember ever having seen the streets so crowded; and after a night with no sleep for anybody, too. At the Connecticut Avenue traffic circle, traffic stalled again, and the driver turned around to face him.
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