Sex and the High Command

by John Boyd

  McCormick spoke for all men, everywhere, men huddling in lonely farmhouses on the Northern Plains, men rolling along highways in Diesel rigs or gathering at bars of friendly taverns which had once been family taverns. As a man sincerely in love, he spoke with a voice that stirred old gallantries in hearts now diverted, but the high point, always, for his speeches, for Hansen, came when he invited Cora Lee to come to the rostrum and stand beside him.

  Two weeks after the convention, Dubois announced that he could no longer support McCormick. Dubois had converted to the Catholic Church and he felt that the candidate did not have the interests of Negro or Catholic constituents at heart. Dubois withdrew from both parties to form the Afro-Catholic Party.

  Despite such pebbles on the pavement, the McCormick steamroller kept rolling, and the romance between Mac and Cora Lee was on everyone’s tongue.

  Hansen seldom listened to Dr. Carey. Her fiscal policy was insane; she proposed to scrap all armaments despite the country’s investment in ships, armor, planes, and nuclear weapons. Her foreign policy was equally ludicrous; she would eliminate all tariffs and permit freedom of exit or entry across borders without passports. She would eliminate NASA and space exploration. “If anyone out there wants to visit us, let them pay their own passage.”

  Two weeks before November 2, Dr. Carey, in a rather contrite speech, admitted that she was not entirely against males and had, in fact, been hoping for an invitation to the McCormick-Barnard nuptials. After her wedding speech, the polls stabilized, and three days later she even recovered a little lost ground by promising the use of her yacht for a honeymoon cruise. It would be better, she hinted, if McCormick lost the election, for then he could have a carefree honeymoon.

  President Habersham entered the fray. Since the FEM’s were attempting to make political capital of young love, the couple could have the Presidential yacht which would be made available immediately after the wedding, scheduled for November 3.

  One morning in mid-October, shortly after the battle of the yachts, Defense, HEW, and Labor dropped by the admiral’s office while Hansen was present to discuss the latest polls; 88 percent of the males and 48 percent of the females were for McCormick. There was a certain amount of crowing in the talk, and Hansen decided to needle the boys. “Percentagewise, gentlemen, it looks good. Numerically, it could get a little sticky…”

  “Ben, you’ve got something,” Primrose said. “What’s our latest mortality rate, Bones?”

  “Better let me check the latest figures,” Dr. Drexel said, and he virtually ran from the office.

  “I had lunch with Farnsworth yesterday,” Defense commented, “and he mentioned that felony convictions had soared in the past two months.”

  “Ogie,” the admiral said, “let’s feed the figures to the Mark Thirty-seven and get our deadline.”

  “Well,” Captain Hansen said, “if you gentlemen will excuse me, I’ve got to get back to my office and nuke Nebraska.”

  Fatigue, more than Nebraska, prompted Hansen’s departure. With the Helgalian formula, he could have figured the Nebraska drop in half an hour, but the activity had stepped up so around the house that he was almost hoping that Helga would resume night courses in comparative literature.

  At 1530, Primrose called, using the blue and gold phone. “Ben, where’ll you be, election night?”

  “At home.”

  “We fed your theory into the box, and it comes out November twenty-eight. That’s too close for comfort. If our mortality and felonization rates step up appreciably, we might have to work faster on Operation Ultimate Thule.”

  “Well,” Hansen said, groping through his tired brain for some rejoinder. Dr. Carey had promised to cancel the Venus probe, so they would not have the cold stars as Dubois had promised, and he added, “As long as we’ve got the priesthood…”

  “I hadn’t thought of that!” Primrose almost shouted. “Let me feed it to the Mark Thirty-seven. I’ll call you back.”

  Hansen went back to his planning board. With the tactical situation as presented, he had a problem. Either he would have to recommend a widening of the Soo Canal or request that the Navy construct smaller subs.

  At 1610 the blue and gold phone rang again. “Captain Hansen, prepare your wife and daughter for a quick trip to Madagascar. The critical date is October thirty-one.

