“An hour ago,” said Jane.
“Good, said Wilson. “He should have gone to bed long before then.”
“Is it important, Steve? He left orders that if anything important came up he should be called.”
“No, this can wait. Do you think you can get hold of Jerry Black?”
“I’ll try. I think he’s still around.”
The room was silent except for the teletypes. Gale and Alice sat unstirring in their chairs. Light still shone beneath the press-lounge doors, but there was no sound of typing.
“We’re sorry to upset you so,” Alice said to Wilson. “But we were at our wits’ ends. We didn’t know what to do.”
“It’s all right,” said Wilson. “You don’t know how much this means to us,” she said. “The rest of the people may not know till later, but we’ll know that we did not come as beggars. That we paid our way. That’s important to us.” Footsteps came down the corridor and turned in at the door.
“What’s going on, Steve?” asked Jerry Black.
“We need a couple of men,” said Wilson.
“I’m one of them,” said Black. “I can find another.”
“It’ll be a favor,” said Wilson. “I have no jurisdiction. I’m acting on my own. It’ll be until tomorrow morning—or as soon as I can see the President.”
“It’s okay,” said Black, “if it’s for the President.”
“I think,” said Wilson, “that it might be for him.”
“All right. What is it?”
“Mr. Gale has an attache ease. I won’t tell you what is in it. You wouldn’t want to know. But it’s important. And I want him to keep it—him and no one else. Until we know what to do with it.”
“That can be managed. You think it needs two of us?”
“I’d feel better if there were two of you.”
“No trouble,” said Black. “Let me use your phone.”
31. Dawn was graying the eastern sky when Enoch Raven sat down to his typewriter. Outside the window lay the green Virginia hills, and in the trees and shrubs a few awakening birds began their twittering and chirping.
He flexed his fingers over the keyboard and then began to type steadily and without pause. He had made it a rule these many years to have his words thought out before he sat down to write his column.
The world today faces what may be its greatest crisis, and the strangeness of this lies in the fact that the crisis comes not by the ordinary channels. Although, when one thinks it through, it becomes apparent that the present difficulty does parallel a problem we have long recognized—overpopulation and the economic problems that could spring from it. As short a time ago as last Sunday morning, however, no one in his right mind could have imagined that a critical overpopulation could come upon us overnight.
Now that it has, we are faced with a situation that must be solved, not over a long period of careful planning, but in a matter of weeks. The brutal fact is that we can feed the hordes of people who have come to us for help for only a very limited span of time. They themselves are frank in admitting that they were aware of the problems their coming would create and in consequence of this have brought us the knowledge and the tools we will need in solving them. All that remains is that we use these tools. This requires the willing cooperation of every one of us. These words are not used lightly, nor in a horatory political sense, but in a very personal way. Every one of us, each of us, all of us.
What is needed from most of us is forbearance, a willingness to bear certain sacrifices, to tolerate certain inconveniences. It may mean that there will be less food—and that not so good—for us to eat. We may have to wait for delivery of that new car. We may not be able to buy a new lawnmower when the old one breaks down. The economic energy and direction that under normal circumstances would be channeled into the production and distribution of items and services we need must be channeled not only into sending our descendants farther back into time, but into providing them with the equipment, tools and supplies they will need to build a viable culture. Detroit may be called on to turn out plows and other implements rather than cars. It may be that, voluntarily or by government decree, we may have to ration ourselves. Wise as the actions taken by President Henderson may have been in calling for a bank holiday and a price and wage freeze, a case can be made for his having taken one further step by issuing a strong warning against hoarding. While we can ill afford to deal in a bureaucratic manner with the press of events that has been forced upon us, it would seem that some move toward a strict rationing of food and other items vital to the continuing economy should be taken at once. It is quite understandable, for political reasons, why Mr. Henderson might have been reluctant to do this. But it is upon such unpopular actions—or the failure to take these actions—that we sometimes stand or fall.
It would scarcely seem necessary to point out that such actions as the President has taken should be taken by other nations as well. It is reliably understood that Britain, Russia, France, Germany, Japan, China and possibly other nations may already have made corresponding moves before these words see print. The problem we face is worldwide and for it to be solved temporary economic strictures must be imposed not only upon the larger economic units, but upon the entire world.
The appearance of the people from the future undoubtedly will call forth from the various intellectual factions a wide variety of opinions, many of which undoubtedly will be ill-founded. This is illustrated by the public agony being exhibited by the Reverend Jake Billings, one of the more colorful of our evangelists, over the revelation that the people of five hundred years from now have forsaken religion as a rather footless factor in the lives of men. Distressing as this may be to the professional religionists, it is scarcely a consideration that has any bearing on the matter immediately at hand. Not only on this point, but on many others, profound questions will be raised, but now is not the time to expend any noticeable amount of energy in trying to answer or resolve them. They will only further divide a population which, under the best of circumstances, is bound to be divided by the basic task which has been brought upon us.
We have not yet had time, nor indeed enough facts, to form a true evaluation of the situation. While we have been made aware of some of the basics, much is yet unknown.
