by Hogan, James
South America only last night is Karl Zambendorf, who I'm sure needs no further
introduction. Welcome home."
"Thank you."
"And how was your tour?"
"Most enjoyable and extremely successful."
"I'm glad to hear that. In fact I'd like to come back to that subject in a
moment. But first, before I do any more talking that might give things away, I
wonder if I could persuade you to accept a small challenge for the benefit of
the viewers." Kearson smiled impishly for a second. "Now, I can certainly vouch
that we've never set eyes on one another before, and it might interest the
viewers to know that back at NBC this morning, we didn't even know ourselves
which reporter was coming on this assignment until five of us drew lots less
than an hour ago." She paused to allow that to register, and then said, "Now, I
wonder, Heir Zambendorf, what you can make of me, a complete stranger . . .
apart from that I'm blonde, medium in height, and have a few freckles." She
smiled into the camera at the joke, then turned back toward Zambendorf and
waited curiously.
Zambendorf looked at her for a few seconds, then closed his eyes and appeared to
concentrate his powers. The people watching around the lobby fell quiet. An
expression of calm and serenity spread over his face, and he smiled faintly.
When he opened his eyes again, his features remained tranquil but his gaze was
piercing. "You are not from the city," he said slowly, still searching her face
with his eyes. "I see water. Your home is across water, but not very far from
here ... to the west. It must be across the river, probably in New Jersey.
Somewhere in the Newark area seems to suggest itself . . . with a name that
suggests a fruit or a color . . . lemon, maybe, or orange ..."
Kearson's eyes widened incredulously; the cameramen and engineers exchanged
glances that said they were impressed. "This—this is absolutely amazing!" she
stammered at the camera. "I swear this man and I have never met before this
moment."
"There are two men very close to you," Zambendorf went on. "One of them is
called William, William or Bill. He is the older of the two . . . your husband,
unless I am mistaken. You do have a husband?" Kearson nodded numbly. "Mmm,"
Zambendorf said knowingly. "I am beginning to see him a little more clearly
now—tallish, with brown hair . . . No, don't say anything, please. Just continue
to concentrate, if you will, on the image of your husband. . . ."
2
"HMPH!" WALTER CONLON, DIRECTOR OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC Space Organization's
Planetary Exploration Program, scowled down at the sheet of paper lying on the
desk in front of him, took in the objections and deletions copiously scattered
in heavy red ink along with the initials of various people from the top levels
of NASO's management hierarchy, and raised his face defiantly. It was a florid
pink face with untamable bushy eyebrows, and made all the more vivid and
pugnacious by his white, inch-cropped hair, short, stocky build, and somewhat
bulbous nose. The senior scientists in PEP called him the GNASO Gnome. "I still
don't see what's wrong with it," he repeated. "It says what needs to be said and
it's factual. You wanted my input. Well, that's it. I'm not in the political
cosmetics and don't-upset-the-freaks business. What else can I say?"
Allan Brady, the NASO North American Division's recently appointed
broad-shouldered, fair-haired, and stylishly dressed public relations director,
managed to suppress his exasperation with an effort as he sat in the chair
opposite. He had been warned to expect problems in dealing with Conlon, and had
thought that in going out of his way to solicit Conlon's opinion on the Kerning
UFO-flap press release, due out the next day, he would at least be making a
start in the right direction. But the draft that had come back over the wire
from Conlon's desk terminal within fifteen minutes of Brady's request had come
close to causing heart attacks in the PR department. "But we can't go putting
out things like this, Walt," Brady protested. "It's saying in effect that a U.S.
senator is either a simpleton or a fraud. And the—"
"He is," Conlon retorted. "Both. Scientifically he's an illiterate, and if the
truth were known, he's got about as much interest in New Gospel Scientific
Solidarity as I have in medieval Turkish poetry. It's pure politics—bankrolling,
bandwagoning, ballyhoo, and baloney. You can quote me on that."
Brady bunched his mouth for a second, and then raised his hand briefly in a
conciliatory gesture. "Okay. That's as may be, but we can't make allegations
like this in an official NASO statement. Ethics apart, we're a government-driven
operation, and we can't afford to make enemies of people like Koming. And
programs like PEP that are still primarily public funded—" He broke off and
shook his head, giving Conlon a puzzled look. "But I don't have to spell things
like that out to you, Walt. You know how the system works. We just need
something milder in tone and worded more tactfully. It doesn't really even have
to say anything."
Conlon shook his head. "Not from me. The precedent has gone too far already and
should never have been set in the first place. We can't afford to let ourselves
be seen acquiescing to things like this. If it goes on the way it is, we'll end
up with every kook and nut-cult in the country parading crusaders around
Washington to decide what NASO's business ought to be. I don't want to get mixed
up with them. I've got enough already with this Zambendorf nonsense on Mars. I
don't have the time; I don't have the budget; I don't have the people."
