Footfall

1. DISCOVERY

The lush tropical growth of the Kona Coast ended abruptly. Suddenly the passionflower vines and palm trees were gone, and Jenny was driving through barren lava fields. “It looks like the back side of the Moon,” she said.

Her companion nodded and pointed toward the slopes off to their right. “Mauna Loa . They say it’s terrible luck to take any of the lava home.”

“Who says?”

“The Old Hawaiians, of course. But a surprising number of tourists, too. They take the stuff home, and later they mail it back.” He shrugged. “Bad luck or no, so far as anyone knows, she — Mauna Loa is always she to the Old Ones — she’s never taken a life.”

Captain Jeanette Crichton expertly downshifted the borrowed TR-7 as the road began another steep ascent. The terrain was deceptive. From the beach the mountains looked like gentle slopes until you tried climbing them. Then you realized just how big the twin volcanoes were. Mauna Kea rose nearly 14,000 feet above the sea — and plunged 20,000 feet downward to the sea bottom, making it a bigger mountain than Everest.

“You’ll turn left at the next actual road,” Richard Owen said. “It’ll be a way. Mind if I doze off? I had a late night.”

“All right by me,” she said. She drove on.

Not very flattering, she thought. Picks me up in Kona, gets me to drive him up the side of a volcano, and goes to sleep. Romantic.

She ran her fingers along her shoulder-length hair. It was dark brown with a trace of red, and at the moment it couldn’t be very attractive since it was still damp from her morning swim. She hadn’t much of a tan, either. Sometimes her freckles ran together to give the illusion of a tan, but it was too early in the spring for that. Damp hair, no tan. Not really the popular image of a California girl.

Her figure was all right, if a bit athletic; the Army encouraged officers to run four miles a day, and she did that although she could get out of the requirement if she really wanted to. The medium-length skirt and T-shirt showed her off pretty well. Still, it couldn’t be looks that attracted this astronomer to her, any more than she was overwhelmed by his appearance. All the same, there’d been some electricity earlier. Now it was nearly gone.

He was up all night, she thought. And will be again tonight. Let him sleep. That should liven him up. God knows what I’d be like if I had to live on a vampire’s schedule.

They drove through alternate strips of pasture and lava fields. At irregular intervals someone had made crude stacks of lava rocks. Three or four rocks, each smaller than the one below, the bottom one perhaps two feet across, piled in a stack; she’d been told they were religious offerings made by the Old Hawaiians. If so, they couldn’t be very old; Mauna Loa erupted pretty often, and certainly this field had been overflowed several times during the twentieth century.

She turned left at the intersection, and the way became even steeper. The TR-7 labored through the climb. There were fewer fresh lava fields here; now they were on the side of Mauna Kea . “She” was supposed to be pretty thoroughly dormant. They drove through endless miles of ranchlands given by King Kamehameha to a British sailor who’d become the king’s friend.

Richard Owen woke just as they reached the “temporary” wooden astronomy base station. “We stop here,” he said. “Have some lunch.”

There wasn’t much there. Long one-story wooden barracks in a sea of lava and mud, with a few straggly trees trying to live in the lava field. She pulled in alongside several GMC Jimmy fourwheel-drive vehicles. “We could go on up,” she said. “I don’t really need lunch.”

“Regulations. Acclimatization. It’s nearly fourteen thousand feet at the top. Pretty thin air. Thin enough here at ten thousand It’s not easy to do anything, even walk, until you get used to it.”

By the time they reached the clapboard barracks buildings she was ready to agree.

There were half a dozen observatories on the lip of the volcano. Richard parked the Jimmy in front of the NASA building. It looked like an observatory in a Bugs Bunny cartoon: a square concrete building under a shiny metal dome.

“Do I get to look through the telescope?” she asked.

He didn’t laugh. Maybe he had answered that one too often. “No one looks through telescopes anymore. We just take pictures.” He led the way inside, through bare-walled corridors and down an iron stairway to a lounge furnished with chrome-steel office tables and chairs.

There was a woman in the lounge. She was about Jeanette’s age, and she would have been pretty if she’d washed her face and put on some lipstick. She was frowning heavily as she drank coffee.

“Mary Alice,” Owen said, “this is Jeanette Crichton. Captain Crichton, Army Intelligence. Not a spook, she does photo reconnaissance and that sort of thing. Dr. Mary Alice Mouton. She’s an asteroid specialist.”

“Hi,” Mary Alice said. She went on frowning.

“Problem?” Owen asked.

“Sort of.” She didn’t seem to notice Jeanette at all. “Rick, I wish you’d come look at this.”

“Sure.”

Dr. Mouton led the way and Rick Owen followed. Jeanette shook her head and tagged after them, through another corridor and up some stairs, past an untidy computer room. All mad, she thought. But what did I expect?

She hadn’t known what to expect at all. This was her first trip to Hawaii , courtesy of an engineering association meeting that invited her to speak on satellite observation. That conference was over and she was taking a couple of days leave, swimming the Big Island’s reefs and enjoying the sun. She didn’t know anyone in Hawaii , and it had been pretty dull. Jeanette began to make plans to visit Linda and Edmund before going back to Fort Bragg .

Then Richard Owen had met her at the reef. They’d had breakfast after their swim, and he’d invited her to come up to see the observatory. She’d brought a sleeping bag; she didn’t know whether Owen expected to share it with her, but from little things he’d said at lunch and on the drive up after lunch she was pretty sure he’d make the offer. She’d been trying to decide what to do when he did.

Now it was as if she weren’t there at all.

She followed them into a small, cluttered room. There was a big viewscreen in one corner. Dr. Mouton did things to the controls and a field of stars showed on the screen. She did something else, and the star field blinked on and off; as it did, one star seemed to jump back and forth.

“New asteroid?” Owen asked.

“That’s what I thought,” Dr. Mouton said. “Except … take a good look, Rick. And think about what you’re seeing.”

He stared at the screen. Jeanette came closer. She couldn’t see anything strange. You take the pictures on two different nights and do a blink comparison. The regular stars won’t have moved enough to notice, but anything that moves against the background of the “fixed stars,” like a planet or an asteroid, will be in two different places on the two different photos. Blink back and forth between the two plates: the “moving” body would seem to jump back and forth. That was how Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto. It was also a standard photo reconnaissance technique, to see what had changed in the interval between two satellite photos.

“What’s the problem?” Owen asked.

“That’s moving too far for the interval.”

“It’s close …”

“Not that close,” she said. “I got the plates from a few weeks ago. Rick, I had to trace back damn near night by night, it’s moving so fast! It’s in a hyperbolic orbit.”

“Come on, it can’t be!”

“It is,” Dr. Mouton said.

“Excuse me,” Jeanette said. They both turned to look at her. They’d obviously forgotten she was there. “What’s a hyperbolic orbit?”

“Fast,” Owen said. “Moving too fast for the sun’s gravity. Objects in a hyperbolic orbit can escape from the solar system altogether.”

She frowned. “How could something be moving that fast?”

“Big planets can make it happen.” Richard said. “Disturb something’s orbit …”

“It’s under power,” Mary Alice Mouton said.

“Aw, come on!”

“I know it’s silly, but it’s the only explanation I can think of. Rick, I’ve followed that thing backward for weeks, and it has decelerated most of the way.”

“But …”

“Jupiter can’t do that. Nothing can.”

“No, of course it — Mary Alice?”

“The computer plot fits perfectly if you assume it’s a powered spacecraft.” Dr. Mouton’s voice had taken on a flat, dry note. “And nothing else does.”

An hour later. Two more astronomers had come in, looked at the plates, and left shaking their heads. One had insisted that whatever else they found, the early plates were genuine; he’d taken them himself. The other hadn’t even admitted seeing anything.

Owen used the telephone to call Arizona . “Laura? Rick Owen. We’ve got something funny here. Did any of your people happen to get pictures looking south of Leo the past few weeks?” He read off a string of coordinates and waited for a few moments.

“Good! Looked at them? Could you please go look? Yes, now. I know it’s not convenient, but believe me, it’s important.”

“You don’t really believe that’s a powered ship, do you?” Jeanette asked.

Mary Alice looked at her with haunted eyes. “I’ve tried everything else, and nothing fits the data. And yes, I remember the pulsars!” which meant nothing to Jeanette.

They drank coffee while Owen talketh. Finally he put down the phone. He looked flightened. “Kin Peak has seen it,” he announced. “Chap named Tom Duff, a computer type, spotted it. They didn’t believe it. It’s just where we saw it. Mary Alice, you may have a problem about credit for discovery.”

“Bother the credit, what is it?” Dr. Mouton demanded. “Rick, it’s big, and it’s under power, and it’s coming here.”

In California it would be three in the morning. Linda heard the phone ring three times, then the sleepy voice. “Yes?”

“Linda, this is Jenny.”

“Jenny? But — well, hello, is something wrong?”

“Kind of, Sis. I need to talk to your husband. Fast.”

“What?” There was a pause. “All right.”

“And get him some coffee,” Jenney said. “He’s going to need it.”

Presently she heard the newly awakened voice of Major General Edmund Gillespie. “Jenny? What’s wrong?”

“General, I have something strange to report …”

“General. Are you being official?”

“Well … formal. Yes, sir. I’ve already called my colonel, and he agreed that it would be a good idea to call you.”

“Just a second, Jenny. Linda, where’s that coffee? Ah. Thanks. Okay, shoot.”

“Yes, sir.” As she spoke, she tried to imagine the scene. General Gillespie sitting on the edge of the bed, growing more and more awake. His hair probably looks like his head is exploding. Linda pacing back and forth wondering what in the world is going on. Maybe Joel had been awakened. Well, there wasn’t any help for that. A lot of people were going to be losing sleep.

“Jenny, are you seriously suggesting that this is … an alien ship? Men from Mars and all that?”

“Sir, we both know there can’t be any men from Mars. Or anywhere else in the solar system. But this is a large object, it’s moving faster than anything that could stay inside the solar system, it has been decelerating for weeks, and it appears to be coming here. Those are facts, confirmed by three different observatories.” Suddenly she giggled. “Ed, you’re an astronaut. What do you think it is?”

“Damned if I know,” Gillespie said. “Russian?”

“No,” Jeanette said.

There was a long silence from the other end. “You’d know, wouldn’t you? But are you that sure?”

“Yes, sir. I’m that sure. It is not a Soviet ship. It’s my job to know things like that. I’ve been monitoring the Soviet space program for ten years, and they can’t build anything like that. Neither can we.”

“Jenn-Captain, if this is ajoke we’re all going to be in trouble.”

“For God’s sake, General, why would I joke about this?” she demanded. “I told you, I already got my colonel out of bed! He’s going through channels, but you can imagine what’s going to happen to a UFO report.”

“I can think of people to call,” Gillespie said. “I’m just having trouble believing it.”

“Yes, sir,” Jenny said dryly.

“Yeah, I know, so must you,” Ed Gillespie said. “But I see your point. If it’s an alien ship, we’ve got some preparing to do. Jenny, who is your C.O.?”

“Colonel Robert Hartley G-2 Strategic Army Command, Fort Bragg . Here’s the phone number.”

Linda watched as her husband put the phone down. He looked worried. “What’s my kid sister done now?”

“Maybe earned herself a medal,” Edmund said. He lifted the phone and began dialing.

“Who are you calling now?” Linda asked. “This is crazy!”

“Hello, Colonel Hartley? General Ed Gillespie here. Captain Crichton said you’d be expecting my call … Yeah. Yeah, she’s always had a level head. Yeah. Yeah, I believe her too. Okay, so what do we do about it?” This is crazy, Linda thought. Absolutely crazy. My kid sister discovers flying saucers. I don’t believe it. I will not believe it. Only … Only Jenny never pulled a practical joke in her life. She doesn’t drink, she doesn’t take drugs, and … Aliens? An alien ship approaching Earth?

She saw that Edmund had put the phone down. “So now what?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Hard to think. Have to let people know. Have to let the President know. I’m not sure how to do that.”

“Wes Dawson could do it,” Linda said.

“By God!” He looked at his watch. “After six in Washington . Wes might be up. I’ll wake him up. You got his home number handy?”

David Coffey had always thought of himself as a night person, but that wasn’t possible now. The President of the United States couldn’t sleep late. It just wasn’t done.

He couldn’t even insist on being left alone for breakfast, although he tried. As he sat down on the terrace to enjoy the lovely spring day in Washington , the Chief of Staff said, “Wes Dawson. California—”

“I know who he is.”

“Insists on joining you for breakfast.”

“Insists?”

“He didn’t put it that way, but yes. Said he was calling in any favors he had coming. Vital, he said.”

David Coffey sighed. He felt the pressure of his belt. There was a cabinet meeting at eleven, and he’d hoped to get in a half hour swim before then. Tighten up the gut a bit. “Tell Congressman Dawson I’m flattered,” he said, “And ask the housekeeper please to set another place at the table.”

Flying saucers. Spaceships. Silly, the President thought. The sort of stuff the midwestern papers ran when there wasn’t any other news. Fakery. Or insanity. Except that Wes Dawson wasn’t crazy, had never been crazy, and even though he was acting manic, he wasn’t crazy now.

“Let me get this straight, Wes,” Coffey said. “The astronomers have seen a spaceship approaching Earth. It will be here next month. You want to go meet it.”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“Wes, do you know — scratch that. Of course you know how goofy this sounds. All right, assume it’s all true. Why you?”

“Somebody has to,” Dawson said. “And the fact that I used up all my favors to be the first to tell you about it ought to show I’m interested.”

“Yeah, I give, you that.”

“I’m on both Space and Foreign Relations. You ought to have somebody from the Congress when we go out to meet them.”

“Why go out to meet them at all?”

“Because … it’s more fitting, sir,” Dawson said. “Think about it. Mr. President, they came from a long way off. From another star—”

“Sure about that?” the Chief of Staff asked. “Why not from another planet?”

“Because we’ve seen all the likely planets close up, and there’s no place for a civilization,” Dawson said patiently. “Anyway. Mr. President, they came from a long way off. Even so, they’ll, recognize that the first step is the hard one. We want to meet them in orbit, not wait for them to come here.

“Let me try to put it in perspective,” he said. “Would the history of the Pacific Islands have been different if the first time the Europeans encountered Hawaiians, the Polynesians had been well out at sea in oceangoing boats? Mightn’t they have been treated with more respect?”

“I see,” the President said. “You know, Wes, you just may be right. That’s assuming there’s anything to this.”

“If there is, do I get to go?” Dawson asked.

David Coffey laughed. “We’ll see about that,” he said. He turned to the Chief of Staff. “Jim, get hold of General Gillespie. Get him on a plane for Washington . And the Army captain who discovered this thing.” He sighed. “And get it on the agenda for the cabinet meeting today. Let’s see what the Secretary of State has to say about welcoming the Men from Mars.”

Wes Dawson walked back from the White House to his offices in the Rayburn Building . He didn’t really have time to do that, but it was a fine morning, and the walk would do him good, and he was too excited to work anyway.

The President hadn’t said no!

Wes strolled quickly through the Federal Triangle and along Independence Avenue . He’d done that often, but he still tended to gawk at the great public buildings along the way. It was all there. Government granite, magnificent buildings in the old classic style, built to last back when America had craftsmen able to compete with the great builders of old Greece and Rome. And more than that, The Archives, with the original Constitution and Declaration of Independence to make you misty-eyed and silent and remind you that we’d done things even the Romans couldn’t, we’d invented a stable government of free citizens. Beyond that was the Smithsonian, old castle and new extension.

The President hadn’t said no! I’m going to space! Only — only would President Coffey remember? It wasn’t an ironclad promise. No one had heard it but Jim Frantz. If the President forgot, the Chief of Staff would forget too, because Coffey might have had a reason to forget. Or … It’s too fine a morning to think that way. Coffey didn’t say no! I really could go to space!

Ahead was the Space Museum , with its endless traffic, the only building in Washington that drew crowds during weekend blizzards. Wes wanted to look in. Just for a moment. There was work to do, and Carlotta would be waiting in the office to hear what happened in his meeting with the President, and he ought to hurry, but dammit. Across from the museum was NASA itself.

Wes grinned from ear to ear, startling passersby who weren’t used to people looking happy. A couple of runners came past and returned the grin, although they couldn’t know what made him so cheerful.

“I know a secret,” he said aloud as he looked up toward the eighth-floor corner office of the Administrator, Have they told him by now? Maybe they’ll even have him at the Cabinet meeting.

But I’m the one who told the President, and I’ve got my claim staked … And I’m the right man. I’ve been waiting for this day all my life. I’m in good shape — well, reasonably good. I’ll be in better. I’ll run every day… He ran a couple of steps, realized that wasn’t practical for a man in a dark pinstripe three-piece suit, and grinned again. Starting this afternoon, he thought. And I’ll get to Houston for training. Real training. I’ve been there before. Good thing, being on the space committee …

Aliens! The full force of it hit him just as he reached the Capitol reflecting pool. They’re really here. Aliens. This is where human history breaks into two pieces. The search for extraterrestrial intelligence is over, the aliens are coming… Take that. Bill Proxmire!

He climbed the hill to the Rayburn building and walked between the two monstrous statues that faced each other across the granite steps. They were the ugliest statues in Washington, crude attempts to portray the majesty and compassion of the law in Greek classical style but done by a very bad sculptor who hadn’t understood what the Greeks were trying to do — and who hadn’t known much about human anatomy either. Wes grinned as he passed them. It was obvious what had happened. Someone had insisted on statues, and some forgotten congressman had said ‘Al, my cousin Cindy Lou married a guy who makes statues…’

His aides hurried to intercept him as he entered his suite of offices. Wes knew he was late, but dammit! Now here came Larry with a fistful of messages. Wes waved him aside and went past the receptionist and into his office, bursting to tell Carlotta. She was seated in his chair. A dozen Boy Scouts from his district were draped on the other chairs and couches. Oh, damn, Wes thought, and put on his best smile.

Carlotta saw the fixed political grin on her husband’s face. but she could see beyond it to the glow of enthusiasm in Wes’s eyes. He didn’t need to say anything. After all, they’d lived together nearly twenty-five years, and had been married for twenty-two. She could tell.

Wes has a chance. A chance to be the ambassador of the human race. No, make that consul or whatever the hell they call the second in charge of an embassy. The Russians are likely to provide the ambassador. Thank God I made Wes learn some Russian, Her bed would be empty now, and that wouldn’t be so good, but he sure looked happy. Couldn’t wait to tell her about it.

But the Scouts were here. Bad timing, but the appointment was made weeks ago. How could anyone know Congressman Dawson would eat his breakfast at the White House?

The boys swarmed around Wes. He seemed friendly enough. Not too friendly. He wasn’t making many political points with this visit. Why couldn’t the damn kids go away?

That wasn’t really fair. She’d encouraged them to come herself. Carlotta liked boys. All congressmen welcomed visiting Bdy Scouts, but Wes and Carlotta were happier than most when they came to Washington . Not just Scouts. All boys.

If Simon had lived … Carlotta thought. But he hadn’t. Simon Dawson, age three months, dead of whatever it was that killed babies in their first year: Silent Killer, Crib Death.

The doctors had told her she couldn’t have more children. She’d gambled anyway, and very nearly died in childbirth. It was a month before she could hold her daughter in her arms, and another before she recovered, and it was obvious that Sharon would be the only child of the Dawson family, the only heir to two long and respectable lines. That was almost twenty years ago. Sharon was enrolled at Radcliffe now, and didn’t think much of her father’s career. Carlotta had never been able quite to understand why.

Doesn’t matter. All colleges teach nonsense. She’ll outgrow it. Carlotta got up and went to Wes. He was bursting to tell her, but he had control of his face now. “Hi,” she said. “This is Troop 112. Johnny Brasicku is the Senior Patrol Leader. Johnny, this is my husband, Congressman Dawson.”

They were nice boys, and they came from the district. Wes shook hands with each one of them. When he’d finished he gave Carlotta a rueful grin. She winked at him.

The most important news we’ve ever heard, she thought. Possibly the most important thing anyone ever heard. And here we’re chatting with Boy Scouts while the staff decides what we ought to think and how Wes ought to vote, and there’s nothing we can do about it. If congressmen spent any time being congressmen and thinking about the job, they wouldn’t have the job. It’s a strange way to run a country.

2. ANNOUNCEMENTS

“I really don’t think you should do that,” Jeanette Crichton said. Richard Owen paused with his hand on the telephone, then snorted. “Nothing you can do about it. The Army doesn’t have any jurisdiction over me.”

“I never said we did,” Jeanette said. “And why be paranoid? But you ought to think it over.”

“I already did,” Owen said. “The Soviets have to know. They may already, in which case it’s better if they know that we know about it. And you’re nice and friendly, but somehow I’ve got the feeling that if I wait very long a real spook might show up.” He lifted the receiver and dialed.

And now what? Jeanette thought. He’s right, the Army doesn’t have any jurisdiction, and the Russians probably know all about it anyway. If they don’t now, they’ll learn soon enough. They have a lot more in space than we do, with their big manned station.

“Academician Pavel Bondarev,” Owen said. “Da. Bondarev,” His fingers drummed against the desk, “Pavel? Richard Owen in Hawaii . Uh … yes, of course, I’ll wait,” He put his hand over the transmitter, “They have a policy,” he told Jeanette. “They’re not allowed to talk to Americans unless there are three of them together. Even somebody as high as Bondarev. Talk about paranoid, these guys own the copyright… Ah. Academician Bondarev? Your colleagues are there? Excellent. This is Professor Richard Owen, University of Hawaii , We’ve turned up something interesting I think you better know about…”

Pavel Aleksandrovich Bondarev put down the telephone and stared thoughtfully at the ceiling.

“Is it real?” Boris Ogarkov’s flat peasant lace was twisted into an inquiring frown, which made him look very unpleasant.

“Yes,” Bondarev said absently. Boris was the Institute Party Secretary. He was not well educated. Boris was from the working class. Uninspired but tireless Party activities had brought him to lie attention of his superiors He was one of those raised to a position of power, who knew that loyalty to the system was the only way be would ever be more than a menial. He had cunning enough to know that the Institute was important to the Soviet Union , and so not to interfere with its work. instead be busied himself with seeing that there was a portrait of Lenin in every office, and that everyone, scientist, secretary, clerk, or janitor, voted in every election. “I know this American well,” Bondarev continued. “We have published two papers together, and worked together when I was in the United States . He would not call me for a hoax.”

“Not as a hoax,” Andrei Pyatigorskiy said. “But could he be mistaken? We have seen no evidence of this.”

“Perhaps we have,” Bondarev said. “And perhaps not, As a favor, Anditi, will you please call Dr. Nosov at the observatory, and ask his staff to examine all the photographs that might be relevant?”

“Certainly.”

“Thank you. I need not say that Nosov must not speak of this to anyone. No matter what he finds.”

“I can call the Party Secretary at the observatory,” Boris Ogartov said. “He will help to keep this secret.”

Bondarev nodded agreement.

“But, Pavel Aleksandrovich, do you believe this story? Alien spacecraft coming to Earth?” Pyatigorskiy gestured helplessly. “How can you believe it?”

Bondarev shrugged. “If you agree that they did not lie, we have no choice but to believe it. The Americans have excellent equipment, and enough so that every observatory has comparators and computers. As you well know.”

“If we had half so much,” Pyatigorskiy said. Half the time he had to build his own equipment, because the Institute could not get the foreign exchange credits to obtain electronics and optics from the West, and unless it had been built for the military, Russian laboratory equipment did not work well.

Bondarev shrugged again. “Certainly. But there are many reasons why the Americans would see it first.”

“Perhaps it has been seen from Kosmograd.” Boris Ogarkov said.

Pyatiggrskiy nodded agreement. “Their telescopes are much better than those we have here.”

“I will ask,” Bondaiev said. And perhaps get an answer, perhaps not. Reports from the Soviet space station were closely guarded. Often Bondarev did not get them for months.

“We should see their photographs,” Pyatigotskiy said. “Instantly when they come in. And you should be able to call Rogachev and tell him where to point his instruments.”

“Perhaps,” Bondarev said. He looked significantly at his subordinate. Andrel Pyatigorskiy was an excellent development scientist, but his career would not be aided by criticizing policy in front of Boris Ogarkov. Boris probably would not report this, but he would remember…

“It is vital,” Andrei continued. He sounded stubborn. “If aliens are coming, we must make preparations.”

“Is it not likely that they know in Moscow ?” Ogarkov asked.

“Perhaps they have heard from Kosmograd, and already know.”

“I think not.” Bondarev said quietly. “It is of course possible. They know much in Moscow . But I think we here would have heard, if not what they know, that they have learned something of importance. In the meantime, it is vital that we look at our own photographs. If this object shows, then we know it is no hoax.”

He looked thoughtful. “No ordinary hoax, at all events.”

“So that’s that,” Richard Owen said. “They hadn’t seen it.” He walked over to the window overlooking the road up Mauna Kea .

“Or said they hadn’t,” Jeanette said.

“Yeah, that’s right.” He glanced at his watch. “Next thing is a press conference.” He looked at her defiantly.

She shook her head. “Richard, there’s nothing I can do to stop you I think you’re wrong, though.”

“Don’t the people have a right to know?”

“I suppose so.” she said. “Do you think the Russians believe you?”

“Why shouldn’t they?” Owen demanded.

“They don’t often believe anything we say. They see plots everywhere,” Jeanette said.

“Not Bondarev,” Owen protested. “I’ve known him a long time, He’ll believe me.”

“Yes. But will his superiors believe him? Anyway, it’s not my problem…”

“Sure about that?”

“What?”

“There’s a mess of cars coming up the road,” Owen said. “State police, and an Army staff car. I never saw anything like that up here before…”

Lieutenant Hal Brassfield was nervous. He couldn’t have been more than twenty years old, and he wasn’t sure who Jeanette was. Small wonder, she thought.

“Captain,” he said, “I don’t really know any more than that. The orders said to get you to Washington by first available transportation, highest priority, and we arranged that. A chopper will meet us down at the five-thousand-foot level. He’ll get you to Pearl . There’s a Navy jet standing by there.”

Jeanette frowned, “Isn’t that a bit unusual?”

“You bet your sweet — yes, ma’am, that’s unusual. Leastwise I never did anything like this before.”

She looked at the sheet of orders. They’d been hastily typed from telephone dictation, and looked nothing like standard military orders. She’d never seen anything like them. Come to that, she thought, not very many officers had. At the bottom it said “By order of the President of the United States ,” and below that was “For the President, James F. Frantz, Chief of Staff.”