  “You’ll receive no official orders, but on election night, stay close to your telephone. If the security officer calls, identify yourself with the countersign: ‘Primrose says, “Evacuate.” ’

  “If it’s flash green, proceed according to routine. If it’s yellow, prepare to leave with your family within two days. If it’s flash red, proceed immediately to Dulles Airport, alone, and board Air Force One.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” Hansen said, and trudged back to his drawing board.

  From the admiral’s remarks, he could detect the broad outlines of Operation Ultimate Thule. No wonder Primrose had spoken of the alternate plan with such dread. Surviving remnants of Western civilization would join Kenyatta and a handful of Moslems for a last-ditch defense of bisexual society on Madagascar. Life would be rough on that steaming island. Helga was wearing him to a frazzle in the North Temperate Zone. He hoped Madagascar had an adult education program which would offer Helga something physically more taxing than tailoring and taxidermy.

  Helga was so excited by the trip to Madagascar that she took her shears to the toolshed and sharpened them to cut out a pair of denim shorts and a bra halter for jungle wear, chanting “Me, Jane.” With some trepidations, Hansen realized that she would create a stir among the veiled wives of the Moslems and the muumuu-clad black women.

  On the day of the election, the Bensons motored up from Norfolk. Sue was eager to share the victory with her fellow partisan fighter, but Sue’s husband, no longer Ensign Benson but plain Mr. Benson, was apparently looking for a place to drink, since the bars were closed. Benson had resigned from the service to open an organically grown foods store in Virginia Beach. “I don’t relate to ordinance supply and trajectory problems as I do to wheat germs and alfalfa,” Benson explained, “and I’m more interested in maintaining the purity of body cells than in disarranging them.”

  “From the way you’re talking, young man, it seems to me you’ve embraced that woman’s platform.”

  “If by ‘that woman’ you mean Mother Carey, I certainly have, sir. I voted a straight FEM ticket.”

  “Are you insane, Benson?”

  “No, sir. I’m a realist. We’ve been living in a matriarchy for the last two hundred years and we might as well face it.”

  “While your young lady has been beating the bushes to save our hides, you’ve betrayed her on the home front.”

  “Not at all, Captain. Sue and I talked this over long ago, and we decided to hold to our identities. Two mature adults cannot relate to each other in a master-servant, dominant-regressive sexual pattern.”

  “Since you brought up the subject in mixed company,” the captain said, “I’ll tell you, if that woman gets in, she’ll dissolve marriage.”

  “It’s any woman’s prerogative to dissolve a marriage.”

  Helga, seated beside the television set and scissoring away on an old pair of Levis, rushed to her husband’s defense. “Ben’s right. That woman would not be above divorcing people by edict, if she could.”

  Their conversation was interrupted by the first projection from Poll-Pro. On the basis of fragmentary returns from Maine and New Hampshire, the computer gave the election to McCormick by 81 electoral votes, 30 votes less than Time’s consensus. Dejected, Hansen wandered into the kitchen to fix himself a drink. Helga, sensing his mood, followed him.

  “She’s cutting into his margin by having the girls entice the men, and she’s having fine weather for it. I checked the meteorological charts, and Florida is the only high-humidity area.”

  “It won’t matter much, there,” the captain said. “Time put Florida in the ‘Safe for Carey’ column because of Miami.” />
  “I’ll lay my femininity against your masculinity that Florida goes McCormick.”

  Since the presence of house guests had denied Helga her pre- and postprandial activities, Hansen felt in the mood to accept a wager he couldn’t lose. “We’ll drink on that.”

  They drank.

  Before midnight, Florida went for McCormick.

  New York was the big disappointment. Initial returns from upstate showed McCormick ahead 2 to 1, but when the precincts began to report in the metropolitan area, the picture shifted rapidly. Harlem went solid for Dubois. The Catholic vote was split down the middle, half for Carey and half for Dubois. The Jewish and Puerto Rican vote was 4 to 1 for Carey. After all the minority group votes were tallied, there weren’t enough male Protestant Caucasians to elect a mayor for Cordele, Georgia.

  Despite the loss of New York, Poll-Pro was holding steady at an 81-vote plurality for McCormick.

