Tomorrow’s Heritage (19 page)

CHAPTER TEN

ooooooooo

THIS press conference disguised as a “science meeting” had been a mistake. Todd wondered if his original announcement hadn’t been a mistake, too. He couldn’t hide the discovery, but perhaps he should have found an alternate method of breaking Project Search’s news to the world. Handing out the data at the year-end Global Science Council conference meant he personally had to take the credit or the blame. And there had been plenty of both in the hectic ten days following that brief moment of glory.

The scientific community had, for the most part, accepted the data. Dian and Beth and the others had been very thorough, the evidence solid. Only a few diehards withheld final judgment until they could confirm the discoveries with their own observations. Todd didn’t resent those honest skeptics. After all, doubts and double-checking were what science was all about. The real danger came from another small group within the Council. They believed, but unfortunately they interpreted the data just as Pat and Jael had: alien invasion! There weren’t many of them, but some had impressive professional credentials. They had provided the Earth First Party with potent ammunition when they gibbered that the incoming vehicle was certainly the forerunner of a deadly attack from beyond the Solar System. Pat grabbed that weapon and took off on a new stage of his campaign at once. His speeches sounded like sweet reason: “We must remain calm. We must prepare ourselves to deal with this unknown menace from afar.” But the reaction bad translated into global panic and, coincidentally, an explosive growth in Earth First’s voting rolls.

Dr. Albrecht, head of the Council, and other scientists had rebutted Pat’s speeches as best they could, but too few listened to them. As the unrest and paranoia mounted day by day, Albrecht had pleaded with Todd to help them. Todd had pointed out that he wasn’t in Pat’s league as an orator. No one was. And if the world’s most respected scientists hadn’t been able to get a fair hearing while the populace was in its present mood, the only thing likely to change that was time and the alien messenger’s actual arrival near Earth. Yet Albrecht had persisted, kept wheedling, reminding Todd it was his responsibility ‘as the sponsor of Project Search. Wearily, knowing in advance his efforts would be futile, Todd had acquiesced.

Futile indeed! A waste of time. Todd gazed out over the meager audience gathered in the Council’s Washington meeting hall. Frank Chabot and one of Todd’s top media teams manned the front row, giving the event full coverage. They weren’t at all crowded. Worldwide TeleCom and Riccardi’s Incorporated Network had sent mere second- and third-string apprentices, token representatives. ComLink’s rivals were strangling this press conference before it could reach the air. Not that they needed to. Todd and the savants sharing the dais with him couldn’t compete with Pat’s speechmaking. Protectors of Earth was holding an emergency session at the same time as the conference, with Pat as their star attraction.

The rest of the attendees consisted of a few archivists and specialty reporters working for research organizations and a scattering of professional curiosity-seekers who had passed inspection at the door. Screening out undesirables had proved necessary. Early the previous week, during another public meeting, the Council had learned that the hard way, when hecklers broke up the conference by screaming that the scientists were traitors, selling Earth out to the alien monsters. Dr. Albrecht had been forced to call for troops to restore order.

There were troops protecting them now, ready to quash any disturbance before it could get out of hand this time. Soldiers lined the back wall of the room and tried to blend in with the decor. Troops . . . and an officer. An important one. A general? This gathering hardly seemed worth sending a brass hat to supervise. Todd peered curiously at the man, searching his memory, sure he had seen the officer somewhere else. P.O.E. insignia. The relays clicked in his mind. Ames. Of course. General Ames had been on the platform with Pat and the other dignitaries when the Trans-Pacific truce had been announced. Ames’s presence there was understandable. But what was he doing
here?
Unwillingly, Todd recalled Pat’s words: “Earth First has pull, and some military contacts.”

“You can be hurt.”

Was Ames part of Earth First’s network? Todd hesitated to call it a conspiracy, but that term was creeping into his thoughts more and more often nowadays. The near-riots at the science press conferences, the insanity spreading across the globe every time Pat ranted about aliens . . . and was Ames here to command yet another thrust at Project Search? Surely the project’s enemies would be more subtle, more devious. Still, the idea made Todd uneasy. He hastily glanced away from Ames, lest the general become suspicious.

Dr. Bjornberg leaned toward Todd. “Where are all the rest of the reporters and observers who should be here?” he whispered angrily. “You are the communications person, Mr. Saunder. Can you not command . . .”

“I can and I have, as much as possible.” Todd gestured to his media staff. “It seems Protectors of Earth is a bigger draw.”

Another scientist growled, “Chairman Li Chu
deliberately
scheduled this so-called emergency session to conflict with our meeting!”

