Party Line Page 2

  'It's a two-way street,' said Thomas. They help us, we help them. They teach us, we teach them. It's a free interchange of information. And we're not being as altruistic as you think. It is our hope that as we go along with this economic business, we'll pick up some hints.'

  'What do you mean, some hints?'

  'Perhaps some indications of how we may be able to revise or modify our economic system.'

  'Thomas, we have spent five or six thousand years or more in working out that economic system.'

  'Which doesn't mean, senator, that it is letter perfect. We made mistakes along the way.'

  The senator grunted. This, I take it, will be another long-term project?'

  'All of our work, or the most of it, is long-term. Most of what we get is not readily or easily adapted to our use.'

  'I don't like the sound of it,' growled the senator. 'I don't much like anything I hear. I asked you for specifics.'

  'I've given you specifics. I could spend the rest of the day giving you specifics.'

  'You've been at this business for twenty-five years?'

  'On a job like this, twenty-five years is a short time.'

  'You tell me you're getting nowhere on FTL. You're piddling away your time teaching an economics course to some stupid jerks who are having a hard time knowing what you are talking about.'

  'We do what we can,' said Thomas.

  'It's not enough,' said the senator. The people are getting tired of seeing their taxes go into the project. They were never very much for it to start with. They were afraid of it. You could slip, you know, and give away our location.'

  'No one has ever asked for our location.'

  They might have ways of getting it, anyhow.'

  'Senator, that's an old bugaboo that should long ago have been laid to rest. No one is going to attack us. No one is going to invade us. By and large, these are intelligent, and I would suspect, honorable gentlemen with whom we're dealing. Even if they're not, what we have here would not be worth their time and effort. What we are dealing in is information. They want it from us, we want it from them. It's worth more than any other commodity that any of us may have.'

  'Now we're back to that again.'

  'But, dammit, senator, that's what it's all about.'

  'I hope you're not letting us be taken in by some sort of slicker out there.'

  That's a chance we have to take, but I doubt it very much. As director of this branch of the project, I've had the opportunity…'

  The senator cut him off. Til talk with you some other time.'

  'Any time,' said Thomas, as affably as he was able. Til look forward to it.'

  V

  They had gathered in the lounge, as was their daily custom, for a round of drinks before dinner.

  Jay Martin was telling about what had happened earlier in the day.

  'It shook me,' he said. 'Here was this voice, from far away…'

  'How did you know it was far away?' asked Thomas. 'Before they told you, that is.'

  'I can tell,' said Martin. 'You get so you can tell. There is a certain smell to distance.'

  He bent over quickly, reaching for a handkerchief, barely getting it up in time to muffle the explosive sneeze. Straightening, he mopped his face, wiped his streaming eyes.

  'Your allergy again.' said Mary Kay.

  Tm sorry,' he said. 'How in hell can a man pick up pollen out here in this desert? Nothing but sage and cactus.'

  'Maybe it's not pollen,' said Mary Kay. 'It could be mold. Or dandruff. Has anyone here got dandruff?'

  'You can't be allergic to human dandruff. It has to be cat dandruff,' said Jennie Sherman.

  'We haven't any cats here,' said Mary Kay, 'so it couldn't be cat dandruff. Are you sure about human dandruff, Jennie?'

  Tm sure,' said Jennie. 'I read it somewhere.'

  'Ever see a physician about it?' asked Thomas.

  Martin shook his head, still mopping at his eyes.

  'You should,' said Thomas. 'You could be given allergy tests. A battery of tests until they find what you're allergic to.'

  'Go ahead and tell us more,' said Richard Garner, 'about this guy who said the world was about to end.'

  'Not the world,' said Martin. 'The universe. He was just spreading the word. In a hurry to spread the word. As if they'd just found out. Like Chicken Little, yelling that the sky was falling. Talking for just a minute, then dropping out. I suppose going on to someone else. Trying to catch everyone he could. Sounded a little frantic. As if there was little time.'

  'Maybe it was a joke,' suggested Jennie.

  'I don't think so. It didn't sound like a joke. I don't think any of the people out there joke. If so, I've never heard of it. Maybe we're the only ones who have a sense of humor. Anyone here ever hear anything that sounded like a joke?'

