CHAPTER IV
From his initial statement it was obvious that Bud sided with the group determined to oppose all contact with the starmen. His reaction was more frantic than most. He awoke at night from a soggy dream of terror. Let us alone, he sobbed, trembling. Let us alone. The future, once so secure, was now a veiled menace. Go away, he whispered into the night, let us alone. We don't want you. Go away.
He appeared sleepless for the first hearing. The three starmen filed in. He hated them.
They testified.
Herb, in the witness stand, peered out at the swarm of white faces; his head turned automatically from interrogator to interrogator.
"Our government is a modified democracy, much as your own, containing strong safe guards for individual liberty and civil rights," Herb said. One would need to look deeply into his eyes to detect the dullness and the depersonalization that was the true index to the words.
His thoughts were fuzzy, floating upon the periphery of his immediate existence. A detached part of himself seemed to observe and record the proceedings without understanding them; there was a fever of information inside of him.
"We believe in the mutual exchange of knowledge. As proof of our good will, we will be glad to send in a team of scientists...." And later: "Our aim is mutually profitable trade."
He rested. One of the starmen took the stand. The drone and whine of voices lulled Herb. He wanted to relax, to sleep, to recover, to become master of himself once again.
After a recess, he found himself once more on the stand. Senator Rawlins, a thin, nervous mid-Westerner, began a line of inquiry. Herb tested his fingers, feeling the comforting reality of the hard chair arm. He explored the surface with childish wonder while his voice responded and waited and responded. Dimly, persistently, doggedly, stubbornly the ego, the self—that small spark of assertiveness and awareness—struggled to arrange and order, to reason and make sense of—to unify and master—the knowledge it possessed. The consistency with which his spoken lies appealed to human prejudice should have made him realize the extent to which the Oligarchy was experienced in dealing with alien civilizations and the extent to which they had prepared specifically to confront this one. But he was aware only of the sound of his voice. The words fell away into some lost abyss of confusion.
"But the theory behind this, now?" Senator Rawlins said.
"I'm sorry, sir. We are technicians aboard this expedition. We have very little to do with the theoretical aspects. That's up to the Scientists."
"Well, you are, sir, familiar with the idea that—we'll say—that light has limited velocity?"
"Yes, sir, that is correct. It wouldn't make sense for it to have infinite velocity, to be instantaneously everywhere." A tiny sense of urgency formed in his mind.
"Are you familiar with the fact that the speed of light is a limiting factor? Nothing in the natural Universe goes faster than light."
"I couldn't say, sir, I really don't know. At an extremely high speed our space ship makes a, a transition, but ... I guess, sir, yes, sir." The answers weren't coming now. The Oligarch had not dared permit him scientific knowledge. There was a little vacuum where there should be information.
"You'll pardon me, but aren't you unusually ignorant, for a technician, about physical theory: about the action of gases that we were talking about a moment ago—in fact, even about astronomy?"
Herb did not say that such pursuits were the exclusive prerogatives of the Oligarchs. He did not say: I am inferior in mental capacity to an Oligarch; I can never become a Scientist. That was not to be mentioned. "I am a technician, sir."
Senator Rawlins shook his head and made a few notes.
There was fear somewhere inside of him. What more could he say? Suppose ... suppose.... Had he answered wrong? It was as if his knowledge were a river rushing his ego toward the great waterfall of defeat, and he was powerless to control anything. He must not fail. Must not, must not, must not fail.
The imminence of collapse made the very sky terrifying, to know that this apparent order could crumble, and planets fly from suns, and suns themselves spin blindly nowhere. Every word before the Committee was vital. The whole wheeling order of existence turned upon it.
He felt the wood beneath his finger tips, smooth and cool and solid.
The second day of the open hearing, Norma flew down from Vermont to reason with Bud.
Bud was gracious. Years in politics had taught him to mask his real feelings; taught him so well that he was no longer at all sure what his real feelings were.
The outbursts of anger and suppressed sadism he unleashed on those closest to him always the morning after confused him and left him feeling that the person of the previous day had been someone distinct and separate from his genuine self.
"It's good to see you," he said. A warm, brotherly and artificial love flattered his sense of rectitude. He considered her the baby of the family. He remembered her as a gawky, frightened girl giving a last long glance at the security of the living room before venturing into the night of her first date. "I've been meaning to get up your way." His hands signaled the extent of his confinement to Washington. "There's so much to do, you can't imagine. I have to take work home with me. I'm sometimes up half the night with it.... I've been hearing about you. Very fine, Norma, very fine."