“Those came in about an hour ago,” the lieutenant said. “And it’s all I know. We’re a training command, Captain.”

“All right, Lieutenant, but someone will have to go to my hotel. I have things there, and the bill has to be paid.”

“Yes, ma’am, Major Johnston said I’d have to take care of that. I’ll send your bags on to you, only I don’t know where to send them.” He chuckled. “I wouldn’t think the White House would be the right address for a captain. But that’s the only place listed on those orders.”

Jeanette nodded, more to herself than to the lieutenant. Whenever she was in Washington , she stayed at Flintridge with her aunt and uncle, so that was no problem. Only it was probably a “hurry up and wait” situation. There wasn’t any need for her at the White House. Not that urgently, and probably not at all. The President would want to confirm the sighting, but before she could get to Washington he’d have a dozen others to tell him about the mysterious — what? She giggled.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Richard Owen said.

“What do we call it?” she asked. “UFO? But it isn’t flying.”

Lieutenant Brassfield looked puzzled. “UFO? All this is over a flying saucer?”

“Yes,” Jeanette said.

“Hey, now wait a minute …”

“It’s all true,” Richard Owen said. “We’ve spotted an alien spaceship. It’s on its way to Earth. Captain Crichton called the Army.”

“Maybe I better not know any more about this,” Brassfield said.

Jeanette thought of Richard Owen’s upcoming press conference and laughed. “It won’t hurt. Lieutenant, do you have anyone in Kona? Or somebody who can get there fast?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Good. Have him go to the Kamehameha Hotel and collect my bags. He’s to be careful with my uniform, but get it packed. All my stuff. Then drive like hell to meet us where that helicopter is picking us up. If I’m going to the White House, I am damned if I’ll go bare-legged!”

KGB Headquarters was across the city square from the Institute. It was a drab brick building, in contrast to the Institute’s pillars and marble facade. Pavel Bondarev walked briskly across the square. It was a pleasant day, warm enough that he did not need an overcoat.

A new man sat at the reception desk in KGB headquarters. He looked very young. Pavel Bondarev grimaced, then shrugged. What cannot be cured must be endured. He had learned patience, and he forced himself to be still, although he was bursting with the news.

A long line of citizens waited in front of the reception desk. Men in ill-fitting suits, women in stained skirts and scarves, farmers, workers, minor factory officials: they all held forms to be signed, permission slips of one kind or another. Today there were not so many farmers; in fall there would be hundreds wanting to sell the produce from their tiny private plots.

Bondarev shook his head. Absurd, he thought. They should be working, not standing in lines here. But it is typically Russian, and if they didn’t stand in lines they wouldn’t work anyway. They’d just get drunk.

If there were not residency controls, everyone would live in Moscow. Once while visiting Washington he’d heard a song at an American’s party: “How you going to keep them down on the farm?” It was evidently a problem for the Americans as well as the Russians.

He walked past the line. A man at the head of the line, roundfaced like Boris Ogarkov, glared at him sullenly but didn’t say anything. Bondarev stood at the desk. Two men were at another desk nearby. He thought he recognized the one who was typing a report on a battered machine of German make. Bondarev wondered idly if the typewriter had been brought to Russia by the Wehrmacht. It was certainly old enough. Provincial establishments, even KGB, did not often get new equipment.

The reception officer ignored him as long as possible, then looked up insolently. “Yes?”

You will be that way, will you? Bondarev thought. Very well. Bondarev spoke quietly, but loud enough so he was certain that the men at the next desk could overhear him. “I am Bondarev. I wish to see the duty officer.”

The desk officer frowned. The man at the next desk ceased typing.

“What is the nature of your business?”

“If I had meant for you to know, I would have told you,” Bondarev said. “Now you will please inform the senior officer present that Academician Bondarev, Director of the Lenin Research Institute of Astrophysics and Cosmography, wishes to see him and that the matter is urgent.”

The receptionist’s frown deepened, but his face lost the insolent look. A full Academician would have powerful friends, and the Institute was important in their provincial city. The officer who had been typing got up from the desk and came over. “Certainly, Comrade Academician,” he said. “I will go and tell Comrade Orlov at once.” He looked down sideways at the receptionist, then left.

“I am required to ask,” the receptionist said. His voice was sullen.

He has not long held his commission as an officer of the KGB, Bondarev thought. And he has rather enjoyed having everyone act respectful, even fearful. He did not expect to find someone to fear.

“This way, Comrade Academician.” The other agent indicated a doorway.

As Bondarev passed through, the receptionist was saying, “How should I know he was an Academician? He did not say so.” Bondarev smiled.

The office was not large. The desk was cluttered. Bondarev did not recognize the officer at the desk, but he was certain he had seen him before.

“Yes, Comrade Academician?”

“I must use your scrambler telephone to call Moscow, Comrade Orlov. Party Third Secretary Narovchatov in the Kremlin. It is urgent. No one must listen. It is a matter of state security.”

“If it is a matter of state security, we must record—”

“Yes, but not to listen,” Bondarev said. “Comrade, believe me, you do not want to listen to this call.”

It took nearly an hour to complete the call. Then General Narovchatov’s voice came on the line. “Pavel Aleksandrovich! It is good to hear from you.” The hearty gravel voice changed. “All is well?”

“Da, Comrade General. Marina is well, your grandchildren are well.”

“Ah. Another year, Pavel. Another year and you may return to Moscow. But hard as it is, you must stay there now. Your work is needed.”

“I know,” Bondarev said. “Marina will be grateful that it is only one more year. That, however, is not why I have called.”

“Then?”

“I have called from the KGB station in order to use the scrambler telephone. The officer on duty is watching to see that no one listens. It is a matter of great importance, Nikolai Nikolayevich. The greatest importance.”

General Nikolai Nikolayevich Narovchatov put down the telephone and carefully finished writing his notes in the leather-bound book on his desk. Once in Paris a wealthy lady had given him a score of the leather books, full of blank pages of excellent paper. That had been long ago, long enough that his baggage had been searched when he returned, and the border guards had wondered what sinister messages were written on the blank paper until the superiors he travelpd with had become impatient and the guards wordlessly passed him through. Each book lasted nearly a year, and now only two were left.

He stared at his notes. Aliens. An alien spaceship was coming to Earth. Nonsense.

But it is not nonsense, he thought. Pavel Bondarev would not have been my ideal of a son-in-law. I would have preferred that Marina marry a diplomat. Still, there is no questioning that the Academician is intelligent. Intelligent and cautious. He would not call if he were not certain. The Americans have seen this object — the Americans say they have seen this object. An American scientist calls a Soviet scientist. A friendly gesture, one scientist to another.

Could this be? Narovchatov stared at his notebook as if the notes he had taken could tell him something he didn’t know. Pavel Bondarev was intelligent, he knew this American, and he believed that this was real. But of course he would. The CIA was clever. Almost as clever as the KGB.

And more to the point: the KGB would not believe the Americans. He thought of the problems a provincial KGB officer would have in trying to notify Moscow of a development like this, and nodded in satisfaction. it would be hours before the senior officials of the KGB would know.

The Americans have seen something, or say they have. More important, now that they knew where to look, Russian astronomers at the Urals Observatory have seen it as well.

Not nonsense. It is real. Something is there. Could the Americans have done something like this? It didn’t seem likely, but the Americans had surprised them before.

I must do something. I do not know what.

Narovchatov’s ornately carved desk stood at one end of a long, high-ceilinged room. The inevitable portrait of Lenin dominated rugs covered the floor. The room was comfortable, full of quiet elegance, tasteful and restful, a room where he could work; but it was also a room where he could relax, as was necessary more and more often now.

He had first seen this room as a very young soldier at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. His special regiment had been assigned to guard duty in the Kremlin just before the Germans were driven away. It was not a long tour of duty. The OMSBON were sent to chase Germans soon after.

It had been long enough, and he had seen enough. Nikolai Nikolayevich Narovchatov would never return to Kirov, where his father worked in the hammer mill. Communism had been kind enough to Nikolai Narovchatov. It had taken him from the villages to Kirov, from the stolid peasant misery of a Russian winter to the comparative warmth of the city and industrial life. It had made his children literate. Nikolai never wanted more, but his son did. If that office came from Communism, then Communism was worth studying.

It took him thirty years, but he never doubted that he would arrive. Party work in the Army, then Moscow University, where he studied engineering and always took excellent marks in the political courses. He could have had better grades in his academic subjects, but he did not want to show up his friends, for he always sought out the relatives of high party officials. If you wish power, it is best to have friends in high places; and if you know no one in high places, meet their children.

Great Stalin died, and Khrushchev began his slow rise to power. Those were not easy years, for it was difficult to tell who would win in the inevitable struggle. Beria had fallen, and with him fell the NKVD, to be divided into the civil militia and the KGB… Nikolai Narovchatov chose his friends carefully, and kept his ties with the Party. Eventually he married the daughter of the Party Secretary of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, largest of the fifteen republics that together made up the USSR. Shortly after, Khrushchev fell, and the Party men became even more dominant.

From then on his rise was rapid. He became a “political general.” Mostly he despised that group, but the title was useful. it paid well, and gave him ties within the Army and the Rocket Forces; and unlike many political generals, he had fought in the Great Patriotic War, and elsewhere. He had earned his medals.

As I have earned my place, he thought. Party work, arse kissing, yes, enough of that, but I have also built factories that actually produce goods. I have helped keep the Germans helpless, cannot the Americans understand why we must? I have dismissed corrupt officials where I could, and minimized the damage of those I could not do without. I have been a good manager, and I have earned my place. A good place, with my son safely established in the Ministry of Trade, and my daughters well married, one grandchild in Moscow’s Institute of International Relations…

And now this.

At least I shall be the first to inform the Chairman. Marina, Marina, I did not approve your choice of a husband, but I see I was wrong. It was a good day when you met Pavel Aleksandrovich Bondarev. A very good day.

He pushed back his chair and stood, and feeling very weary, went down the ornate hall to the office of the Chairman.

The biggest story in history, and David Coffey was president when it happened. Aliens, coming here!

He sat at the center of the big table in the Cabinet Room. The others had stood when he entered, and didn’t take their seats until he was settled. It upset David, but he’d become used to it. They didn’t stand for David Coffey, but for the President of the United States.

Coffey was aware that at least half the people in the room thought they could do the job better than he could, and one or two might be right. They’d never get the chance. Not even Henry Morton. The political writers all like to talk about Henry being ‘a heartbeat away from the Presidency,’ but I never felt better in my life. The Party wanted Morton as Vice President, but he’ll never have a clear shot at this chair.

David was a little in awe of the Secretary of State. Dr. Arthur Hart had written a best-seller on diplomacy, made a fortune trading in overseas commodities, and was a favorite guest on the TV talk shows. Hart’s face was probably better known to the average citizen than the President’s. But he’ll never sit here either. Hasn’t enough fire in his belly. He’d like to be President, but he hasn’t the killer instinct it takes to get high elective office.

David looked around the table at the others. Certainly Hart was the most distinguished man in the room. It wasn’t an overwhelmingly distinguished cabinet.

“I don’t think I have it in me to be a great president,” David had told his wife the night he was elected. When Jeanne protested, David shook his head. “But then I don’t think the country wants a great president just now. The nation’s about worn out with great this and great that. I can’t be a great president, so I’ll just have to settle for being a damned good one — and that I can manage.”

And so far I have. It’s not a great cabinet, but it’s a damned good one.

“Gentlemen. And ladies,” he added for the benefit of the Secretary of Commerce and the Secretary of the Interior. “In place of our regular agenda, there is a somewhat pressing item which the Chief of Staff will explain to you. Jim, if you will …”

“It’s just plain damned crazy,” Peter McCleve said. “Mr. President, I will not believe it.” He turned toward the President in his place at the center of the big conference table. “I simply do not believe it.”

“You can believe it,” Ted Griffin said. The Secretary of Defense spoke directly to the Attorney General, but he talked mostly for the President’s benefit. “Peter, I heard it just before I came over.”

“Sure, from the same people who told Dawson,” McCleve said.

“They do seem to have checked it thoroughly.” Ted Griffin was a big man, tall and beefy and built like the football player he’d been. He looked as if he might shout a lot, but in fact he almost never did.

“You accept the story, then?” the Secretary of State asked.

“Yes.”

“I see.” Arthur Hart put the tips of his fingers together in a gesture he’d made famous on Meet the Press. Constitutionally, the Secretary of State was the senior Cabinet officer. In fact he was the fourth most important man in the room, counting the President as top. Numbers two and three (the order was uncertain) were Hap Aylesworth, Special Assistant to the President for Political Affairs, and Admiral Thorwald Carrell.

“Assume it’s true,” Hart continued. “I do. So the important thing is, what do we do now?”

“I suppose you want to tell the Russians,” Alan Rosenthal said. Arthur Hart looked at the Secretary of the Treasury with amusement. Rosenthal couldn’t always contain his dislike of Russians. “I think someone must,” Hart said.

“Someone did,” Ted Griffin announced. When everyone was looking at him, he nodded for emphasis. “I got that news just before I came over here. That astronomer guy in Hawaii called someone…” he glanced at a note on the table in front of him. “… a Pavel Bondarev at the Astrophysics Institute near Sverdlovsk. Yeah, well, who could stop him? He dialed direct.”

“How long do you suppose it takes a story like that to get from Sverdlovsk to the Kremlin?” the Attorney General asked.

“It could be quite a while,” Arthur Hart said. “I was thinking that the President might call the Chairman…”

“Moscow already knows,” Admiral Carrell said. His gravelly voice stopped all the extraneous chatter in the mom. “Payel Bondarev is the son-in-law of General Narovchatov. Narovchatov’s been with Chairman Petrovskiy for twenty years.”

Everyone turned to look at the Chief of Staff. Jim Frantz almost never said anything in Cabinet meetings.

“What prompted that, Jim?” Arthur Hart asked.

“I often wonder if any country in the world could operate if communications went only through channels,” Ted Griffin said. “So. The Russians know, and by the time we leave this meeting, the country will know.” He smiled at the startled looks that caused. “Yes, Captain Crichton said this astronomer chap was calling a press conference.”

“So we have to decide what to tell the public.” Hap Aylesworth was short and beefy, perpetually fighting a weight problem. His necktie was always loosened and his collar unbuttoned. He seldom appeared in photographs; when cameras came out, Aylesworth would usually urge someone else forward. As Special Assistant he was the President’s political advisor, but for the past nine years he’d given David Coffey political advice. The Washington Post called him the Kingmaker.

“There may be a more pressing problem,” Admiral Carrell said.

Aylesworth raised a bushy eyebrow.

“The Russians. I don’t know it would be such a good idea for the President to call Chairman Petrovskiy, but I think I’d better get on the horn to General Narovchatov.”

“Why?” Ted Griffin asked.

“Obvious, isn’t it?” Carrell said. He pushed back a gray pinstripe sleeve to glance at his watch. “One of the first things they’ll do once they’re sure of this is start mobilizing. Military, civil defense, you name it. Ted, I’d hate for your military people to get all upset …”

“Are you certain of this?” David Coffey asked.

“Yes, sir,” Admiral Carrell said. “Sure as anything, Mr. President.

“Why would they assume this…” Attorney General McCleve had trouble getting the words out. “… this alien spacecraft is hostile?”

“Because they think everything is hostile,” Carrell said.

“Afraid he’s right, Pete,” Arthur Hart said. The Secretary of State shook his head sadly. “I could wish otherwise, but that’s the way it will be. And they’ll very shortly be demanding an official explanation of why one of our scientists called one of theirs, instead of passing this important news through channels as it ought to be done.”

“That’s crazy,” Peter McCleve said. “Just plain crazy!”

“Possibly,” Secretary Hart said. “But it’s what will happen.”

“To sum up, then,” David Coffey said. “The Soviets will shortly ask us for our official position, and they will begin mobilizing without regard to what that position is.”

Admiral Carrell nodded agreement. “Precisely, Mr. President.”

“Then what should we do?” Hap Aylesworth asked. “We can’t let the Russians mobilize while we do nothing. The country won’t stand for it.”

“I can think of senators who would be delighted,” Coffey said.

“On both sides of the aisle,” Aylesworth said, “Doves who’ll say there’s never been anything to be afraid of, and will move resolutions congratulating you on your steady nerves — and hawks who’ll want to impeach you for selling out the country.”

“Admiral?” David Coffey asked. Admiral Canell was another advisor the President was in awe of. They’d known each other for more than a dozen years, since the day Vice Admiral Carrell had walked into a freshman congressman’s office and explained, patiently and with brutal honesty, how the Navy was wasting money in a shipyard that happened to be one of the major employers in David’s district.

Since that time, Carrell had become Deputy Director of the National Security Agency, then Director of the CIA. David Coffey’s first officially announced appointment was Dr. Arthur Hart to be Secretary of State, but he’d decided on Thorwald Carrell as National Security Advisor before his own nomination, and the announcement came the day after Hart’s appointment.

“I think a partial mobilization,” Admiral Carrell said. “We’ll need a declaration of national emergency.”

“This is senseless.” Commerce Secretary Connie Fuller had a surprisingly low voice for such a small lady. “If we believe this is really an alien ship — and I think we must — then this is the greatest day in human history! We’re sitting here talking about war and mobilization when … when everything is going to be different!”

“I agree,” Arthur Hart said. “But the Soviets will begin mobilization.”

“Let them,” Fuller said. Her brown eyes flashed. “Let them mobilize and be damned. At least one of the superpowers will behave like … like responsible and intelligent beings! Do we want these aliens? Mr. President, think of the power they have! To have come from another star! We want to welcome them, not appear hostile.”

“That’s what Wes Dawson thinks,” President Coffey said. “Matter of fact, he wants to meet them in orbit. He thought that might impress them a little.”

“An excellent suggestion,” Secretary Hart said.

“Couldn’t hurt,” Ted Griffin agreed.

“Except that we don’t have a space station,” Admiral Carrell said.

“The Soviets do,” Connie Fuller said. “Maybe if we asked them—”

“That’s what I planned to do,” David Coffey said. “Meanwhile, we have a decision to make. What do we do now?”

“Put the military forces on standby alert,” Admiral Canell insisted. “Get the A teams on duty.”

“That works,” Aylesworth said. “We can call in the congressional leadership before we do anything else.”

“Spread the blame,” Admiral Carrell muttered.

“Something like that,” David Coffey agreed. “I’ll call in the standby alert from the Oval Office.” He stood, and the others, after a moment, stood as well. “Mr. Griffin, I think it would do no harm to examine our civil defense plans.”

“Yes, sir, but that’s not in the Department of Defense.”

Coffey frowned.

“The Federal Emergency Management Agency is an independent agency, Mr. President.”

“Well, for God’s sake,” Coffey said. He turned to Jim Frantz. “Statutory?”

“No, sir. Created by executive order.”

“Then get out an executive order putting the damned thing under the National Security Council. Ted, I want you to stay on top of this. The news will be out in an hour, God knows what people will do. I’m sure some will panic.

“You’ll all want to call your offices,” Coffey said. “There’s no point in denying anything. I think the official policy is that we do in fact believe an alien spaceship is coming here, and we’re trying to figure out what to do.”

“Mr. President!” Hap Aylesworth was shocked.

David smiled. “Hap, I know you’d like the public to think I’m infallible, but it doesn’t work that way. The Pentagon gives out infallibility with the third star, and the Vatican’s got a way of handing it to the Pope, but it doesn’t come with the job of President. I think the people know that, but if they don’t, it’s time they found out. We’ll tell the simple truth.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Meanwhile, let’s figure on getting back together in two hours.” Coffey turned to the Chief of Staff. “Jim, I think you’d better get the crisis center activated. It looks to be a long day.”

3. FLINTRIDGE

The moving belt came to life. Luggage spewed out of the bowels of Dulles International Airport. Jenny reached for her suitcase, but before she could get it, a fat lady in a yellow-flowered dress shouldered her aside to grab her own. “Excuse me,” the fat woman said. Why should I? Jenny thought. I’m supposed to defend a tub of lard like you? Why? She tried to move past the woman, but that wasn’t going to be possible. It had been a long flight. Jenny’s hair was in strings, and she felt sticky. She drew in a breath to speak, but thought better of it. No point, she told herself. She was resigned to letting her bag go around the carousel when she recognized Ed Gillespie. He reached past the fat woman and caught the suitcase before it could escape. It was big and heavy, but he lifted it effortlessly.

“Good morning,” he said. “Any other luggage?”

“No, sir,” Jenny said. He was wearing a dark blue blazer and gray flannel trousers, and didn’t look military at all. She giggled. “I don’t often get a general for a porter. And an astronaut at that.” Gillespie didn’t say anything, but the look on the fat woman’s face when she said ‘astronaut’ was worth a lot. “I hadn’t expected you,” Jenny said. “I got in from California about an hour ago. Called Rhonda and found out which flight you were on. Seemed reasonable to wait for you.”

Jenny opened her big purse and fished out the clear plastic strap for the suitcase. Gillespie snapped it on and led the way out of the baggage area, up the ramp to the taxi stands. The suitcase followed like a dog on a leash, which was the way Jenny always thought of it, As far as Jenny was concerned, wheels on luggage had done more for women’s liberation than most organizations. She didn’t mind letting a strong alpha male take care of her suitcase. She did have some misgivings about letting General Edmund Gillespie haul her luggage. Still, there was no point in telling her brother-in-law that she could take care of her own suitcase when they were both in civvies. If they’d been in uniform she’d have pulled her own no matter what he said.

They reached street level. Gillespie waved to a waiting taxi. His luggage was already in its trunk. The taxi was new, or nearly so. The driver was Middle Eastern, probably Pakistani, and hardly spoke English. They got into the backseat, and she sank back into the cushions. Then she took a deep breath and let it out.

“Tired?” Gillespie asked.

“Sure. Yesterday afternoon I was in Hawaii.” She looked at her watch. Seven-thirty A.M. “A Navy jet took me to El Tom. They stuffed me in a helicopter and got me to Los Angeles just in time to catch the red-eye.”

“Get any sleep?”

“Not really.”

“Try now,” Gillespie said.

“I’m too keyed up. What’s the schedule?”

“Early appointments,” Gillespie said. “At the White House.” He saw her look of dismay and grinned. “You’ll have time to change.”

“I’d better. I’m a wreck.”

The taxi pulled out of the airport lot and onto the freeway, putting the soaring structure of the terminal building in their view. “My favorite airport,” Jenny said.

Gillespie nodded. “It’s not too bad. I didn’t used to like it, but it grows on you. Except it’s so damned far out.”

“I like the building.”

“So do I, but it ruined the architect’s reputation,” Ed Gillespie said. Jenny frowned. “His name was Eero Saarmnen, and he didn’t build a glass box,” Gillespie said. “So they kicked him out of the architects’ lodge as a heretic.”

The taxi accelerated. A fine mist hung in the air outside, and the freeway was slick. Jenny glanced over the driver’s shoulder at the speedometer. The needle hovered around seventy-five. “I’m glad there’s not much traffic,” she said. “I didn’t know you were interested in architecture.”

“Umm. Tom Wolfe wrote a book about it.”

“Oh.” He didn’t need to explain further. After The Right Stuff, Wolfe had become required reading for the astronauts.

“How’s it feel to create a sensation, Jenny?”

“I’m too tired to feel anything at all. Was it a sensation?”

Gillespie laughed. “That’s right, you’ve been on airplanes.” He reached down into his briefcase and took out a Washington Post.

The headline screamed at her, “ALIEN SPACESHIP DISCOVERED.” Most of the front page was devoted to the story. They didn’t have many facts, but there was a lot of speculation, including a background article by Roger Brooks. Jenny frowned at that, remembering the last time she’d seen Roger. She glanced at Ed. He couldn’t know about Roger and Linda. My sister’s a damn fool, she thought.

There were interviews with famous scientists, and pictures of a Nobel cosmologist smiling approval. There were also pictures of Rick Owen and Mary Alice Mouton. Owen’s smile was broader than the cosmologist’s.

“Looks like Dr. Owen has made himself famous,” Jenny said.

“You’re pretty famous too,” Edmund said. “Your Hawaiian boyfriend took most of the credit, but he did mention your name. Every reporter in the country would like to interview you.”

“Oh, God.”

“Yeah. That’s one reason I waited for you. It’s a wonder the stews didn’t recognize you.”

“Maybe they did,” Jenny said. “I thought one of them was extra attentive. She didn’t say anything, though.”

The taxi wove through the sparse traffic. The freeway to Dulles had few on-ramps. Originally it wasn’t supposed to have any, so it would bear no traffic except airport traffic, but the politicians had managed to add a couple, probably near where they owned property. Wherever there were ramps a cluster of houses and a small industrial park had sprung up.

“What do you think they’ll be like?” Jenny asked.

Gillespie shook his head. “I don’t read much science fiction anymore. I used to when I was a kid.” He stared out the window for a moment, then laughed. “One thing’s sure, it ought to give a boost to the space program! Congress is already talking about buying more shuttles, expanding the Moon Base — to listen to those bastards, you’d think they’d been big space boosters all along.”

“What about Hollingsworth?” Jenny asked.

“He doesn’t seem to be giving interviews.”

“Maybe he does have some shame.” She leaned back in the seat. Senator Barton Hollingsworth, Democrat of South Dakota, had long been an enemy of the space program, and for that matter of every investment in high technology and almost anything else except dairy subsidies. Like his predecessor William Proxmire, the one thing Hollingsworth really hated was SETI, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, which he claimed was a ‘golden fleece’ of the taxpayers. Proxmire had once spent two days trimming one hundred and twelve thousand dollars for SETI research from the NASA budget, at a time when the welfare department was spending a million dollars a minute.

Toward Washington the traffic began to thicken. They came off the Dulles access freeway into a solid wall of red taillights. The driver muttered curses in Pakistani and began to weave through traffic, ignoring angry horns. They drove past a turnoff. A long time before, the sign at that turnoff had said “Bureau of Public Roads Research,” but now it admitted that the CIA building was invisible in the trees at the end of that road. Jenny paid it no attention. She’d been there before.

The aliens are coming, and I’m famous, Jenny thought. “Who are we seeing at the White House?”

Gillespie shrugged. “Probably the President.”

“Oh, dear. I don’t know anything,” Jenny said. “Nothing I didn’t tell you on the telephone yesterday.”

He shrugged again. “We’ll just have to play it as it lies.”

