The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner

The lawyer’s wife escaped to join her husband on the far side of the room.
    “Did you have that heart-to-heart with Denise?”
    “Oh, God,” Tania said, leaning back and crossing her arms. “So that was why you brought us here—to spy on the Masons!”
    “It was not!”
    “Then what in hell makes it so urgent? You don’t have to be back at the office before Monday! And why didn’t you ask me in the car instead of snapping my head off every time I spoke?”
    All around, their attention caught by voices sharpening toward the pitch of a quarrel, people were turning to look. Hideously embarrassed, Chalmers adopted a conciliatory manner.
    “Tania honey, I’m sorry, but it is important.”
    “Obviously! More important than me or Tony! More important than my first chance in years to relax and make some new friends! Look what you’ve done—chased Sally away!”
    He just sat there.
    After a moment, however, she relented. Four years ago they had been through the unemployable stage; she knew what it would mean to lose his job.
    “Oh, hell ... Yes, I wormed it out of her. She’s a crank. Practically a Trainite.”
    Chalmers pricked up his ears. “How do you mean?”
    “A crank, like I say. Won’t let him fly. Says she wants her grandchildren to see the sun. What difference it makes if a plane flies with one seat empty, I don’t know! But she thinks Phil’s in some kind of trouble because she made him drive to LA, only he won’t come out and put the blame squarely on her. And she wants desperately to know what the problem is. In fact she brought the matter up. I didn’t have to. Because he was awful over Christmas, apparently. What’s more he keeps finding excuses not to screw her. Wouldn’t have made it even on New Year’s, she said, not unless she’d actually seduced him—”
    The last word was drowned out by a sudden thudding noise from the sky, as though a giant had clapped hands around a mosquito. Everyone winced. An anonymous voice said, “Oh, a filthy sonic boom. Don’t you hate them?”
    But it should have been over in an instant. It continued: after the initial bang, a growling sound, lower-pitched, but enduring, like stones being rubbed by the current of a fast river or a vigorous tide on a pebbly headland. Poised to renew their conversation, people realized that this wasn’t right. The noise grew louder, grinding. They turned and looked at the window.
    Tania screamed.
    With implacable majesty, to the beating of countless drums, half a million tons of snow and ice were marching on the town of Towerhill.

    CHARGE ACCOUNT
    Reporter: General, it’s no exaggeration to say the world has been appalled at your decision to arrest and expel the American relief workers from Noshri—
    General Kaika: Do you expect us to let them remain when they have poisoned thousands of our people, killed them or, worse still, driven them mad?
    Reporter: There’s no proof that—
    General Kaika: Yes, there is proof. All the people of the town went mad. They attacked our own troops who had freed them from the occupying forces. They were poisoned by the evil food sent under the pretence of relief supplies.
    Reporter: But what conceivable motive could—?
    General Kaika: Plenty of motive. For one thing, Americans go to any length to prevent an independent country whose government does not have white skin. Colored governments must bow to Washington. Consider China. Consider Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Ceylon, Indonesia. If ever we have a strong united country of black people in Africa they will no longer be able to tread down their black countrymen.
    Reporter: Are you saying there was a deliberate plot to weaken your forces and win the war for the invaders?
    General Kaika: I am making investigations to confirm. But it is white men who made the war to start with.
    Reporter: There weren’t even any white mercenaries with the—
    General Kaika: Was it black men who filled the Mediterranean with poison? No, it was