Norma was tense and uncomfortable and, Bud thought, a little over-awed to be sitting across the desk from her own brother in the rebuilt Senate Office Building.
She blinked nervously. "Frank will be in this afternoon."
"Yes. Yes?" A trace of petulance haunted Bud's voice. "Terribly busy just now, but...." Hollow enthusiasm conquered. "That's just fine. I can always find time to see Frank."
"He thinks it's important that he see you," Norma said.
"Has something happened?" Bud always sought ways to escape from the anticipated responsibility of sharing a family crisis.
"We want to talk to you."
"I don't quite understand, Norma. What are you talking about?"
"These hearings, Bud."
Instantly the Senator felt the crush of the whole family arrayed against him, and he wanted to snarl at her in shame and anger and shout, "Leave me alone! Leave me alone! Leave me alone, for Chrissake!"
"They've got space flight. We can't even begin to guess what else they've got. What does Senator Stilson do? And you're there on his side, right with him!"
Bud puffed his cheeks and his skin grew hot and prickly. It's none of your damned business, he thought viciously.
"They have space flight," she repeated doggedly. "Think what that would mean to us."
"I haven't time to discuss it right now, Sis. We'll have to talk this out later." He stood up, anger pounding in his temples.
She stood with him. "Tonight. You and I and Frank."
"I don't quite see how...." His voice was weary, and he let the sentence hang short of blunt refusal.
"Tonight, Bud. We've got to see you tonight. He's flying in."
"Well ..." he sighed resignedly. "My place, then. I'll see you at, nine o'clock there."
"That will be fine."
"Nine, then. I've got to rush. My place at nine."
"Goodby, Bud."
Less than an hour later flash bulbs popped from all corners of the room as the starmen entered for their second session of questioning.
Chairman Stilson, in a peevishly thin voice, limited the photographers to ten minutes and ruled against pictures during the questioning. After nearly half an hour, the hearing got under way.
Herb was first on the stand. He continued in the same fashion as yesterday. His answers were polite and informative. Senator Stilson's attempt to get him to contradict himself proved unfruitful. Herb surrendered the chair to one of the others and returned to his seat at the long table reserved for the starmen.
The hearing droned on. He no longer listened. He wanted to sleep.
"Yes," said the starman who was testifying, "that is correct. One of our main reasons for making this expedition is to offer you technological information: space flight, medicine...."
"... eventually trade...."
"Initiate a cultural exchange at the first practical moment...."
Herb heard someone say: "But we have limited facilities on this expedition. A larger one, with your permission, will be dispatched for Earth within a year." He was not even sure whether it was he who was speaking. "In the meantime, we would like permission to conduct certain scientific tests on the surface.... A mineral analysis, sir, primarily. But we are interested in geological evidence...."
"... whether or not," someone said, "the physical similarity of our two races is due to parallel evolution or to a forgotten, prehistoric cycle of colonization by a common ancestor...."
"... These tests can be completed within a few days...."
"In return, sir, we offer...."
"... We must leave within a week. We must have an answer before then."
They described their own planet and their own civilization. They made an excellent impression.
When it was Bud's turn to question, he asked Herb: "How do we know—here, you've learned the language, so much about us and all—how do we know that this isn't a fabrication, a tissue of prevarications you're telling the American people here today? We have to take everything on faith. Now, you know so much about us, you have studied us...."
"We have only a week ..." Herb replied.
They were waiting for Bud at nine o'clock. He was late.
"I'm sorry," Bud said. "Came as quickly as I could. I was at a secret session.... But for a brother and sister, well, I just had to leave...."
"We appreciate it, Bud," Norma said.
"Drink, anybody?"
"No, thanks," Frank said.
Norma shook her head.
"Mind if I have one? I'm rather upset today—the hearings and all, the meeting tonight...."
He went to his bar.
Frank was on the sofa. His gaunt, heavy boned body waited motionless. His blunt fingered, surgeon's hands lay unmoving. His skin was tanned from the Oklahoma sun. Norma sat stiffly erect in the overstuffed chair.
"I guess you know what we want to see you about," Frank said.
Bud poured carefully without looking around. "Norma said something about the starmen. Terrifying thing, terrifying thing. You think they'll really leave when we tell them to?"
"I don't see there's much we can do about it if they make up their minds to stay," Frank said.
"Look, Bud," Norma said, "think how far ahead of us they are. They must be friendly, they must be sincere in their offer to help us."
Bud shook his head. "My deep and sincere conviction on this is that it's a matter of our pride and our independence and our freedom. They're all at stake. I mean—" He waved helplessly. "You know how I feel. I mean, my views are in all the papers, in the Record. With me it's a matter of principle. I don't see how we can accept that sort of offer. It's degrading."
