“Coverly Wapshot?” the colonel asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Could I please have your security card?”
“Yes, sir.” Coverly passed over his security card.
“You know a Miss Honora Wapshot of Boag Street, St. Botolphs?”
“It’s Boat Street, sir.”
“You know this lady?”
“Yes, sir, I’ve known her all my life. She’s my cousin.”
“Why didn’t you report to this office the fact of her criminal indictment?”
“Her what?” What could she have done? Arson? Been caught shoplifting at the five-and-dime? Bought a car and run it into a crowd? “I don’t know anything about her criminal indictment,” Coverly said. “She’s been writing me about a holly tree that grows behind her house. It has some kind of rust and she wants it sprayed. That’s all I know about her. Could you tell me what she was charged with?”
“No. I can tell you that your security clearance has been suspended.”
“But, Colonel, I don’t understand any of this. She’s an old lady and I can’t be held responsible for what she does. Is there any appeal, is there any way I can appeal this?”
“You can appeal through Cameron’s office.”
“But I can’t go anywhere, sir, without a security clearance. I can’t even go to the men’s room.”
The clerk filled out a slip that looked like a fishing license and passed it to Coverly. It was, he read, a limited security clearance with a ten-day expiration. He thanked the clerk and went out a side door as another suspect was let in.
Coverly went at once to Cameron’s office, where the receptionist said that the old man was out of town and would be gone at least two weeks. Coverly then asked to see Brunner, the scientist who had lunched with him in Atlantic City, and the girl cleared him through to Brunner’s office. Brunner wore the cashmere pullover of his caste and sat in front of a colored writing board covered with equations and a note saying: “Buy sneakers.” There was a wax rose in a vase on his desk. Coverly told Brunner his problems and Brunner listened to him sympathetically. “You never see any classified material, do you?” he asked. “It’s the kind of thing the old man likes to fight. Last year they fired a janitor in the computation center because it appears that his mother worked briefly as a prostitute during the Second World War.” He excused himself and returned with another member of the team. Cameron was in Washington and was going from there to New Delhi. The two scientists suggested that Coverly go down to Washington and catch the old man there. “He seems to like you,” Brunner said, “and if you spoke with him, he could at least extend your temporary clearance until he returns. He’s up for a Congressional hearing at ten tomorrow morning. It’s in Room 763.” Brunner wrote the number down and passed it to Coverly. “If you get there early perhaps you could speak to him before he goes on. I don’t think there’ll be many spectators. This is the seventeenth time he’s been grilled this year and there has been a certain loss of interest.”
Chapter XXII
Whether or not Cameron would speak to Coverly after their last interview was highly questionable; but it appeared to be Coverly’s only chance and he decided to take it, moved mostly by his indignation at the capriciousness of the security officers who could confuse his old cousin’s eccentricities with national security. He flew to Washington that night and went to Room 763 in the morning. His temporary security clearance served and he had no trouble getting in. There were very few spectators. Cameron came in at another door at quarter after ten and went directly to the witness stand. He was carrying what appeared to be a violin case. The chairman began to question him at once and Coverly admired the quality of his composure and the density of his eyebrows.
“Dr. Cameron?”
“Yes, sir.” His voice was much the best in the room; the most commanding, the most virile.
“Are you familiar with the name Bracciani?”
“I have answered this question before. My answer is on record.”
“The records of previous hearings have nothing to do with us today. I have requested the records of earlier hearings but my colleagues have refused them. Are you familiar with the name Bracciani?”
“I see no reason why I should come to Washington repeatedly to answer the same questions,” the doctor said.
“You are familiar with the name Bracciani?”
“Yes.”
“In what connection?”
“Bracciani was my name. It was changed to Cameron by Judge Southerland in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1932.”
“Bracciani was your father’s name?”
“Yes.”
“Your father was an immigrant?”
“All of this is known to you.”
“I have already told you, Dr. Cameron, that my colleagues have withheld the records of earlier hearings.”
“My father was an immigrant.”
“Was there anything in his past that would have encouraged you to disown his name?”
“My father was an excellent man.”
“If there was nothing embarrassing, disloyal or subversive in your father’s past, why did you feel obliged to disown his name?”
“I changed my name,” the doctor said, “for a variety of reasons. It was difficult to spell, it was difficult to pronounce, it was difficult to identify myself efficiently. I also changed my name because there are some parts of this country and some people who still suspect anything foreign. A foreign name is inefficient. I changed my name as in going from one country to another one changes one’s currency.”
A second senator was recognized; a younger man. “Isn’t it true, Dr. Cameron,” he asked, “that you are opposed to any investigation beyond our own solar system and that you have refused money, cooperation and technical assistance to anyone who has challenged your opinions?”
“I am not interested in interstellar travel,” he said quietly, “if that’s what you meant to ask me. The idea is absurd and my opinion is based on fundamental properties such as time, acceleration, power, mass and energy. However, I would like to make it clear that I do not assume our civilization to be the one intelligent civilization in the universe.” That fleeting smile passed over his face, a jewel of forced and insincere patience, and he leaned forward a little in his chair. “I feel that life and intelligence will have developed at about the same speed as on earth wherever the proper surroundings and the needed time have been provided. Present data—and these are extremely limited—suggest that life may have developed on the planets of about six percent of all stars. I feel myself that the spectrum of light reflected from the dark areas of Mars shows characteristics that prove the presence of plant life. As I’ve said, I think the possibilities of interstellar travel absurd; but interstellar communication is something else again.