"Huh?"
"Go away. Go sell ice to the Eskimos. Leave me alone, yes?"
"If that's the way you want it. Hell, Roy, don't brood over it. We can still fix things up before that alien gets here. We can put the content of tonight's speech across so smoothly that they won't even know we're—"
"Get out!"
Percy skittered for the door. He paused and said, "You're all wrought up, Roy. You ought to take a pill or something for your nerves."
Well, he had his answer. An expert evaluation of the content and effect of his speech.
Dammit, he had tried to reach them. Percy said he hadn't, and Percy probably was right, little as Walton cared to admit the fact to himself.
But was Percy's approach the only one? Did you have to lie to them, push them, treat them as seven billion morons?
Maybe. Right now billions of human beings—the same human beings Walton was expending so much energy to save—were staring at the kaleidowhirl programs on their videos. Their eyes were getting fixed, glassy. Their mouths were beginning to sag open, their cheeks to wobble, their lips to droop pendulously, as the hypnosis of the color patterns took effect.