The first baby to emerge whipped around the rear of the visitor, heading for one of the bales of cellulose. It reared up and attacked the bale, tearing it apart, gulping down the cellulose in much the same manner as its «mother» was gulping down the trees.
Chet was racing toward it, his camera lifted and ready. Sliding to a stop, he braced himself, plastered the camera to his face and began shooting pictures, sliding along after a few exposures to get shots from different angles. Other cameramen also were running frantically, joggling one another for position, forming a ragged circle around the little creature.
"I should have guessed," said a man standing beside Kathy. "When I saw those lumps I should have known. The thing is budding. And that answers the question all of us have been asking ourselves.
"That's right," said Kathy. "It's biological."
He looked at her, apparently for the first time. He raised a hand and touched it to his forehead in salute.
"Quinn," he said. "New York Times."
"Foster," said Kathy. "Minneapolis Tribune."
"You got here early then," he said. "From the first, I would suppose."
"Late on the day it landed."
"Do you realize," he asked, "that we may be covering the story of the century. If not of all time."
"I hadn't thought of it," said Kathy.
Then, ashamed, she said, "I am sorry, Mr. Quinn. I was being flippant. Yes, I had thought of it."
There were more of the babies now, running wildly to find the bales so that they might feed. The newsmen and photographers were scattering, no longer huddled in a group.
One of the babies had fallen and was not running. It lay jiggling and quivering, like an animal that had fallen and was struggling to get up. It lay close against the visitor, but the visitor was paying no attention to its plight.
It's fallen on its side, thought Kathy. The poor thing has fallen on its side and can't get to its feet. Although how she might know this, she did not know, for, truth to tell, there was no way one could know. No one could tell which part was top or bottom.
Quickly she stepped forward and, stooping, laid hold of it and tipped it. Swiftly, it flipped over and quickly scurried off, heading for the bales.
Straightening, Kathy reached up a hand and patted the barn-like side of the visitor.
"Mother," she said, softly to herself, not really speaking to the visitor, for how was the visitor to hear? "Mother, I helped your baby to its feet."
Underneath her hand, the hide of the visitor twitched and then folded over to grasp her hand, still against its side, folding over gently, covering her outspread hand, to hold it for a moment. Then the hide unfolded and became hard and smooth again.
Kathy stood stricken, shaken, not believing it had happened. It noticed me, she thought in a wild panic of churning emotion. It knew I was here. It knew what I had done. It tried to shake my hand. It was thanking me.
18. WASHINGTON, D.C
"What do you have on this pupping business?" the President asked Porter.
"Pupping, sir?"
"Yes, the visitor out in Minnesota, having pups."
"All that I have is on the wires," said Porter. "Fourteen of
them so far, and a few more to go.
"A fair litter," said the President.
"You probably know more than I do about it," the press secretary said. "Dr. Allen has his men out there. He probably has reported to you.
"Yes, of course he has. But Allen is an old woman and those observers of his are thin-lipped science people. They won't tell you anything until it's all nailed down. They won't tell you what they're thinking because if they were wrong, their beloved fellow scientists would laugh them out of court. What they do tell you is so filled with scientific lingo and so many ifs and maybes and so much double-talk, you can't tell what they mean.
"You can't mean that Dr. Allen is incompetent," said Hammond. "He is a top-notch man. He has the respect.
The President waved his hand. "Oh, he's competent, of course, and his fellow scientists are filled to overflowing with their respect of him, but he's not the kind of man I cotton to. I like straight talking men who tell you what they mean. With Allen, there's a lot of times when I wonder what he is talking about. The two of us don't talk the same kind of language."
"Barring all this," said Hammond, "cutting through all the
lingo and the double-talk, what does he think of it?"
"He's puzzled," said the President. "A very puzzled scientist. I think he was convinced, when this first started, that the visitor was a machine and now he has to admit, at least to the probability, that it probably isn't. This pupping business has done violence to his little scientific mind. Really, I'm not too concerned with what he is thinking of it because he's going to change his mind a couple of more times before the week is at an end. What I'm more interested in is how the country's taking it."
"It's too soon to know," said Porter. "There are as yet no solid indications, no way to gauge reactions. There've been no outbreaks of any kind. Whatever may be happening is happening underneath the people's skins. They are still busy sorting it all out, holding in their feelings until they get it sorted out. But I have a hunch.
He broke off his words and looked at Hammond and the Secretary of State.
"Well, go ahead," said the President. "What is this hunch of yours?"
"It's probably silly. Or will sound silly."
"Well, go ahead and be silly. I hear a hell of a lot of silly things. I've listened to and profited from many of them. Anyhow, it's among us boys. John and Marcus won't mind. They've said their share of silly things."
"The hunch is this," said Porter, "and I'll not guarantee it, but I have the feeling that this pupping business, as you call it, may serve to somewhat endear the visitor to the people. This country goes all soft on motherhood."
"I don't know about that," said Marcus V/bite, the Secretary of State. "It scares me spitless. Not only do we have hundreds, perhaps thousands, of those creatures out in space, but the one that's here is spawning. What happens if they all come down and spawn?"
"The public won't think of that," said Porter. "Not now. Not right away. The spawning may give us a little time."
"Marcus," said the President, "I know you talked with the Russian. What did he have to say?"
"Not a great deal. Sounded as if he still was waiting for instructions from Moscow. Maybe Moscow doesn't know as yet quite what line it should take. Rumbled around a lot without getting anywhere. Gave some indication that his government might demand some hand in the study of this visitor of ours. I gave him no indication of what our policy might be. For starters, I told him we still considered it an internal matter. Personally, I still think we should give some thought to inviting foreign scientists to participate. It would make for better international relations and we probably wouldn't be hurt too much, if at all."
"That's what you said the other day," the President told him. "Since that time, I've given considerable thought to your suggestion. I'm inclined to be against it."
"What Ivan is afraid of is that we'll find out something from the visitor that will give us a defensive edge," said Hammond. "That's why the ambassador did his rumbling about being counted in. My feeling is that we should hold up until we at least have some inkling of what we might have."
"I talked with Mike at the U.N. just before you all came in," said the President. "He tells me we'll have a fight to keep the U.N. from declaring this an international situation. All our little brothers in Africa and Asia and some of our good friends in South America think, or at least are saying, that this is something that extends beyond national interest. The arrival of a visitor from space, they argue, is of international concern.