"If we tell them to leave, to go away, to leave us alone, we've lost the greatest opportunity in history." Norma insisted.
"Norma," Bud said. "You know how I feel about you. You know I'd do anything in the world for either of you. Anything within my power. All you need do is ask. Money, anything. But this ... this.... We're proud. Mankind is proud." His heart swelled with the beauty of renunciation and righteousness. "We're too proud, too independent, too free. I would not be willing to sacrifice those great, eternal truths, those historic principles that are the foundation of our way of life, that have made America great: dignity, pride, self reliance...."
"I think they have about the same metabolism as humans," Frank said. "Speaking as a medical man, I believe if they'd give us their medical knowledge, we could conquer disease on Earth. And with their technology—"
"We are a proud race," Bud said. "We must cling to that. That is more precious than gold."
When Frank spoke, there was a mixture of contempt and terror in his voice. "Bud, you're a monument to the basic anarchy of the American people."
"Frank!" Norma cried.
"He is. If the people paid any attention to what they were doing, do you think they'd elect a man like that?"
Bud's mind darted frantically. What was happening here? What was behind this? Why was Frank, his own brother, out to get him? What sinister motive—?
"You underestimate them, though," Frank said. "There's a little trickle of maturity in this country. For every aberration like you it gains a drop of experience and knowledge. The war is over. We've had our emotional jag. We're about to go into one of our rational periods. We're about to wake up to our responsibilities. Your day is passing. I don't know if there's enough of you left to keep out the starmen. The people are coming around. But—I—do—know—this. I know...."
"Stop!" Norma cried. "You don't understand Bud! You're trying to make him into something dishonest and cynical!"
"I've watched him come up. I've watched him for years. I've seen all the rotten deals he's pulled. I've seen him smear innocent people—ruin their careers—and all not for patriotism but for himself. To advance his career. Keep his name before the public. He doesn't care for anything but Bud. Bud, and any means to the end that he moves up, gets power—power for power's sake—power to create and destroy—power to change and control. I've watched him: I know him. I'm talking the only language he understands."
Bud was trembling. The sense of indignation, horror, and innocence was blunted by the shallow dryness of his breathing.
"Frank! Stop this! You're out of your mind!"
"I'm going to see you defeated in the next election, Bud. I'm going to dig up dirt, I'm going to find out who your mistresses are. I'm your brother. I'm going to hound you, disgrace you, drive you from office. You know me. You know I mean what I say. You know I will do it."
"What do you want? My, my God, Frank, what are you after?"
Frank's hands were shaking. His mouth worked nervously. "For once in my life, for once in my life I've got something all-the-way decent to fight for, and I mean to fight just as dirty as I have to get it. Bud, you're coming over to my side on this starmen hearing. You're going to vote for co-operation with them. Do you hear me? Do you hear what I say?"
Bud, his eyes bulging with shock and disbelief, shook his head dumbly. His own brother—this terror raging before him—impossible, his own brother.... His heart pounded. His will was gone. "What do you want?" he repeated dryly.
"I told you."
"I—I—I'll have to think. I—I—"
"No, you won't," Frank said. He stood before him now. "No, you won't."
Norma jumped between them. "Leave him alone!"
Bud snaked from behind her and fled to the bar. His unprotected back a crawling mass of chill, he poured himself a drink. "You're ... you're upset, Frank. You've been, been overworked." He drank the drink in a feverish gulp. "Now ..." his voice fluttered nervously. "I'll forget what you've said here tonight. I understand." His breathing was still tight and frightened. "About the starmen. I haven't, I haven't really given the matter too, too much ... attention. I still have an ... I was just today thinking of...."
Frank started to speak.
"I can see both sides of the argument," Bud said rapidly. In the depth of his stomach he lived with the cold knowledge that Frank would stoop to anything—any lie, any distortion—to—defeat him. Frank could defeat him. It wasn't as if Frank were a stranger. It wasn't as if Bud had been in the Senate for years. No, he was a vulnerable freshman, and unscrupulous politicians back home were already.... This was terrible. All his dreams of the future trembled on his words. He was physically afraid.
"Frank is upset!" Norma said frantically.
"Yes, yes," Bud murmured.
"Frank, you apologize! You hear me! Apologize!"
Frank and Bud found their eyes locked in a moment of silent communication, and seeing victory in the dull defeat inside of Bud, Frank said hoarsely, "I apologize, Bud. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said those things. I lost my head. I'm sorry."
They both knew it was no apology. The threat was still very much there.