(eng) Murray Leinster by Four From Planet 5

Author:Four From Planet 5 [5, Four From Planet]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

7.

Soames’ rehearsed part in the broadcast finished after he and Gail and Captain Moggs had told the story of the finding of the ship. Their narratives were deftly guided by Linda Beach’s questions. Soames felt like a fool because the things that seemed important to him were apparently of no importance at all on television. He wasn’t allowed to make accurate statements because the demand was for sensational ones. Gail, also, seemed frustrated. She wanted to prepare people to like the children when they were revealed, but the design of the performance called for them to be pure surprise. Captain Moggs, alone, rose to the occasion. She revelled in the dramatic phrasing of her answers, and they were perfectly suited to so stupendous a production.

When Soames was done, he wanted to get out of sight. He was not wholly surprised—after all, it had been rehearsed—but he was sunk in gloom. It was a circus instead of what he would have considered a presentation of the facts, though nearly everything said had been factual. But he wanted to get away. He went behind scenery, away from the cameras. Presently he escaped from die studio altogether.

There was naturally no studio audience, but the place swarmed with hatless, tieless people who dashed madly about like waterbugs, agilely avoiding ever being seen on camera. It was much better in the empty corridor outside the studio. When he’d put a comer or two behind him, he felt better still. Presently he found himself staring out a window, down at the crowd before the Communications Building.

It was a restless crowd, now. The ground-floor plate-glass windows had been filled with television screens, and those near them could see the broadcast and hear it from out-door loud-speakers. But this crowd was a special one, in that it hadn’t gathered to see the broadcast but extra-terrestrial monsters, in the flesh or fur or scales or however they might appear. It now knew that the monsters had arrived and there was no chance of seeing them direct. The crowd had been harangued by orators and by people who already began to call themselves humanity-firsters. It felt cheated.

There were a large number of teen-agers in the crowd.

Soames looked down gloomily. He was at a window some distance from the studio, around two corners of the innumerable corridors which led everywhere. But there was a monitor TV set somewhere nearby. He could hear Linda Beach talking to an eminent French scientist. The children had been presented while he was making his way here. The eminent French scientist fumed. He wanted to know from what planet or star-system the children claimed to come. He was patently disappointed and incredulous because they were human children. Linda Beach explained charmingly to him and the world that, not knowing any terrestrial language, they had not been able to explain. It was not especially convincing.

At the window, Soames recognized the oddness of the crowd below him. An ordinary, curiosity-seeking crowd would contain a considerable percentage of women. This did not.

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