by Greg Bear
“What exactly will your job be, Mr. President?” Arthur asked.
“Not an easy one, I assure you. Our country doesn’t believe in giving up without a fight. I acknowledge that much. But we cannot fight this. Nor can we go to our fate ignorant of what is happening. We have to face the music courageously. That’s my job — to help my country face the end bravely.”
Crockerman’s face was pale and his hands, still pushing on the edge of the desk, trembled slightly. He might have been close to tears.
Nothing was said for several long seconds. Arthur felt a blanket of shock closing around him. Microcosm of what the country will feel. The world. Not a message we want to hear.
“There are alternatives, Mr. President. We can take action against the bogeys, both in Australia and Death Valley,” Harry said.
“They’re isolated,” Schwartz said. “The political repercussions…almost nil. Even if we fail.”
“We can’t simply do nothing,” Arthur said.
“We can do nothing effective, truly,” Crockerman said. “I think it would be cruel to raise false hopes.”
“More cruel to dash all hope, Mr. President,” Schwartz said. “Are you going to close the banks and stock exchanges?”
“It’s being seriously considered.”
“Why? To preserve the economy? With the end of the world in sight?”
“To keep calm, to maintain dignity. To keep people at their jobs and in their homes.”
Hicks’s face was flushed now. “This is insanity, Mr. President,” he said. “I am not a citizen of the United States, but I cannot imagine a man in your office…with your power and responsibility…” He waved his hands helplessly and stood. “I can assure you the British will not react so mildly.”
Ganging up on him, Arthur thought. Still can’t see her face.
Crockerman opened the folder marked DIRNSA. He pulled out a group of photographs in Mylar envelopes and spread them on the table. “I don’t think you’ve seen the latest from the Puzzle Palace,” he said. “Our NSA people have been very busy. The National Reconnaissance Office has compared Earth satellite photographs from the last eighteen months for almost all areas of the globe. I believe you initiated this search, Arthur.”
“Yes, sir.”
“They’ve found an anomaly in the Mongolian People’s Republic. Something that wasn’t there a year ago. It looks like a huge boulder.” He gently pushed the photographs at Schwartz, who examined them and passed them on to Arthur. Arthur compared three key photographs, beautiful computer-enhanced abstractions of blue-gray, brown, red, and ivory. A white circle about an inch wide surrounded a bean-shaped black spot in one photograph. In two earlier, otherwise practically identical photos, the black spot was absent.
“That makes a triad,” Crockerman said. “All in remote areas.”
“Have the aliens talked with the Mongolians, the Russians?” Arthur asked. The Mongolian People’s Republic, despite a fiction of autonomy, was controlled by the Russians.
“Nobody knows yet,” the President said. “If there are three, there could easily be more.”
“What sort of…mechanism do you envisage them using?” Harry asked. “You and Mr. Ormandy.”
“We have no idea. We do not second-guess the agents of supreme power. Do you?”
“I’m willing to try,” Harry said.
“Will you disband the task force?” Arthur asked.
“No. I’d like you -to keep on studying, keep asking questions. I am still capable of admitting we might be wrong. Neither Mr. Ormandy nor I are fanatics. We must talk with the Russians, and the Australians, and urge cooperation.”
“Can we ask you to postpone your speech, Mr. President?” Schwartz asked. “Until we are more sure of our position?”
“You already have almost two months. I do not know to the day when the speech will be delivered, Irwin. But once it becomes clear to me when I must speak, it will not be postponed. I must go with my convictions. Ultimately, that’s what this office is all about.”
The four of them stood in the hallway outside, their half hour concluded, clutching copies of the NSA report.
“Fat lot of good my being here did,” Harry said.
“I’m sorry, gentlemen,” Schwartz said.
“He’s going to be very effective on television,” Hicks said. “He almost convinces me.”
“You know the worst of it?” Arthur asked as they left through a rear door, Schwartz following them out to their cars. “He’s not crazy.”
