Good God, now that he had it in his hands, it all seemed so logical. How could they not have known?
The Altheans did indeed manipulate stars, in Gambini’s phrase, but in the wider meaning of the verb. In fact, they manipulated space in the sense that they could alter its degree of curvature. Or they could flatten it altogether!
And so could he!
My God! His hands trembled as, for the first time, he considered the practical applications.
A shadow passed across the room. It was only the waitress, with the coffee. She was an attractive young lady, bright and smiling, as waitresses in country inns invariably are. But Rimford did not smile back, and she must have wondered about the plain little man in the corner who’d looked so frightened at her approach.
Later, when he’d gone, she picked up the napkin with the string of numbers written on it. By six o’clock, she had tossed it into the laundry.
The meeting in the Giacconi Room was not openly hostile, but Harry felt a distinct chill. About fifty people were present: some seemed angry, but most, apparently surprised to see him, looked embarrassed. Kmoch tried to rouse them, and Harry could see that they were unhappy with the course of events. Two others took their turns, but they also were not very articulate. That might have been a result of frustration, but he doubted it. In Harry’s experience, physical scientists did not usually excel as speakers.
Forty minutes or so into the meeting, they invited Harry to defend himself. He got up, looked around, and thanked everyone for being present.
“I know this is a problem for you,” he said. “It’s been one for me, too, but I realize that some of you are in trouble over the Hercules secrecy. And I realize something else: that each of you has dedicated your life to understanding what makes things work. And one of the biggest of those things is now being kept from you, from everyone, by a government that must seem terribly insensitive. Some have even said its actions are criminal.”
In a conversational tone, he outlined the President’s dilemma, described the fears that, he said, kept them all up at night, and inquired whether they really wanted to heap blame on a man whose only concern was that Hercules might bring a plague of technical knowledge into an unprepared world.
When Harry finished, there was a general discussion, in which almost everyone wished to get a protest on record. The strongest statement came from Gideon Barlow, of NASCOM Support and the University of Rhode Island, who warned Harry that their patience was not without limit.
Kmoch prudently failed to ask for a strike vote. Instead, he proposed a committee be elected to compose a letter voicing the group’s reservations. The move passed with a nearly unanimous show of hands.
At the door, Louisa White of MIT told Harry that next time management wouldn’t get off so easy.
Harry said he understood, and came away quite pleased with his performance.
Bobby Freeman arrived in a caravan of four old school buses. They’d been scrubbed down for the occasion, and black hand-painted letters on their sides proclaimed them the property of the Trinity Bible Church. A cheer went up from a portion of the crowd. The buses rolled in past heavy automobile traffic, past demonstrators carrying banners that demanded Hurley be impeached and that the Hercules Text be released, took their directions from base police, and swung into assigned parking areas, while television cameras followed their progress.
Freeman descended from the lead vehicle, smiling broadly to liberal cheers. He was hatless, wrapped in a threadbare coat and a long, loose scarf. The crowd surged forward; security men, Freeman’s own, mixed freely with them, restraining them, trying to control access to the great man. The preacher embraced a group of children, the ends of his long scarf flying. His supporters were middle-class types, mostly white, kids and their mothers and older couples. They were thoroughly combed, and the kids had shining faces and wore colorful school jackets, and everyone carried a Bible. It was cold, but nobody seemed to notice.
He lifted a young boy in his arms, and said something that Harry couldn’t hear. The crowd cheered again. People reached out to touch his sleeve. An old man climbed into a tree and almost fell when Freeman waved in his direction.
The wind played with his gray hair. His cheeks were full, his nose broad and flat, and he appeared irritatingly content. But his manner was not the vacuous sort of complacency one usually finds in the professional television preacher; rather, the impression was of a man who had come to grips with the great dilemmas of human existence and who believed he had found a solution.
“He’s sincere,” Leslie whispered.
“He’s a fake,” said Harry, who was unsure, but who felt a reflexive duty to attack TV preachers.
“We’re going to get a sermon, I believe,” she said.
Freeman’s men had cleared a small circle for him. Harry picked up a couple of security men and pushed through the crowd to the preacher’s side. “Reverend Freeman,” he said, “we have a VIP door open for you.” Harry indicated the general direction.
“Thank you,” said the preacher, launching his words into the gusting wind. “I’ll wait my turn. And go in with my friends.” He joined the long line, while the few people in the immediate area who had heard the exchange cheered.
“That misfired,” said Leslie, amused.
“You want to try your luck?”
She shook her head. “It’s a losing game,” she said. “The crowd and the cameras are out here.”
Harry punched Parkinson’s number on his hand radio. “How are you doing, Ted?”
“We’ve cut things down as much as we can, Harry.”
“I want it faster. Set up a special demonstration in one of the conference rooms if you have to. Move some people out of there. I want to get at least a hundred more inside as quickly as we can.”
Parkinson growled. “Why don’t we just claim we’re having a power failure and shut down for the day?”
Back near the buses, which were still discharging passengers, signs waved. And a scuffle began. Dave Schenken, who had appeared at Harry’s side, spoke into a radio.
