A Simple Truth (32 page)

The WSA authorities had not bargained for this level of adulation and it took a long time and a lot of patient exhortation to persuade people to disperse.

It was a very tired pair of adventurers that finally
and gratefully crawled into their beds
that night.  They had the
ir peace and quiet at long last,
peace and quiet that had been very well earned.

19
   
P
owerful
W
ords

"I've never seen you happier
,"
said Emma during one of their rare evenings together.

"Oh
,"
muttered Lincoln, deep in thought.

She put a hand on his arm and smiled.  "You're working harder tha
n you ever have, you're right at
the centre of this whole extraterrestrial business, you have about two hours off in three weeks, yet you're calm, completely unruffled, and loving every single minute.  Even now, you're sitting here but at the same time you're far away, making plans, considering courses of action and reviewing progress.  Well aren't you?"

Lincoln looked at his wife and felt completely transparent
.  "I'm sorry, it's just that..
."

"Don't apologise
,"
she interrupted, "I know how important all this work is and wouldn't have you give up or change any part of it.  I want you to know that I'm proud of the way you're handling things."

Lincoln laughed.  "I'm a lucky man to have a wife like you, and you're right, I am happy.  I never thought I'd be able to hold down a job with this sort of responsibility let alone enjoy it, but I really do feel in control, in tune with events, like a surfer riding a giant wave and in perfect ba
lance."  He laughed again, self-
conscious at his uncharacteristic egotism.

"Just ignore me, I'll probably drop a great clanger before long and have to resign in disgrace."

"Not you
,"
replied Emma confidently.

"Now tell me what's going on, I only know what I hear on the news, my friends expect better than that from the wife of 'Doctor Lincoln'."  She laid mock emphasis on his formal title, but it retained a hint of authenticity.  'Doctor Lincoln' was now indeed a household name.  In his few short months of limelight he had achieved world renown and respect.  He was a capable man, the right man for the job.

"What's going on
?"
he repeated, at a loss to know quite where to begin.  "The results are promising so far from the quarantine facility.  In the eight days that they've been back all the foreign micro-organisms have practically disappeared from the body tissues that they had entered.  They all seem to have been dealt with effectively by the body's own defences.  The communication link is working
well;
we've sent them practically all our recorded knowledge simply by transmitting the entire contents of most of our public information banks.  We don't know what they make of it really, they say they are receiving it all and storing it but for all we know they might be ignoring it.  They certainly aren't asking any questions and don't mention any of the material.

Unfortunately their knowledge is not available to us.  They answer direct questions and occasionally give a brief explanation of some matter or another, so although we're learning a lot, we're missing a lot more.  Another thing is the time, they don't seem to be able to spare the t
ime to spend long talking to us;
it's a bit disappointing.  Still, I suppose it's understandable, after all there isn't much knowledge they can gain from us.  To be honest I'm beginning to get the feeling that they're deliberately not giving us any information that we can directly use.  We know they consider we are already too technologically advanced so perhaps they are justified.  They are very diplomatic about it, but whenever anyone asks about their technological achievements for instance or about the fundamental nature underlying matter, energy, and life, they answer in such vague terms that we don't find out anything that we don't already know and often a good deal less than that.

We've set up a world-
wide question asking league
,"
he laughed as he thought about it
.
"
A
t first
people from
my own staff were asking the more obvious questions, but we were soon inundated with requests from others.  They come mainly from universities and research organisations, but we also get a lot from various religious groups, generally seeking confirmation of their own particular beliefs.  Ordinary individuals also send in questions, often about health problems, though we have had some useful ones from that source."  He laughed again
,
"
We
had a call from a shopkeeper in Iceland who asked for a baby Scout as a present for his granddaughter."

"Did you ask
?"
asked Emma, tongue-in-cheek.

"No, we thought it better not to pass that one on, we were afraid they might agree!
We soon set up a section to sort out the questions, to weed out the inadvisable ones and to reject duplicates, and to pass the residue on in order of priority and record the answers.  They are all published, but the popular press usually pick out the more interesting snippets for wider circulation.

"The major task now is not so much allocating priorities as checking whether the question has already been asked, perhaps in a slightly different way.  The question
section has
a computer sorting, indexing, and cross-checking queries that have escaped the preliminary manual sort.  Even with all that we are still disappointed with the results.  We don't admit it publicly of course but we are hoping for a lot more progress when the quarantine restrictions are over.  All the most intriguing points are still myster
ies, t
he artificial gravity, their ability to curve space and light to create the effect of a flat plane in a spherical shell, even things like the generation of light within the vessel.  They tell us what happens but not how it happens.  They don't appear to share or fully appreciate our longing to understand such things.  The only thing that really interests them is what happened to interfere with their manipulation of our ancestors."  He put back his head as he tried to think of any other matters that might be of interest.  At length he continued.

