“Thanks, hell,” he said. “I didn’t do a thing.”
I opened up my fist and the rock dropped to the street. In the silence, it made a terrible clatter.
Gabe hauled a huge red handkerchief out of his rear pocket and stepped over to me. He put a hand back of my head to hold it steady and began to wipe my face.
“In a month or so,” he said, by way of comfort, “you’ll look all right again.”
“Hey, Brad,” yelled someone, “who’s your friend?”
I couldn’t see who it was who yelled. There were so many people.
“Mister,” yelled someone else, “be sure you wipe his nose.”
“Go on!” roared Gabe. “Go on! Any of you wisecrackers walk out here in plain sight and I’ll dust the street with you.”
Grandma Jones said in a loud voice, so that Pappy Andrews could hear, “He’s the trucker fellow that smashed Brad’s car. Appears to me if Brad has to fight someone, he should be fighting him.”
“Big mouth,” yelled back Pappy Andrews. “He’s got an awful big mouth.”
I saw Nancy standing by the gate and she had the same look on her face that she’d had when we were kids and I had fought Hiram Martin then. She was disgusted with me. She had never held with fighting; she thought that it was vulgar.
The front door burst open and Gerald Sherwood came running down the walk. He rushed over and grabbed me by the arm.
“Come on,” he shouted. “The senator called. He’s out there waiting for you, on the east end of the road.”
18
Four of them were waiting for me on the pavement just beyond the barrier. A short distance down the road several cars were parked. A number of state troopers were scattered about in little groups. Half a mile or so to the north the steam shovel was still digging.
I felt foolish walking down the road toward them while they waited for me. I knew that I must look as if the wrath of God had hit me.
My shirt was torn and the left side of my face felt as though someone had sandpapered it. I had deep gashes on the knuckles of my right hand where I’d smacked Hiram in the teeth and my left eye felt as if it were starting to puff up.
Someone had cleared away the windrow of uprooted vegetation for several rods on either side of the road, but except for that, the windrow was still there.
As I got close, I recognized the senator. I had never met the man, but I’d seen his pictures in the papers. He was stocky and well-built and his hair was white and he never wore a hat. He was dressed in a double-breasted suit and he had a bright blue tie with white polka dots.
One of the others was a military man. He wore stars on his shoulders. Another was a little fellow with patent leather hair and a tight, cold face. The fourth man was somewhat undersized and chubby and had eyes of the brightest china blue I had ever seen.
I walked until I was three feet or so away from them and it was not until then that I felt the first slight pressure of the barrier. I backed up a step and looked at the senator.
“You must be Senator Gibbs,” I said. “I’m Bradshaw Carter. I’m the one Sherwood talked with you about.”
“Glad to meet you, Mr. Carter,” said the senator. “I had expected that Gerald would be with you.”
“I wanted him to come,” I said, “but he felt he shouldn’t. There was a conflict of opinion in the village. The mayor wanted to appoint a committee and Sherwood opposed it rather violently.”
The senator nodded. “I see,” he said. “So you’re the only one we’ll see.”
“If you want others…”
“Oh, not at all,” he said. “You are the man with the information?”
“Yes, I am,” I said.
“Excuse me,” said the senator. “Mr. Carter, General Walter Billings.”
“Hello, general,” I said.
It was funny, saying hello and not shaking hands.
“Arthur Newcombe,” said the senator.
The man with the tight, cold face smiled frostily at me. One could see at a glance he meant to stand no nonsense. He was, I guessed, more than a little outraged that such a thing as the barrier could have been allowed to happen.
“Mr. Newcombe,” said the senator, “is from the State Department. And Dr. Roger Davenport, a biologist—I might add, an outstanding one.”
“Good morning, young man,” said Davenport. “Would it be out of line to ask what happened to you?”
I grinned at him, liking the man at once. “I had a slight misunderstanding with a fellow townsman.”
“The town, I would imagine,” Billings said, “is considerably upset. In a little while law and order may become something of a problem.”
“I am afraid so, sir,” I said.
“This may take some time?” asked the senator.
“A little time,” I said.
“There were chairs,” the general said. “Sergeant, where are … ?”
Even as he spoke a sergeant and two privates, who had been standing by the roadside, came forward with some folding chairs.
“Catch,” the sergeant said to me.
He tossed a chair through the barrier and I caught it. By the time I had it unfolded and set up, the four on the other side of the barrier had their chairs as well.
It was downright crazy—the five of us sitting there in the middle of the road on flimsy folding chairs.
“Now,” said the senator, “I suppose we should get started. General, how would you propose that we might proceed?”
The general crossed his knees and settled down. He considered for a moment.
“This man,” he finally said, “has something we should hear. Why don’t we simply sit here and let him tell it to us?”
“Yes, by all means,” said Newcombe. “Let’s hear what he has to say. I must say, senator…”
“Yes,” the senator said, rather hastily, “I’ll stipulate that it is somewhat unusual. This is the first time I have ever attended a hearing out in the open, but…”
“It was the only way,” said the general, “that seemed feasible.”