A young man in a coat and tie, obviously one of Freeman’s people, leaped onto the hood of a bus. “Bobby!” he cried, above the murmur of the crowd. “Bobby, are you in there?”
A few amens rolled back at him.
“This is a setup,” said Leslie.
“I’m over here,” came the preacher’s cheerful baritone.
“Bobby,” said the man on the bus, “I can’t see you.”
Someone must have produced a portable pulpit or a wooden box. Freeman rose suddenly head, shoulders, and waist out of the crowd. “Can you see me now, Jim? Can you see me, friends?”
The crowd cheered. But when the noise subsided, Harry heard a few catcalls.
“Why are we here, Bobby?” asked the man on the bus.
“This is not a good situation, Harry,” said Leslie.
“We’re here to bear witness, friends,” said Freeman in the deep, round tones that seemed so much bigger than he did. There was more applause, and again it was followed by an echo of boos. “There must be some Philadelphia baseball fans here,” joked the preacher, and the crowd laughed. “We are standing in a place where people have not always been friendly to the Word, but where they are being touched by the Word all the same.”
The laughter stopped. The outer perimeter of the crowd stirred uneasily. Someone in back threw something. It landed close to Harry with a sound like soft ice. “Jimmy wants to know,” continued the preacher, not noticing, “why we have come here today. I can tell you: we are here because God is using this place, this scientific installation”—he pronounced the words the way somebody else might have said “whorehouse”—“for His own purposes. God is at work here this afternoon, using the devices of these men of stricken faith to confound them.
“But that is not important. God can confound the unbelieving any time He wishes.” He pronounced “God” in a singsong manner and gave the name two syllables. “What is importan
t is that the message from the skies, whatever it may be, has been delivered, like the message from Sinai, to a God-fearing nation.” Cameras were clicking now, and the news-pool van was getting it all. “There are some among us who would give this message to the atheists in the Kremlin. Give it to them, not knowing what it says, because we cannot yet read it. Not knowing what knowledge might be hidden within it. Not knowing, and not caring, what use the masters of enslaved Russia might make of such knowledge. Well, we know, don’t we, brothers and sisters?”
“We know,” replied a chorus of voices.
“Sit down, buddy,” came an angry voice. “You’re holding up the line.” That got some cheers, too. In spite of himself, Harry smiled.
“I’m not sure why you’re laughing,” said Leslie. “You’ve got a dangerous situation here.”
A substantial space had opened between Freeman and the Visitor Center.
“That man has a point,” said Freeman good-humoredly. He disappeared into the crowd, which surged forward, and then he rose again, closer to the building. “Are you still there, Jim?”
The man on the bus waved. “I’m here, Bobby.”
“Can you see the antennas?” He held both arms out toward the twin units mounted atop Building 23, visible over a cluster of trees. “We’ve come a long way from Moses, friends. Or we like to think we have.”
“Why don’t you go home?” someone bellowed. “Nobody here wants to listen to that.”
“And take your loonies with you,” added another voice.
The crowd surged suddenly, and a few people fell forward onto the grass apron that surrounded the Visitor Center. There were screams of fear and rage, and Harry could see someone with a Jesus sign whacking away with it at persons unknown until the sign disintegrated.
Several fights erupted back near the buses. A wave of people broke loose and ran for their cars.
Uniformed officers moved in.
Meanwhile, Freeman was still talking. The trouble had developed so quickly it had caught him in midsentence, and he was not a man to leave anything unsaid. But he was lurching violently, and Harry suspected someone had hold of an ankle or a leg and was trying to pull him to the ground.
“Leslie,” he shouted over the noise, “things are getting a little uncertain out here. Maybe you’d better wait inside.”
She glanced at the crush of people now in the doorway, some trying to get clear of the commotion out front, others turning to watch. “I can’t get inside now, and I couldn’t see if I did.”
“Friends,” Freeman said, raising both his palms and his voice, “why are you so easily angered?”
Leslie cupped her mouth and put it next to Harry’s ear. “That’s a mistake. He isn’t used to this kind of audience.”
“He’s going to get hit in the head if he’s not careful,” said Harry.
Abruptly, the preacher vanished.
“That’s it,” Schenken said to his radio. “Shut it down.”
“It may be a little late,” muttered Harry.
The cluster of space near Freeman closed up, and a series of pushing matches deteriorated almost immediately into a general scuffle. The fights in back spilled into one another, a few beer bottles flew, and the line into the Visitor Center broke and ran. People rolled back and forth, like heavy seas, some scattering toward the relative safety of the parking lot and the surrounding high ground, others cheering combatants, threatening security men, and, for the most part, enjoying themselves immensely.
The Visitor Center was constructed largely of glass. Harry watched a rock arc gracefully out of the parking area, sail overhead, and shatter one of the doors.
The security forces hauled a few adolescents out of the struggling mob, and it appeared briefly as if things were under control. Then someone fired a shot.
Whatever holiday mood might have remained dissipated. A sound like the wind at night rose from the crowd. There was an uneasy hesitation, and a second wave began to run away. One or two here, a few there, and rapidly the retreat became general. People spilled across flagstones and out over lawns toward any visible open space. One of Schenken’s security men appeared, holding his hands over his head, blood spurting between his fingers.
