hole it made.
     I heard the stamp of feet behind me and the banging of a door and when
I turned around the room was empty, except for Nancy standing by the
fireplace.
     'Come on,' I yelled at her running for the door that led onto the
porch.
     The rest of them were grouped outside, between the porch and hedge,
staring up into the sky, where a light winked off and on, going very
rapidly.
     I glanced at the roof and saw the hole the thing had made, edged by the
ragged, broken shingles that had been displaced when the machine broke
through.
     'There it goes,' said Gerald Sherwood, standing at my side. 'I wonder
what it is.'
     'I don't know,' I said. 'They slipped one over on me. They played me
for a fool.'
     I was shaken up and angry, and considerably ashamed. They had used me
back there in that other world. They had fooled me into carrying back to my
own world something they couldn't get there by themselves.
     There was no way of knowing what it was meant to do, although in a
little while, I feared, we would all find out.
     Hiram turned to me in disgust and anger. 'You've done it now,' he
blurted. 'Don't tell us you didn't mean to do it, don't pretend you don't
know what it is. Whatever may be out there, you're hand in glove with them.'
     I didn't try to answer him. There was no way I could.
     Hiram took a step toward me.
     'Cut it out!' cried Higgy. 'Don't lay a hand on him.'
     'We ought to shake it out of him,' yelled Hiram. 'If we found out what
it was, then we might be able...'
     'I said cut it out,' said Higgy.
     'I've had about enough of you,' I said to Hiram. 'I've had enough of
you all your whole damn life. All I want from you is that phone of mine. And
I want it fast.'
     'Why, you little squirt?' Hiram bellowed, and he took another step
toward me.
     Higgy hauled off and kicked him in the shin. 'God damn it,' Higgy said,
'I said for you to stop it.'
     Hiram jigged on one leg, lifting up the other so he could rub his shin.
     'Mayor,' he complained, 'you shouldn't have done that.'
     'Go and get him his phone,' Tom Preston said. 'Let him have it back.
Then he can call them up and report how good a job he did.'
     I wanted to clobber all three of them, especially Hiram and Tom
Preston. But, of course, I knew I couldn't. Hiram had beaten me often enough
when we were kids for me to know I couldn't.
     Higgy grabbed hold of Hiram and tugged him toward the gate. Hiram
limped a little as the mayor led him off. Tom Preston held the gate for them
and then the three of them went stalking up the street, never looking back.
     And now I noticed that the rest had left as well - all of them except
Father Flanagan and Gerald Sherwood, and Nancy, standing on the porch. The
priest was standing to one side and when I looked at him, he made an
apologetic gesture.
     'Don't blame them,' he said, 'for leaving. They were embarrassed and
uneasy. They took their chance to get away.'
     'And you?' I asked. 'You're not embarrassed?'
     'Why, not at all,' he told me. 'Although I am a bit uneasy. The whole
thing, I don't mind telling you, has a whiff of heresy about it.'
     'Next,' I said, bitterly, 'you'll be telling me you think I told the
truth.'
     'I had my doubts,' he said, 'and I'm not entirely rid of them. But that
hole in your roof is a powerful argument against wholesale scepticism. And I
do not hold with the modern cynicism that seems so fashionable. There is
still, I think, much room in the world today for a dash of mysticism.'
     I could have told him it wasn't mysticism, that the other world had
been a solid, factual world, that the stars and sun and moon had shown
there, that I had walked its soil and drunk its water, that I had breathed
its air and that even now I had its dirt beneath my fingernails from having
dug a human skull from the slope above the stream.
     'The others will be back,' said Father Flanagan. 'They had to get away
for a little time to think, to get a chance to digest some of this evidence.
It was too much to handle in one gulp.
     They will be back, and so will I, but at the moment I have a mass to
think of.'
     A gang of boys came running down the street. They stopped a half a
block away and pointed at the roof. They milled around and pushed one
another playfully and hollered.
     The first edge of the sun had come above the horizon and the trees were
the burnished green of summer.
     I gestured at the boys. 'The word has gotten out,' I said.
     'In another thirty minutes we'll have everyone in town out in the
street, gawking at the roof.'

        17

     The crowd outside had grown.
     No one was doing anything. They just stood there and looked gaping at
the hole in the roof, and talking quietly among themselves - not screaming,
not shouting, but talking, as if they knew something else was about to
happen and were passing away the time, waiting for it to happen. Sherwood
kept pacing up and down the floor.
