Collected Short Fiction, page 190
“As a tearful old medicine man once said to Carl Jung,” White said, as if he were remembering, “we might find ourselves without dreams.”
“We are not so naive,” MacDonald said. “We know that there are other intelligent beings in the universe; we know that they will be different from us and at least some of us hunger for the exchange. Our dreams are of spaceflight and alien contact—an entire literature has developed it, and our myths reinforce it with their flying saucers and visitations. We have been listening now for fifty years and people are prepared to hear something. They are psychologically ready for contact. Now they know we have been contacted. They have heard the voices and they have seen one version of the message—”
John opened the door again. “More information coming in, Mr. President.”
MacDonald looked at White. White nodded and MacDonald pressed a button.
The first scene showed police battling a mob outside the Solitarian Temple. Stains could be seen on the streets when the conflict swirled an opening into view. Bodies could be seen, too, and some of the bodies wore uniforms. Men and women were streaming out of the cathedral, trying to get through the battle—or join it.
MacDonald turned up the sound. The conflict rumbled like distant thunder.
The second scene revealed a smaller mob in the street in front of a neo-classical building; around it, like a moat, a reflecting pool kept the mob at a distance. But there were shouts in a language other than English and raised fists.
The third, fourth and fifth scenes were similar—the only variations were the architectural styles of the buildings, the color and dress of the mob and the language of the shouts.
The sixth scene showed a group of people, men, women, and children, gathered on a dark hilltop around a man in dark robes. They were looking up at the stars in silence.
The seventh scene revealed something fleshy, bloody and visceral spread out on pavement like an abstract painting. The view tilted up the side of the building until it reached the distant concrete peak.
The eighth scene showed ambulances pulling up to a hospital emergency entrance.
The ninth scene was a morgue.
The tenth scene revealed an impenetrable traffic snarl as cars and copters tried to leave a city.
What would John be like in the kind of world White knew, the kind of world that existed out there? John had not been exposed to mob passions, violence, ignorance and prejudice. White had wanted to spare his son the kind of hurt that he had felt, the kind of bitterness that even now twisted his guts in secret sorrow. His actions had not been a kindness, but rather a mistaken sentimentality that was now turning on him. Even the basic political facts, the kinds of bargaining and trades that politics forced on a man, he had shielded John from; he had not wanted his son to be touched by that kind of pitch. Or was it that he did not want his son to know what made his father’s skin black?
To be black—and without a son?
“THEY don’t understand,” MacDonald said. “They’re reacting out of fear.”
White took a deep breath. It was a habit when he was forced to make a decision, as if he could draw in the situation and force it down to where his decisions were made. Soon he would have to make a statement, commit himself in a way he could never review, unleash forces he could never recall.
“It seems,” he said quietly, “like the start of something—religious riots, perhaps, even a religious war—or the end of something.”
“People are reacting to lack of information,” MacDonald said. “Let us communicate with them. People are uncertain. An official announcement and a planned campaign of information about the Project and the message and the answer—”
“Might ease the fears,” White said, “or reinforce them.”
“The fears are not logical. Facts will dispel them. The Capellans cannot come here. Matter transmission is fantasy and we cannot imagine any kind of propulsion system that could enable any life form even to approach the speed of light.”
“What we cannot imagine,” White said, “has had a habit of coming true the last few centuries. And what was considered impossible by one generation became the next generation’s commonplace. Tell me—why do you insist on replying to this message? Isn’t it enough that your search has been successful, that you have demonstrated the existence of intelligent life in the universe?”
“I could give you rationalizations,” MacDonald said. “There are many good reasons—I have given you the most important one: communication between aliens could result in incalculable benefits to both—but behind all the rationalizations, as you suspect, is the personal motivation. I will be dead before our answer can reach Capella but I want my efforts to be rewarded, my convictions to be proved correct, my life to have been meaningful. Just as you do.”
“We come down to fundamentals at last,” White said.
“Always. I wish to leave a legacy to my son and to the world. I’m not a poet, a prophet, an artist, a builder, a statesman or a philanthropist. All I can leave is an open door. An open line to the universe, hope, the prospect of something new—”
“We all want that,” White said.
“Not all of us,” MacDonald said. “Some of us wish to pass on our hatreds, our battles—not something new but something old. I want to give my children the future, not the past. The past is not irrelevant, but we can’t live there. Believe me: once the answer is sent, peace will come to the world.”
“Why then?”
“For one thing, it will be done, over. The people who are quarreling now will realize that they are human beings—that the real differences lie out there. That if we can communicate with unearthly life forms—why shouldn’t we communicate with each other across mere language and cultural barriers—”
John said, “The Chinese Ambassador is calling, Mr. President,” and White realized that he had been so involved in MacDonald’s argument that he had not noticed the door’s opening.
“I don’t have my translator with me,” he said.
