Invaders From Earth

8

Sunday was a gloom-shrouded botch of a day. Kennedy slept late, dreaming of the harsh hues of Joyland, and woke with his mind still clouded by bitterness and his head aching. He spent an awkward, uncomfortable day in and around the house with Marge. The ’fax-sheet gave the rundown on the World Holiday damage: a thousand lives lost in the Appalachia district alone, much carnage, property destruction, theft. A good day’s fun.

It was his turn to operate the car-pool come Monday, the second of July, as 2044 swung into its second half. When he reached the office he found a crisp little note waiting for him on his desk:

Curious, he arrived at Dinoli’s office a little ahead of time and cooled his heels in the big man’s oak-paneled foyer for a while until a white-toothed secretary ushered him through the maze into the first-level suite.

There was quite a turnout in Dinoli’s office. Dinoli himself faced the door, keen-eyed and wide awake, hunched over with his gnarled hands locked. Kennedy smiled hello. Standing around Dinoli were four men: Watsinski, looking bored; McDermott, the tough little gamecock of a second-level man who was handling governmental liaison on the Ganymede Contract; Executive Hubbel of the Corporation. There was also a fourth man, thick-necked and coarse-featured, with a broad, genial smile and a delicate network of broken capillaries spread out over his face.

Dinoli said, “Mr. Bullard, I’d like you to meet Theodore Kennedy, Executive Third-Level of Steward and Dinoli.”

Bullard swung forward. He was a bull of a man, six four or more in height, with the biggest hands Kennedy had ever seen. He proffered one, mangled Kennedy’s hand momentarily in greeting, and boomed, “Very pleased to meet you, Mr. Kennedy. I’ve heard wonderful things about your work from Mr. Dinoli here.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Kennedy looked around. Despite himself he felt a little wobbly-kneed; this was very big brass. Two first-level men in the same room.

“Did you enjoy your holiday?” Dinoli asked, in his dark vast voice.

“Yes, sir. It was very good, sir.”

“Glad to hear it. You know, of course, that Mr. Bullard here is head of the Corporation?”

Kennedy nodded. Bullard swung himself up on the corner of Dinoli’s conference table, crossed his long legs, took out an ignitopak and offered Kennedy a cigarette. He took it. To refuse would have been a mortal insult in such a meeting.

Smiling, Bullard said, “I understand you’re the man who’s responsible for development of the—ah—colony on Ganymede. I want to tell you that it’s a brilliant concept. Brilliant.”

Kennedy was silent. He was tired of saying, Thank you, sir.

Bullard went on. “The whole nation—the whole world —is enraptured by the struggles of the unfortunate souls you’ve invented. And I understand you and you alone have charge of the project.”

“I have an assistant, sir. A man named Spalding. He’s been a great help.”

He saw Watsinski pale; Dinoli seemed to scowl. A little taken aback, Bullard said, “Ah, yes. But the main responsibility is yours. And that’s why I’ve come over here this morning to make this offer to you.”

“Offer, sir?”

“A very fine one. You’ve succeeded in capturing the feel of the Ganymede terrain beautifully, considering the second-hand nature of your data. But Mr. Dinoli and I believe that you’d so an even finer job if you had a little actual experience with living conditions on Ganymede. It would give your project that extra touch of reality that would insure the success of the campaign.”

Kennedy blinked. Dinoli was beaming.

Bullard said, “There’s a supply ship leaving shortly for the Ganymede outpost. There is room for one passenger aboard that ship. I’ve spoken to Mr. Dinoli and we’ve agreed to offer you a chance to be that passenger. You can spend three weeks on Ganymede at Corporation expense. How would you like that?”

Kennedy felt steamrollered. He took a fumbling step backward and grabbed a chair. “Sir, I—”

“You want time to think about it. I understand how it is. You’re in the midst of a difficult work program. You have certain personal commitments. Well, the ship departs on Thursday. If you care to be on it, all you need to do is say the word.”