  They shook their heads.

  The rest of you are halfway laughing at it,' said Mary Kay. 'I don't think it's funny at all. Here are these people out on the rim, trying all these years, for no one knows how many centuries, to understand the universe, then up pops someone and tells them the universe has run down and they, out at the edge of it, will be the first to go. Maybe they were very close to understanding. Maybe they needed only a few more years and now they haven't got the years.'

  'Would that be the way it would happen?' asked Hal Rawlins. 'Jay, you're the physicist. You'd be the one to know.'

  'I can't be certain, Hal. We don't know enough about the structure of the universe. There might be certain conditions that we are not aware of. Entropy presupposes a spreading out, so that the total energy of a thermodynamic system is so evenly distributed that there is no energy available for work. That's not the case here, of course. Out at the rim of the universe, maybe. The energy and matter out there would be old, have had more time. Or would it? God, I don't know. I'm talking about something no one knows about.'

  'But you finally contacted Einstein,' said Thomas.

  'Yes, he came in a little later.'

  'Anything?'

  'No, the same as ever. We both got tired after a time, I guess. And talked about something else.'

  'Is that the way it often goes?'

  'Every now and then. Today we talked about houses. Or I think it was houses. Near as I can make out, they live in some sort of bubble. Got the impression of huge webs with bubbles scattered through them. Do you suppose Einstein could be some sort of spider?'

  'Could be,' said Thomas.

  'What beats the hell out of me,' said Martin, 'is why Einstein sticks with me. He beats his brains out trying to tell me about FTL and I beat my brains out trying to understand what he's telling me and never getting it. I swear I'm not a great deal closer than I was to start with, but he doesn't give up on me. He just keeps boring in. What I can't figure is what he's getting out of it.'

  'Every once in a while I get the funny feeling,' said Garner, 'that maybe these aren't different people who are talking to us. Not a lot of different cultures, but a lot of different individuals, maybe different specialists, from the same society.'

  'I doubt that's true,' said Jennie Sherman. 'Mine has a personality. A real personality. And different, very different, from the personalities the rest of you talk about. This one of mine is obsessed with death…'

  'What a doleful subject,' said Rawlins. 'But I guess you've told us about him before. Talking about death all this time…'

  'It was depressing to start with,' said Jennie, 'but it's not any more. He's made a philosophy out of it. At times, he makes death sound almost beautiful.'

  'A decadent race,' said Garner.

  'It's not that at all. I thought so at first. But he's so joyful about it, so happy.'

  'Death, Jennie, is not a joyful or happy subject,' said Thomas. 'We've talked about this, you and I. Maybe you should put an end to it. Pick up someone else.'

  'I will if you say so, Paul. But I have a feeling that something will come out of it. Some new kind of understanding, a new philosophy, a new principle. You haven'
t looked at the data, have you?'

  Thomas shook his head.

  'I can't tell why I feel this way,' she said. 'But deep down, at the bottom of me, I do.'

  'For the moment,' said Thomas, 'that's good enough for me.'

  Rawlins said, 'Jay spoke of something that bugs me, too. What are they getting out of it? What are any of them getting out of it? We're giving them nothing.'

  'That's your guilt talking,' said Thomas. 'Perhaps it's something all of us are feeling. We must get rid of it. Wipe it from our minds. We feel intensely that we are beginners, that we're the new kid in the neighborhood. We are takers, not givers, although that's not entirely true. Dick has spent weeks trying to explain economics to his people.'

  Garner made a wry face. 'Trying is all I do. I try to reduce the basics to the lowest common denominator. Thoughts of one syllable. Each syllable said slowly. Printed in big type. And they don't seem to get it. As if the very idea of economics was completely alien to them. As if hearing it were somehow distasteful. How in the world could a civilization develop and have any continuity without an economic system? I can't envision it. With us, economics is our life blood. We'd be nothing without an economic system. We'd be in chaos.'

  'Maybe that's what they're in,' said Rawlins. 'Maybe chaos is a way of life for them. No rules, no regulations, nothing. Although even as I say it, that doesn't sound quite right. Such a situation would be beyond our understanding, as repugnant to us as our economics seem to be to them.'