“Neither are we,” Schwartz said‹
An hour after they left the White House, Hicks, Arthur, and Feinman ate lunch at Yugo’s, a steak and rib restaurant favored by those in the know, despite its location in one of Washington’s less decorative neighborhoods. They ate in silence, Hicks finishing his plate while Arthur and Harry barely picked at theirs. Harry had ordered a salad, a wilted and blue-cheese-overloaded mistake.
“We’ve done everything we can,” Arthur said. Harry shrugged.
“What next, then?” Hicks asked. “Carry on scientists?”
“We haven’t been shut down,” Harry said.
“You’ve just been ignored by your Chief Executive,” Hicks commented dryly.
“You’ve always been the odd man out here, haven’t you?” Harry said. “Now you know how we feel. But at least we had a definite niche to fill.”
“A role to play in the grand comedy,” Hicks said.
Harry began to bristle but Arthur touched his arm. “He’s right.” Harry nodded reluctantly.
“So begins phase two,” Arthur said. “I’d like for you to join us in a larger effort.” He stared at Hicks.
“Outside the White House?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve made plans.”
“My plans take me back to Los Angeles, and nowhere else,” Harry said.
“Harry will consult,” Arthur said. “Presidents’ minds can be changed any number of ways. If the direct approach doesn’t work…” He smoothed his fingers across the granite-patterned Formica tabletop with a squeak. “We work at a grass-roots level.”
“The President’s a shoo-in, as you say…” Hicks reminded.
“There are ways of removing standing presidents. I think, once he makes his speech—”
Harry sighed. “Do you realize how long impeachment and a trial would take?”
“Once he makes his speech,” Arthur continued, “all of us at this table are going to be in big demand on the media circuit. Trevor, your book is going to be the hottest thing in publishing…And we’re all going to be on talk shows, news interviews, around the world. We can do our best…”
“Against the President? He’s a very popular figure,” Hicks said.
“Schwartz hit the nail on the head, though,” Arthur said, picking up the tab from its plastic tray. “Americans hate the thought of surrender.”
Hicks looked over the neatly folded clothes in his suitcase with some satisfaction. If he could pack his belongings with dignity and style, while all about him hung their laundry out to dry…
The number of stories about the self-destruction of the Australian aliens and the Death Valley mystery had declined in both newspapers and television. Election eve was gathering all the attention. The world seemed to be taking a deep breath, not yet consciously aware of what was happening, but suspecting, anticipating.
Hicks jumped as the desk phone beeped. He answered with a nervous jerk of the handset, fumbling it. “Hello.”
“I have a phone call for Trevor Hicks from Mr. Oliver Ormandy,” a woman stated in pleasant, well-modulated midwestern American.
“This is Hicks.”
“Just a moment, please.”
“I’m pleased to speak with you,” Ormandy said. “I’ve admired your writings.”
“Thank you.” Hicks was too surprised to say much more.
“I believe you know who I am, and the people I represent. I’ve been discussing some things with the President, as a frie
nd and advisor…sometimes, as a religious counselor. I think we should meet and talk sometime soon. Could you make a space in your schedule? I can have a car pick you up, bring you back, no difficulties there, I hope.”
“Certainly,” Hicks said. “Today?”
“Why not. I’ll have a car pick you up at one.”
Precisely at one, a white Chrysler limousine with a white landau roof drove up in the hotel loading zone and Hicks climbed in through the automatically opened door. The door closed with a quiet hiss and the driver, a pale, black-haired young man in a conservative dark blue business suit, smiled pleasantly through the glass partition.
Snow lay in white and brown ridges, rucked up at the street edges by plows. This was one of the coldest and wettest falls in memory. The air smelled unusually sharp and clean, intoxicating, pouring against his face through the window, opened a small crack by the driver at Hicks’s request.
The car took him out of the concentric circles and confusing traffic loops of the Capital and into the suburbs, along expressways lined with young skeletal maples and out to country. An hour had passed when the Chrysler turned into the parking lot of a modest motel. The driver guided him through the lobby to the second floor and knocked on a room at the rear comer of the building. The door opened.
