Part 7

"No. But he's a good one--and the prospect of having him desert to the other side frightens me. He'll be forever grateful to me now. If I had fired him, he would've had half a dozen anti-Popeek articles in the _Citizen_ before the week was out. And they'd ruin us."

McLeod smiled appreciatively. "You handle your job well, Mr. Walton."

"I have to," Walton said. "The director of Popeek is paid to produce two or three miracles per hour. One gets used to it, after a while. Tell me about these aliens, Colonel McLeod."

McLeod swung a briefcase to Walton's desk and flipped the magneseal. He handed Walton a thick sheaf of glossy color photos.

"The first dozen or so are scenes of the planet," McLeod explained. "It's Procyon VIII--number eight out of sixteen, unless we missed a couple. We checked sixteen worlds in the system, anyway. Ten of 'em were methane giants; we didn't even bother to land. Two were ammonia supergiants, even less pleasant. Three small ones had no atmosphere at all worth speaking about, and were no more livable looking than Mercury. And the remaining one was the one we call New Earth. Take a look, sir."

Walton looked. The photos showed rolling hills covered with close-packed shrubbery, flowing rivers, a lovely sunrise. Several of the shots were of indigenous life--a wizened little four-handed monkey, a six-legged doglike thing, a toothy bird.

"Life runs to six limbs there," Walton observed. "But how livable can this place be? Unless your photos are sour, that grass is _blue_ ... and the water's peculiar looking, too. What sort of tests did you run?"

"It's the light, sir. Procyon's a double star; that faint companion gets up in the sky and does tricky things to the camera. That grass may look blue, but it's a chlorophyll-based photosynthesizer all the same. And the water's nothing but H_{2}O, even with that purple tinge."

Walton nodded. "How about the atmosphere?"

"We were breathing it for a week, and no trouble. It's pretty rich in oxygen--twenty-four percent. Gives you a bouncy feeling--just right for pioneers, I'd say."

"You've prepared a full report on this place, haven't you?"

"Of course. It's right here." McLeod started to reach for his briefcase.

"Not just yet," Walton said. "I want to go through the rest of these snapshots." He turned over one after another rapidly until he came to a photo that showed a strange blocky figure, four-armed, bright green in color. Its neckless head was encased in a sort of breathing mask fashioned from some transparent plastic. Three cold, brooding eyes peered outward.

"What's this?" Walton asked.

"Oh, that." McLeod attempted a cheerful grin. "That's a Dirnan. They live on Procyon IX, one of the ammonia-giant planets. They're the aliens who don't want us there."

XII

Walton stared at the photograph of the alien. There was intelligence there ... yes, intelligence and understanding, and perhaps even a sort of compassion.

He sighed. There were always qualifications, never unalloyed successes.

"Colonel McLeod, how long would it take your ship to return to the Procyon system?" he asked thoughtfully.

McLeod considered the question. "Hardly any time, sir. A few days, maybe. Why?"

"Just a wild idea. Tell me about your contact with these--ah--Dirnans."

"Well, sir, they landed after we'd spent more than a week surveying New Earth. There were six of them, and they had their translating widget with them. They told us who they were, and wanted to know who we were. We told them. They said they ran the Procyon system, and weren't of a mind to let any alien beings come barging in."

"Did they sound hostile?" Walton asked.

"Oh, no. Just businesslike. We were trespassing, and they asked us to get off. They were cold about it, but not angry."

"Fine," Walton said. "Look here, now. Do you think you could go back to their world as--well as an ambassador from Earth? Bring one of the Dirnans here for treaty talks, and such?"

"I suppose so," McLeod said hesitantly. "If it's necessary."

"It looks as if it may be. You had no luck in any of the other nearby systems?"

"No."

"Then Procyon VIII's our main hope. Tell your men we'll offer double pay for this cruise. And make it as fast as you know how."

"Hyperspace travel's practically instantaneous," McLeod said. "We spent most of our time cruising on standard ion drive from planet to planet. Maneuvering in the subspace manifold's a snap, though."

"Good. Snap it up, then. Back to Nairobi and clear out of there as soon as you're ready. Remember, it's urgent you bring one of the aliens here for treaty talks."

