"So you think all the taken-up tales now are either cult imagining or downright lies?" asked Porter.

"Certainly," Allen told him. "I'm convinced that Mr. Conklin is the only one who has been taken up. What he tells us fits the pattern of alien communication." He said to Jerry, "There were no words. I think you said there were no words."

"That's right," said Jerry. "Only pictures in my mind. At times, thoughts in my mind, but I couldn't tell if they were my thoughts or were something else."

"Well, let's say you went back to 101 again. You say you won't and I don't suppose you will. But let us say you did. Do you think it would take you up again?"

"Only if it had something that it wanted to tell me," Jerry said. "Only if there were a chore it wanted me to do."

"You're convinced of that?"

"Utterly convinced. I feel very keenly that it used me."

"And, yet, Miss Foster tells us of the handshake she got from 101.

"It was more than a handshake," said Kathy. "More personal than a handshake. A kiss, perhaps. I didn't realize what it was at the time. I thought, first a handshake, for that was the easiest way to characterize it. A handshake of gratitude, of thanks, of recognition maybe. To let me know that it knew I existed and was there. But now I know it was more than that. It was, I am sure, a sign of real affection. I think that impression is re-enforced by their making of the cars. They're not just showing off. Not trying to awe us or impress us. Not threatening us with a demonstration of what they can do. Not even paying us for letting them eat our trees. It's a show of deep affection for us. Maybe like Santa Claus. Maybe like giving a special friend a birthday gift. Like a young man buying roses for his girl."

"You make a good case for them," said the President. "And yet, if this keeps on, it will ruin us.

"Let's say, Mr. President, that a fond parent buys candy for her child," said Kathy, "not knowing, never having been told, what candy may do to a child's teeth. It's the same with the visitors. It's not knowing, that is all. They're only trying to be nice, not aware of what their niceness does to us."

"Miss, that may all be true," said Whiteside, "but they got me scared. I still think that a few well-placed.

"Henry," the President said, sharply, "not now. Later, if you insist on talking about it, but not now."

"Let's get back to this business of taking up," said Allen. "To talk with someone, it appears, they have to take a person up. Mr. Conklin, can you think of any way they might be persuaded to take up—say, myself, or the President?"

"They wouldn't take you up," said Jerry. "They simply would ignore you. No matter what you did, they'd pay no attention to you.

"I would think that you are right," said Allen. "They're good at doing that. They've ignored us ever since they came. I have found myself wondering just how they perceive us. I've rather thought at times that they might see us as charming pets or as pitiful forms of life they must be careful not to step on. But, actually, I sense it's neither one of these. Miss Foster seems to think they have affection for us. After all, we allowed them to land on the planet where there was cellulose to save them from racial extinction. The cellulose allowed them to have young and if there had been no young, I would suppose the race finally would have died. If we give them human emotions, which I doubt they have, they then would feel gratitude. With all due respect to Miss Foster's viewpoint, I can't feel they're all that thankful. The point is that there is no way we can stop them from chopping down our trees. I am inclined to believe they have, rather than gratitude, an irrepressible business ethic, although they would not think of it as that. I know I phrase this clumsily. I think they are obsessed with making full and honest payment for anything they take. I think that's what they are doing."

"To sum up," said the President, "there does seem to be an outside chance that given time, we might be able to talk with our visitors. But it will take time, apparently, an awful lot of time, and more patience than we have. The one thing we haven't got is time. Would the others of you say that is a fair assessment?"

"I subscribe to it," said Whiteside. "That's the whole thing, all wrapped up, and we haven't got the time. Our time is all run out."

"We can weather it," said the President, as if he might be talking to himself. "We've got to weather it. If nothing else happens, if it's no more than the ears, we can muddle through. I have had some encouraging phone calls from leaders in the business world and the Congress seems more inclined to go along with us than I had thought they would." He said to Porter, "I take it, from what I hear, that you talked with Davenport."

"Yes, I did," said Porter. "A friendly interchange."

"Well, then," said the President, "I think this does it. Unless," he said, looking at Kathy and Jerry, "you have something else to add."

They shook their heads.

"Nothing, Mr. President," said Jerry.

"We thank you for coming to see us," the President told them. "You have done us a very useful service. Now we can see more clearly the problems that we face. You may rest assured that nothing you have told us will go beyond this room."

"I'm grateful to you for that," said Jerry.

"The plane is waiting for you," said the President. "We'll drive you to the field any time you wish. Should you wish to remain in Washington, however, for a day or two.

"Mr. President," said Kathy, "we must be getting back. I have my job and Jerry has his thesis."

52. MINNEAPOLIS

"This place feels like a wake," said Gold. "We're hip deep in news of great significance. The whole damn world going down the drain. The dollar almost worthless. Foreign governments howling doom. All the diplomats tight-lipped. The business community white-faced. The kind of stuff we thrive on. Yet where is all the joy of a newsroom bristling with news, where all the jubilation?"

"Oh, shut up," said Garrison.

"The White House expresses confidence," said Gold. "Says we will see it through. There's a prime example of whistling down a dark and lonely street."

Garrison said to Annie, "You have any idea when Kathy and Jerry will be getting in?"

"In another couple of hours," she told him. "They're probably taking off right now. But Kathy will have nothing for us. She told me when she called there'd not be any story."

"I expected that," said Garrison. "I had hoped, of course.

"You're a blood sucker," Gold told him. "You suck your people dry. Not a drop left in them."

"It's not working out the way it should," said Annie.

"What's not working out?" asked Garrison.

"This business with the visitors. It's not the way it is in pictures."

"By pictures, I suppose you mean the movies.

"Yes. In them it works out right, but just in the nick of time. When everyone's given up every hope and there seems no chance at all. Do you suppose that now, just in the nick of time.

"Don't count on it," said Gold.

"Look," said Garrison, "this is the real thing. This is really happening. This is no fantasy dreamed up by some jerk producer who knows, in his secret, stupid heart that happiness is holy."

"But if they'd just talk to us," said Annie.

"If they'd just go away," said Gold.

The phone rang.

Annie picked it up, listened for a moment and then took it down and looked at Garrison.

"It's Lone Pine," she said. "Mr. Norton. On line three. He sounds funny. There's something wrong up there."

Garrison grabbed his phone off the cradle. "Frank," he said, "is there something wrong? What is going on?"

Norton's words came tumbling along the line. "Johnny, I just got back from my trip. I looked at the papers on my desk. Can it be true? About the ears.