Robert Silverberg: Invaders From Earth

“Amplify,” Watsinski said.

“What I’m getting at is this: it may be necessary to gun those creatures down by droves. We can’t hide that completely from the public, Ernie. And the outcry will be fantastic. We may even have a revolution on our hands. The government’s certainly going to be in trouble.”

Watsinski narrowed his eyes until they were mere slits, and stroked the side of his long, curved nose. At length he said, “Kennedy, you see the flaw in your proposition?”

Shamefaced, Kennedy nodded. Haugen had deflated his idea quickly and sensibly. They would have to prepare the public for the worst.

Watsinski glanced around the table. “Before we move on, is there anyone else who wants to argue for Kennedy’s point? I want to make sure.”

Slowly Dave Spalding raised his hand. “I do. I think it’s wrong to go into this expecting a bloody massacre. The occupation ought to be as peaceful as possible, and if we build up a publicity blanket of love for the Ganymedeans then it damn well better be peaceful.”

There was an instant of silence. Kennedy distinctly heard Watsinski’s sobbing intake of breath, as if he were being very patient. Watsinski said, “Spalding, you’re only a fourth-level man, and we can make allowances. But we try to shape public opinion here. We don’t try to shape the doings of the Corporation to fit the kind of atmosphere we’ve created. They happen to employ us. This kind of thing has hurt you before, Spalding, and it’s likely to hurt you again if you don’t get your thinking clarified.”

Kennedy glanced quickly down the table at Spalding, and glanced away. The young fourth-level man had gone very pale at the rebuke. His nostrils nickered in momentary anger; he said nothing.

Watsinski said, “Well. We can go ahead, then. Kick it around some more, fellows. I’m listening.”

Lloyd Presslie got the floor. “We could take the opposite track. Paint the Ganymedeans as monsters. Alien demons from an ice-bound planet. Wipe this damn mother-love out of the picture, just in case we have to come down on them hard.”

Watsinski was smiling, showing yellowish, uneven teeth. “I like,” he said gently. “I like. Let’s kick it around some more, shall we?”

But Kennedy knew that any further talk was going to be superfluous. Watsinski’s smile meant that the meeting had arrived at what was going to be the policy; that Presslie had accidentally hit on the plan which Dinoli and his top staff men had already formulated, and which Watsinski had been prepared to shove down the third-level men’s throats, if necessary.

Kennedy ate lunch that day, as he had every day of his eight-year employment at Steward and Dinoli, in the agency cafeteria on Floor Ten. He twitched his yellow status-card from the protective folder in his wallet, slapped it against the translucent plastic plate in the dispensary wall, and waited for it to be scanned.

A moment later the standard Thursday third-level lunch issued from a slot further down in the dispensary. Kennedy repocketed his meal-ticket and picked up his tray. Algae steak, synthetic vegemix, a cup of pale but undeniably real coffee. Dinoli had never been very liberal with his lunches. The second-level men ate in their private offices, so Kennedy had no idea of what they were served, but he was willing to wager the menu wasn’t one hundred percent natural foods.

Just as he started to head for the third-level table in the front of the cafeteria, someone nudged his elbow, nearly spilling his tray. He turned, annoyed.

Dave Spalding stood behind him, smiling apologetically.

“Sorry, Ted. I didn’t mean to knock your tray over. But I called you, and you didn’t answer.”

Kennedy glanced at the tray Spalding held. The fourth-level menu was something he had already thankfully forgotten, and he was not happy to see it again. Weak soup, chlorella patties, protein sauce. Synthetic caffeine drink. He looked away, embarrassed.

“What is it, Dave? You want to talk to me?”

Spalding nodded. “Unless you’ve already made plans for lunch. We can take one of the tables at the side.”

Shrugging, Kennedy agreed. Perhaps Spalding wanted to ask his advice. As a third-level man, it was his responsibility to help any lower-rated man who sought him out.

There were a few small tables arranged at the far side of the cafeteria for meetings such as this. Ordinarily, one ate with one’s own level, but tables were provided to care for inter-level lunches as well. It simply would not have done for Kennedy to have had to eat at the fourth-level table in order to speak with Spalding.

They sat down. Kennedy was happy the second-level men ate elsewhere; he did not want his name linked too tightly to Spalding’s in Watsinski’s mind.

“Can I speak to you with absolute honesty?” Spalding asked.

“Of course, Dave.” Kennedy felt ill at ease. Spalding, at twenty-eight, was Marge’s age—four years his junior. When Harris had left the Agency for independent press-agenting work a year ago, Spalding should have entered third-level. But instead, Lloyd Presslie had been jumped over him into third. “What’s on your mind?” Kennedy asked.

Spalding paused, a forkful of chlorella patty poised midway between plate and mouth. “The Ganymede contract. I want to know how you feel about it.”

“A job,” Kennedy said. “Possibly quite a challenging one.”

Spalding’s dark eyes seemed to bore into him. He was scowling. “Just a job? A challenge?”

“Should it be anything else?”

“It’s the biggest sell since the days of Judas, and you know it as—as pellucidly as I do,” Spalding said, bitterly mocking Ernie Watsinski’s favorite word. “The whole thing is simply a naked grab of strategic territory. And we’re supposed to peddle the idea to the public.”

“Does it matter,” Kennedy asked, “which particular commodity we’re selling? If you want to start drawing ethical boundaries, you’d have to ring the whole agency. I’ve had plenty of jobs just as—well, shady—as this one. So have you. That Federated Bauxite thing I was on, just to take one example—”

“So you had to convince some people in Nebraska that they weren’t having their water supply polluted. I suppose that’s small enough so you can swallow it down. But Ganymede’s too big. We’re selling two worlds—ours and theirs. Ted, I want out.”

“Out of the contract?”

“Out of the agency,” Spalding said.

Kennedy chewed quietly for a moment. “Why are you telling me all this?” he asked after a while.

“I have to tell someone, Ted. And I feel I can trust you. I think you’re basically on my side. I know Marge is. She can convince you.”

“Keep Marge out of this discussion,” Kennedy said, forcing back his anger. Spalding was only a wild-eyed kid, despite his twenty-eight years. Some of them never grew up, never learned that life was essentially a lot of compromises within compromises, and you had to do the best you could. “You’d really leave the agency over this contract?”

Spalding looked so pale as to seem ill. “I’ve been building up to it a long time. We’ve been handed one sell after another, but this one’s too big. It’s lousy, Ted. I tried to play along with all the others. But they had to go and yank me out of fourth-level to work on this one. Why?”

“Maybe they wanted to see how you’d react.”

“Well, they’re going to see,” Spalding snapped. “I tried to put in my pitch when we met with Watsinski this morning. It was your point I was defending, too, even if you gave up. But you saw how I got slapped down. Policy on this was set a long time ago, Ted.”

Kennedy felt inwardly calm. He mopped up his plate with exaggerated care, thinking that this was no problem of his, that he took a mere intellectual interest in Spalding’s qualms of conscience, with no emotional involvement. “You haven’t thought this through, Dave. Where would you go? You’re not a youngster any more. You’re twenty-eight, and still fourth-level. Dinoli’s sure to blacklist you. You couldn’t get a job anywhere in PR or advertising.”