“Yes, but … Ed, I don’t even have any guesses!”

“Neither do I, but we’re the experts,” Gillespie said. “After all, we knew about it first…”

They crossed the Potomac and drove along the old Chesapeake and Ohio canal. The morning drizzle had stopped, and the sun was trying to break through overhead. A dozen or more joggers were out despite the chilly morning. Jenny closed her eyes.

Gillespie and the driver were in a heated argument. The driver didn’t understand anything Ed was saying. He was also getting nervous, while Gillespie got angrier.

“What’s the matter?” Jenny asked.

“Damn fool won’t follow directions.”

“Let me. Where are we?”

“Damned if I know — that’s the problem. We crossed a bridge a minute ago. One I never saw before. Had buffaloes on it.”

“Buffaloes? Oh. We’re near the Cathedral,” Jenny said. She looked around. They were in a typical Washington residential neighborhood, older houses, each with a screened porch. “Which way is north?”

Gillespie pointed.

“Okay.” She leaned forward. In New York, they had Plexiglas partitions to seal the driver away from his passengers, but there weren’t any here. “Go ahead, then left.”

The Pakistani driver looked relieved. They drove for a couple of blocks, and Jenny nodded satisfaction. “It’s not far now. We’re on the wrong side of Connecticut Avenue, that’s all.”

Gillespie was still angry. “Why the hell can’t they get drivers who speak English?” he demanded. “All the people out of work in this country. Or say they’re out of work. And none of the damn airport taxi drivers at our nation’s capital can speak English. The goddam politicians wouldn’t know that, though, would they? They have drivers to pick them up at the airport…”

Now that she’d dozed off, she wanted to sleep again, but she stayed awake to direct the driver. Finding Flintridge Manor on its hill in Rock Creek Park could be plenty tricky even if you’d been there before. “They won’t let Washington cabs pick people up at Dulles,” she said.

Which was strange, if you thought about it, since it was a federal airport, operated by the Federal Aviation Administration, and reachable only by a federally constructed throughway. Why shouldn’t cabs licensed in Washington be able to pick up passengers at Dulles? But they couldn’t, and nothing was going to be done about it, just as nothing would be done about a hundred thousand other bureaucratic nightmares, and why worry about it? The government had more immediate problems coming at them out of the sky.

Then again, maybe the aliens would solve it all. Those advanced creatures could be carrying a million-year-old quantified science of government and a powerful missionary urge, and the government’s problems would be over forever.

Flintridge nestled in colonial splendor atop a large hill. There weren’t a dozen places like it in Washington. From its big columned porch you couldn’t see another house. Most of the woods surrounding Flintridge were part of Rock Creek National Park, which was perfect because no one could build there, while the Westons didn’t have to pay taxes on the park property.

Jenny directed the taxi up the gravel drive. Phoebe, the Haitian maid, came to the door, saw them, and dashed back inside. A few moments later her uncle came out.

Colonel Henry Weston had inherited most of the money; Jenny’s mother’s share had been useful, but hardly what anyone would call wealth. There were advantages to having a rich uncle, especially if you had to stay in Washington. Flintridge was much nicer than a hotel.

Jenny’s room was on the third floor, up the back stairs; Flintridge had a grand stairway to the second floor, but there weren’t enough bedrooms there. The top floor had once been a series of garrets. They’d been redesigned to be comfortable, turned into small suites with attached bathrooms, but the only stairway was the narrow twisting enclosed back stairs designed to keep servants from interfering with family.

Servants, not slaves. Flintridge wasn’t that old. Eighteen seventies. Jenny set her suitcases down and collapsed on the bed. Thank heaven Aunt Rhonda wasn’t up yet! She’d have gushed, admired Jenny’s nonexistent tan, asked about young men; now that Allan Weston was safely married and established in a New York bank, Jenny was the only possible target for Rhonda Weston’s tireless matchmaking.

Aunt Rhonda was lovable but very tiring, especially at eight in the morning when you had an appointment at the White house at eleven!

She glanced out the window toward the large arbor and gazebo, and almost blushed. It had been a long time ago, in that gazebo after a school dance… She shook het head, and lay down, sinking into the thick eiderdown comforters and pillows. The bed was far too soft and luxurious.

She could easily have grown up in this house. There’d been several times when Colonel Weston, U.S. Air Force Reserve and owner of Weston International Construction, had relocated semipermanently, leaving Flintridge vacant. Each time he’d offered the place to Jenny’s father.

Linda and Jenny always hoped to move into Flintridge, but Joel MacKenzie Crichton had too much of the dour Scot in him; living in Flintridge would be living conspicuously above his station, even though Colonel Weston would have paid the taxes and most of the upkeep. It was a great place to visit, and they could keep an eye on it for the Westons, but they wouldn’t live there, much to the girls’ disappointment.

“What would it look like for a GS-14 to live in that house?” Jenny’s father demanded. “I’d be investigated every month!” And after he left government service and became first moderately, then quite wealthy, Joel Crichton wouldn’t consider Flintridge.

He hadn’t much cared for the parties Rhonda Weston had thrown for his daughters, either. “All nonsense, this coming-out stuff,” he’d said, but he had enough sense not to try to stop them. First Linda, then Jeanette, had been presented to the eligible young men of Washington in grand balls held at Flintridge. A former President of the United States had come to Linda’s party. Jenny had to settle for two senators and the Secretary of State.

The morning after Jeanette’s ball, their comfortable house seemed shabby. It must have seemed that way to their father, too, because he quit his government job a couple of months later to become the Washington representative of a California aerospace company. There’d even been some talk of an investigation, but it never came to anything. The Crichtons had far too many friends in Washington.

No one who knew them was at all surprised when Jenny went into Army Intelligence.

Ed Gillespie turned the Buick Riviera into the iron-gated drive at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. A uniformed policeman looked at Gillespie’s identity cards, then at a list on his clipboard, and waved them through. When they reached the garishly ornate building once known as Old State, then the Executive Office, and now called the “Old EOP,” a driver materialized. “I’ll park it for you, sir.”

A Marine opened the car door for Jenny, then stepped back and saluted. “General, Captain, if you’ll follow me, please …”

He led them across to the White House itself. From somewhere in the distance they heard the chatter of grade school children on a tour. The Marine led them through another corridor.

In all her years in Washington, Jenny had never been to the White House. Her parents and Colonel Weston had been to White House parties and even a state dinner; it seemed ridiculous for the Crichton girls to take a public guided tour. One day they’d be invited.

And this is the day, Jenny thought.

They came to another corridor. A young man in a gray suit waited there. “Eleven o’clock,” the Marine said.

“Right. Hi, I’m Jack Clybourne. I’m supposed to check your identification.”

He smiled as he said it, but he seemed very serious. He looked very young and clean-cut, and very athletic. He inspected General Gillespie, then Jenny.

They took out identification cards. Clybourne glanced at them, but Jenny thought he looked at them superficially. He was much more interested in the visitors than in their papers. Doesn’t miss a detail. Joe Gland, thinks he’s irresistible.

Finally he seemed satisfied and led them along a corridor to the Oval Office.

The interior looked very much the way it did on television, with the President seated behind the big desk. They were both in unifonn, so they saluted as they approached the desk.

David Coffey seemed embarrassed. He acknowledged their salutes with a wave. “Glad to see you.” He sounded as if he meant it. “Captain Jeanette Crichton,” he said carefully. His brows lifted slightly in thought, and Jenny was sure that he’d remember her name from now on. “And General Gillespie. Good to see you again.”

“Thank you, Mr. President,” Edmund said.

Ed’s as nervous as I am, Jenny thought. I didn’t think he would be. She glanced around the office. Behind the President, on a credenza, was a red telephone. The phone, Jenny thought. At SAC headquarters the general in command had two telephones, one red to communicate with his forces, and one gold. This would be the other end of the gold phone…

“Captain, this is Hap Aylesworth,” the President said. He indicated a seated man. Aylesworth’s face seemed flushed, and his necktie was loosened. He stood to shake hands with her.

“Please be seated,” the President said. “Now, Captain, tell me everything you know about this.”

She took the offered chair, sitting on its edge, both feet on the floor, feet together, her skin pulled down over her knees, as she’d been taught in officer’s training classes. “I don’t know much, Mr. President,” she said. “I was at the Mauna Loa Observatory.”

“How did you happen to be there?” Aylesworth asked.

“I was invited to Hawaii to address an engineering conference. I took a couple of extra days leave. While I was swimming I met Richard Owen, who turned out to be an astronomer, and he invited me up to see the observatory.”

“Owen,” Aylesworth said pensively.

“Come on, Hap, we have confirmation from every place we logically could get confirmation,” the President said. He smiled thinly. “Mr. Aylesworth can’t quite get over the notion that this is a put-up job. Could it have been?”

Jenny frowned in thought. “Yes, sir, but I don’t believe it. What would be the motivation?”

“There must be forty science-fiction novels with that plot,” Aylesworth said. “Scientists get together. Convince the stupid political and military people that the aliens are coming. Unite Earth, end wars …”

“The Air Force Observatory reports the same thing,” Ed Gillespie said. “Now that they know what to look for.”

The President nodded. “As do a number of other sources. Hap, if it’s a plot, there are an awful lot of plotters involved. You’d think one would have spilled the beans by now.”

“Yes, sir,” Aylesworth said. “And I suppose we’re sure this isn’t something the Russians cooked up to get us off guard.”

Both Jenny and General Gillespie shook their heads. “Not a chance,” Gillespie said.

“No, I suppose not,” Aylesworth said. “My apologies, Captain, I’m having trouble getting used to the notion of little green men from outer space.”

“Or big black ones,” Ed Gillespie said.

The President eyed Gillespie in curiosity. “What makes you say that? Surely you don’t have any knowledge?”

“No, sir. But they’re as likely to be big and black as they are to be little and green. If we had any idea of where they came from, we might be able to figure something out.”

“Saturn,” Jenny said. “Dr. Mouton had a computer program.” Alice Mouton had wanted to lecture, and Jenny had listened carefully. “We don’t know how fast they came, and Saturn must have moved since they left, but if you give them almost any decent velocity, they started in a patch of sky that had Saturn in it.”

“Saturn,” Aylesworth said. “Saturnians?”

“I doubt it,” Ed Gillespie said. “Saturn just doesn’t get enough sunlight energy for a complex organism to evolve there. Much less a civilization.”

“Sure about that?” the President asked.

“No, sir,”

“Neither is the National Academy of Sciences,” the President said. “At least those I could get hold of. But the consensus is that the ship must have gone to Saturn from somewhere else. Now all we have to do is find the somewhere else.”

“Maybe we can ask them,” Jenny said.

“Oddly enough, we thought of that,” Aylesworth said.

“With what result?” Gillespie asked.

“None.” Aylesworth shrugged. “So far they haven’t answered. Anyway. Mr. President, I’m satisfied. It’s real.”

“Good,” the President said. “In that case, if you’d ask Mr. Dawson and Admiral Carrell to come in …”

Gillespie and Jenny stood. Wes Dawson came in first. “Hello, Ed, Jenny,” he said.

“Ah. You both know Congressman Dawson, then,” the President said.

“Yes, sir,” Ed Gillespie said.

“Of course you would,” David Coffey said. “You told Mr. Dawson about the alien ship. Have you met Admiral Carrell?”

“Yes, sir,” Ed said. “But I think Jenny hasn’t.”

Admiral Carrell was approaching retirement age, and he looked it, with silver hair and wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. He shook hands with her, masculine fashion. His hand was firm, and so was his voice. His manner made it clear that he knew precisely who Jenny was. He waited until the President invited them to sit, then again until Jenny was seated, before he took his own seat. “Nice work, Captain.” he said. “Not every officer would have realized the significance of what you saw.”

Interesting, she thought. Does he take this much trouble with everyone he meets? “Thank you, Admiral.”

Congressman Dawson had taken the chair closest to the President. “How will Congress treat this, Wes?” the President asked.

“I don’t know them all, Mr. President,” Dawson said.

“Will I get support for a declaration of emergency?”

“I don’t know, sir,” Dawson said. “There will certainly be opposition.”

“Damn fools,” Admiral Carrell said.

“What makes you think the aliens won’t be friendly?” Wes Dawson demanded.

“The aliens may be friendly, but a Russian mobilization without reaction from us would be a disaster. It might even tempt them to something they normally wouldn’t think of,” Carrell spoke evenly.

“Really?” Dawson said. His tone made it less a question than a statement.

“Will they mobilize?” the President asked.

“We’ll let Captain Crichton answer,” the Admiral said. “Perhaps Mr. Dawson will be more likely to believe someone he knows. Captain?”

I’ve just been set up, Jenny thought. So that’s how it’s done. But I’ve no choice. “Yes, sir, they will.” She hesitated. “And if we don’t react, there could be trouble.”

“Why is that?” the President prompted.

“Sir, it’s part of their doctrine. If they could liberate the world from capitalism without risk to the homeland, and didn’t do it, they’d be traitors to their own doctrine.”

Admiral Carrell said, “They’re jamming all our broadcasts, and they haven’t told their people anything about an alien coming.”

“It’s too big to keep secret,” Dawson said. “Isn’t it?”

Once again. Admiral Carrell turned to Jenny. This time he merely nodded to her.

Is this a test? she wondered. “Whatever it is Sir, the East Germans and Poles are bound to find out. Unless the Soviets want to completely disrupt their economy, they can’t cut off all communication from the Eastern European satellites, so the news is bound to get to Russia. To the cities, anyway.”

The Admiral nodded behind half-closed eyes.

“Meanwhile, whatever the Russians are doing, there’s an alien ship coming,” the President said. “It may be that in a few weeks all our little squabbles will look very silly.”

“Yes, sir,” Wes Dawson said. “Very silly.”

“There are other possibilities.” Admiral Carrell spoke in low tones, but everyone listened. Even the President.

“Such as?” Dawson demanded.

“I want to assemble a staff of experts at Colorado Springs. One task will be to look at as many possibilities as we can.”

“Very reasonable,” the President said. “Why Colorado Springs?”

“The hole,” Admiral Carrell said.

NORAD, Jenny thought. The North American Air Defense Command base, buried deep under the granite of Cheyenne Mountain. It was supposed to be the safest place in the United States, although there were some arguments about just how hardened it really was…

“Will you be going out there?” the President asked.

“Not permanently.”

“But you’ll be busy. Meanwhile, I need someone to keep me informed.” The President looked thoughtful. “We have two problems. Aliens, and the Soviets. Captain, you’re a Soviet expert, and you discovered the alien ship.”

“I didn’t discover it, sir.”

“Near enough,” the President said. “You recognized its importance. And you already have all the clearances you need, or you wouldn’t be in military intelligence.” He touched a button on the desk. The Chief of Staff came in immediately.

“Jim,” the President said, “I’m commander in chief. Does that mean I can promote people?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Promote this young lady to major, and have her assigned to the staff. She’ll work with you and the Admiral to keep me briefed on what the aliens and the Soviets are doing.” He chuckled. “Major Crichton and General Gillespie are military. I can give them orders without going through civil service hearings. At least I assume I can?”

“Sure,” Frantz said.

Major Crichton. Just like that!

“Good,” the President was saying. “General Gillespie, Congressman Dawson wants to go meet the aliens in space.”

Ed Gillespie nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“You approve?”

“Yes, sir.”

Jenny smiled thinly. Ed would approve more if it was going to be him meeting the aliens. For that matter, I’d like to go.

“Help him do it,” the President said. “I want you to work with him. Go to Houston and personally see to his training. It’s possible you’ll go along, too, although that’s up to the Russians.” He grimaced slightly, then glanced at his watch. “They’re expecting both of you over at NASA headquarters. I wanted to see you before I made up my mind. If you hurry you won’t be too late”

“Yes, sir.” Ed glanced at Jenny but didn’t say anything.

The President stood, and everyone else stood with him. “The Soviet Ambassador has demanded an official explanation of why news of this importance was transmitted via private telephone call, rather than through official channels,” he said. “One of your first tasks, Major, will be to think of ways to convince them that this isn’t a trick.”

“That may not be easy to do,” Admiral Carrell said.

“I realize that,” the President said. “Others will be working on the problem.” He indicated dismissal: “Major, they’ll find you a place to work, Lord knows where, and don’t be shy about asking for equipment. Mr. Frantz will see that you get what you want. I’ll expect daily reports, sent through Admiral Carrell. If he’s not available you’ll brief me yourself.”

Jenny’s thoughts raced giddily. Here I’ve been promoted and am in the middle of one of the most unique events in history and I’ve been assigned to the National Security Council and personal Presidential briefings in the Oval Office! All because I went for a swim and let an astronomer pick me up in Hawaii. My friend Barb believes nothing is ever a coincidence. Synchronicity. Maybe there’s something to it…

“Now all I have to do is figure out where to put you,” the Chief of Staff was saying. “The President will want you in this building. I guess I’ll have to exile someone else to Old EOP.”

He was striding briskly down the hail. Jenny followed. They reached a desk at the end of the hall. The man who’d led her to the Oval Office was seated there.

“Jack,” the Chief of Staff said, “meet another member of our family, Major Jeanette Crichton. The President has assigned her to his staff. NSC. She’ll have regular personal access.”

“Right.” He studied her again.

“This is Jack Clybourne,” Jim Frantz said. “Secret Service.”

“I worry about keeping the chief healthy,” Clyboume said.

“Get word to all the security people, Jack.” Frantz turned to Jenny. “Major I’d like you to check in this evening about four … I should have some room for you by then. Meanwhile — oh. You came with General Gillespie. You’ve lost your ride.”

“No problem sir.”

“Right. Thanks.” He started down the hall, stopped, and turned his head but not his body. “Welcome aboard,” he said over his shoulder. He scurried off. Jenny giggled, and Clybourne gave her an answering smile. “He’s a worrier, that one.”

“I gathered. What’s next?”

“Fingerprints. Have to be suit you’re you.”

“Oh. Who does that?”

“I can if you like.” Clybourne lifted a phone and spoke for a few moments. Presently another clean-cut young man entered and sat at the desk.

“Tom Bucks,” Clyboume said. “Captain Jeanette Crichton … Next time you see her she’ll be wearing oak leaves. The President just promoted her. She’s the newest addition to NSC. Personal access.”

“Hi,” Bucks said. He studied her, and Jenny felt he was memorizing every pore on her face. They both act that way. Of course. Not Joe Gland, just a Secret Service agent doing his job.

Clybourne led the way downstairs and through a small staff lounge. “I keep gear back here,” he said. He took out a large black case and put fingerprinting apparatus on the counter of the coffee machine.

“You really have to do this? My prints are on file.”

“Sure. What I have to be sure of is that the pretty girl I’m talking to now is the same Jeanette Crichton the Army commissioned.”

“I suppose,” she said.

He took her hand. “Just relax, and let me do the work.”

She’d been through the routine before. Clybourne was good at it. Eventually he handed her a jar of waterless cleanser and some paper towels.

“How did you know the President had promoted me?” she asked.

“The appointment list said ‘Captain,’ and the Chief of Staff called you ‘Major.’ Jim Frantz doesn’t make that kind of mistake.”

And you don’t miss much, either.

She cleaned the black goo from her hands while Clybourne poured two cups of coffee from the pot on the table. He handed her one. “Somebody said you live in Washington?”

“Grew up here,” she said. “Which reminds me, can you call me a cab?”

4. BLIND MICE

“Sure. Where are you going?”

“Flintridge. It’s out Connecticut, Rock Creek Park area.”

“I know where it is.” He glanced at his watch. “If you can wait ten minutes, I can run you out.”

“I wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble…”

“No trouble. I go off duty, and I’m going that way.”

“All right, then. Thank you.”

“You can wait for me at the main entrance,” Clybourne said. He took a memo pad bearing the White House seal from his pocket and scribbled on it, then took a small triangular pin from another pocket. “Put that in your lapel, and keep this pass,” he said. “I’ll see you in ten minutes.” He smiled again, and she found herself answering.

General Narovchatov paused at the door and waited to be invited inside even though Nadya had told him that Comrade Chairman Petrovskiy was expecting him. Petrovskiy did not like surprises.

The Chairman was writing in a small notebook. Narovchatov waited patiently.

The office was spartan in comparison to his own. Petrovskiy seemed not to notice things like rugs and tapestries and paintings. He enjoyed rare books with rich leather bindings and was fond of very old cognac; otherwise he did not often indulge himself.

There had been a time when Nikolai Nikolayevich Narovchatov was concerned that it would be dangerous to enjoy the trappings of wealth and power while the Chairman so obviously did not. He still believed that in the early days that concern had not been misplaced; but as Narovchatov rose in status, the gifts sent him by Petrovskiy had become more numerous and more valuable, until it was obvious that Petrovskiy was encouraging his old associate to indulge himself, to enjoy what he did not himself care for.

Narovchatov had never discussed this with Chairman Petrovskiy. It was enough that it was so.

Chairman Petrovskiy looked up. His welcoming smile was broad. “Come in, come in.” Then he grimaced. “I suppose it was not a joke. They continue to come, then?” He lifted his glass of tea and peered at Narovchatov over its rim.

“Da, Anatoliy Vladimirovich.” General Namvchatov shrugged. “According to the astronomers, at this point it would be difficult for them not to come. The rocket forces will be brought to full strength, and we are anticipating their arrival. They move toward us very fast.”

“And they arrive, when?”

“A few weeks. I am told it is difficult to be more precise because it is a powered ship. That makes it unpredictable.”

“And you continue to believe that this is an alien ship, and not more CIA tricks?”

“I do, Anatoliy Vladimirovich.”

“So, I think, do I. But the Army does not.”

Narovchatov nodded. He had expected nothing else. And that could be a great problem for a man who had no need of more problems. The Chairman looked old and tired. Too old, Narovchatov thought. And what might happen when … Perhaps the Chairman had read his thoughts. “It is long past time that you were promoted, Nikolai Nikolayevich, my friend. I wish you to have the post of First Secretary. We will elevate Comrade Mayarovin to the Politburo, where he can rust in honor.”

“It is not necessary.”

“It is. Especially now. Nikolai Nikolayevich, I have long hoped to be the first leader of the Soviet Union to retire with honor. One day, perhaps, I will, but not until I can give the post to someone worthy. You are the most loyal man I know.”

“Thank you.”

“No thanks are needed. It is truth. But, my friend, I may not be with you so long. The doctors tell me this.”

“Nonsense.”

“That it is not. But before I am gone, I hope to see us accomplish something never before done. To give this land stability, to allow its best to serve without fear of their lives.”

The czars had never done that. Not the czars, and not Lenin. This was Russia. “That requires law, Anatoliy Vladimirovich. Bourgeois lands have law. We have—” He shrugged expressively. “We have had terror. It is not enough. You will remember little of Stalin’s time, but I recall. Khrushchev destroyed himself in trying to destroy Stalin’s memory, and we shall never make that mistake; but Khrushchev was correct, that man was a monster, Even Lenin warned against him.”

“He did what was necessary,” Narovchatov said.

“As do we. As will we. Enough of this. What shall we do about this alien spacecraft?”

Narovchatov shrugged, “The Army has begun mobilization, constructing new space weapons.” He frowned. “I do not yet know what the Americans will do.”

“Nor I,” the Chairman said. “I suppose they will do the same.”

I hope so, Narovchatov thought. If they do not… There were always young officers who would begin the war if they thought they could win it. On both sides. “Also, we have warned the commander of Kosmograd. I scarcely know what else to do.”

“We must do more,” the Chairman said. “What will these aliens want? What could bring them here, across billions of miles? If they are aliens at all, and not a CIA trick.”

This again? “Such a trick would make our space program look like children’s games. It is alien, and powered. I would believe a spacegoing beast with a rocket up its arse before I thought it a CIA trick. But I think it must be a ship, Anatoliy Vladintirovich.”

“I do agree,” the Chairman said. “Only I cannot believe what I believe. It is too hard for me! What do they want? No one would travel that far merely to explore. They have reasons for coming.”

“They must. But I do not know why they have come.”

“No, nor will we, until they are ready to tell us. We know too little of this.” Petrovskiy speared Narovchatov with a peasant’s crafty look. “Your daughter has married a space scientist. An intelligent man, your son-in-law. Intelligent enough to be loyal. Intelligent enough to understand what your promotion to First Secretary will mean to him.

“Someone must command the space preparations. Who?”

He means something, Narovchatov thought. Always he means things he does not say. He is clever, always clever, but sometimes he is too clever, for I do not understand him.

Who should command? The news of the alien ship had brought something like panic to the Kremlin. Everyone was upset, and the delicate balance within the Politburo was endangered. Who could command? Narovchatov shrugged. “I had assumed Marshal Ugatov.”

“Certainly the Army will have suggestions. We will listen to them. As we do to KGB.” The Chairman continued to look thoughtful.

What is his plan? Narovchatov thought. The meeting of the Defense Council is in an hour. The heads of the Army and the KGB. The chief Party theoretician, Chairman Petrovskiy, and me because Petrovskiy has named me his associate. At that meeting everything will be settled, then comes the meeting of the entire Politburo, and after that the Central Committee to endorse what we have already decided. But what will we decide? He looked at Petrovskiy, but the Chairman was studying a paper on his desk. — What did Anatoliy Vladimirovich want? The Soviet Union was ruled by a troika: the Army, the KGB, and the Party with the Party the weakest of the three, yet the most powerful because it controlled promotions within the other two organizations. Other schemes had been tried, and nearly brought disaster. When Stalin died, Party and Army had feared Beria, for his NKVD was so powerful that it had once eliminated nearly the entire central committee in a matter of weeks.

Party and Army together acted to eliminate the threat. Beria was dragged from a meeting of the Politburo and shot by four colonels. The top leadership of the NKVD was liquidated.

Suddenly the Party found itself facing the uncontrolled Army. It had not liked what it saw. The Army was popular. The military could command the affections of the people. If the Party’s rule ever ended, it would not be the Army’s leaders who would be shot as traitors. The Army could even eliminate the Party if it had full control of its strength.

That could not be allowed. The NKVD was reconstructed. It was shorn of many of its powers, divided into the civil militia and the KGB, never allowed to gain the strength it once had. Still, it had grown powerful again, as always it did. Its agents could compromise anyone, recruit anyone. It reached high into the Kremlin, into the Politburo and Party and Army. Alliances shifted once again…

Here, in this room, origins did not matter. Here, and in the Politburo itself, the truth was known. No one of the three power bases could be allowed to triumph. Party, Army, KGB must all be strong to maintain the balance of power. Ruling Russia consisted of that secret, and nothing more.

