be one ofthe evacuees?"
Something in the back of his mind twisted the question. How does itfeel, General, to turn your only son over to a poker-faced alien whoshoots when you walk near his ship? "I'm not sure," he said, "how Ifeel."
Talking excitedly, the announcer drew closer. "To think that your namewill live forever in the vast star clusters of the galaxy!" He loweredhis voice. "General, speaking now unofficially, as a parent, to thethousands of other parents whose children may also be selected, and tothe rest of us who ..." he seemed to stumble for a word, and for aninstant Rothwell saw him, too, as a man worried and afraid, instead ofas part of a television machine. "Well, General, _you've_ had contactwith the aliens, are you glad your son is going?"
Rothwell looked at the strained face of the announcer, at the cameracrew quietly eyeing him, and at the small huddled group of neighborshovering in the background, and he knew that his next words might be themost critical he would ever use in his life. In a world strainedemotionally almost beyond endurance, the wrong words, a hint of asuspicion, could spark the riots that would kill millions and bringtotal destruction.
He faced the camera and said calmly, "I am glad my son is going. I wishit could happen for everyone. Commander Aku has assured me thateverything will turn out all right." Mentally he begged for forgiveness,there was nothing else he could say. Sweat glistened on his forehead ashe tried to fight down the memory of Aku turning his back on the pleathat echoed in his brain--"tell me that our children will be safe."
The front door of the house banged open and all at once Martha was inhis arms, crying, laughing. "Oh, Jim, I'm so glad, so very glad!"Rothwell blinked his eyes as he put his arm around her and waved thecamera away. Tears sparkled on his cheeks; but neither Martha nor theviewers knew why.
* * * * *
The next morning Aku and his ever-present lieutenant were waiting whenRothwell's heli set him down in front of the administration building, afew minutes later than usual. They followed him into his office.
"Coffee?" Rothwell held out a paper cup.
"No, thank you," said Aku, as expressionless as ever. "We are here tomake final arrangements for the evacuation."
"I see. Well," said Rothwell, "Thursday will be a very painful day forus and we will want to expedite things as much as possible."
Aku nodded.
Rothwell went on. "I have made arrangements to have a hundred air fieldscleared at various population centers around the world. That way yourships can land simultaneously, one at each field, and the loading can befinished in very little time. Now," he opened a desk drawer, "here is alist, of ..."
* * * * *
Aku held up a fur-covered hand. "That will not be possible."
Rothwell looked down at his desk and closed his eyes briefly. I knew it,he thought, I knew this would happen, sure as hell. He raised his head."Impossible?"
"We will first land twenty ships. These twenty must be fully loaded andback in orbit before the next will land. We will use the first twentyair fields on your list."
Rothwell took a deep breath. "But I thought you wanted to get away assoon as possible! It will take at least an extra day to load accordingto your scheme."
"Will it?" Aku moved to go, his lieutenant reached to open the door.
On an impulse, Rothwell stepped forward. "Commander, if you had a sonwould you send him away like this?"
Aku stopped, and looked directly at him with even, black eyes; then thegaze moved through and past him, to the window and the ship beyond. Fora minute his expression altered, changing almost to one of pain. Whenhe spoke, it was almost to himself. "My father loved his children morethan ..." He started as his lieutenant suddenly clapped a hand on hisshoulder. The expression vanished. They left together, without lookingat Rothwell or saying another word.
For several minutes Rothwell stared frowning at the closed door. Hewalked thoughtfully back to his desk, and lowered himself slowly intothe chair.
He sat for a long time, trying to puzzle through the picture. Finallyhe stood and paced the room. "Suppose," he said to himself, "justsuppose that not all of those hundred ships up there are really cargoships. Suppose that, say, only twenty are. Then, after those twenty wereloaded ..." He swung around to look again at the long, slim silhouettepoised high against the main runway. "With ocean vessels, it's thefighting ships that are lean and slender."