     'Gibbs should be phoning soon,' he said. 'I don't know what has
happened to him. He should have called by now.'
     'Maybe,' Nancy said, 'he got held up - maybe his plane was late. Maybe
there was trouble on the road.'
     I stood at the window watching the crowd. I knew almost all of them.
They were friends and neighbours and there was not a thing to stop them, if
they wanted to, from coming up the walk and knocking at the door and coming
in to see me.
     But now, instead, they stood outside and watched and waited. It was, I
thought, as if the house were a cage and I was some new, strange animal from
some far-off land.
     Twenty-four hours ago I had been another villager, a man who had lived
and grown up with those people watching in the street. But now I was a
freak, an oddity - perhaps, in the minds of some of them, a sinister figure
that threatened, if not their lives, their comfort and their peace of mind.
     For this village could never be the same again - and perhaps the world
could never be the same again. For even if the barrier now should disappear
and the Flowers withdraw their attention from our Earth, we still would have
been shaken from the comfortable little rut which assumed that life as we
knew it was the only kind of life and that our road of knowledge was the
only one that was broad and straight and paved.
     There had been ogres in the past, but finally the ogres had been
banished. The trolls and ghouls and imps and all the others of the tribe had
been pushed out of our lives, for they could survive only on the misty
shores of ignorance and in the land of superstition. Now, I thought, we'd
know an ignorance again (but a different kind of ignorance) and
superstition; too, for superstition fed upon the lack of knowledge. With
this hint of another world - even if its denizens should decide not to
flaunt themselves, even if we should find a way to stop them - the trolls
and ghouls and goblins would be back with us again. There'd be chimney
corner gossip of this other place and a frantic, desperate search to
rationalize the implied horror of its vast and unknown reaches, and out of
this very search would rise a horror greater than any true other world could
hold. We'd be afraid, as we had been before, of the darkness that lay beyond
the little circle of our campfire.
     There were more people in the Street; they kept coming all the time.
There was Pappy Andrews, cracking his cane upon the sidewalk, and Grandma
Jones, with her sunbonnet socked upon her head, and Charley Hutton, who
owned the Happy Hollow tavern. Bill Donovan, the garbage man, was in the
front ranks of the crowd, but I didn't see his wife, and I wondered if Myrt
and Jake had come to get the kids. And just as big and mouthy as if he'd
lived in Millville all his life and known these folks from babyhood, was
Gabe Thomas, the trucker who, after me, had been the first man to find out
about the barrier.
     Someone stirred beside me and I saw that it was Nancy. I knew now that
she had been standing there for some little time.
     'Look at them,' I said. 'It's a holiday for them. Any minute now the
parade will be along.'
     'They're just ordinary people,' Nancy said. 'You can't expect too much
of them. Brad, I'm afraid you do expect too much of them. You even expected
that the men who were here would take what you told them at face value,
immediately and unquestioningly.'
     'Your father did,' I said.
     'Father's different. He's not an ordinary man. And, besides, he had
some prior knowledge, he had a little warning. He had one of those
telephones. He knew a little bit about it.'
     'Some,' I said. 'Not much.'
     'I haven't talked with him. There's been no chance for us to talk. And
I couldn't ask him in front of all those people. But I know that he's
involved. Is it dangerous, Brad?'
     'I don't think so. Not from out there or back there or wherever that
other world may be. No danger from the alien world - not now, not yet. Any
danger that we have to face lies in this world of ours. We have a decision
we must make and it has to be the right one.'
     'How can we tell,' she 'asked, 'what is the right decision? We have no
precedent.'
     And that was it, of course, I thought. There was no way in which a
decision - any decision - could be justified.
     There was a shouting from outside and I moved closer to the window to
see farther up the street. Striding down the centre of it came Hiram Martin
and in one hand he carried a cordless telephone.
     Nancy caught sight of him and said, 'He's bringing back our phone.
Funny, I never thought he would.'
     It was Hiram shouting and he was shouting in a chant, a deliberate,
mocking chant.
     'All right, come out and get your phone. Come on out and get your God
damn phone.'
     Nancy caught her breath and I brushed past her to the door. I jerked it
open and stepped out on the porch.
     Hiram reached the gate and he quit his chanting. The two of us stood
there, watching one another. The crowd was getting noisy and surging closer.
     Then Hiram raised his arm, with the phone held above his head.
     'All right,' he yelled, 'here's your phone, you dirty...'
     Whatever else he said was drowned out by the howling of the crowd.
