When They Come from Space by Mark Clifton Page B

newspapers and my television and radio stations—and you've got any kind of public opinion you want to ask for. You know that. You know how you've been elected all those terms. And if the President has forgotten..."
    "But all those innocent people...” Higgins said, almost with a groan.
    "All those innocent people,” Strickland mimicked. “So what'll happen? Hell. You know what it'll do, well as me. It always does it, any kind of trouble. It sends ‘em back to their beds to breed faster, to make even more people than was lost. Far as opinion goes, them that don't get hit will shrug it off. They weren't hurt, so why squawk. Them that do get hit won't matter. Look, Tom, you gotta take the broad view of these things. You tell them generals to stop shilly-shallying around, listening to college professors, and get back to doing what they're suppose to do. Drop that H-Bomb, and stop arguing."
    "Okay, Harvey,” Higgins answered faintly. “I'll tell them. I'll tell them how you feel."
    "Whoa! Back up! It doesn't make any difference how I feel. See? I'm just a newspaperman. I just print the news. I don't make it. I got to tell you this again? Something you learned thirty years ago?"
    "But, Harvey! Something as big as this. They won't drop the H-Bomb on my say-so. Something big as this, Harvey, maybe you've got to come out into the open..."
    "And if I do, how'm I going to mold public opinion? I'd be an interested party. And if I can't mold public opinion, you'll all go down the drain."
    "Maybe we should, Harvey. Maybe we should."
    "Now you look here, Tom.” Harvey Strickland took a negotiating tone. “This is not your decision to make. You're not a military man. You're not trained to make the kind of decisions a military man has to make. So it won't be your decision. It'll be their decision. All you have to do is remind them they're military men.
    "Remind them to go back and pick up on their West Point training, and places like that. Remind them to stop thinking about people and start thinking about troops and forces. Troops and forces don't bleed, you know. They're just tactical problems on blackboards.
    "Remind them about those conversations they used to have; where they used to speculate on whether the lower orders actually had any nerves and feelings. And the lower orders being anybody who didn't go to West Point, or the like. If they've developed weak stomachs, tell them to start thinking about maps and forces and calculated risks, the way they were trained. Hell, they're trained to be killers, so what's stopping them?
    "You understand me, Tom?"
    "I'll tell them, Harvey.” The voice sounded sick.
    "Yeah,” Strickland said contemptuously. “I thought you would."
    He put down the receiver and rubbed his hands together. He didn't resent having to blow some steam into his men once in a while. It was a reminder of what they would be without him.
    They wouldn't decide to use New York as the test city, of course. Because he was in New York.
    And they wouldn't decide to use Washington, because they were in Washington.
    It would be some place like St. Louis, maybe. There'd been a strong, unaccountable anti vote in St. Louis last election. Maybe he'd better give some more thought to replacing some editors and station managers out there. Then he chuckled. He was forgetting. There wouldn't be any to replace after a few minutes. If they decided on St. Louis. Maybe he'd better call Tom and tell him to use St. Louis. No, better not. Let them make the decision.
    He touched a button beside one of the jeweled lights along the ledge of his desk; and knew it was like touching a raw nerve to make the man at the other end jump out of his chair and start running to the elevator. All these buttons were nerve endings, the nerves reaching down through the executive offices from penthouse to basement, even down to the subbasement where giant presses thundered day and night to grind out read-and-repeat public opinion.
    Precisely in the number of