"Allen is working on that one out in Minnesota," said the senator. "Is he finding anything at all?"
"Nothing that I know of senator Nothing definite. He's not made even a preliminary report, if that is what you mean. But there is some scuttlebutt floating around that they are plants—at least, that they belong to the plant kingdom."
"Plants? Christ, that doesn't make any sort of sense."
"No, of course, it doesn't. I've been trying to track down where the rumor came from, but have had no success."
"There's this business, too," said the senator, "that the visitors may know how to control gravity. That's the one I'm interested in. That's something we could put to use."
"Mostly it comes from the fact that they float a few inches above the ground and that when they move, they don't seem to make use of propulsive units," said Porter. "Or at least propulsive units as we think of them. No one really knows, of course. The idea is no more than someone grabbing for an explanation—any kind of explanation for a mode of operation that defies all the physical laws we know."
"You two talk only about what we can gain from the visitors," said Alice. "Doesn't it enter your thinking that they may be thinking along the same lines—what they can get from us?"
"Well, sure," her father said. "They are getting cellulose. And cellulose is cheap enough if we can get gravity control from them."
"They also got a few cars."
"Well, yes, a few of them. Just that one time. Not any more. They're not taking cars any more.
"I've wondered," said Alice, "what they wanted the cars for. And I can't understand you, Daddy. To start with, you were up in arms about them—destroying trees and lumberyards, upsetting the country's business."
"I rethought my position," said the senator. "I began to see some rather attractive possibilities, if we can play our cards right." He said to Porter, "I keep hearing about a weapons test conducted against the visitors. It's a story that keeps floating around, but I can't get a handle on it. What do you know about it?"
"The same as you," said Porter. "I keep hearing the story."
"Nothing positive? No details?"
"None at all," said Porter.
"These things must have some sort of defense worked out," said the senator. "Out in space, they must have been open to some sort of attacks, although I can't imagine what kind of attacks. It would be nice if we could find what they have."
38. MINNEAPOLIS
The editors sat at the news huddle in the conference room. The sound of clacking typewriters and the hum of conversation came through the halfway-open door.
"We have the Black Hills-Indian story that Jones wrote," said
Garrison. "We should be getting that in the paper soon."
"I thought you were saving that for the Sunday edition," said Lathrop.
"So I was, but it kept getting crowded out. Keep it too long and it could get dated. There is, as well, a piece that Jamison has been working on for weeks, an analysis of what a real energy crunch could do to this area. It's a good job. He talked with a lot of people. He really dug into it. It's long, but it looks as if we have the space today. There isn't much other news. I'd say we could strip it across the top of the front page."
"Haven't we a good story on the visitors?"
Garrison looked at Gold. The assistant city editor shrugged.
"Nothing to get excited about. It's beginning to level off."
"As a matter of fact," said Garrison, "I'm beginning to have the feeling that the visitors haven't as much impact as they had a week ago. The edge is beginning to wear off the story. The readers may be getting a little weary of it. We've played the story hard. That was fine so long as the readers were avid for it. But if we keep on cramming it down their throats
"How about Kathy? She's still up at Lone Pine, isn't she?"
"She is, ~ said Gold, "for all the good it does. There's nothing
coming out of there. No one's getting anything, either from there
or Washington. I've never seen the lid clamped down so hard."
"It sounds," said Garrison, "as if something fairly big is going
on. Otherwise, why all the secrecy? But, apparently, we aren't going to get anything until someone is willing to talk."
"What about the Washington bureau?"
Hal Russell, the wire editor, said, "They're not getting any-thing, either. I talked with Matthews just a couple of hours ago. Nothing, he said. Absolutely nothing. Either no one knows anything or they are clamming up. Some rumors, but nothing that can be pinned down. Chances are, if anyone knows anything, it's only a few. In Washington, if more than a dozen people know something, one of them is sure to be talking about it. The news leaks out."
"So why are we keeping Kathy up at Lone Pine?" asked Lathrop. "If Washington is tight-lipped, what chance does she have?"
"Kathy is one damn fine reporter," said Garrison. "She has as much chance to dig out something as the Washington bureau."
"I think we ought to get her back here," said Lathrop. "With vacations and one thing and another, we are running shorthanded. We could use her here."
"If you wish," said Garrison, grim with a sudden anger.
"If you're still looking for a backgrounder on the visitors," said Gold, "Jay has an idea. He was talking the other day with someone at the university, a man in the native American affairs department. This man was drawing a parallel between us and the visitors and the Indians and the white men when the whites first showed up in America. He said the reason the Indians finally lost out was that their technology was upset by the white man and that, as a result of this, they lost their culture. Their defeat dated from the day when an Indian wanted an iron hatchet, to replace his stone tomahawk, so badly that he was willing to sell his natural resources, to enter into trade arrangements that were unfair to him, to get it."
"A story like that would be oblique propaganda," said Lathrop, "and both Jay and you should know it."
"Jay wasn't about to write it from the Indian view alone," said Gold. "He was going to talk to economists and historians and a lot of other people.
Lathrop shook his head. "With the Black Hills-Indian situation, I think we should keep away from it. No matter how well the story was written, no matter how objectively, we would be accused of bias."
"Oh, well," said Gold, "it was only an idea."
39. IOWA
The river gurgled and lapped against the shore. Dick's Landing, located on a shelf several feet above the river, was made up of several dilapidated buildings. Above the buildings reared the steep heights of the Iowa bluffs. Beyond the river's edge was an island that hemmed in the channel or, rather, one of many channels, for here the Mississippi, spreading out on a wide flood-plain, became a watery jungle. To the east loomed the blueness of the distant bluffs on the Wisconsin side.
Jerry stood on the river bank, watching the progress of the small rowboat powered by a small and sputtering motor. The boat made its doubtful, hesitating way up the channel, bouncing in the roughness of the current. In the back of it crouched a hunched-over man, nursing the balky motor.
Opposite the landing, the man angled the boat in toward shore, finally bringing it in against the shaky dock. When he clambered from the boat and tied it, Jerry saw that he was older than he first had thought. His hair was an unruly iron-gray and his shoulders slightly stooped, but when he moved it was with the sprightly spring of a man much younger.