     Then Hiram threw the phone. It was an unhandy thing to throw and the
throw was not too good. The receiver flew out to one side, with its trailing
cord looping in the air behind it. When the cord jerked taut, the flying
phone skidded out of its trajectory and came crashing to the concrete walk,
falling about halfway between the gate and porch. Pieces of shattered
plastic sprayed across the lawn.
     Scarcely aware that I was doing it, acting not by any thought or
consideration, but on pure emotion, I came down off the porch and headed for
the gate. Hiram backed away to give me room and I came charging through the
gate and stood facing him.
     I'd had enough of Hiram Martin. I was filled up to here with him. He'd
been in my hair for the last two days and I was sick to death of him. There
was just one thought - to tear the man apart, to pound him to a pulp, to
make certain he'd never sneer at me again, never mock me, never try again to
bully me by the sole virtue of sheer size.
     I was back in the days of childhood - seeing through the stubborn and
red-shot veil of hatred that I had known then, hating this man I knew would
lick me, as he had many times before, but ready, willing, anxious to inflict
whatever hurt I could while he was licking me.
     Someone bawled, 'Give 'em room!' Then I was charging at him and he hit
me. He didn't have the time or room to take much of a swing at me, but his
fist caught me on the side of the head and it staggered me and hurt. He hit
me again almost immediately, but this one also was a glancing blow and
didn't hurt at all - and this time I connected. I got my left into his belly
just above the belt and when he doubled over I caught him in the mouth and
felt the smart of bruised, cut knuckles as they smashed against his teeth. I
was swinging again when a fist came out of nowhere and slammed into my head
and my head exploded into a pinwheel of screaming stars. I knew that I was
down, for I could feel the hardness of the street against my knees, but I
struggled up and my vision cleared. I couldn't feel my legs. I seemed to be
moving and bobbing in the air with nothing under me. I saw Hiram's face just
a foot or so away and his mouth was a gash of red and there was blood on his
shirt. So I hit his mouth again - not very hard, perhaps, for there wasn't
much steam left behind my punches. But he grunted and he ducked away and I
came boring in.
     And that was when he hit me for keeps.
     I felt myself going down, falling backwards and it seemed that it took
a long time for me to fall. Then I hit and the street was harder than I
thought it would be and hitting the street hurt me more than the punch that
put me there.
     I groped around, trying to get my hands in position to hoist myself
erect, although I wondered vaguely why I bothered. For if I got up, Hiram
would belt me another one and I'd be back down again. But I knew I had to
get up, that I had to get up each time I was able. For that was the kind of
game Hiram and I had always played. He knocked me down each time I got up
and I kept on getting up until I couldn't any more and I never cried for
quarter and I never admitted I was licked. And if, for the rest of my life,
I could keep on doing that, then I'd be the one who won, not Hiram.
     But I wasn't doing so well. I wasn't getting up. Maybe, I thought, this
is the time I don't get up.
     I still kept pawing with my hands, trying to lift myself and that's how
I got the rock. Some kid, perhaps, had thrown it, maybe days before - maybe
at a bird, maybe at a dog, maybe  just for the fun of throwing rocks. And it
had landed in the street and stayed there and now the fingers of my right
hand found it and closed around it and it fitted comfortably into my palm,
for it was exactly fist size.
     A hand, a great meaty paw of a hand, came down from above and grabbed
my shirt front and hauled me to my feet.
     'So,' screamed a voice, 'assault an officer, would you!'
     His face swam in front of me, a red-smeared face twisted with his
hatred, heavy with its meanness, gloating at the physical power he held over
me.
     I could feel my legs again and the face came clearer and the clot of
faces in the background - the faces of the crowd, pressing close to be in at
the kill.
     One did not give up, I told myself, remembering back to all those other
times I had not given up. As long as one was on his feet, he fought, and
even when he was down and could not get up, he did not admit defeat.
     Both of his hands were clutching at my shirt front, his face pushed
close toward mine, I clenched my fist and my fingers closed hard around the
rock and then I swung. I swung with everything I had, putting every ounce of
strength I could muster behind the swinging fist swinging from the waist in
a jolting upward jab, and I caught him on the chin.
     His head snapped back, pivoting on the thick, bull neck. He staggered
and his fingers loosened and he crumpled, sprawling in the street.