“Naturally.” Todd was mildly surprised that they were surprised. By now the rival media personnel were packing their gear, looking bored, sneering as the attempt to put down paranoia had come to an end. Chabot kept working, riding his boss’s hobby horse faithfully, seeking out individual interviews with the best-known people on the science panel. But how much of the worldwide audience out there was watching any of this? Todd knew the figures must be pitiful. They hadn’t convinced anyone who wasn’t already on their side. Up the coast, in P.O.E.’s HQ in New York-Philly, Pat would be amassing staggering audience totals, miffions upon millions of people hypnotized and taking in his every word—believing, their terror feeding itself as a result. And the golden voice would lead them on, telling them to trust Patrick Saunder to save them from the invaders. Vote Earth First Party!

“Just outrageous,” Dr. Albrecht was complaining. Todd nodded absently, watching a black face at the rear of the room. General Ames watched back, his expression unreadable. Finally he turned and left. As he did, Todd found he had been holding his breath and let it out. Albrecht was still ranting. “. . . pearls before swine. They’re incapable of understanding what we’re trying to tell them.”

“Possibly,” Todd conceded. He was in no mood for arguing with those allegedly on his side as well as coping with Pat’s intransigent opposition. With a shrug, he signaled Chabot to give up a bad job. Gratefully, the last techs made their way out. As the other doors opened and closed, an ominous roar of hundreds of people burst through. Fairchild and some of the public had showed up at earlier Science Council meetings, to cheer on the decryption progress and show support. Nobody except reporters showed up this time. CNAU Civil Order Enforcement had advised against it.

Todd wriggled into his coat, collecting his holo-mode materials, stepping down off the platform. Uniformed enforcement officers waited by the V.I.P. doors, hands on their side arms. Paramilitary escort. They insisted that he needed it now, while the public temper was running so high.

Bjornberg and Albrecht and several of the more stubborn Council members followed Todd out along the balcony. Unbreakable plexi protected them, and the enforcement escort from a hail of brickbats and junk thrown by the crowd gathered on the plaza. It was the incident at Orleans Port again. But these weren’t starving rioters. They were howling and throwing things at the enemy—Todd and the scientists, the people who had brought the bad news and dared try to claim the alien should be welcomed, not fought against. The plexi wall shuddered under the onslaught, but held. Todd noted enforcement sharpshooters perched in catwalks near the ceiling. So far, they weren’t shooting. Chairman Li Chu’s Spirit of Humanity edict held a lot of power in New Washington. Enforcement had strict orders—no return fire unless someone injured the parties they were guarding.

Would that help? A sacrifice? Someone they could kill?

Just as well I don’t have a martyr complex, because I’m not remotely convinced my death would satisfy them at all. I doubt it would even slow down Pat’s campaign much.

The scientists were yammering at him, pleading, insisting, as they had ever since the presentation. They believed, and they wanted to take over. No violence, but in a subtle way, theirs was also an attack.

“Foolish to keep a separate facility, Mr. Saunder . . .”

“. . . your father would have . . .”

Ward. Strictly speaking, Ward Saunder hadn’t been a scientist. But his contributions to scientific progress had been undeniable. The Council hadn’t been able to ignore the iconoclastic tinkerer, and they had extended the membership to his son, an honor Todd had been proud to take, despite the elitist factions and stodgy element of the group. Since the presentation, he had learned that these influential, brilliant men didn’t understand him and his motives any better than they had understood Ward and his.

“I know what my father would have done, Dr. Bjornberg—exactly what I’m doing.” Todd walked along briskly, forcing them to pant to keep up their wheedlings.

“Should consolidate the decryption attempts . . .”

“Combine your facilities with ours in Lausanne . . .”

They came to the end of the balcony walkway. Enforcement troops checked the door before opening it and letting the Council members through. Another ugly blast of sound hit Todd as he exited onto the roofed tray-park area. The mob was kept at bay by a close-meshed repeller fence. But there was no plexi, and the voices battered him.

“Spacer bastards! Traitors! Going to sell us to the aliens!”

“They want to make slaves of us!”

“Gonna tell the monsters all about us!”

Pat’s speeches, reduced to ravening paranoia. Todd paused and looked dispassionately at the contorted faces and waving arms. Dian had predicted this. He had known himself, in that part of his mind which hadn’t wanted to acknowledge this facet of humanity as well as the dreamers and idealists. They were part of
Homo sapiens,
too, and they were scared.

“Gentlemen and ladies, we’ve had all this out before,” Todd told the cluster of scientists. “I’ve made my decisions. You’ll get everything my team finds. We’re forgoing the usual publication lapse period, simply to accommodate the need to know. But Project Search retains autonomy. No, that’s it. No more.” Enforcement held the heavy doors of a military transport vehicle open for him, waiting. Todd stopped on the step to tell the Council leader, “And, Dr. Albrecht, if you try to stage a media reassurance session like this again, I can promise you that Chairman Li Chu and my brother will cut the ground out from under us—again. Really, I’ve gone along as far as I can. But please leave future media judgments to me. I can propagandize a lot more effectively, I’m sure.”

