Richard Wilson

“ And now, my dear friends everywhere, I give you the man you all know and love—the man who has had the courage and foresight to switch Earth's destiny in midstream from its course of destruction to its new and exciting path—your President and mine—Gouverneur—good old 'Gov'—Allison! ”

“ Joy said. "That's you!"
"She's right, Sam," Rod said. "That's either you or your double. Do you have any idea what the hell's going on?"
It was me, all right—or my double. If you've ever seen yourself in a home movie or on a TV monitor you know how it takes a second or so for you to recognize yourself on the screen—probably because you're so used to full-face reversed image you get in the bathroom mirror every morning. My double, apparently having found nothing in my things, took a last look around and let himself out into the corridor, where we lost sight of him. ”

“ I also looked in vain for a follow-up to "President Allison's" appeal to the nation to beware of imitations. The fact that there was no reference to it at all led me to think that the Monolithians had panicked only momentarily. It was obvious that they had known about the Allison underground. Their current silence on the matter gave me a small chill. It was as if the Monolithians were contemptuously tolerant of Gov's guerillas, seeing them as no threat whatever to the ultimate alien scheme. ”

“ Look, Sam, we've got a job for you to do and we'd like you to take it because you want to. It would be better for all of us that way. But if you are reconsidering your decision to volunteer, we have ways of conscripting you."
"Torture?" I tried to speak calmly. "Brainwashing?"
"Neither you nor anyone else will ever be tortured. As for the other, we'd prefer that you washed your own brain of its misconceptions about us. Try to realize that what we are trying to do—and what we will do—is for your own good and for the good of all of us."
He was the soul of sincerity, this Mox. ”

“ Tell me about World Wide and Continental for a starter."
"It all ties in with the big picture," Joy said. "We want the Americans to have the true official position when the big stories break."
"Who's we? And why couldn't the free press be depended on to give the true story? It always has."
"We is the government, of course. As for the other, I think it has to do with point of view. The facts have a way of being misinterpreted by a hostile press."
"Oh, and it'll be the job of World Wide and Continental to spoonfeed the official line down the public's throat?" ”

“ The seemingly friendly Monolithians who publicly allied themselves with Earth's highest aspirations toward peace and brotherhood have been unmasked as schemers and plotters bent on conquest—conquest by bloodless subversion if possible, but by force if necessary.
Events have made it clear that the ordinary people of Earth, their doubts stilled by the fact that their trusted leaders had agreed to a super-summit meeting, had no way of knowing the great pressures that had been brought to bear on their presidents and prime ministers. ”

“ Fitchburn asked.
"That the Monolithians are not all they profess to be. That their humanity—their seeming friendliness to us Earthpeople—is motivated by something we don't know anything about. That in the end we're all going to be more miserable for it—if we exist to be miserable at all."
I ate a pretzel, feeling like a supernumerary carrying a rubber-tipped spear. I ate several pretzels, moodily, recalling my experience in the spaceship in the woods, my imprisonment and brain-picking and the covey of doubles for famous personages. And who were those aboard this spaceship? ”

“ Gov said. "Oh, hello, Sam. What's up?"
I asked my question: "Who represents the Monolithians?"
"Shut the door, Sam, and sit down. I can answer that several ways. One, by saying they all represent each other, like bees in a hive or ants in a hill—a sort of group intelligence with nobody's thinking very far out of line from anybody else's. Two, by saying their big wheel at the moment is that Addison Madison, or Frij, fellow, a more insulting parody of an American Earthman than I could have imagined possible. ”

“ I heard a yell from the street behind me. "He's coming!" Other voices joined in: "It's Gov!" "Don't he look swell!" There was a chant: "We love Gov.... We love Gov...."
True to Joy's word, Gov—that is, the Monolithian masquerading as the President—passed within a dozen feet of us on his way to the platform. He was accompanied by a dozen or more men who could have been the Secret Service or some of his fellow Monolithians. ”

“ Joy Linx said.
We were Monday-morning quarterbacking our capture, now nearly 24 hours old.
"Never argue with a man with a gun," Rod Harris said. "Old city-desk adage."
We were in a big room, much more luxurious than my previous Monolithian cell, and which we judged to be at Ultra's dead center. It had a wall-to-wall carpet, four couches, some straight chairs, a big bare desk and indirect lighting. There were two doors—the one we'd come in through and another to a well-equipped bathroom, which afforded our only privacy from each other. We'd slept in our clothes on the couches without blankets. ”

“ It's a pity more people can't hear you over a drink, without benefit of microphone. A frank question, Clyde: What do you now consider your role to be?"
"An easy question from a friend," Fitchburn said. "I am, as of 48 hours ago, approximately, an apologist for the well-paying Monolithians. And you, Miss Linx?"
"Joy," she said. "A fearful Joy, perhaps, to steal the words of Mr. Cary, but an honest one, I hope. My role? You've already said it, Clyde. Meeting interesting, friendly people, with a loving but calculating female eye to the future. ”

“ The convertible was heading straight at him.
"He'll get hit!" somebody yelled. A traffic cop blew his whistle. A woman screamed. Mae, unable to look, buried her face in my shoulder. The pedestrian never broke his casual stride.
The massive chromed bumper was only inches from him when it began to disintegrate.
First the bumper, then the grille and the oversized fender, then the right front tire dissolved in a shimmering film.
As the tire disappeared, the momentum of the car sent it ahead into what was obviously the protective shield surrounding one of the aliens. ”

“ She had sprinkled them with Pep.
"My job is to write it just as it happened. The way I see it. No propaganda, no censorship."
"That's nice. You want your coffee now or later?"
"I can work at home if I want to. And they'll send out a secretary if I want somebody to type up notes or take dictation. Now, please."
"That's sweet of them," Mae said. She poured the coffee. "Maybe they'll send that nice Joy Linx."
I carefully broke a yolk and stirred Pep into it with my fork, giving it all my attention. I think Mae was serious. "I don't believe I'll need anybody," I said carefully. ”