     I stepped back a pace and stood looking down at him and everything was
clearer now and. I knew I had a body, a bruised and beaten body that ached,
it seemed, in every joint and muscle. But that didn't matter; it didn't mean
a thing - for the first time in my life I'd knocked Hiram Martin down. I'd
used a rock to do it and I didn't give a damn. I hadn't meant to pick up
that rock - I'd just found it and closed my fingers on it. I had not planned
to use it, but now that I had it made no difference to me. If I'd had time
to plan, I'd probably have planned to use it.
     Someone leaped Out from the crowd toward me and I saw it was Tom
Preston.
     'You going to' let him get away with it?' Preston was screaming at the
crowd. 'He hit an officer! He hit him with a rock! He picked up a rock!'
     Another man pushed out of the crowd and grabbed Preston by the
shoulder, lifting him and setting him back in the forefront of the crowd.
     'You keep out of this,' Gabe Thomas said.
     'But he used a rock!' screamed Preston.
     'He should have used a club,' said Gabe. 'He should have beat his
brains out.'
     Hiram was stirring, sitting up. His hand reached for his gun.
     'Touch that gun,' I told him. 'Just one finger on it and, so help me,
I'll kill you.'
     Hiram stared at me. I must have been a sight. He'd worked me over good
and he'd mussed me up a lot and still I'd knocked him down and was standing
on my feet.
     'He hit you with a rock,' yelped Preston. 'He hit...' Gabe reached out
and his fingers fitted neatly around Preston's skinny throat. He squeezed
and Preston's mouth flapped open and his tongue came out.
     'You keep out of it,' said Gabe.
     'But Hiram's an officer of the law,' protested Chancy Hutton. 'Brad
shouldn't have hit an officer.'
     'Friend,' Gabe told the tavern owner, 'he's a damn poor officer. No
officer worth his salt goes picking fights with people.'
     I'd never taken my eyes off Hiram and he'd been watching me, but now he
flicked his eyes to one side and his hand dropped to the ground.
     And in that moment I knew that I had won - not because I was the
stronger, not because I fought the better (for I wasn't and I hadn't) but
because Hiram was a coward, because he had no guts, because, once hurt, he
didn't have the courage to chance being hurt again. And I knew, too, that I
need not fear the gun he carried, for Hiram Martin didn't have it in him to
face another man and kill him.
     Hiram got slowly to his feet and stood there for a moment. His hand
came up and felt his jaw. Then he turned his back and walked away. The
crowd, watching silently, parted to make a path for him.
     I stared at his retreating back and a fierce, bloodthirsty satisfaction
rose up inside of me. After more than twenty years, I'd beaten this
childhood enemy. But, I told myself I had not beat him fair - I'd had to
play dirty to triumph over him. But I found it made no difference. Dirty
fight or fair, I had finally licked him.
     The crowd moved slowly back. No one spoke to me. No one spoke to
anyone.
     'I guess,' said Gabe, 'there are no other takers. If there were, they'd
have to fight me, too.'
     'Thanks, Gabe,' I said.
     'Thanks, hell,' he said. 'I didn't do a thing.'
     I opened up my fist and the rock dropped to the street. In the silence,
it made a terrible clatter.
     Gabe hauled a huge red handkerchief out of his rear pocket and stepped
over to me. He put a hand back of my head to hold it steady and began to
wipe my face.
     'In a month or so,' he said, by way of comfort, 'you'll look all right
again.'
     'Hey, Brad,' yelled someone, 'who's your friend?'
     I couldn't see who it was who yelled. There were so many people.
     'Mister,' yelled someone else, 'be sure you wipe his nose.'
     'Go on!' roared Gabe. 'Go on! Any of you wisecrackers walk out here in
plain sight and I'll dust the street with you.'
     Grandma Jones said in a loud voice, so that Pappy Andrews could hear.
'He's the trucker fellow that smashed Brad's car. Appears to me if Brad has
to fight someone, he should be fighting him.'
     'Big mouth,' yelled back Pappy Andrews. 'He's got an awful big mouth.'
     I saw Nancy standing by the gate and she had the same look on her face
that she'd had when we were kids and I had fought Hiram Martin then. She was
disgusted with me. She had never held with fighting; she thought that it was
vulgar.
     The front door burst open and Gerald Sherwood came running down the
walk. He rushed over and grabbed me by the arm.
     'Come on,' he shouted. 'The senator called. He's out there waiting for
you, on the east end of the road.'

        18

     Four of them were waiting for me on the pavement just beyond the
barrier. A short distance down the road several cars were parked. A number
of state troopers were scattered about in little groups. Half a mile or so
to the north the steam shovel was still digging.
     I felt foolish walking down the road toward them while they waited for
me. I knew that I must look as if the wrath of God had hit me.