He climbed inside, letting the enforcement troops shut out further arguments. A box on wheels and treads. Locked away. Protective custody, so that Todd Saunder could travel five blocks from the Science Council to his office HQ in New Washington. He knew there were other heavily armed transports surrounding them as they rolled the short distance, girding one passenger in a bristling a ray of weapons.

The area was, normally, a quiet one. It had escaped the Chaos burnings. The streets and buildings were old, original structures or restored with a view to turn-of-the-century styles. Angry mobs simply didn’t intrude here. Not until Todd Saunder and Project Search had electrified the world and some of the mobs had tracked down the address of the project. Air travel, so far, was safe. The mobs were too poor to do anything but roam the streets. Enforcement kept them off Todd’s property, off everyone’s property. Yet they continued to prowl and shout curses, blaming the messenger for the message. Other astronomical outlets were detecting the signals now, other scientific teams working on the decoding. It didn’t matter. Todd was a Saunder. The name came with a built-in memory jogger, thanks to Pat’s global exposure and fame. Todd Saunder was the target of their hate, and likely to remain so.

“Sorry about this,” Todd murmured, jouncing on the hard seat.

“That’s all right, sir. We’re paid to preserve the peace.” The brown face was an expressionless mask, as Dian’s could be when she didn’t want anyone to know what she was thinking or feeling. All the officers riding in the transport had the same sort of faces. Nothing readable. No fear. No anger. No recrimination. No approval.

Police had changed drastically in the last few decades. After the old monetary system collapsed and comp account economics went into high gear, the nature of crime altered. Law enforcement changed with it. An ident was needed for goods and services, and stealing an ident was useless unless you stole the card holder’s handprints. There were supposed to be ways to get around that problem, but they weren’t available to ordinary thieves. Then the famines and plagues started, and unemployment rose to fifty percent or higher. Things really got rough. Civil insurrections followed. Police became paramilitary. They wore full weapons and armor and carried chest pack cameras to record their activities and those of anyone they detained, restrained, or were forced to kill. The instant cams had eliminated a lot of legal red tape. Of course, the United Theocracies and other ardent Spirit of Humanity supporters with Protectors of Earth had fought enforcement procedure through all Earth’s courts. To a standoff. Enforcement watched its step, but it didn’t hesitate to put down a genuine life threat.

The human dichotomy of the decade—life is precious, and life is cheap. Attitudes existing side by side. No wonder humanity was confused and looked to someone like Pat to give it some logical rules to follow!

“That bunch looked pretty nasty,” Todd said, knowing the officers weren’t prone to chitchat; but he was restless, cooped up, unable to see where they were going.

“We’ll handle them, sir. They got out of hand a bit last night, a kilometer west of here. The Third Millennium Movement held a rally at the park, and some anti-Spacers attacked them.”

“Killed thirty people,” a woman officer chimed in. “Had to shoot a few.”

That statement was positively garrulous for these stony-faced enforcers. Todd glanced from one to the other, trying to detect some emotion. Pride in containing the riot? Bloodthirsty satisfaction at killing some of the mob? Disgust that it was all caused by a civilian delivering news about a space machine no one could even see yet?

Nothing, just as before. Whether they were keeping crowds back while the exterminator corps went in to wipe out a few million rats in city areas or shooting rioters who got out of hand, these troops were trained to reveal nothing to the outsider. They reminded Todd of the bodyguards Jael and Pat were hiring now—cold, frightening, ruthlessly professional. And he wasn’t sure they were answerable to him, even if his taxes were helping to pay their salaries.

“We ought to put in some controlled-violence arenas, like the Hispanics did,” one man said. “Let the bastards kill each other.” Personal opinion!

It was the only one Todd was to hear. The transport grumbled to a stop. Doors thumped open. Guards with shotguns, automatic weapons, and bulletproof shields led him out of the rolling box and across the pavement to ComLink’s door. Other CNAU troops were patrolling the normally quiet business street. There were more guards posted outside his offices. No mobs here, yet, and the enforcement troops intended to keep things that way, obviously.

The ranking officer saluted Todd as they reached the door. “Sir, if I might suggest? You’re a flier? Better use air transport, you and all your important people, next time. You and your corporation are sort of an attractive target right now, if you take my meaning.”

“I do. I’m not used to a bodyguard,” Todd said shortly.

“That might not be a bad idea, either, sir.” The officer wheeled and started shouting orders to his personnel. “Tighten up there! Get that transport down to the intersection! We’re going to keep things settled!”