“ I said. "That's fine—Gov." I felt thoroughly uncomfortable and hitched around in my chair. I wished I'd shaved. Allison himself looked spruce and freshly pressed, and his pink cheeks showed no trace of recent growth.
"Why don't we both have a drink, Sam?" Allison said. "If you wouldn't mind pouring me a vodka and orange juice or something, and you have whatever you'd like, I think we'll break the ice a bit faster. I don't particularly like vodka, but a man in my job has to beware the breath of scandal, to coin a phrase, and I do mean breath." ”

“ It almost never connotes anything alien.
It's as if the Monolithian philosophy has been thoroughly absorbed into our culture, while the aliens themselves have retreated into the background, content to keep a paternalistic eye on us. ”

“ Addison Madison-Frij said. "That's what they want—class. Frij is too alien-sounding for their ears. They must have something that inspires confidence."
"Confidence in what, if I may ask?"
"Ask by all means. That's what I want you to do. Ask and criticize and suggest. This thing must roll, on all sixteen. It must purr, like the contented kitten. Or is it cow? I need you, old man, I tell you frankly. The closest kind of collaboration is necessary if we are to achieve our objective." He took his feet off the desk and sat up purposefully in his chair. ”

“ Stew, this is Joy Linx, somebody's Girl Friday. I guess now she's mine."
"Some people have all the luck," Stew said. "Hi, Joy. I'm delighted, too."
"Now for that door," Joy said. She opened the third door and said, "Behold, World Wide."
It was virtually a duplicate of World Wide's New York newsroom. There were the banks of teletype and the piles of newspapers and the desks. Reb Sylvester sat in the slot, a cup of coffee on the desk next to a row of freshly sharpened pencils. He was smoking a pipe and reading the comic page of the Washington Post. ”

“ An empty chair near the center of the table was flanked by Joy Linx and that Monolithian, Frij, who masqueraded as Addison Madison.
I took my seat and the UPI man jumped up and said, "Can we start now? Sam, tell us more about this conscience gas. How did it get to Domingo Sanchez? Was it dropped over his capital or piped into his office through the air conditioning, or what?"
That was an easy one. Frij had briefed me fully on that the night before.
"Simple," I said. "They rigged his microphone. You know the one he goes to every day to harangue the multitude and blast the big powers." ”

“ This was the great substitution of incredibly well-trained Monolithians—transformed by alien medico-science into exact duplicates—for the presidents of the United States and France, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, the Premier of the Soviet Union, the Chancellor of Germany, and the others who went on the ill-fated journey.
From here, the future course of the plot is plain to see. The fake leaders, acclaimed by their people as the saviors of humanity, will be able to do no wrong. Their declarations of faith in the motives of the Monolithians will go unchallenged. ”

“ Gov said, "that it's true that you Monolithians have no purpose other than saving us from ourselves?"
"Precisely," Frij said. "You could not have put it more aptly."
"Then my story—the big exposé Rod and I wrote on Ultra—was all wrong?"
"It couldn't have been more wrong," Frij said.
"And Domingo Sanchez wasn't your patsy?" I was slowly and reluctantly patching it together.
"You assumed that a minute ago," Frij said. "Now you believe it."
Gov, looking unutterably weary, said, "I'm afraid I believe it—and all that it implies. It means that Earth really had no choice whatever. ”

“ Gouverneur Allison, President of the United States, a good man basically and one who had long worried in his private soul, needed no more indoctrination than the whiff of conscience gas he'd been given by Mox to be convinced that the World's salvation lay not in the haphazard politics of Earthmen, but in the clear-seeing, galactic-minded altruism of Monolithian logic. ”

“ Through the UN, I mean. And if that's good enough for the President, I guess it's good enough for me. Poor Mae. She must be worried to death. I've got to see her."
"And so you shall, Sam."
"That's all I ask. I volunteer. We've got to stop this ridiculous experimentation with the very seeds of our own destruction." I was washing the old brain with everything I had. "What's the job you have for me?"
I hoped I hadn't overdone it. But Mox was beaming.
"I am happy to inform you," he said, "that the position is that of press secretary to President Gouverneur Allison." ”

“ At the same time the conscience gas would spurt out of the guerrillas' cameras and smite the alien impostor.
The fake President would then go through the same mental turmoil that had assailed the dictator of El Spaniola. He would, in effect, become one with the thousands in the Garden and the millions on television who were about to be subjected to whatever nefarious fate the Monolithians had planned for them. The dichotomy of being simultaneously the victor and the victim would be too much for him. ”

“ Ian swallowed the rest of his drink and ordered two more. "I'm surprised you hadn't heard. Since you don't know, this will give you a laugh. World Wide is moving into the White House."
"The White House?"
"That's what I said. You'll be right at home. Door A, Executive Mansion, the President. Door B, his press agent, Sam Kent. Door C, World Wide. Nice, huh? Bye-bye free press." He took his new drink. "Bye-bye Constitution. I give you a toast, friend: Here's mud in the eye of the Bill of Rights." ”

“ I ask him to leave, so as not to create a disturbance."
"Sam," Mae said.
"Shh," I said. "Go on, Armando."
"Then he asks for the telephone, as if this is the Stork Club and I can plug it in at the table. I tell him the pay phone is near the cashier's desk, he can use it on his way out. Subtle, you see?"
"Then what?" I asked.
"He goes to the phone and calls SCAD in Albany!" SCAD is the state commission against discrimination. "He tells them the whole story at the top of his voice. It is mortifying. And now I am likely to lose my license and have to close up—or else cater to the colored trade. ”