“It’s a longish story,” I warned them. “And some of it may appear unbelievable.”
“So is this,” said the senator. “This, what do you call it, barrier.”
“And,” said Davenport, “you seem to be the only man who has any information.”
“Therefore,” said the senator, “let us proceed forthwith.”
So, for the second time, I told my story. I took my time and told it carefully, trying to cover everything I’d seen. They did not interrupt me. A couple of times I stopped to let them ask some questions, but the first time Davenport simply signaled that I should go on and the second time all four of them just waited until I did continue.
It was an unnerving business—worse than being interrupted. I talked into a silence and I tried to read their faces, tried to get some clue as to how much of it they might be accepting. But there was no sign from them, no faintest flicker of expression on their faces. I began to feel a little silly over what I was telling them.
I finished finally and leaned back in my chair.
Across the barrier, Newcombe stirred uneasily. “You’ll excuse me, gentlemen,” he said, “if I take exception to this man’s story. I see no reason why we should have been dragged out here…”
The senator interrupted him. “Arthur,” he said, “my good friend, Gerald Sherwood, vouched for Mr. Carter. I have known Gerald Sherwood for more than thirty years and he is, I must tell you, a most perceptive man—a hard-headed businessman with a tinge of imagination. Hard as this account, or parts of it, may be to accept, I still believe we must accept it as a basis for discussion. And, I must remind you, this is the first sound evidence we have been offered.”
“I,” said the general, “find it hard to believe a word of it. But with the evidence of this barrier, which is wholly beyond any present understanding, we undoubtedly stand in a position where we must accept further evidence beyond our understanding.”
“Let us,” sugge
sted Davenport, “pretend just for the moment that we believe it all. Let’s try to see if there may not be some basic…”
“But you can’t!” exploded Newcombe. “It flies in the face of everything we know.”
“Mr. Newcombe,” said the biologist, “man has flown in the face of everything he knew time after time. He knew, not too many hundreds of years ago, that the Earth was the center of the universe. He knew, less than thirty years ago, that man could never travel to the other planets. He knew, a hundred years ago, that the atom was indivisible. And what have we here—the knowledge that time never can be understood or manipulated, that it is impossible for a plant to be intelligent. I tell you, sir…”
“Do you mean,” the general asked, “that you accept all this?”
“No,” said Davenport, “I’ll accept none of it. To do so would be very unobjective. But I’ll hold judgment in abeyance. I would, quite frankly, jump at the chance to work on it, to make observations and perform experiments and…”
“You may not have the time,” I said.
The general swung toward me. “Was there a time limit set?” he asked. “You didn’t mention it.”
“No. But they have a way to prod us. They can exert some convincing pressure any time they wish. They can start this barrier to moving.”
“How far can they move it?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. Ten miles. A hundred miles. A thousand. I have no idea.”
“You sound as if you think they could push us off the Earth.”
“I don’t know. I would rather think they could.”
“Do you think they would?”
“Maybe. If it became apparent that we were delaying. I don’t think they’d do it willingly. They need us. They need someone who can use their knowledge, who can make it meaningful. It doesn’t seem that, so far, they’ve found anyone who can.”
“But we can’t hurry,” the senator protested. “We will not be rushed. There is a lot to do. There must be discussions at a great many different levels—at the governmental level, at the international level, at the economic and scientific levels.”
“Senator,” I told him, “there is one thing no one seems to grasp. We are not dealing with another nation, nor with other humans. We are dealing with an alien people…”
“That makes no difference,” said the senator. “We must do it our way.”
“That would be fine,” I said, “if you can make the aliens understand.”
“They’ll have to wait,” said Newcombe, primly.
And I knew that it was hopeless, that here was a problem which could not be solved, that the human race would bungle its first contact with an alien people. There would be talk and argument, discussion, consultation—but all on the human level, all from the human viewpoint, without a chance that anyone would even try to take into account the alien point of view.
“You must consider,” said the senator, “that they are the petitioners, they are the ones who made the first approach, they are asking access to our world, not we to theirs.”
“Five hundred years ago,” I said, “white men came to America. They were the petitioners then…”
“But the Indians,” said Newcombe, “were savages, barbarians…”
I nodded at him. “You make my point exactly.”
“I do not,” Newcombe told me frostily, “appreciate your sense of humor.”
“You mistake me,” I told him. “It was not said in humor.”
Davenport nodded. “You may have something there, Mr. Carter. You say these plants pretend to have stored knowledge, the knowledge, you suspect, of many different races.”
“That’s the impression I was given.”
“Stored and correlated. Not just a jumble of data.”
“Correlated, too,” I said. “You must bear in mind that I cannot swear to this. I have no way of knowing it is true. But their spokesman, Tupper, assured me that they didn’t lie…”
“I know,” said Davenport. “There is some logic in that. They wouldn’t need to lie.”