The New Gospel Scientific Solidarity Church of Oregon had combined a complete
retranslation of the Bible with the latest pseudoscientific writings on ancient
astronauts to produce a new, "rationalized" doctrine in which all the
revelations and mystical happenings of old were explained by visitations of
benevolent aliens with supernatural powers, who had access to secrets that
mankind would be privileged to share on completion of its "graduation." The
Second Coming was really a symbolic reference to the time when the Powers would
be divulged, and contemporary UFO lore had been woven into the theme as tangible
evidence that the Day of Return was imminent. The church claimed a following of
millions, certainly commanded a monthly income of such, and had been campaigning
vigorously for recognition of scientific legitimacy, which—the skeptics quickly
noted—would qualify the movement for federal research funding. Orthodox
scientists challenged to refute the sect's claims found themselves in the usual
no-win bind: If they responded at all they were proclaimed as having
"acknowledged the importance" of the assertions, and if they didn't they had "no
answers." The church supported an ardent lobby that was demanding, among other
things, specific allocations of NASO resources and funds for investigating UFO
phenomena, and which had ostensibly succeeded in recruiting Senator Koming of
Oregon as a spokesman and champion. And Koming had made the headlines often
enough to ensure a response of some kind from
NASO.
Brady sought to avoid leaving the meeting empty-handed. "Well, I guess PR can
handle the Koming side of it, but there's another part of this draft that
ridicules the whole UFO phenomenon and doesn't mince any words about it." He sat
back and showed his palms imploringly. "Why go out of your way to upset lots of
people who don't care about Koming and aren't interested in any religion, but
who tend to be enthusiastic about the space program? NASO has some strong
supporters among UFO buffs. Why antagonize them?"
"I'm in the science business, not the business of making myself popular by
propping up popular myths," Conlon replied. "That means looking for explanations
of facts. In that area there aren't any facts that need explaining. Period."
Brady looked across the desk in surprise. He wasn't a scientist, but he thought
he did a pretty good job of keeping abreast by reading the popular literature.
Something was going on in the skies that scientists couldn't account for,
surely. And, Senator Koming's demands aside, Brady rather liked the idea of
NASO's committing some serious effort to investigating the subject. It would be
an exciting activity to be associated with and something interesting to tell his
friends about. "But there has to be something out there," he objected. "I mean,
I know ninety-five percent, or whatever, of what's reported is rubbish, but what
about the other five? How can you explain that?"
Conlon snorted and massaged his forehead. How many times had he heard this
before? "I can't, and neither can anyone else," he replied. "That's why they're
what they call unidentified. That's what the word means. It's no more mysterious
than car accidents. If you analyze the statistics, you'll find that some percent
are due to drunks, some to carelessness, some to vehicle defects, and so on
until you end up with five percent that nobody can pin down to any specific
cause, and nobody ever will. The causes are unidentified—but that's no reason to
say they have anything to do with aliens. It's the same with UFOs."
"That doesn't prove they don't have something to do with aliens though," Brady
pointed out.
"I never said it did," Conlon replied. "I can't prove Santa Claus doesn't exist
either. You can't prove a negative. Philosophically it's impossible."
"So, what are you saying?" Brady asked him.
Conlon tossed his hands up and shrugged. "I told you, I'm a scientist. Science
doesn't have anything to say about it. It's not a scientific matter."
"How can you say that, Walt?" Brady sounded incredulous. "It's connected with
space and spacecraft, alien life . . . How can you say it's not scientific?"
"The way a theory is constructed logically is what makes it scientific. Not its
content. To be scientific, one of the conditions a theory has to meet is that it
must be falsifiable—there must be some way you can test it to see if it's wrong.
You can never prove, absolutely, that any theory is right. If you've got a
theory that says Some UFOs might be alien spacecraft, then I agree with you—some
might. There's no way I could prove it false. That's all I could say, and that's
all science says. It isn't a falsifiable theory. See what I mean?"
Brady was shaking his head reluctantly. "I can't buy that. There has to be some
way for science to evaluate the subject, some way to test some part of it at
least."
"There is. You invert the logic and put forward the theory that I do:
No UFOs are alien spacecraft. Now, that theory can be falsified conclusively and
very simply, but not by anything that's been offered as evidence so far."
"But what about the astronomers who've endorsed it publicly?" Brady persisted.
"What astronomers?"
"Oh, I can't recall their names offhand, but the ones you read about."