Inside the offices, ComLink and sanity still existed. Todd’s elderly security guard, all they had ever needed until now, scowled at the enforcement troops, then smiled warmly at Todd. Mikhail Feodor, Elaine Putnam, and a dozen other top ComLink executives crowded around Todd, all talking at once. They had seen the Science Council debacle, sympathized, cursed the cretins who wouldn’t listen. And they had a pile of decisions for him to make in a hurry. They were good, as Dian had often noted, teasing Todd, saying he was lazy and delegated authority strictly for that reason. Yet they hadn’t brought trivia. Riccardi and his other rivals needed countering, and only Todd Saunder could give the word. He flipped through the readouts while Mikhail and the rest looked on.

“This one, and boost the Pacific link. No, don’t increase the rate on these entertainment leasers. We need their good will. Elaine, if you can give the science outlets any more push, do it. Color it good. That’s where we need the entertainment types. Hire.” She grinned at the tactic, and Todd grinned back. “Okay, we’re setting the telecom business back fifty or sixty years, back to when ‘network’ meant an entertainment source. But, dammit, we can’t afford to coast on just supplying services and news. What good is owning the company if I can’t make it a mouthpiece for my hobby?”

That brought a round of approving laughter. Most of them hadn’t hired on with plans of working to reach an alien intelligence. But now that the boss had pulled it off, company loyalty turned in his favor. He had paid well and been lavish with the perks, when deserved. Pride went with the job, pride in being able to read and write and think in an era when the bulk of humanity reacted too often out of emotion.

“You’re stretching it pretty thin, boss,” Putnam warned him. “That’s why I wanted to boost the rate on the dramas and comedy leasers.”

“Sell a few more voter-response outlets to my brother. Pat’s got the money, and he always needs the votes,” Todd suggested sourly. It was a joke that stung. A few of his people grimaced. “I know you can do it. What have I got you for, if not to let me loaf?”

The impromptu conference broke up, his supervisors and execs drifting away to their own upper-story offices, leaving Todd with Iris Halevy and her staff of front-door screen experts, as Iris termed it. They handled the calls, the off-the-street traffic, as efficiently as ComLink’s upper echelons tracked the heavy stuff.

Todd eyed the metal shutters Enforcement had insisted he put over the front windows, ruining the view for Iris. Bodyguards! Then he looked at the scene on the big wall display beyond Reception. Miguel Falco, ComLink’s crack media interviewer, had cornered Pat just as the Protectors of Earth assembly session adjourned for lunch. The boss’s brother was big news, even if the boss and his brother were temporarily on the outs these days.

“. . . quite a bit of panic around the world. Would you care to comment, Mr. Saunder?”

“Earth First’s position is on public record, Miguel. I’ve said again and again that people should remain calm.”

“Yes, but people have reacted strongly to your speeches, sir. You don’t feel your oratory has agitated some . . .”

The handsome face stiffened in indignation. “Certainly not! Anyone who says I’m whipping the public into a frenzy had better come up with some pretty solid proof, Miguel. I have never advocated civil disorder. We’ve got to be well organized and work together to combat this alien invasion.”

“You
do
think it’s going to be an invasion, then? You haven’t changed your mind on that?” Falco made sure his techs caught him in the lenses along with Pat. The interviewer was a ham, but fortunately one without any political ambitions, or he wouldn’t have been worth keeping on ComLink’s payroll.

“No question whatsoever. Until we know otherwise, we must assume the alien is hostile. Why else would it be coming here, if not to scout for an invasion?” Todd gritted his teeth, forcing himself to listen despite his frustrated anger. What angered him the most was that Pat could make statements like that and the people bought it, just as they bought tainted peace treaties and all the other political fast deals Pat palmed off on them. He spoke, and they signed up.

“Your brother’s Project Search scientific group is the one that discovered this alien vehicle. He says we can’t know if the alien’s hostile, that it’s probably friendly and can offer us all sorts of help for Earth’s problems . . .”

Pat’s bodyguards moved in close, ready, if necessary, to get the pest off their employer’s back. Pat forestalled them. “Yes, Todd’s little group
did
spot the signals first. You must understand, Miguel, that my brother’s a bit of an ivory-tower type. He means well, but he’s far too trusting. He even believes we should keep handing over funds to Goddard Colony, while people here on Earth are starving. We just can’t afford to waste our resources, especially now, when we need all our strength to combat that alien.” A benign, patronizing smile lightened Pat’s face as he gazed into the ComLink cameras. It was his salesman’s smile, the one that clinched the deals and piled up the votes. “I don’t blame my brother. He thinks he’s doing the right thing. And we must remember, because he detected the alien machine so soon, now we have a better chance of defending ourselves . . .”

Todd didn’t want to hear any more. Pat could make black seem like white and vice versa, and millions would swallow the guff. He went across the reception area to the front building section he had converted for Project Search’s use.