“Except,” said the general, “that they never did give back your fifteen hundred dollars.”
“No, they didn’t,” I said.
“After they said they would.”
“Yes. They were emphatic on that point.”
“Which means they lied. And they tricked you into bringing back what you thought was a time machine.”
“And,” Newcombe pointed out, “they were very smooth about it.”
“I don’t think,” said the general, “we can place a great deal of trust in them.”
“But, look here,” protested Newcombe, “we’ve gotten around to talking as if we believed every word of it.”
“Well,” said the senator, “that was the idea, wasn’t it? That we’d use the information as a basis for discussion.”
“For the moment,” said the general, “we must presume the worst.”
Davenport chuckled. “What’s so bad about it? For the first time in its history, humanity may be about to meet another intelligence. If we go about it right, we may find it to our benefit.”
“But you can’t know that,” said the general.
“No, of course we can’t. We haven’t sufficient data. We must make further contact.”
“If they exist,” said Newcombe.
“If they exist,” Davenport agreed.
“Gentlemen,” said the senator, “we are losing sight of something. A barrier does exist. It will let nothing living through it…”
“We don’t know that,” said Davenport. “There was the instance of the car. There would have been some micro-organisms in it. There would have had to be. My guess is that the barrier is not against life as such, but against sentience, against awareness. A thing that has awareness of itself…”
“Well, anyhow,” said the senator, “we have evidence that something very strange has happened. We can’t just shut our eyes. We must work with what we have.”
“All right, then,” said the general, “let’s get down to business. Is it safe to assume that these things pose a threat?”
I nodded. “Perhaps. Under certain circumstances.”
“And those circumstances?”
“I don’t know. There is no way of knowing how they think.”
“But there’s the potentiality of a threat?”
“I think,” said Davenport, “that we are placing too much stress upon the matter of a threat. We should first…”
“My first responsibility,” said the general, “is consideration of a potential danger…”
“And if there were a danger?”
“We could stop them,” said the general, “if we moved fast enough. If we moved before they’d taken in too much territory. We have a way to stop them.”
“All you military minds can think of,” Davenport said angrily, “is the employment of force. I’ll agree with you that a thermonuclear explosion could kill all the alien life that has gained access to the Earth, possibly might even disrupt the time-phase barrier and close the Earth to our alien friends…”
“Friends!” the general wailed. “You can’t know…”
“Of course I can’t,” said Davenport. “And you can’t know that they are enemies. We need more data; we need to make a further contact…”
“And while you’re getting your additional data, they’ll have the time to strengthen the barrier and move it…”
“Some day,” said Davenport, angrier than ever, “the human race will have to find a solution to its problems that does not involve the use of force. Now might be the time to start. You propose to bomb this village. Aside from the moral issue of destroying several hundred innocent people…”
“You forget,” said the general, speaking gruffly, “that we’d be balancing those several hundred lives against the safety of all the people of the Earth. It would be no hasty action. It would be done only after some deliberation. It would have to be a considered decision.”
“The very fac
t that you can consider it,” said the biologist, “is enough to send a cold shiver down the spine of all humanity.”
The general shook his head. “It’s my duty to consider distasteful things like this. Even considering the moral issue involved, in the case of necessity I would…”
“Gentlemen,” the senator protested weakly.
The general looked at me. I am afraid they had forgotten I was there.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the general said to me. “I should not have spoken in this manner.”
I nodded dumbly. I couldn’t have said a word if I’d been paid a million dollars for it. I was all knotted up inside and I was afraid to move.
I had not been expecting anything like this, although now that it had come, I knew I should have been. I should have known what the world reaction would be and if I had failed to know, all I had to do would have been to remember what Stiffy Grant had told me as he lay on the kitchen floor.
They’ll want to use the bomb, he’d said. Don’t let them use the bomb …
Newcombe stared at me coldly. His eyes stabbed out at me.
“I trust,” he said, “that you’ll not repeat what you have heard.”
“We have to trust you, boy,” said the senator. “You hold us in your hands.”
I managed to laugh. I suppose that it came out as an ugly laugh. “Why should I say anything?” I asked. “We’re sitting ducks. There would be no point in saying anything. We couldn’t get away.”
For a moment I thought wryly that perhaps the barrier would protect us even from a bomb. Then I saw how wrong I was. The barrier concerned itself with nothing except life—or, if Davenport were right (and he probably was) only with a life that was aware of its own existence. They had tried to dynamite the barrier and it had been as if there had been no barrier. The barrier had offered no resistance to the explosion and therefore had not been affected by it.
From the general’s viewpoint, the bomb might be the answer. It would kill all life; it was an application of the conclusion Alf Peterson had arrived at on the question of how one killed a noxious plant that had great adaptability. A nuclear explosion might have no effect upon the time-phase mechanism, but it would kill all life and would so irradiate and poison the area that for a long, long time the aliens would be unable to re-occupy it.