A group of screaming schoolchildren, shepherded by a couple of panicked teachers, was overtaken and run down. Harry, chilled, looked for help, but saw none. He pushed into the surging mob, which immediately swept him off his feet with a flurry of elbows and kicks and punches. He gasped and allowed himself to be carried along until he caught his breath, and then he tried to plant his feet. He didn’t see Leslie anymore, and the one or two security people nearby seemed caught up in the general surge, just as he was.
His throat swelled, and he was having problems breathing. Blood dripped out of his sleeve. But he kept his eyes on the spot where the kids had been. As things cleared out, he was sickened by what he saw: some were down, not moving, their limbs bent, others writhed on grass and concrete; a few huddled with sympathetic adults. One of the security people had got in among them, and was trying to help when more shots sounded behind him. They turned the stampede back on itself, and Harry watched people getting trampled. The little mound of injured children was once again in the track of the beast.
In perhaps the finest moment of his life, Harry placed himself in front of the mob. They hammered into him, driving him back. Individual screams became general and merged into a single deafening roar. He recovered, dug in, absorbed the surge, and was still standing when it passed.
Several people wandered in shock across the battleground. Off to one side he could see Leslie, fragile in a light cashmere jacket, trying to get to him until, in a sickening moment that he would carry with him forever, she, too, was engulfed.
His first impulse was to go after her, but he held on instead where he was, barring the approach to the injured children.
A news helicopter looped in and drifted over the scene. The Center’s ambulance, its red lights blinking, came through the utility gate on the west side and rode across the lawn. Moments later, the Greenbelt medivan also arrived.
One of the Trinity Bible Church buses was trying to get away from the melee with barely half a dozen people on board. Harry swayed. One bloodied boy, a year or two younger than Tommy, lay immediately behind him. A medic hurried over, put a stethoscope to his chest, and signaled quickly for a stretcher. But Harry knew. Anyone who looked into the medic’s face would have known.
Leslie was beside him, holding his arm. He didn’t know how long she’d been there.
Later they would say there had been only one death.
Schenken came over to complain about the large numbers of people who were allowed into the Visitor Center. “You see what happens,” he said. “I suggest we put a checkpoint on the outer gate, like the one at the main gate, and stop letting just anyone come in here.”
“You mean keep the visitors out of the Visitor Center?”
“Look,” said Schenken. “I got three guys in the hospital as a result of this; and we have had a riot on the premises. That isn’t going to do my career any good, so I’m already not very happy. Don’t get smart with me, okay?” He started to walk off, but spun around and jabbed a finger at Harry. “If I had my way, there wouldn’t be a goddam Visitor Center. What purpose does it serve, anyhow?”
“It’s the reason we’re here,” said Harry, smoldering. “It’s the point of the organization. And by the way, if you wave that finger in my face again, I’m going to break it off and shove it down your throat.” Schenken appraised him, decided he meant it, and backed off. It was the first time in living memory that Harry had physically threatened another adult. After all the carnage, it felt good. “What was the shooting about?” he asked.
“One of the Reverend’s people was an off-duty cop. Fired a warning shot. You believe that?” Schenken sighed loudly at the depths of human stupidity. “Waving a gun around in a mob like that. Goddam loony. We haven’t accounted for the second series of shots.”
&
nbsp; “What happened to Freeman?”
“We got him out of here first thing. He’s over at the dispensary now. He’s limping a little.” He smiled maliciously.
The grounds were covered with the rubble of battle: beer bottles, placards, sticks, paper, even a few articles of clothing. In the driveway immediately in front of the entrance to the Visitor Center, the TV pool van lay on its side. A few of the Space Center’s employees, in blue coveralls, were beginning the cleanup. Maybe two dozen cars remained in the general parking lot. Either they were too wrecked to move or their owners had been hauled off to hospitals or jail. Parkinson had sent a young woman out to record plate numbers so they could begin the task of locating owners.
Harry drove to the dispensary, where he found Freeman lying on a couch. His right arm was in a sling; his jaw and the bridge of his nose were taped. “How do you feel?” he asked.
The preacher looked genuinely repentant. “Dumb,” he said. He was slow to focus on his visitor. “Wasn’t it you,” he asked, “who wanted me to use the side door?”
Harry nodded. “It was.”
“I should have done it.” He offered his hand. “I’m Bobby Freeman,” he said.
“I know.” Harry ignored the gesture.
“Yes. Of course you do.”
“My name’s Carmichael. I’m an administrator here. I wanted to be sure you were all right. And I was also curious why you did that.”
“Did what?”
Son of a bitch. “Started a riot,” rasped Harry.
Freeman nodded in agreement. “I guess I did. I’m sorry. I came here to help. I don’t understand how it happened. I mean, there weren’t that many people out there, other than mine. But I know why they didn’t want to hear what I had to say. It’s a hard thing to look the truth square in the eyes.”
“Reverend Freeman, you want the truth? It was cold out there today, and you were holding up the line!”
The Hercules Text Page 20