Alan E. Nourse & J. A. Meyer (17 page)

"I
don't care what it is,"
Englehardt
said angrily.
"How can you expect to fool people into security when you don't have any
program, any plans,
any
ideas at all about what to do?
You launch a good overall program, something concrete and solid, and your
public reaction problem will take care of itself."

"A
program like that would upset the stability of the nation in a week,"
Adams said. "We can't take that risk. We in DEPCO have
made
the public, Mr.
Englehardt
. We have been
fighting to maintain controlled stability because stability is the only safe,
sensible, logical way to keep our economy and sociology balanced.
Vanner
and his ideas were necessary, of course, in their
time; he changed the direction of society. Now it is our function to keep it
running in that same direction."

"Have
you ever heard of the
Wywy
bird, Mr. Adams?"
Englehardt
asked. He was referring to the ancient and
vulgar joke about the bird that flew in ever-decreasing spirals until it flew
up its own derrière. Bahr and a couple of the military men laughed. Adams
blinked and reddened. "I really can't see . . ." he began
hody
.

"I
think we're getting into personalities," Timmins said quickly from across
the room. "You've made some strong statements about our having no plan of
attack ready, Mr.
Englehardt
. If you think we should
not
try to keep the
Vanner-Elling
system in normal
operation and devote our efforts to keeping the public in a good state of
mental health, then what
should
we
do?"

"Let's
put it this way,"
Englehardt
said. "Mr.
Bahr, when the Chinese landed their guerrilla army in South America two years
ago, what was the first thing you looked for?"

"Their
supply routes," Bahr said. "They weren't a true guerrilla army; the
civilian population would not willingly support them, so we knew they had to
have outside channels of supply."

"
ExacÜy
,"
Englehardt
said. "Now, why shouldn't the same apply to an invasion force of aliens?
Assuming that the alien maneuvers so far have been preliminary junkets, we can
expect them to mount larger maneuvers in the future. But for that they will
have to have supply routes. Now, where would they stockpile their
supplies?"

There
was an uneasy stir in the room. Adams was suddenly sitting upright, very
alert. Timmins cleared his throat nervously. "Mr.
Englehardt
. . ."

"Somewhere
off the planet," Bahr answered the question.
"Probably
in orbit."

Adams turned sharply to
Englehardt
.
"Just what are you proposing? That we develop a radar system to pick up
some sort of
...
of space warehouse?
Some missile artillery which could intercept them when they try to
land personnel or supplies?"

"You
mean anti-aircraft?"
Englehardt
said angrily.
"Never!
All the defensive maneuvers in the world won't
stop them. Look, what is the one biggest advantage that the aliens have over
us? Invulnerability! They can get to us any time they want to—witness the
Wildwood mess—
but
we can't get to them because they come from space!"

"But we can't build spaceships!"
Adams exploded.

"Why
can't we? We were on the verge of it in the Nineties. We had all the technology
and engineering we needed; it was just a matter of time."

"But
Englehardt
—for God's sake, man—
the spaceships caused the crash.
The whole country went insane over that. You
know that, you lived through it."

"The
crash came because we could not build those spaceships the way we were
building them at that time,"
Englehardt
said.
"The crash was not because of the spaceships; it was because of the
expense, the drain on our resources."

"But
it would be the same thing again. Do you want us to go through another
crash?"

"We have the
Vanner-Elling
system now, and the computers. We can harness them to provide a surplus in the
form of spaceships the same as you have them set up now to provide a surplus in
the form of entertainment."

But the entertainment is necessary for social control," Adams said.
"If we took away the entertainment and counseling, and expression
programs, the tensions would begin to build up all over again."

'And
isn't a spaceship an expression just the same as a city, or a set of laws?
Doesn't it represent a definite step in the development of the people?"

"A backward step," Adams said
angrily.
"A regression."

"Nonsense," said
Englehardt
.

Adams attempted to laugh. "Really, Mr.
Englehardt
, I think you're disturbed. Emotionally upset.
It's not an unusual syndrome among formerly technical people, of course—a fixation
on spaceships. Tell me, have you ever . . ."

"Gone
to a psychiatrist?"
Englehardt's
face blanched.
"
Nol
Nor felt the urge, and let me tell you
something else while we're on the subject of fixation and living in the past:
your precious DEPCO for the past fifteen years has been doing nothing but
trying to stay in one place, and keep the whole country and economy in one
place, and if that isn't fixation, then I'd like you to please explain just
what else it is!"

