There would be no H-war.
But the rising terror of the crash continued unabated. True to the pattern predicted by Vanner, control measures snapped one by one in the face of the savage tide. Food rotted in midwestem railroad yards, while mobs roamed the streets of the huge urban centers of the East, starving and vicious. Through betrayal and desertion in the FBI and Secret Service, besieging rioters broke through Pentagon defenses; the President and Joint Chiefs were shot without trial or ceremony. In mid-August of 1997 the mobs sacked and burned the XAR atomic spaceship project in New Mexico, smashing into the compound in trucks and killing, injuring and torturing the scientists and technicians there.
As the wave of anti-space violence rose, physicists fled for their lives. Atomic motor plants, titanium factories, astronautic research centers, even universities and libraries were crushed and bumed by hungry mobs, finding only technology and the drive to space to blame for the chaos that had descended in the country. Four prominent engineers were beaten to death on the University of Iowa campus. John Hannibal, editor of Outstanding Science-Fiction magazine, and a major driving force in the “space in our time” philosophy of the past decade, was burned alive in his Manhattan office, where he had barricaded himself behind crates of out-of-date science-fiction magazines . . . .
In northern Europe, where Englehardt had been sequestered and guarded by British Intelligence, a kidnapping attempt was forestalled within hours of its completion. Englehardt was well aware that he owed his life to the BRINT team which had uprooted the conspiracy; characteristically, no mention was ever made of it, although it was rumored in later years that Englehardt had personally paid for the famous BRINT building in New York.
But when Mark Vanner organized his provisional government in New York and began to weld together a pattern of order around a nationwide application of the VE equations, Englehardt came out of hiding. For two decades he had continued to pour his immense wealth and resources back into the Americas, by means of a vast system of interlocking holding companies, reopening factories during the reconstruction period and building up the network of small industries that made him the phenomenon and power that he was.
No one seemed to know what Carl Englehardt was really after: not power, because he had turned down all offers and opportunities for political succession; not money, of which he had a surfeit; not glory, which he avoided like the plague. Because he was not directly or formally in any government function, the DEPCO analysts could not get at him to poke through his mind and background to find out what made him tick. There were rumors that he had watched his only son tortured and murdered by the mob during the sacking of the XAR project, but even though they spent plenty of time and effort trying to pick up the threads of his past, DEPCO had been unable to confirm such rumors. The crash had destroyed so many records, and killed and scattered so many people that the job seemed hopeless.
And still, in critical times, they needed him. Now the DIA Volta let him off at the official entrance to the DEPEX building. Englehardt walked quickly down the hall, cleared his identification with the guards, and went on toward the conference room in the administrative wing. They had called him now because they needed him, in spite of themselves.
But they were not going to like the proposal he had to make.
“Our problem,” said Timmins, Director of the Department of Population, “is one of defense measures. That’s why we asked you to come here today, Mr. Englehardt . . . to bring you up-to-date on what information we have on the alien threat, and to get your views on certain problems that Mr. Bahr has . . . er . . . brought to a head.”
Englehardt nodded, looking at the men in the room. Adams of DEPCO was there, cold-faced and angry. Bahr drummed his fingers impatiently on the table top. There was a General of the Army that Englehardt had met casually. Half a dozen other bureaus were represented. Englehardt looked back at Timmins’ blond, boyish face. “I would think,” he said, “that your defense measures would depend heavily on the nature of the enemy you were fighting.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell them,” Bahr exploded. “We simply don’t have enough information. We have no hint . . . not even a suggestion . . . of their plans. There is a very strong suspicion, however, that they can control the actions of certain humans, at least to a limited degree.”
Englehardt frowned. “Do you have proof of that?”
“Not yet,” Bahr said. “Unfortunately the man who might have given us the answer has escaped our custody. I’m referring to Major Harvey Alexander, the security officer at Wildwood.”
“That is neither here nor there, right now,” Adams broke in. The DEPCO chief spoke rapidly and nervously, keeping his long narrow fingers very precisely before him on the table. “An even more acute problem is the public reaction to Mr. Bahr’s television fiasco. Unless we can convince the public that everything is under control . . . that the aliens cannot harm them . . . we may be dealing with a major panic.”
“In other words,” Englehardt said, “you are proposing to fight malaria by distributing citronella to the natives.”
Adams frowned. “I don’t think I understand you.”
“You’re facing an unknown enemy with short-range planning and countermeasures,” Englehardt said. “Which inevitably puts you a step behind him. To destroy malaria, Mr. Adams, we spray the swamps, kill the disease at its source. It seems to me that our only defense here is a powerful attack, or the ability to make one.”
“But what are we going to attack? Our biggest enemy right now is not an alien invader; it’s fear. We have to deal with that before we can even think of defense or attack.”
“Then harness it,” Englehardt said. “Forget about trying to control or sublimate it—use it! That’s what Vanner did. He put fear and panic to work for him. He made the people rebuild and start a new society.”
Adams sighed. “I don’t think you understand the basis of this fear reaction. Unfortunately, this is not an attack from the Eastern bloc. This is an attack from space.”
“I don’t care what it is,” Englehardt said angrily. “How can you expect to fool people into security when you don’t have any program, any plans, any ideas at all about what to do? You launch a good overall program, something concrete and solid, and your public reaction problem will take care of itself.”
“A program like that would upset the stability of the nation in a week,” Adams said. “We can’t take that risk. We in DEPCO have made the public, Mr. Englehardt. We have been fighting to maintain controlled stability because stability is the only safe, sensible, logical way to keep our economy and sociology balanced. Vanner and his ideas were necessary, of course, in their time; he changed the direction of society. Now it is our function to keep it running in that same direction.”
“Have you ever heard of the Wywy bird, Mr. Adams?” Englehardt asked. He was referring to the ancient and vulgar joke about the bird that flew in ever-decreasing spirals until it flew up its own derriere. Bahr and a couple of the military men laughed. Adams blinked and reddened. “I really can’t see . . .” he began hotiy.
“I think we’re getting into personalities,” Timmins said quickly from across the room. “You’ve made some strong statements about our having no plan of attack ready, Mr. Englehardt. If you think we should not try to keep the Vanner-Elling system in normal operation and devote our efforts to keeping the public in a good state of mental health, then what should we do?”