I had talked with him, really talked with him, not more than a dozen times, and yet I had the impression that he was a lifelong friend. I knew things about him, I felt sure, that we had never talked about. I wondered if this could be attributed to the fact that on many occasions he had taken me inside of him, had made me, for a moment, one with him, in order that I might see with him certain concepts that he could not put in words I would understand. Was it possible that in these times of oneness with him I had absorbed some of his personality, becoming privy to thoughts and purposes that he may not have intended to convey?
By now, most of the newspapermen and camera crews had deserted Willow Bend. Some days, there were none at all, then at times a few would show up and stay for a day or two. We were still occasionally in the news, but the magic had left us. Our story had run out.
The tourists fell off. Usually, there were a few cars in Ben’s parking lot, but nothing like the number that once had been there. Ben’s motel now had vacancies — at times, a number of vacancies. Unless there was a turn in events, Ben stood to lose a lot of money.
We still maintained the guards and turned on the floodlights at night, but this began to seem a little foolish.
We were guarding something that perhaps no longer needed guarding. It was costing us a pile of money and we talked, off and on, of dismissing the guards and not turning on the lights. But we hesitated to do it — principally, I think, because doing it would seem an admission of defeat. As yet, we were not ready to give up.
The debate on the emigration issue raged on in Congress. One side charged the proposal meant abandonment of the disadvantaged; the other side claimed it was a move to offer them the advantages of a fresh start in a new environment not subject to all the stresses of their present one. Arguments thundered over the economics of the issue — the cost of giving the emigrants a fresh start in a new and virgin land as opposed to the yearly cost of welfare. Welfare recipients now and then raised voices that were submerged in the din; no one listened to them. Newspapers published Sunday features and TV networks staged specials explaining and illustrating the situation that would be found in the Miocene. The capitol was picketed by contending groups of citizens.
At Willow Bend, a few bands of cultists showed up.
They carried banners and made speeches that favorered abandonment of the present society and a retreat into the Miocene, or if not into the Miocene, into any place at all to get away from the callous injustices and inequities of the present system. They paraded back and forth in front of the gate and set up camp in Ben’s parking lot. Herb went out to talk with them.
They didn’t stay long. There were no newspapermen to interview them, no photographers to take their pictures, no crowds to jeer them, no police to hassle them. So they went away.
The two houses of Congress passed the emigration bill. The president vetoed it; it was passed over his veto. But the State Department ban still held.
Then, the next day, the court made its decision.
The ruling went against us. The injunction was denied; the ban on travel to Mastodonia stood and we were out of business.
THIRTY-TWO
A day later, the riots broke out. As if on signal (and perhaps on signal, for we never knew how they came about), the ghettos flared — in Washington, New York, Baltimore, Chicago, Minneapolis, St. Louis, the West Coast, everywhere. Mobs invaded the glittering downtown business areas and now, unlike the situation in 1968, it was not the ghettos that burned.
The great plate-glass windows of the downtown stores were shattered, the stores were looted and fires were set. Police and, in some cases, the National Guard, fired on the rioters; the rioters fired back. The placards that said: give us the miocene; that said: let us go; that said: we want another chance, lay scattered in the streets, soaked in rain and, at times; stained with blood.
It went on for five days. The dead, on both sides, ran into the thousands, and business came to a stand-still. Then, at the end of the fifth day, the violence dwindled to a halt. The two sides, the side of law and order and the side of outraged protest, drew apart.
Slowly, haltingly, fumblingly, the talks began.
At Willow Bend, we were isolated. For the most part, intercontinental phone lines were out of order.
The television stations, as a rule, continued in operation, although in a few instances, they, too, were silenced. We had one phone call from Courtney, but after that we heard nothing more from him. Attempts to reach him failed. In his one call, he had said that he was considering the possibility of appealing the court’s action, but there were some situations he would have to study first.
Night after night, sometimes during the day, we gathered in Ben’s office and watched the television screen. At all times of the day or night, whenever there was a new bit of news about the riots, reports were put out, so that, in effect, television became an almost continuous news program.
It was a numbing thing to watch. In 1968 we had sometimes wondered if the republic would stand; now there were times when we were sure it wouldn’t. Personally, and I suppose this also applied to the rest of us, I felt a sense of guilt, although we never talked about it. The thought kept hammering through my head: If we had not developed time travel, none of this would have come to pass.
We did talk about how we could have been so blind, so complacent in believing that the emigration law was simply an empty political gesture, that few of the underprivileged to whom it would apply had any wish to become pioneers in an unknown land. I felt especially remiss on this, for I had been the one, from the very first, who had said the entire proposal was senseless. The fury of the riots seemed to demonstrate that the ghettos did want the second chance the legislation offered. But it was difficult to judge how much of the violence was keyed to a desire for this second chance, and how much might have been caused by ancient, suppressed hatred and bitterness, cleverly touched off by those who led and directed the rioting.
There was a rumor that an army of rioters from the Twin Cities was moving on Willow Bend, perhaps with a view to taking over the time-travel operation.
The sheriff hastily put out a call for volunteers to block the march, but, as it turned out, there had been no march. It was just another of the many ugly rumors that at times crept even into the news reports. Why the rioters did not think of taking us over, I will never figure out. From their point of view, it would have been a logical move, although, in all likelihood, it would not have worked out as they might have thought it would. If they thought of it at all, they probably envisioned a time machine of some sort that could be physically taken over and which they probably could operate. But, apparently, no one thought of it.
Perhaps the leaders of the operation were concentrating on a violent confrontation that would bring the federal establishment to its knees.
The Five Days passed and relative calm fell over the battered, blackened cities. Talks began, but who was talking and where and what they might be talking about was not disclosed. The newsmen and the networks were unable to penetrate the silence. We tried to reach Courtney, but the long-distance lines were still out.
Then, late one afternoon, Courtney came walking through the gate.
“I didn’t phone from Lancaster,” he said, “because it was quicker to grab a cab and come.” He took the drink that Ben offered him and sank into a chair. The man looked tired and harried.