He went to his desk and sat down, watching Marcia get ready to leave and finally go.
The place was quiet. Somewhere, some distance off, a phone was ringing and someone was walking, the footsteps sounding hollow in the distant corridor.
He lifted the phone and dialed. Alice answered.
"I thought you might call," she said. "I was sitting by the phone. How did it go?"
"Not bad. They didn't chew me up.
"Poor Dave," she said.
"It's all right. I asked for it. I take the money."
"You never asked for it."
"Well, maybe not, but I jumped at the chance to take the job."
"Any chance of you running out here? I'd have a drink waiting."
"Afraid not, Alice. I better stay where I can be reached. For a while at least."
"All right, then. Later. Wait a minute. Daddy is signaling frantically. He wants to talk to you."
"Put the senator on. I'm always glad of the opportunity to talk with him."
"Good night, dear. Here's Daddy."
The senator's voice boomed in his ear. "Dave, what's going on down there? TV is full of it, but hell, they don't know what's going on. No one seems to know what's going on. Is there anything to this business of our being visited?"
"We don't know any more about it than the T\J people do," said Porter. "One new piece of news. Our trackers have picked up something new in orbit."
Swiftly he told the senator about the new object.
The senator said, "Maybe there's something to it, then. Not like the movies and the TV represent it in their silly shows. No little men so far."
"No little men," said Porter. "We'll have to get used to the idea that, if anyone is there, they might not be men.
"If there is anyone.
"That's right."
"Us Americans jump to conclusions," said the senator. "We have too much imagination and too little sense."
"So far, the country's taken it well. No hysteria. No panic." "As yet," said the senator, "there's nothing to be hysterical about. In just a little while, there'll be wild stories. Damn fools starting rumors. One thing more, Dave."
"Yes?"
"Is there talk of going international on this?"
"I don't quite understand."
"Are we about to call in other countries? Are we going to share this with them?"
"I don't read you, senator. There's nothing to share as yet." "But, good Christ, Dave, if there is! If we have aliens landing out in Minnesota, we should grab hold of them. Think of it, a new intelligence, a new technology."
"I see your point," said Porter.
"Vie, at least, have to have first shot at what we can learn from them," said the senator. "What we could learn from them might turn everything around."
"Have you any idea of how difficult it might be to talk with an alien—if there are aliens in that thing that fell?"
"Sure, I know that. I realize all that. But we have the world's best scientists. We have the brains.~~
"It's not been discussed here," said Porter.
"You'll drop a word," said the senator. "I'll try to see the President myself, but if you could drop a word.
"I'll drop a word," said Porter. "I don't know how well it will be received."
"A word," said the senator. "That's all I ask. A word before your people down there go charging off in all directions. You want to talk with Alice again?"
"If she wishes."
Alice came back on the line and they talked for a short time and then hung up. Porter swung his chair around and saw that someone was standing in the doorway that led out to the corridor.
"Hello, Jack," he said. "How long have you been standing there? You should have come in and found yourself a seat."
"Just a few minutes," said Jack Clark. Clark was the President's military aide.
"Senator Davenport was on the phone just a minute ago," said Porter.
"What's his interest?"
"Just curiosity," said Porter. "Needed someone to talk with. There are a lot of people tonight who are looking for someone to talk with. I suspect the country may be getting edgy. Nothing to worry about so far, but feeling a bit uncomfortable, doing a lot of wondering, maybe some soul searching."
"And with no evidence as yet that it's any more than some harmless piece of junk falling out of space.
Porter shook his head. "Jack, I think it's more than that. The damn thing moved."
"A machine, maybe."
"Could be," said Porter, "but a machine still is enough to frighten me."
Clark came into the room and sat down in a chair at the corner of the desk.
"How's the President?" asked Porter.
"He went up to bed. I don't imagine he'll get much sleep. He's upset about this. It's the unknownness of it that gets to him. I guess that's what has gotten to the most of us."
"Just now you said it might be no more than a machine. Why is it, Jack, that you are trying to deny it may be an intelligence?"
"Damned if I know. I suppose you're right; that was what I was doing. Somehow I cringe from the idea of an intelligence. There has been so much of a flap the past many years about the UFOs. Almost everyone by this time has made up their minds about them. Everyone, or almost everyone, has some preconceived notions about them."
"But this thing is no UFO, not in the popular sense. None of the characteristics associated with them. No flashing lights, no whining sounds, no spinning around."
"That's beside the point," said Clark. "If there's some evidence the thing's alive or has something alive inside of it, half the country will run screaming in terror, the other half will think the millennium has come. There'll be only a few solid citizens who will take it in stride."
"If it turns out," said Porter, "that an alien intelligence is involved, the federal government, especially the military, will have a lot of explaining to do. For years, charges have been made that the military has played cover-up with the UFOs."
"God," said Clark, "don't you think I've thought of that. It was the first thing I thought of when I heard about it."
"Tell me, true," said Porter. "Has there been a cover-up?"
"How should I know?"
"Who would know? Goddammit, Jack, if I'm going to be fronting for the administration in this matter, I should know."
"Intelligence, I assume," said Clark. "Maybe the CIA. Maybe the FBI."
"Under the circumstances, would anyone tell me?"
"I doubt it," Clark said.
8. MINNEAPOLIS
Garrison said to Jim Cold, "Has Kathy come on the line yet?"
"No," said Gold. "Stuffy Grant still is holding. He did a lot of talking to start with, but now we've run out of things to say. Gave me a pretty good description of the object. Told me something about the Lone Pine reaction to it. I turned it all over to Jackson. He turned in the story just a while ago."
Gold picked up the phone and spoke into it. "Mr. Grant, are you still there?"
He listened for a moment and then laid down the phone. "He's still there," he said.
Garrison sat down at his desk, picked up the copy of the first edition that a copy aide had left on his typewriter, spread it out to look at the front page.
The headline said: SPACE OBJECT LANDS IN MINNESOTA
There was nothing but stories concerning the space object on the page—the main story; a sidebar on Lone Pine reaction, supplied by Frank Norton; a story from the governor's office; a statement by the head of the state highway patrol; a piece out of the Tribune's Washington bureau; a speculative story written by Jay Kelly, exploring the possibility of intelligent life throughout the universe and the odds against the Earth being visited by one of the life forms; a map showing the location of Lone Pine.