"It seems to me that you are convinced they've not actually disappeared, that they've not gone back to space," said the Washington Post. "Why do you seem so convinced of this?"
"I wasn't aware that my personal reaction was showing through so clearly," said Porter. "This is not an official position and if you use it, I hope you will make it clear it is not. My own thinking is that the visitors would be unlikely this soon to leave a planet where they've found the natural resource they apparently were seeking. It is probable that not too many planets would be found where they could discover plant life that would produce as much cellulose as our forests do."
"So, having found it, you think they would stick around for a while."
"That is my thinking, not necessarily the administration's thinking."
"Throughout this entire visitor situation," said the INS, "the administration has maintained what I think can be described as a hopeful, perhaps even an optimistic, mood. There must have been many trying times for you, but still you always seem to have struck that note of optimism. Can you tell me if the thinking is as optimistic as it seems?"
"What you are trying to ask," said Porter, "is whether the optimism you say you detected was merely a political optimism or was it real?"
"Thank you, Dave, for completing my question for me."
"I think," said Porter, "that under any circumstance, the tendency might have been to remain optimistic for purely political reasons. But I can tell you, without quibble, that a true feeling of optimism has existed. The visitors did not act in a hostile manner. It appeared to us that they were trying to determine how they should act toward us. Almost never did they violate any of our basic rules of conduct. It seemed that they were trying to be decent. I think the feeling existed in the White House that they would not willingly do anything to harm us. It is possible, of course, that they might harm us unwittingly."
"You seem to be saying you think that would be unlikely."
"Yes," said Porter, "I do think it would be unlikely."
44. IOWA
For more than half an hour, they had fought their way through a water-logged jungle—trees, vines and brush. The ground was uneven and treacherous underfoot, mounds and ridges of semisolid ground separating narrow tunnels of open water and small stretches of swamp. There was, as yet, no sign of the grassy prairie, slightly elevated above the outer rim of the island, that Jimmy Quinn had told them they would find once they had beat their way through the encircling timber area.
Occasionally, when the towering trees thinned out slightly, they caught a glimpse of one or two of the visitors that apparently were resting in the grassy interior. They had first seen them coming down the river, once Goose Island had come into view.
"They are still there," Quinn had said. "I thought they might have left. There was something on the radio this morning about the visitors all leaving."
Finally, they seemed to be traveling up a slight incline. The going became easier. There were no longer any of the swampy areas and the underbrush was thinning out, although the trees grew as heavily as ever.
"I think we're almost there," said Jerry.
And, finally, they were there. They came out of the trees and before them lay the vast extent of grassland. As they came out into the open, both of them stopped abruptly, staring in wonderment.
The three visitors sat in the clearing, at some distance from one another, but it was not the visitors that riveted their attention.
Interspersed between the visitors, standing in neat, straight rows, were cars, or what appeared to be cars. They were shaped like cars. They had doors and seats and steering wheels and in the front of each of them a single, flaring headlight. But they had no running gear.
"Cars," said Kathy. "Jerry, those are cars but they haven't any wheels."
"Whatever they are," said Jerry, "they are still making them, or building them, or budding them, or whatever you may call it."
The sight of the long straight rows of cars had so fastened Kathy's attention that she had paid but slight attention to the visitors. But now, when she looked, she saw that all three were in the process of budding, although the buds were not the shapes that they had been when the visitors had been producing young. Rather the buds were elongated and lumpy.
A bud burst open on the visitor that was nearest them and from it began to emerge one of the things that looked like a car. It gleamed wetly, but as she watched, the wetness dried, revealing a glossy yellow sheen.
"It's a yellow one," said Jerry. "Did you notice that the ears are of different colors. Reds and greens and grays—all the colors you could ask."
Slowly the yellow ear emerged from the bud and finally dropped off. It came to rest, floating a few inches above the ground. Quickly, it swung about and scooted swiftly toward the nearest line of ears. It swung precisely into line and halted, stationing itself next to a green car. On the other side of the green car was a red one.
"How cute," said Kathy, delighted. "They come in every color."
"I was just telling you that," said Jerry, "but you didn't listen."
"Those can't be cars," said Kathy. "I know they look like ears, but they just can't be. ‘What would the visitors want with cars?"
"I wouldn't know," said Jerry, "but they do look like ears. Futuristic ears. Like the pipedream of a car designer who is intent on catching the public eye. They haven't any wheels, of course, but they don't need wheels; they float. These ears, if that is what they are, must operate on the same principle as the visitors themselves. They should because they are children of the visitors, but in a somewhat different shape."
"Why should they be budding children in the shape of ears? Why would they want youngsters in the shape of cars?"
"Maybe," said Jerry, "because they are really cars and are meant for us."
"For us?"
"Think, Kathy. Think about it. The visitors came here and found what they were looking for. They found trees from which they could process cellulose. It may be that these ears are payment for the trees."
"That's ridiculous," said Kathy. "Why pay us anything? They came and found the trees and took them. They could just keep on taking them. And for us, you said. We don't need this many ears. We couldn't use them in a lifetime. There must be a hundred of them, maybe more than that."
"Not just for us. Not just for you and me. For the people of the country."
"They couldn't make enough of them."
"I think they could. There are just three visitors here. They have been here for less than a week. In that time, they've budded more than a hundred ears. Take a thousand visitors, or ten thousand visitors, give them six months.
"I suppose you're right," said Kathy. "They could make a lot of ears. Come to think of it, 101 told you to come here. She knew what you'd find. She wanted you to find them."
"Probably not 101 alone," said Jerry. "The visitors wanted us to find them. 101 was just the spokesman. Each one of these things, more than likely, knows what the rest of them are doing. A sort of hive communication. When 101 first landed, she sent out signals to the others. They can talk among themselves."
"You think the visitors want us to spread the word about the cars.
"We are being used," said Jerry. "That must be it, we are being used. We are the PR people for the visitors. We may be a test team as well. I don't know. Maybe they want us to see if the ears can be operated in a satisfactory way. They can't be sure, perhaps. They know a lot about us, but maybe they aren't sure that they know enough. When a car manufacturer designs a new model, the model must be tested.