     My shirt was torn and the left side of my face felt as though someone
had sandpapered it. I had deep gashes on the knuckles of my right hand where
I'd smacked Hiram in the teeth and my left eye felt as if it were starting
to puff up.
     Someone had cleared away the windrow of uprooted vegetation for several
rods on either side of the road, but except for that, the windrow was still
there.
     As I got close, I recognized the senator. I had never met the man, but
I'd seen his pictures in the papers. He was stocky and well-built and his
hair was white and he never wore a hat. He was dressed in a double-breasted
suit and he had a bright blue tie with white polka dots.
     One of the others was a military man. He wore stars on his shoulders.
Another was a little fellow with patent leather hair and a tight, cold face.
The fourth man was somewhat undersized and chubby and had eyes of the
brightest china blue I had ever seen.
     I walked until I was three feet or so away from them and it was not
until then that I felt the first slight pressure of the barrier. I backed up
a step and looked at the senator.
     'You must be Senator Gibbs,' I said. 'I'm Bradshaw Carter. I'm the one
Sherwood talked with you about.'
     'Glad to meet you, Mr Carter,' said the senator. 'I had expected that
Gerald would be with you.'
     'I wanted him to come,' I said, 'but he felt he shouldn't. There was a
conflict of opinion in the village. The mayor wanted to appoint a committee
and Sherwood opposed it rather violently.'
     The senator nodded. 'I see,' be said. 'So you're the only one we'll
see.'
     'If you want others...'
     'Oh, not at all,' he said. 'You are the man with the information.'
     'Yes, I am,' I said.
     'Excuse me,' said the senator. 'Mr Carter, General Walter Billings.'
     'Hello, General,' I said.
     It was funny, saying hello and not shaking hands.
     'Arthur Newcombe,' said the senator.
     The man with the tight, cold face smiled frostily at me. One could see
at a glance he meant to stand no nonsense. He was, I guessed, more than a
little outraged that such a thing as the barrier could have been allowed to
happen.
     'Mr Newcombe,' said the senator, 'is from the State Department. And Dr
Roger Davenport, a biologist - I might add, an outstanding one.'
     'Good morning, young man,' said Davenport. 'Would it be out of line to
ask what happened to you?'
     I grinned at him, liking the man at once. 'I had a slight
misunderstanding with a fellow townsman.'
     'The town, I would imagine,' Billings said, 'is considerably upset. In
a little while law and order may become something of a problem.'
     'I am afraid so, sir,' I said.
     'This may take some time?' asked the senator.
     'A little time,' I said.
     'There were chairs,' the general said. 'Sergeant, where are...?'
     Even as he spoke a sergeant and two privates, who had been standing by
the roadside, came forward with some folding chairs.
     'Catch,' the sergeant said to me.
     He tossed a chair through the barrier and I caught it. By the time I
had it unfolded and set up, the four on the other side of the barrier had
their chairs as well.
     It was downright crazy - the five of us sitting there in the middle of
the road on flimsy folding chairs.
     'Now,' said the senator, 'I suppose we should get started. General, how
would you propose that we might proceed?
     The general crossed his knees and settled down. He considered for a
moment.
     'This man,' he finally said, 'has something we should hear. Why don't
we simply sit here and let him tell it to us?
     'Yes, by all means,' said Newcombe. 'Let's hear what he has to say. I
must say, Senator...'
     'Yes,' the senator said, rather hastily. 'I'll stipulate that it is
somewhat unusual. This is the first time I have ever attended a hearing out
in the open, but...'
     'It was the only way,' said the general, 'that seemed feasible.'
     'It's a longish story,' I warned them. 'And some of it may appear
unbelievable.'
     'So is this,' said the senator. 'This, what do you call it, barrier.'
     'And,' said Davenport, 'you seem to be the only man who has any
information.'
     'Therefore,' said the senator, 'let us proceed forthwith.' So, for the
second time, I told my story. I took my time and told it carefully, trying
to cover everything I'd seen. They did not interrupt me. A couple of times I
stopped to let them ask some questions, but the first time Davenport simply
signalled that I should go on and the second time all four of them just
waited until I did continue.
     It was an unnerving business worse than being interrupted. I talked
into a silence and I tried to read their faces, tried to get some clues as
to how much of it they might be accepting.
     But there was no sign from them, no faintest flicker of expression on
their faces. I began to feel a little silly over what I was telling them.
     I finished finally and leaned back in my chair.
