Aftermath a-1

by Charles Sheffield

  He refused to believe it. He argued, he pleaded. She’s beautiful, she’s wealthy, she’s kind and generous, she has an unblemished past.

  “Yes, yes. We’re not arguing with any of that. She may be a saint for all we know. But it’s not relevant. Gotta be hard-nosed about this, Saul. Look at the data, look at the numbers. You marry her, you’re dead in the water. She’s been around the block too often, that last marriage was one too many.”

  Saul looked at the numbers. They were a disaster.

  “Has anybody else seen these?”

  “Only Crossley and Himmelfarb, the Palo Alto pollsters who did the analysis. They have instructions to keep everything confidential.”

  “God, I should hope so. Look, suppose I don’t get married. What are the chances of making it to the White House as a bachelor?”

  “We tested that, too.” Out came more charts and displays. “It looks good. Seventy-nine percent, with a standard deviation of less than three points.”

  “Did the same people run this poll and analysis?”

  “Negative. We used Quip Research out of Denver. We wanted an independent check on what Crossley and Himmelfarb came up with. So no one knows the whole story but us. Their results are consistent, though. Run without her, Saul, and you’ll win.”

  “What about reelection, if Tricia and I marry once I’m in office?”

  The looks they offered ranged from incredulous to uncomprehending. Reelection? Reelection was something you worried about in another four years. Four years in political forecasting was infinity, far over the horizon. Between now and then, the world could end.

  That day, however, Saul faced a simple choice. He could have the White House in November; or he could have Tricia. At a ninety-seven percent confidence level, he could not have both.

  “All right. Damnation.” Saul looked at his watch. “I’ll explain things to Tricia. Tonight.”

  He had explained. Silver-tongued Saul Steinmetz, who could make any human being understand him and what he was doing, if only he had a chance to sit down and talk to the person one-on-one, had explained.

  And Tricia?

  Saul stared out across the quiet waters and wished that he had brought a cigar with him. They were on the controlled substance list, as well as on his doctor’s personal list of forbiddens for Saul, but Forrest Singer was not here. Nor, unfortunately, were any cigars.

  The frigate had passed Alexandria twenty minutes ago, visible as a scattering of faint lights on the starboard bow. At their modest speed, Indian Head lay some minutes ahead. Maybe more than that. Saul had the feeling that their speed was less. He walked to the rail and peered over. Ripples were spreading in almost a circular pattern. The frigate was barely moving.

  “Sir?” The musical voice came as a surprise from behind him. He turned to face a uniformed woman whose features were half-hidden behind goggles and a warm face mask.

  “Yes, Lieutenant. What is it? Why are we stopping?”

  “We have received a Morse code report of earlier activity downriver, sir. A dozen civilian vessels — fishing boats, we believe — crossed from the eastern to the western bank about two hours ago. The river appears quiet now, but the captain ordered a reduction of speed until we can be sure.”

  “Very good.” Saul recognized the implied question. Was the action ahead related to the President’s trip to the Indian Head naval facility? “Tell the captain that I have no idea what is going on downriver. If it involves the federal government in some way, I have not been briefed on the activity.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “The captain should use his judgment, and resume speed as soon as he feels comfortable in doing so.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The warmly clad figure saluted, turned, and marched away. Half a minute later Saul felt the throb of diesels through the plates of the deck. The pattern of ripples changed at the frigate’s sides.

  Morse code. That was the blinking light he had noticed earlier. How long since he had even heard the word? There must have been a frantic study of ancient manuals in the past couple of weeks. In an age of instant electronics, Morse code and semaphore were archaisms.

  Were archaisms. Not anymore. Until the chips were back in production, Morse and semaphore were state-of-the-art technology.

  Saul, looking higher, saw in the dark sky to the south another point of light. This one was of a fixed intensity, but moving steadily in the sky. It was a spacecraft, high enough to catch a sun that the ground had lost half an hour since. From the size and direction of movement, he was witnessing a transit of one of the two international space stations, once the home of hundreds of crew and scientists; now, a great floating sarcophagus.