"I'll do my best," McLeod said.

* * * * *

Walton stared at the empty seat where McLeod had been, and tried to picture a green Dirnan sitting there, goggling at him with its three eyes.

He was beginning to feel like a juggler. Popeek activity proceeded on so many fronts at once that it quite dazzled him. And every hour there were new challenges to meet, new decisions to make.

At the moment, there were too many eggs and not enough baskets. Walton realized he was making the same mistake FitzMaugham had, that of carrying too much of the Popeek workings inside his skull. If anything happened to him, the operation would be fatally paralyzed, and it would be some time before the gears were meshing again.

He resolved to keep a journal, to record each day a full and mercilessly honest account of each of the many maneuvers in which he was engaged. He would begin with his private conflict with Fred and the interests Fred represented, follow through with the Lamarre-immortality episode, and include a detailed report on the problems of the subsidiary projects, New Earth and Lang's terraforming group.

That gave him another idea. Reaching for his voicewrite, he dictated a concise confidential memorandum instructing Assistant Administrator Eglin to outfit an investigatory mission immediately; purpose, to go to Venus and make contact with Lang. The terraforming group was nearly two weeks overdue in its scheduled report. He could not ignore them any longer.

The everlasting annunciator chimed, and Walton switched on the screen. It was Sellors, and from the look of abject terror on the man's face, Walton knew that something sticky had just transpired.

"What is it, Sellors? Any luck in tracing Lamarre?"

"None, sir," the security chief said. "But there's been another development, Mr. Walton. A most serious one. _Most_ serious."

Walton was ready to expect anything--a bulletin announcing the end of the universe, perhaps. "Well, tell me about it," he snapped impatiently.

Sellors seemed about ready to collapse with shame. He said hesitantly, "One of the communications technicians was making a routine check of the building's circuits, Mr. Walton. He found one trunk-line that didn't seem to belong where it was, so he checked up and found out that it had been newly installed."

"Well, what of it?"

"It was a spy pickup with its outlet in your office, sir," Sellors said, letting the words tumble out in one blur. "All the time you were talking this morning, someone was spying on you."

Walton grabbed the arms of his chair. "Are you telling me that your department was blind enough to let someone pipe a spy pickup right into this office?" he demanded. "Where did this outlet go? And is it cut off?"

"They cut it off as soon as they found it, sir. It went to a men's lavatory on the twenty-sixth floor."

"And how long was it in operation?"

"At least since last night, sir. Communications assures me that it couldn't possibly have been there before yesterday afternoon, since they ran a general check then and didn't see it."

Walton groaned. It was small comfort to know that he had had privacy up till last evening; if the wrong people had listened in on his conversation with McLeod, there would be serious trouble.

"All right, Sellors. This thing can't be your fault, but keep your eyes peeled in the future. And tell communications that my office is to be checked for such things twice a day from now on, at 0900 and at 1300."

"Yes, sir." Sellors looked tremendously relieved.

"And start interrogating the communications technicians. Find out who's responsible for that spy circuit, and hold him on security charges. And locate Lamarre!"

"I'll do my best, Mr. Walton."

While the screen was clearing, Walton jotted down a memorandum to himself: _investigate Sellors_. So far, as security chief, Sellors had allowed an assassin to reach FitzMaugham, allowed Prior to burst into Walton's old office, permitted Fred to masquerade as a doorsmith long enough to gain access to Walton's private files, and stood by blindly while Lee Percy tapped into Walton's private wire and some unidentified technician strung a spy pickup into the director's supposedly sacred office.

No security chief could have been as incompetent as all that. It had to be a planned campaign, directed from the outside.

He dialed Eglin.

"Olaf, you get my message about the Venus rescue mission okay?"

"Came through a few minutes ago. I'll have the specs drawn up by tonight."

"Devil with that," Walton said. "Drop everything and send that ship out _now_. I've got to know what Lang and his crew are up to, and I have to know right away. If we don't produce a livable Venus, or at least the possibility of one, in a couple of days, we'll be in for it on all sides."

"Why? What's up?"