  Hansen was shocked by New York and submerged when Pennsylvania was dragged down by Philadelphia. New England went solidly McCormick, and so did the Atlantic Coast states from New Jersey to Florida, but McCormick was not piling up the expected lead. No sooner would an Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, and West Virginia stand up for McCormick than, plop, they would be bowled over by an Ohio and Michigan going for Carey.

  But Poll-Pro held steady at an 81-vote plurality for McCormick.

  Along toward morning, a totally unexpected trend developed. Dubois was carrying Louisiana and Mississippi and not merely cutting into McCormick’s plurality as predicted. Most of the Middle West farm states and the Rocky Mountain states held for McCormick, but Missouri and Illinois went for Carey. Texas squeaked by. Along the border, the Mexican-Americans with their woman-oriented culture almost swung the state for Carey until Dallas came barreling in with 92 percent for McCormick.

  By 1 a.m., it was obvious that the key state was California, regardless of the way Oregon and Washington went, which meant that Poll-Pro, holding - steady at 81, was predicting McCormick would take California and one other Pacific Coast state.

  Dr. Carey came on television at 1:15 to assure her followers that victory was in the bag, basing her prediction on the automatic response of the California electorate to a ballot with a movie star’s name on it, but when the cameras switched to Los Angeles, Dr. Carey’s words rang hollow. A shot of the Democratic-Republican headquarters at the Olympic Hotel revealed a happy and enthusiastic crowd. Word had just come in that Orange County was going 98 percent for McCormick, and celebrants were waving placards reading: WE ADORE YOU, MAC and MAD ABOUT THE BOY.

  Benson, who apparently had no compunctions about nonorganically grown bourbon, was slopping his shirt front and muttering in alcoholic jubilance, “She’s gonna murder ’im in LA.”

  “In vino veritas,” Helga said solemnly.

  “In bourbon, bunk!” Sue snapped. “If she wins, it will be the end of the world we’ve known.”

  “Give her credit,” Helga temporized. “I don’t think there’s any malice in her, and I’m sure that if Operation Gone Gander succeeds. Operation Caponette will be carried out objectively.”

  By heavens, he thought, so the FEM’s had their own Plans and Operations section. Forcing his tone to remain casual, he asked, “What is this Operation Caponette?”

  “It’s taken from the old word ‘capon,’ ” Helga explained. “You know. What they do to roosters to make them plump—snip. Snip.” She demonstrated by cutting the air with her tailoring shears. “But the New Grammar puts a feminine ending on all masculine nouns.”

  “The New Grammar,” Sue added thoughtfully, “has only the feminine and neuter genders.”

  Grammar was the last thing Hansen was interested in.

  “Is she serious?” he asked.

  “She is,” Helga said, “but it’s really not so dreadful. Caponizing applies only to prepubertal lads with their mother’s consent, to felons, and to social undesirables. Under certain circumstances, wives may have their husbands submitted.”

  “She’s not taking my masculinity under any circumstances.”

  “Of course not, dear,” Helga said, snip-snapping her shears roguishly in his direction. “You’re promised to me because Florida went to McCormick.”

  He was on the point of telling her that there were some subjects he did not care to joke about when the phone rang.

  “That’s probably for me,” he said. “Keep an eye on California.”

  He took the phone in the bedroom, closing the door. Over the phone, a man’s voice asked, “Is this Captain Hansen?”

  “It is.”

  “Captain Hansen, this is Major Thorne, Pentagon Security Detail. Would you, sir, complete this sentence? Two, four, six, eight…”

  “Primrose says, ‘Evacuate.’ ”

  “Correct, sir. Flash red! This is not a drill, Captain.”

  His uniform, topcoat, and hat were in the closet. His Navy jeep was parked on the street.

  Quickly, he donned his uniform, thinking, at last they had come to Operation Ultimate Thule, and now was not the time for explanations and good-byes. If he went out to kiss Helga farewell, that drunken simp Benson would realize a major operation was afoot.

  He would have to make it up to Helga and Joan Paula when they got to Madagascar, but for the moment, Helga would have to realize there were some things a man was more attached to than his family.

  He left via the window, carrying only his unread Mahan.

