The Visitors (v1.0)

24. WASHINGTON, D.C

Winston Mallory, Secretary of Defense, said to the President, "Whiteside thinks we should run a test of how these things react to firepower. Under the circumstances, I recommend that we should turn him loose. It didn't make much sense when there was only one of them, but now that they've invaded.

"I object to your use of the term ‘invasion' for what is happening," said the Secretary of State. "A fair number of them have landed, but there has been no violence. They're not killing our citizens, they're not burning our cities."

William Sullivan, Secretary of Interior, said, "They chewed up a housing development across the Potomac. One of them gobbled up a lumberyard out on the West Coast. They're eating our forests in Michigan, in Maine, in Minnesota, in Washington and Oregon.

"But they haven't killed anyone," said State. "The only thing they've done is steal a little cellulose. They haven't.

"Just a minute, Marcus," said the President. "I want to hear more about this weapons test. What does Whiteside propose to do? Open up on them with tanks?"

"Nothing like that," said Mallory. "Just a simple test, that is all. We've got to know how these things respond. You remember, out in Minnesota, a man fired at the one that landed there and it fired back, killing him. He used a deer rifle, probably a.30 caliber. The thing about it is that we don't know what happened, how the visitor did it. It carried no apparent weaponry. It was bare of any external features. Yet when that man fired at it…".

"What you want to do is fire another.30 caliber, probably by remote control, then try to determine how the visitor fires back?"

"Precisely. We'll use cameras. High speed cameras. Some of them can take up to thousands of frames a second. That way we can track the bullet, record the moment of impact, see what happens on impact. A study of the film.

"Yes, I see," said the President. "If you can be sure the general will stop with a.30 caliber."

"He will stop at the.30 caliber. All we want, all he wants, is some idea of how the visitor shoots back. Once we know that, we can go on from there."

"If it seems necessary."

"That's right. If it seems necessary.

"And, for Christ's sake, tell Henry to go easy. Take all possible precautions. Exercise all restraint. Only the one shot to get the data."

"He'll go easy. I have talked with him about it."

"I'm impressed by what Marcus was saying," said the President. "Except for this cellulose business, nothing actually has happened. The closest to anything disastrous was the Virginia housing development

"People could have been killed," said Sullivan. "It was just plain dumb luck that everyone got out of the houses in time. There were people sleeping in those houses. A lot of them could have lost their lives. And they're sitting down at airports, closing runways. Let one plane crash because of that and we'd have casualties. Also, I understand they are flying along with planes, as if they might be studying them. So far nothing's happened, but it could."

"What would you have us do?" asked State. "Wheel out our artillery?"

"No, of course not. But we should be doing something. We shouldn't just be sitting here."

"We've called out the National Guard," said the President. "Troops are keeping each of our visitors isolated, keeping the public away from them. That way we probably will avoid incidents."

"What if our visitors start in on other housing developments?" asked Sullivan. "What if they move into the residential areas of our cities, leveling houses to get cellulose? What will we do then? How will we take care of the people who will be homeless?"

"They haven't done that yet," said Marcus White. "Virginia apparently was an isolated example. And the visitor stopped after chewing up a few houses, as if it realized it had made a mistake."

"We have to take care of emergencies as they arise," said the President. "Meanwhile, we'll have to do everything we possibly can to find out more about our visitors."

"The thing that puzzles me," said White, "is that so far they've landed only in the United States, with some small slop-over into Canada. None in Europe. None in Africa. None anywhere else. Why us? Why just us?"

"I think I may have a suggestion," said Dr. Steven Allen, the science advisor. "Let's put ourselves in the place of the visitors. Let's say we have sent out an expedition to some other planet. A half a dozen ships, a hundred—the number's not important. We are looking for one specific thing, like these things apparently are looking for cellulose. We don't know too much about this planet we have reached. A few things by instrument study from some distance off, but that is all. So we send one ship down to study the situation. There are several land masses and we pick one as a starter. The ship goes down and finds what we are looking for. It finds, as well, that the indigenous life in that area seems friendly. At first glance, there's nothing on that particular land mass that is about to cause too much trouble and we, of course, want as little trouble as possible. We know this one land mass is safe; we don't know about the others.

"You make a good point there," said the President. "Don't you agree, Marcus?"

"Yes, I do agree. I hadn't thought of it in quite that way. I had assumed the visitors might want a rather broad look at the entire planet."

"Have you anything else for us?" the President asked the science advisor.

"A big puzzle," said Allen. "Much as we hate to even think it, there seems to be a fair possibility that the visitors operate by means of some sort of gravitational control. They float an inch or two above ground level. The one that left Minnesota yesterday rose into the air with no sign of using any propulsive units. They come down to land slowly, almost as if they were gliding to a landing, but to glide you have to make use of wing surfaces and they haven't any wings."

"You sound just slightly outraged over it," said Defense.