“Don’t worry,” MacDonald said. “The computer will take care of it.”
AFTER White and MacDonald had changed places White found himself behind MacDonald’s desk, staring into the window. The Chinese face above the colorful tunic said, in English, with almost exact lip synchronization, “Mr. President, my country respectfully requests that you control the disturbances within your borders, and that you cease the provocative news announcements threatening the peace of friendly nations.”
“You may tell your premier,” White said carefully, “that we regret these disturbances more than anyone, that we hope to bring them under control soon and that we have no mechanism for controlling news announcements, as he has.”
The sleek Chinese head nodded politely. “My country also requests that you make no answer to the message you have received from Capella, now or in the future.”
“Thank you, Mr. Ambassador,” White said politely, but before he could turn to MacDonald the Chinese face was replaced by a Russian.
“The Russian Ambassador,” John said.
“The Soviet Union is greatly disturbed by the suppression of this message,” the Russian said brusquely. “We wish you to know that we, too, have received the message and are composing a reply to it. We will announce this shortly.”
And the window was empty and shimmering.
“No more,” White said. The window winked out. He put his hands on the desk. It was a good, solid working surface, not a ceremonial piece of furniture like his desk in the White House, and he felt as if he could work here. Here, seated in MacDonald’s chair, looking at MacDonald, he felt as if their roles had been reversed, as if he were in charge here.
“I think you knew about the Russians and the Chinese,” White said.
“The fraternity of science is closer than the fraternity of birthplace or commonmother tongue.”
“How did they learn about the message?”
MacDonald spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Too many people knew about it. If I had suspected that we would not be permitted to release the information as a matter of course, that there would be any question about our replying, I would not have assembled my people for our moment of triumph. But once the word was out the information could not be entirely suppressed. We were not a secret project. We were a scientific laboratory committed to sharing our findings with the world. Why, we even have some Chinese and Russian exchange scientists working with us. At this late date—”
“Nobody thought you would succeed,” White said.
MacDonald looked at White in surprise. It was the first time White had seen MacDonald surprised at anything.
“Then why did you fund us?” MacDonald asked.
“I don’t know why the Project was started,” White said. “I haven’t looked up its historical origins and perhaps the real answer isn’t there, anyway. But I suspect that the answer is much the same as our rationalization over the past few years: it was something scientists wanted to do and nobody saw any harm in it. After all, we live in the age of welfare.”
“Public welfare,” MacDonald corrected.
“Welfare of all kinds,” White said. “This nation—and other nations, some of them before us, some of them after us—set out on a conscious policy of eliminating poverty and injustice.”
“The function of government is ‘to promote the general welfare,’ ” MacDonald said.
“It is also a deliberate policy. Poverty and injustice are evils, but they are endurable evils in a world where other problems are greater. They are not endurable in a complex, technological society where cooperation is essential, where violence and rioting can destroy a city, even civilization itself.”
“Of course.”
“So we turned ourselves around and set this nation to the task of eliminating poverty and injustice—and we have done it. We have established a stable social system where everyone has a guaranteed annual income and can do pretty much what he pleases except procreate without limit or harm others in other ways.”
MacDonald nodded. “That has been the great accomplishment of the past few decades—the welfare movement.”
“Except we don’t call it welfare any more,” White said. “It’s democracy, the system, the way things are, what people are entitled to. What makes you think that science is not part of the system?”
“It opens the door to change.”
“NOT if it is unsuccessful,” White said. “Or if it is successful in certain limited, predictable ways as in the space program. God knows we thought the Project was safe enough. Certainly it’s part of the welfare program, and the diversion of public funds to support it over the years has been a dole to the scientists to keep them busy and out of mischief. The important task of government, you see, is to keep conditions stable, to hold down disturbances and unrest, to maintain itself—and the best way to accomplish these ends is to give everybody the opportunity to do what he or she wants—except change things. Don’t tell me you haven’t suspected this all along, that you haven’t used it.”
“No,” MacDonald said—and then, “yes. I guess so. I knew that if we made difficulties it would be easier to get money. I guess I realized certain facts without facing them squarely. And now you want us to stop, just like that.”
“Not just like that,” White said kindly. “Wind it down. Pretend to be considering an answer. Keep searching for other messages. Set up another project somewhere—to do something. You’ve had experiences. Put your mind to it. You’ll know what to do.”
But the battle against injustice and poverty was not won, White knew. John thought it was—he thought he could be discharged from duty. But his attitude meant desertion. That was what White had called John: “Deserter.”
Welfare wasn’t enough. Too many blacks were satisfied with their guaranteed, annuals, were unwilling or afraid to compete for more. They had to be educated. They had to be led. They needed figures like himself to model themselves after, symbols such as John could be if he stayed in politics. Oh, there were other models—black scientists, black doctors, black artists, even some black members of the Project. But not yet enough—the percentages still said that inequality was a reality.
