“I think it will he all fight if Kalens gets elected,” Terry told them. “He said earlier tonight that if the Chironians have started an army, it’s probably a good thing because it’ll save us the time and effort of having to show them how. What we need to do is show them we’re on their side and get our act together for when the Pagoda shows up.” The EAF starship was designed differently from the Mayflower II. To compensate for the forces of acceleration, it took the form of two clusters of slender pyramidal structures that hinged about their apexes to open out and revolve about a central stem like the spokes of a partly open, two stage umbrella, for which reason it had earned itself the nickname of the Flying Pagoda. Terry sipped her drink and looked around the table. “The guy’s got it figured realistically. You see, there’s no need for a fight. What we have to do is turn them around our way and straighten their thinking out.”
“But that doesn’t mean we have to take chances,” Anita pointed out.
“Oh, sure . . . I’m just saying there doesn’t have to be anything to get scared about.”
Colman was becoming irritated again. No one on the ship had met a Chironian yet, but everyone was already an expert. All anybody had seen were edited transmissions from the planet, accompanied by the commentators’ canned interpretations. Why couldn’t people realize when they were being told what to think? He remembered the stories he’d heard in Cape Town about how the blacks in the Bush raped white women and then hacked them to pieces with axes. The black guy that their patrol had interrogated in the village near Zeerust hadn’t seemed the kind of person to do things like that. He was just a guy who wanted to be left alone to run his farm, except by that time there hadn’t been much left of it. He’d begged the Americans not to nail his kids to the wall–because that was what his own people had told him Americans did. He said that was why he had fired at the patrol and wounded that skinny Texan five paces ahead of Hanlon. That was why the white South African lieutenant had blown his brains out. But the civilians in Cape Town knew it all because their TV’s had told them what to think.
Corporal Swyley wasn’t saying anything, which was significant because Swyley was usually a pretty good judge of what was what. His silence meant that he didn’t agree with what was being said. When Swyley agreed with something, he said he didn’t agree. When he really didn’t agree, he said nothing. He never said he agreed with anything. When he had decided that he felt fine after the dietitian discovered the standing order for spinach and fish, the Medical Officer hadn’t been able to accuse him of faking anything because Swyley had never agreed with anybody that he was sick; all he’d said was that he had stomach cramps. The M.O. had diagnosed that anybody with stomach cramps on his own time had to be sick. Swyley hadn’t. In fact, Swyley had disagreed, which should have been obvious because he hadn’t said anything.
“Well, I think there’s something to be scared about,” Paula said. “Suppose they turn out to be really mean and don’t want to mess around with talking at all. Suppose they send a missile up at us without any warning or anything .. I mean, we’d be stuck out in space like a sitting duck, wouldn’t we. Then where would we be?”
Sirocco gave a short laugh. “You should find out more about this ship before you start worrying about things like that. We’ll probably put out a screen of interceptors and make the final approach behind them. They’ll stop anything before it gets within ten thousand miles. You have to give the company some credit.”
Hanlon made a throwing-away motion in the air. “Ah, this is all getting to be too serious for a Saturday night. Why are we talking like this at all? Are we letting silly rumors get to us?” He looked at Sirocco. “Our glasses are nearly empty, Your Honor. A round was part of the bet.”