Petrovskiy was a master at that art. And now he was waiting. The hint he had given was plain.

“I believe Academician Bondarev might be very suitable to advise us and to direct our space forces during this emergency,” Narovchatov said. “If you approve, Anatoliy Vladimirovich.”

“Now that you make the recommendation. I see much to commend it,” Petrovskiy said. “I believe you should propose Academician Bondarev at the Central Committee meeting. Of course, the KGB will insist on placing their man in the operation.”

The KGB would have its man, but the Party must approve him. Another decision to be made here, before the meeting of the full Politburo.

“Grushin,” Narovchatov said. “Dmitri Parfenovich Grushin.”

Petrovskiy raised a thick eyebrow in inquiry.

“I have watched him. He is trusted by the KGB, but a good diplomat, well regarded by the Party people he knows, And he has studied the sciences.”

“Very well.” Petrovskiy nodded in satisfaction.

“The KGB is divided,” Narovchatov said. “Some believe this a CIA trick. Others know better. We have seen it for ourselves. Rogachev has seen it with his own eyes, in the telescopes aboard Kosmograd. The Americans could never have built that ship, Anatoliy Vladimirovich.”

Petrovskiy’s peasant eyes hardened. “Perhaps not. But the Army does not believe that. Marshal Ugatov is convinced that this is an American plot to cause him to aim his rockets at this thing in space while the Americans mobilize against us.”

“But they would not,” Narovchatov said. “It is all very well for us to say these things for the public, but we must not delude ourselves.”

Petrovskiy frowned, and Nikolai Narovchatov was afraid for a moment. Then the Chairman smiled thinly. “We may, however, have no choices,” he said. “At all events, it is settled. Your daughter’s husband will take charge of our space preparations. It is better that be done by a civilian. Come, let us have a cognac to celebrate the promotion of Marina’s husband!”

“With much pleasure.” Narovchatov went to the cabinet and took out the bottle, crystal decanter, and glasses. “What will the Americans really do?” he asked.

Petrovskiy shrugged. “They will cooperate. What else can they do?”

“It is never wise to underestimate the Americans.”

“I know this. I taught it to you.”

Nikolai Nikolayevich grinned. “I remember. But do you?”

“Yes. But they will cooperate.”

Narovchatov frowned a moment, then saw the sly grin the Chairman wore. “Ah,” he said. “Their President called.”

“No. I called him.”

Nikolai Narovchatov thought of the implications of a deal. Petrovskiy was the only man in the Soviet Union who could have spoken to the American President without Narovchatov knowing it within moments. “Does Thisov know this?” he asked.

“I did not tell him,” Petrovskiy said. He shrugged.

Narovchatov nodded agreement. The KGB had many resources. Who could know what its commander might find out? “You will discuss this in the Defense council then?”

Nikolai Narovchatov poured two glasses of rare cognac and passed one across the large desk. The Chairman grinned and lifted the drink in salute. “To the cooperation of the Americans,” he said. He laughed.

Naruvchatov lifted his glass in reply, but inwardly he was confounded. This alien ship could be nothing but trouble at a time when had come so close to the top! But nothing was certain now. The KGB would have its own devious games, so twisted that even Bonderev would not understand. And the Army was reacting as armies always reacted. Missiles were made ready.

Many fingers hover over many buttons.

Nikolai Naruvchatov felt much like the legendary Tatar who had saddled a whirlwind.

The shows were over and Martin Carnell was driving home with his awards, one Best Bitch, three Best of Breed, and a Best Working. One more than he expected.

From behind him, from the crates in the back of the heavy station wagon, came restless sounds Martin flipped off the radio to listen. None of the dogs sounded sick. Barth was just a puppy, and he wasn’t used to traveling in the station wagon. His mood was affecting the others.

Martin was taking it easy. He stayed at fifty or below with half a minute to change lanes. You couldn’t drive a station wagon like a race car, not with star-quality dogs in the back. Otherwise they’d be ready to take a judge’s hand off by the day of the show.

Martin saw a lot of country this way. This had been a typical dog-show circuit. Two shows on Saturday and Sunday, sixty miles apart, five weekdays to be killed somehow, and three hundred miles to be covered; two more shows, much closer together, the following weekend; two thousand miles to be covered on the trip.

“Take it easy guys,” Martin said, because they liked the sound of his voice. He turned on the radio.

The music had stopped. Martin heard, “I have spoken with the Soviet Chairman.” It sounded like the President himself — that unmistakable trade union accent. Martin turned up the sound.

“We are also consulting on a joint response to this alien ship.

“My fellow Americans, our scientists tell us that this could be the greatest event in the history of mankind. You now know all that we know: a large object, well over a mile in length, is approaching the Earth along a path that convinces our best sc entific minds that it is under power and intelligently guided. So far there has been no communication with it.

“We have no reason to believe this is a threat.” Martin grinned and shook his head, wishing he’d heard the beginning of the broadcast. Whoever was playing the part, he sure had the President’s voice down pat. Martin laughed (as J started all three dogs barking) at a different thought: George Tate-Evans tuned in at the same moment he had; he wouldn’t know whether to bellow with the joy of vindication, or hide under the bandstand.

The Enclave was still going, Martin knew that much. He couldn’t understand now, how he’d got sucked into the survivalist mind set. Spent some real money, too, before he came to his senses. The only thing that little fling had ever done for him was to turn him from miniature poodles to Dobermans. He’d bought Marten burg Sunhawk because a Doberman might be better equipped to defend his house and found that he flat out preferred the larger dogs.

But the rest of the Enclave families must still be meeting on Thursday nights, all ready for the end of civilization on Earth. George and Vicki, what would they do? Warn the rest of the the Enclave and head for the hills, of course: their natural reaction to, any stimulus. And they say dog people are scary.

A newscaster’s rich radio voice continued the theme, speaking of war and politics. It introduced a professor of physics who also wrote science fiction and who predicted wonderful things from the coming confrontation. Martin, easing down old U.S. 66 with a load of prima donna dogs, began to wonder if he really was listening to a remake of “War of the Worlds.” He hadn’t found a plot line yet.

There was heavy traffic in the San Fernando Valley. Isadore Leiber cursed lightly, half listening to the news station, half worrying about how late he would be.

Isadore had simply forgotten. It wasn’t a Thursday. His brain hadn’t ticked over until four-thirty, and then: Hey, wasn’t something happening tonight? Sure, Jack McCauley called an emergency meeting of the Enclave. Probably has to do with that … light in the sky. I’d better call Clara, remind her.

Clara had remembered, and wondered where he was. He fought abnormally dense rush-hour traffic straight to the Tate-Evans place, one house among many in the San Fernando Valley. Clara met him at the curb, laughing, insisting that she’d followed him right in, in her own car. He grabbed her and kissed her to shut her up. They held each other breathlessly for a moment, then by mutual consent let go and walked up on the porch.

Clara rang the bell and they waited. In those few seconds Clara stopped laughing, even stopped smiling. “Do you think they’ll be angry?”

“Yeah. My fault, and I guess I don’t care that much. Relax.”

“They did tell us. Or Jack did.”

The door opened. George Tate-Evans ushered them inside. He wasn’t angry, but he wasn’t happy either. “Clara, Isadore, come on in. What kept you?”

“My boss,” Isadore lied. “What’s happening?”

George ran his hand over bare scalp to long, thin blond hair. He wasn’t yet forty, but he’d been half bald when Isadore first met him. “Sign of virility,” he’d said. Now he answered, “Jack and Harriet taped some newscasts. We’re playing them now. Clara, the girls are in the kitchen cooking something.”

Girls, kitchen, cooking something. What? This was serious, then; or else George was sure this was serious. Could it be? That serious?

Survivalism. Specialization. Wartime rules. Isadore made his way into a darkened living room. He knew where the steps and the furniture were; he’d been there often enough. The light of the five-foot screen showed him an empty spot on the couch.

There were only men in the room. The house belonged to George and Vicki Tate-Evans, but Vicki wasn’t present.

And Clara had gone to the kitchen. Clara! Ye gods, she thought it was real…

George waved him to a seat, then went to the Betamax recorder. “Here it is again,” he said.

The set lit up to show the presidential seal, then the Oval Office. The camera panned in on President David Coffey. The President looked calm and relaxed. Almost too much so, Isadore thought. But he does look very presidential…

“My fellow Americans,” Coffey said. “Last night, scientists at the University of Hawaii made an amazing discovery. Their findings have since been confirmed by astronomers at Kitt Peak and other observatories. According to the best scientific information I have been able to obtain, a very large spacecraft is approaching Earth from the general direction of the planet Saturn.”

The President looked up at the camera, ignoring his notes for a moment. He had a way of doing that, of looking into the camera so that everyone watching felt he was speaking directly to them. Coffey’s ability to do that had played no small part in his election. “I have been told that it is not possible that the ship came from Saturn, and that it must have come from somewhere much farther away. Wherever it came from, it is rapidly approaching the Earth, and will arrive here within a few weeks, probably at the end of June.”

He paused to look at the yellow sheets of paper that lay on his desk, then back at the camera again. “So far we have received no communication from this ship. We therefore have no reason whatever to believe the ship poses any threat to us. However, the Soviet Union became aware of this ship at the same time we did. Predictably, their reaction was to mobilize their armed forces. Our observation satellites show that they have begun a partial strategic alert.

“We cannot permit the Soviets to mobilize without some answer. I have therefore ordered a partial mobilization of the United States’ strategic forces. I wish to emphasize that this is a defensive mobilization only. The United States has never wanted war. We particularly do not desire war at a time when an alien spacecraft is approaching this planet.

“No American President could ignore the Soviet mobilization. I have not done so. However, I have spoken with the Soviet Chairman, and we have reached an agreement on limiting our strategic mobilization. We are also consulting on a joint response to the alien ship.

“My fellow Americans, our scientists tell us that this could be the greatest event in the history of mankind. You now know all that we know: a large object, perhaps a mile in length, is approaching the Earth along a path that convinces our best scientific minds that it is under power and intelligently guided. So far there has been no communication with it.

“We have no reason to believe this is a threat, and we have many reasons to believe this is an opportunity. With the help of God Almighty we will meet this opportunity as Americans have always met opportunities.

“Good night.”

The Oval Office faded, and news analysts came on. George switched off the set. “We can skip the analysis. Those birds don’t know any more than we do. But you see why I called an alert.”

They had called themselves the Enclave before there was anything more than four men meeting at George and Vicki’s house.

That was at the tail end of the seventies, when the end of civilization was a serious matter. There were double-digit inflation and a rising crime rate. Iran was holding fifty-odd kidnapped ambassadors and getting away with it. OPEC’s banditry regarding oil prices seemed equally safe. What nation would be next to see the obvious? The United States couldn’t defend itself. The value of her money was falling to its limit: a penny and a half in 1980 money, the cost of printing a dollar bill. U.S. military forces were in shreds, and the Soviets kept building missiles long after they caught up, then passed, the United States’ strategic forces.

If the economy didn’t collapse, nuclear war would kill you. Either way, there were long odds against survival of the unprepared. The Enclave was born of equal parts desperation and play-acting. Which was more important depended on the morning headlines.

Things looked better after Reagan was elected. The hostages were returned minutes after the old cowboy took office… but the Enclave continued to meet. The dollar ceased to fall, then grew strong. The economy was turning around, the stock market was showing signs of health; but there was no money for the military, and the Soviet Union kept building rockets. The Enclave made lists of what a survivalist ought to own, and checked each other’s stocks. A year’s supply of food, just like the Mormons. Guns. Gold coins. And they dreamed of a place to run, just in case.

The late eighties: Welfare had not increased to match inflation, and unemployment was down. There might have been a connection. Inflation had slowed too. General Motors had won its lawsuit against the unions, for damages done by a strike, and collected from the union funds; strikes ought to be less common in the future. The weapons of war had moved into a science-fictional realm, difficult for the avenge citizen to assess. But the Soviet space program had been moving steadily outward until they virtually owned the sky from Near Earth Orbit to beyond the Moon.

The Enclave continued to meet. They had grown older, and generally wealthier. Four years ago they had bought a piece of land outside Bellingham, a decaying city north of Seattle that had been a port and shipyard before the silt moved in and the trade moved south. It was as far from any likely targets of war as anyplace that seemed able to support itself. There had once been a navy shipyard, but that was long ago.

They all made money, but they weren’t rich. Their jobs kept them in Los Angeles. Over the years one or another had found wealth or peace or even both in small towns. The dropouts were replaced, and the Enclave endured, an aging group of middleclass survivalists unwilling to break away from Los Angeles and their not inconsiderable incomes.

All this time they had been meeting, every Thursday night after the dinner hour, like clockwork. Tonight was Monday; they had left work early, and Isadore was getting hungry; the dinner hour should have been just beginning. But the terrible strangeness of this night did not derive from that. Isadore Leiber sought for what it was that was bothering him, and it came, not in strangeness but in familiarity, as he reached for a cigarette.

Four years ago he’d given up smoking for the last time. He’d given it up, but he borrowed from his friends at every opportunity. Giving up smoking became his lifestyle. It got to where his friends couldn’t stand him: the sight of a familiar face triggered his urge to smoke; he would roll pipe tobacco in toilet paper if he had to. But he was giving up smoking, yes indeed. And he was getting ready for the end of civilization, yes indeed. But he’d been doing it for well over a decade, and that had become his lifestyle. Tonight was weird. No laughter, no complaining about fools in Congress.

Tonight they meant it.

“I hate the timing,” George said. “Corliss is about to graduate, and the rest of the kids won’t like missing the tail end of the school year, and if they do, I don’t.”

There were echoes of agreement. “I can’t go,” Isadore said.

The noise stopped. Jack McCauley said, “What do you mean, can’t?”

“I can’t quit my job. I can’t take leave, either. George said it, it’s timing. Travel agencies get hectic with summer coming on.”

Jack made a sound of disgust. George asked, “Sick leave?”

“Mmm … a couple of weeks.”

“Wait till, oh, the tenth of June. Jack, this makes sense.” George jumped the gun on an automatic protest. “We’re bound to forget something. We’ll keep Ia posted. Ia, you take your two weeks sick leave just before the ETI’s reach Earth. You come up then. Two weeks later you’ll damn well know whether you want to go back to the city.”

“It’s still costing us a pair of strong arms,” Jack groused.

Isadore decided he liked the idea. “I’ll ask Clara if she wants to take the kids up early. Maybe we’ll want to keep them in school as long as we can.”

“All right, it can’t be helped,” Jack said. “But the rest of us are going, right?” He snowballed on before there could be an answer. “Bill and Gwen are already up at the Enclave. We’ve got the second cistern system running, and he’s got the top deck poured on the shelter. Bill says the well has to be cleaned out, but we can do that with muscle when we get there.” He pursed his lips in a familiar gesture. “One thing, Ia. You come up a full week before the ETI’s get here. Cut it any finer, and you may not make it at all. When people really believe in that ship, God knows what they’ll do.”

“If the Soviets give us that long,” George said.

Jack frowned. “For that matter, if there’s any alien ship at all. Maybe this is something the Russians cooked up.”

They all shrugged. “No data,” Isadore said. “But you’d think the President would know.”

“And he’d sure tell us, right?” Jack said. “Ia, are you sure you want to wait?”

“Yeah, I have to.” Christ, he’s right, Isadore thought. Who the flick knows what’s happening? Aliens, Russians — a nuclear war could ruin your whole day. “I think Clara will go up early,” he said. “I’ll have to ask her.”

The others nodded understanding.

When they’d first started the Enclave, they made a decision. One vote per adult, but all the votes of a family would be cast by one person. The theory was simple. If a family couldn’t even agree on who represented it, what could they agree on?

There’d been a problem at first, because Isadore thought Clara ought to vote rather than him, but she didn’t get along with Jack, or maybe Jack didn’t get along with her. There’d been too many arguments. After the first year things had settled in, and only the men voted, but Isadore often went off to ask Clara’s opinion before making a decision.

“Who else goes?” Jack demanded.

The inevitable question struck each of them differently. Jack was already belligerent. George looked disconcerted, then guilty. “Well… us, of course,” he said. “Our wives and children.”

“Of course. Who else? Who do we need, who do we want? John Fox?”

Isadore laughed. “Hell, yes, we want Fox. He’s a better survivor than any of us. That’s why he’s not coming. I talked to him. He’ll be camping somewhere in Death Valley, and that’s fine for him, but he didn’t invite me along.”

“What if Martie shows?”

“Aw, hell, Jack.”

Martin Carnell had been with the Enclave for a time. He’d lasted long enough to help buy the house and land in Bellingham. Then… maybe he’d run into financial trouble. He’d quit. Later he’d moved further north into the Antelope Valley.

“You read me wrong, George. I just want to point out that he’s got some legal rights. We’re betting that won’t matter much, but suppose he shows up at the gate? Before or after the ETI’s get here.”

“We’ve turned that place into a fortress since he quit. Expensive.” Isadore grinned at them. “What he owns is something like half his fair share. Awkward.”

“Yah. Well, I see him sometimes, and he’s still single. There’s just him.”

“And those damn Dobennans,” George said.

“Is that bad? We can use some guard dogs. We’ll make him build his own kennels.”

“These are show dogs. They’re gentle and dignified and everybody’s friend. Anything else would cost Martie some prizes. They’re not guard dogs.”

“Would looters know that?”

A silence fell. Jack said, “Shall we let him in if he shows at the gate? Assuming he’s got equipment and supplies. But I see no reason to phone him up and invite him.”

There were nods, and some relief showed. George said, “Harry Reddington wants to come.”

Two heads shook slowly. Jack McCauley asked, “Have you seen Hairy Red lately?”

George hesitated, then nodded. “We used to be friends. I guess we still are. Hell, we took motorcycles up along the Pacific Coast Highway one time. Three hundred miles. We’d stop in a bar and Harry would sing and play that guitar and get us our drinks that way, and maybe our dinners. Hairy Red the Minstrel. I—”

“Lately?”

“Yeah, I’ve seen him lately.”

“He looks like he’s about to have twins, and he has to use that cane. It isn’t because he had those accidents.” Jack shook his head in bewildered pity. “Rear-ended twice in two weeks, in two different cars, and neither of them had head rests! Typical of Harry. But that’s not the point. The insurance company’s been fastshuffling him for two years, and his lawyer tells him he won’t win if he’s too healthy when he gets on the stand.” Now Jack’s speech slowed and his enunciation improved, as if he were making a point for someone who didn’t quite understand English. “Harry Red has been letting his insurance company tell him to stay sick! So he doesn’t exercise, and he lets his belly grow like a parasite.”

“All right, all right. Ken Dutton?”

“He had his chance.”

“Interesting mind. He collects some odd stuff, and it all seems to make sense. Maybe we’re too much alike, the four of us.”

“George, you offered to let him in. He waffled. Now there’s something coming, and suddenly it’s not fun and games anymore. He could have got in when it was fun and games — Why didn’t he? Was it the money?”

“Oh, partly. Not just the dues for the Enclave, but the gear we make each other buy. He has to pay alimony… Only he’s got gear. It’s just not like ours. And partly it’s because he never really gets all the way into anything.”

“Hardly a recommendation. What has he got for weapons?”

George smiled reluctantly. “That crossbow. It’d kill a bear, that thing, and it’s advertised as ‘suitable for SWAT teams.’ And his liquor, he calls it ‘trade goods,’ and he really does keep an interesting bar …”

“A crossbow. And a rocket pistol! I’ve seen his little 1960s Gyrojet. How many shells has he got for it? It’s for damn sure they’ll never make any more. He could have been in and he didn’t pay his dues, George!”

Isadore said, “You could say the same about Jeri Wilson. We want her, don’t we?”

“You’re married, Ia. And I’m very married.”

“Martie isn’t. John Fox isn’t, and we’d take him. There are men we want besides us, aren’t there? Do we want the men seriously outnumbering the women? I don’t think we do.”

“We can’t invite the whole city,” Jack said. “We don’t have the room. Izzie, who else are you going to try to drag in? You knew we wouldn’t have Harry, and you wouldn’t want him anyway.”

“It’s just that a month from now … I can see us all being terribly apologetic.”

“The hell you say,” said Jack.

“This could be our invitation to join the Galactic Union. It could be a flock of… funny looking alien grad students here to give us cheap jewelry for answering their questions.”

George made a rude noise. Jack, at least, looked more thoughtful than amused. Isadore steamed on through the interruption. “…and who knows what they might consider cheap jewelry? Okay, so we’re going off to hide. Somebody has to. Just in case. But I can hear the remarks from some people I like, because we left them outside.”

Jack’s look was stony. “Remember a science-fiction story called ‘To Serve Man’?”

“Sure. They even made, a Twilight Zone out of it. About an alien handbook on how to deal with the human race.”

George smiled, “Some science-fiction fans actually published the cookbook,” and sobered. “Yeah. Somebody has to hide till we know what they want. And just in case, we do not take liabilities.”

5 SEE HOW THEY RUN

The Areo Plaza Mall was deep underground, with four-story shafts reaching high to street level. Around the corner from the government bookstore was a B. Dalton’s, and near that was a radio station with its control room in showcase windows. A few people with nothing better to do sat on benches watching the radio interviewer. His guest was a science-fiction author who’d come to plug his latest book but couldn’t resist talking about the alien ship.

The government bookstore had been crowded all day. Ken Dutton noticed Harry shuffling in, but was too busy to hail him.

Harry Reddington was still using a cane. Ken remembered him as a biker. He still had the massive frame, but it had turned soft years ago. He’d trimmed his beard and cut his hair short even before the two successive whiplash accidents. He might have lost some weight lately — he’d claimed to when Ken saw him last — but the belly was still his most prominent feature. He stopped just past the doorway and looked around at shelves upon shelves of books and pamphlets before he sought out Ken Dutton behind the counter. “Hi, Ken.”

“Hello, Harry. What’s up?”

Harry ran his hand back through graying scarlet hair. “I was listening to the news. Not much on the intruder. It’s still coming and I got to thinking how most of these books will be obsolete an hour after that thing sets down.”

“Some will.” Dutton waved toward a shelf of military books. “Others, maybe not. History still means something. Some will go obsolete, but which books? Maybe medicine. Maybe they’ve got something that’ll cure any disease and they’re just dying to give it away.”

“Yeah.” Harry didn’t smile. “I remember there’s one on how to take care of a car—”

“More than one.”

“Cars and bikes and… and bicycles, for that matter. Okay, maybe they’ve got matter transmitters. Talked to George today?”

“No. I guess I should have,” Dutton said. Hell’s bells. I should have joined that survivalist outfit when I had a chance. Now. “I’ll call after we close.”

“Good luck,” Parry said.

“You talked to them?”

“Yeah. They’re not recruiting. But they’re running scared. Scared of the aliens a little, and of the Russians a lot.” Harry looked thoughtful. “George mentioned a book on cannibal cookery. Supposed to be funny, but it was well-researched, he said—”

“We don’t carry it. And, Harry, I’m not sure I want to think you’ve got a copy.”

“Well, you never know Harry couldn’t keep it up, and laughed. All right, but maybe what we’ll need is survival manuals. I thought I’d come in and look around.”

The shelves had been seriously depleted. Harry chose a few and came to the counter. “There was a new book from the Public Health Service, on stretching exercises. Got it in yet?”

“Sure, but we’re out. Others had the same thought you did.” “Ken, you’re actually one of the Enclave group, aren’t you?”

Ken hesitated. “They invited me in. I haven’t moved yet.” And maybe it’s too late, maybe not. Jesus.

“Are you hooked for dinner?”

“I don’t know. Need to make a phone call.” He went to the back room and dialed George’s number. Vicki answered.

“Hi,” Ken said. “Uh-this is Ken Dutton.”

“I know who you are.”

“Yes-uh-Vicki, is there a meeting tonight?”

“Not tonight. Call tomorrow.”

“Vicki, I know damned well there’s a meeting!”

“Call tomorrow. Anything else? Bye, then.’ The phone went dead.

Ken Dutton went back out to the customer area and found Harry. “No. I don’t have anything on tonight. Let’s eat here in the plaza. Saves us worrying about rush hour.”

Jeri Wilson kissed her daughter, and was surprised at how easy it was to hold her smile until Melissa went up to her room. She’s a good-looking ten-year-old, Jeri thought. Going to be pretty when she grows up.

Melissa had Jeri’s long bones and slender frame. Her hair was a bit darker than Jeri’s, and not quite so fine, but her face was well shaped, pretty rather than beautiful.

Jeri waited until she heard the toilet flush, then waited again until the light under Melissa’s door vanished.

She’d sleep now. She’d be exhausted.

So am I. Jeri’s smile faded. It had been such a wonderful day, the nicest for weeks, until she came home to find the mail.

She went to the living room. An expensive breakfront stood there, and she took out a red crystal decanter and a matching crystal glass. We bought this in Venice. We couldn’t really afford the trip, and the glassware was much too expensive. God, that was a beautiful summer.

The sherry came from Fedco, but no one ever noticed the sherry. They were too enchanted with the decanter. She poured herself a glass and sat on the couch. It was impossible to stop the tears now.

Damn you, David Wilson! She took the letter from her apron pocket. It was handwritten, postmarked Cheyenne Wells, Colorado, and it wasn’t signed. She thought the handwriting looked masculine, hut she couldn’t be sure.

“Dear Mrs. Wilson,” it said. “If you’re really serious about keeping your husband, you’d better get out here and do something right away, ’cause he’s got himself a New Cookie.”

Of course he has a New Cookie, Jeri thought. He’s been gone almost two years, and he filed for divorce six months ago. It was inevitable.

Inevitable or not, she didn’t like to think about it. Pictures came to mind: David, nude, stepping out of the shower. Lying with David on the beach at Malibu, late at night long after the beach had closed, both of them buzzed with champagne. They’d been celebrating David’s Ph.D., and they made love three times, and even if the third time had been more effort than consummation it was a wonderful night. After the first time she’d turned to him and said, “I haven’t been taking my pills—”

“I know,” he said.

She liked to think Melissa was conceived that night. Certainly it happened during that wonderful week. Five months later, Jeri quit her job as general science editor for UCLA’s alumni magazine. David’s education was finished, he’d found a great job with Litton Industries, and they could enjoy themselves…

She sipped her sherry, then, convulsively, drained the glass. It was an effort to keep from throwing it on the floor. Who am I so damned mad at?

