The crowd moved slowly back. No one spoke to me. No one spoke to anyone.

"I guess," said Gabe, "there are no other takers. If there were, they'd have to fight me, too."

"Thanks, Gabe," I said.

"Thanks, h.e.l.l," he said. "I didn't do a thing."

I opened up my fist and the rock dropped to the street. In the silence, it made a terrible clatter.

Gabe hauled a huge red handkerchief out of his rear pocket and stepped over to me. He put a hand back of my head to hold it steady and began to wipe my face.

"In a month or so," he said, by way of comfort, "you'll look all right again."

"Hey, Brad," yelled someone, "who's your friend?"

I couldn't see who it was who yelled. There were so many people.

"Mister," yelled someone else, "be sure you wipe his nose."

"Go on!" roared Gabe. "Go on! Any of you wisecrackers walk out here in plain sight and I'll dust the street with you."

Grandma Jones said in a loud voice, so that Pappy Andrews could hear. "He's the trucker fellow that smashed Brad's car. Appears to me if Brad has to fight someone, he should be fighting him."

"Big mouth," yelled back Pappy Andrews. "He's got an awful big mouth."

I saw Nancy standing by the gate and she had the same look on her face that she'd had when we were kids and I had fought Hiram Martin then. She was disgusted with me. She had never held with fighting; she thought that it was vulgar.

The front door burst open and Gerald Sherwood came running down the walk. He rushed over and grabbed me by the arm.

"Come on," he shouted. "The senator called. He's out there waiting for you, on the east end of the road."

18.

Four of them were waiting for me on the pavement just beyond the barrier. A short distance down the road several cars were parked. A number of state troopers were scattered about in little groups. Half a mile or so to the north the steam shovel was still digging.

I felt foolish walking down the road toward them while they waited for me. I knew that I must look as if the wrath of G.o.d had hit me.

My shirt was torn and the left side of my face felt as though someone had sandpapered it. I had deep gashes on the knuckles of my right hand where I'd smacked Hiram in the teeth and my left eye felt as if it were starting to puff up.

Someone had cleared away the windrow of uprooted vegetation for several rods on either side of the road, but except for that, the windrow was still there.

As I got close, I recognized the senator. I had never met the man, but I'd seen his pictures in the papers. He was stocky and well-built and his hair was white and he never wore a hat. He was dressed in a double-breasted suit and he had a bright blue tie with white polka dots.

One of the others was a military man. He wore stars on his shoulders. Another was a little fellow with patent leather hair and a tight, cold face. The fourth man was somewhat undersized and chubby and had eyes of the brightest china blue I had ever seen.

I walked until I was three feet or so away from them and it was not until then that I felt the first slight pressure of the barrier. I backed up a step and looked at the senator.

"You must be Senator Gibbs," I said. "I'm Bradshaw Carter. I'm the one Sherwood talked with you about."

"Glad to meet you, Mr Carter," said the senator. "I had expected that Gerald would be with you."

"I wanted him to come," I said, "but he felt he shouldn't. There was a conflict of opinion in the village. The mayor wanted to appoint a committee and Sherwood opposed it rather violently."

The senator nodded. "I see," be said. "So you're the only one we'll see."

"If you want others..."

"Oh, not at all," he said. "You are the man with the information."

"Yes, I am," I said.

"Excuse me," said the senator. "Mr Carter, General Walter Billings."

"h.e.l.lo, General," I said.

It was funny, saying h.e.l.lo and not shaking hands.

"Arthur Newcombe," said the senator.

The man with the tight, cold face smiled frostily at me. One could see at a glance he meant to stand no nonsense. He was, I guessed, more than a little outraged that such a thing as the barrier could have been allowed to happen.

"Mr Newcombe," said the senator, "is from the State Department. And Dr Roger Davenport, a biologist-I might add, an outstanding one."

"Good morning, young man," said Davenport. "Would it be out of line to ask what happened to you?"

I grinned at him, liking the man at once. "I had a slight misunderstanding with a fellow townsman."

"The town, I would imagine," Billings said, "is considerably upset. In a little while law and order may become something of a problem."

"I am afraid so, sir," I said.

"This may take some time?" asked the senator.

"A little time," I said.

"There were chairs," the general said. "Sergeant, where are...?"

Even as he spoke a sergeant and two privates, who had been standing by the roadside, came forward with some folding chairs.

"Catch," the sergeant said to me.

He tossed a chair through the barrier and I caught it. By the time I had it unfolded and set up, the four on the other side of the barrier had their chairs as well.

It was downright crazy-the five of us sitting there in the middle of the road on flimsy folding chairs.

"Now," said the senator, "I suppose we should get started. General, how would you propose that we might proceed?

The general crossed his knees and settled down. He considered for a moment.

"This man," he finally said, "has something we should hear. Why don't we simply sit here and let him tell it to us?

"Yes, by all means," said Newcombe. "Let's hear what he has to say. I must say, Senator..."

