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10. WASHINGTON, D.C
When Dave Porter entered the conference room, the others were there. Some of them had just arrived and were getting settled at their places. The President sat at the head of the table. General Henry Whiteside, army chief of staff, sat at his right hand, John Hammond, White House chief of staff, at his left.
John Clark, the President's military aide, was sitting near the end of the table opposite the President. He pulled out one of the few remaining chairs as an invitation to the press secretary to sit down.
"Thanks, Jack," said Porter, sitting in the chair and pulling it up to the table.
"Dave," asked the President, "is there anything new on the wires?"
"Nothing, sir. I imagine everyone knows that our visitor is chewing up trees and turning them into bales of cellulose."
"Yes, I think everyone does. That news came early this morning. There is nothing else?"
"A lot of copy is moving," said Porter. "Nothing significant. The new object in orbit is getting a fair amount of attention."
"All right, then," said the President, "let's try to figure out what we know of the situation. General, would you care to go first."
"Everything still seems to be quiet," said Whiteside. "The pub-lie has a lot of interest, but there's been no panic. Not so far. It might not take much to set it off, for everyone is keyed up. Tension, I would suspect, is ru
Timothy Jackson, FBI director, said, "Only a preliminary report, Henry. So far as the agents can ascertain, the visitor seems to carry no armament of any sort. Or, at least, nothing that can be recognized as armament. In fact, it has no exterior features at all, nothing mounted on it, nothing sticking out of it."
"Then how did it kill the barber?" asked the President.
"That's what we'd like to know," said Whiteside. "So far, we haven't a clue."
"Steve, you're sending out some men, aren't you?" asked the President.
"They should be there by now," said Dr. Steven Allen, the science advisor. "I expect any minute to hear from them. I must warn you, however, not to expect any quick findings or any startling disclosures. We seem to be dealing with something far outside our normal experience.~~
"Are you saying," asked Marcus Vhite, the Secretary of State, "that we are dealing with something from space, an extraterrestrial intelligence, perhaps?"
"The tendency at first is always to overstate," said Allen. "There is, I must admit, a temptation to say this is an intelligence from space, but we have no proof yet that it is. It did, undeniably, fall from space, and, as I say, it appears to lie outside all present experience, but, as a scientist, I'm reluctant to make any judgment until at least some results are in.
"You're straddling the fence," said the Secretary of State.
"No, Marcus, just withholding judgment. It would seem unlikely, on the face of it, that it originated on Earth, but as yet we simply do not know. I am encouraged, whatever it may be, by the fact that it does not, so far, seem intent on doing any harm. So far, it's been friendly."
"Cutting down trees is not exactly friendly," said William Sullivan, Secretary of Interior. "Do you realize, Mr. President, that the land where it is engaged in its depredation is a primitive wilderness area. One of the most significant such tracts we have, the most representative of what the primitive wilderness really was like. Some thousands of acres of trees, mostly white pine, still stand there today as they stood before white men came to America. Truly, it is a tragic business."
"It seems to me," said Hammond, "that cutting down trees and separating out the cellulose should be considered a mark of intelligence."
"A well-programmed machine could perform such a task quite easily," said the science advisor.
"But someone or something would have had to program the machine."
"That is true," said Allen.
"I would think," said the Secretary of State, "that the loss of a few trees is a small thing to bemoan in the face of what is taking place."
"From your point of view," said Interior, "that may be true, although from my point of view, I can't agree with you. It's the arrogance of the visitor that bothers me. It's like someone entering a man's backyard and chopping down an apple tree that the owner has cherished for years, or stealing the produce from his garden. Not a simple act of vandalism, but acting as if he had a legal right to chop down the apple tree or to rob the garden."
"We're wasting time," said State, "harping on such small matters. We should be considering our national stance, arriving at some sort of policy. If this visitor of ours out in Mi
"You are talking like this Mi
"Defense," said White. "We have no indication so far we stand in need of any sort of defense."
"There's another matter we should be talking about," said Leslie Logan, the CIA man, "and that is security."
"How do you mean, security?" asked State.
"If there is an intelligence involved in the]fi
"So far," said the Secretary of State, "only one visitor has landed. There may be other landings. If there are, the chances would be very good that some of the landings would take place in other countries. If such should be the situation, it seems to me that we would not be able to squirrel away much knowledge. I think the better course would be to share with the world such knowledge as we can get. If we do this, we then can expect, if there are other landings in other countries, to be in a better position to share in the findings that might be made by others."
"In the first place," said Logan, "we ca
"That may be true, but the position you urge would result in
an extremely bad world impression if we should be too obviously selective in sharing knowledge or in making public what we find, if we find anything."
"You can rely on our finding a few facts," said the science advisor
"We could reveal some general findings," said the CIA. "A gesture to world opinion if you think that to our advantage, but I would urge we be in no hurry to do so and that we should be highly selective."
"There is a worldwide interest," said State, "and I am begi
The CIA man shook his head. "I don't agree at all with you," he said.
"Andy, what have you got to say to all of this?" asked the President.
"I can't comment offhand," said Andrew Rollins, the Attorney General. "So far as I can recall, there is nothing in international law that would apply. There might be something tucked away in some treaties. You'd have to give me a few days."
"You're talking like a lawyer," said State.