"Between the question and answer sessions we've been arranging interchange programmes for aliens and humans.  Groups of our scientists are being prepared to go aboard their craft to study their systems, their technology and way of life, and the
aliens
will come to earth in the form of Scouts under the direct control of the Guardians."

"That's something I can't understand
,"
said Emma, "we're told that while you are speaking to one of these Scouts it's actually one of the proper aliens that can hear you."

"That's right;
they use the Scouts as living robots, controlling them by an as yet unknown mechanism.  Their senses signal directly to the
Guardians
and they in turn control their actions and speech."

His wife still looked distrustful.  "Could they take over control of us in that way?"

"No, they have to have a brain capable of their special signal reception.  The Scouts have been developed specifically for that purpose."

Emma shuddered involuntarily.  "It still gives me the creeps.  I hope that's not what they mean by development, being able to control the poor creature they've interfered with."

"Don't worry, we did
consider that but dismissed it.  T
heir system is effective over only short distances in astronomical terms."

"But how do you know that they're telling the truth about the effective distance and so on?"

"Their communication system is limited by the speed of light like everything else, so long distance communication is impracticable, and long distance control is impossible."

"Perhaps their system travels faster than light
?"
countered his wife stubbornly.

"Believe me, nothing but nothing travels faster then light."

Emma still didn't like it.  S
he had a vivid imagination and Lincoln could see when it was beginning to run away on
a
frightening path.  He moved closer and put
his
arm
s
around her.

"Don'
t start allowing yourself to become
frightened over something that can't happen
,"
he advised gently.

"Oh you know me
,"
she responded, "my imagination can't resist a good horror story.  What will they do when they come to earth?"

"They want to research exactly what went wrong in their plans,
why our intellectual
and psychological development ca
me to be out of balance
.  They want to determine why we have evolved in the way w
e have.  A
pparently we are full of anomalies from their point of view.  In some respects we have made
considerable
progress, yet in other respects we are governed almost entirely by
prehistoric
instinct
s
.  They say that the growth in reasoni
ng power that we have achiev
ed should
only
have occurred
after
our prehistoric instincts had diminished
."

"But surely the conditions long ago meant that we had to become intelligent or die out, didn't they?"

"Yes, but it's a question of having just enough mental ability to survive.  We seem to have developed at a rapid pace without any obvious evolutionary need to do so.  It's something they will have to take up with our anthropological people.  It might give us some valuable insights into our own nature though." 

"How will they go about finding out these things?"

Lincoln was surprised by his wife's curiosity, she usually had only a passing interest in his work, but now she was really engrossed.  He decided that it was probably suspicion of the aliens' motives that lay behind it.

"That's something we don't know for certain.  They say they will investigate the earth's records, but precisely what they mean by that they don't seem able to express clearly in terms that we can understand.  Anyway, we'll have to wait and see."

Emma was silent for a few mome
nts.  "William
wants a window ceiling in his bedroom
,"
she sai
d at length,
"
h
e wants to see the stars and the visitors' ship when he's in bed, I said I'd speak to you about it."

That was more like
it;
she was back to normal again, concerned about things under her own direct control.  "I don't see why not
,"
he answered approvingly.

***************

"Don't blame me for all this fuss
,"
said Ranjit Khan in response to
Lincoln
's accusing look.  "I told the press to keep it simple."

"All right
,"
said Lincoln in resignation, "let's get it over with."

He detested any form of ceremony.  All he wanted was for Sharma to go back to his own people and Knight to resume his duties.  It was a relief of course that there had been no harmful effects from their visit to the alien vessel, but that had been known with practical certainty for several days.  He had known of course that it was hoping for too much to get away with so simple a release from quarantine.  But in his opinion this was going to the opposite extreme.

The press had devised and arranged a lavish celebration.  They had made so much of the release date that the public demanded something special.  Lincoln had hoped that he might be kept out of the formalities but as President of the WSA he was being drawn right into the centre.  A gigantic clock had been erected outside the building, not telling the right time, but counting off the seconds to mid
-
day, when the doors would be ceremoniously opened and the two heroes would step out into the open.  And who would open the doors?  Why Doctor Arthur Lincoln of course, and he had to make a speech or the public would be disappointed.  So at ten fifty he was on his reluctant way down to make the best of the situation.

About fifty thousand people were crowded all around.  Several speakers and screens had been erected so that no-one need miss any pa
r
t of the festivities.  The entertainment had been going on all morning.  Singers, dancers,
gymnasts
and
comedians
had been brought in, and their efforts were well appreciated.

When Lincoln stepped onto the makeshift platform a great cheer went up from the crowd.  No matter how unnecessary the whole thing seemed to him he could not help feeling very moved by such a direct display of approval.  In spite of himself he was becoming enthusiastic and would do his best to give the public what they wanted and expected.