The Forge of God

by Greg Bear

  "It's exhilarating. Something truly exotic—a real first. An observed large meteor fall in midocean, and its results. We'd better alert all coasts."

  "Who's going to write the paper?"

  "We'll do it together."

  "I locked down the equipment after the anomaly. We'll have to make another run when this clears up."

  The Discoverer, Samshow thought, would weather the storm easily enough. It was not going to be a long blow. When he was sure of this, as the violent rain and waves declined, he retired to his quarters to look up the facts and figures and equations he would need to understand what had just happened. Sand staggered down the stairs and corridors, stopping in Samshow's hatchway long enough to say he was going to check again on his blessed gravimeters.

  The next day, when it was their turn to present the story by radio to the expedition's chiefs in La Jolla, they had still not sorted out their findings.

  One thing puzzled them both immensely. All three gravimeters had registered the "jag" simultaneously. Shock had not caused the anomaly; the gravimeters had been designed to be carried aboard aircraft as well as ships, and could weather relatively rough treatment handily. Besides, the shock had occurred after the appearance of the spikes.

  Sand put together a list of hypotheses, and revealed one candidly to Samshow when they were alone. "It's simple, really," he said in the galley over a late breakfast of corned-beef hash and butter-soaked wheat toast. "I made some calculations and compared the spikes on the three traces. The three tubs aren't really far enough apart to make the results authoritative, but I checked the digital record of each spike and found a very small time interval between them. I can explain the time interval in only one way. Doing a tidal analysis, and subtracting the ship's reaction as a gravitated object, the traces show an enormous mass, about a hundred million tons, traveling in an arc overhead."

  "Coming from what direction?" Samshow asked casually.

  "Due north, I think."

  "How far away?"

  "Anywhere from a hundred to two hundred kilometers."

  Samshow considered that for a moment. Whatever the fireball had been, it had been far too small to mass at anything like a hundred tons, much less a hundred million. It would have spread the Pacific out like coffee in a cup if it had been a mountain-sized meteoroid. "All right," he said. "We ignore it. It's an official anomaly."

  "On all three gravimeters?" Sand asked, grinning damnably.

  PERSPECTIVE

  NBC National News Commentator Agnes Under,

  November 2, 1996:

  The newest twist in a very twisted election year, the arrival of visitors from space, almost defies imagination. United States citizens, recent polls show, are in a state of rigid disbelief.

  The Australian extraterrestrials have arrived on Earth too soon, some pundits have said; we aren't ready for them, and we cannot begin to comprehend what they might mean to us.

  Presidential candidate Beryl Cooper and her running mate, Edgar Farb, have been on the offensive, charging that President Crockerman is hiding information provided by the Australians, and questioning whether in fact the United States is not behind the destruction—some say self-destruction—of the robot representatives in the Great Victoria Desert.

  The American people are not impressed with these charges. How many of us, I wonder, have fixed any emotional or rational response at all? The scandal of the destruction of the extraterrestrials refuses to spread; the Australian government's accusations of American complicity have been practically ignored around the world.

  We have lived our lives on a globe undisturbed by outside forces, and now we are forced to expand our scale of thinking enormously. Western liberal tradition has encouraged an inward-turning, self-critical kind of politics, conservative in the true sense of the word, and President Crockerman is the heir to this tradition. The more forward-looking, expansive politics of Cooper and Farb have not yet struck a chord with Americans, if we are to believe the recent NBC poll, which gives Crockerman a rock-steady 30 percent lead just three days before voters go to the polls. This, without the President issuing any statements or making any policy regarding the Great Victoria Desert incidents.

  26

  November 3

  Mrs. Sarah Crockerman wore a solemn, stylishly tailored gray suit. Her thick brown hair was carefully coiffed, and as she poured Hicks a cup of coffee, he saw her hands were immaculately manicured, the fingernails painted a metallic bronze, glinting softly in the gray winter light entering through French windows behind the dining table. The dining room was furnished in coffee-colored Danish teak, spare but comfortable. Beyond the second-story windows lay the broad green expanse of the U.S. National Arboretum.