At myself. I’m a damned fool. She crumpled the letter, then smoothed it out again. Then poured more sherry. No matter how often she wiped her eyes, they filled again.

She’d had three glasses when the phone rang. At first she thought she’d ignore it, but it might be about Melissa. Or it might even be David; he still called sometimes. What if it’s him, and he says he needs me?

“Hello.”

“Jen, this is Vicki.”

“Oh

“You’ve heard the news?” Vicki asked.

How the devil would you know about David — “What news?”

“The alien spaceship.” What?”

“Jeri, where have you been all day? Hibernating?”

“No, Melissa and I drove up to the Angeles Crest. We had a picnic.”

“Then you haven’t seen the news. Jen, the astronomers have discovered an alien spaceship in the solar system. It’s coming to Earth.”

Aliens. Coming to Earth. She heard the words, but they didn’t make any sense. “You’re not putting me on?”

“Jeri, go turn on Channel Four. I’ll call back in half an hour. We have to talk.”

Saturn. They were coming from Saturn, and no one knew how long they’d been there. Jeri remembered a TV monitor at JPL. Three lines twisted into a braid, and David’s grip on her arm was hard enough to hurt.

That was a lot mote than ten years ago! I was about twenty. I had David, and everything was wonderful.

The phone rang just as the news program was ending. Jen lifted the receiver. “Hello, Vicki.”

“Hi. Okay, you watched the news?”

“Yes.” Jeri giggled.

“What?”

“Aliens from Saturn, that’s what! Vicki, I’ll bet they were there when the Voyager probe went past. I remember all the bull sessions after that probe. John Deming and Gregory and David and I, trying to think how an orbiting band of particles could be twisted like that. David even said ‘aliens,’ once. But he wasn’t serious.”

“Yes, well, that’s what we need to talk about,” Vicki said. “We’ve decided-the Enclave is going north. To Bellingham. You and Melissa are invited.”

“Oh. Why?”

“Well, for one thing, you and David were part of the group for a long time.”

“That’s one reason,” Jeri said. “What are some others?”

Vicki Taje-Evans sighed. “Because you know science-and all right, because you’re pretty and unattached, and we may need to attract a single guy.”

An interesting compliment. I’m glad they think I’m pretty, at my age I see. So I can be a playmate for Ken Dutton.”

“Jeri, he wasn’t invited.”

“Good.”

“I thought you liked Ken. In fact, I thought—”

You can keep that thought to yourself, Vicki Tate-Evans.

Of course it was true. Ken Dutton had invited himself to dinner with Jeri and David after his wife left him, and when David moved to Colorado, Ken continued to come over. She wasn’t interested in an affair, although it was pretty difficult sleeping alone. She missed David a lot, and in every way, and Ken wasn’t unattractive, and he was very attentive. The night she learned that David had filed for divorce, Ken had been there, and held her, and listened to her, and in a blind rage she seduced him. For a few days he’d shared her bed. Then she found out what he was thinking.

“He thought I’d be convenient,” Jeri said. “He wouldn’t have to drive far. Somehow that didn’t seem a good foundation for a relationship.”

“Oh.” Vicki laughed awkwardly. “Anyway, he’s not invited.

In fact I was supposed to tell you not to invite him. Well. That’s good. Jeri, we’ll be going up to Bellingham this week. Isadore and Clara will stay down here until a few days before the aliens come. We’d like you to come up with us, but you could wait and go up with Isadore if you want.”

“I see. Thanks, Vicki. Uh-I’ll get back to you, shall I?”

“You’ll have to. We need to go over your gear, find out what David left you, and what you have to take. I’ll help with that.”

“Thanks. There’s a lot of it here. I’ll get it out. Thanks for inviting me.”

“Sure. Bye.”

Jeri put the phone down and thoughtfully pulled at her lower lip.

Aliens. Coming here, soon.

And they hid at Saturn. No sign of them, nothing that made sense, anyway. They stayed hidden for more than a dozen years. Is that a sign of friendship?

Don’t be paranoid, she told herself. But it might be a good idea not to be in a big city when they came. Just in case.

She and David and Melissa had visited George and Vicki at the Enclave house in Bellingham. That had been nice, a good vacation. It had been their last vacation together. A month later, David was transferred to Colorado.

“It’s a big raise,” he’d told her. He sounded excited.

“But what about my job?”

“What about it, Jeri? You don’t have to work,”

“David, I don’t have to, but I want to.” When Melissa started school, Jeri needed something to do, and became an editorial assistant with the West Coast branch of a big publishing house. She’d been good at the job. Her experience with the alumni paper had helped. Within a year she’d become an associate editor, and then there’d been a lucky break: she’d discovered a woman who needed a lot of help, hand-holding and reassurances, and lots of editing, but whose first book became an instant best-seller.

After that, Jeri became a senior editor. “I’m important at Harris Wickes.”

“You’re important to me. And to Melissa.”

“David—”

“Jeri. It’s a big promotion.”

I was a damn fool. So was he. Why didn’t he tell me they’d fire him if he didn’t transfer? That a lot of eager young petroleum geologists were graduating from the schools, and the big firms would rather hire a recent graduate than a man so long out of school…

He didn’t tell me because he was ashamed. They didn’t really want him anymore, but he couldn’t tell me that. And he wouldn’t beg me.

Damn it, I begged him! But it’s not really the same, and David, David, why can’t I just call you and say I’m coming to you…

Why can’t I?

It was a beautiful spring day in Washington. The city was surprisingly calm, despite the headlines. It took a lot to shake up Washington people.

Roger Brooks walked from NASA headquarters back toward the White House. There’d been nothing for him at the NASA press conference. It was great for Congressman Wes Dawson that he was going to go up to the Soviet Kosmograd space station to watch the aliens arrive. It might even make a story, but Mavis would take care of the news part, and there was plenty of time to collect background.

For a minute he’d thought he had something. Jeanette Crichton discovers the satellite and Wes Dawson goes to the President… Not too many would know about the connection between Linda Crichton Gillespie and Carlotta Dawson. He was still thinking about that when the NASA press people explained it all in loving detail.

Captain Crichton calls her brother-in-law, who calls Congressman Dawson, who goes to see the President. All out in the open for everyone to see. Nothing hidden at all. Damn.

It was a good twenty-minute walk to the Mayflower. Even so, Roger got there before his lunch appointment. The grill at the Mayflower was convenient, even if the food wasn’t distinguished. Roger would have preferred one of the French cuisine places off K Street, but today he was meeting John Fox. Fox wasn’t someone you ate an expensive lunch with, no matter who was paying. Brooks ordered a glass of white wine and leaned back to relax until Fox showed up.

You can’t get anywhere in Washington, D.C., without a coat and tie. Sure enough, Fox was in disguise, in a gray business suit and a tie that didn’t glare. It wouldn’t have fooled anybody. His shirt cuffs gave him away: they were much larger than his wrists. Lean as a ferret, with bony shoulders and fat-free muscle showing even in the hands and face, John Fox looked like he’d just walked out of a desert.

Roger worked his way out of the booth to shake his hand. “How are you, John? Have you heard the news?”

“Yeah.” They slid into the booth. “I’m surprised you’re here.”

For a fact, this wasn’t the day a militant defender of deserts could get the public’s attention! Roger had toyed with the idea of chasing after news of the “alien spacecraft.” But those who knew anything would be telling anyone who would listen, and he’d be fighting for scraps.

For a while Roger had wondered. Aliens, coming from Saturn. It didn’t make sense, and Roger was sure it was some kind of trick, probably CIA. When he tried to check that out, though, he ran into a barrage of genuine bewilderment. If there were any secrets hidden inside the President’s announcement, it was going to take a lot more than a few hours to find them. And John Fox had given Roger stories in the past.

So he said, “The day I skip an appointment with a known news source, you call the police, because I’ve been kidnapped. Now tell me what you’re doing in Washington. I know you don’t like cities.”

Fox nodded. “Have you heard what they’re doing to China Lake?” When Brooks looked blank, he amplified. “The HighBeam.”

For a moment nothing clicked. Then: of course, he meant the microwave receiving station. An orbiting solar power plant had to have a receiver. “It’s just a test facility. It’s only going to cover about an acre.”

“Oh. sure. And the orbiting power plant only covers about a square mile of sky, and won’t send down more than a thousand megawatts even if everything works. Roger, don’t you understand about test cases? if it works, they’ll do it bigger. They’ll cover the whole damn sky with silver rectangles. I like the sky! I like desert, too. This thing has to be stopped now.”

“I wonder if the Soviets won’t stop us before you do.”

“They haven’t yet.” Fox looked thoughtful. “All the science types say this thing isn’t a weapon. I wonder if the Russians believe

that?’

Roger shrugged.

“Anyway, I thought I’d better be here. Flew in on the red-eye last night. But nobody’s keeping appointments. Nobody but you.” He glanced up to see the waitress hovering. “Bacon burger. Tomato slices, no fries. Hot tea.”

“Chef’s salad. Heineken.” Brooks made notes, but mostly out of habit. Of course no one was keeping appointments! Aliens were coming to Earth. “They tell me it’ll be Clean power,” Roger said. “Help eliminate acid rain.”

Fox shook his head. “Never works. They get more power, they use more power. Look. They tell you an electric razor doesn’t use much power, right? And it doesn’t. But what about the power it took to make the damn thing? You use it a few years, maybe not that long, and Out it goes.

“The more electric power we get, the more they’re tempted to keep up the throw away society. No real conservation. Nothing lasts. Doesn’t have to last. Roger, no matter how clean they make it, it pollutes some. They’ll never learn to do without until they have to do without.”

“Okay.” Brooks jotted more notes. “So they’ll clutter up the deserts and block the stars and give us bad habits. What else is wrong with them?”

Roger Brooks listened halfheartedly as Fox marshaled his arguments. There weren’t any new ones. They weren’t what Roger had come for, anyway. Fox could argue, but the real stories would come from learning what tactics Fox intended to use. He had loyal troops, loyal enough to chain themselves to the gates of nuclear power plants or clog the streets of Washington. Fox had led the fight against the Sun Desert nuclear power plant, and won, and his tips had put Roger in the right place at the right time for good stories.

Not today, though. No one was listening to Fox today. Not even his friends.

Not even me, Roger thought. This wasn’t going to make any kind of news. Brooks was tempted to put away his notebook. Instead he said, “This could be just a puff of smoke tomorrow, or later today, for that matter. Have you thought about what an interstellar spacecraft might use for power? By the time the aliens stop talking, these orbiting solar plants could look like the first fire stick, even to us.”

Fox shook his head. “Hell we may not even understand what these ETI’s are using. Or maybe it’s worse than what we’ve got. Anyway, nothing changes that fast. Whatever that light in the sky does for us, the High-Beam is going ahead unless I stop it. And I intend to. I had an appointment with Senator Bryant. He canceled, for today, so I’ll just wait him out.”

Brooks jotted, “John Fox is the only man in the nation’s capital who doesn’t care beans about an approaching interstellar spacecraft.”

“Hell, I wish I had something more for you,” Fox said’. “Thought I did.”

“It’s all right.”

“No, it’s not,” Fox said. “You’re like me, Brooks. A nut. Monomaniac.” He held up his hand when Roger started to protest. “It’s true. I love my deserts, and you love snooping. Well, heft, I’d help you get a Pulitzer if I could. You’ve always played fair with me.” He chuckled. “But not today. Nobody’s paying attention to a damn thing but that ETI comin’. Do you really believe in that thing?”

“I think so. You know that army officer who was in Hawaii when they saw it coming? I know her. I just don’t think she’s part of anything funny. No, it’s real all right.”

“Could be.”

“There are a lot of scientists in the Sierra Club,” Roger said. “Any of them have an opinion?”

“On High-Beam? Damn right—”

“I meant on the ETI’s, John.”

Fox grinned. “I haven’t heard. I will, though, and I’ll be sure to let you know.”

Jenny surveyed her office with satisfaction. The furniture was battered. Fortunately, there wasn’t much of it, because if there’d been more, the office couldn’t have held it all. She had a desk with nothing on it but a telephone. There were also a small typing table, three chairs, and a thick-walled filing cabinet with a heavy security lock. They said they’d get her a bookcase, but that hadn’t come yet. Neither had the computer terminal.

The room was tiny and windowless, in a basement, but it was the White House basement, and that made up for everything.

The phone rang.

“Major Crichton,” she said.

“Jack Clybourne.”

“Oh. Hi.” He’d come in for coffee after he drove her home. They’d sat outside under Flintridge’s arbor, and when they noticed the time, two hours had passed. That hadn’t happened to her in years.

“Hi, yourself. I’ve only got a moment. Interested in dinner?”

Aunt Rhonda would expect her to eat at Flintridge. “What did you have in mind?”

“Afghan place. Stuffed grape leaves and broiled lamb.”

“It sounds great. But—”

“Let me call you after you get home. No big deal, if you can’t make it, I’ll go to McDonald’s.”

“You’re threatening suicide if I don’t have dinner with you?”

“I have to run. I’ll call you—”

“I haven’t given you the number,” she said. “How will you call?”

“We have our ways. Bye.”

She put the phone carefully on its cradle. Holy catfish, I’m actually light-headed. Stupid. I just need lunch. But I was thinking about him just before he called.

The private phone on Wes Dawson’s desk was hidden inside a leather box. It rang softly.

“Yes?” Carlotta said.

“Me.”

“How’s Houston?”

“Hot and wet and windy. I’m in the Hilton Edgewater, room 2133.”

She made a note of the room number. “I miss you already,” he said, “Sure. You probably have a Texas girl already.” “Two, actually.”

“Just be careful. I’ve seen the Speaker. We’ll arrange for you to be paired whenever we can, so it’ll go in the Congressional Quarterly.”

It was standard practice: a congressman who couldn’t be present for a vote found another who intended to vote the opposite way, and formed a pair. Neither attended, and both were recorded as “paired” so that the outcome of the vote wasn’t affected, but neither congressman was blamed for missing a roll-call vote.

“Good. Can you ask Andy to look after my committee work?”

“Already did. What kind of administrative assistant do you think I am, anyway?”

“Fair to middling.”

“Humph. Keep that up and I’ll ask for a raise I suppose Houston’s full of talk about the aliens?”

“Lord, yes,” Wes said. “And the TV shows-did you watch the Tonight Show? Nothing but alien jokes, some pretty clever I think the country’s taking it all right.”

“So do I, but I’ve got Wilbur checking things out in the district,” Carlotta said. “So far nothing, though. Not even phone calls, except Mrs. McNulty.”

“Yeah, I expect she’s in heaven.” Mrs. McNulty called her congressman every week, usually to insist on protection against flying saucers. “Look, they’ve got me on a pretty rigorous schedule. Up before the devil’s got his shoes on. Physical training, yet! Ugh.”

“You’ll be all right. You’re in good shape,” Carlotta said.

“I’ll be in better in a month. You’ll love it—”

“Good. Call me tomorrow.”

“I will. Thanks, Carlotta.”

She smiled as she put the phone down. Thanks, he’d said. Thanks for looking after things, for letting me go to space. As long as she’d known Wes, he’d been a space nut. He’d even signed up to be a lunar colonist, and was shocked when she told him she wasn’t really interested in living on the Moon. His look had frightened her: he would have gone without her if he’d had the chance.

That chance never came. The U.S. Lunar Base was a tiny affair, never more than six astronauts and currently down to four. The Russians had fifteen people on the Moon-and they made it clear that a larger U.S. effort wouldn’t be welcome.

What would they do to the Americans sent more people to the Moon? President Coffey hadn’t wanted to find out. Maybe it wouldn’t matter now.

Carlotta went back to the papers on Wes Dawson’s desk. Aliens might or might not be coming, but if Wes Dawson wanted to remain in Congress, there was a lot of work to finish here in Washington.

6. PREPARATIONS

Academician Pavel Bondarev sat at his massive walnut desk and flicked imaginary dust specks from its gleaming surface. The office was large, as befitted a full member of the Soviet Academy who was also Director of an Institute for Astrophysics. The walls were decorated with photographs taken by the new telescope aboard the Soviet Kosmograd space station. There were spectacular views of Jupiter, as good as those obtained by the American spacecraft; and there were color photographs of nebulae and galaxies, and the endless wonders of the sky

There was also a portrait of Lenin. Pavel Aleksandrovich Bondarev needed no visit from the local Party officials to remind him of that. Visiting Party officials might know nothing of what the Institute did, but they would certainly notice if there was no picture of Lenin. It might be the only thing a visiting Party official was qualified to notice.

He waited impatiently. Because he was waiting, he was startled when the interphone buzzed.

“Da”

“He has arrived at the airport,” his secretary said.

“There are papers to sign—”

“Bring them,” Bondarev said brusquely.

The door opened seconds later. His secretary came in. She carried a sheaf of papers, but she made no move to show them to him.

Lorena was a small woman, with dark flashing eyes. Her ankles were thin. One wrist was encircled by a golden chain which Pavel Bondarev had given her the third time they had slept together. She had been his mistress for ten years, and he could not imagine life without her. To the best of his knowledge, she had no life beyond him. She was the perfect secretary in public, and the perfect mistress in private. It had occurred to him that she genuinely loved him, but that thought was sufficiently frightening that he did not want to deal with it.

Better to think of her as mistress and secretary. Emotional involvement was dangerous.

She came in and closed the door. “Who is this man?” she demanded. “Why is Moscow sending an important man who does not give his name? What have you been doing Pavel Aleksandrovich?”

He frowned slightly. Lately she had begun speaking to him that way even at the office. Never when anyone was around, of course, but it was bad for discipline to allow her to address him in that way inside the Institute. A rebuke came to his tongue, but he swallowed it. She would accept it, yes, but he would be made to pay, tonight, tomorrow night, some evening in her apartment…

“It is not a difficulty,” Bondarev said. “He was expected.”

“Then you know him—”

“No. I meant that someone from Moscow was expected.” He smiled, and she moved closer to him until she was standing beside his chair. Her hand lay on his arm. He covered it with his own. “There is no difficulty, my lovely one. Calm yourself.”

“If you say so—”

“I do. You recall the telephone call from the Americans in Hawaii? It concerns that.”

“But you will not tell me—”

He laughed. “I have not told my wife and children.”

She snorted.

“Well, yes. Even so, this is a state secret. It is a matter of state security! Why should I deceive you?”

“What have we to do with state security? How can the state be affected by distant galaxies?” she demanded. “What have you been doing? Pave I, you must not do this!”

“But what—”

“You wish to go to Moscow!” she said. “It is your wife. She has never been happy here.” Her voice changed, became more shrill, accented with the bored sophistication of a Muscovite great lady, daughter of a member of the Politburo. “Yes, the Party found it necessary to send Pavel here for a few years. The provincial people are so inefficient. I suppose we simply must make the sacrifice.”

“I wish you would not mock Marina,” he said. “And you are wrong. This has nothing to do with a return to Moscow. Resides, when we do go back, I will take you with me. All Russians want to live in Moscow.”

“I do not want to go. I want to stay here, with you. Your wife is not so careful here. In Moscow she would be concerned, lest her friends learn her husband has a mistress.”

That was true enough, but it hardly mattered. “None of this is important.” he said. “Not now. Things will change soon. Sooner than you know. Great changes, for all of us.”

She frowned. “You are serious.”

“I have never been more serious.”

“Changes for the better?”

“I do not know.” He stood and took both her hands in his. “But I promise you there will be changes beyond our power to predict, as profound as the Revolution.”

Pavel Bondarev studied the papers he had been given, but from time to time he looked past them at the man who had brought them. Dmitii Parfenovich Grushin, a Lieutenant Colonel in the KGB despite his seeming youth. Grushin wore a suit of soft wool that fit perfectly, obviously made in Paris or London. He was of average height, and slender, but his grip had been very strong, and he walked with an athletic spring to his step.

The papers told him what General Narovchatov had already said. “I see,” Bondarev said. “I am to go to Baikonur.”

“Yes, Comrade Academician.” Grushin spoke respectfully. It was difficult to know what the man was thinking. He seemed perfectly in control of his face and his voice.

He brought a letter from General Narovchatov, inviting Marina and the children to Moscow, and enclosing the necessary travel permits. Marina would be pleased. “There is much unsaid here,” Bondarev said.

“Yes. I can explain,” Grushin said.

“Please.”

“General Narovchatov has become First Secretary of the Party.” Grushin said carefully. He paused long enough to allow the full weight of that to wash across Bondarev. “This will be announced within the week. The Politburo finds this alien ship a matter of some concern. Many of the marshals of the Soviet Union do not believe in aliens.”

“Then they think—”

“That this is a CIA trick,” Grushin said. “It cannot be.”

“I believe that. So does Chairman Petrovslciy.”

“And Comrade Trusov?”

Grushin shrugged. “You will understand that I do not often see the Chairman of the KGB however, I am informed that the vote of the Defense Council was unanimous, that a civilian scientist should command the preparations for receiving the aliens. You, Comrade.”

“So I was told. I confess I am not especially qualified.”

“Who is? I am trained as a diplomat. Yet what training is there, to meet with aliens from another star? But we must do what we must do.”

“Then you have been assigned as my deputy?” That would be common enough practice, to have a KGB officer as chief of staff to a project of this importance. Certainly the KGB would insist on having its agents high within the control organization.

“No, another will do that,” Grushin said. “My orders are to proceed to Kosmograd.”

“Ah. You are a qualified astronaut?”

“No, but I have been a pilot.” Grushin’s smile was thin. “Comrade Academician, I have been ordered by your father-in-law to trust you, to tell you everything I can. This is unusual. Stranger yet, Comrade Trusov himself instructed me to do the same.”

Strange indeed. So. The Politburo did take this alien craft seriously. Very seriously. And General Nikolai Narovchatov had said, “You will trust the man sent by KGB. As much as you trust any man from KGB.” What that could mean was not obvious.

“So,” Bondarev said. “What is there that I must know?”

“The military,” Grushin said. “Not all will cooperate, and not all will be under your command. You will need great skills at Baikonur to learn which marshals trust you and which do not. I need not tell you that this will not be easy.”

“No.” It was safe enough to say that much. Not more.

“It is also vital that the Americans do not learn the extent of our mobilization.”

“I see.” I see a great deal. Some of the marshals are out of control. They mobilize their forces regardless of the wishes of the Kremlin. The Americans can never be allowed to know this! “What else must I know?”

“The crew aboard Kosmograd,” Grushin said. “Who is there now, and whom we shall invite.”

“Invite—”

“Americans. They have already requested that we allow their people aboard Kosmograd when the alien ship arrives. The Politburo wishes your advice within three days.” He paused. “I think, though, that they will invite the Americans no matter what you say.”

“Ah. And if the Americans wish this, other nations will also.” He shrugged. “I do not know how many Kosmograd can accommodate.”

“Nor I, but I will tell you when I arrive there. As I will advise you of the personnel aboard. Of course you will also receive reports from Commander Rogachev.”

“A good man, Rogachev,” Bondarev said.

Grushin’s smile was crafty, like a peasant’s, although there was little of the peasant about the KGB man. “Certainly he has a legend about him. But he is not everywhere regarded as you regard him.”

“Why?”

“He is a troublemaker when he feels his mission is in danger. A fanatic about carrying out orders. Make no mistake, technically he is the best commander we have for Kosmograd.”

“But you doubt-doubt what? Surely not his loyalty?”

“Not his loyalty to the Soviet Union.”

“Ah.” There had been an edge to Grushin’s voice. Rogachev had not always shown proper deference to the Party. In what way is he a trouble-maker?”

Grushin shrugged. “Minor ways. An example. He has aboard Kosmograd his old sergeant, the maintenance crew chief of his helicopter during the Ethiopian conflict. This man lost both legs in the war. When it came time for this sergeant to be rotated back to Earth, Rogachev found excuses to keep him. He said that no better man was available, that it was vital to Kosmograd that this man remain.”

“Was he right?’

Grushin shrugged. “Again, that is something I will know when I arrive there. Understand, Comrade Academician. I am to be only a Deputy Commander of Kosmograd when I board. Thtsikova will be First Deputy. But I will report directly to you. If there is need, you may remove Rogachev from command.”

Bondarev nodded comprehendingly. Inside he was frightened.

I command this space station, but there are many technical matters. I will not know which are important and which are not. I require advice-but whose advice can I trust? He smiled thinly. That would be the dilemma faced by Chairman Petrovskiy and First Secretary Narovchatov. It is why I have been given this task.

It will be a great opportunity, though. At last, Pavel Bondarev thought, at last I can tell them where to aim the space telescope. And be able to see the pictures instantly.

It was a bright clear spring day, with brilliant sunshine, the kind of day that made it worthwhile living through Bellingham’s rainy seasons. The snow-crowned peaks of Mount Baker and the Twin Sisters stood magnificently above the foothills to the east. The view was impressive even to añative; it was enough to have Angelenos gawking. They stood near the old Bellingham city hail, a red brick castle complete with towers and Chuckanut granite, and alternately looked out across the bay to the San Juan Islands, then back to the mountains.

When Kevin Shakes saw a uniform coming toward them he wondered if something was wrong. His eyes flicked toward the truck-had he parked in the wrong place? A city kid’s reaction. In a small town like Bellingham you could park nearly anywhere you liked.

The uniform was brown, short-sleeved, decorated with badges and a gun belt. The man wearing it was three or four years older than Kevin’s eighteen. He was grinning and taking off his hat, showing fine blond hair in a ragged cut. “Hello. Miranda,” he called. “Is this the whole clan?”

“All but Dad and Mom.” Miranda was smiling, too. “Leigh, meet Kevin and Carl and Owen. We were just doing some shopping.”

Carl and Owen-thirteen and eleven, respectively, with identical straight brown hair but a foot’s difference in height between them-were looking mistrustfully at the uniformed man, who seemed mainly interested in Miranda. He said, “Looks like you bought out the store.”

Kevin said, “Well, maybe Miranda told you. we, don’t own the ranch all by ourselves. There are three other families, and they each own a fifth, and they’re all coming up for a vacation.”

“Won’t that be crowded?”

Kevin shrugged. Miranda lost a little of the smile. “Yeah. We’ve never done this before. The idea was to take turns, one week Out of five, a vacation spot, you know? But it never seems to work out that way. We’ve lucked out a lot. This time, well, maybe it’ll work out. The other families aren’t as big as we are. But I don’t know them very well.”

Miranda and the cop drifted away, and Kevin let them have their privacy. Later, when they were in the truck, he asked, “Who is he? How did you meet him?”