  By the time he reached the officials’ gate and Airforce One, the jeep’s radio was reporting that California and Washington had gone under. Only Oregon and Poll-Pro were still holding steady, Poll-Pro at 81.

  CHAPTER 16

  Outside the skin of Air Force One, the Arctic night swept past at 1,000 miles per hour. (Hansen had glanced through the port at the configuration of the stars, and figured their course at north-northwest. They were not headed for Madagascar.) As Hansen discarded a surplus king to draw to an inside straight. Air Chief Lafayette (pronounced Lay-fayit) Talliaferro (pronounced Tolliver) slithered the cards around the table with a sidewise riffle and tossed Hansen a four of hearts. Hansen folded, and Army Chief Telmore Ware picked up the pot with three queens.

  General Ware was the only non-Southerner in the game, but he played poker like a Southerner, raising on his come card, and Hansen liked the man. Because the others kept shouldering him aside, Hansen tried to include Ware in the conversation, asking, “General, what became of that brilliant analyst you had on your staff. General Hobart?”

  “Hogarth,” Ware corrected him as a look of sadness touched his eyes. “A keen mind. He was murdered while on liaison duty in Omaha, only a week ago.”

  “Murdered?”

  “Yes, a strange case. Two girls came from New York to set up a house and were doing a good business, but an early snow fell one afternoon, and MP’s, passing the house, noticed footprints went in but none came out…”

  “It’s time, gentlemen.” Admiral Primrose stood in the doorway leading aft to the President’s conference room.

  Silently, the players folded their cards and filed out of the press section of the plane, the khaki of Army, the light blue of Air, the dark blue and gold of Navy, and the nondescript hues of the civilians. Only Marine green was missing. Porky Flugel had gone forward to fly the plane.

  A weary President smiled as they entered and the admiral went over to the cockpit communication phone. “General Flugel, please put us back on automatic pilot, turn the plane over to its commander, and report to the conference room.”

  “Gentlemen,” the President said, after Flugel had arrived, “I’m here as a symbol, only, of the hopes of free men everywhere. Yet, if I, myself, were truly free, I would call for a beaker of hemlock rather than invoke what I hereby invoke. Operation Ultimate Thule.” He paused to gather his thoughts.

  “Gentlemen, unborn generations of our sons ride with us on this plane, for women have decided to eliminate the pain and conflict we have brought to them, by eliminat
ing us. Since I have forsaken the constitutional approach and adopted a military solution, I am turning this meeting over to Admiral Primrose with only one directive from me: Transportation must be provided for those of you who would reject our solution.”

  Quickly he arose from the table and seated himself on the divan lining the after bulkhead, and Primrose moved to the head of the table.

  Hansen caught the symbolism of the shift. The planning was over, the course was set, and the military men were taking over for action.

  “Gentlemen,” Admiral Primrose began, “if the plan I reveal weakens your resolve, then focus your mind on that old man, too weak to subdue the six or seven females his appetite demanded daily, whose betrayal has brought us to this expediency. Remember Honeysuckle Dubois! (He pronounced it Da-boy.)

  “On my left, by yonder bulkhead, sits a statesman,” the admiral continued. “Behind us lies a country wrecked by a politician. Remember Honeysuckle Dubois!

  “First, I wish to apologize for a slight discrepancy. Madagascar was a cover story designed by General Ware and me to release decoys in the wrong direction. Madagascar has been infiltrated. Our destination is Thule Air Force Base, whence we transfer inland to a headquarters bunker beneath the Greenland ice cap. Code name of the U.S. Government in Exile is Shiloh. For the past three months our planners have been stockpiling materiel and personnel on the Greenland Dew Line. Median age of the personnel is nineteen. Air General Lindenberry, commanding, is thirty-four. Inland from the bunker is a silo housing a cluster of Cherokee missiles…”

  “Nuke the broads!” Lafe Talliaferro ejaculated.

  “General, I have the floor. The Cherokee Cluster was established as a doomsday facility in the event that our country was overrun and occupied by a hostile power. This has happened.

  “As a fail-safe measure, the Cluster has never been equipped with inertial guidance devices, but the IGD’s inputs have been plotted by Captain Hansen who has completed all but eight of the continental states…”