Ormandy, in his middle forties and balding, wore black pants and a gray dress shirt. His face was bland, almost childlike, but alert. His greeting was perfunctory. The driver closed the door and they were alone in the small, spare room.
Ormandy suggested he take an armchair by a circular table near the window. Hicks sat, watching the man closely. Ormandy seemed reluctant to get down to business, but since he could obviously manufacture no small talk, he turned abruptly and said, “Mr. Hicks, I have become very confused in the past few weeks. Do you know what is happening? Can you explain it to me?”
“Surely the President—”
“I’d like you to explain it to me. In clear language. The President is surrounded by experts, if you know what I mean.”
Hicks drew his lips together and leaned his head to one side, organizing his words. “I assume you mean the spacecraft.”
“Yes, yes, the invasion,” Ormandy said.
“If it is an invasion.” Now he was being overly cautious, reluctant to be pushed into conclusions.
“What is it?” Ormandy’s eyes were childlike in their openness, willing to be taught.
“To put it bluntly, it seems that we’ve fallen in the path of automatons, robots, seeking to destroy our planet.”
“Could mere machines do such a thing?” Ormandy asked.
“I do not know. Not human-made machines.”
“These are Godlike powers you’re discussing.”
“Yes.” Hicks started to rise. “I’ve been over all this with the President. I do not see the point in bringing me here, when you’ve advised the President to act contrary to—”
“Please sit. Be patient with me. I’m hardly the ogre you all think I am. I am way out of my depth, and just two nights ago, that really came home to me. I’ve talked with the President, and made my conclusions known to him…But I have not been at all sure of myself.”
Hicks sat back slowly. “Then I presume you have specific questions.”
“I do. What would it take to destroy the Earth? Would it be significantly harder than, say, destroying this place called Europa?”
“Yes,” Hicks said. “It would take much more energy to destroy the Earth.”
“Would it be done all at once, a cataclysm? Or could it begin in one place, spread out, like a war?”
“I don’t really know.”
“Could it begin first in the Holy Land?”
“There don’t seem to be any bogeys in the Holy Land,” Hicks said dryly.
Ormandy acknowledged that with a nod, his frown deepening. “Could there be a way of saying, scientifically, whether aliens can be considered angels?”
“No,” Hicks said, smiling at the absurdity. But Ormandy did not see the absurdity.
“Could they be acting on behalf of a higher authority?”
“If they are indeed robots, as they seem to be, then I presume they are acting on the authority of biological beings somewhere. But we can’t even be sure of that. Civilizations based on mechanical—”
“What about creatures that have gone beyond biology — creatures of light, eternal beings?”
Hicks shrugged. “Speculation,” he said.
Ormandy’s childlike face exhibited intense agitation. “I am way out of my depth here, Mr. Hicks. This is not clear-cut. We’re certainly not dealing with angels with flaming swords. We’re not dealing with anything predicted in apocalyptic literature.”
“Not in religious literature,” Hicks corrected.
“I don’t read science fiction much,” Ormandy said pointedly.
“More’s the pity.”
Ormandy smirked. “And I’m not in the mood to cross knives with you or anybody else. What I’m saying is, I’m not sure I can present this to my people in a way they’ll understand. If I tell them it’s God’s will…How can I be sure of that?”
“As you said, there seem to be Godlike forces at work,” Hicks offered. Perverse, perverse!
“My people still think in terms of angels and demons, Mr. Hicks. They dearly love halos of light and brilliancies, thrones and powers and dominations. They eat it up. They’re like children. And no one can deny there is beauty and power in that kind of theology. But this…This is cold and political, deceptive, and I don’t feel comfortable attributing such deception to God. If this is a work of Satan, or of Satan’s forces, then…The President, with my help, I admit, is about to make a tremendous mistake.”
