"The Post," said Porter, "never asks a loaded question."

An outburst of laughter drowned out the Post. Porter lifted a hand for silence.

"Go ahead," he said. "I'll stipulate, in advance, that it is not a loaded question."

"What I wanted to ask," said the Post, "is this: I think it is no secret that the appearance of the visitors posed some rather bothersome problems, political and otherwise, for the administration. Can you tell me if their disappearance might be of some relief to you?"

"I was wrong," said Porter. "This is a loaded question. However, I'll try to answer it with whatever honesty I can muster. It seems to me that we may be premature in assuming that the disappearance means we've seen the last of the visitors. There is a possibility they have only shifted their bases of operation to more remote areas. As to whether the administration would heave a sigh of relief at their going, the answer must be iffy. I can't deny the visitors gave us some occasion for worry. We had a problem dumped in our lap that no one had ever faced before. There was no precedent to serve as a guide for us in our dealing with them. We had some difficulty in assessing their impact on the various segments of the population. At times, I don't mind telling you, we were completely baffled. But I think that, over all, the situation was handled not too badly.

"This is one side of my two-part response. The second part is that after some days of dealing with the problem, we had fairly well come to the conclusion that our people could get along with the visitors and that there might be some benefit derived from them. I, personally, xviii feel rather strongly, if indeed the visitors are gone, that we are the poorer for their going. Perhaps there was much we might have learned from them.

"You say there was much we might have learned from them," said the Kansas City Star. "Would you care to amplify on that?"

"Only to point out," said Porter, "that in them we were in contact with an alien race from which we might have learned a new technology, might have gained some fresh perspective, might have learned of principles and ways of thought of which we, to this point, have been ignorant."

"Can you be more specific? Dr. Allen, for some days now, has been working on the dead visitor. Might not he have come up with some specific information that could be useful to us?"

"Nothing about which we can be certain," said Porter. "I told you a few days ago that the creature's structure is based on cellulose, but in a form with which we are unfamiliar, and with which, more than likely, we'll remain unfamiliar for some time. One possibility is that if we can learn the secret of this alien cellulose, the procedure by which the cellulose is changed into the bodies of the visitors, we may be able to utilize cellulose as a substitute for many of our decreasing non-renewable resources."

"Back there a ways," said the Chicago Tribune, "you suggested

the visitors might be changing their bases to more remote areas. By that, do you mean they are hiding out?"

"I didn't say that, Harry, and you know I didn't."

"But the implication appeared to be there. Why would you think they might be hiding out?"

"First of all, I didn't say they were hiding out. If they should be, my answer is that I have no idea."

"Mr. Porter," said the New York Times, "it would seem, on the surface at least, that it would be reasonable to assume the visitors may be putting a second phase of their operation into effect. First they came and spent some time observing us. Now they have made another move, disappearing, perhaps as a prelude to launching another.

"Mr. Smith, you are asking me to speculate upon a speculation," said Porter, "and the only answer I can have to that is that I have no reaction. It is true that your speculation does seem to have some validity—as you say, on the surface at least. But I have no kind of information that would justify an answer."

"Thank you, sir," said the Times. "I thought it was a question that should be asked."

"I am glad you asked it," Porter told him.

"Dave, I think we should proceed with this further," said the Milwaukee Journal. "I think the point raised by the Times is a good one. I was about to ask a similar question. These things have looked us over. They may have a much better idea of what makes us tick than we can know, perhaps enough information to determine what their next step should be."

"I did not question the validity of the query, as Mr. Smith well knows," said Porter. "I agree that it is a consideration we should hold in mind. But with no information that would justify a response to it, I don't think I should try to answer it. There is only one objection to the viewpoint that I can think of. It makes it seem that the visitors are plotting against us, that they may have Some hostile motive and are developing strategy to carry it out. So far, they have not been hostile."

"But we can't know what their motives may be."

"That is right. We cannot know their motives."

"Your phrase ‘more remote regions' intrigues me," said the Los Angeles Times. "Mr. Secretary, are there all that many remote regions left in the United States?"

"I'm sorry now that I employed that phraseology," said Porter. "I think all of you are making too much of it. What I had in mind was that the visitors have disappeared from the more densely populated areas. They may begin to appear elsewhere, but, if so, we have no word of it. As to your question about remote areas, I should say there are still a lot of them. Vast forest regions still exist in New England, in northern Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. There are similar areas in other states as well. In mountainous regions, particularly in the Rockies, there are a number of remote areas, which also is true of the Southwestern deserts."

"It seems to me that you are convinced they've not actually disappeared, that they've not gone back to space," said the Washington Post. "Why do you seem so convinced of this?"

"I wasn't aware that my personal reaction was showing through so clearly," said Porter. "This is not an official position and if you use it, I hope you will make it clear it is not. My own thinking is that the visitors would be unlikely this soon to leave a planet where they've found the natural resource they apparently were seeking. It is probable that not too many planets would be found where they could discover plant life that would produce as much cellulose as our forests do."

"So, having found it, you think they would stick around for a while."

"That is my thinking, not necessarily the administration's thinking."

"Throughout this entire visitor situation," said the INS, "the administration has maintained what I think can be described as a hopeful, perhaps even an optimistic, mood. There must have been many trying times for you, but still you always seem to have struck that note of optimism. Can you tell me if the thinking is as optimistic as it seems?"

"What you are trying to ask," said Porter, "is whether the optimism you say you detected was merely a political optimism or was it real?"

"Thank you, Dave, for completing my question for me."

"I think," said Porter, "that under any circumstance, the tendency might have been to remain optimistic for purely political reasons. But I can tell you, without quibble, that a true feeling of optimism has existed. The visitors did not act in a hostile manner. It appeared to us that they were trying to determine how they should act toward us. Almost never did they violate any of our basic rules of conduct. It seemed that they were trying to be decent. I think the feeling existed in the White House that they would not willingly do anything to harm us. It is possible, of course, that they might harm us unwittingly."

"You seem to be saying you think that would be unlikely."