  The Sino Consortium had planned to launch a giant station, all their own, in mid April. It was their gesture of superiority, their finger raised to the United States: You had your day, we are the top dogs now!

  Saul, chilled through his multiple layers of clothes, turned and headed aft. Today the Sino Consortium, if the reports reaching Saul were accurate, would have trouble launching a marble into space. So, unfortunately, would the United States.

  The Indian Head facility was in mothballs, and had been for a quarter of a century. Only strenuous local politics had allowed its continued existence. According to the report pulled out for Saul before he left, the pre-supernova staffing of Indian Head had been at a caretaker level of twenty.

  So why were a hundred people and more crowding the jetty as he came ashore?

  Saul knew the answer when he saw the crowded ships at neighboring berths and the insignia on some of the waiting group. He counted six full captains. Word of his trip had spread. Navy forces along the whole stretch of the Potomac from here to Washington had been placed on full alert.

  He swore to himself. He had seen it again and again in the past two years. Nothing he had been able to say or do would stop it.

  You asked an off-the-cuff question during a briefing, maybe about government personnel grades today compared with twenty years ago. Sometimes you were just making conversation. Your casual inquiry was noted and passed on. As it went down the line, it developed momentum. Soon it was a “presidential directive.”

  One week later, a massive report appeared on your desk. It was a comprehensive review of hiring and promotion policies throughout the whole of the federal government. It was stuffed with historical facts and tables and complicated charts, and it represented hundreds or thousands of hours of intense effort. Half a dozen staff members nervously awaited your request for a briefing.

  And you? You didn’t remember asking the question.

  Yellow electric bulbs had been strung on wooden posts along the quay to provide an improvised lighting system. Saul walked the line of waiting personnel, acknowledging their salutes. He always felt a little bogus in the presence of the military. Because he had seen no service himself, he had been advised early in his political career to adopt a strongly pro-military attitude. He had done so, urging better appreciation for the peacetime role of the services. He really believed in that, but maybe he had overdone it. At any rate, he now seemed to be considered “one of them” by every serviceman and -woman.

  Yasmin Silvers was standing in the group at the end of the receiving line. The weak yellow glow of the lights showed a strange look on her face. Bewilderment?

  That would be reasonable. Saul felt sure that for the past few hours everyone had been asking her, directly or indirectly, the reason for the President’s sudden decision to visit Indian Head.

  Next to Yasmin a grizzled veteran stood at rigid attention. In spite of the cold he was in full uniform and wearing no overcoat.

  “Welcome to Indian Head, Mr. President.” The salute was slow and a little arthritic. “I am Captain Kennecott, OIC.”

  “At ease, Captain.” Saul decided to put Kennecott out of his misery — and move the old man inside before they had a case of hypothermia on their hands. He put Kennecott’s age in the early eighties. The commodore must be a ree
mployed annuitant, protected in his position by the Gray Rights laws. But no laws protected the old from pneumonia. “I would like you to provide me a full inspection of the base tomorrow morning, Captain. For tonight, though, I must meet privately with Ms. Silvers, and I plan no other functions. Everyone can be dismissed — and let’s all get inside before we freeze.”

  “Yes, sir.” Kennecott led Saul up a steep flagstone path cleared of snow, and went into the back of an old building of red brick. As they entered the ambient temperature rose fifty degrees. “So far as sleeping accommodations are concerned, and meals …” Kennecott turned to stare uncertainly at the six security staff who dogged Saul’s footsteps.

  “Whatever the kitchen happens to have available. I will need a room for private discussion with Ms. Silvers while I eat, but what I eat is of no importance. As for sleeping, do you still have visitors’ quarters on base?”

  “Yes, sir.” Captain Kennecott blinked watery blue eyes at Saul. “Here in the Officers’ Club. But, Mr. President, the rooms here in the Mix House are old and primitive and unused for many years. The BEQ’s, Bachelor Enlisted Quarters, are even worse. They have never been updated for an integrated service. There was no budget for it.”