He had presided over the welfare state, but he hadn’t thought welfare would get John.
MacDonald was thoughtful as if he were weighing something deep inside himself.
Does he think in his hips like Teddy and me?
“I’ve spent my life in search of truth,” MacDonald said. “I can’t lie now.”
White sighed. “Then we’ll have to find someone who can.”
“It won’t work. The scientific community will act, when suppressed, the same way as any other minority.”
“We must have tranquility.”
“In a technological world,” MacDonald said, “change in inevitable. What you must have for tranquility is reasonable change, manageable change.”
“And the change the message brings is unmanageable, incalculable.”
“That’s because you have not allowed us to manage it—I don’t like that word—you haven’t let us communicate our reality to the people, explain it to them in such a way they see it as an adventure, as a promise, as a gift of understanding and awareness and information and insight yet to be delivered. Besides, how can you know what the world or this nation will need ninety years from now?”
“Ninety years?” White laughed shakily. “I think no farther ahead than the next election. What do ninety years have to do with any of this?”
“That is the length of time it will take an answer to reach Capella and for their reply to come to us,” MacDonald said. “Those ninety years are what I meant when I said I wanted to leave a legacy for my son—and his son. Why, by the time our answer reaches Capella you and I will be dead, Mr. President. Most of the people now alive will be dead; your son will be elderly and my son will be middle-aged. And by the time the response reaches us from Capella, virtually everyone now alive will be dead. What we do we do not for ourselves but for future generations. We bequeath you,” MacDonald said softly, “a message from the stars.”
“Ninety years,” White repeated. “What kind of communication is that?”
“As soon as people understand,” MacDonald said confidently, “the disturbances will disappear. Fear, anger, hatred, distrust—these don’t last. Tranquility can last—and tranquility will return—along with a vague sense of something pleasant that may happen in the indefinite future, like the promised land—not now, not tomorrow, but some time. And those who threaten the tranquility, from nation to individual, consciously threaten a definite future good—and will refrain.”
VI
WHITE looked around the bare room once more, small, simple place where a man had worked for twenty years and left few marks behind. Perhaps, he thought, MacDonald had left his mark elsewhere—on people, on ideas, on a project, on the stars—and he still felt that sense of unease in his hips that said No, this is wrong . . . and he felt sorry for everybody and hoped that his discomfort was not caused merely by the fact that he was not an intellectual, because he felt uncomfortable with ideas, because he could not think in terms of centuries.
“I can’t take the chance,” he said. “You will not send an answer. You will begin the dismantling of the Project. Can you do it?”
He stood up. The discussion was over.
MacDonald rose thoughtfully. “Is there nothing I can say to change your mind?”
White shook his head. “You have said it all. Believe me, you have done everything any man could do.”
“I know what kind of legacy I wish to leave my son,” MacDonald said. “What kind of legacy do you wish to leave yours?”
White looked at him sadly. “That’s unfair. I do what I must. Will you do what you must?”
MacDonald sighed. White saw the life go out of him and felt sad.
“Let me handle it my way,” MacDonald said. “We will continue to study the message, continue to riddle its meaning. Gradually I will shift the listening to other locations.”
“You want a chance to wait me out?” White said. “You hope for better luck with my successor?”
“Our time scale is different. The Project can wait.”
“You have in me,” White said, “someone who still believes in change. My successor will believe in none, and his successor will want to take conditions back.” He shrugged with regret and held out his hand to be shaken, protecting automatically the way he had learned to do in campaigning. “But perhaps your way is best. Keep hoping. Keep your Project going. Keep your men working. But do not—I will put this in writing immediately even though it has been recorded by your computer—do not send an answer. I have my own men on your project and they will have their instructions.”
MacDonald hesitated and then took White’s hand. “I’m sorry,” he said.
White didn’t know why MacDonald was sorry. Perhaps he was sorry that he had to preside over the betrayal of the Project. Perhaps he was sorry for a President who had to compromise himself and his country’s ideals. Perhaps he even mourned for the human race, for whom there would be no more messages from the stars. He might even feel unhappy for the Capellans who would receive no answer to their hopeful message.
“I never asked you,” White said, “what you would have answered if you had been permitted to send an answer.”
MacDonald reached past White and picked up the last sheet of paper of his desk. He handed it to White.
“It’s simple and obvious.” He paused, added: “Anticryptography. It’s not even very original. Bernard Oliver suggested something like this more than fifty years ago. It tries to tell the Capellans pretty much what they told us: who we are, where we live, what we call ourselves, how we breed, how we think.”
White looked at the paper.
“You’re holding it sideways,” MacDonald said. “We had to stretch it out the other way to keep the same grid dimensions.”
White turned the sheet of paper around and looked at it for several seconds. He began to laugh.
