"But these aren't foreign ears, Joe. And they are free."
"There ain't nothing free," said Joe.
There was subdued panic in the banks, in the board rooms, in the unmanned brokerage offices. In a surge of selling on foreign exchanges, the dollar dropped spectacularly. The British and French governments scheduled a hurried joint consultation. The West German government officially called for support of the United States by other nations of the world. Strange stirrings took place behind the Kremlin walls, but foreign correspondents, even the old Moscow hands, had only a confused idea of what might be going on.
On Capitol Hill, in Washington, out of a flurry of meaningless motion, some sentiment developed for the drafting of a bill that would make it illegal for citizens to accept any sort of gifts from aliens. And a rumor grew.
"What do you know about this report that there has been a weapons test?" Senator Knox asked Senator Davenport when the two met just outside the chamber.
"Very little," said Davenport. "I just now got wind of it."
"How it got out, I don't know," said Knox. "It's supposed to be top secret."
"There may be nothing to it," said Davenport.
"I can't believe that to be true," said Knox. "It seems to be authentic. I'm beginning to think we should back the administration on this visitor issue. No matter how we stand on other matters. If we've got something from the visitors.
"I'm inclined to go along with you," said Davenport. "Seems to me we should stay hanging in there. Although, I still am not too sure how much credence to give the rumor."
"Just on the chance that it is true," said Knox, "I would favor doing what we can. In the area of national security, we can't let the country down."
On a small river in the wilds of Minnesota, Frank Norton bent to the paddle, heading for the bridge where he had parked his car.
51. WASHINGTON, D.C
The science advisor said to Jerry Conklin, "You, Mr. Conklin, tell a fascinating story."
"I came here to tell it," said Jerry, "under protest. Had it not been for Kathy and Garrison at the Tribune, I would have refused to come. They persuaded me that by coming here I would be performing a public duty. So I came and now I've told what I have to tell and it's up to you. I don't give a damn if you believe it or not."
"Mr. Conklin," said the President, "no one here has indicated disbelief. For myself, at this point, I'm ready to believe almost anything."
"I'd like to point out," said Porter, "that the story is much more than fascinating. I think, Dr. Allen, that you made an extremely bad choice of words. What Mr. Conklin tells us does explain one thing—how he was able to go straight to the location where the cars were being made. No one else knew or could have told him. The old river rat knew the visitors had landed on Goose Island, but he didn't know what they were doing there. You couldn't have paid him enough to go and find out. He was scared spitless of them."
Allen said, "I did not mean to seem to doubt what he said."
"It sounded to me as if you did," said Jerry.
Whiteside rumbled at Jerry, "I would say, young man, that it took a fair amount of guts to sit down and tell us what you have. You had decided to keep quiet about it and I can understand why you did. I think I would have done the same.
"What he has told us, essentially, is that a sort of communication with the visitors is possible," said the President, "but a one-sided conversation and on the terms of the visitor. A visitor, when the necessity arises, can have some limited conversation with us, but we can't with them."
"I told 101 to tone down its communication," said Jerry, "and, apparently, it understood."
"Did you try to talk further with it?" asked the President.
"Certainly, sir. I asked it why it showed me where to go, what I would find there, why it wanted me to go."
"And it didn't answer you?"
"Not only didn't it answer; it also threw me out. But this time not as violently as was the case the first time when it heaved me out into a tree. This time it set me down, rather gently, on the ground."
"This time it apparently wanted to be sure you would be able to go where it wanted you to go.
"I would suppose so, Mr. President, but I don't think that's all of it. The first time, I was only an alien organism, along with other alien organisms, that it wanted to have a look at. The second time I was—I was about to say an old friend, and that's not it, of course. More like an acquaintance. Someone it knew. Someone it could use."
"Possibly one that it could use again."
"I'm not sure about that. I can tell you this; I'm not going to hunt down 101 again.
"If we asked you to?"
"What the hell would be the use of it?" asked Whiteside. "He has told us what the score is. We don't ask it; it tells us. As it stands, there'd be no possibility of establishing conversation. It talks to us, if you can call it talking, but we don't talk to it."
"There have been stories," said the President, "of other people being taken up."
"I think you can discount those stories," said Allen. "For years, people have been telling about being taken up by the UFOs. So far as can be determined, it has largely been cult stuff, all of it self-serving. ‘What these people claim the UFOs have told them is so unimaginative, such fuzzy thinking and patently such human thinking that, instinctively, you know it's a fabricated human story. If you really communicated with an alien, the result would not come out uniquely human. The concepts of such a conversation probably would be mind-boggling, which perhaps is an understatement. A large part of what one heard would not be understood."
"So you think all the taken-up tales now are either cult imagining or downright lies?" asked Porter.
"Certainly," Allen told him. "I'm convinced that Mr. Conklin is the only one who has been taken up. What he tells us fits the pattern of alien communication." He said to Jerry, "There were no words. I think you said there were no words."
"That's right," said Jerry. "Only pictures in my mind. At times, thoughts in my mind, but I couldn't tell if they were my thoughts or were something else."
"Well, let's say you went back to 101 again. You say you won't and I don't suppose you will. But let us say you did. Do you think it would take you up again?"
"Only if it had something that it wanted to tell me," Jerry said. "Only if there were a chore it wanted me to do."
"You're convinced of that?"
"Utterly convinced. I feel very keenly that it used me."
"And, yet, Miss Foster tells us of the handshake she got from 101.
"It was more than a handshake," said Kathy. "More personal than a handshake. A kiss, perhaps. I didn't realize what it was at the time. I thought, first a handshake, for that was the easiest way to characterize it. A handshake of gratitude, of thanks, of recognition maybe. To let me know that it knew I existed and was there. But now I know it was more than that. It was, I am sure, a sign of real affection. I think that impression is re-enforced by their making of the cars. They're not just showing off. Not trying to awe us or impress us. Not threatening us with a demonstration of what they can do. Not even paying us for letting them eat our trees. It's a show of deep affection for us. Maybe like Santa Claus. Maybe like giving a special friend a birthday gift. Like a young man buying roses for his girl."
"You make a good case for them," said the President. "And yet, if this keeps on, it will ruin us.
"Let's say, Mr. President, that a fond parent buys candy for her child," said Kathy, "not knowing, never having been told, what candy may do to a child's teeth. It's the same with the visitors. It's not knowing, that is all. They're only trying to be nice, not aware of what their niceness does to us."