“Can you get him to change his mind?” Hicks asked, less eagerly than he might have.
“I doubt it. Remember, he called me, not the other way around. That’s why I say I’m out of my depth. I’m not so proud I can’t admit that.”
“Have you told him your misgivings?”
“No. We haven’t met since I…became unsure.”
“Are you fixed in a theological interpretation?”
“Emotionally, by all that my parents and teachers handed down to me, I must believe that God intervenes in all our affairs.”
“What you’re saying, Mr. Ormandy, is that when push comes to shove, and the end of the world comes on apace, you no longer yearn for apocalypse?”
Ormandy said nothing, but his frown intensified. He held out his beseeching hands, ambiguous, opinion fixed neither one way nor the other.
“Can you talk to the President again, at least try to get him to change his mind?” Hicks asked.
“I wish he’d never involved me,” Ormandy said. He hung his head back and massaged his neck muscles with both hands. “But I’ll try.”
27
November 5
Arthur was in a late night conference with astronomers in Washington, discussing the appearance of the ice objects and their possible connection with Europa, when word came that William D. Crockerman was projected to win election as President of the United States. Nobody was surprised. Beryl Cooper conceded the next morning, at one a.m., while the conference was still proceeding.
No conclusion was reached by the astronomers at the meeting. If the ice chunks had come from Europa, which seemed undeniable given their paths and composition, then their present almost straight-line orbits had to be artificial, and some connection with the extraterrestrials could be assumed. The facts were clear enough: both were fresh, almost pure water-ice; the smaller of the two, barely 180 kilometers in diameter, was traveling at a velocity of some 20 kilometers per second and would strike Mars on December 21, 1996; the larger, some 250 kilometers in diameter, was traveling at about 37 kilometers per second and would strike Venus on February 4, 1997. Whatever had caused Europa’s destruction had not warmed the objects substantially, perhaps because ablation had carried away the heat. Both were quite cold and would lose little of their mass to va
porization by the sun’s energy. Consequently, neither would show much of a cometary coma, and both would be visible only to sharp-eyed observers with telescopes or high-powered binoculars.
Arthur left Washington the next day, convinced that his team now had solid evidence for making a connection. He had sufficient time, he thought, to prepare a case and present it to Crockerman, that all of these events were linked, and that some grand strategy could now be worked out.
He could not convince himself the President-elect would listen, however.
November 10
Major Mary Rigby, the latest in their series of duty officers, buzzed them all at six-thirty in the morning to listen to the radio. Shaw bunched his pillows up and sat in his cot as “Hail to the Chief” played — a true Crockerman touch — and the Speaker of the House listened gravely to the announcement of the appearance of the President-elect of the United States.
“Maybe the old fart’s going to write our ticket out of here,” Minelli said, his voice raspy from a night of protests and shouting. Minelli was not doing well at all. This infuriated Edward. But cold, subdued fury had been his state of mind for the last two weeks. This experience was going to leave all of them warped in one way or another. Reslaw and Morgan said very little anymore.
“Mr. Speaker, honorable members of the House of Representatives, fellow citizens,” the President began. “I have called this emergency conference after weeks of deep thought, and many hours of consultation with trusted advisors and experts. I have an extraordinary announcement to make, and a perhaps even more extraordinary request.
“You have no doubt been following with as much interest as I the events taking place in Australia. These events in the beginning seemed to bring hope to our stricken planet, the hope of Godlike intervention from outside, of those who would act to save us from ourselves.
We began to feel that perhaps our difficulties were indeed only those of a young species, faltering in its early footsteps. Now these hopes have been dashed, and we find ourselves in even deeper confusion.
“My sympathies lie with Prime Minister Stanley Miller of Australia. The loss of the three messengers from outer space, and the mystery surrounding their destruction — perhaps self-destruction — is a deep shock to us all. But it is time to confess that it has been less of a shock to me and to a number of my advisors. For we have been following a similar series of events within our own country, kept secret until now for reasons which will soon become clear.”