Wine of the Dreamers (21 page)

“Let us check and see the possible results, if Walter Howard Path is permitted to use the power of the press, radio and video to spread this new yarn of his. Dr. Bard Lane will, in the minds of fools, be acquitted of mismanagement, negligence and preoccupation with pretty Sharan instead of his job. Sharan Inly will become the high priestess of the new cult, and probably do very well indeed, financially. Dr. Heintz Lurdorff will get some publicity to trade on. William Kornal will be able to say, ‘See? I didn’t do it. Them Martians did it.’

“And how about Walter Howard Path? Priceless publicity on a story none of the rest of us would touch. Here is his master touch, though. He says that two of the alien people who grab us and make us do tricks are coming here in person, on a space ship, for goodness sake! A couple. Brother and sister. Raul and Leesa Kinson. Your Wilkins’ Mead reporter wonders how long it took our Mr. Path to think up those names. Ever play anagrams? Take that name. Leesa Kinson. Use the letters in it. You can make two words. ‘No sense.’ With four letters left over, a-l-k-i, a practically prehistoric slang word for alcohol. How long is Walter Howard Path going to feed us delusions
out of the bottom of a bottle? How brazen can his hoaxes become?

“Your Wilkins’ Mead reporter leaves you with this one thought. How can a responsible video network or a responsible publisher give house room to an irresponsible man like Walter Howard Path and still claim to function in the public interest?”

“From the wires of the Associated Press. Yesterday morning one person was killed and three injured in a riot at Benson, Georgia. The clash was between the new cult which spends hours on hilltops watching for Walter Howard Path’s mythical spaceships, and a detachment of the Georgia State Police. The new cult calls itself Kinsonians.”

Excerpt from an address given at the annual dinner of the American Medical Association: “It is not altogether strange that the mass hallucination of the late nineteen forties involving ‘flying saucers’ should now be duplicated by a similar mass hallucination involving ‘space ships.’ Even the most cursory study of the history of mass hysteria shows clearly a cyclical pattern, with the outbreaks averaging twenty to forty years between peaks of intensity. At the latest count the ‘space ship’ which we are to play host to, according to the Kinsonians, has been reported landing at twenty-six different places. It is no accident that the locations of the ‘landings’ correlate most amusingly with the activity of the Kinsonian groups in those places.”

P
OLICY
D
IRECTIVE
7112 P
UBLIC
R
ELATIONS
S
ECTION
, A
RMED
F
ORCES

1. As there is no desire to give special attention to unfounded charges regarding Project Tempo through any formal statement in rebuttal, all personnel are directed to refrain from commenting to representatives of the press.

2. All military personnel directly connected with Project Tempo have been given changes of station
to take them immediately outside the continental limits of the United States to new posts where the possibility of such interviews is lessened.

3. Official position on this matter, to be announced later, is that in the light of current world tension it is of dubious value to the national effort that mass hysteria should be whipped to such a peak that industrial absenteeism is at an unprecedented rate.

4. All officers and EM who profess publicly any degree of belief in Kinsonianism and, when warned, shall persist in such belief, will be considered unfit for duty.

“And now, ladies and gentlemen of the vidio audience, we bring you that lint-headed wonder of the stratosphere, that little man who
didn’t
arrive in a space ship, that Yum-Bubble (Chew it, it’s good for you) comic, Willy Wise! Hey, Willy! What’s the matter, Willy? The cameras are over here, not up there on the ceiling.”

“Don’t bother me, Harry. I’m watching for that space ship. You want to make a million bucks, Harry?”

“That’s the difference between you and me, Willy. I need a million bucks.”

“Get another laugh and you’ll need a job. Know what we ought to do? Put out some gunk to rub on your neck. I bet there are more cricks in more necks in this country than there are neckties.”

“Willy, please look at the cameras. You’ve got a guest tonight. It’s a she.”

“Somebody else can watch for that ship. Hello, honey. What’s your name?”

“Sharan Riley, Mr. Wise.”