     Across the barrier, Newcombe stirred uneasily. 'You'll excuse me,
gentlemen,' he said, 'if I take exception to this man's story. I see no
reason why we should have been dragged out here...'
     The senator interrupted him. 'Arthur,' he said, 'my good friend, Gerald
Sherwood, vouched for Mr Carter. I have known Gerald Sherwood for more than
thirty years and he is, I must tell you, a most perceptive man, a
hard-headed businessman with a tinge of imagination. Hard as this account,
or parts of it, may be to accept, I still believe we must accept it as a
basis for discussion. And, I must remind you, this is the first sound
evidence we have been offered.'
     'I,' said the general, 'find it hard to believe a word of it. But with
the evidence of this barrier, which is wholly beyond any present
understanding, we undoubtedly stand in a position where we must accept
further evidence beyond our understanding.'
     'Let us,' suggested Davenport, 'pretend just for the moment that we
believe it all. Let's try to see if there may not be some basic...'
     'But you can't!' exploded Newcombe. 'It flies in the face of everything
we know.'
     'Mr Newcombe,' said the biologist, 'man has flown in the face of
everything he knew time after time. He knew, not too many hundreds of years
ago, that the Earth was the centre of the universe. He knew, less than
thirty years ago, that man could never travel to the other planets. He knew,
a hundred years ago, that the atom was indivisible. And what have we here -
the knowledge that time never can be understood or manipulated, that it is
impossible for a plant to be intelligent. I tell you, sir...'
     'Do you mean,' the general asked, 'that you accept all this?'
     'No,' said Davenport, 'I'll accept none of it. To do so would be very
unobjective. But I'll hold judgement in abeyance. I would, quite frankly,
jump at the chance to work on it, to make observations and perform
experiments and...'
     'You may not have the time,' I said.
     The general swung toward me. 'Was there a time limit set?' he asked.
'You didn't mention it.'
     'No. But they have a way to prod us. They can exert some convincing
pressure any time they wish. They can start this barrier to moving.'
     'How far can they move it?
     'Your guess is as good as mine. Ten miles. A hundred miles. A thousand.
I have no idea.'
     'You sound as if you think they could push us off the Earth.'
     'I don't know. I would rather think they could.'
     'Do you think they would?'
     'Maybe. If it became apparent that we were delaying. I don't think
they'd do it willingly. They need us. They need someone who can use their
knowledge, who can make it meaningful. It doesn't seem that, so far, they've
found anyone who can.'
     'But we can't hurry,' the senator protested. 'We will not be rushed.
There is a lot to do. There must be discussions at a great many different
levels - at the governmental level, at the international level, at the
economic and scientific levels.'
     'Senator,' I told him, 'there is one thing no one seems to grasp. We
are not dealing with another nation, nor with other humans. We are dealing
with an alien people...'
     'That makes no difference,' said the senator. 'We must do it our way.'
     'That would be fine,' I said, 'if you can make the aliens understand.'
     'They'll have to wait,' said Newcombe, primly. And I knew that it was
hopeless, that here was a problem which could not be solved, that the human
race would bungle its first contact with an alien people. There would be
talk and argument, discussion, consultation - but all on the human level,
all from the human viewpoint, without a chance that anyone would even try to
take into account the alien point of view.
     'You must consider,' said the senator, 'that they are the petitioners,
they are the ones who made the first approach, they are asking access to our
world, not we to theirs.'
     'Five hundred years ago,' I said, 'white men came to America. They were
the petitioners then...'
     'But the Indians,' said Newcombe, 'were savages, barbarians...'
     I nodded at him. 'You make my point exactly.'
     'I do not,' Newcombe told me frostily, 'appreciate your sense of
humour.'
     'You mistake me,' I told him. 'It was not said in humour.'
     Davenport nodded. 'You may have something there, Mr Carter. You say
these plants pretend to have stored knowledge, the knowledge, you suspect,
of many different races.'
     'That's the impression I was given.'
     'Stored and correlated. Not just a jumble of data.'
     'Correlated, too,' I said. 'You must bear in mind that I cannot swear
to this. I have no way of knowing it is true. But their spokesman, Tupper,
assured me that they didn't lie...'
     'I know,' said Davenport. 'There is some logic in that. They wouldn't
need to lie.'
     'Except,' said the general, 'that they never did give back your fifteen
hundred dollars.'
     'No, they didn't,' I said.
     'After they said they would.'
     'Yes. They were emphatic on that point.'