Kennedy looked at Dinoli, at Watsinski, at McDermott. Their faces gave no hint of feeling. They wanted him to go. They wanted him to drop everything and race off to a cold little iceball in space and live there for three weeks in utter privation so the campaign could be more realistic.

It was impossible to come right out and say no, right here. He would have to stall. “I’ll have to take the matter up with my wife, of course. This is so sudden. This great opportunity—”

“Of course,” Bullard said. “Well, notify Mr. Dinoli on Wednesday. He’ll contact me and make the final arrangements for transporting you.”

Signed, sealed, and delivered, Kennedy thought. “Yes, sir,” he said hoarsely. “Thank you, sir.” To Dinoli he said: “Is there anything else, Mr. Dinoli?”

“No, Ted. That’ll be all. Just wanted to let you know the good news, son.”

“Thank you, sir,” Kennedy mouthed uncertainly. A secretary showed him out.

He returned numbly to his office on Eleven, the office he now shared with Dave Spalding. Trip to Ganymede, he thought. I’ll tell them Marge won’t let me go. That we’re expecting a baby. Anything.

It wouldn’t look good, his refusing. But he was damned if he was going to spend three weeks living under the conditions he’d been writing about.

“You look as if you’ve been guillotined,” Spalding said, as Kennedy came in. “They didn’t fire you!”

“No such luck. I’ve got a great big opportunity. The Corporation’s offering me a three-week trip to Ganymede to get the feel of things.”

A sudden flicker of eagerness came into Spalding’s lean face. It was an ugly look, as if Spalding had realized that he would be in charge, doing second-level work, all the time Kennedy was gone. “You’re accepting, of course?”

Kennedy grimaced. “If I’m buffaloed into it. But I’m sure Marge will howl. She hates to be left alone even for one night. And three weeks—”

“She can’t go with you?”

“There’s just one passage available. I’d be leaving on Thursday if I accept. But that would leave you in charge of the project, wouldn’t it?”

“I can handle it.”

“I know you can. But suppose you pick the time I’m gone to have another attack of ethics? Suppose you walk out while I’m up in outer space, and leave the project flat? What’s Watsinski going to do—say all communications with Ganymede have been suddenly cut off, and wait for me to get back to patch up the damage?”

Spalding’s lips tightened. “I told you I didn’t plan any walkouts. I can’t afford to quit yet. I haven’t shown any signs of it in the last five weeks, have I? I’ve been working like a dog on this project.”

“I’m sorry, Dave. I had a rough weekend. I didn’t mean to come down on you like that. Let’s get to work.”

He pulled down one of the big loose-leaf volumes they had made up. They had written out detailed biographies of each of the three hundred and thirteen colonists with whom they had populated Ganymede, and each morning they picked a different one to feature in the newsbreaks.

“I think it’s time to get Mary Walls pregnant,” Kennedy said. “We haven’t had a pregnancy on Ganymede yet. You have the medical background Rollins dug up?”

Spalding produced a slim portfolio bound in black leather—a doctor’s report on possible medical problems in the colony. Childbirth under low gravity, pressure diseases, things like that.

Spalding typed out a press release about the first pregnancy on Ganymede, with quotes from the happy mother-to-be, the stunned prospective father (“Gosh, this is great news! I know my Ma back in Texas will jump up and clack her heels when she finds out about Mary!”) and, of course, from the ever-talkative Director Brookman.

While he worked, Kennedy checked the photo file for a snapshot of Mary Walls—agency technicians had prepared a phony composograph of every member of the colony— and readied it for release with Spalding’s newsbreak. He added the day’s news to the Colony Chronicle he was writing—excerpts were being printed daily in the tabloids— and wrote a note to himself to remember that a maternity outfit would need to be ordered before Thursday for Mrs. Walls, to be shipped up on the next supply ship.

Thought of the supply ship brought him back to his own predicament. Dammit, he thought, I don’t want to go to Ganymede!