Bending over his desk, he nudged an intercom button with his finger."Doc, how would one go about trying to understand an alien'sreactions?"
Philips' voice shot right back. "Well, Jim, the very first thing, you'dhave to be sure they weren't exactly the same as a human's reactions."
Rothwell paused, startled. "It can't be, Doc. Why, if Aku was a humanI'd say ..." He stiffened, feeling the hair rise at the back of hisneck. The short, curt answers, the refusal to meet his eyes, the frozenexpression clicked into pattern. "Doc ... I'd say he was being forced todo something he hated like hell to do."
Tensely, he straightened and contemplated the lean, gray spaceship. Thenhe whirled around and slapped every button on the intercom.
* * * * *
Thursday. The sun pecked fitfully at the low overcast while a sullencrowd watched a squat alien ship descend vertically, to finally settlewith a flaming belch not far from the first. Similar crowds watchedsimilar landings at nineteen other airports around the world, but theloading was to start first in New York.
An elevator-like box swung out from the fat belly of the ship and waslowered rapidly to the ground. Two golden-hued aliens, in uniformsresembling Aku's, stepped out and walked about a thousand feet towardsthe crowd. Only children actually being loaded were to go beyond thispoint; parents had to stay at the airport gates.
"When do I go, Dad?"
"Shortly, son." Rothwell laid his hand on the lean shoulder. "You're inthe second hundred." There was a brief, awkward silence. "Martha, you'dbetter take him over to the line." He held out his hand. "So long, son."
Jim, Jr., shook his hand gravely, then, without a word, suddenly threwhis hands tight around his younger sister. He took his mother's hand,and they walked slowly over to the sad line that was forming beyond thegate.
Rothwell turned to his daughter. "You going over there too, kitten?" Thewords were gruff in his tight throat.
She wiped a hand quickly across her cheek. "No, Dad, I guess I'll stayhere with you." She stood close beside him.
Aku, forgotten until now, cleared his throat. "I think the loadingshould start, General."
Raising his hand in a half-salute, Rothwell signaled to a captainstanding near the gate who turned and motioned to a small cordon ofmilitary police. Shortly, a group of fifty of the first youngsters inthe line separated from the others and moved slowly out onto theconcrete ribbon towards the waiting ship. The rest of the linehesitated, then edged reluctantly up to the gate, to take the place ofthe fifty who had left. They waited there, the children of a thousandfamilies, suddenly dead quiet, staring after the fifty that slowly movedaway.
They walked quietly, in a tight group, without any antics or horseplaywhich, in itself, gave the event an air of unreality. Approaching theship, they seemed to huddle even closer together, forming a patheticallytiny cluster in the shadow of the towering space cruiser. The title of abook that he had read once, many years before, flashed unexpectedly inRothwell's memory, _The Story of Mankind_. He looked sadly after thefifty, then back at the silent line. Were these frightened kids nowwriting the final period in the last chapter? He shook himself, work tobe done, no time now for daydreams.
As the fifty reached the ship and started to enter the elevator,Rothwell turned and beckoned to some technicians standing out of sightjust inside the entrance to the control tower. Three of them ran out andset up what looked like a television set, only with three screens. Oneran back, unreeling a power cable, while a fourth flicked on a bank ofswitches, making feverish, minute adjustments. Rothwell felt the swea
tin his hands. "Is it okay, Sergeant?"
The back of the sergeant's shirt was wet though the air was cool. "It'sgot to be, sir!" His fingers played across the knobs. "All that metal,the whole thing is critical as ... Ah!" He jumped back. The screensflashed into life.
* * * * *
Aku stiffened. His lieutenant gasped audibly, made a jerky movementtowards the screens, then suddenly became aware of three MPs standingbeside him, hands nonchalantly cradling blunt-nosed weapons.
All three receivers showed similar scenes, the milling youngsters andthe ship, but from up close, the pictures jerking and swayingerratically as if the cameras