“Nice name, Sharan. I played Sharon, Pennsylvania, once. I killed ’em in Sharon. You got an aunt or a half sister or something named Sharan Inly?”

“Gee, no. She’s famous.”

“Say, I just got a theory, folks. How about this? You
ever see a good picture of that Sharan Inly? Here’s how it all happened. She meets up with that Lane guy, see. She likes him. She wraps those lovely arms around his neck and … Bingo! Ever since that moment, folks, Dr. Lane has been seeing space ships, Martians and little green men. Who can blame the guy? Up until that point he probably never had his nose out of a Bunsen burner, or whatever they use in those labs.”

“Today in Albany, at the request of Governor LePage, a bill was rushed through the state legislature making it illegal for anyone to make public speeches in favor of Kinsonianism. Critics claim that the bill is an infringement of the right of free speech. The governor defended his action on the grounds that the State of New York is suffering a curtailment of the supply of food, power and other necessary items, arising from the absenteeism of the Kinsonians. The governor claims that the Kinsonians seem to feel that the arrival of the alien space ship will somehow be synonymous with the end of the world. Other states will await, with interest, the decision of the courts on the legality of the new measure.”

SIXTEEN

The Sunday dusk slowly darkened the street. Bard Lane turned from the window. The one suite had grown to two connecting suites. Bess Reilly had been found, and it did not take much encouragement to bring her back to work for Dr. Lane.

The phone on her desk rang constantly. Sharan and Lurdorff, using the octagonal cards, played quad-bridge on a lamp table. Kornal lay on the couch, his fingers laced over his stomach, peacefully asleep.

“What’s the matter with them?” Bard demanded. “They
stand down there in the street and just stare up at the windows!”

Heintz Lurdorff grinned. “You must aggustom yourself to being the high briest of what is bractically a new religion.”

“It makes me nervous,” Bard said. “And those phone calls make me nervous. That woman who called up this afternoon and called me the Anti-Christ. What was she talking about?”

“You are either the most honored or most detested man in America, Bard,” Sharan said. “I’ll bid eleven spades, Heintz.”

“Always she geds all the gards,” Heintz said dolefully.

“Anyway,” Bard said. “We’re doing it. We’re doing what we set out to do. I almost hate to think of what will happen when and if that ship does set down. I don’t know why all this … took the public fancy so strongly. Do you know, Heintz?”

“Of gorse. Mangind has always wanted a whipping boy. You gave them one. They love it. That governor of Nevada, he has helped.”

“Investigating the senseless murder cases and pardoning people. I wonder.”

Kornal yawned as he awakened. He looked at his watch. “Nearly time for our favorite man, isn’t it?”

Bard turned on the video. The screen brightened at once. He turned off the sound while the commercial was on, then turned the dial up as Walter Howard Path’s announcer appeared on the screen.

“… regret to announce that Walter Howard Path will be unable to appear as usual. Mr. Path has suffered a breakdown due to overwork and has been given an indefinite leave of absence. This program is being taken over by Kinsey Hallmaster, distinguished reporter and journalist. Mr. Hallmaster.”

Mr. Hallmaster sat behind a vast desk and smiled importantly at the video audience. With his twinkling eyes and projecting front teeth he looked like a happy beaver.

“I am honored to be asked to take over this weekly
newscast. I am sorry, however, that Mr. Path cannot be with you as usual. He has my every hope for a speedy recovery.

“My first duty is to read you a statement prepared by Mr. Path.

“ ‘This is Walter Howard Path telling you that I have just received additional information regarding the space ship which has been alleged to—–’ ”

“Alleged!” Bard shouted angrily. The others shushed him.