  Except for a Secret Service agent assigned to Hicks, a stolid-faced fellow named Butler, they were alone in the Summit Street apartment.

  "The President kept this flat rented largely at my insistence," she said, replacing the glass pot on its knitted pad. She handed him the cup of coffee and sat in the chair catercorner from him, her nyloned knees pushing up against the table leg as she faced him. "Few people know it's here. He thinks we might be able to keep the secret another month or two. After that, it's less my private hideaway, but it's still here. I hope you appreciate how much this secret means to me."

  Butler had gotten off the phone and now stood by the window, facing the doorway. Hicks thought he resembled a bulldog, and Mrs. Crockerman a moderately plump poodle.

  "My husband has told me about his preoccupations, naturally," she said. "I can't say I understand everything that's happening, or . . . that I agree with all of his conclusions. I've read the reports, most of them, and I've read the paper you prepared for him. He is not listening to you, you know."

  Hicks said nothing, watching her over the rim of his cup. The coffee was very good.

  "My husband is peculiar that way. He keeps advisors on long after they've served their purpose or have his ear. He tries to maintain an appearance of fairness and keeping an open mind, having those about him who disagree. But he doesn't listen very often. He is not listening to you."

  "I realize that," Hicks said. "I've been moved out of the White House. To a hotel."

  "So my secretary informs me. You're still on call should the President need you?"

  Hicks nodded.

  "This election has been sheer hell for him, even though he hasn't been campaigning hard. Their 'strategy.' Let Beryl Cooper hang herself. He's sensitive, and he doesn't like not campaigning. He's still not used to being top dog."

  "My sympathies," Hicks said, wondering what she was getting at.

  "I wanted to warn you. He's spending a lot of time with a man whose presence at the White House, especially during the campaign, upsets many of us. Have you ever heard of Oliver Ormandy?"

  Hicks shook his head.

  "He's well known in American religious circles. He's fairly intelligent, as such men go. He's kept his face out of politics and out of the news the past few years. All the other fools"—she practically spat out the word—"have turned themselves into clowns before the media's cyclops eye, but not Oliver Ormandy. He first met my husband during the campaign, at a dinner held at Robert James University. Do you know of that place?"

  "Is that where they asked for permission to arm their security guards with machine pistols?"

  "Yes."

  "Ormandy's in charge of that?"

  "No. He leaves that to one of the bellowing clowns. He glad-hands politicians in the background. Ormandy is quite sincere, you know. More coffee?"

  Hicks extended his cup and she poured more.

  "Bill has seen Ormandy several times the past week. I've asked Nancy, the President's executive secretary, what they discussed. At first she was reluctant to tell me, but . . . She was concerned. She was only in the room for the second meeting, for a few minutes. She said they were talking about the end of the world." Mrs. Crockerman's face might have been plastered on, her anger stiffened it so. 'They were discussing God's p
lan for this nation. Nancy said Mr. Ormandy appeared exuberant."

  Hicks stared at the table. What was there to say? Crockerman was President. He could see whom he pleased.

  "I do not like that, Mr. Hicks. Do you?"

  "Not at all, Mrs. Crockerman."

  "What do you suggest?"

  "As you say, he doesn't listen to me anymore."

  "He doesn't listen to Carl or David or Irwin . . . or me. He's obsessed. He has been reading the Bible. The crazy parts of the Bible, Mr. Hicks. The book of Revelation. My husband was not like this a few weeks ago. He's changed."

  "I'm very sorry."

  "He's called Cabinet meetings. They're discussing economic impact. Talking about making an announcement after the election. There's nothing you could tell him ... ?" she asked. "He seemed to place great trust in you at first. Maybe even now. How did he come to trust you? He talked about you often."

  "It was a difficult time for him," Hicks said. "He saw me after he met with the Guest. He'd read my book. I never agreed with his assessment ..."

  "Punishment. In our bedroom, that's the key word now. He almost smiles when he talks about Ormandy's use of the word. Punishment. How very trite that sounds. My husband was never trite, and never a sucker for religious fanatics, politically or otherwise."