"You'll see. Keep an eye on the telefax. I'll bet the next edition of _Citizen_ is going to be interesting."

* * * * *

It was.

The glossy sheets of the 1200 _Citizen_ extruded themselves from a million receivers in the New York area, but none of those million copies was as avidly pounced on as was Director Walton's. He had been hovering near the wall outlet for ten minutes, avidly awaiting the sheet's arrival.

And he was not disappointed.

The streamer headline ran:

_THINGS FROM SPACE NIX BIG POPEEK PLAN_

And under it in smaller type:

_Greenskinned Uglies Put Feet In Director Walton's Big Mouth_

He smiled grimly and went on to the story itself. Written in the best approved _Citizen_ journalese, it read:

_Fellow human beings, we've been suckered again. The_ Citizen _found out for sure this morning that the big surprise Popeek's Interim Director Walton yanked out of his hat last night has a hole in it._

_It's sure dope that there's a good planet up there in the sky for grabs. The way we hear it, it's just like earth only prettier, with trees and flowers (remember them?). Our man says the air there is nice and clean. This world sounds okay._

_But what Walton didn't know last night came home to roost today. Seems the folks on the next planet out there don't want any sloppy old Earthmen messing up their pasture--and so we ain't going to have any New Earth after all. Wish-washy Walton is a cinch to throw in the towel now._

_More dope in later editions. And check the edit page for extra info._

It was obvious, Walton thought, that the spy pickup which had been planted in his office had been a direct pipe line to the _Citizen_ news desk. They had taken his conversation with McLeod and carefully ground it down into the chatty, informal, colloquial style that made _Citizen_ the world's most heavily-subscribed telefax service.

He shuddered at what might have happened if they'd had their spy pickup installed a day earlier, and overheard Walton in the process of suppressing Lamarre's immortality serum. There would have been a lynch mob storming the Cullen Building ten minutes after the _Citizen_ hit the waves with its exposé.

Not that he was much better off now. He no longer had the advantage of secrecy to cloak his actions, and public officials who were compelled to conduct business in the harsh light of public scrutiny generally didn't hold their offices for long.

He turned the sheet over and searched for the editorial column, merely to confirm his expectations.

It was captioned in bold black:

_ARE WE PATSIES FOR GREENSKINS?_

And went on to say:

_Non-human beings have said "Whoa!" to our plans for opening up a new world in space. These aliens have put thumbs down on colonization of the New Earth discovered by Colonel Leslie McLeod._

_Aside from the question of why Popeek kept word of the McLeod expedition from the public so long, there is this to consider--will we take this lying down?_

_We've got to find space for us to live. New Earth is a good place. The answer to the trouble is easy: we take New Earth. If the greenskins don't like it, bounce 'em!_

_How about it? What do we do? Mr. Walton, we want to know. What goes?_

It was an open exhortation to interstellar warfare. Dispiritedly, Walton let the telefax sheets skitter to the floor, and made no move to pick them up.

War with the Dirnans? If _Citizen_ had its way, there would be. The telefax sheet would remorselessly stir the people up until the cry for war was unanimous.

_Well_, thought Walton callously, _a good war would reduce the population surplus. The idiots!_

* * * * *

He caught the afternoon newsblares. They were full of the _Citizen_ break, and one commentator made a point-blank demand that Walton either advocate war with the Dirnans or resign.

Not long afterward, UN delegate Ludwig called.

"Some hot action over here today," he told Walton. "After that _Citizen_ thing got out, a few of the Oriental delegates started howling for your scalp on sixteen different counts of bungling. What's going on, Walton?"

"Plenty of spy activity, for one thing. The main problem, though, is the nucleus of incompetent assistants surrounding me. I think I'm going to reduce the local population personally before the day is out. With a blunt instrument, preferably."

"Is there any truth in the _Citizen_ story?"

"Hell, yes!" Walton exclaimed. "For once, it's gospel! An enterprising telefax man rigged a private pipe line into my office last night and no one caught it until it was too late. Sure, those aliens are holding out. They don't want us coming in there."

Ludwig chewed at his lip. "You have any plans?"

"Dozens of them. Want some, cheap?" He laughed, a brittle, unamused laugh.