  “Do you have running water?”

  “Yes, sir. The base has its own generators and storage tanks.”

  “Then we are better off than most people in this country.” Saul looked around. He knew where Captain Kennecott was going: to an invitation to stay at his own house, which Saul did not want at all. “I’ll stay here in the Officers’ Club. Do you have a room right here where I can hold private meetings?”

  “Yes, sir. And the kitchen is already open.” Kennecott led them through the building and up one floor, to a blue-walled room holding a long oak table and twenty chairs. “If this would do?” He ran a gnarled hand lovingly along the smooth, still-polished surface. “This was our conference room, Mr. President, back in the days when this base still had a major mission as a naval propellant test center.”

  “This will do beautifully. Thank you, Captain.” Old sailors didn’t die. They went down with their bases.

  “Thank you, sir. May I say what an honor it is to have you here? In one hundred and twenty-eight years since this facility was established, this is only the second visit from a sitting President.”

  As Captain Kennecott left, Yasmin Silvers nodded to Saul. “You really made his day.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Would you consider making mine?” Her voice changed. “By telling me what is going on?”

  No “sir,” no “Mr. President.” Saul heard bottled-up bewilderment and unhappiness coming out at him. And he didn’t know why.

  “You mean, why did I decide to visit Indian Head?”

  “I don’t mean that at all. I mean, why did you arrange for me to go down to the Q-5 Syncope Facility, and not tell me that something peculiar was going on there? I gather all sorts of things happened downriver tonight. If I hadn’t been stuck here because of the weather, I’d have landed in the middle of it.”

  “You think I set you up? That I knew what was going on there, but I sent you without telling you?”

  “Didn’t you? Yes, I do think that. I feel like an experimental animal.”

  “Christ, Yasmin. What kind of sadist do you take me for?” It was a reaction not to her anger, but to her lack of trust. That hurt. “You have a good brain. Use it, and think. Did I arrange for your brother to stick a knife into that twisted bastard rapist Lopez? Did I arrange for your brother to be iced down in Q-5, just so I could send you there? For your information, I didn’t know that anything was happening downriver tonight. And I still have no idea what’s going on there.”

  When Saul was angry he became cold and remote, not hot and loud. He had not raised his voice. That was just as well, because his final words came at the same time as the perfunctory knock on the door and the arrival of their food.

  Did it really take nine people to serve bean soup followed by broiled fresh fish with potatoes and carrots? It did if you happened to be the President, and all the cooks on the base wanted to be able to tell their friends that they had served you dinner.

  He and Yasmin waited in awkward silence as the plates and serving dishes were set out, along with glasses and a bottle of white wine that he had not asked for. She had an appalled and stricken stare on her face. She knew she had gone way over the mark for a presidential aide. And she had been wrong in her accusations. He knew it, too, but for the moment he could say nothing without making things worse.

  The head of the group of waiters at last stepped back and cocked his head at Saul. “Mr. President?”

  Saul nodded. “That’s wonderful. Thank you.”

  You were polite to and praised strangers, but you told a staff member whom you really liked to use her brain and think.

  “I’m sorry, Yasmin,” he said as soon as the servers had left the room. “Really sorry for what I said. It’s no excuse, but all the frustrations of the day came out at you.” He waved to the food. “Help yourself. Eat.”

  “I can’t.” She swallowed. “Not yet. You—”

  He waited, pouring and drinking wine that he did not want. ’

  “You didn’t know?” she said at last.

  “I didn’t know. I don’t know now.”

  “Then why did you come here?”

  Saul poured wine for both of them and served soup into Yasmin’s bowl. He coaxed her to eat.

  If the staff wanted to see something, they ought to have stayed for this. President turns headwaiter and wet nurse.

  When she took a first spoonful he said, “I came here for two reasons, one professional and one very personal. You may find the first hard to understand, but I have more trouble with the second. To begin with, from February 9 until this evening I had not been out of the White House for more than a few minutes at a time.”