"Yes," the senator said, rather hastily. "I'll stipulate that it is somewhat unusual. This is the first time I have ever attended a hearing out in the open, but..."

"It was the only way," said the general, "that seemed feasible."

"It's a longish story," I warned them. "And some of it may appear unbelievable."

"So is this," said the senator. "This, what do you call it, barrier."

"And," said Davenport, "you seem to be the only man who has any information."

"Therefore," said the senator, "let us proceed forthwith. " So, for the second time, I told my story. I took my time and told it carefully, trying to cover everything I'd seen. They did not interrupt me. A couple of times I stopped to let them ask some questions, but the first time Davenport simply signalled that I should go on and the second time all four of them just waited until I did continue.

It was an unnerving business worse than being interrupted. I talked into a silence and I tried to read their faces, tried to get some clues as to how much of it they might be accepting.

But there was no sign from them, no faintest flicker of expression on their faces. I began to feel a little silly over what I was telling them.

I finished finally and leaned back in my chair.

Across the barrier, Newcombe stirred uneasily. "You'll excuse me, gentlemen," he said, "if I take exception to this man's story. I see no reason why we should have been dragged out here..."

The senator interrupted him. "Arthur," he said, "my good friend, Gerald Sherwood, vouched for Mr Carter. I have known Gerald Sherwood for more than thirty years and he is, I must tell you, a most perceptive man, a hard-headed businessman with a tinge of imagination. Hard as this account, or parts of it, may be to accept, I still believe we must accept it as a basis for discussion. And, I must remind you, this is the first sound evidence we have been offered."

"I," said the general, "find it hard to believe a word of it. But with the evidence of this barrier, which is wholly beyond any present understanding, we undoubtedly stand in a position where we must accept further evidence beyond our understanding."

"Let us," suggested Davenport, "pretend just for the moment that we believe it all. Let's try to see if there may not be some basic..."

"But you can't!" exploded Newcombe. "It flies in the face of everything we know."

"Mr Newcombe," said the biologist, "man has flown in the face of everything he knew time after time. He knew, not too many hundreds of years ago, that the Earth was the centre of the universe. He knew, less than thirty years ago, that man could never travel to the other planets. He knew, a hundred years ago, that the atom was indivisible. And what have we here-the knowledge that time never can be understood or manipulated, that it is impossible for a plant to be intelligent. I tell you, sir..."

"Do you mean," the general asked, "that you accept all this?"

"No," said Davenport, "I'll accept none of it. To do so would be very un.o.bjective. But I'll hold judgement in abeyance. I would, quite frankly, jump at the chance to work on it, to make observations and perform experiments and..."

"You may not have the time," I said.

The general swung toward me. "Was there a time limit set?" he asked. "You didn't mention it."

"No. But they have a way to prod us. They can exert some convincing pressure any time they wish. They can start this barrier to moving."

"How far can they move it?

"Your guess is as good as mine. Ten miles. A hundred miles. A thousand. I have no idea."

"You sound as if you think they could push us off the Earth."

"I don't know. I would rather think they could."

"Do you think they would?"

"Maybe. If it became apparent that we were delaying. I don't think they'd do it willingly. They need us. They need someone who can use their knowledge, who can make it meaningful. It doesn't seem that, so far, they've found anyone who can."

"But we can't hurry," the senator protested. "We will not be rushed. There is a lot to do. There must be discussions at a great many different levels-at the governmental level, at the international level, at the economic and scientific levels."

"Senator," I told him, "there is one thing no one seems to grasp. We are not dealing with another nation, nor with other humans. We are dealing with an alien people..."

"That makes no difference," said the senator. "We must do it our way."

"That would be fine," I said, "if you can make the aliens understand."

"They'll have to wait," said Newcombe, primly. And I knew that it was hopeless, that here was a problem which could not be solved, that the human race would bungle its first contact with an alien people. There would be talk and argument, discussion, consultation-but all on the human level, all from the human viewpoint, without a chance that anyone would even try to take into account the alien point of view.

"You must consider," said the senator, "that they are the pet.i.tioners, they are the ones who made the first approach, they are asking access to our world, not we to theirs."

"Five hundred years ago," I said, "white men came to America. They were the pet.i.tioners then..."

"But the Indians," said Newcombe, "were savages, barbarians..."

I nodded at him. "You make my point exactly."

"I do not," Newcombe told me frostily, "appreciate your sense of humour."

"You mistake me," I told him. "It was not said in humour."

Davenport nodded. "You may have something there, Mr Carter. You say these plants pretend to have stored knowledge, the knowledge, you suspect, of many different races."

"That's the impression I was given."

"Stored and correlated. Not just a jumble of data."

"Correlated, too," I said. "You must bear in mind that I cannot swear to this. I have no way of knowing it is true. But their spokesman, Tupper, a.s.sured me that they didn't lie..."

"I know," said Davenport. "There is some logic in that. They wouldn't need to lie."

"Except," said the general, "that they never did give back your fifteen hundred dollars."

"No, they didn't," I said.

"After they said they would."