"That speech of yours," Percy said, "was the speech of an amateur. You
ought to let pros handle the big spiels, Roy."
"I thought you liked the impromptu thing I did when they mobbed that
Herschelite. How come no go tonight?"
Percy shook his head. "The speech you made outside the building was
different. It had emotion; it had punch! But tonight you didn't come
across at all."
"No?"
"I'd put money behind it." Acidly Percy said, "You can't win the public
opinion by being reasonable. You gave a nice smooth speech. Bland ...
folksy. You laid everything on the line where they could see it."
"And that's wrong, is it?" Walton closed his eyes for a moment. "_Why?_"
"Because they won't listen! You gave them a sermon when you should have
been punching at them! Sweet reason! You can't be _sweet_ if you want
to sell your product to seven billion morons!"
"Is that all they are?" Walton asked. "Just morons?"
Percy chuckled. "In the long run, yes. Give them their daily bread and
their one room to live in, and they won't give a damn what happens
to the world. FitzMaugham sold them Popeek the way you'd sell a car
without turbines. He hoodwinked them into buying something they hadn't
thought about or wanted."
"They _needed_ Popeek, whether they wanted it or not. No one needs a
car without turbines."
"Bad analogy, then," Percy said. "But it's true. They don't care a
blast about Popeek, except where it affects them. If you'd told them
that these aliens would kill them all if they didn't act nice, you'd
have gotten across. But this sweetness and light business--oh, no, Roy.
It just doesn't work."
"Is that all you have to tell me?" Walton asked.
"I guess so. I just wanted to show you where you had a big chance and
muffed it. Where we could have helped you out if you'd let us. I don't
want you to think I'm being rude or critical, Roy; I'm just trying to
be helpful."
"Okay, Lee. Get out."
"Huh?"
"Go away. Go sell ice to the Eskimos. Leave me alone, yes?"
"If that's the way you want it. Hell, Roy, don't brood over it. We can
still fix things up before that alien gets here. We can put the content
of tonight's speech across so smoothly that they won't even know
we're--"
"_Get out!_"
Percy skittered for the door. He paused and said, "You're all wrought
up, Roy. You ought to take a pill or something for your nerves."
* * * * *
Well, he had his answer. An expert evaluation of the content and effect
of his speech.
Dammit, he had _tried_ to reach them. Percy said he hadn't, and Percy
probably was right, little as Walton cared to admit the fact to himself.
But was Percy's approach the only one? Did you have to lie to them,
push them, treat them as seven billion morons?
Maybe. Right now billions of human beings--the same human beings Walton
was expending so much energy to save--were staring at the kaleidowhirl
programs on their videos. Their eyes were getting fixed, glassy. Their
mouths were beginning to sag open, their cheeks to wobble, their lips
to droop pendulously, as the hypnosis of the color patterns took effect.
This was humanity. They were busy forgetting all the things they had
just been forced to listen to. All the big words, like _mandate_ and
_eventually_ and _wholesale destruction_. Just so many harsh syllables
to be wiped away by the soothing swirl of the colors.
And somewhere else, possibly, a poet named Prior was listening to his
baby's coughing and trying to write a poem--a poem that Walton and a
few others would read excitedly, while the billions would ignore it.
Walton saw that Percy was dead right: Roy Walton could never have sold
Popeek to the world. But FitzMaugham, that cagy, devious genius, did
it. By waving his hands before the public and saying abracadabra, he
bamboozled them into approving Popeek before they knew what they were
being sold.
It was a lousy trick, but FitzMaugham had realized that it had to be
done. Someone had killed him for it, but it was too late by then.
And Walton saw that he had taken the wrong track by trying to be
reasonable. Percy's callous description of humanity as "seven billion
morons" was uncomfortably close to the truth. Walton would have to make
his appeal to a more subliminal level.
Perhaps, he thought, at the level of the kaleidowhirls, those endless
patterns of colored light that were the main form of diversion for the
Great Unwashed.
_I'll get to them_, Walton promised himself. _There can't be any
dignity or nobility in human life with everyone crammed into one
sardine can. So I'll treat them like the sardines they are, and hope
I can turn them into the human beings they could be if they only had
room._
He rose, turned out the light, prepared to leave. He wondered if the
late Director FitzMaugham had ever faced an internal crisis of this
sort, or whether FitzMaugham had known these truths innately from the
start.
Probably, the latter was the case. FitzMaugham had been a genius, a
sort of superman. But FitzMaugham was dead, and the man who carried on
his work was no genius. He was only a mere man.
* * * * *
The reports started filtering in the next morning. It went much as
Percy had predicted.
_Citizen_ was the most virulent. Under the sprawling headline, _WHO'S
KIDDING WHO?_ the telefax sheet wanted to know what the "mealy-mouthed"
Popeek director was trying to tell the world on all media the night
before. They weren't sure, since Walton, according to _Citizen_, had
been talking in "hifalutin prose picked on purpose to befuddle John Q.
Public." But their general impression was that Walton had proposed some
sort of sellout to the Dirnans.
The sellout idea prevailed in most of the cheap telefax sheets.
"Behind a cloud of words, Popeek czar Walton is selling the world
downstream to the greenskins," said one paper. "His talk last night was
strictly bunk. His holy-holy words and grim face were supposed to put
over something, but we ain't fooled--and don't you be fooled either,
friend!"
The video commentators were a little kinder, but not very. One called
for a full investigation of the Earth-Dirna situation. Another wanted
to know why Walton, an appointed official and not even a permanent
one at that, had taken it upon himself to handle such high-power
negotiations. The UN seemed a little worried about that, even though
Ludwig had made a passionate speech insisting that negotiations with
Dirna were part of Walton's allotted responsibilities.
That touched off a new ruckus. "How much power does Walton have?"
_Citizen_ demanded in a later edition. "Is he the boss of the world?
And if he is, who the devil is he anyway?"
That struck Walton harder than all the other blows. He had been
gradually realizing that he did, in fact, control what amounted to
dictatorial powers over the world. But he had not yet fully admitted it
to himself, and it hurt to be accused of it publicly.
One thing was clear: his attempt at sincerity and clarity had been
a total failure. The world was accustomed to subterfuge and verbal
pyrotechnics, and when it didn't get the expected commodity, it grew
suspicious. Sincerity had no market value. By going before the public
and making a direct appeal, Walton had aroused the suspicion that he
had something hidden up his sleeve.
When _Citizen's_ third edition of the day openly screamed for war with
Dirna, Walton realized the time had come to stop playing it clean. From
now on, he would chart his course and head there at any cost.
He tore a sheet of paper from his memo pad and inscribed on it a brief
motto: _The ends justify the means!_
With that as his guide, he was ready to get down to work.