Clifford Simak - Out of Their Minds

He flicked his tail ferociously to emphasize his words.

I looked quickly around the room to check my first impressions and I saw that they'd been right. Here we were, in the midst of a cabinet meeting—perhaps something more than a cabinet meeting, for there were others there, the director of the FBI, the head of the CIA, a sprinkling of high military brass, and a number of grim-faced men I did not recognize. Along a wall a group of very solemn and apparently learned men sat stiffly on a row of chairs.

Boy, I thought, we have done it now!

"Horton," said the Secretary of State, speaking gently to me, not flustered (he was never flustered), "what are you doing here? The last I knew of you, you were on a leave of absence."

"I took the leave," I said. "It seems it didn't last very long."

"You heard about Phil, of course."

"Yes, I heard of Phil."

The general was on his feet again and he, unlike the secretary, was a very flustered man. "If the Secretary of State will explain to me," he roared, "what is going on."

The pounding still was continuing, louder than ever now. As if the Secret Service boys were using chairs and tables to try to beat in the doors.

"This is most extraordinary," said the President, quietly, "but since these gentlemen are here, I would suspect they had some purpose in their coming. I suppose we should hear them out and then get on with business."

It was all ridiculous, of course, and I had the terrible feeling that I'd never left the Land of Imagination, that I still was in it, and that all this business of the President and his cabinet and the other people here was no more than a half-baked parody good for little more than a panel in a comic strip.

"I think," said the President to me, " that you must be Horton Smith, although I would not have recognized you."

"I was out fishing, Mr. President," I said. "I have had no time to change."

"Oh, that's quite all right," said the President. "We stand on no great ceremony here. But I don't know your friend."

"I'm not sure, sir, that he is my friend. He claims he is the Devil."

The President nodded sagely. "That is what I had thought, although it seemed farfetched. But if he is the Devil, what is he doing here?"

"I came," the Devil said, "to talk about a deal."

The Secretary of Commerce said, "About this difficulty with the cars…"

"But it's all insane!" protested the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare. "I sit here and I see it happening and I tell myself it can't be happening. Even if there were such a personage as the Devil…" He turned to appeal to me. "Mr. Smith," he said, "you know this is not the way to go about it."

"Indeed I do," I said.

"I'll admit," said Commerce, "that these whole proceedings are most irregular, but this is an unusual situation. If Mr. Smith and his sulfurous friend have any information, we should listen to them. We've listened to great numbers of other people, including our scientific friends," and he made a sweeping gesture to indicate the men ranged in the chairs along the wall, "and we haven't heard a thing except a large array of people telling us that what has happened is impossible. The scientific community informs us that these happenings defy all laws of physics and that they are frankly fuddled. And the engineers have told

"But the Devil!" bellowed the man with the stars upon his shoulders.

"If he is the Devil," said the Secretary of Interior.

"My friends," the President said, wearily, "there was another president—a great wartime president—who, upon being chided for doing business with an unsavory foreign character, said that to span a stream he'd walked across a bridge with the Devil. And here is another president who will not shy from dealing with the Devil if it shows the way out of our dilemma."

The President looked across the room at me. "Mr. Smith," he asked, "can you explain to us just what in hell is going on?"

"Mr. President," protested HEW, "this is too ridiculous to waste our time upon. If the press should ever get a whiff of what went on within this room…"

The Secretary of State snorted: "Little good it would do them if they did. How would they get it out? I presume that all press wires are down. And, in any case, Mr. Smith, is of the press, and if he so wishes, no matter what we do we can't keep it quiet."

"It's a waste of time," said the general.

"We've had an entire morning of wasted time," Commerce pointed out.

"I'd waste more of it," I told them. "I can tell you what it's all about, but you won't believe a word of it."

"Mr. Smith," said the President, "I would hate to have to beg you."

I snapped at him. "Sir, you do not have to beg me."

"Then will you and that friend of yours pull chairs up to the table and tell us what you came to say."

I walked across the room to get one of the chairs he had indicated and the Devil clumped along beside me, switching his tail excitedly. The hammering on the doors had stopped.

As I walked I could feel holes being bored into my back by the eyes of the men around the table. For the love of God, I thought, what a spot to be in—sitting in a room with the President and his cabinet, brass from the Pentagon, a panel of outstanding scientists, and various advisers. And the worst thing about it was that before I was through with them they'd tear me to tiny ribbons. I had wondered just how I could go about finding anyone in authority, or close to authority, who would sit still long enough to listen to me. And now I had those people who were about to listen to me—not a single person, but a whole room full of them—and I was scared to death. Health, Education and Welfare had been shooting off his mouth, and so had the general, while most of the others had sat stolidly in place, but I had no doubt before it was all over, some of the others would join in.

I pulled the chair over to the table and the President said to me, "Just go ahead and tell us what you know. From having watched you at times on television, I know you can give us a lucid and no doubt interesting account."

I wondered how to start, how to tell them, in a mini- mum of time, the story of what had happened in the last few days. Then, suddenly, I knew the only way to do it— pretend that I was in front of a microphone and camera and that I was doing nothing more than I had done for years. Except it wouldn't be all that easy. In a studio I would have had time to outline in my mind exactly what to say, would have had a script to help out in the rough spots. Here I was on my own and I didn't like it much, but I was stuck with it and there was nothing I could do-but go through with it the best way that I could.

They all were looking at me and a good many of them, I knew, were angry with me for being about to insult their intelligence, and there were others who plainly were amused, knowing very well there was no such thing as a Devil and waiting for the punch line. And I think, as well, that some of them were frightened, but that made little difference, for they had been frightened before the Devil and myself had come into the room.

"There are some things I am going to tell you," I said, "that you can check on." I looked at the Secretary of State. "Phil's death, for instance." I saw his start of surprise, but I didn't give him a chance to say anything, but kept right on. "For the most part, however," I told them, "there is no way of checking. I'll tell you the truth, or as close to the truth as I can come. As for believing any of it, or all of it, that is up to you…"

Now that I had made a start, it was easy to go on. I pretended that I wasn't in the cabinet room, but that I was in a studio and that when I got through with what I had to say, I'd get up and leave.

They sat and listened quietly, although there were several times that some of them stirred uneasily, as if they were ready to break in on me. But the President raised his hand and shushed them and allowed me to go on. I didn't check my time, but I would guess it didn't take much more than fifteen minutes. I packed a lot of meat into what I had to say; I left out everything except the basics of it.