     'Which means they lied. And they tricked you into bringing back what
you thought was a time machine.'
     'And,' Newcombe pointed out, 'they were very smooth about it.'
     'I don't think,' said the general, 'we can place a great deal of trust
in them.'
     'But look here,' protested Newcombe, 'we've gotten around to talking as
if we believed every word of it.'
     'Well,' said the senator, 'that was the idea, wasn't it? That we'd use
the information as a basis for discussion.'
     'For the moment,' said the general, 'we must presume the worst.'
     Davenport chuckled. 'What's so bad about it? For the first time in its
history, humanity may be about to meet another intelligence. If we go about
it right, we may find it to our benefit.'
     'But you can't know that,' said the general.
     'No, of course we can't. We haven't sufficient data. We must make
further contact.'
     'If they exist,' said Newcombe. 'If they exist,' Davenport agreed.
     'Gentlemen,' said the senator, 'we are losing sight of something. A
barrier does exist. It will let nothing living through it...'
     'We don't know that,' said Davenport. 'There was the instance of the
car. There would have been some micro-organisms in it. There would have had
to be. My guess is that the barrier is not against life as such, but against
sentience, against awareness. A thing that has awareness of itself...'
     'Well, anyhow,' said the senator, 'we have evidence that something very
strange has happened. We can't just shut our eyes. We must work with what we
have.'
     'All right, then,' said the general, 'let's get down to business. Is it
safe to assume that these things pose a threat?'
     I nodded. 'Perhaps. Under certain circumstances.'
     'And those circumstances?'
     'I don't know. There is no way of knowing how they think.'
     'But there's the potentiality of a threat?'
     'I think,' said Davenport, 'that we are placing too much stress upon
the matter of a threat. We should first...'
     'My first responsibility,' said the general, 'is consideration of a
potential danger...'
     'And if there were a danger?'
     'We could stop them,' said the general, 'if we moved fast enough. If we
moved before they'd taken in too much territory. We have a way to stop
them.'
     'All you military minds can think of,' Davenport said angrily, 'is the
employment of force. I'll agree with you that a thermonuclear explosion
could kill all the alien life that has gained access to the Earth, possibly
might even disrupt the time-phase barrier and close the Earth to our alien
friends...'
     'Friends!' the general wailed. 'You can't know...'
     'Of course I can't,' said Davenport. 'And you can't know that they are
enemies. We need more data; we need to make a further contact...'
     'And while you're getting your additional data, they'll have the time
to strengthen the barrier and move it...'
     'Some day,' said Davenport, angrier than ever, 'the human race will
have to find a solution to its problems that does not involve the use of
force. Now might be the time to start. You propose to bomb this village.
Aside from the moral issue of destroying several hundred innocent people...'
     'You forget,' 'said the general, speaking gruffly, 'that we'd be
balancing those several hundred lives against the safety of all the people
of the Earth. It would be no hasty action. It would be done only after some
deliberation. It would have to be a considered decision.'
     'The very fact that you can consider it,' said the biologist, 'is
enough to send a cold shiver down the spine of all humanity.' The general
shook his head. 'It's my duty to consider distasteful things like this. Even
considering the moral issue involved, in the case of necessity I would...'
     'Gentlemen,' the senator protested weakly.
     The general looked at me. I am afraid they had forgotten I was there.
     'I'm sorry, sir,' the general said to me. 'I should not have spoken in
this manner.'
     I nodded dumbly. I couldn't have said a word if I'd been paid a million
dollars for it. I was all knotted up inside and I was afraid to move.
     I had not been expecting anything like this, although now that it had
come, I knew I should have been. I should have known what the world reaction
would be and if I had failed to know, all I had to do would have been to
remember what Stiffy Grant had told me as he lay on the kitchen floor.
     They'll want to use the bomb, he'd said. Don't let them use the bomb...
     Newcombe stared at me coldly. His eyes stabbed out at me.
     'I trust,' he said, 'that you'll not repeat what you have heard.'
     'We have to trust you, boy,' said the senator.'You hold us in your
hands.'
     I managed to laugh. I suppose that it came out as an ugly laugh. 'Why
should I say anything?' I asked. 'We're sitting ducks. There would be no
point in saying anything. We couldn't get away.'
     For a moment I thought wryly that perhaps the barrier would protect us
even from a bomb Then I saw how wrong I was. The barrier concerned itself
with nothing except life - or, if Davenport were right (and he probably was)
only with a life that was aware of its own existence. They had tried to
dynamite the barrier and it had been as if there had been no barrier. The
barrier had offered no resistance to the explosion and therefore had not
been affected by it.