"Hold
it," Bahr said sharply. "We aren't interested in holding DEPCO up for
inspection right now, nor Mr.
Englehardt's
psyche,
for that matter. But one thing is certain: we have to have an aggressive plan
of action. I personally can see many points in favor of being able to mount a
small space fleet, if for no other reason than investigation and early-warning.
It's certainly a better solution than simply digging holes for ourselves, or
sitting with stunners across our laps waiting for whatever the aliens are going
to do next. The question is
,
can we do it?"

"We have the technology,"
Englehardt
said.

"How do you know that?" Bahr asked.

"I
know the men and techniques I have available. My University . . ."
Englehardt
habitually spoke of the
Robling
-owned
Harvard University as his personal property ". . . Has an astronautics
library of four thousand tapes. There are plenty of good engineers in my
...
er
...
in the private industries who could
pick up where the men in the Nineties left off. I can guarantee that we have
the technology."

Adams
was shaking his head violently. "There's no use even debating it.
Psychologically it's out of the question. We're only now getting stabilized on
the
Oedipal
corrections that Larchmont
introduced."

"Aberrations,
you mean,"
Englehardt
said. "The man was
psychotic. I was around Washington when he broke. He tried to disembowel
himself with a fingernail file."

Adams glared at him. "You
do
have ego problems."

"Let's
forget the smears for a while," Bahr said. "I'll go along
widi
Carl
Englehardt
, at least to
the point of letting him show us that it is technologically practical to build
spaceships. We don't know that it is, any more than we know what the public
reaction to the idea would be." He stood up, and the rising clamor of
voices and disagreement stopped. "I put it to a vote," he said.
"To determine whether spaceships are possible and practical on engineering
grounds."

Adams
lurched to his feet. "This is not something to be voted on," he
cried. "We can't just brush aside fifteen years' policies of social
control. DEPCO has the power to approve the plans and projects formulated by
the other departments, and we cannot accept spaceships as a solution. They are
hostility symbols, and an economic peril."

"All
right," Bahr said harshly. "You're opposing the idea without the
slightest factual grounds for opposition. DEPCO hasn't investigated the
spaceship problem for twenty years. You don't have a legal leg to stand on."

"The Stability Act of '05
specifically states . . ."

"You
can recite amendments for us some other time," Bahr broke in. "I'd
like to see right now how many here agree with me that an investigation is a
reasonable solution." He looked around, counting thumbs.

The
military, of course, went along with
Englehardt
.
DEPEX, always willing to implement new programs, went along. DEPOP,
conservative and crusty as usual, opposed. DEPRE, always willing to take on
another research job, and politically jealous of DEPCO's restraints on their research
into DEPCO methods, went along with Bahr.

"It looks like an
investigation is in order," Bahr said.

Adams
jerked to his feet. "I'll stop that if I have to drop every other project
in the department," he said.

"What
are you afraid of?" Bahr said to him. "Does a big, tall tower give
you bad dreams? Maybe you're the one that should be seeing the analyst."
The military and
Englehardt
were chuckling.

T think, Mr. Bahr, that we may be over to interview
you very presently," Adams said acidly.

"Well,
before you come, you'd better have some explanation for the fact that as soon
as a constructive idea is pro-

It was only
a matter of time now, Harvey Alexander
realized as he crouched waiting beside the
roadstrip
,
before he would make the inevitable slip that would signal the DIA search units
like a waving red flag and bring them down on him. He had known, from the
beginning, that BJ would become seriously involved, and he had done his best to
talk her out of coming, but she had insisted. Now she had been expended, as he
had known she would be. With luck, ingenuity, and full expeditious use of her
face and figure she might make her story sell and get away with a fine or
warning . . . but that seemed doubtful. At worst, they would hold her for
checking, and uproot the connection between them. The ultimate consequences,
for BJ, were painfully unpleasant to think about.
For him . .
.

For him, it was a reprieve, a few more hours
to remain free to hunt down the answers that he had to find.

It was not a question of concealment. He knew
from experience that he could hide, drop from sight so quickly and effectively
that a nationwide concentrated manhunt would not dig him out in years. But such
a move would brand him irrevocably as an accomplice in the Wildwood raid, and
confirm the charges Bahr had leveled against him.

The
alternative was to find out what really had happened at Wildwood and get the
information into the hands of authorities who could help him that could not be
carried out in concealment. He had to gamble time against exposure.

And the worst of it was that he didn't know
what to do.

The
trip to Wildwood had been a complete fiasco. BJ had dug up clothes for him and
found an old lieutenant's ID card for him from the foot locker of his things
she had unaccountably kept. Some amphetamine had routed the last sedative
effects from his mind. On the trip down to Wildwood they had listened to the
foreign broadcasts on the alien landing in Canada, BJ frowning and shaking her
head at the reports, he listening with a puzzling sense of detached curiosity,
as though the whole matter, somehow, had no application whatever to him, but was
something happening in a different world.