The Visitors (v1.0)

37. WASHINGTON, D.C

"Daddy," said Alice, "I don't like some of the things that I have been hearing."

Senator Davenport, slouched in his chair, looked at her over the rim of his glass of Scotch.

"And what might you have been hearing, my dear?" he rumbled.

"All this talk up on the Hill—not out-loud talk, just cloakroom talk—about developing some sneaky way to get rid of the visitors. Like spraying psychedelic drugs on the trees that they are eating, like spending millions to develop a bacterium or a fungus that might be fatal to them. Saying it is better to spend a few million to get rid of them and let things get back to normal than to spend the same few million to find out about them."

"I do believe," said the senator, in an unusually mellow mood, "that I have heard snitches of such talk. Pest control, its called. Not waging war against them—just pest control."

The senator shifted in his chair to look at Porter.

"Maybe our White House friend might have some comment on this."

"I would think," said Porter, "that this is one I had better stand aside on."

"Some of the boys, you know," said the senator, "seem to be getting a bit wrought up about the situation. They're just talking among themselves so far, but, before too long, they may go beyond that."

"To even think, this early, about wiping out the visitors," said Porter, "seems somewhat premature. I've heard some loose talk about developing a selective disease that would zero in on them. To my mind, it's only talk. No one has the least idea of how to go about it. First, you'd have to know what the visitors are and how their life system functions. Only when you knew that would you have any clue as to how they might react to various agents.

There's a trap in.the matter of selectiveness as well. How can we be sure that what would be developed would be selective? We might wind up with something that would wipe out not only the visitors, but the human race as well."

"It's a monstrous idea in any ease," said Alice. "We have no real grievance against the visitors."

"Oh, I don't know about that," said the senator. "Talk to a true blue environmentalist who has persuaded himself that unless some action is taken, these things will destroy the last remaining wilderness, and you might detect a grievance. Or the president of a lumber company who has just had a couple of lumberyards consumed as a quick lunch by one of our big black friends. Or an airline official who is turning gray over the possibility that one of his jets will collide with a friendly visitor-escort. Or a man in an airport control tower who has one less strip on which to bring down planes.~~

"It's a matter of minority interests again," said Alice. "Small cliques trying to push around the rest of us."

"I'm surprised to hear you say that, daughter," said the senator. "It has seemed to me that you have always been fairly well minority-oriented. The poor downtrodden blacks, the poor downtrodden Indians.

"But this is different," said Alice. "My minorities are cultural minorities; yours are economic—poor downtrodden businessmen who suddenly feel a pinch."

"The environmentalists," said the senator, "aren't economic. They're emotion-oriented. And born troublemakers."

"I'm beginning to have a feeling," said Porter, "that the public attitude toward the visitors may be in the process of change. At first, they were novelties and an occasion for a great excitement. Now they seem to be becoming irritants. They now are just black lumps, perched around the landscape, or flying over it, and in a number of rather minor ways, they are interfering with the daily lives of some people. Given a few months, probably only a few weeks, the minor irritations may grow into dislikes, maybe even hatreds—not originating in the special interests that are most affected, but in that phenomenal area we call public opinion. It would be a pity if this should happen, for we simply have to have the kind of patience that will give us an opportunity to find out what they are and how we can get along with them.~~

"Allen is working on that one out in Minnesota," said the senator. "Is he finding anything at all?"

"Nothing that I know of senator Nothing definite. He's not made even a preliminary report, if that is what you mean. But there is some scuttlebutt floating around that they are plants—at least, that they belong to the plant kingdom."

"Plants? Christ, that doesn't make any sort of sense."

"No, of course, it doesn't. I've been trying to track down where the rumor came from, but have had no success."

"There's this business, too," said the senator, "that the visitors may know how to control gravity. That's the one I'm interested in. That's something we could put to use."

"Mostly it comes from the fact that they float a few inches above the ground and that when they move, they don't seem to make use of propulsive units," said Porter. "Or at least propulsive units as we think of them. No one really knows, of course. The idea is no more than someone grabbing for an explanation—any kind of explanation for a mode of operation that defies all the physical laws we know."

"You two talk only about what we can gain from the visitors," said Alice. "Doesn't it enter your thinking that they may be thinking along the same lines—what they can get from us?"

"Well, sure," her father said. "They are getting cellulose. And cellulose is cheap enough if we can get gravity control from them."

"They also got a few cars."

"Well, yes, a few of them. Just that one time. Not any more. They're not taking cars any more.

"I've wondered," said Alice, "what they wanted the cars for. And I can't understand you, Daddy. To start with, you were up in arms about them—destroying trees and lumberyards, upsetting the country's business."

"I rethought my position," said the senator. "I began to see some rather attractive possibilities, if we can play our cards right." He said to Porter, "I keep hearing about a weapons test conducted against the visitors. It's a story that keeps floating around, but I can't get a handle on it. What do you know about it?"

"The same as you," said Porter. "I keep hearing the story."

"Nothing positive? No details?"

"None at all," said Porter.

"These things must have some sort of defense worked out," said the senator. "Out in space, they must have been open to some sort of attacks, although I can't imagine what kind of attacks. It would be nice if we could find what they have."