  'We all have our blind spots,' said Thomas. 'We're beginning to find that out.'

  'It would help though, it would help a lot,' said Martin, 'if we could feel we'd done something for one or two of them. It would give us a feeling of status, of having paid our dues.'

  'We're new at it,' said Thomas. The time will come. How are you getting along with your robot, Hal?'

  'Damned if I know,' said Rawlins. 'I can't pin him down to anything. I can't get in a word. This robot, if it is a robot, if it's some sort of computer system — and for the life of me,

  I can't tell you why I think it is. But, anyhow, it is a non-stop talker. Information, most of it trivial, I suspect, just flows out of it. Never sticks to one thing. Talks about one thing, then goes chattering off to something entirely unrelated. As if it had a memory bank filled to the brim with data and trying, as rapidly as possible, to spew out all that information. When I pick up something that seems to have some promise to it, something that could be of more than usual interest, I try to break in to talk at greater length about it, to ask some questions. Most often I can't break in, occasionally there are times I can. But when I do this, he is impatient with me. He cuts off the discussion and goes back to his chatter. There are times when I get the impression that he's not talking to me alone, but to a lot of other people. I have the idea that when I am able to break in, he uses one circuit to talk with me directly while he goes on talking to all those others through other circuits.'

  Thomas put his empty glass on the table beside him, rose to his feet. 'The others are starting in for dinner,' he said. 'Shall we join them.'

  VI

  Robert Allen, the project psychiatrist, rotated the brandy snifter between his palms.

  'You sent word you wanted to see me, Paul. Has something come up?'

  'I don't think so,' Thomas said. 'Not anything I can put a finger on. Maybe just a bad day, that's all. Ben Russell was in to raise hell with me. Said we were holding back on him.'

  'He's always saying that.'

  'I know. He's probably catching heat himself. When he catches heat, he turns it back on me. A feedback mechanism. A defensive gesture. He was upset that we'd not passed FTL data on to him.'

  'Have we got anything to pass?-'

  'Just a lot of nothing. Some meaningless equations. I don't see how Jay stands up under it. He picked up that allergy of his again.'

  'Tension,' said Allen. 'Frustration. That could bring it on.'

  'Later in the day,' said Thomas, 'Brown phoned.'

  The senator?'

  'The senator. It was FTL again. He was all over me. The budget's coming up again.'

  'Faster-than-light is something that the administrative mind can understand,' said Allen. 'Hardware.'

  'Bob, I'm not too sure it's hardware. It could be something else. Jay's an astrophysicist. If it was plain physics, he would have it pegged.'

  'Maybe there are many kinds of physics.'

  'I don't think so. Physics should be basic. The same throughout the universe.'

  'You can be sure of that?'

  'No, I can't be sure of that. But my logic rejects…'

  'Paul, you're over-reacting. If I were you, I'd disregard this sudden flurry over FTL. It's something that comes periodically and then dies down again.'

  'I can't disregard it,' said Thomas. 'Not this time. Brown's out to get us. His power base is slipping and he needs a new issue. We would make a good issue. Here we are, here we've been for a quarter century, gobbling up tax money that could be used for something else. That's the kind of issue the people would accept. They definitely are not with us; they have a feeling that we were crammed down their throats. They were never with us. Not only do we cost a lot, but we pose threats. What if we gave away our location, so that some barbaric, bloodthirsty alien horde could come crashing in on us? What if we find out something that would upset the apple-cart, wrecking a lot of our time-honored, comfortable concepts?'

  'You mean he'd destroy us just to get elected?'

  'Bob, you don't know politics. I am sure he would. Even if he believed in us, he might. I have a feeling that he doesn't believe in us. If he destroyed us, he'd be a public hero. We have to do something, come up with something in the next few months or he'll have a go at us.'

  'We have support,' said Allen. There are people in authority, in positions of power, who are committed to the project. Good people, reasonable people.'

  'Good and reasonable people don't have too much chance when they come up against a demagogue. The only way to beat Brown, if he decides to make us an issue, is to pile up some points we can make with the public.'

  'How can I help you, Paul?'

