“Cutting down trees is not exactly friendly,” said William Sullivan, Secretary of Interior. “Do you realize, Mr. President, that the land where it is engaged in its depredation is a primitive wilderness area. One of the most significant such tracts we have, the most representative of what the primitive wilderness really was like. Some thousands of acres of trees, mostly white pine, still stand there today as they stood before white men came to America. Truly, it is a tragic business.”
“It seems to me,” said Hammond, “that cutting down trees and separating out the cellulose should be considered a mark of intelligence.”
“A well-programmed machine could perform such a task quite easily,” said the science advisor.
“But someone or something would have had to program the machine.”
“That is true,” said Allen.
“I would think,” said the Secretary of State, “that the loss of a few trees is a small thing to bemoan in the face of what is taking place.”
“From your point of view,” said Interior, “that may be true, although from my point of view, I can’t agree with you. It’s the arrogance of the visitor that bothers me. It’s like someone entering a man’s backyard and chopping down an apple tree that the owner has cherished for years, or stealing the produce from his garden. Not a simple act of vandalism, but acting as if he had a legal right to chop down the apple tree or to rob the garden.”
“We’re wasting time,” said State, “harping on such small matters. We should be considering our national stance, arriving at some sort of policy. If this visitor of ours out in Minnesota should turn out to be an alien intelligence, we, necessarily, must have a policy to guide our handling of it. We can’t be sure it is the only one there is. There may be others waiting to hear from it before coming in. And if others did show up, a policy would be paramount. We must have some idea of how we should act toward them. How are we to treat and view them? I don’t mean we have to immediately get down to specifics, for so far we don’t know what may be involved, but certainly we should determine some broad guidelines on how we should act under certain possibilities. We have the time now to lay out a policy. If we fail to do so, we’ll find ourselves reacting to various kinds of situations and not always to our best interest.”
“You are talking like this Minnesota thing is the equivalent of a new nation,” said Whiteside. “\Vell, it isn’t a nation. We don’t know what it is. How can we decide on policy until we know what it is? As a military man, my principal concern is our defense capability against it.”
“Defense,” said White. “We have no indication so far we stand in need of any sort of defense.”
“There’s another matter we should be talking about,” said Leslie Logan, the CIA man, “and that is security.”
“How do you mean, security?” asked State.
“If there is an intelligence involved in the ]\finnesota object,” said Logan, “if we find that it came from a place that is not the least like Earth, reflecting factors of evolution and development at great variance from those we know on Earth, then there is a possibility we may learn a great deal from it. We would be dealing with an alien intelligence and an alien technology. If we could acquire some of its intelligence and technology, undoubtedly we could adapt some of it to our own needs and to our national advantage. Any study that we make of it must be done with this firmly in mind. I would suggest it would be most unwise to share any such knowledge with the world. We should immediately take steps to ensure that nothing we get from it is allowed to leak to other interests.”
“So far,” said the Secretary of State, “only one visitor has landed. There may be other landings. If there are, the chances would be very good that some of the landings would take place in other countries. If such should be the situation, it seems to me that we would not be able to squirrel away much knowledge. I think the better course would be to share with the world such knowledge as we can get. If we do this, we then can expect, if there are other landings in other countries, to be in a better position to share in the findings that might be made by others.”
“In the first place,” said Logan, “we cannot know if there will be other landings. That is a supposition that has been carried too far in this discussion. If there were, not many of the other countries, perhaps none of them, would possess the scientific resources and capabilities that we have to extract knowledge.”
“That may be true, but the position you urge would result in
an extremely bad world impression if we should be too obviously selective in sharing knowledge or in making public what we find, if we find anything.”
“You can rely on our finding a few facts,” said the science advisor
“We could reveal some general findings,” said the CIA. “A gesture to world opinion if you think that to our advantage, but I would urge we be in no hurry to do so and that we should be highly selective.”
“There is a worldwide interest,” said State, “and I am beginning to get some discreet inquiries. Sir Basil, at the British embassy, was on the phone to me this morning. Tomorrow I can expect a call from Dmitri. And others after that. It is my view that it would foster a much better international climate if we were to be aboveboard from the very start. Before too long, we can expect an opinion being expressed that this is not a matter of national concern alone, that it should be international. I would be in favor of issuing an invitation to a panel of world scientists to participate in our observations, studies and assessments.”
The CIA man shook his head. “I don’t agree at all with you,” he said.
“Andy, what have you got to say to all of this?” asked the President.
“I can’t comment offhand,” said Andrew Rollins, the Attorney General. “So far as I can recall, there is nothing in international law that would apply. There might be something tucked away in some treaties. You’d have to give me a few days.”
“You’re talking like a lawyer,” said State.
“I am a lawyer, Marcus.”
“Off the top of your head, then. As a man, not a lawyer. What are your thoughts? Should they go contrary to your precious law books, we’ll not hold you to them.”
“The thing that strikes me,” said Rollins, “is that we have talked about our interests and the world’s interests and what sort of policy we should have. Never for a moment have we considered the interests of this visitor of ours. It has dropped in to visit us, whether for good or evil, I don’t know. But, until we do know, until we have some indication otherwise, I think that as gracious hosts, we should give it some benefit of doubt.”
“Andy,” said State, “that is exactly what I have been trying to say. As usual, you say it much better than I could have.”
“But it is destroying trees!” wailed Interior.
“While I recognize that we may have some obligation to act the gracious host,” said Whiteside, “I still would insist that we must stay alert. We must be on our guard. We are facing something with which we are unfamiliar.”
“You still think we may be forced to defend ourselves?” asked State.
“I didn’t say that, Marcus. I said we should remain alert.”
Porter spoke up. “At the press briefing today, there were a number of questions about the new object in orbit. Wanted to know if we were considering sending a shuttle from the space station to investigate. I could only say that it still was under discussion. Is that still the case? I remember that it was mentioned earlier.”
“The shuttle can leave within an hour,” said John Crowell, of NASA. “It requires only a presidential order. The station has been alerted and the shuttle crew is standing by.”
“How difficult an undertaking would it be?” asked the President.
“A fairly simple exercise,” said Crowell. “Both the station and the object are in synchronous orbits, displaced from one another by less than a thousand miles. Using the shuttle for a closer look would seem to be to our advantage. Using the telescope on the station, which is not, as you may know, an astronomical glass, but one of rather limited power, we have been able to pick up some information. The object is much larger than had first been believed. It measures nearly twenty miles in diameter and is five miles thick. In the form of a disc. It seems not to be a single, solid object; rather it is made up of discrete parts.”