“Leigh Young. He was at the club and we played some tennis. He’s not very good, but he could be.”

“You like him?”

“Some.”

“I think Dad would approve of your dating a policeman. Useful.”

Miranda smiled. “It doesn’t hurt that he’s got good legs, either.”

Kevin looked back to be sure his younger brothers were settled inside the truck with the mounds of groceries before he started the truck. “Sure going to be crowded.”

“Yeah.”

“Rafidy, what do you think about all this? Is Dad right?”

She shrugged. “I didn’t used to think so. All our friends laugh at George, old Super-Survivor. I think Dad used to laugh at him, too.”

“You never know with Dad,” Kevin said. Miranda was only a year older than Kevin, and they’d become good friends as well as brother and sister. They both knew about their father’s half smiles.

He also kept their home computers busy analyzing the cost of everything they did. William Adolphus Shakes hadn’t wasted a nickel in years.

Gee, Kevin, there really is an alien spaceship.”

“Yeah. And Mrs. Wilson says it’s been hiding for a long time. Claims she was out at some lab when-when something happened. But nobody knew it was the aliens, then. Why would they hide out that long?’

“I don’t know.” She opened the glove compartment. “At least it’s pretty here,” Miranda pushed a tape into the player, and the stereo crashed out with the sounds of a new group. “Glad we have the tapes,” she shouted.

“Yeah.” There sure wasn’t anything on radio up here. William Shakes and Max Rohrs walked back toward the house, across the concrete apron Rohrs had poured last week. It felt dry and solid beneath their feet. Rohrs was a tall, broad-shouldered, muscular man. William Shakes felt like a dwarf beside him, though there wasn’t that much difference. Rohrs said, “Looks like we’re finished. If it gives you any trouble, you know my number.”

“Yeah. Thanks. I guess I’ll be seeing you.”

“I hope so. You’re good for business,” Rohrs said. “The way you’ve been planting pipe, I wonder if you’re planning to open up a hotel.” When Shakes didn’t react he said, “Just kidding.”

“Well, I’m not laughing. It’s going to feel like a hotel. We’ve got three more families coming up. I expect we’ve finally got enough septic tanks to keep everyone happy, and I know we’ve got enough beds.”

“That’s still a lot of elbows to be taking up your elbow room.”

Shakes nodded. A secretive smile lived just underneath his blank expression. Rohrs had built the septic tank last April. He’d been told that the second septic tank on the other side of the house was too old, too small. It was neither. Rohrs had just finished pouring this concrete apron; but he had no way of knowing that there was a second concrete apron under it, covered with rock and dirt. And under that, a roomy bomb shelter that nobody knew about.

William Shakes’ smile showed in Max Rohrs’ rearview mirror as Rohrs drove away.

Jack and Harriet McCauley had invited them into the Enclave six years ago. The Shakes had known pretty well what they were getting into. Jack and Harriet, and several others, were survivalists, perpetually prepared for the end of civilization. They collected news clippings on Soviet encroachments and economic failures and the national collapse of law and church and patriotism. They were bores on the subject.

Why had they picked on Bill and Gwen Shakes? Was it only because they lived in the neighborhood, or because they could afford the expense? Or because they were good listeners and never called the McCauleys fools? In fact neither Bill nor Gwen thought that any man was a fool to prepare for disaster. But disasters couldn’t be predicted. The Enclave was preparing for something far too specific. Reality would fool them when it came.

So the Shakes had not jumped at the chance. They had talked around the subject… until Bill realized what the Enclave group had in mind.

They joined. They paid their dues, a moderately hefty fee. They bought and maintained equipment as they were told to. Guns and spare food were good to have around anyway. They stored the pamphlets and books and even read some of them, and taught the kids firearms safety. At the Thursday meetings they argued strongly for buying a place of refuge in some near-wilderness area, preferably near some small agricultural village. Ultimately they found such a place, and when the rest of the Enclave agreed, the Shakes had paid 20 percent of the costs.

Bill enjoyed such games. It wasn’t as if he were cheating anyone. The Enclave was getting exactly what it had paid for. But Bill and Gwen Shakes now owned a vacation site for a fifth of what it would normally have cost them.

In dollars and cents-and Bill Shakes always thought in dollars and cents-it was more like 30 percent. The place wasn’t just being repaired, it was being turned into a refuge, and that cost in time and effort and money. But Bill and Gwen both liked working with their hands, and so did the boys. When they had the leisure they would drive the truck up to Bellingham-Miranda and Kevin were old enough to spell Bill at the wheel-and make order out of chaos, and play at turning the huge, roomy old house into a fortress. It backed onto a woods, with enough grounds for a garden. There was work to do, but also plenty of time out for goofing off and sailing their twenty-five footer in the San Juan Islands, some of the greatest sailing water in the world. By all odds the end of civilization would never come, or would come in some form the Enclave could never predict. Meanwhile the Shakes used the place more often than the rest of the Enclave families put together.

But this vacation hadn’t been planned.

When Bill got home two evenings ago, Gwen and the kids could talk about nothing but the approaching alien spacecraft. The eleven o’clock news featured fanciful sketches of what an interstellar craft might look like, reminding Bill of equally fanciful cartoons of the late forties: varying designs for a nuclear-powered airplane. That one had certainly come to nothing. But this…

When the telephone woke him at one in the morning, he had felt no surprise whatever. Gwen had said nothing, only turned on her side to listen while George Tate-Evans ordered the Shakes family to Bellingham.

I don’t take orders worth a damn. Bill thought, but he didn’t say it. He was already thinking, muzzily, of how his boss would react to Bill’s taking a sudden week or two off. Because George was right, and this was what the Enclave was for.

It was still a game, but they were playing for points now. Bill wasn’t sure how the kids were taking it. Miranda and Kevin were into the social scene; Carl and Owen were having trouble adjusting to a new school. They should never have been shifted this close to the end of the school year. But they all did their stints working in the vegetable garden and shopping for masses of groceries.

Bill tried not to resent the expense, the disruption. He couldn’t take this Star Wars stuff as seriously as the kids… or George and Vicki for that matter. Neither did Gwen, although she wasn’t so sure. “Vicki is really worried,” Gwen had said.

“Think of it as a fire drill,” he’d answered. “Get the bugs out of the system. If something real ever happens, we’ll know how to do it right.”

At that level it made sense.

What Max Rohrs told his wife that night was, “I think I make Shakes nervous.”

They were in bed, and Evelyn was reading. It wasn’t a book that took concentration. She said, “You said he was little?”

“Yeah.” Max Rohrs was a tall, broad-shouldered, muscular man, blond and hairy. He liked the occasional fight, and some men could see that. “Bill doesn’t quite reach my shoulder. His wife’s just his height, and a little wider, and his sons tower over him. Even so, he’s hiding something.”

“Bodies?”

She wasn’t all that interested, she was just being polite. Max, recognizing this, laughed. “No, not bodies-but there’s too many pipes. Too much plumbing. They keep adding to the septic tanks, and it doesn’t look like they’d have to. I think they’re survivalists. That house” — he rolled over onto his elbow — “it’s twice as big as it looks. Any angle you see it, it looks L-shaped. but it’s an X. Count on it, they’ve got guns and food stores and a bomb

shelter, too. I bet it’s under that tennis court I poured them. In some of the big cities there are bookstores just for survivalists.” He frowned. “They’ve sure been frantic the past week or so.”

“I heard from Linda today,” Evelyn said.

“Linda? And why are you changing the subject?”

“Gillespie. She’s back in Washington. The President sent Ed and Wes Dawson to Houston. They’ll train together. Wes Dawson finally gets to space—”

Max felt a twinge of envy. “That’ll be nice.”

“Linda’s at Flintridge. Her kid sister — you remember Jenny? — had something to do with discovering the alien ship.”

“Oh. Hey, that’s what set Shakes off! Sure, those guys are survivalists.” He knew his wife was smarter than he was, and by a lot, It didn’t bother him. What was amazing was that she was so obviously in love with him, and had been since the night they met in Washington. He’d been a sailor on liberty with no place to go, and somebody suggested a social club in a church up near the National Cathedral. There’d been girls there, lots of them, and all pretty snooty. All except Evelyn and her friends Linda and Carlotta. They were college girls, but they weren’t ashamed to be seen with a petty officer. Maybe it would have been better if she had been snooty, Max thought. But not for me.

Three weeks after they met, Evelyn was pregnant. There’d never been any discussion of an abortion. They were married in the church they’d met in, with a wedding reception at Flintridge. It was a nice wedding with a lot of Evelyn’s family, and Linda’s and Carlotta’s families too, important people who talked about Max’s future, and jobs he could get. It looked like he’d lucked into a great future,

And when he got out of the Navy he had to come back to Bellingham to look after his mother. Evelyn’s father helped a little, enough so that Max could open his own boiler shop, but there was never enough business.

That was almost twenty years ago. He glanced over at his wife. She was reading again. Her fancy nightgown looked a little ratty. Jeer, I gave her that four years ago! Where does the time go?

The kids were raising some moderate hell on the other side of the wall, not enough to bother them. Evelyn adjusted her position. The bed sagged on his side. Sometimes that would roll her toward him in the night, before she had quite made up her mind, and that was nice; but it made reading difficult.

She set the book aside and turned off her bed lamp. “A lot of people say this is survivalist country,” she said. “But nobody we know talks about it.”

“Yeah. Hey, I’m telling you, but that’s as far as it goes. They wouldn’t give me any more business if they knew I was shooting my mouth off.”

“All right, dear.”

“The shipyard’s been phased out for years, and there’s not much work there for steamfitters. The Shakes pay on time—” But Evelyn was asleep.

7. GREAT EXPECTATIONS

The bedroom was more than neat; it was spotless. Jack Clybourne’s entire apartment was that way-except for the second bedroom, which he used as a den. That one wasn’t precisely messy, but he did permit books to remain unshelved for days at a time.

The first time Jenny had visited Jack in his apartment, she’d remarked on its nearness.

He’d laughed. “Yeah, we get that way in the Service. We have to travel a lot, and stay in hotels, and we never know when the President’s schedule will change, so we stay packed. I remember once the maid saw all my stuff packed and the suitcases in the middle of the room, and the manager checked us out and rented the room to someone else.”

Despite the neatness, his bedroom wasn’t sterile. There were photographs, of his mother and sister, and of the President. Pictures of the Kremlin, and The Great Wall of China, and other places he’d been. Book club selections filled a tidy shelf along one wall. The shelves were full now, so when new selections came in, old ones went to the used book stores. The residue gave some clues to Clybourne’s reading habits: voracious, partial to history, but interested in spy thrillers.

Jenny got up carefully. She didn’t think she’d awakened Jack, although it was hard to tell. He slept lightly, and when he woke, he didn’t even open his eyes. She teased him about it once, and he laughed, and it wasn’t until later that she realized that kind of sleeping habit might be an advantage in his job. The Secret Service did other things besides protect the President.

She retrieved her uniform from the closet. The first time she’d come there, her clothes ended on the floor, but Jack’s apartment invited neatness… She took her Class A’s into the bathroom.

The bed was empty when she came out. She could hear the shower in the other bathroom. He’s certainly the most considerate lover I’ve ever had.

She didn’t much care for the word “lover,” but nothing else fit. He wasn’t a fiancé; there’d been no talk at all about marriage. No lieutenants should marry, but male captains could, and by the time they became majors most male officers were married; but marriage would be the end to a woman officer’s career.

He was certainly something more than a boyfriend. They didn’t live together, partly because both the Army and the Secret Service tended to be a little prudish even if they pretended not to be, and even more because Jenny wasn’t ready for all the explanations Aunt Rhonda would demand if she moved out of Flintridge. Even so, she spent a lot of time at Jack’s apartment. They both traveled a lot and worked odd hours, but it was definitely understood that when they were both in Washington and had free time, they’d spend it together.

While on trips she’d twice dated other men, but it wasn’t the same. Something was missing. Magic, she thought, and didn’t care to put another name to it. That it existed was enough, and it was wonderful.

“Ready for dinner?” His tie was perfectly knotted, but he’d left his jacket off.

“Sure. Want me to cook?”

“You don’t have to—”

“Jack, I like to cook. I don’t get a chance very often.”

“All right. We’ll have to shop, though. There’s nothing here.”

“Sure. I’ll get started, and you can go get—”

She stopped because he was shaking his head. “Let’s go together. We can figure out what we want on the way.”

“Sure.” She waited while he put on his jacket. As he always did before going out, he took his revolver out of the holster concealed inside his trousers and looked into the barrel, then checked the loads.

She’d never seen Jack angry, or threaten anyone, but Jenny never worried when she went out with him. The Post might be full of stories about Washington street crime, but no one ever bothered Jack Clybourne. Jenny wondered if it could be telepathy.

He lived in the newly rebuilt area off New Jersey Avenue,

where there were lots of apartments. It was on the other side of the White House from Flintridge.

She giggled. “Drive me home, he said. It’s on my way, he said,”

“It worked, didn’t it?”

She took his hand. “Yes, and I’m glad.”

“Me, too.”

They went toward Constitution Avenue and the Federal Triangle until they reached the wide park like Mall between Independence and Constitution Avenues. When they were in the middle of the Mall, he stopped. “Jenny, what in hell is going on?”

“With what?”

“This alien ship-look, being around the President, I hear a lot of things. I never talk about them. Not even with you, except it’s your job too-the President’s scared, Jenny. If you don’t know that, you’d better.”

“Scared? Jack-Oh, hell, darling. Let’s walk.” She led him along the path toward the great granite shape of the National Museum.

He wouldn’t talk about this in his apartment. Out here we ought to be safe if we keep our voices down and talk directly to each other. That’s silly. No one’s listening to us. Still, I shouldn’t talk to him about this, but he knows already — “Jack, what do you mean, scared? I’ve briefed him a dozen times, and he doesn’t act scared with me.”

“Not with you, not with the Admiral,” Jack said. “But with Mrs. Coffey. He’s worried because they don’t answer.”

“Well, we all wonder—”

“It’s no wonder; he’s scared! And I think he thinks the Russians are too.”

“Yeah,” Jenny said. “Of course we can only guess what they really think.”

“It’s true, though, isn’t it? Every nut with a transmitter has tried to send them messages, and they don’t answer…”

“Not just every nut,” Jenny said. “The National Security Agency, with our biggest transmitters. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Deep Space Net, with the big Goldstone antenna. The Russians are doing the same thing.”

“And nothing.” Jack shivered slightly, despite the warm June night. “Heck, maybe I’m scared too!”

She hesitated, then laughed.

“What?”

“Just thinking. If there’s anybody with a higher clearance than a man who’ll put his butt between the President and a bullet, I don’t know what it is.” There was no one around, but she lowered her voice anyway. “The Admiral’s getting worried too.”

“I guess the Soviets decided to mobilize.”

Jenny chuckled. “No. That’s like an Australian’s first reaction to anything is to go on strike.”

“Wha-at?”

“Or like the Watergate trials. The lawyers asked one of them, ‘Who ordered the cover’up?’ And he said, ‘Actually, nobody ever suggested there would not be a cover-up.’ Unless somebody actually says stop, the Soviets will mobilize.”

“Get enough of those weapons, and somebody’s likely to use them—”

“Yes. But things look reasonably stable over there. Their theoreticians are saying that any race advanced enough to have star travel would have to be economically evolved, meaning the aliens will all be good communists.”

“I wouldn’t think that follows.”

“Neither do I. We know for a fact it hasn’t helped the Russians communicate with the aliens. That ship isn’t talking to anyone.”

“Maybe it’s a robot ship.”

She shrugged. “We don’t even have any good theories, and the Admiral wants some.”

“Who has he asked?”

“Who haven’t we asked?” Jenny laughed again. “Anybody we didn’t ask has tried to tell us anyway. Out at the Air Force Academy we’ve got the damnedest collection of anthropologists, historians, political scientists, and other denizens of academia you ever saw. There’s even a psychic. But next week we go even further. The Admiral’s rounded up a collection of science-fiction writers.”

Jack didn’t laugh. “Actually that might not be such a bad idea.”

“That’s what I thought. Anyway, he’s done it. Most of them are at the Air Academy, but he’s taking a smaller group into Cheyenne Mountain. Guess what? I’m supposed to go out next week and help get them settled in. I don’t know how long I’ll be.”

“Oh. Okay. But I’ll miss you.”

She squeezed his hand, then glanced around. It was dark, and nobody was going to see her behaving in an undignified manner while in uniform, and if they did, the hell with them. She stood on tiptoe and kissed him. He was startled at first; then he held her close and they kissed again.

’We still haven’t got dinner,” she said finally. “No, What do you want?”

“Something we can cook fast.”

He laughed, “Yeah. There are better things to do than eat.”

“The Church has always considered the possibility of intelligence other than human,” Cardinal Manelli said. “Angels are one obvious example.”

“Ah. And of course C. S. Lewis played with aliens,” the Episcopalian bishop added. “Certainly the Christian churches are interested in this alien ship, but I can’t agree that the existence of the aliens refutes Christian revelation.”

Jeri Wilson looked thoughtful. She’d turned on the TV, something she almost never did on Sunday afternoons, and this program had been on. The Roman Catholic cardinal, the Episcopal bishop of California, two Protestant ministers whose faces she recognized, and a history professor from the University of California. Professor Boyd seemed to be acting as moderator, and also as a gadfly intent on irritating the others.

“Lewis points out that the existence of intelligent aliens impacts Christianity only if we assume they are in need of redemption, that redemption must come in the same manner as it was delivered to humanity, and that it has been denied them,” the Episcopal bishop continued. “I doubt we know any of that just yet.”

“What if they’ve never heard of Christianity?” Professor Boyd asked. “If they have no legends of gods, no notion of sin, no thought of redemption?”

“It wouldn’t change the facts of our revelation,” Cardinal Manelli said. “The Resurrection took place in our history, and no alien ship will change that. We’ll know soon enough. Why speculate? If you want to ask ‘what if?’ then what if they have both the Old and New Testaments, or documents recognizably related to them?”

That would be interesting, Jeri thought.

“I predict that what we’ll find will be ambiguous,” one of the ministers said. “God doesn’t seem to speak unequivocally.”

“Not to you,” Cardinal Manelli said. The others laughed, but Jeri thought some of the laughter was strained.

The doorbell rang. She went to answer it, a little unhappy at missing the program, which was interesting. Melissa raced down the hall and got to the door first.

The man at the door had red hair and beard fading to white. His gut spilled out over the top of his blue jeans. He’d never be able to button his denim jacket. Melissa stepped back involuntarily for a moment. Then she smiled. “Hi, Harry!”

Jeri didn’t encourage Melissa to call adults by their first names, but Harry was an exception. How could you call him Mr. Reddington? “Hello,” Jeri said. “What brings you here?” She stepped back to let him in and led him toward the kitchen. “Beer?”

“Thanks, yes,” Harry said. He took the can eagerly. “Actually. I was just over to see Ken Dutton, and thought I’d stop by.”

Melissa had gone back to her room. “Horse crap, Harry,” Jeri said.

He shrugged. “Okay, I have ulterior motives. Look, they’re throwing me out of my apartment—”

“Great God, Harry, you don’t expect me to put you up!”

He looked slightly hurt. “You don’t have to be so vigorous about the way you say that.” Then he grinned. “Naw, I just thought, well, maybe you could put in a word with the Enclave people. I could go up to Washington state any time.”

“Harry, they don’t want you.” That hurt him. She could see it. Even so, it had to be said. Harry had done odd jobs for the Tate-Evanses, as well as for the Wilsons, and although he’d never been invited to join the Enclave, he knew about it because David had talked about it with him.

Harry shrugged. “They don’t want Dutton, either. But they do want you.”

“Possibly. I’m not so sure I want them.”

Harry looked puzzled.

“I’ve been thinking of going east. To join David.” Not yet, he said. But it wasn’t no!

Melissa came in to get a Coke from the refrigerator. “Is that your motorcycle out there?” she asked.

“Sure,” Harry said.

“Will you take me for a ride?’

“Melissa, you shouldn’t bother—”

“Sure,” Harry said.

Jeri frowned. She wasn’t worried about Melissa’s going with Harry, but — “Is it safe?”

Harry grinned. “Safe as houses.” He patted his ample gut. “If we fall off, I’ll see she lands on me.”

He just might do that, Jeri thought. “Look, Harry, not too fast—”

“Speed limit, and no freeway,” Harry said.

Melissa was dancing around. “I’ll get my jacket,” she said. She dashed out of the kitchen.

“Oh, all right,” Jeri said. “Harry, do be careful.”

An hour later, Melissa came in the front door.

“Have a good time?” Jeri asked.

“Yeah, until his motorcycle blew up.”

“Blew up!”

“Well, that’s what he said. It just died. We were a long way off.”

“How did you get home?”

“Harry asked if you let me take the bus by myself, and when I said sure, he waited at the bus stop with me.” Melissa giggled. “He had to borrow bus fare from me so he could get home, too.”

Linda Gillespie drained her margarita and set the empty glass down too hard. When she spoke, her voice was too loud for the dimly lit Mayflower cocktail lounge. “Dammit, it just isn’t fair!”

Carlotta Dawson shrugged. “Lots of things aren’t. At least you had fair warning! You knew you were marrying an astronaut. I thought I’d married a nice lawyer.”

“They could let us go to Houston with them.”

“Speak for yourself,” Carlotta said. “I’ve got work to do. Someone has to think about his career, and it’s for sure Wes won’t now that he’s got a chance to go to space. If you’re looking for something to do, come help me with the constituent mail.”

“Yeah, sure—”

“I mean it,” Carlotta said. “Sure, it gives you something to distract you, but seriously, I need the help. It’s hard to find intelligent people who know California and live in Washington.”

“I don’t blame them.”

“So why don’t you go home”

“We were going to have the house painted anyway, and when the President ordered Ed to Washington we decided to have an extra room put on the attic. The house is a madhouse, crawling with contractors.”—

“You could go see Joel.”

“No I can’t. That expensive boarding school doesn’t like having Mommy drop in. Interferes with their routine. Of course if Ed wants to come—”

Carlotta smiled. “Astronauts are always welcome. You knew that when you married him.”

“Yes. And I still love him, too. But it gets damned lonesome sometimes.” Linda signaled the waitress. “Another round, please.”

“Not me,” Carlotta said. “Two’s more than enough. Linda, be reasonable. Ed and Wes don’t have any time at all, that’s straight enough. They’re living on the base

“I could stay in a hotel.”

“Be pretty expensive, and he still wouldn’t have any time for you.

Linda nodded. “I know. But it’s still not fair.”

Carlotta chuckled. “The aliens are coming. Our husbands are intimately involved in making contact with them-and we’re sitting here grousing because we’re not seeing them in Washington instead of being ignored by them in Houston.”

“You don’t like it either—”

“No. I don’t. Congress recesses about the time Wes actually goes into orbit, and I’ll like that even less-but there’s nothing I can do about it.” She stood and fumbled in her purse until she found a five-dollar bill. She put the money on the table. “I mean it, Linda, I could use some help. Call me at the office”

“All right.”

“I like your enthusiasm. Well, if you do, I guarantee I’ll put you to work. Bye.”

Linda watched Carlotta leave, and turned back to her drink. I probably should go help Carlotta. It’s something to do — “Five dollars for your thoughts.”

“Uh—” She looked up at the man standing where Carlotta had been. “Roger!”

“Yep. Were you thinking about me?” He sat down without waiting to be asked.

“No.” He still looks pretty good. He must be-what, fifty? That’s about right. Good-looking man for fifty. Good-looking for forty, for that matter. “After five years? Why should I?”

He chuckled. “Because you’re alone in my town. You ought to have been thinking about me for weeks.”

“That’s silly.” I did think about you, damn you. “How do you know I’m not waiting for my husband?”

“Because he’s in Houston, sheep dogging the Honorable Wesley Dawson. You were with Carlotta Dawson until a minute ago.” He flashed a grin. “I passed up a chance to interview her, waiting for you to be alone—”

“And if I’d left with her?’

“I’d have got my interview, of course. Or at least had a chance to talk with the wife of the U.S. Ambassador to Outer Space. Now I have to settle for the chauffeur’s wife. How’s Ed taking it?”

“Not well ye never seen him so twitchy.”

“He projects that “Right Stuff” image. Cool and collected, like all the astronauts.”

“Clint’s on TV,” Linda said. “And usually he really is like that. Now he doesn’t know how to feel… Well, look at it. That alien ship is the biggest thing since the invention of the lung, Ed’s sister-in-law discovers it even, and a congressman steals his mission.”

“You ought to be glad it’s Wes. If it wasn’t him, it still wouldn’t be Ed,” Roger said. “The Sovs don’t want Edmund Gillespie. An American military officer, a general-he outranks Rogachev, for God’s sake!”

“Yeah, he knows that, really,” Linda said. “But it doesn’t help that he knows it. Roger, what are you doing here?’

“Trying to seduce you.”

“Roger!”

He shrugged. “It’s true enough. I had a lead on a story, brought her here for a drink, spotted you, and got rid of Ms. Henrietta Crisp of the Business and Professional Women’s Alliance. Surprised hell out of her, it did.”

“Well, you might as well go find her again.”

“All right.” He didn’t move.

Damn you, Roger Brooks! I should get up and leave right now—

“I’ve missed you,” he said. “Sure you have. Three times in fifteen years—”

“Come off it. You weren’t about to get divorced, and when Ed’s around you don’t want to see me across a football field. What was I supposed to do?”

“Yeah.” The old feeling came back, excitement and anticipation. Go home now! That wasn’t going to work, though.

Who is this? I’m happily married, and every five years Roger Brooks finds me, and I feel like a schoolgirl on her first heavy date. How does he do this to me? “I guess I’ve missed you too. Remember that movie Same Time, Next Year? It’s like that with us.”

“Except we don’t see each other so often.” He picked at the scars on his left hand. “But it doesn’t mean I don’t think about you.”

“Oh, sure, and next you’ll tell me I’m the reason you never married,” Or have you?

Roger spread his hands in an exaggerated gesture. “Dunno. There must be some reason,”

“You’re too busy chasing stories. That’s all you see in me, a news source.”

“Come on, now.”

“Will you promise you won’t try to get information from me?”

“Of course not.”—

“See? Good. I don’t like it when you lie to me. So what do we do now?”

He glanced at his watch. “A bit early for dinner. What say we take a drive through the Virginia countryside? I know a nice restaurant in Fairfax.”

“And then?”