"Pah!" Conlon pulled a face. "You mean people like Jannitsky?"
"Well, he's one, yes."
"He used to be a scientist—shut up in a lab all day with nobody ever having
heard of him. Now he's a celebrity. Some people will do anything for
recognition. How many more like him can you find? You can count 'em on one hand,
and in a country this size that's the least you'd expect. It doesn't mean a damn
thing, Al. Less than two percent of professional American astronomers consider
the subject even worth showing an interest in. That does mean something." After
a few seconds of silence Conlon added, "Anyhow, asking astronomers for opinions
on something like that is ridiculous. It's not a subject they're competent to
comment on."
"What!" Brady exclaimed.
"What does an astronomer know about UFOs?" Conlon asked him.
Brady threw up his hands helplessly. "Well, how do I answer that? They're things
in the sky, right? So, astronomers are supposed to know about things in the
sky."
"What things in the sky?"
"What things? . . . The ones people say they see."
"Exactly!" Conlon sat back and spread his hands in a show of satisfaction. "The
things people say they see—All of the evidence boils down to eyewitness
testimony. What does an astronomer know about evaluating testimony? How many
times in his whole career does he have to try to learn whether a witness
believes his own story, or decide whether the witness saw what he thought he
saw, and whether it meant what he thought it meant? See my point? An
astronomer's the wrong guy. What you need is a good lawyer or police detective,
except they've all got other things to do than worry about investigating UFOs."
"But at least you know an astronomer's not just any dummy," Brady said.
"If that's all you need, why not ask a heart surgeon or a poker player?" Conlon
shook his head. "Being an expert in one field doesn't make somebody's opinions
on subjects they're not qualified to talk about worth more than anybody else's.
But all too often they think they're infallible about anything and everything,
and people believe them. You can see it everywhere—political economists who
think they know more about fusion than nuclear engineers do; lawyers trying to
define what's alive and what isn't; Nobel Prize-winning physicists being taken
with simple conjuring tricks by so-called psychics. What does a physicist know
about trickery and deception? Quarks and photons don't tell lies. We have stage
magicians and conjurors who are experts on deception and the art of fooling
people—it's their business. But who ever thinks of asking them in?"
Conlon's tone had mellowed somewhat while he was talking, and Brady began to
sense the message that he was trying to communicate: Whether Brady agreed with
him or not about UFOs, Conlon and the people in the Planetary Exploration
Program had better things to do than get involved in public relations concerning
the likes of Senator Kerning. That was Brady's department. And the way Conlon
was beginning to fidget in his chair said that he was getting near the end of
the time he was prepared to spend trying to communicate it.
Brady spread his hands for a moment, then acknowledged with a nod and picked the
paper up from Conlon's desk as he rose to his feet. "Well, sorry to have taken
your time," he said. "We'll take care of this. I just thought . .
. maybe you'd
appreciate the opportunity to contribute something." He turned and walked over
to the door.
"Al," Conlon called out grumy as Brady was about to leave the room. Brady
stopped and looked back. "I realize that you meant it for the best. Don't think
you goofed. You've got your job to do—I know that. I guess from now on we
understand each other, huh?"
Brady returned a faint smile. "I guess so," he replied. "I'll talk to you more
about UFOs sometime."
"Do that."
"Take care." With that, Brady left.
Conlon sighed and sat staring down at the desk for a while with his chin propped
on his knuckles. He wondered where it would all lead— pendulum-wavers being
hired by oil companies to locate deposits; degrees in the "paranormal" being
awarded by universities that should have known better; kook papers appearing in
what used to be reputable scientific publications; politicians calling for a
phase-down of the fusion program because they were convinced of the imminence of
unlimited "cosmic energy" forever from pyramids, this at a time when the U.S.
was having to import up-to-date tokamak reactors from Japan.
It was becoming all but impossible to find good engineers and technicians.
Science, engineering, the true arts, and the professions—in fact just about
anything that demanded hard work, patience, and diligence —were coming
increasingly, it seemed, to be regarded among younger people as out of style,
strictly for nurds. And as fast as they were trained and gained some experience,
the ones who did manage to turn themselves into something worthwhile tended to
leave for more lucrative and challenging opportunities overseas. The peoples of
such places as Japan, China, India, and Africa had lived too close to reality
for too long to be deluded by notions of "finding themselves," whatever that
meant, or searches for mystical bliss. Having "found" the twenty-first century,
they were rapidly abandoning their trust in the magic and superstitions that had
solved nothing, and were busy erecting in their place the solid foundations of
advanced, industrialized, high-technology civilization.
Conlon wasn't really sure where the degeneration had started either —in the
latter half of the twentieth century, he suspected from what he had read. In