"Seriously, Roy. You ought to go on the air again and smooth this thing over. The people are yelling for war with these Dirnans, and half of us over here at the UN aren't even sure the damned creatures exist. Couldn't you fake it up a little?"

"No," Walton said. "There's been enough faking. I'm going on the air with the truth for a change! Better have all your delegates over there listening in, because their ears are in for an opening."

As soon as he was rid of Ludwig he called Lee Percy.

"That program on the conquest of space is almost ready to go," the public relations man informed him.

"Kill it. Have you seen the noon _Citizen_?"

"No; been too busy on the new program. Anything big?"

Walton chuckled. "Fairly big. The _Citizen_ just yanked the rug out from under everything. We'll probably be at war with Procyon IX by sundown. I want you to buy me air space on every medium for the 1900 spot tonight."

"Sure thing. What kind of speech you want us to cook up?"

"None at all," Walton said. "I'm going to speak off the cuff for a change. Just buy the time for me, and squeeze the budget for all it's worth."

XIII

The bright light of the video cameras flooded the room. Percy had done a good job; there was a representative from every network, every telefax, every blare of any sort at all. The media had been corralled. Walton's words would echo round the world.

He was seated behind his desk--seated, because he could shape his words more forcefully that way, and also because he was terribly tired. He smiled into the battery of cameras.

"Good evening," he said. "I'm Roy Walton, speaking to you from the offices of the Bureau of Population Equalization. I've been director of Popeek for a little less than a week, now, and I'd like to make a report--a progress report, so to speak.

"We of Popeek regard ourselves as holding a mandate from you, the people. After all, it was the world-wide referendum last year that enabled the United Nations to put us into business. And I want to tell you how the work of Popeek is going.

"Our aim is to provide breathing space for human beings. The world is vastly overcrowded, with its seven billion people. Popeek's job is to ease that overcrowdedness, to equalize the population masses of the world so that the empty portions of the globe are filled up and the extremely overcrowded places thinned out a little. But this is only part of our job--the short-range, temporary part. We're planning for the future here. We know we can't keep shifting population from place to place on Earth; it won't work forever. Eventually every square inch is going to be covered, and then where do we go?

"You know the answer. We go _out_. We reach for the stars. At present we have spaceships that can take us to the planets, but the planets aren't suitable for human life. All right, we'll _make_ them suitable! At this very moment a team of engineers is on Venus, in that hot, dry, formaldehyde atmosphere, struggling to turn Venus into a world fit for oxygen-breathing human beings. They'll do it, too--and when they're done with Venus they'll move on to Mars, to the Moon, perhaps to the big satellites of Jupiter and Saturn too. There'll be a day when the solar system will be habitable from Mercury to Pluto--we hope."

"But even that is short-range," Walton said pointedly. "There'll be a day--it may be a hundred years from now, or a thousand, or ten thousand--when the entire solar system will be as crowded with humanity as Earth is today. We have to plan for that day, too. It's the _lack_ of planning on the part of our ancestors that's made things so hard for us. We of Popeek don't want to repeat the tragic mistakes of the past.

"My predecessor, the late Director FitzMaugham, was aware of this problem. He succeeded in gathering a group of scientists and technicians who developed a super space drive, a faster-than-light ship that can travel to the stars virtually instantaneously, instead of taking years to make the trip as our present ships would.

"The ship was built and sent out on an exploratory mission. Director FitzMaugham chose to keep this fact a secret. He was afraid of arousing false hopes in case the expedition should be a failure.

"The expedition was _not_ a failure! Colonel Leslie McLeod and his men discovered a planet similar to Earth in the system of the star Procyon. I have seen photographs of New Earth, as they have named it, and I can tell you that it is a lovely planet ... and one that will be receptive to our pioneers."

Walton paused a moment before launching into the main subject of his talk.

"Unfortunately, there is a race of intelligent beings living on a neighboring planet of this world. Perhaps you have seen the misleading and inaccurate reports blared today to the effect that these people refuse to allow Earth to colonize in their system. Some of you have cried out for immediate war against these people, the Dirnans.