“ ‘—–and these investigators, hired by me out of my own pocket, have brought me additional information which now leads me to believe that I, as well as many of the public, have been misled by Lane, Inly, Lurdorff and Kornal. I have before me the notarized statement, among other things, of a tavern owner which states that for a period of three weeks Dr. Lane, in a consistently drunken condition, gave speeches in his tavern regarding so-called mental visitations from space. I sincerely regret that I was taken in. There is no space ship. There are no Watchers. The alien brother and sister are figments of the overripe imaginations of Lane, Inly, Lurdorff and Kornal. I say to all of you who through an honest mistake have become Kinsonians, just mark it all up to the rather unusual gullibility of your reporter, Walter Howard Path.’ ”

Hallmaster put the document aside, folded his hands on the edge of the desk. “There you have it,” he said. “Mr. Path’s health was broken by the discovery that he had been misled. I have a few other words to say about this entire matter, however. From an official and informed source high in Washington, I have it on good authority that there is something far more sinister involved than the efforts of a little clique of greedy people to make money out of being in the public eye.

“We know, for an absolute fact, that Inly, Lane, Lurdorff and Kornal were … shall we say, financially embarrassed at a time two weeks before Mr. Path’s unfortunate backing of their wild tale. Now they are well enough off to spend money freely, living in expensive hotel suites,
employing stenographic help. This money did not come from Mr. Path. Where did it come from?

“Now bear with me a moment. Suppose this nation were to be attacked. Interceptor rockets would flash up at the first target. But suppose that in advance we as a nation had been led to expect the arrival of some mythical space ship. Maybe the Kinsons will arrive in twenty simultaneous space ships which land in twenty industrial cities. Maybe their point of origin will not be some far planet, but rather the heartland of Pan-Asia. What then?

“Need I go further?”

For a jolly moment he let the implications settle into the minds of the vast audience. “And now for the more serious side of the news. We find that—–”

Bard snapped off the set. The room was silent. The phone rang. Bess lifted it off the cradle and set it aside without answering it.

“That … low … dirty …”

“In five minutes,” Sharan said softly, “he destroyed the whole thing, everything we’ve done. Every last thing.”

“Maybe enough of them will still believe,” Kornal said.

“After that?” Heintz Lurdorff said with a mild, dignified contempt. “I think now I go. I am sorry. There is nothing more we can do.”

“The kiss of death, neatly administered,” Sharan said. “Kissed off by a Wilkins’ Mead culture. We need a new symbol. A monkey with six arms, like Vishnu, so he can simultaneously cover his eyes, ears and mouth.”

“Give him one more hand, honey, so he can hold his nose,” Kornal said.

After an hour on the phone, Bard Lane found out that Walter Howard Path was in a private sanitarium, committed by his wife, for an indefinite stay.

SEVENTEEN

As closely as Raul could estimate, it was ten days before the keening whine of a warning device startled them into immobility. They had been eating at the moment it sounded.

Leesa, startled, lost her grip on the wall railing and floated out beyond any chance of grasping it again. She writhed in the air, but could not appreciably change her position.

Raul calculated, pushed against the wall with his hand as he let go of the railing. As he passed Leesa he grasped her ankle and the two of them made one slow pinwheel in the air before touching the high railing on the opposite side of the cabin. He strapped her in, then made a slow shallow dive toward his own position. He arranged his own straps, slid forward into proper position, staring up at the panel.

Five long minutes passed before there was any change.

And then came an indescribable twisting. It was as though in one microsecond, vast hands had grasped him, turning as though wringing moisture from a bit of cloth, releasing him. Dimly he heard Leesa’s startled cry. His vision cleared at once and he saw that the value of the first dial had returned to zero. A softer bell-note sounded, and he guessed that it meant an end to the warning period. Adjusting the screen he looked at strange star patterns.

Days later, when the warning sound came again, they strapped themselves in. The second time jump was like the first, but easier to bear because it was expected.

For the third, one day later, they did not go to position. They waited near the rail, and as the twisting came, her fingernails dug into his arm. He watched the convulsed look fade from her face as they smiled at each other.

An hour later the warning sound was more shrill. Again they went to their positions. One twisting, wrenching sensation followed closely on the heels of the next. When at last he was able to look at the dials, he saw that all of them had returned to zero. With a weakened hand he adjusted the image screen.