There was talk in the ghetto streets.
"Hey, man, you hear about them cars?"
"What cars?"
"Them ears the visitors are about to give us."
"There ain't nobody going to give us cars."
"It says so in the paper."
"Not us, man. Maybe some honkeys will get some cars. We won't get no cars. All we'll get is screwed."
"Maybe it'll be different this time. Them visitors are different kinds of folk. Maybe they won't screw us."
"Listen, man, get rid of that idea. Everybody screws us."
And in an assembly worker's home in a Detroit suburb:
"Joe, you think it's true about the cars?"
"I don't know. How should I know? It's just what the paper says. The paper could be wrong."
"But if it isn't wrong? What if it isn't wrong? What if there really will be cars?"
"Christ, Jane, how should I know?"
"You would lose your job. A lot of people would lose their jobs. Ford and Chrysler and all the other companies can't go on making cars if there are free cars being handed out."
"The visitor-ears might not be any good. Run for a while and stop and once they stop, what do you do for repairs? They're just some new-fangled idea. Maybe some new advertising gimmick. I don't think the visitors are making them. Someone else is making them and some PR jerk has cooked up this story to attract attention. Some day them PR people will carry things too far and maybe this is it."
"You can't lose your job, Joe. We can't afford to have you lose your job. There's the house payments and the car payments and the kids need winter clothes."
"Don't worry so much, Jane. There have been all these flashy foreign cars and the assembly line keeps running."
"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."