     From the general's viewpoint, the bomb might be the answer. It would
kill all life; it was an application of the conclusion Alf Peterson had
arrived at on the question of how one killed a noxious plant that had great
adaptability. A nuclear explosion might have no effect upon the time-phase
mechanism, but it would kill all life and would so irradiate and poison the
area that for a long, long time the aliens would be unable to re-occupy it.
     'I hope,' I said to the general, 'you'll be as considerate as you're
asking me to be. If you find you have to do it, you'll make no prior
announcement.'
     The general nodded, thin-lipped.
     'I'd hate to think,' I said, 'what would happen in this village...'
     The senator broke in. 'Don't worry about it now. It's just one of many
alternatives. For the time we'll not even consider it. Our friend, the
general, spoke a little out of turn.'
     'At least,' the general said, 'I am being honest. I wasn't
pussy-footing. I wasn't playing games.'
     He seemed to be saying that the others were.
     'There is one thing you must realize,' I told them. 'This can't be any
cloak-and-dagger operation. You have to do it honestly - whatever you may
do. There are certain minds the Flowers can read. There are minds, perhaps
many minds; they are in contact with at this very moment. The owners of
those minds don't know it and there is no way we can know to whom those
minds belong. Perhaps to one of you. There is an excellent chance the
Flowers will know, at all times, exactly what is being planned.'
     I could see that they had not thought of that. I had told them, of
course, in the telling of my story, but it hadn't registered. There was so
much that it took a man a long time to get it straightened out.
     'Who are those people down there by the cars?' asked Newcombe.
     I turned and looked.
     Half the village probably was there. They had come out to watch. And
one couldn't blame them, I told myself. They had a right to be concerned;
they had the right to watch. This was their life. Perhaps a lot of them
didn't trust me, not after what Hiram and Tom had been saying about me, and
here I was, out here, sitting on a chair in the middle of the road, talking
with the men from Washington. Perhaps they felt shut out. Perhaps they felt
they should be sitting in a meeting such as this.
     I turned back to the four across the bather.
     'Here's a thing,' I told them, urgently, 'that you can't afford to
mull. If we do, we'll fail all the other chances as they come along...'
     'Chances?' asked the senator.
     'This is our first chance to make contact with another race. It won't
be the last. When man goes into space...'
     'But we aren't out in space,' said Newcombe.
     I knew then that there was no use. I'd expected too much of the men in
my living-room and I'd expected too much of these men out here on the road.
     They would fail. We would always fail. We weren't built to do anything
but fail. We had the wrong kind of motives and we couldn't change them. We
had a built-in short-sightedness and an inherent selfishness and a
self-concern that made it impossible to step out of the little human rut we
travelled.
     Although, I thought, perhaps the human race was not alone in this.
Perhaps this alien race we faced, perhaps any alien race, travelled a rut
that was as deep and narrow as the human rut. Perhaps the aliens would be as
arbitrary and as unbending and as blind as was the human race.
     I made a gesture of resignation, but I doubt that they ever saw it. All
of them were looking beyond me, staring down the road.
     I twisted around and there, halfway up the road, halfway between the
barrier and the traffic snarl, marched all those people who had been out
there waiting. They came on silently and with great deliberation and
determination. They looked like the march of doom, bearing down upon us.
     'What do they want, do you suppose?' the senator asked, rather
nervously.
     George Walker, who ran the Red Owl butcher department, was in the
forefront of the crowd, and walking just behind him was Butch Ormsby, the
service station operator, and Charley Hutton of the Happy Hollow. Daniel
Willoughby was there, too, looking somewhat uncomfortable, for Daniel wasn't
the kind of man who enjoyed being with a mob. Higgy wasn't there and neither
was Hiram, but Tom Preston was. I looked for Sherwood, thinking it unlikely
that he would be there.
     And I was right; he wasn't. But there were a lot of others, people I
knew. Their faces all wore a hard and determined look.
     I stepped off to one side, clear of the road, and the crowd tramped
past me, paying no attention.
     'Senator,' said George Walker in a voice that was louder than seemed
necessary. 'You are the senator, ain't you?'
     'Yes,' said the senator. 'What can I do for you?'
     'That,' said Walker, 'is what we're here to find out. We are a
delegation, sort of.'
     'I see,' said the senator.
     'We got trouble,' said George Walker, 'and all of us are taxpayers and
we got a right to get some he