shown no signs of having profited by the
telepathic powers of Fran and his companions. No spies were seized. A
submarine installation that could lob missiles into New York from the
edge of the hundred-fathom line was not depth-bombed. There were other
failures to act on information obtained through the children. No nation
could imagine another allowing spies to operate if it could detect them.

So a raging guess began to spread among the anti-American peoples of the
world. The guess was that the broadcast was a lie. Nobody doubted the
landing of a spaceship, of course. The static and the earth-shock were
evidence, and the Russians had photographs. But the children were too
suspiciously like human children. They could be child actors, coached to
impersonate aliens who could not be produced. And there was an easy
answer to the question of why the true aliens weren't revealed. They
could be dead. Earth's atmosphere might be fatal to them. They could
have died of some infection against which they had no defense.

The politicians and the rulers of the world suspected the United States
of bad faith and trickery. They were not certain. But there were ways of
making sure.

When Soames tuned in to the news at Calumet Lake, the United States had
been forced to use a veto in the United Nations for the first time. A
resolution passed, calling on the United States to turn over "the crew
of an extraterrestrial space vessel" to a committee to be appointed by
the UN assembly. The United States vetoed it. Ironically, with Fran run
away and not found again, the United States could not have complied with
the resolution in any case.

But the veto lent plausibility to suspicions. There was intensified
distrust. The Nato countries asked to share in technical information
obtained from outer space. There wasn't any. They asked to study the
devices salvaged by the children. This could have been done, but recent
political developments inside Nato made it certain that anything one
particular nation learned would immediately be known to Russia. This was
to be avoided if possible.

* * * * *

The mess went farther. South America was so deeply suspicious of the
colossus of the north that various Latin nations sought engagements by
European countries to defend them against aggression by the United
States. There had been two great concentrations of military power on
Earth. Russia headed one group of nations, and th