Club, when they both had been a little drunk, and gotten to laughing so hard their sides had hurt. Whiting . . . the last of the pure Eros men left in DEPCO, a protege of the legendary Larchmont who had almost succeeded in converting the educational system of the country into a vast group-analysis instrument during the shaky, formative days of the Vanner-Elling government. Larchmont had not quite succeeded in putting that through, but he had left the imprint of his own occult personality permanently in the psychology of the country, and in the government.

It had been his followers who had shifted the romantic folklore of the country from the old fallacy of the Clean-Cut-Ilero-Beautiful-Heroine-In-Love Hollywood standard to the even more horrendous fallacy of the Be-Her-Daddy-Be-His-Little-Nymph concept of the current fictofilms, poptunes and couch confessionals.

And Whiting was a Larchmont man, a psychoanalytical dreamer, a fantasy rambler, kept on by DEPCO in the Foreign Affairs office because he was harmless, and a handy repository for the grasshopper-minded fringes of the psychological world, also harmless because nothing ever happened in Foreign Affairs.

But now something had happened. The foreign nets handling the alien story came under Whiting, and naturally Whiting came to Bahr. But what Whiting had to say was another thing. Bahr relaxed, suddenly feeling warmly exultant, listening now to see how Whiting, who after all did have DEPCO authority, could be used.

". . . We interpreted the spaceships as phallic symbols," Whiting was saying eagerly. "At the height of the crash, there was the tremendous father-hatred and Oedipus feeling toward the ships. The mobs smashed the last one before it was even completed, so we used the father-hatred to persuade the masses to reject the ideas of the former legal and military governments. And we had the computers. We had to use them because Vanner, after all, was the political rallying point. But the idea of putting them into the caverns was a stroke of genius on Larchmont's part. The computers meant security and warmth and protection and anti-spaceships, and they were in the caverns ... a magnificent Oedipus feel-ing.

Bahr glanced across at Paul MacKenzie, who was sitting sleepy-eyed and unperturbed through this emotional drenching that Whiting was pouring out. MacKenzie apparendy had heard this litany before. He seemed to be the only one in the room, besides Bahr, who was not caught up in the revival-meeting feeling.

"What you mean to say," Bahr cut Whiting off in midsentence, "is that the people now have an enormous guilt-fear of spaceships and, by association, are afraid of aliens. Is that right?"

Whiting seemed stunned by Bahr's succinct summation of his still unfinished Articles of Faith. "Well . . . well, yes, that is . . ."

"AH right," said Bahr. "Now listen carefully. We'll have to give them the truth ... as we see it, of course. We can use sibling rivalry toward the aliens because of their human-oid form. Of course, we'll have to declassify that." He spoke swiftly, powerfully, hoping that he wouldn't get Libby's little bedroom lectures on theoretical psychodynamics so badly scrambled that even Whiting in his ecstatic state would choke on them. "Then we'll play up the non-phallic shape of the alien spaceships, and feature protection and security as coming from a computer-guided defense against the aliens . . . from the caverns, of course."

He was afraid for a moment that MacKenzie might laugh out loud and spoil the whole thing, but the BRINT man managed to suppress the reaction in a fit of coughing. Whiting was nodding eagerly.

"Brilliant . . . brilliant . . . Larchmont would have liked that idea."

"Certainly that approach will cut any panic off at the root," Bahr said gravely. "No need for a Condition B alert. With DEPCO authority—from you—well handle the security by compartmentalizing the country by ethnic areas; we'll play up the We-group against the Mens. Of course, we will need a Condition B censorship on newscasts and travel."

Whiting looked doubtful. "That's quite a lot to ask for."

"Don't worry," Bahr said. "I'll see that the Joint Chiefs go along, if you'll back me."

"And of course there'll have to be careful work on the news releases from BURINF," Whiting said, warming to the idea.

"I'll take care of that," Bahr said. "For a news break like this, we won't want a written release. We'll need a personal address."

"Of course!" Whiting agreed. "We have some people who could put it very nicely."

"No need for that," Bahr said firmly, completely confident now. "I'll do the talking myself."

The broadcast was made at seven o'clock in the evening from the BURINF studios in New York, where Bahr had flown when he finally broke free of Whiting. Since noon, when the Condition B news blackout had fallen, the powerful BURINF TV net had moved into action, co-ordinating trailer broadcasts, reaching every radio, public address microphone and television set in the nation. BURINF had had long and fruitful experience with mass audience control as a major vector force in implementing DEPCO policies; in the seven hours of maximum saturation they were able to guarantee an 80% viewing at announcement-time, with rebroad-cast catching an additional 17% by midnight.

The substance of the trailers alone was sufficient to guarantee maximum attention. The blackout was a calculated blow, with a single item of information coming through from all sources: that the director of DIA would discuss minors of an alien invasion of Earth.

'You've got to be careful," Libby told him, checking his TV make-up carefully. "They'll be watching every gesture, every mannerism."

"Certainly they will," Bahr growled. "That's what I want."

"I don't mean the public. I mean DEPCO. Adams was furious when he got Whiting's report. They're watching you, and I can't stall them much longer."

"Of course you can," Bahr said. "You're doing fine." "When did you sleep last?"

"I don't need any sleep. I feel great." He nodded to a technician who signaled from the control window, got up, and walked into the BURINF broadcasting room.

Libby was right: they were watching him. The cameras picked him up as he came through the door, and he could feel the hush of voices in the darkened room and across the nation, waiting, watching him. His mouth tightened in a flat smile he couldn't control. This was the moment he had been building for. The past doesn't matter any more, he told himself savagely as he crossed the room. Nothing matters any more except this thing now. It doesn't matter that they gave you a green card to keep you down, to break you. It doesn't matter that they court-martialed you out of the Army. All your life they've been trying to break you, trying to jam you down into the mold, and all your life you've fought back, and now you're going to win.

He saw himself in the monitor screen as he walked to the microphone in the center of the booth, carrying his coat, his shoulder holster with the gleaming and deadly Markheim stunner showing, flanked by Frank Carmine on his right. Vaguely his ears picked up the commentator chattering the introduction in a hushed voice.

". . . Julian Bahr, Acting Director DIA, who is going to make a statement to the people of Federation America about the urgent national crisis which has arisen. Mr. Bahr's assistant is seated now. Mr. Bahr is putting on his coat. He has been working right up to the moment on the solution of the crisis. And now, friends, the Director DIA, Mr. Julian Bahr."

Silence lay heavily as Bahr waited, looking out at the gray faces in the room, sensing the desperate hush before ninety million TV sets across the country. He saw Adams' face, tense and grim, watching him, and far to one side, the face of an elderly man with an unruly shock of white hair, watching him.

And then his voice came, heavily resonant, powerful, commanding and yet reassuring. "Friends, there is no longer any question that we are facing a national crisis. We know that alien ships have made a landing on Earth in the first wave of a silent invasion. They are among us now . . ."