"What you are saying," said ‘Whiteside, "is that we have to sit and take it. This car business. Detroit down the drain. Detroit and a lot of other places. The military has contracts.
"If the visitors had only come to us," said the President. "If they only would have come and tried to let us know what they intended»
"By us, you mean the government," said Allen.
The President nodded.
"What everyone fails to realize," said Allen, "is the true, utter alienness of these creatures. They are more alien than can possibly be conceived. I figure them for a hive organism, what one knows or sees or feels all the rest of them know as well. Such a society would have no need of a government. They would never have thought of it. They wouldn't know what a government was, because there never was a need for them to develop the governmental concept."
"We have to do something," said the general. "We have to protect ourselves. We need to take some action."
"Forget what you are thinking," said the President. "You told me, in this office, a few days ago, the visitors could withstand anything short of a nuclear blast. That was your calculation, you said. We can't use nukes."
Allen straightened in his chair. "Then there was a weapons test," he said. "I kept hearing about it, rumors about it. But, surely, I thought, if there had been one, I would have been informed. Tell me, why wasn't I informed? Your findings might have thrown some light.
"Because it was none of your damned business," said the general. "Because it's classified."
"Even so," said Allen, "it might have been important and you should have.
"Gentlemen, please," said the President. "I apologize for the slip of the tongue. It's all my fault." He looked at Allen. "You never heard it, of course," he said.
"No, Mr. President," said Allen, "I never heard a word that was said."
"The fact remains," said the President, "that we can't use nukes.
"If we could get all the visitors herded together," said the general, "then, maybe.
"But we can't do that," said the President. "We don't even know where they are—or, at least, not the most of them. Probably scattered all over the country. Hiding, making cars.
"Sir, you can't be sure of that."
"Well, it's a logical assumption," said the President. "It's understandable. They couldn't sit out in plain sight, making cars. The people, avid to get cars, would rush in and swamp them."
"Maybe," said Whiteside, grasping for hope, "they may run out of trees. They must have to eat a lot of trees to make ears."
"That would be unlikely," said Allen. "There are a lot of trees in North America. And should they begin running short of them, there still would be the rest of the world, including the equatorial jungles. And don't forget they'll be growing trees to replace those they eat. Number 101 planted the field in Iowa."
"That's another thing that worries me," said the President. "If they start using too much farmland to grow trees we might run into a food shortage. I know we have large amounts of wheat in storage, but that would be soon used up."
"The danger there would be," said Allen, "that if there were a food shortage, the visitors might start making food. Our people, in effect, would be placed on a dole system."
"While all this is interesting," said the President, "and perhaps even pertinent, it is getting us nowhere. What we should be talking about is what we should be doing now."
"I just now thought of something," said Porter. "When I talked with Garrison, he mentioned a name. Jerry Conklin, I believe. Said Conklin was the one who really was the first to learn about the cars, but that he objected to being identified, so his name was not mentioned in the story. It seems to me I've heard that name before. It seems to ring a bell."
Allen came to rigid attention. "Of course, it does," he said. "That's the man whose ear was crushed when the first visitor landed at Lone Pine. The one that disappeared when we tried to find him. And here he pops up again. This strikes me as rather strange."
"Perhaps we should bring him in and have a talk with him," said Whiteside. "It's just possible this young fellow knows some things he should be telling.
"Wait a minute," said Allen. "We found out something else. Conklin is a friend, apparently a close friend, of a reporter for the Tribune. Kathy, I think was the first name."
"Kathy Foster," said Porter. "She was the one who found the cars, who wrote the story."
"Maybe we ought to have them both in," said Whiteside. "Ask the FBI to pick them up.
The President shook his head. "Not the FBI," he said. "We'll act civilized about it. We'll invite them as White House guests. We'll send a plane to pick them up.
"But, sir," the general protested, "this man has disappeared before; he could disappear again."
"We'll take our chances on that," said the President. "Dave, will you make the call?"
"Gladly," Porter said.
47. MINNEAPOLIS
A copy aide, bent sidewise under a heavy load of papers clutched beneath one arm, tossed a copy on Garrison's desk, then hurried
on.
Garrison picked up the paper, unfolded it, glanced swiftly across the front page. It was not greatly changed over the first edition, except for the new article that had not been written when the first edition had gone to press. He laid the paper down on his desk and admired the new story. It had a two-column head and an artist's sketch of the control panel of the visitor-car. He read the first paragraph:
If you should become one of the lucky ones to get your hands on a visitor-car early, there need be no concern about its operation. Handling it is a simple matter, easily understood. To start it, you depress the first button on the panel to your right. (The button marked A on the artist's sketch.) To cause it to move forward, depress button B. Speed is controlled by rotating the dial above the control panel, to the right for higher speeds, to the left for slower. All the way to the left to stop. Elevation is controlled by the lever to right of the panel. To rise, push it up; to descend, push it down. The buttons, the dial and the elevator lever are unmarked, nor are they graduated. You must get clear in mind what each control will do. Since there are few of them, the operation is not difficult.