Robert Silverberg - Invaders From Earth

Spalding looked puzzled, but he shrugged and nodded. When they were out of the third-level area and in the corridor, Kennedy gripped him tightly by the arm and said in a low voice, “That ‘blueprint for conquest’ gag was a little out of place, Dave. It wasn’t called for.”

“Wasn’t it?”

“That’s neither here nor there. You’re not expected to make anti-agency cracks in the third-level area. If Haugen had reported you he’d have been within his rights.”

A cold smile crossed Spalding’s face. “Is it against the law to speak out against a nasty business deal?”

“Yes,” Kennedy said. “Either you stick with it and keep your mouth shut or you get out. One or the other. What happened to your ambitions of a couple of days ago—becoming a writer, and all that?”

Spalding smiled apologetically. “I decided to swallow my qualms and stick with it.”

“That’s a sensible move, Dave. I figured you’d outgrow that adolescent mood of rebellion. I’m glad to hear you talk this way.”

“The devil with you, Ted. I haven’t outgrown anything. I’m sticking here because I need the money. I’m drawing third-level pay now, and that’s good cabbage. A few more months of Papa Dinoli’s shekels and I’ll have enough of a nest egg to quit and do what I want to do. What I really want to do.” Spalding’s eyes glittered “Fight cynicism with cynicism. It’s the only way.”

Kennedy blinked. He said nothing.

“Now,” Spalding went on. “That library pickup. Is it legit, or did you just cook it up so you could give me a word of advice?”

“I just cooked it up,” Kennedy admitted.

“I thought so. Mind if I get back to work, then?”

Spalding smiled and ducked past him. “You louse,” Kennedy said quietly to himself, at Spalding’s retreating back. “You cold-blooded louse.”

Kennedy remained in the hall for a moment; then, realizing he was standing frozen with a stupefied expression on his face, he snapped out of it and walked back to his desk.

It wasn’t any secret that Dave Spalding regarded the Ganymede contract with loathing. Kennedy had already written that off to Spalding’s fuzzy-minded idealism; idealists always had a way of being fuzzy-minded.

But the sudden sharp revelation just now had shown Kennedy a very unfuzzy-minded Spalding, who was coldbloodedly extracting enough money from the Ganymede contract to let himself get quit of the whole enterprise. That cast a new light on things, Kennedy thought. He felt a faint quiver of doubt. Somehow he couldn’t laugh off Spalding’s opinion of the contract any more.

Haugen was at the water cooler as Kennedy returned to the third-level area, and Kennedy joined him. The beefy executive was sipping his drink with obvious enjoyment. Spalding was bent studiously over his notes.

“What time’s the meeting?” Kennedy asked.

He knew what time it was. But Haugen said, “Watsinski wants us in his office in half an hour. Got any sharp ideas?”

“A few,” Kennedy admitted cautiously. “Couple of notions. Maybe Ernie’ll take them. Alf ?”

“Hey?”

“Tell me something—straight. What do you think of this whole business about Ganymede?”

As soon as he said it, he knew it was a mistake. Haugen turned, peered at him full-face, frowned in puzzlement “What do I think—huh? About what?”

“The contract. Whether it’s right.” Kennedy began to sweat. He wished he had kept quiet.

“Right? Right? ” Haugen repeated incredulously. He shrugged. “Is that what you were worrying about? Caught something from Spalding, maybe?”

“Not exactly. Marge worries a lot. She’s socially oriented. She keeps bringing the thing up.”

Haugen smiled warmly. He was forty, and knew by now he’d never advance beyond third-level; he was serene in the knowledge that his competence would keep him where he was, and that there was no danger of his slipping back or any chance of his moving forward. “Ted, I’m surprised to hear you talk this way. You’ve got a fine home, a splendid wife, luxury living. You’re a third-level exec. You’re pulling down thirty thousand a year plus bonuses, and you’re bucking for second-level. You’ll get there, too— you’ve got the stuff. I can tell.”

Kennedy felt his face going red. “Soft-soap won’t answer my questions, Alf.”

“This isn’t soft-soap. It’s fact, plain hard fact. You have all these things. Lots of people don’t. Okay. Now you get called in by Dinoli, and he tells you to let the public think thus-and-so about the planet Ganymede, or moon Ganymede, or whatever the blazes it is. Do you stand around asking yourself if this is right?” Haugen chuckled richly. “The hell you do! For thirty thousand a year, who cares?”

Kennedy took a sip of water. “Yeah. Yeah.”

“You see?”

Kennedy nodded. “I think so,” he said.

Half an hour later Kennedy was at his place around the table in Ernie Watsinski’s office, sitting next to Haugen and across the table from Spalding. Watsinski sat perfectly quietly, a lanky uncouth figure draped over a chair, waiting for the group to assemble. Richardson was the last man to arrive; he slipped in quietly, hoping no one would notice his tardiness, and in that moment Watsinski came to life.

“Today, gentlemen, is the eleventh of May,” he began, in his thin voice. “It’s precisely one week since we last met in this room. It’s also—I take it you’ve all seen the time sheet that was circulated this morning; if you haven’t, please raise hands—ah, good. As I say, it’s also precisely ten days till the beginning of the public phase of our campaign. A lot of work is going into this project, gentlemen —a hell of a lot of work. If you knew how Joe Kauderer is running around lining up media breaks for us—well, you’ll know soon enough, when Joe makes his report to you at the big meeting with Dinoli. But the thing is really moving. Really moving.

“Now I’ve given you this week to think things out, to look at the big picture and fit yourself into it. You know we at S and D regard public relations work as an artistic creation. You’re shaping an esthetic whole. The beauty of a fully-developed opinion pattern is like the beauty of the Mona Lisa or a Rembrandt or a Beethoven symphony. If any of you men don’t feel this Ganymede thing with all you’ve got, I’d appreciate it if you’d let me know right here and now, or else later in privacy. This has to be real. It has to be sincere, gentlemen.”

Watsinski seemed to have worked up genuine passion over his rhapsody. His eyes were glossy with the beginnings of tears. Kennedy glanced over at Spalding, but the young man sat tight-jawed without revealing a bit of the emotion he might have been feeling.

“Okay, gentlemen, let’s get to work,” Watsinski said suddenly, in an entirely different tone of voice. He had descended from empyreal heights with marvelous rapidity. “At our last meeting we decided on our general pattern of approach—it was Lloyd Presslie’s suggestion, since taken up with Dinoli and in essence approved, that we take into account the distinct possibility of strong reaction on Ganymede and therefore build the Ganymedeans up as unsympathetic types. I guess you’ve all been thinking about ways and means of doing this. Richardson, start talking.”

All eyes swiveled to the back of the room. This was Watsinski’s way of indicating his displeasure at Richardson’s tardiness; there would be no other formal reprimand.

Richardson was a thin-lipped professorial type with a dry, pedantic manner. He ran his hands through his thinning hair and said, “I’ve been thinking of three or four separate multilevel approaches to this thing, Ernie. But I won’t throw them all out on the floor right now. The basic handle is a kiddie-approach. Kiddies and women. Men don’t form their own opinions, anyway. I propose that we assault this thing by filtering anti-Ganymede stuff into the kiddie shows and the afternoon women-slanted videocasts. I’ve drawn up a brief on how to go about it, listing fifteen selected shows and the angle of leverage on each one. Some of the writers are former S and D stablemen. You want to go through the brief now, or file it afterwards?”