The man said, unperturbed, “I am sure it will.”
“Now, sergeant,” the colonel said, sharply, “if you will the men out. We want to wrap this up as soon as possible.”
The sergeant moved off, started shouting orders.
The scientist asked a technician, “The cameras are ready?”
“They’ll start running with the signal that fires the rifle,” said the technician. “There’s so damn much film involved. Those cameras eat it up.”
“Colonel,” said the scientist, “it’s time for us to move out with the rest of them.”
The visitor stood as it had stood for hours, motionless in the midst of the sandy waste. The cross made in chalk shone dully against the blackness of its hide.
“What beats the hell out of me,” said the colonel, “is how it has stood there all this time with us fooling around to set up the shoot. Doesn’t it know we’re here?”
“I’m sure it does,” said the scientist. “My feeling is that it simply doesn’t care. I would suspect it has some contempt of us.”
Finally, the scientist halted his walking and turned about, the colonel turning with him.
“Sergeant,” yelled the colonel, “is the area cleared?” The sergeant bawled back. “It’s all cleared, sir.”
The sergeant nodded to the man from Washington, who raised the tiny instrument he had been carrying in his hand and made a pressing motion with his thumb.
The rifle spat and the visitor spat back with a flood of raging energy that engulfed the mounted rifle. The colonel threw up an arm to shield his eyes against the brilliance of the flare. When he took it down, he saw that the rifle and the mount on which it had been positioned had turned into a shimmering whiteness from the heat. The whole assembly was slowly sagging to the ground. A clump of nearby sagebrush flared to floating ash.
The colonel glanced at the visitor. It was still where it had stood, as if nothing had happened, but the white chalk mark had vanished.
29. WASHINGTON, D.C.
Drink clutched in his hand, Senator Davenport paced up and down the room.
“Goddammit, Dave,” he said to Porter, “you people down at l6oo have to take some action. You can’t just let these things keep on taking over.”
“But, Daddy,” said Alice, “they’re not taking over. They’ve not really done anything at all.”
The senator paused in his striding, stood glaring at his daugh“Not done anything!” he brayed. “They are using up our forests, they’re eating lumberyards. They made away with those cars…
“Old cars,” said Alice. “Second-hand cars that some dealer was waiting to foist on an unsuspecting public.”
“The dealer paid good money for those ears,” her father said. “He took them in on trade-ins. He gave them room on his parking lot. He probably fixed them up. He was entitled to his profit. He had earned a profit.”
“You say the administration should be doing something,” said Porter. “Just what kind of action do you think that we should take?”
“How the hell should I know?” roared the senator. “I’m not the President, I’m not an advisor of his. If I did have some advice, he wouldn’t listen to me. I don’t know what is going on. Neither does anyone else. You’re the press secretary; why don’t you tell me what is going on? How much information do you have that you are holding back?”
“Offhand,” said Porter, “I’d say scarcely anything.”
“That milksop of a scientific advisor you have down there has been working on it,” said Davenport. “He has a large force in the field, he’s spending millions on his investigation. How come he’s not come up with something? I heard today the army had made some sort of firing test against one of the visitors. Can you tell me what came out of it?”
“I don’t know,” said Porter.
“Dave, if you did know—let’s just say you do know—would you tell me?”
“Probably not,” said Porter.
The senator turned to Alice. “There you see,” he said. “That’s the kind of arrogance we can expect from the XVhite House gang.
“Dave has said he doesn’t know,” said Alice.
“Also he said that if he did know he probably wouldn’t tell me.
“You have to give him credit for being honest with you, Daddy.”
“Honest, hell! It’s arrogance, I tell you.”
“Senator, I’m sorry if I seemed arrogant,” said Porter. “Also, I am sorry there’s nothing I can tell you. The fact is that you probably know as much as I do. And as for taking action of any kind at all, Alice is quite right. These things have done nothing that is actionable. Even if they had, what is there we could do about it. They’re too big to hassle. I have a feeling it might be dangerous to try to push them around, even if we had reason to push.”
“They’re disrupting the country,” said the senator. “The visitors are consuming some of our best timber stands and the building industry will suffer. A lot of lumberyards have been destroyed and the chances are that others will be. Lumber is already expensive and this will make it more expensive. New homes will cost more than they are costing now and the prices of new homes even now are so high that they are beyond the reach of most families.
“If the visitors don’t cut out riding herd on planes, the airlines will cut back their schedules. Some of them already are talking about it. There’s just too much chance of accidents and the insurance companies, realizing this, are about to boost their rates. The airlines already are screaming that insurance costs are prohibitive and that they can’t stand another raise.”
“More than likely,” said Porter, “the entire situation is in a shakedown period. It may soon begin to straighten out. We are being hit right now with the worst of the impact. The public is a little nervous and upset and is inclined to exaggerate all consequences. Give it a little time .
“I don’t think the situation will improve with time,” said the Senator. “The public, you think, will settle down. I don’t think it will. These goddamn cults and holy roller preachers are injecting a lot of emotionalism into the social structure. The cults are bad enough, but we can live with them. The people, in general, know that they are crackpot based and what to expect of them. The real danger is the outburst of evangelism, the rush to the brain of old time religion. History tells us that in the Middle Ages there were similar outbreaks of religious frenzy. The peasant walked away from his land, the artisans away from their shops, all of them going off on a spiritual binge. The same is beginning to happen now. Industry and business is suffering from increased absenteeism, costly errors are being made in the work that is done.”
“It all comes down,” said Alice, “finally, to the dollar. Our businessmen and industrialists are losing money, or afraid they will be losing money.”
“And what’s wrong with that?” asked the senator. “Money is the basis of our economic order. And while you may not think so, the basis of our social order as well. I tell you, the country is starting a long slide to collapse. And those ninnies down at the White House don’t even recognize it.”
“I think we do,” said Porter, “although we’re not as pessimistic in our assessment as you seem to be. There are other things that call for priority consideration.”
“What other things?”
“Well, a wide variety of.
“Stop there!” shouted the senator, triumphantly. “I knew it! I knew there was something that you weren’t telling me. Something you were hiding.”
“Senator, I assure you
“You are onto something, aren’t you? You’ve found out something about the visitors that won’t bear talking on.”
“Not that I know of,” said Porter.
The senator sat down in a chair, gulped the remainder of his drink.
“You don’t need to tell me,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to know, not until it’s time for me to know, for a lot of us to know. And you are sitting on it. That’s good. Not broadcasting it. Protecting it. I know that fuzzy-minded Secretary of State wants to share what we find with everyone, including Ivan. We can’t afford to share .
“Senator, you are absolutely wrong. We don’t know one single goddamned thing.”
“Spoken like a gentleman,” said the senator. “I knew you had it in you. I knew you could be counted on to keep your mouth shut.”
He looked at the watch on his wrist. “It’s getting late,” he said. “I kept you longer than I should, ranting at you. You and Alice will be late for your dinner reservation.”
30. LONE PINE
One of the visitors had fallen behind the others. It was standing still and was not cutting trees. On either side of it, the other visitors were continuing with their cutting, regularly spewing out the bales of cellulose behind them.