"I must confirm part of the story the telefax carried today: the Dirnans are definitely not anxious to have Earth set up a colony on a world adjoining theirs. We are strangers to them, and their reaction is understandable. After all, suppose a race of strange-looking creatures landed on Mars, and proceeded with wholesale colonization of our neighboring world? We'd be uneasy, to say the least.

"And so the Dirnans are uneasy. However, I've summoned a Dirnan ambassador--our first diplomatic contact with intelligent alien creatures!--and I hope he'll be on Earth shortly. I plan to convince him that we're peaceful, neighborly people, and that it will be to our mutual benefit to allow Earth colonization in the Procyon system.

"I'm going to need your help. If, while our alien guest is here, he discovers that some misguided Earthmen are demanding war with Dirna, he's certainly not going to think of us as particularly desirable neighbors to welcome with open arms. I want to stress the importance of this. Sure, we can go to war with Dirna for possession of Procyon VIII. But why spread wholesale destruction on two worlds when we can probably achieve our goal peacefully?

"That's all I have to say tonight, people of the world. I hope you'll think about what I've told you. Popeek works twenty-four hours a day in your behalf, but we need your full cooperation if we're going to achieve our aims and bring humanity to its full maturity. Thank you."

* * * * *

The floodlights winked out suddenly, leaving Walton momentarily blinded. When he opened his eyes again he saw the cameramen moving their bulky apparatus out of the office quickly and efficiently. The regular programs had returned to the channels--the vapid dancing and joke-making, the terror shows, the kaleidowhirls.

Now that it was over, now that the tension was broken, Walton experienced a moment of bitter disillusionment. He had had high hopes for his speech, but had he really put it over? He wasn't sure.

He glanced up. Lee Percy stood over him.

"Roy, can I say something?" Percy said diffidently.

"Go ahead," Walton said.

"I don't know how many millions I forked over to put you on the media tonight, but I know one thing--we threw a hell of a lot of money away."

Walton sighed wearily. "Why do you say that?"

"That speech of yours," Percy said, "was the speech of an amateur. You ought to let pros handle the big spiels, Roy."

"I thought you liked the impromptu thing I did when they mobbed that Herschelite. How come no go tonight?"

Percy shook his head. "The speech you made outside the building was different. It had emotion; it had punch! But tonight you didn't come across at all."

"No?"

"I'd put money behind it." Acidly Percy said, "You can't win the public opinion by being reasonable. You gave a nice smooth speech. Bland ... folksy. You laid everything on the line where they could see it."

"And that's wrong, is it?" Walton closed his eyes for a moment. "_Why?_"

"Because they won't listen! You gave them a sermon when you should have been punching at them! Sweet reason! You can't be _sweet_ if you want to sell your product to seven billion morons!"

"Is that all they are?" Walton asked. "Just morons?"

Percy chuckled. "In the long run, yes. Give them their daily bread and their one room to live in, and they won't give a damn what happens to the world. FitzMaugham sold them Popeek the way you'd sell a car without turbines. He hoodwinked them into buying something they hadn't thought about or wanted."

"They _needed_ Popeek, whether they wanted it or not. No one needs a car without turbines."

"Bad analogy, then," Percy said. "But it's true. They don't care a blast about Popeek, except where it affects them. If you'd told them that these aliens would kill them all if they didn't act nice, you'd have gotten across. But this sweetness and light business--oh, no, Roy. It just doesn't work."

"Is that all you have to tell me?" Walton asked.

"I guess so. I just wanted to show you where you had a big chance and muffed it. Where we could have helped you out if you'd let us. I don't want you to think I'm being rude or critical, Roy; I'm just trying to be helpful."

"Okay, Lee. Get out."

"Huh?"

"Go away. Go sell ice to the Eskimos. Leave me alone, yes?"

"If that's the way you want it. Hell, Roy, don't brood over it. We can still fix things up before that alien gets here. We can put the content of tonight's speech across so smoothly that they won't even know we're--"

"_Get out!_"

Percy skittered for the door. He paused and said, "You're all wrought up, Roy. You ought to take a pill or something for your nerves."

* * * * *

Well, he had his answer. An expert evaluation of the content and effect of his speech.