“Up to you.” Roger stood and came around to hold her chair.

“I’ve got to be going,” Linda said. She started to push back her chair from Roger’s kitchen table, but Roger stood behind her and blocked her way.

He put his hands under the bathrobe. She felt her nipples erect in the warmth of his palms. “What’s the hurry?”

“Stop that-no, don’t stop that. Roger, what will I tell Aunt Rhonda?”

“Party at the Thai Embassy. Got late. Some senator from the Appropriations Committee insisted on quizzing you about the space program.”

“But—”

“There really is a big party there, so big that you could have been there and been lost in the crowd.” He bent around her, took her nipple in his mouth.

She thought she was thoroughly satiated, but his tongue reawakened sensations all through her body. Roger had always been a tiger-they’d made love three times that afternoon after JPL, all those years ago. Are you serious?”

He straightened. “Possibly not.”

Linda giggled suddenly.

“Certainly not, then,” Roger said. “What is it?”

“I never did get Nat Reynolds’s autograph.”

“Nat-oh. Yeah. Damn, damn, damn. That ship was there all the time we were looking at Saturn. The twisted F-ring. ‘Haven’t you ever seen three earthworms in love?’ ‘You’ve a wicked sense of humor, Darth Vader.’ Remember? The drive flame from that thing must have roiled the whole ring system. It settled down before Voyager Two got there.”

Linda stroked his hand, then put it back on her breast. He stood very close to her. “And even if you’d known, if you’d said anything, they’d have put you away for a nice rest.”

“Heh. Yes. I might have gone digging. Found some astronomical photographs. Something. I didn’t know enough science, then. I’ve done some studying since.”

She grinned and looked up at him without raising her head. “I hadn’t noticed.” Actually it’s not funny. Nothing you could learn, nothing will ever bring back that afternoon. I know that; why do I go on looking? “It was a wonderful day, Roger. All of it. All those Scientists, and the writers-you’ve been studying science; are you going to write science fiction?”

“Hadn’t intended to. Maybe I should. Most of the SF writers have disappeared.” He wet one finger and traced a complex pattern on her breast,

“What?”

“Well, not all of them. The ones who make up their own science are being interviewed all over the place. The ones who stick to real science are getting hard to find. Know anything about it?”

“Not really.”

He straightened and stepped away from her. “My God, you do know something! What?”

“Roger, I said—”

“Bat shit! I can tell! You know something. Linda, what is it?”

“Well, it’s not important. Jenny said something about going to meet the sci-fi people. In Colorado Springs. It wasn’t a secret.”

“Colorado Springs. NORAD or the Air Academy?”

8. LAUNCH

“I don’t know. Aunt Rhonda would know-she’d have Jenny leave her phone number in Colorado Springs. Speaking of Aunt Rhonda, Roger, I really do have to leave. Now let me get up.”

“Well, all right, if you insist. I’ll call you tomorrow.

Say no. Tell him no. “Fine.”

The house perched on stilts above a crag in the Los Angeles hills.

For years the engineers had worried that it would slide down in a heavy rainstorm, but it never did.

Wes Dawson poked about the storage area built by enclosing the stilts. In a normal house it would have been called a basement.

“It’s getting late,” Carlotta called down the stairs.

“I know.” He opened an old trunk, Junk, clutter; memories leapt up at him. Wait a minute, I used to use this a lot… the Valentine card she’d handed him one January morning after a fight

So that’s where that went! The huge mug that would hold two full bottles of beer, but the chipped rim kept gashing his lip. A T-shirt faded almost to gray, but he recognized the print on the chest: an American flag with a whirlpool galaxy in the upper left corner. A hundred billion stars…

No time! He closed the lid on memories and went up the stairs.

The house looked half empty, with anything valuable or breakable packed away.

“Aren’t you packed?” she asked. “I mean, what could you take?”

He grinned. “Remember my old baseball cap?”

“Good God! Whatever did you—”

“Luck. It won my first campaign. I wore it to JPL for the Saturn encounter, remember?”

She turned away and he followed her. “I’m sorry you can’t come with me.”

“Me too.” She still didn’t face him.

“You’ve got to be used to it. I’m not home a lot of the time—”

“Sure. But you’re in Washington. Maybe you don’t get home until I’m in bed, but I know you’ll be there. Or I have to come here, and you’re still there, but we’re— Jesus, Wes, I don’t know. But it feels wrong.” She opened the Thermos pitcher and poured coffee. “I talked to Linda, and she feels it too, when Ed’s not on the Earth. She can tell. Is that silly?”

Telepathy? That could be interesting. And if I say that, she’ll blow up.

Wes tried to hide his eagerness to be gone. He couldn’t. Before the aliens came, Carlotta really was the most important thing in his life, more important than Congress or anything else, but not now. Not with the Galactic Congress coming in just a few days, and he’d be there to meet them! She had him dead to rights. You’ll be nowhere on the face of the Earth, and you won’t be thinking about me.

The doorbell rang before he had to speak. Thank God. Wes thought Whoever that is, I love you.

It was Harry Reddington.

“La, Harry,” he said. There was no point in asking why Harry was there. He’d find out whether he asked or not. “Come in, but I warn you” Forefinger prodding the zipper on the lineman’s vest, you had to make things clear to Harry — “I’ve got to go, right now, and Carlotta has to drive me.”

“Sure, Congressman.” Harry used his cane to help him up the steps. “Hi, Carlotta.”

“Hello.” Carlotta’s greeting wasn’t enthusiastic.

It had happened several years before. Wes Dawson, two-term Congressman, stuck on the transportation safety subcommittee, interviewing bikers. He’d been young enough and new enough then to go out looking for information, rather than summoning the interested parties to Washington to testify to a committee.

And in a San Bernardino bar, Wes Dawson had let a Hell’s Angel get his goat, and took a swing at the bloated barbarian, and was about to get his head stomped in, which would have been bad, and in the newspapers, which would have been worse, when Hairy Red the Minstrel made a joke of the whole affair and hustled Wes out of the bar, and only after they were outside did Harry admit that he was so scared he’d pissed in his pants. Or said he had, which made Wes laugh too.

So I owe Harry one. And he’s never really collected. Just uses

that to keep us polite to him. And hell, I enjoy his company Sometimes — “What brings you here now, Harry?” Carlotta asked. She hadn’t been in that bar. She’d only been told. If she’d felt the vibes in that bar, she’d be more polite to Harry. “Heard you’re going up to meet the ETI’s,” Harry said.

“Yeah!”

“Everyone knows that,” Carlotta said.

“I wondered if you needed anybody to keep an eye on things,” Harry said. “I’m sort of loose just now.”

“No,” Carlotta said firmly. “Thanks, but no.”

Harry must be heavily stuck for a place to sleep. Not only that he was here, but that he was so clean, so massively sober…

Wes looked around the house. All the valuable stuff was packed and stored. Especially all the breakables. But there were electronics and keepsakes and things he hadn’t had time to store away (and somewhere, his baseball cap), and he’d really hate to lose them. There hadn’t been time to plan anything. And the breakable stuff was stored, and Wes was just feeling so damned good. He asked, “Harry, where are you living just now?”

Carlotta eyed him suspiciously.

“Here and there—”

“Want to stay here?” Wes asked. “Just for a few weeks. Carlotta’s going to Washington and then visiting her family in Kansas, so the place is empty except for the gardener once a week. Wouldn’t hurt at all if somebody kept an eye on it.”

Carlotta looked disgusted. “Harry—”

Harry grinned. He raised his right hand, the way he would in a courtroom. “No visitors, no friends, no parties. I swear. The kind of people I know, I wouldn’t even tell them where I’m staying.”

“That’s straight, — then,” Wes said. “Your word of honor on record.”

“Sure,” Harry said.

“Good,” Congressman Dawson said. “You know, Harry. That works pretty good I was a little worried, going off-Jesus, except for the Apollo crews, about as far as anybody ever went from his family. I was a little worried about leaving Carlotta. It feels better with you to look after things.” That can’t hurt, Wes thought. With Harry, you had to be careful what you said, because he took things too seriously sometimes. — But he was pretty smart when he was sober, and dammit, he didn’t lie. He’d jump off a cliff before he’d steal from friends.

“Keys,” Harry said. “And the alarm?”

“Right.” It was getting complicated. Wes looked at Harry and the eager expression, and knew it was already too late. Might as well do it right. “Keys, alarm system. I’ll write you a letter. And there’s a drawer in here where we keep a thousand bucks in small bills, for emergencies. Only. We’ll leave it for you. Kind of tricky to find.”

Carlotta looked at him again, and Wes grinned. She didn’t know Harry that well. He’d never touch that money if they told him about it. If he found it, rooting around, as he probably would, he might think of some reason why he ought to do something with it to help the Dawsons. Harry had a real knack for rationalization, but he didn’t violate direct orders.

“You’ll need a letter,” Wes said. “And maybe a phone number for your friend to call you.”

“I won’t give anybody yours,” Harry said.

“That’s all right,” Carlotta said. “We change this top number, here, every month or two.” She indicated one of the three telephones. “Just don’t give anyone the other number.”

Wes typed up a letter to the police while Carlotta explained the alarm system. She wasn’t happy about it. Maybe I’m not happy, Wes thought. But what the hell else could I do? Throw Harry out? Fat chance. And damn, he can be useful, and anyway— Anyway, it was time to go. Wes looked at the TV, with its

continuous stream of garble about ETI’s and speculation about what was coming, and grinned. I’ll know before they do. Damn straight! He got his suitcases and headed for the downstairs garage, and he’d forgotten about Hairy Red before he got to his car.

“FIVE.” The unemotional voice spoke in his headset. My God! I’ve made it!

“FOUR.” Wes Dawson tried to relax, but that was impossible. The count went on. “THREE. TWO. ONE. IGNITION. FIRST MOTION. LIFTOFE WE HAVE LIFTOFF.”

We do indeed. Goddam elephant sitting on my chest. He was vaguely aware that his companions in the shuttle were cheering. He tried to remember every moment of the experience, but it was no use. Things happened too fast.

“SEPARATIONS” The Shuttle roar changed dramatically as the two solid boosters fell free to splash into the Atlantic Ocean for recovery. They were just worth recovering, according to figures Dawson had seen, although he’d also seen analyses demonstrating that it would be cheaper to make new ones each time-that recovery of the boosters was mostly for public relations value, to demonstrate that NASA was thrifty…

His feeling of great weight continued as the Shuttle main engines continued to burn. He’d been told they developed over a hundred horsepower per pound. Wes Dawson tried to imagine that, but the image that came to mind was silly.

He noticed the roar fading, and then the weight easing from his body. Silence and falling. Black sky and the blue-white arc of planet Earth, and Wes Dawson had reached space at last.

Ed Gillespie went out first. Wes waited impatiently while Gillespie helped the Soviet crewmen rig tether lines between the Shuttle and the Soviet Kosmograd space station. The Shuttle was far too large to dock with the Soviet station; at least that was the official reason they’d been given.

Finally the work was done, and it was Dawson’s turn in the airlock. Captain John Greeley, Wes’s escort and aide, waited behind him to go last. Ed Gillespie would be waiting outside. Ed must hate this a lot. Greeley and! go aboard Kosmograd. Ed takes the Shuttle home. Enough of that.

Wes ran through the pressure-suit checklist once more. The small computer-driven display at his chest showed all green, and Wes touched the Airlock Cycle button. He heard a faint whine.

He moved very cautiously. There was nothing out there but vacuum. High school physics classes and the science fiction he’d read in his teens spoke their lessons in his memory: space is unforgiving, even to a powerful and influential congressman. He listened to the dwindling hiss as the airlock emptied; none of it was coming from his million dollars’ worth of pressure suit. He’d done it right.

The hiss and whine faded to nothing. Then the airlock display blinked green over red. In the back of his throat was nausea waiting to pounce. His semicircular canals danced to strange rhythms. High school physics be damned: his body knew he was falling. Skydiving wasn’t like this. Skydiving, you had the wind; if you waited a few seconds the wind stopped your acceleration, and it was as if you were being buoyed up. Here there was only the oxygen breeze in your face.

The outer door opened and the universe hit him in the face.

The Soviet station was a winged hammer that tumbled as it flew. At one end of the long, long corridor that formed the handle, three cylinders, born as fuel tanks, nestled side by side. The living quarters must have been expanded since the structure was built. There were few windows, and all were tiny. Not much of a view from in there. Best do my sightseeing while I’m outside.

Solar-electric panels splayed out around the other end of the corridor. Dawson guessed there was a nuclear plant too, well isolated from the crew quarters. Why else would the joining corridor be so long? Though it would help the Sovs maintain spin gravity.

At the center of rotation, opposite a fourth tank that served as a free-fall laboratory, was the main airlock. A line ran from the airlock to the hovering shuttlecraft. And behind it all, a great blue ball was slowly traversing a deep black sky.

Orbit! Free-fall! He’d done it! But what a strange path he’d traveled,

There was a boy who had wanted to be an astronaut.

A young man had watched that hope dwindle as he matured. Men had landed on the Moon in July of 1969, after eight years of effort. In 1980, a NASA official had stated that “the United States could not reach the Moon again ten years from now, no mailer what the effort.” The space program had been nearly dismantled. The United States had reached the Moon… and come back… and stopped.

The Soviets, beaten in the Moon race, dropped out; but when the United States rested, the Soviet space program began anew, this time systematically developing capabilities, each new exploit a bit more difficult than the last; none of the spectaculars of the early days, but plenty of solid achievement.

An angry man had grown into politics. Partly through Wes Dawson’s efforts, the U.S. space program began again, led by the Shuttle and continuing toward industries in space, but too slowly.

The cold war began again, with all its implications. Editorials in U.S. papers and on television: why challenge the Soviets in space? Nothing was there. Or, alternatively: the Soviets are so strong that they cannot be challenged. Or: why begin a race no one can win? A drumfire of editorials, threatening to drown the American space effort.

Then had come a speck in the night sky; and a powerful, determined politician in the best of health now looked across thirty meters of line at a Soviet space station to which he had come as visiting dignitary.

It was a way into space; but he’d have had to be crazy to plan it that way…

“Do you feel all right, Congressman?’ The Soviet crewman waited outside, clinging to a handhold on the airlock door. He floated easily, his whole posture a statement: for Soviets this is easy. We have the experience to make it easy.

He couldn’t see the expression behind the darkened glass of Ed Gillespie’s helmet. Gillespie waited.

“I’m fine! Fine!” Wes stayed uncertainly in the airlock. Space was wonderful, but there was so much of it! He felt bouncy, happy; he sounded that way too.

“Good.” The cosmonaut pushed into Dawson’s glove a device vaguely resembling pliers; the business end was already closed around the line. “If you will move out of the airlock—”

Wes grasped the line grip and moved out of the airlock door. Ed Gillespie came up beside him. Gillespie said nothing, but Wes was grateful: someone familiar, in this strange and wonderful place.

The airlock cycled again, and Greeley emerged. The cosmonaut handed him a line gripper. “Remember, there is no way to get lost. You need only jump. When you near the airlock, squeeze the handle and friction will slow you.” The Russian’s accent was noticeable even through the electronics of the suit radios.

“Fine.” They’d showed him most of it in briefings, but it wasn’t the same.

“You’re on your own, then,” Ed Gillespie said. “See you in Houston.” He clapped Wes on the shoulder and climbed into the airlock.

“Right. My regards to Linda.” he spoke automatically. He was watching the Soviet cosmonaut. Dawson took a deep breath.

The Russian jumped.

Dawson waited until the Soviet was across before he moved. It took nerve, for a man who was already falling. A good jump maybe a bit too hard…, airlock coming up fast…, he wasn’t slowing at all! Dawson braked too soon, left himself short of the airlock.

Greeley thumped into him from behind. Greeley was massive:

an Air Force Captain who had earned his letter in football as a halfback. His cheerful voicewas a bit tinny in Wes’s earphones. “No sweat. Sir, if you’ll just ease up on the clamps—” Wes relaxed his grip, releasing the line, and let Greeley guide him into the airlock.

Several people waited beyond the airlock. One was a woman in her forties. A legless man floated toward Wes and deftly helped him to remove his helmet. No one spoke.

“Hi!” Wes said.

“Hello.” The woman spoke grudgingly.

The airlock opened, and the Soviet cosmonaut entered. The legless man assisted him in opening his helmet. The cosmonaut grinned. “Welcome to Kosmograd. I am Rogachev.”

“Ah! Thank you,” Wes said. “I hadn’t expected the commander himself to assist me—”

“I enjoy going outside,” Rogachev said. “I have all too few opportunities.”

The others seemed friendlier now.

“Allow me to introduce you, but quickly,” Rogachev said. “When we have removed these suits, you can be more properly Welcomed. This is First Deputy Commander Aliana Aleksandmvna Thtsikova. Deputy Commander Drnitri Parfenovich Gru shin. Station Engineer Ustinov.”

These three were lined up, Tutsikova closest to Wes. They all looked typically Russian to Dawson’s untrained eye. There were three more in the crowded corridor, including the legless man, but Rogachev made no move to introduce them.

It would be difficult to shake hands in zero gravity, and Wes didn’t try. The airlock door opened again, to admit Captain Greeley. The legless cosmonaut went to help remove his helmet. Rogachev was already leading the way down the corridor, and Wes had no choice but to follow.

“In here,” Rogachev said. “Mitya will aid you with your suit. He will then show you where we will await you.” His tone changed. “Nikolai.”

“I come,” the legless man said, and launched himself after Rogachev.

The compartment Vies was led into was small, but larger than he had expected. It had some gravity; hardly enough to notice, but sufficient that objects settled to one deck, and Wes could lie on that deck to allow his suit to be removed.

Mitya did not look like the others. He was small, almost tiny, and his face was very oriental, almost pure Tatar. He talked constantly as he assisted Dawson in getting out of the pressure Suit. Vies couldn’t understand a word, although Mitya seemed to understand English.

When they had the pressure suit off, Mitya produced a pair of dark blue coveralls. On the left breast was the name DAWS0N, in both Roman and Cyrillic letters. There was also a patch, with the stylized hammer-shaped symbol of Kosmograd. The station’s image was marked with a Red Star and the Soviet CCCP.

That’s why they said I needn’t bring my own clothes. They want me in their uniform. Vies grinned and reached inside his suit. There was a small pouch there. Vies took out a bright U.S. flag pin, and pinned that above the Kosmograd patch. Then he looked directly at Mitya.

The Soviet was grinning. He said something incomprehensible, then waited for Wes to put on the coveralls.

Sergeant Ben Mailey was accustomed to shepherding VIPs, but he’d never seen a group quite like this one. Idly he listened to the chatter behind him. They’d put five passengers in a helicopter built for many more. The trip from the Colorado Springs airfield to Cheyenne Mountain wasn’t very long. Civilians were talkative anyway, but they rarely tried to compete with the roar of a helicopter motor. These were winning; though half of what they said didn’t make sense.

He had his share of tall this trip. Sergeant Mailey tended to notice that. Five feet five, wide and round, he dreaded what he would look like without the Army exercises they made him take. You’d want to roll him down a bowling alley. But three of his passengers were six feet or taller, and two of those were women. He glanced at the passenger list. That tall man playing tour

guide was Curtis, of Hollywood, California. It was easy enough to hear him, even over the helicopter motors. “That’s the Broadmoor Hotel. One of the world’s top hotels, and not built because of the Air Force Academy or NORAD or anything else. Remember the old Penrose machine? One of the younger sons got too rough even for that crowd, and they sent him out here about the turn of the century as a remittance man. Had nothing to do, so he built the world’s best hotel in the shadow of Pikes Peak.”

Which was interesting. Mailey had never heard that story before. Unfortunately, the guy knew more, and now he was revealing too many of the secrets of Cheyenne Mountain for Mailey’s comfort. How the hell did he ever get Inside? Because he’d sure been there.

Not that it mattered. They were all going inside, and maybe it wouldn’t be so easy to get out again…

Four of them had come in pairs, but the dark-haired woman had come alone, If you’d put her in Playboy — she was that pretty — you’d have had to use the centerfold. She was that tall. When Curtis shut up she said, “What I meant is, we ought to be the ones to greet the aliens!”

“Maybe we will. But, Sherry, Wes Dawson’s up there, and he’s a science-fiction fan. I mean serious. He was at the first Saturn flyby. You were there. Don’t you remember him? Congressional candidate in a baseball cap.”

“No.”

“Well, he was watching the screens instead of making speeches. That any help?’

“I—”

“In the meantime, if you were a government, who would you get to tell you about aliens? Us! I’d like to know who thought of it.”

The silver-haired woman’s laugh was a pleasant silvery tinkle. Her husband wasn’t in uniform, but from the ID he’d shown Mailey he could have bean, although it would make him the oldest lieutenant in the Navy. He had a head like a bullet and a mustache like a razor’s edge. The sheet on Mailey’s clipboard named them:

Robert and Virginia Anson, Santa Cnn. They looked too old to be part of-whatever was going on here. All Mailey was sure of was that there was a direct order from the President concerning this new advisory group, and Mailey had never seen anything like that before.

They were to report directly to the National Security Council. Not even to General Deighton, who commanded NORAD and had taken up residence inside.

Anson leaned forward in his chair, and Mailey noticed that the others stopped talking and turned toward him. “We’ll see enough,” he said.

“Sure,” one of the others said. “Bob, we trust hell out of you, but can’t you tell us what we’re doing here?”

“Ten minutes.” Anson looked up at Mailey. “That’s about how long it will take to get inside?”

Mailey nodded “Yes, sir.” Another one who’d been in the hole. They had that distinctive way of pronouncing the word. Inside. If you’d been there, you knew.

“Anyway,” Anson said, “we’ll learn as much, and as quickly, as anyone in the United States. Admiral Carrell assured me of that.”

The grins on the others were unmistakable, although some of the wives didn’t seem so happy about it.

“Sounds good,” someone said. “And an audience that wants to be told what to do, and can do it! Who could ask for more?”

Virginia Anson laughed in silver. Robert Anson leaned forward again, and again everyone else fell silent. I’ve seen generals get less respect than that, Mailey thought.

“What have you done with Nat Reynolds?” Anson asked Curtis. “I thought you two went everywhere together.”

“We have since his divorce,” Curtis said. “But he’s got a convention in Kansas. Yeah, I thought of that too, but where is he safe?”

He’d be safe Inside, Mailey thought. If there’s one safe place in the world, this is it.

The motors changed pitch and the helicopter descended.

Jenny watched the group climb out of the helicopter, and hid her misgivings. She got the passengers loaded into the station wagon for the short drive from the helipad to the entrance.

She’d only been Inside a few times, and it was still an awesome experience. The station wagon drove through doors the size of a house, then on into the mountain — And on, and on. Eventually it stopped and they entered an

elevator that had no difficulty holding all of them, with room for the station wagon if they’d wanted it.

No one was talking much. People didn’t, the first time.

The buildings sat on coil springs as tall as people. Except for the springs, and the granite walls overhead and everywhere, the buildings might have been standard military barracks and offices.

Jenny gave them an hour to get settled. Most of them were in the briefing room in half that time. She waited the full hour. The inside of the conference room was set up like a movie theater, with folding chairs in rows. Army men ushered them to seats, a little warily, as if they didn’t quite know what to make of their guests.

The army troopers stood when she came in. So did Robert Anson, although Jenny had the impression that it wasn’t the gold leaves he stood for.

They waited while she went to the blackboard.

Then one of them said, “I suppose you’re all wondering why I’ve asked you here,” and everyone laughed. Which made it a lot easier.

“I suppose you are wondering,” Jenny said. “Admiral Carrell has assembled an intelligence group to advise the National Security Council. You are part of it.”

“Makes sense. Who else knows about aliens?”

She looked at her seating chart. Curtis. She nodded. “The first thing is to explain why you are here, rather than at the Academy with your colleagues and the anthropology professors. You are the Threat Team. The others will assume the aliens are friendly. Our group will examine the possibility that they will be hostile.”

Everyone looked thoughtful. Then a hand was raised. Jenny consulted her chart again. “Yes, Ms Atkinson?”

“Do we have a choice in the assignment?”

“Not now,” Jenny said.

“Too bad.”

“I thought it valuable to have you with us, Sherry,” Anson said. “The rest of us are paranoid. You are not. It seemed reasonable to have one intelligent but trusting person on this team.”

Sherry Atkinson melted back into her seat.

“I’m afraid things will be a bit hectic,” Jenny said. “You will have a series of intensive briefings—”

“There that much to know about the aliens?”

“Actually, Dr. Curtis, there is very little to know about the aliens. However, you are to be briefed on U.S. and USSR strategic weapons systems. One of the possibilities Admiral Carrell intends to examine is that the aliens make alliance with the Soviets. Against us.”

Academician Pavel Bondarev sat at his desk. His large leather chair was swiveled toward the window, with its view of the Black Sea. The weather outside was pleasant. It was pleasant inside the office as well. His secretary sat on his lap. Slowly she unbuttoned her blouse.

This was far better than he had expected! He had more power and prestige than he had ever imagined possible. To add to his joy, Marina and his grandson had vacationed on the shores of the Black Sea and were now on an airplane to Moscow.

It couldn’t last, of course. Soon the aliens would come, and things would change. He could only guess at how they would change.

He may have been the proper man for this task. I know few who could have done it, and of those, two are not reliable…

On his desk lay thick reports from the Soviet military leaders. The largest was the report of the Strategic Rocket Command. Bondarev had always known that the Soviet Union possessed thousands of intercontinental nuclear-tipped missiles; now he knew the location and targeting of every one of them.

He also knew their reliability, which was not high. Despite the full alert, nearly a quarter of the missile force was not in readiness, and the generals did not expect more than two thirds of those remaining to launch on the first attempt.

The reports contained information on which missiles could be retargeted and which could not. Of those, some could be aimed at objects in space, and some could be targeted only toward other points on the Earth, because their warheads could not be detonated until after re-entry. He had turned so that he wouldn’t have to look at those reports. Could he not keep his mind on Lorena for these few precious moments? But his mind ran on. He had a large force that could be used to engage the United States, and a small force that could fight an enemy in outer space if that became necessary. It was not possible to estimate what that force could do because they knew nothing of the onrushing alien spacecraft. What defenses did it have? How thick was its hull, and how close would it come to Earth?

All probably unnecessary. They will not attack. But if they do, I have forces to engage them with. Some forces. I should determine more precisely what I have available.