There is no time, of course, for deliberate consideration of the crisis—in essence, the world must act with more expediency than may be entirely wise. The very fact that expediency is necessary calls for a public forbearance that is usually not desirable when great issues are at stake. A storm of criticism and a violent putting forward of opinions at variance with official opinion and action will accomplish nothing other than an impedance to a solution which must come quickly if it is to come at all. The men in Washington, at Whitehall and in the Kremlin may be wrong on many points, but their various publics must realize that they will be acting in honest good faith, doing what they consider proper.
Democracy demands, and rightly, that all men should have a voice in their government and in governmental decisions and actions, that all viewpoints be given full consideration, that there be no arbitrary decisions counter to the public will. But today we cannot afford the luxury of such an idealistic concept. The situation may not be handled as many of us would wish. Some toes undoubtedly will be trod upon. Certain ideas of justice and propriety may be outraged. But to accept all of this, if not in silence, at least without raising too great an outcry, is a part of the forbearance that is called for.
This commentator has no way of knowing what will happen. I cannot even guess. I am aware that there may be much that I will not like, much that I will consider could be done differently or better. In the past there has been no hesitancy on my part to place my personal opinion on record and at a later date, after this is over, I suppose I may not be above pointing out glaring errors as I may have perceived them. But from this day forward and until then I shall, as a personal contribution, exercise stern censorship upon, if not my thoughts, at least upon my typew
riter. I am hereby enrolling myself as charter member in the Keep Your Mouth Shut, Enoch, Club. The membership is wide open and I invite all of you to join.
32. He had somehow climbed a tree and gotten out on a limb—for no reason that seemed quite logical—when a violent wind had come up. Now he was hanging grimly to a branch whipping in the wind. He knew that at any moment his grasp might be tom loose and he would be thrown to the ground. But when he looked down he saw, with horror, that there wasn’t any ground.
From somewhere far off, a voice was speaking to him, but he was so intent on maintaining his grip on the branch that he was unable to distinguish the words. The shaking became even more violent.
“Steve,” the voice was saying. “Steve, wake up.” His eyes came open to a slit and he realized that he was in no tree. A distorted face swam crazily just above him. No one had such a face.
“Wake up, Steve,” said a voice that was Henry Hunt’s. “The President is asking for you.” Wilson lifted a fist and scrubbed his eyes. The face, no longer distorted, was Henry Hunt’s.
The face receded into the distance as the Times man straightened. Wilson swung his feet off the couch, sat up. Sunlight was streaming through the windows of the press lounge.
“What time is it?” he asked.
“Almost eight.”
Wilson squinted up at Hunt. “You get any sleep?”
“I went home for a couple of hours. I couldn’t sleep. Things kept spinning in my head. So I came back.” He picked a jacket off the floor. “This yours?”
Wilson nodded groggily. “I got to get washed up,” he said. “I got to comb my hair.” He rose to his feet, took the jacket from Hunt and tucked it under his arm. “What’s going on?”
“What you might expect. The wires are clogged with screams of anguish over the business holiday. How come you didn’t tip us off, Steve?”
“I didn’t know. He never said a word about it.”
“Well, that’s all right,” said Hunt. “We should have guessed it. Can you imagine what would have happened if the exchanges were open?”
“Any word about the monster?”
“Rumor. Nothing solid. One rumor says another got through in Africa. Somewhere in the Congo. Christ, they’ll never find it there.”
“The Congo’s not all jungle, Henry.”
“Where it’s supposed to have happened, it is.”
Wilson headed for the washroom. When he returned Hunt had a cup of coffee for him.
“Thanks.” Wilson sipped the hot brew and shuddered. “I don’t know if I can face the day,” he said. “Any idea of what the President has in mind?”
Hunt shook his head.
“Judy in yet?”
“Not yet, Steve.”
Wilson put the cup down on the coffee table. “Thanks for getting me up and going,” he said. “I’ll see you later.”
He went into the pressroom. The lamp he had forgotten to turn off still shone feebly on the desk. In the corridor outside footsteps went smartly up and down. He straightened his jacket and went out.
Two men were with the President. One was General Daniel Foote; the other was one of the refugees, rigged out in a mountaineer outfit.
“Good morning, Mr. President,” said Wilson.
“Good morning, Steve. You get any sleep?”
“An hour or so.”
“You know General Foote, of course,” said the President. “The gentleman with him is Isaac Wolfe. Dr. Wolfe is a biologist. He brings us rather frightening news. I thought you should hear it.”
Wolfe was a heavy man—heavy of body, deep in the chest, standing on short, solid legs. His head, covered by a rat’s nest of graying hair seemed overlarge for a man his height.
He stepped quickly forward and shook Wilson’s hand. “I am sorry,” he said, “to be the bearer of such disturbing facts.”