"I am outraged," Allen told him. "Any scientist would be outraged. We talk about gravity waves, the implication being that they would somehow be akin to electromagnetic waves. And we've looked for them. For a long time, no one could even figure out how to look for them. We're not even sure, right now, that we are using correct methods in our attempt to detect them. So far, none has been detected. At one time many scientists said, and some still say, that there aren't such things as gravity waves. As things stand now, even were we able to detect them, it would be only on a theoretical basis. No one has even the slightest idea of how they might be put to work."

"Your men are still hard at work on the visitors, I suppose," said Defense. "There still is hope that you will be coming up with something. After all, it's been only a couple of days."

"Not only our own men," said Allen, "but every qualified worker I can lure into the study. I've contacted a number of universities and institutes. In a few days, we'll have a large force in the field. The trouble is that we haven't much to work with. All we can do is observe. Stand off to one side and look at them. If we could trap one of them somehow so we could really work on it, we might find something of significance. But, at the moment, that is unthinkable. It probably would be highly dangerous. There has been a suggestion that we try to work on some of the young the Minnesota visitor spawned. But I shy away from that. If the baby started squalling that it was being hurt, adult visitors probably would come in force to its rescue. I can't be sure of this, but I hate to take a chance."

"You say universities and institutes," said White. "In this country only, I assume. Might there not be some scientists from other countries.

"Marcus," said the President, speaking sharply, "let's not get into that again. For the moment, this is our show. The visitors have helped to keep it our show by landing here exclusively."

"There are a few in Canada," said White.

"We can work with Canada. We've always been able to. I know the Russians want in, but I'm opposed.

"A small, token Russian representation might not be a bad thing," said Defense. "If we push them too far, if we shut them out

"I hope, Winston," said the President, "that you're not thinking what I'm afraid you are."

"The thought had flitted across my mind," said Mallory. "If it seems we are finding something that could tip the balance.

"And if we did find something to tip the balance, as you say, and shared it with them, that would only mean further escalation. How many others feel the same way?"

"I didn't say share," said Mallory. "I said a token inclusion. That is all. Something to save their national pride."

"I think with Winston," said White, "that we can afford to do something to make these friends of ours look a little better."

Hammond, who until now had been sitting silently, spoke up. "What you're talking about is patronizing them. They'd sense that and resent it. It would be worse than nothing. They can understand nothing because that's what they'd give us if the situation were reversed. We either go whole hog with them or keep it for ourselves. One thing we must realize is that there may be nothing to share. With all due respect to Dr. Allen, we may not find out one damn thing that will be useful to us."

"In which case," said White, "there would be no harm in letting them in. It would improve relationships greatly and if we found nothing, it would cost us nothing."

"Marcus," said the President, "you are talking about playing the odds and that could be dangerous."

"Let's forget it," said Mallory. "I'm sorry I mentioned it. It just came off the top of my head."

"The embarrassing thing about all this," said ‘White, "is that we are receiving offers of assistance from good allies and friends to help us in any way they can. They seem to be sincere.

"I just bet they are," said Hammond.

"The only thing I can tell them," said White, ignoring Hammond, "is that later on we may call on them, but that, at the moment, we don't know what we face."

"I think, for the moment," said the President, "we had best leave it at that. Let's forget other countries for the moment and look to our own. There have been a few minor flare-ups. Small riots, some looting and burning in such places as Chicago, New York, St. Louis. Is there anything new on all of this, Dave?"

"Nothing big," said Porter. "And in this we have been lucky. We should have prepared the country. We should have called in the press when we first found the swarm was beginning to break up. We could have forewarned the country."

"You're still smarting over that?"

"You're damned right I am, Mr. President. We botched it. To let NASA issue that skimpy little announcement was a sneaky thing to do."

"Dave, we talked it over.

"Yes, I know. And you were wrong.

"You went along with it."

"I didn't go along. I protested and there were a few who sided with me.

"But only a few."

"Sir, you can't run a news operation on a majority vote. The rest of you know your business, but I know mine. Right now we've been lucky. I hope we can say the same thing at this time tomorrow. The thing I'm afraid of is the cult outbreak. Every crackpot in the country is up on the stump and shouting. All the evangelists are calling big prayer meetings. Every little backwoods church is filled with clapping, stomping, singing people. Out in Minneapolis, a group of second generation flower people tried to rush police lines. They wanted to squat down on an airport runway and give the visitor that landed there a demonstration of their love."

"I don't think we need to worry too much about things like

that," said Hammond.

‘‘There's a lot of emotion boiling around, ' Porter told him, a lot of it still beneath the surface. I hope it can be kept from boiling over. Mixed emotions of all sorts. Latent fears that can easily boil up to the surface. Hallelujah emotions that can get out of hand. We're on the edge of something that could produce violent street encounters. Let a bunch of beer drinking hardhats get fed up with the antics of the millennium-has-come dancers in the streets

"You're exaggerating," said Hammond.

"I hope I am," said Porter.

"I don't like this watchful waiting," said Sullivan. "I think we

should act in some positive manner. Something to let the people

know we are involved, that we, at least, are taking some action."

"We've called out the National Guard," said the President.

"We have investigators in the field."

"That's passive action," said Sullivan.

"The trouble is," said the President, "that anything we did

probably would be wrong."