“What difference does it make, anyhow?” asked Clark.
“We wouldn’t want to go to them,” said Porter, “and say, ‘Look, pal, we got these things up there’ if we had any reason to believe they knew as much as we do, maybe more than we do.”
“I think your objection is academic,” said Hammond.
“Perhaps so,” said Porter. “We just don’t want to look any sillier than we have to.”
“Let’s get back,” said Whiteside, “to the matter of defense. You vetoed the National Guard. If we can’t do that, the regular military establishments should be alerted.”
“If it can be done without publicity,” said Hammond. “If you can guarantee no leaks.”
“That can be managed,” said Whiteside.
“What I’m worried about is public panic,” said Hammond. “It’s been all right so far, but touch the wrong button and the country can go sky-high. There’s been so much talk, so much controversy, all these years, about the UFOs, that the country’s ripe.”
“It seems to me all the UFO talk works to our benefit,” Porter told him. “The idea of aliens coming to Earth is a bit old hat. Many people are reconciled to the thought that some day they will come. Thus, they are more prepared for it. It will be less of a shock. Some people believe it would be good for us if they did come. We no longer have the H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds psychology. Not in full force at least. We have some philosophical preparation.”
“That may be so,” said Clark, “but one damn fool saying one wrong thing could trigger a panic.”
“I agree,” said Hammond. “Maybe your approach is correct, Dave. Tell the people what we know. Give them a little time to think it over, so if more visitors come the people will be half accustomed to the idea. A soothing word here and there, being careful not to overplay the soothing syrup. Buy some time for sober reflection. Time to think it out and talk it over.”
“So what we have is this,” said Clark. “Military installations will be informed of the situation. Nothing will be done at the moment with the guard, but we’ll be ready to put it on alert, throughout the country, on a moment’s notice. We’ll give earnest consideration to informing and consulting with other governments. We’ll tell the people as many facts as we can. How about the U.N.?”
“Let’s leave the U.N. out of it for a time,” said Hammond. “They’ll come charging in fast enough. And it is understood the man upstairs has to put his stamp of approval on all of this. He’ll be waking in a couple of hours. We won’t have to wait long. When we do move, we should move fast.”
“John, I’d like to get the word to my boys right away,” said Whiteside. “I can’t imagine you would object to that. It’s all in the family, so to speak.”
“No objection,” Hammond said. “That’s your turf.”
Allen said to Crowell, “The station is keeping watch, I’d assume. They’ll let us know if anything is beginning to happen? Or looks as if it is beginning to happen.”
“That’s right. The minute there’s anything going on, we’ll know.”
“What if one of our international friends gets trigger happy and proposes boosting off a nuke to blow the swarm all to hell?” asked Whiteside. “Or worse, acts unilaterally.”
“Henry, you think of the damnedest things,” said Hammond. “It could happen,” said the general. “Let Someone get scared enough.”
“That’s something we’ll just have to hope doesn’t happen,” said Porter.
“I think it’s most unlikely,” said Hammond. “Maybe I should get State out of bed. He’ll have to be briefed. Perhaps he could have breakfast with the President. He and a few others. The Attorney General, for one. I’ll make the calls.”
“And that’s it?” asked Crowell.
“It would seem so.
“It’s barely worth going back to bed,” said Clark. “In an hour or two, it will be morning.”
“I’m not going back,” said Porter. “There’s a comfortable couch in the press lounge. I’m going to stretch out there. In fact, come to think of it, there are two. Anyone care to join me?”
“I think I will,” said Clark.
16. LONE PINE
Stuffy Grant shuffled into the Pine Cafe, hoisted himself onto one of the stools at the counter. At the sound of the slamming front door, Sally came out of the back.
“You working in the morning?” asked Stuffy. “I thought Judy worked in the mornings.”
“Judy has a cold,” said Sally, “so I’m filling in for her.”
The place was empty except for the two of them. “Where’s everyone?” asked Stuffy. “With all the people who are in town . .
“They sleep late,” said Sally. “Those who are here. A lot of them are staying in Bemidji, driving here and back. There’s no room for them here.”
“Those two folks from the Tribune are here,” said Stiffy. “The camera fellow and that girl writer.”
“They got here early when there was still room at the motel.”
“They’re all right,” said Stuffy. “Real white folks. That girl gave me five dollars for just answering a phone and then hanging on so no one else could get the line. Yesterday, the camera fellow slipped me a bottle for keeping watch of what was going on across the river so he could grab some sleep. Was supposed to run and wake him if anything happened. But nothing did. Good liquor, too. None of your cheap stuff.”
“Most of the folks are nice,” said Sally. “They tip good. Most folks around here don’t tip at all.”
“They ain’t learning much, though,” said Stuffy. “There don’t seem much to learn from that thing out there. The men from Washington are working real hard at it and not coming up with much. I talked with one of them the other day. He’d been pawing through some of the rubbish the thing is throwing out, what’s left after it makes those bales of white stuff. He was all excited about what he was finding but it didn’t sound like much to me. He said he wasn’t finding any pine seeds, or almost none. The cones had been broken up and the seeds were gone. He said that was unnatural. He seemed to think the thing was collecting the seeds and saving them. I told him maybe the thing was eating them; squirrels and such eat them. But he shook his head. He didn’t seem to think so.”
“What can I get you, Stiffy?”
“I guess some cakes.”
“Sausage or bacon?”
“Naw, you charge too much for them. I can’t afford it. Just the cakes. And plenty of syrup. I like lots of syrup.”
“The syrup is there in the pitcher. You can use as much as you want.”
“All right. Plenty of butter, then. A little extra butter. But don’t charge me for it.”
Sally went back into the kitchen to give the cook the order, then came back.
“How far has the visitor cut into the woods?” she asked. “I haven’t seen it for a while.”
“More than a mile, I’d say. It moves right along, day and night. Spitting out those bales of white stuff every few minutes. Leaving a long trail of them behind it. I wonder why it’s doing that. It don’t make no sense to me. Nothing about it makes any sense to me.”
“There must be a reason for it.”
“Maybe there is, but I don’t see it. I wonder, too, why it picked us out.”
“It had to be some place. It just happened to be us. If it was trees it was looking for, it picked a good place.”
“I imagine,” said Stiffy, “them forestry people ain’t too entranced with it. They set a lot of store by them trees. I don’t see why. They’re just trees, like any other trees.”
“It’s a primitive wilderness area,” said Sally.
“Yeah, I know,” said Stiffy. “A lot of foolishness.”
17. LONE PINE
The visitor had gotten lumpy. It had bumps all over it, but it kept on chopping down the trees and masticating them, or at least ingesting them, and at regular intervals the rear section of it slid up, ejecting bales of cellulose and great gobbets of waste from the chewed-up trees.
“We don’t know what is going on,” one of the two troopers told Kathy. “Maybe some of the people from Washington do, although I’m inclined to doubt it. In any case, they’re not talking, so we don’t know if they do or not. The lumps on the visitor were there this morning when it got light enough to see. They must have started in the night and they’ve been growing ever since. They are a lot bigger than they were when I first saw them.”
“Any reason why I can’t get closer?” asked Kathy. “Some of the other newsmen are.
“Just watch yourself,” said the trooper. “Don’t get too close. We don’t want people getting hurt.~~