“Last night,” said the President, “rather, some time this morning, a farmer not far from Harper’s Ferry was wakened by something in his chicken coop. He went out and found the henhouse full of strange beasts, the size, perhaps, of half-grown hogs. He fired at them and they got away, all except one which the shotgun blast almost cut in two. The farmer was attacked. He’s in a hospital. He’ll live, I’m told, but he was fairly well chewed up. From what he says there can be little doubt the things in the henhouse were a new batch of the monsters.”
“But that’s impossible, said Wilson. “The monster escaped only a few—”
“Dr. Wolfe came to me last evening,” said Foote, “shortly after the monster escaped from the tunnel. I frankly didn’t believe what he told me, but when the report of the henhouse episode came in from an officer of a search party out in West Virginia, I looked him up and asked him to come to the White House. I’m sorry, Doctor, for not believing you to start with.”
“But it’s still impossible,” said Wilson.
“No,” said Wolfe. “It is not impossible. We are dealing with an organism entirely different from anything you’ve ever known. The evolutionary processes of these monsters are like nothing you have even guessed. Their reaction to environmental stress is beyond all belief. We had known something of it and had deduced the rest. But I am convinced that under stresses such as the escaped monster is experiencing, the developmental procedures can be speeded up to a fantastic rate. An hour or so to hatch—an hour later to be hunting food. The same pressure that is placed upon the parent is transmitted to the young. For both the parent and the young this is a crisis situation. The parent is aware of this, of course—the young, of course, would not be. But in some strange manner I can’t pretend to understand a sense of desperate urgency is transmitted to the egg. The message seems to read: Hatch swiftly, grow up quickly, scatter widely, reach the egg-laying stage as soon as possible. It is a genetic reaction to a survival threat. The young aliens are driven by an evolutionary force that in an earthly life form would be inconceivable. They are members of a strange race that has a unique and inborn capability to use every trick in the evolutionary pattern to its advantage.”
Wilson found a chair and sat down limply. He looked at the President. “Has any of this leaked out?”
“No,” said the President, “it has not. The farmer’s wife phoned the sheriff. The military search party had just reached the area and was talking with the sheriff when the call came in. The officer in charge clamped on a security lid. That is why you’re here, Steve. We can’t keep this buttoned up. It’ll leak out—if not this particular incident, then others. There may be hundreds of these tiny monsters out there in the mountains. They’ll be seen and reported. The reports will begin to pile up. We can’t sit on all of them, nor should we.”
“The problem,” said Wilson, “is how to release the news without scaring the pants off everybody.”
“If we don’t tell them,” said the President, “we create a credibility gap that will make everything we do suspect. And there is, as well, the matter of public safety.”
“In a few days,” said Foote, “all the mountains will be swarming with full-grown monsters. They will probably scatter. We can hunt some of them down, but not all. In any event we’ll need every man we can lay our hands on to hunt them down.”
“That they will scatter is right,” said Wolfe. They will want to insure their chances of survival. And they can travel fast. By mother day, perhaps, they’ll be up in New England, down into Georgia. They will keep, at first, to the mountainous terrain because it would give them the best concealment. In time they’ll begin branching out from the mountains.”
“How long would you guess,” asked Wilson, “before they begin laying eggs?”
Wolfe spread his hands. “Who can know?” he said.
“Your best guess.”
“A week. Two weeks. I do not know.”
“How many eggs in a clutch?”
“A couple of dozen. You must understand we do not know. We found only a few-nests.”
“When will they begin their killing?”
“Now. Ri
ght now. They must eat to grow. They must do a lot of killing. Wild animals, farm animals and occasionally humans.
Not many humans to start with. By killing men they draw attention to themselves. Warlike as they may be, they still will know they are vulnerable because there are so few of them. They may be psychopathic killers, but they aren’t stupid.”
“We have some troops out now,” said the President. “We’ll have to use many more. Get planes and helicopters up to spot the aliens. I talked to Sandburg just a while ago. He is coming in. He’ll know what we can do. This means we call out the reserves, perhaps call back some troops from abroad. Not only do we have to hunt the monsters, but we have to maintain the camps for the refugees.”
“We do not wish to stand idly by,” Wolfe put in. “There are many thousands of us. Give us arms and we’ll go in side by side with your military. We know about these creatures and we were the ones who brought them here. We have a duty and—”
“Later,” said the President, “there will be plenty you can do. Getting you into the field now would be a tremendous task. Right at the moment we must depend on our own men.”
“How about the people out there in the mountains?” asked Wilson. “Do we pull them out?”
The President shook his head. “I don’t think so, Steve. We have, right now, all the refugees we can handle. And I’m inclined to think that at the moment our monsters may not be too aggressive. They’re probably concentrating on staying out of sight. There may be some incidents, but we must be prepared to accept those. It’s all we can do.
“I think you’re right, sir,” said Wolfe. “They are outnumbered now and must build up their strength. In any event, the young aliens will not, for a time, be too great a menace. They’ll have to put on size and weight. They may know that they face deadlier weapons—and in much greater numbers—than anything we could ever bring against them. We had lived in peace so long we had lost most of the military techniques and we started from scratch in weapon building.”
The Complete Serials Page 149