  'Honestly, I don't know. A psychiatrist as a political adviser? No, I guess not. I suppose I only wanted to unload on you.'

  'Paul, you didn't ask me in to talk about FTL. That's an administrative matter. You can handle it. Nor about the politics of the project. You know I'm a child in politics. There is something else.'

  Thomas frowned. 'It's hard to tell you. Hard to put into words. I'm beginning to sense something that disturbs me. Nothing concrete. Fuzzy, in fact. Tonight Jennie — you know Jennie?'

  'Yes, the little car-hop we picked up a few years ago. Nice girl. Smart.'

  Tonight Jennie was talking about her people. They talk about death, she said. I knew it, of course. She'd been in a couple of times to talk with me about it. Depressed. Perhaps even frightened. After all, death can be a grisly subject. She had wanted to drop these people, try to pick up someone else. I urged her to hang in there a little longer. Never can tell what will happen, I told her. Tonight, when I suggested that she should drop it, she opposed me. Let me stay a while longer, she said, some worthwhile philosophy might develop out of it. I think there was something she wasn't telling me, something she is holding back.'

  'Maybe the discussion has advanced beyond death,' said Allen. 'Maybe it's getting into what happens after death — if anything happens after death.'

  Thomas looked in amazement at the psychiatrist. 'My thought, exactly. With one qualification. If nothing happens after death, she'd be more depressed than ever. Her interest must mean that these folks do believe something happens. They may even have proof of it. Not faith, not a religious conviction. Jennie's a hard-headed little piece. She'd not buy simple faith. It would have to be more than that.'

  'You could pull the data. Have a look at it.'

  'No, I can't. Not yet. She'd know. I'd be snooping on her private project. My operators
are fiercely jealous of what they are putting into their data banks. I have to give her time. She'll let me know when it's time to have a look.'

  'We must always keep in mind,' said Allen, 'that more than words, more than thoughts and ideas, come through from the aliens. Other things are transmitted. Things the operators hear but that can't be put into the banks. Fears, hopes, perceptions, residual memories, philosophical positions, moral evaluations, hungers, sorrow…'

  T know,' said Thomas, 'and none of it gets into the banks. It would be easier in one way if it did, perhaps more confusing in another.'

  'Paul, I know how easy it must be for someone in your position to become overly concerned, overwhelmed with worry, perhaps, even at times doubtful of the wisdom of the project. But you must remember, we've been at it only a little more than twenty years. We've done well in that short space of time…'

  The project,' said Thomas, 'really started about a hundred years ago. With that old gentleman who was convinced he was talking with the stars. What was his name? Do you recall it?'

  'George White. The last years of his life must have been a nightmare. The government took him over, ran him through all sorts of tests. They never let him be. I suspect he might have been happier if everyone had continued not believing him. They pampered him of course. That might have, in some measure, made it up to him. We still pamper our telepaths. Giving them a luxurious residential compound, with country club overtones, and…'

  They have it coming to them,' snapped Thomas. 'They are all we have. They're our one great hope. Sure, we've made strides. Progress if you want to call it that. The world existing in a sort of loose confederation; wars a thing of the past. Colonies and industries in space. A start made on terraforming Mars and Venus. One largely abortive voyage to the nearest stars. But we have our problems. Despite expansion into space, our economy still is kicked all out of shape. We continually ride on the edge of economic disaster. Our disadvantaged are still stockpiled against that day, that probably will never come, when we will be able to do something for them. The development of synthetic molecules would give us a boost if R&D would get cracking on it instead of moaning about not having FTL. I have some hopes that Garner may get some feedback from the aliens he is trying to teach economics to, but nothing yet, maybe nothing ever. It's the only economics show we have going. I had hoped others might come up, but they haven't. The hell of it is that so much of what we have going is producing so little. Much of it is seemingly off on the wrong track. Yet you can't junk all this stuff and start grabbing out frantically for something else. Mary Kay, for example. She has found something that might be big, but she's so hooked on it that she can't look for answers. When she tries, there are no answers. No idea communications at all, apparently. Just this feeling of euphoria. Worthless as it stands, but we can't pass it by. We have to keep on trying. There may be something there that is worth waiting for.'