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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
There are periods when the principles of experience need to be
modified, when hope and trust and instinct claim a share with
prudence in the guidance of affairs, when, in truth, to dare, is the
highest wisdom.
-WILLLAM ELLERY CHANNING, The Union
COUNTDOWN: H MINUS FIVE WEEKS
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, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]