  “But that’s because everyone comes to see you, to save your time. And you were receiving plenty of reports. I know, because Auden Travis and I brought them to you.”

  “You certainly did.” Saul gave up on the wine, too sweet for his taste. Yasmin was drinking it much too fast. “Which reminds me. I’m not trying to change the subject, but what happened between the two of you just before you left?”

  “Oh.” Yasmin pushed out her bottom lip. “We had a bit of a fight.”

  “I could guess that. About?”

  “Well, it began when he learned of your authorization for me to travel to the syncope facility. I wouldn’t — couldn’t — tell him why I was going. I said it was no business of his. So he started making guesses. I didn’t respond, and he became upset because he thought you were sending me on some special secret mission. I told him that wasn’t true. He didn’t believe me. He accused me of having an unfair advantage dealing with you because I’m a woman. I told him it wasn’t my choice, Nature did that.”

  “That’s all you said to him?”

  “Well, no. I kind of told him—”

  “Kind of? I’d rather hear it exactly.”

  “Yes, but I wouldn’t rather say it.” When Saul remained silent, she went on, “All right. I told him that he’d fuck you himself if he had half a chance. I knew the cussing would annoy him as much as the thought — especially since it’s true. He got madder than ever.”

  Saul shook his head in disbelief. “What did you expect? That after he heard that he would back down and apologize?”

  “I wasn’t thinking. Especially after he told me that I now occupied the most senior position I would ever have in my whole life, because I’d used up all the black-Hispanic-woman cards.”

  “And you of course, to avoid further argument, agreed.”

  “No, sir.” Yasmin emptied half a glass of wine in one gulp and poured herself more. “I told him that I would go a damn sight farther than he ever would, and I didn’t see why I couldn’t be President someday.” Her nostrils flared, and emotion thickened the air between them like hot, strong syru
p. “I’m going to be the first female President, I told him, the way Saul Steinmetz is the first Jewish President. And to get there I’m going to jiggle and wiggle my sexy black-Hispanic-woman’s ass any way I have to, with anybody I feel like. A damn sight more men will chase me, I said, than will ever go after you, Auden Travis. You should have seen his face when I told him that. He’d have murdered me on the spot if he could.” She looked up at Saul, who was sitting with head bowed. “I’m sorry, sir. I’m not suggesting that I really do — well, you know. I was just mad at him. But you did ask for it exactly.”

  “I did, didn’t I?”

  “What happens now, sir?”

  “Now I’m thinking that alcohol is not a traditional Jewish vice, but maybe I ought to give the wine another try.” Saul raised his head, and their eyes locked. “Actually, I’m thinking that in a couple of days, you and Auden Travis will have to work together again — or one of you will be leaving. Maybe both of you. Do you want that?”

  “No, sir.” Her voice was a whisper. “I don’t. I really don’t.”

  “I thought not.”

  “I love my job with you.”

  “So there will have to be apologies, won’t there? On both sides.”

  “Yes, sir.” Her face was pale. “There will be apologies.”

  “Very good.” Saul stabbed savagely at a piece of fish with his fork. “I know this was hard on you, Yasmin; but it was necessary. There’s nothing wrong with ambition, but I insist on civility between members of my personal staff. Otherwise working together is impossible. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “All right. End of that subject. Let’s return to our previous topic.” From the miserable expression on her face, he was not sure that she remembered what it had been. He prompted: “I’ve been confined to the White House. I receive a ton of reports every day. And everything that I hear or see has been filtered.”

  That got through. She sat upright in her chair. “Not by me, sir.”

  “By you, and by everybody else. This isn’t just Saul Steinmetz complaining. The same thing happens to every President. People tell a chief executive what they think he wants to hear. Rosy economic reports, high popularity figures, promising international changes, you name it. There’s a competition to be the first with good news. Anyone who tells bad news tends to get weeded out — even if all the real news is bad.”