A word came floating up. Cellulose. Could that be it? Trees, she remembered vaguely, were made up, in a large part, of cellulose. Perhaps all plants had some cellulose in them. But how much? Enough to make it worth the effort to chew up trees and extract the cellulose? Did cellulose look like cotton? And if this stuff really should be cellulose, what the hell did that big black box want of cellulose?
All the time that she had been thinking this, she had been backing up, step by slow step, head tilted back to stare up at the bigness of the thing, trying to get a better perspective of it, the better to measure its size and massiveness.
A tree stopped her. She had backed into it. Lowering her head to look around, she saw that she had backed into the fringe of the forest through which the big blackness was cutting a swath.
A low voice came from behind her. “Kathy,” it said. “Kathy, is that you?”
The moment she heard the voice she recognized it, knowing who it was who spoke. She turned quickly, heart pounding.
“Jerry,” she said. “Jerry, what are you doing here?”
And there the damn fool stood, grinning at her, enjoying the fact that he had sneaked up on her and frightened her. He was wearing waders and there were scratches on his face and jagged tears in the woolen shirt he wore.
“Jerry,” she said again, not crediting what she saw.
He put a finger to his lips, cautioning her. “Not too loud,” he said.
She flew at him and his arms came tight around her. “Careful,” he said. “Careful. Let’s move back a ways.” Propelling her deeper into the tangled cover even as he said it.
She lifted her eyes to him and could feel the tears running down her cheeks. “But, Jerry, why careful? I’m so glad to see you. I was sent up here by the city desk and I left word for you .
“Careful,” he said, “because I can’t be seen.”
“I don’t understand,” she protested. “Why can’t you be seen? Why are you here at all?”
“I parked the car and went fishing in the pool. Then this thing came down and smashed the car .
“So that was your car?”
“You saw the car? I suppose it was smashed.”
“It was flattened. They hauled it away.”
“Who hauled it away?”
“I don’t know. It was hauled away, is all. Maybe the FBI.”
“Damn!” he said.
“Why damn?”
“That was one of the things I was afraid of. They’ll find the license plates. It can be traced to me.
“Jerry, why are you hiding? What have you got to hide?”
“I was in that thing out there. Inside of it. Something reached down and jerked me inside of it.”
“Inside of it? But you got away.”
“It threw me out,” he said. “I landed in a tree. That saved me.”
“Jerry, I don’t understand any of this. Why should you be jerked inside of it?”
“To find out what I was, I think. I’m not sure. Not sure of anything at all. I spent all night, lost, huddled in the woods. I damn near froze to death. I did a lot of thinking.”
“You thought and got something figured out. Tell me what it was.”
“I figured out I can’t be one of those kooks who have been inside a flying saucer.”
“This is no saucer, Jerry.”
“It’s the next thing to it. It’s from outer space. It’s alive. I know.”
“You know. .
“Yes, I know. No time to tell you now.”
“Why don’t you come with me. I don’t want you running around in the woods alone.”
“Those are newspaper people out there, aren’t they?”
“Yes, of course, they are.”
“They’d take me apart. They would ask me questions.”
“No, they wouldn’t. I wouldn’t let them.”
“And there are state troopers at the bridge.”
“Yes. Two of them.”
“More than likely they are watching for me. They probably figured out someone had parked his car to go fishing in the pool. These waders—they’d know me from the waders.”
“All right,” she said. “All right. What do you want to do?”
“I scouted down the stream,” he said. “When I saw the troopers, I knew I couldn’t get across. There’s a shallow stretch of water I can wade across. A quarter mile downstream. Just opposite the far edge of the town. Later on, you can meet me there.”
“If that’s the way you want it, Jerry. I still think you could walk right out with me.”
He shook his head. “I have it figured out. I know what will happen if anyone ever finds out I was inside that thing. I’ll see you later. Now get back before someone comes looking for you.”
“Kiss me first,” said Kathy. “You big lug, you never even kissed
10. WASHINGTON, D.C.
When Dave Porter entered the conference room, the others were there. Some of them had just arrived and were getting settled at their places. The President sat at the head of the table. General Henry Whiteside, army chief of staff, sat at his right hand, John Hammond, White House chief of staff, at his left.
John Clark, the President’s military aide, was sitting near the end of the table opposite the President. He pulled out one of the few remaining chairs as an invitation to the press secretary to sit down.
“Thanks, Jack,” said Porter, sitting in the chair and pulling it up to the table.
“Dave,” asked the President, “is there anything new on the wires?”
“Nothing, sir. I imagine everyone knows that our visitor is chewing up trees and turning them into bales of cellulose.”
“Yes, I think everyone does. That news came early this morning. There is nothing else?”
“A lot of copy is moving,” said Porter. “Nothing significant. The new object in orbit is getting a fair amount of attention.”
“All right, then,” said the President, “let’s try to figure out what we know of the situation. General, would you care to go first.”
“Everything still seems to be quiet,” said Whiteside. “The pub-lie has a lot of interest, but there’s been no panic. Not so far. It might not take much to set it off, for everyone is keyed up. Tension, I would suspect, is running fairly high, but so far is under control. A few kooks are doing a few outrageous things. There have been demonstrations at some colleges, but good-natured demonstrations. Kids letting off steam. Exuberance, mostly. Out in Minnesota, the state highway patrol has the situation well in hand. Lone Pine has been cordoned off. The public seems to be taking it well enough. No big demand to be allowed to go in. The governor has put the National Guard on alert, but there’s been no need as yet to use it. The patrol is allowing the press into Lone Pine. Some photographers and newsmen waded the river early this morning and circulated all around the visitor. Nothing happened. It kept on attending to business, whatever its business may be. I don’t mind telling you that we’ve been concerned about the killing of the barber yesterday, but so far this thing has shown no further hostility. I understand a team of FBI agents from Minneapolis is now at the scene. Perhaps the director has heard from them.”
Timothy Jackson, FBI director, said, “Only a preliminary report, Henry. So far as the agents can ascertain, the visitor seems to carry no armament of any sort. Or, at least, nothing that can be recognized as armament. In fact, it has no exterior features at all, nothing mounted on it, nothing sticking out of it.”
“Then how did it kill the barber?” asked the President.
“That’s what we’d like to know,” said Whiteside. “So far, we haven’t a clue.”
“Steve, you’re sending out some men, aren’t you?” asked the President.
“They should be there by now,” said Dr. Steven Allen, the science advisor. “I expect any minute to hear from them. I must warn you, however, not to expect any quick findings or any startling disclosures. We seem to be dealing with something far outside our normal experience.~~
“Are you saying,” asked Marcus \Vhite, the Secretary of State, “that we are dealing with something from space, an extraterrestrial intelligence, perhaps?”
“The tendency at first is always to overstate,” said Allen. “There is, I must admit, a temptation to say this is an intelligence from space, but we have no proof yet that it is. It did, undeniably, fall from space, and, as I say, it appears to lie outside all present experience, but, as a scientist, I’m reluctant to make any judgment until at least some results are in.
“You’re straddling the fence,” said the Secretary of State.
“No, Marcus, just withholding judgment. It would seem unlikely, on the face of it, that it originated on Earth, but as yet we simply do not know. I am encouraged, whatever it may be, by the fact that it does not, so far, seem intent on doing any harm. So far, it’s been friendly.”