  "This has changed all of us," Hicks said softly.

  "I do not want my husband undone. This Guest found his weakness, when nobody in three decades of politics— and I've been with him all that time—has ever gotten to him. The Guest opened him wide, and Ormandy crept into the wound. Ormandy could destroy the President."

  "I understand." He could do worse than that, Hicks thought.

  "Will you please do something? Try talking with my husband again? I'll get you an appointment. He'll do that much for me, I'm sure." Mrs. Crockerman stared longingly at the French windows, as if they might be an escape. "It's even strained our marriage. I'll be with him on election eve, smiling and waving. But I'm thinking about staying here now. I can only take so much, Mr. Hicks. I cannot watch my husband undo himself."

  The air in the chief of staff's office was thick with gloom.

  Irwin Schwartz, face long and forehead pale, startling in contrast to his florid cheeks, sat on the edge of his desk with one leg drawn up as far as his paunch would allow, raised cuff exposing a long black sock and a few square inches of hairy white calf. A small flat-screen television perched on his desk like a family portrait, sound turned down. Again and again, the screen replayed the single videotaped record of the explosion of the Australian robot emissaries. Schwartz finally leaned over and poked the screen off with a thick finger.

  Around him, David Rotterjack and Arthur Gordon stood, Arthur with hands in pockets, Rotterjack rubbing his chin.

  "Secretary Lehrman and Mr. McClennan are with the President now," Schwartz said. "There's nothing I can say anymore. I don't think I have his confidence."

  "Nor I," Rotterjack said.

  "What about Hicks?" Arthur asked.

  Schwartz shrugged. "The President moved him out to a hotel a week ago and won't see him. Sarah called a few minutes ago. She spoke with Hicks this morning, and she's working on getting an appointment for him. Everything's tight now. Kermit and I have had it out several times." Kermit Ferman was the President's appointments secretary.

  "And Ormandy?"

  "Sees the President every day, for at least an hour. Off the calendar."

  Arthur couldn't get Marty out of his wandering thoughts. The boy's grinning face was detailed and sharp in memory, though static. Heir apparent. He could not conjure an overall picture of Francine's face, just individual features, and that bothered him.

  "Carl's got one last chance," Rotterjack said.

  "You think he's giving him the good old 'presidential' speech?" Schwartz asked.

  Rotterjack nodded.

  Arthur glanced between them, puzzled.

  "He's going to talk to the President about what it means to be presidential," Schwartz explained. "Taking coals to Newcastle, if you ask me. The Man knows everything there is to know about presidentiality."

  "The election's day after tomorrow. Time to remind him," Rotterjack said.

  "You and I both know he's got this election sewed up, as much as any election can be. You don't understand what's going on in his head," Schwartz said.

  "You're supposed to be his cushion, his buffer, goddammit," Rotterjack shouted, one arm shooting out suddenly and almost hitting Arthur. Arthur backed away a few inches but did not react otherwise. "You're supposed to keep the crazy idiots away from him."

  "We've done everything we can to save him from himself," Schwartz said. "McClennan tried ignoring his suggestions about national preparation. Ì pushed the meetings with the governors back in the schedule, lost the timetable the President drew up, changed the subject in Cabinet meetings. The President just smiled and tolerated us and kept hammering on the subject. At least everybody's agreed to hold off until after the election and the inauguration. But between now, and whenever, we have to put up with Ormandy."

  "I'd like to talk with him," Arthur said.

  "So would we all. Crockerman doesn't specifically forbid it . . . but Ormandy never lingers long enough for any of us to confront him. The man's a goddamn shadow in the White House."

  Rotterjack shook his head and grinned. "You'd think Ormandy was one of them.”

  "Who?" Schwartz asked.

  "The invaders."

  Schwartz frowned. "See what's going to happen if the President goes public? We're even beginning to think like gullible idiots."