It had gotten to the point where he believed in his colony up there. He could picture slab-jawed Director Brookman, an outwardly fierce, inwardly sentimental man, could picture rosy-cheeked Mary Walls being told by mustachioed Dr. Hornsfall that she was going to be blessed with a child—

And it was all phony. The outpost on Ganymede consisted of a couple of dozen foul-smelling bearded spacemen, period. He didn’t want to go there.

He realized that Spalding could handle the project perfectly well without him. It was running smoothly, now; the news sources were open and well oiled, the populace was hooked, the three hundred and thirteen colonists had assumed three dimensions not only in his mind but in Spalding’s and in the rest of the world’s. The colony had a life of its own now. Spalding would merely have to extend its activities day by day in his absence.

They phoned in the pregnancy story before noon, and got busy sketching out the next day’s work. Spalding was writing Director Brookman’s autobiography, to be serialized in some big weekly—they were still pondering bids— while Kennedy blocked in succeeding events in Mary Walls’ pregnancy. He toyed momentarily with the idea of having her suffer a miscarriage in about two months’ time, but rejected it; it would be good for a moment’s pathos, but quickly forgotten. Having her stay pregnant would be more effective.

Near closing time the reaction hit him, as it did every day toward the finish. He sat back and stared at his trembling hands.

My God, he thought, this is the biggest hoax humanity has ever known. And I originated it.

He estimated that perhaps fifty people were in on the hoax now. That was too many. What if one of them cracked up and spilled it all? Would they all be lynched?

They would not, he answered himself. The thing was too firmly embedded in reality by now. He had done his job too well. If someone—anyone—stood up and yelled that it was all a fake, that there was no colony on Ganymede, it would be a simple matter to laugh it down as crackpottery and go ahead manufacturing the next day’s set of press releases.

But still the enormity of it chilled him. He looked at Spalding, busily clacking out copy, and shuddered. By now the afternoon telefax sheets were spewing forth the joyous news that Mary Walls—petite little Mary Walls, twenty-five, red-haired, a colony dietician, married two years to lanky Mike Walls, twenty-nine, of Houston, Texas—was about to bear young.

He clenched his fists. Where did it stop, he wondered? Was anything real?

Was he, he wondered, just part of a fictitious press release dreamed up by some glib public relations man elsewhere? Did Mary Walls, up there on Ganymede, know that she was a cardboard figure being manipulated by a harrowed-looking man in New York, that her pregnancy had been brought about not by her loving husband’s caress but by a divine gesture on the part of one Theodore Kennedy?

He wiped away sweat. A heavy fist thundered on their glassite cubicle and he looked up to see Alf Haugen grinning at him.

“Come on, geniuses. It’s closing time and I want to get out of here!”

They locked away their books and the car-pool people assembled. Kennedy dropped them each off at their destinations, and finally swung his car into his own garage.

Marge had his afternoon cocktail ready for him. He told her about Bullard’s visit, about Dinoli’s offer. “So they want to send me to Ganymede for three weeks, and I’d be leaving Thursday? How d’you like that!”

She smiled. “I think it’s wonderful! I’ll miss you, of course, but—”

His mouth sagged open. “You think I’m going to accept this crazy deal?”

“Aren’t you?”

“But I thought—” He closed his eyes a moment. “You want me to go, Marge?”

“It’s a grand opportunity for you, dear. You may never get another chance to see space. And it’s safe, isn’t it? They say space travel is safer than riding in a car.” She laughed. It was a brittle laugh that told Kennedy a great many things he did not want to know.

She wants me to go, he thought. She wants to get rid of me for three weeks.

He took a deep, calm sip. “As a matter of fact, I have until Wednesday to make up my mind,” he said. “I told them I’d have to discuss the matter with you before I could agree to anything. But I guess it’s okay with you.”

Her voice cracked a little as she said, “I certainly wouldn’t object. Have I ever stood in the way of your advancement, Ted?”