That would not be easy, because it was no simple task to combine the targeting information with the figures on readiness and reliability. The result would only be a probability. It is well that I am doing this. Few military officers would know how to do the mathematics. Nor would I be able to in time except for-.

He glanced at the table next to his desk. An American IBM home computer stood there. It was an excellent machine, simple to use, and it had come with a number of probability and statistics programs that he had adapted to this purpose.

“You have no need of that machine at this moment,” Lorena said firmly. She took his hand and guided it to her breast.

He had been expecting the telephone, but it startled him anyway. Pavel Bondarev disengaged his hand from within his secretary’s blouse. The ringing phone was on a secure line, permanently attached to a scrambler. He had been told that not even the KGB could listen to calls on that line. Pavel didn’t believe that, but it was well to act as if he did. He lifted the receiver. “Academician Bondarev.”

“Narovchatov. The Voice of America announces that the Americans are aboard”

“I heard. There was no jamming.”

Narovchatov chuckled. “So long as they do our work, why should we interfere? But it is a good sign. They are not upset by our mobilizations.”

“I trust not,” Bondarev said. “I have done much to keep such matters under control

“You are now satisfied with the preparations?’

“I believe so. Grushin reports that all is well aboard the spacecraft. The Strategic Rocket Forces are alerted, the Fleet is at sea, but the Air Force remains grounded and visible to the American satellites. This was not achieved without cost. Colonel General Akhmanov proved uncooperative, and has been replaced by Genera] Tretyak. The transfer of power was accomplished without incident, and Akhmanov has been promoted to the General Inspectorate of the Ministry of Defense.”

“Um. You are becoming accustomed to military authority. Perhaps I should have you appointed a general

“That could do no harm,” Bondarev said. Generals have enormous perquisites Meanwhile, I receive reports from both Grushin and Rogachev, and there are no contradictions. Nikolai Nikolayevich, I believe we have done everything possible.”

“All we know to do. Why, then, do I worry?”

Bondarev grinned mirthlessly. “We have nothing to guide us here. No history and no theory.”

“Da.” There was a pause, as if Narovchatov were thinking. Then the general said, “From tomorrow on, this line will be connected directly to the Chairman. You will use it to keep us informed.”

“Certainly.” It would be an excuse to ask where you and the Chairman will be. “Perhaps Marina and the children could visit you?’

“That has been arranged.”

“Then no more remains to be said.” Bondarev put the telephone down and stared out the window.

“You are frightened,” Lorena said.

“Yes.”

9. ANTICIPATIONS

The meeting was called for 0900, but they were still straggling in at a quarter past. Some had hangovers. All had stayed up too late.

Too bad, Jenny thought. They’ll have to get used to military hours. She had a strong urge to giggle. Suppose they didn’t? Maybe they’d make Cheyenne Mountain adapt to the hours science fiction writers kept…

They took their places in the lecture room, but they tended to sit for a moment, then get up and gather in clumps. Most of them talked at once. Working with the science-fiction people was an educational experience. They had no reverence for anything or anyone, except possibly for Mr. Anson, and they argued with him; they just didn’t call him names.

They’d spent the past days learning about U.S. and Soviet weapons. Now it was time to examine what was known about the aliens.

Not that there’s anything to know. Our best photos don’t show details. Just that it’s damned big.

One of the men, the one with the heavy mustache, began before she could. “Major Crichton, I assume that the government has been no more successful in communicating with the aliens than all the private attempts were?”

“Correct. We’ve tried every means of communication we can think of.”

“And a few no one would have thought of,” Sherry Atkinson added. They all laughed, remembering that the mayor of San Diego had persuaded the citizens of his city to blink their lights on and off while they were in the alien ship’s view.

“With no result,” Jenny said. “Our best prediction is that the alien ship will arrive day after tomorrow. Sometime day after tomorrow. We can’t predict it closer than that, because the ship has begun random acceleration and deceleration.”

“As if it didn’t want us to know the precise ETA,” Curtis said.

“ETA?” Atkinson asked.

“Estimated Time of Arrival” Jenny said. “And yes, we’ve thought of that.”

“It might be their engines aren’t working properly.” Atkinson looked thoughtful. “Or that the concepts of time and regularity don’t mean much to them.”

“Bat puckey,” Curtis said. “If they’re space travelers, they have to have clocks.”

“Doesn’t mean they use them,” someone said.

Jenny spoke through rising voices. “Lieutenant Sherrad will review what we know.” The chatter stopped.

Sherrad was a Regular Navy man hoping for his bad foot to heat so that he could go back to sea. Jenny wasn’t quite sure how he’d been assigned to Colorado Springs, but she did know the Admiral thought well of him. His father had been a classmate.

The Navy seemed to have even more of that sort of thing than the Army. He ran new blowups of films taken by the Mauna Kea telescopes as far back as the late l970s. A few showed a flickering star that must have been the alien ship, although at the time no one had realized it.

Sherrad showed each film in sequence. Then again. He brought the lights up and waited, as if teasing the audience.

“Son of a bitch.”

“What, Joe?”

“It dropped something.”

Sherrad nodded. “It does look that way.”

It took me four hours to see that, Jenny thought. Maybe there is a good reason to have these birds here-.

“Our best guess is that it came from the southern region of the Centaur, dropped something heavy, rounded the sun, and went to Saturn,” Lieutenant Sherrad said. “Decelerating all the way.”

“They knew where they were going, then.”

“Well, Dr. Curtis, it does seem so.”

Jenny nodded approval. Sherrad had memorized the doctorates.

Voices arose from one of the clumps. “Okay, they refueled at Saturn—”

“Why not Jupiter?”

“It takes less delta-V to slow down for Saturn. Jesus, but they must have been going on the last teacup of fuel for that to matter!”

“Jupiter could have been around on the other side—”

“Could we see it again?” Anson asked.

Sherrad waited until they were quiet. “Certainly. We also have the computer simulation.”

The room darkened again.

Black dots speckled a white field: a negative of the night sky. Astronomers generally preferred to use negatives; it was easier to see the spots that were stars. The scene jumped minutely every few seconds. The stars stayed where they were-the photographs had been superimposed-but one dot jumped too, and grew Larger.

“These were taken from Mauna Kea observatory. Notice the point that jumps. When we realized what we had, we made same graphs—”

The first showed a curve across the star background, not very informative.

“And this is what it would look like from above the Sun’s north pole.”

Three faintly curved lines radiated from a central point. Near that point, the sun, they were dotted lines-of course, no camera would have seen anything then-and they almost brushed the solar rim. The Navy man’s light-pointer traced the incoming line. “It came in at several hundred miles per second,” he said, “decelerating all the way. Of course the Invader wasn’t seen near the sun, and nobody was even looking for it then. This—” The light-pointer traced a line outward. “We have only three photos of it, and of course they could be artifacts, garbage. If they’re real, then this one wasn’t under power when it left the sun. It was dropped.” The third line ran nearly parallel to the second, then curved away. ‘This section was under power, and decelerating at around two gravities, with fluctuations. We’ve got five photos, and then it’s lost, but it might well have been on its way to Saturn.”

“Not good,” said a voice in the dark.

The lights came on. The Navy man said, “Who said that?’

“Joe Ransom.” He had a gaudy mustache and the air of self-assurance the SF writers all seemed to share. “Look: they dropped something to save fuel. Could have been a fuel tank—”

“I’d think it was a Bussard ramjet,” someone interrupted.

Ransom waved it away. “It almost doesn’t matter. They dropped something they needed to get here. They probably planned to. Odds are they didn’t take enough fuel to stop inside the solar system without dropping-well, something massive, something they didn’t need any more, something that served its purpose once it got them from Alpha Centauri or wherever. If—”

Burnham jumped on it. “A Bussard ramjet wouldn’t be any use inside the solar system. You need a thousand kilometers per second to intercept enough fuel-or there are some alternate versions, but you still—”

Ransom rode him down. “We can’t figure out what it was yet and we don’t care. They used it to cross, and then they dropped it. Either they figure to make someone build them another one, or they’re not going home. You see the problem?”

Something icy congealed in Jenny’s guts. They don’t expect to go home. Maybe a Threat Team isn’t such a bad idea. I’ll have to call the Admiral.

Meanwhile, the meeting was degenerating into isolated clumps of conversation. Jenny spoke up to resume control. “Enough!” The noise dropped by half. “Mr. Ransom, you said Alpha Centauri. Why?”

“Just a shot in the dark. It’s the three closest stars in the sky, and two of them are yellow dwarfs, stars very like ours.”

“Stars?”

“Yes. What we call Alpha Centauri, meaning the brightest star in the Centaur constellation, is really three stars: two yellow ones pretty close together, and one wretched red dwarf.”

“Our own sun’s a yellow dwarf,” Curtis said.

“Interesting,” Lieutenant Sherrad said. “Our astronomers say the object came from the Centaur region. Is Alpha Centauri really a good prospect?”

The meeting came apart again. This time Jenny let it ride for a bit. Her patience was rewarded when Curtis bellowed, “May I have a consensus? Who likes Alpha Centauri?”

Two hands went up.

“Who hates it?”

Three hands. And three undecided.

“Sherry? Why don’t you like Alpha Centauri?”

“Wade, you know how many other choices there are! There are almost a dozen yellow dwarf stars near us; and we don’t know they came from that kind of star anyway!”

“Bob? You like it.”

The wide white-haired man with the gaudy vest laughed and said, “I didn’t at first it’s trite. But, you know, it’s trite because it got used so much, and it got used so much because it’s the best choice. Why wouldn’t they go looking for the closest star that’s like their own? And, Sherry, there aren’t many yellow stars in that direction. That clump centers around Procyon and Tau Ceti and—”

“That’s what I was getting at,” Dr Curtis said. “It’s trite. As I see it, the way to bet is that they came from Alpha Centauri, or else they came a hell of a long distance — And if they dropped half their ship-you see?”

Burnham said, “It’d be their first trip. They won’t be very good at talking to us. Chances are they’ll want to watch us from high orbit.”

“Maybe it’s good the Soviets can’t go after them. They might run.”

“It still isn’t good. We should have met them around Saturn, just to get a little more respect—”

“Could have had a hotel on Titan by now—”

“Proxmire—”

They were at it again. Out of the babble she heard Curtis say, “One thing’s suit. They came from a long way off. So the next question is, what do they want?”

Rogachev’s office was roomy enough, by station standards. Much of its furniture looked like afterthoughts: the hot plate, the curved sofa that had replaced a standard air mattress; even the window, shuttled from Earth and welded Into a hole sawn in the hull: a thick-walled box, two panes of glass sandwiching a goop that would foam and harden in near vacuum. But it let light through, so that Station Commander Arvid Pavlovlch Rogachev could see the stars.

They flowed past, left to right, while Arvid mixed powdered tea with boiling water in a plastic bag. The station was equipped for free-fall, in case of emergencies. He served the tea into two cups, and passed one to his second in command.

“The station will house twelve,” Arvid said. “Twelve are aboard. Four are foreign observers. No more important event has occurred aboard any spacecraft, and it will happen while Kosmograd is both crowded and shorthanded.”

“Not quite so bad as all that,” said Aliana Aleksandrovna Thtsikova. “Recall that there is nothing to be done about the alien ship. We don’t have to go to meet them; we don’t even have a motor.”

“Neither drive nor weapons. We could not flee either.”

“Exactly. It will come, we are privileged to watch. I suggest that we are doing fairly well.”

“Perhaps we are.” Arvid smiled. “It helps that our guests cannot talk to each other well”

“Their dossiers said that”

Arvid didn’t entirely trust any dossiers but Aliana knew that. He said, “I’ve watched them exercising their language deficiencies.

“Do you see a security problem?”

“From them? No. It is my habit to make threat estimates. Shall we? As a game?”

“My mother would call it gossip.”

“Let us gossip, then. Which of our guests do you find interesting?”

“The Nigerian. He’s the blackest man I’ve ever seen. I actually have trouble looking him in the face.”

“Really? What will you do when aliens are aboard?”

“Perhaps I’ll hide in your office.” She lost her smile. “Comrade Commander, I have an irrational fear of spiders and insects.”

“Then we must hope that the approaching guests will be neither.” But they will not be shaped like men, Arvid thought; and Aliana could not even see all men as men. She would be of little help to him if aliens came aboard. He had not suspected this weakness in her. It was well he’d learned it now.

She said, “The Nigerian speaks English and three native languages. . which must make him effectively retarded. There are forty-three languages active within the borders of Nigeria. Educated in England, then Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow, but he learned little Russian. He favors economic independence for Nigeria,”—

“We won’t cure that here. He spends all his time with Dmitri Parfenovich and Wes Dawson. That would be good, except that Dmitri has been trying to convert Dawson to his own views, whereas Dawson sometimes takes the time to try to tell George what’s going on. Dawson is good at explaining complex matters.”

“Could you have a word with Dmitri?”

Arvid laughed. “Do you want me to tell our Political Commissar how to convert the heathen? Aliana, I do not seek converts.”

She laughed. Officially, Dmitri Grushin was Deputy Commander and Information Officer for the station, but he was so little qualified for either job that his KGB origins showed clearly. “We may find ourselves seeking converts among people with nightmare shapes,” Aliana said. “If so, Dawson is the one to watch. Nigeria and France would be no threat to us—”

“His nation made a good choice there, I think. The Honorable Wes Dawson is frantic to meet aliens.”

“Wasn’t it politics that—”

Rogachev shrugged. “Certainly his dossier suggests that he forced himself aboard. Even so, although I know little of American politics, I would not think a mere congressman could force the American President too far in a direction he did not wish to go.”

Aliana grinned. “Dawson is more qualified than Dmitri. Surely they have similar positions?”

Rogachev shrugged. “I do not think so, but it hardly matters.”

“Dawson’s dossier calls him politically liberal.”

“A lazy agent wrote that. ‘Politically liberal’ — he copied that out of some newspaper! Dawson has invariably favored the American space program.” Rogachev’s face twisted into a look he didn’t show to many people: a distinctly guilty grin. “I have closely watched the Honorable Wes Dawson. He has been sick with envy since he came aboard. He does not even care much for the design. Indeed, he knows precisely how he would rebuild the station if it were his. But as it is not, it is killing him!”

Aliana smiled back. “If we had the funding, wouldn’t we make improvements too? Very well. Dr. Beaumont has been a French communist for two decades. We can count her an ally. She has a kind of beauty, wouldn’t you say?”

“Classic and severe, but yes.”

“Have you made advances?”

Arvid laughed. “She would not be interested. A male can tell before he commits himself. Perhaps I have grown too fat. She speaks little English. I have taken opportunities to put her together with Dawson, to see what would happen.”

“And?”

“Oh, he shows some interest… but Captain Greeley and Giselle Beaumont have spent much more time together. Aliana, I find that odd.”

She nodded comprehension. “Captain John Greeley, USAF A good-looking man, three years younger than the French doctor, but fourteen years younger than, for example, me. Greeley probably considers Dawson a step in his career, which might end in public relations or political campaign management. Yet he seems to be trying to share a bed with the Frenchwoman. Dawson might find her attractive as well. Greeley is competing with a man who could help or hurt him.”

He shrugged. “Some men have little control over their gonads.”

“What would you do? I hardly have to ask, do I, Arvid? You would help your superior seduce the woman, and thereby advance your career.”

“I no longer must resort to such tactics. Yet I would have said that Greeley does.”

“Greeley knows Dawson better than we do. Dawson may be homosexual”

“It would be in his dossier. Even if the Americans do not know. The KGB would.”

“Then again, some married people are more thoroughly married than others.” That was a dig, but meant in friendly fashion. Arvid found Aliana’s position perfectly reasonable. With a husband and a child on Earth, and a career to manage as well, her life was easily complex enough without adding a lover.

Arvid poured more tea for them from the plastic bag. (Oh, yes, he would make changes here if he had the funding. Powdered tea! A samovar wouldn’t occupy that much room.) “I enjoy gossiping with you, Aliana.”

“We are also discussing security, are we not?” “Perhaps. Security isn’t my department either… Decisions have already been made, and not by me. My own inclination would be to bar any tourists from the station during this crucial time. But the Chairman favors world opinion these days—”

“I generally find that reassuring.”

“Too often it precedes an invasion. Not this time, perhaps. Mother Russia is about to greet the first visitors from interstellar space. They will come here first; intelligent creatures would not leave potential enemies above them when they land. And that coup will make the U.S. landings on the Moon look like a child reciting for his elders.”

“Must we have visitors to watch our triumph? It could be filmed.”

“We can guess at a second purpose. When the aliens arrive we will seem to represent the world… It doesn’t matter. Security is out of my hands. I can forbid our foreign visitors to enter parts of the station. I can forbid the crew to discuss technical matters. Information may leak through anyway; it usually does. But the blame will not fall on Arvid Rogachev.”

The little truck groaned up Coldwater Canyon. Harry clutched his twelve-string guitar and shivered in the wind-wake behind the cab. It was cold for May in Los Angeles. Lately all the nights had been cold. Cold or not, it beat walking. It was nice of Arline to duck her old man and come pick him up. Too damn bad she had five other people with her, so he had to ride in the back.

It had been a good evening in the Sunset Bar, where he played for free drinks and customer change. Once Harry had thought he’d be a real performer, but the auto wrecks had finished that. Twice within two weeks, in his own car and then his boss’s borrowed car, and neither had headrests! It went beyond bad luck. His head hurt, and his back hurt, and he cursed the two separate sets of sons of bitches who’d separately rear-ended him and left him part crippled. And the insurance companies and their goddam lawyers and — Ruby moved over to sit against him. A hundred and eighty pounds of fleshy cushion: her warmth felt good. “Want to come to my place?” she asked.

“Love to,” Harry said. And I don’t like to sleep alone. “But you know, I have this place I have to watch.”

“Take me with you, then.”

“Can’t do that, either,” Harry said. He didn’t want to. Ruby had been a nice, soft, affectionate partner, and not just in bed, ten years ago. Naive but nice. Maybe he’d been expecting her to grow up. God, how she’d changed! She’d grown out: forty pounds, maybe more. She’d been soft, then, but she hadn’t sagged! You noticed the lack of brains more now. Arline, now she’d be nice, but Jesus, she lives with her old man and he’d get sticky as hell.

For a moment Harry thought it over. Arline would come with him. She’d love the Dawson house. And— And word of honor on record. Heckfire. The truck was passing

Laurel Canyon on Mulholland. He tapped on the glass. The pickup pulled over. Harry climbed out. He waved to Arline. “Thanks,” he called.

“Sure this is all right?” she asked.

“Fine,” Harry said. He waited until she’d driven on up the hill and around a corner, then started climbing toward the Dawson house.

It’s good for me, Harry thought. It’s got to be. And, by damn, my legs are tightening up. He slapped his thigh-it did feel more solid than it had in a long time-and shifted the guitar from his left hand to his right.

The little .25-caliber Beretta was too heavy in his shirt pocket. He knew he ought to leave it at home. It wasn’t much of a gun, and even so, the cops would get soggy and hard to light if they caught him with it. But it was all the gun he had, and there were some bad people out there.

Not the only gun, he thought. He’d rooted around in the Dawson house-hell, Wes knew he’d do that, that’s why he told him about the money in the drawer behind the big drawer in the kitchen-and he’d found the Army .45, the one Wes bought for Carlotta on Harry’s advice, and damn all, she hadn’t taken it with her. But it wasn’t his gun, and Harry couldn’t carry it. It would really hit the fan if he was caught carrying a piece registered to a congressman.

Hell, he’d never carry that weight up this hill! It was always steeper. Every fucking night it got steeper.

It’s good for me. It’s really good for me. Oh, my, God, I have got to get that motorcycle fixed.

I’ve got enough for a deposit. They’ll fix the engine. Maybe if I sing at three places, the hell with the free drinks, get to places where the tips are good, I can scrape up enough to get it out, because I can’t go on climbing this hill! And there’s groceries. Jesus, I’m down to chili and cornmeal and NutriSystems. For the first week it had been easy. There had been food in the refrigerator. He ate vegetable omelets, then frozen stuff, then cans. But now he was down to the NutriSystem stuff Carlotta had bought years ago.

Diet stuff! Lord God. It tastes better than it ought to, and I could lose some belly, here. But opening the cans feels like opening cat food, looks like opening cat-food cans, and Carlotta went off the diet two years ago! Fry it with eggs, and it looks like cat food and snot! And I’m out of eggs…

He shifted the guitar to his other hand. Nothing left but breakfast cereal! I’m going to get that engine fixed.

Tomorrow, Harry thought. He shifted the guitar again. I can take the Kawasaki apart, but the engine has to be rebuilt. I’ll have to carry it in. Borrow Arline’s pickup again.

If you pulled a drawer in the Dawson kitchen all the way out, there was another drawer behind it, and a thousand dollars in fifties behind that. A good burglar would find it and go away, Harry thought, and that was probably its major purpose. Burglar bait, for God’s sake, and thank God he didn’t need it. He had enough for the deposit.

Jenny stood quickly as Admiral Carrell came into her tiny office in the White House basement.

“Sit down,” he commanded. “I’m just old enough to feel uncomfortable when ladies stand up for me. Got any coffee?”

“Yes, sir.” She took cups from her desk drawer and poured from a Thermos pitcher.

“Pretty good. Not up to Navy standards, of course. Navy coffee will peel paint. Did we get anything out of that zoo?”

“Yes, sir,” Jenny said.

“You sound surprised.”

“Admiral, I was surprised. I thought the exercise was a waste of time, but once those sci-fi types got going, it was pretty good.” She opened a folder that lay atop her desk. “This, for instance. When the alien ship came into the solar system almost fifteen years ago, a few telescopes including Mauna Kea happened to be pointed that way. . No one noticed anything then, but when we really looked—” She showed the photographs.

“It look like blobs to me.”

“Yes, sir. They looked like blobs to all of us. Maybe they are blobs. But the sc-fi people suggested that the alien ship dropped a Bussard ramjet.”

“A—”

“Bussard ramjet, Admiral.” She looked down at her notes and read. “Vacuum isn’t empty. There’s hydrogen between the stars. The ramjet is a device for using the interstellar hydrogen as a means for propulsion. In theory it will take ships-large ships-between the stars. It uses large magnetic fields for scoops, and—”

“You may spare me the technical details.”

“Yes, sir. The important point is that they dropped something massive, something they may need if they contemplate leaving our solar system.”

“Which means they intend to stay,” Admiral Carrell said mildly.

“Yes, sir—”

“Rather presumes on our hospitality. Almost as if they didn’t intend us any free choice.” He stood. “Well, we will know soon enough.”

“Yes, sir”

“My congratulations on your work with the advisors. Perhaps I can glean more speculations from them.”

“You’re going to work with them, sir?’

“I may as well. The President has decided that someone responsible must be inside Cheyenne Mountain when the aliens arrive. That someone, apparently, is to be me.”

“Good choice,” Jenny said.

Carrell smiled thinly. “I suppose so.”

“Any special preparations I should make, sir?”

“Nothing that isn’t in the briefing book. I’ve discussed this with the Strategic Air Command and the Chief of Naval Operations. They’re ordering a Yellow Alert starting tomorrow afternoon.”

Yellow Alert. The A Teams on duty in the missile silos. All the missile subs at sea. Bombers on ready alert, fueled, bombs aboard, with crews in quarters by the runways. “I do hope this is a waste of time.”

Admiral Carrell nodded agreement. “So do I, Major. Needed or not, I leave this afternoon. Before I do, we must discuss this with the President. I give you one hour to reduce all we know to a ten-minute briefing.”

Jeri Wilson piled the last of the gear into the station wagon and slammed the tailgate. Then she leaned against it to catch her breath. It was warm out, with bright sun overhead, but the morning low haze hid the mountains ringing the San Fernando Valley. She glanced at her watch, “Eleven, and I’m ready to go,” she announced.

Isadore Leiber eyed the aged Buick’s sagging springs. “You’ll never make it, he announced.” Clara nodded agreement.

“Good roads all the way,” Jeri said. “I’ve left enough time so I won’t have to drive too fast. You’re the ones who are cutting it close; you have farther to go.”

“Yeah,” Isadore said. “Jeri, change your mind! Come with us.”

“No. I am going to find my husband.”

Clara looked uncomfortable. “Jeri, he’s not really—”

“He damned well is, that divorce isn’t final. Anyway, it’s not your problem. It’s mine. Thanks for worrying about me, but I can take care of myself.”

“I doubt it,” Isadore said with embarrassed brutality.

Melissa came out with a large bear named Mr. Pruett. Thank God there weren’t any animals, Jeri thought. Except the goldfish. She’d taken care of that problem by flushing the fish down the toilet while Melissa was asleep.

Isadore showed her an entry in his notebook. “That’s the right address and phone number?”

She nodded.

“Caddoa, Colorado,” Isadore said, “I never heard of the place.” Jeri shrugged. “Me either. David thinks they’re crazy, but somebody thinks he can find oil there.”

“Sounds small.”

“I guess it is. Harry marked out a route for me—”

“Harry,” Clara said contemptuously.

“Harry’s all right,” Jeri said. “Anyway, I went to the Auto Club too. They say the roads are good all the way. Isadore, Clara, it’s sweet of you to worry, but you’ve done enough. Now get out of here before George and Vicki get mad at you.”

“Yeah,” Isadore said. “I sure would hate it if George got mad at me…”

“You would, though,” Jeri said. “Give the Enclave my best. Melissa, get in the car. We’re on our way. Clan, from your look you’d think you weren’t ever going to see me again!”

“Sorry.” Clara tried to laugh, but she wasn’t doing a very good job of it.

“Do you know something?” Jeri demanded.

“A little,” Isadore said. He sounded reluctant to talk, but finally added, “George caught something on short wave. All the strategic forces are on alert. Also, there’s some kind of problem in Russia, he thinks. I’m not sure what.”

“George is always hearing about problems in Russia,” Jeri said.

“Yeah, but he’s been right, too. Remember how he predicts that shake-up—”

Jeri shrugged. “Too late to worry about it.” She got into the station wagon and started the engine. “Thanks again,” she called, as she pulled away from the curb.

The Buick was sluggish, and she wondered if she really had loaded it too heavily. It was an old car, and for the past year it had been pretty badly neglected. I ought to have new springs put in. And have the brakes looked at, and a tune-up, and-and no! If I wait, I may never go at all.

He didn’t say no. He couldn’t quite get himself to say yes, but he didn’t say no. And that’s enough for me! “Melissa, buckle up. We’ve got a long ride ahead.”