  "Have you thought what could be happening?" Rotterjack persisted. "If they 'manufactured' the Guest, couldn't they make robots that look human, human enough to pass?"

  "I'm more frightened about what that idea can do to us than I am about it's being true," Arthur said.

  "Yeah, well, there it is," Rotterjack said. "Take it for what it's worth. Somebody out there is going to think of it."

  "It'll tear us apart," Schwartz said. "Just what they might want. Christ, now I'm talking like that."

  "Maybe it's just as well we bring it out in the open," Arthur said. "We haven't accomplished anything keeping it quiet."

  "Not the way he'd release it," Rotterjack said. "What'll you do if McClennan fails to get his point across—again?" he asked Schwartz.

  "Eventually, after the election, I could resign," Schwartz said, his tone fiat, neutral. "He might want to put together a wartime Cabinet anyway."

  "Will you?"

  Schwartz stared down at the sky-blue carpet. Arthur, following his gaze, thought of the myriad of privileges suggested by that luxurious color, so difficult to keep clean. A myriad of attractions to keep men like Schwartz and Rotterjack working.

  "No," Schwartz said. "I'm just too goddamn loyal. If he does this to me—to us, to all of us—I'll resent him like hell. But he'll still be the President."

  "There are quite a few congressmen and senators who'll work to change that, if he does go public," Rotterjack said.

  "Don't I know."

  "They'd be the real patriots, you know, not you and I."

  Schwartz's face filled with pained resentment and frank acknowledgment. He half nodded, half shook his head and stood up from the desk. "All right, David. But we've got to keep the White House together somehow. What else is there? Who'll take his place? The Veep?"

  Rotterjack chuckled ironically.

  "Right," Schwartz said. "Arthur, if I make an appointment—if I ram it down the President's throat— can you get Feinman out here, and can you and Hicks and he do your best to . . . you know? Do what we can't?"

  "If it can be in the next day or so, and if there are no delays."

  "Feinman's that sick?" Rotterjack asked.

  "He's in treatment. It's difficult."

  "Why couldn't you have found . . . never mind," Rotterjack said.

  "Feinman's the best," Arthur replied to the half-stated query.

  Rotterjack nodded
glumly.

  "We'll give it a try," Arthur said.

  Arthur walked through the afternoon crowds at Dulles, suit hanging on him, hands in pockets. He knew all too well that he resembled a scarecrow. He had lost ten pounds in the last two weeks, and could ill afford it, but he was seldom hungry now.

  Glancing at the American Airlines screen of arrivals and departures, he saw he had half an hour until Harry's plane landed. He had a choice between forcing down a sandwich or calling Francine and Marty.

  Arthur was still trying to remember his wife's face. He could picture nose, eyes, lips, forehead, the shape of her hands, breasts, genitals, smooth warm white stomach and breasts the color of late morning fog, the texture of her thick black hair. He could recall her smell, warm and rich and breadlike, and the sound of her voice. But not her face.

  That made her seem so far away, and him so isolated. He had spent ages, it seemed, in offices and in meetings. There was no reality in an office, no reality among a group of men talking about the fate of the Earth. Certainly no reality surrounding the President.

  Reality was back by the river, back in the bedroom and the kitchen of their house, but most especially under the trees with the smooth hiss of wind and the rushing music of water. There he would always be in touch with them, could be isolated and yet not alone, out of sight of wife and son yet able to get back to them. If death should come, would Arthur be away from them, still performing his separate duties ... ?

  The airport, as always, was crowded. A large tight knot of Japanese passed by. He felt a special kinship with Japanese, more so than with foreigners of his own race. Japanese were so intensely interested, and desirous of smooth relations, one-on-one. He walked around the knot, passed a German family, husband and wife and two daughters trying to riddle their boarding passes.

  He could not remember Harry's face.

  The open phone booth, with its ineffective plastic half bubble, accepted his credit card and thanked him in a warm middle-aged female voice, teacherlike and yet less stern, impersonally interested. Synthetic.

  The phone rang six times before he remembered: Francine had told him the night before that Marty would have a dentist's appointment in the morning.