Joe Haldeman

by The Coming

  Why aren’t you talking to them?”

  “In due course,” the FBI man said. “This is like interviewing witnesses to an accident, or a crime scene. Best to get their separate impressions, before they talk to each other.” “Why don’t you just play back the crystal? Surely they keep records.”

  The FBI man shook his head. “It was profoundly encrypted, scrambled. If you made a copy, you’ll find it’s just white noise.” “Unless you made an audio recording, independent of the VR projector/receiver,” the CIA man said. “You didn’t do that, did you?” “In fact, it didn’t occur to me. I’m really more of an astronomer than a spy.” She sat down behind her desk and looked up at him. “How could they do that, though?” “You question the president’s right to—” the FBI man started.

  “No, no—I mean physically. The signal had to be decrypted on this end. Why couldn’t we make a crystal of it then?” The tall one stared at her for a moment before answering. “That was from my shop. Before you spoke to the president the first time, we modified the equipment in your room. I don’t understand the electronics, but if the signal from the White House is scrambled, you only see a transient virtual image.

  The signal that gets to the copy head is still scrambled.

  “Of course the sound waves do exist. So an audio recorder that wasn’t plugged into the system would have picked it up. A videocam would’ve gotten the sound, too, though the only image would be of you three actually in the room.” He grimaced. “If we were as sneaky as people think we are, we could have bugged the room when we installed the rescrambler.” “But you didn’t think we were that important.”

  “We didn’t know the president’s science adviser was a lunatic,” the FBI man said. “We might have kept closer tabs on him.” “I’m not sure who the lunatic was,” Rory said. “I’ll leave that up to the history books.” “You don’t mean you condone this mass assassination.”

  “Howard,” the CIA man said, “let’s not—”

  “I don’t condone it, but I can appreciate why the president’s behavior drove Pauling to desperate measures.” “So you would have done it, too?” The FBI man was reddening. “If you could have killed the president, you would have done it, too?” “That’s a ridiculous question.”

  “Howard … “

  “No, it’s not! If you could have killed the president, would you?”

  Rory considered refusing to answer. “It honestly wouldn’t have crossed my mind. I would have liked to sit with her and talk, woman to woman. She was dangerously wrong.” “Dangerous enough to die?”

  “Pauling thought so.” She looked up at the CIA man. “So what do you want from me? It’s been a long day already, and I want to go home.” “Just a description of what passed between the president and Grayson Pauling. There weren’t any other administration people there, were there?” “Not in view. Unless you count the governor of Florida. He was a better team player than Pauling.

  She used that term when she got exasperated at him: ‘You used to be a team player’ or something.” “They argued in front of you?” the CIA man said. “Please start at the beginning.” Rory went back to the original bombshell, LaSalle essentially saying that the secretary of defense had come up with this great idea. The conversation, or argument, had only lasted a few minutes, and she was pretty sure she remembered it accurately.

  “So if you were to sum up Pauling’s attitude, his mood?”

  “He was quiet and patient. Quietly exasperated, like a teacher or a parent. Which drove LaSalle to the outburst of temper that ended the conversation.” “Quietly insane,” the FBI man said.

  “Why don’t you go talk to the governor?” Rory snapped. “He’ll agree with you, and then we can all go home.” She turned back to the tall man. “I’ve heard that people often become remarkably calm once they’ve made up their mind to commit suicide. He must have known about the noon meeting; I suppose he may have already decided he had to die.” “And destroy the government.” The CIA man shook his head. “You may be right. In another hundred years, maybe less, people will see this as an act of supreme sacrifice.” “Maybe one month,” Rory said. “When the aliens don’t destroy us out of hand.” “Which they may still do.” He checked his watch. “Almost time for Whittier, Howard.” “What, with her you made an appointment?”

  He nodded. “We don’t have a key to her office,” the FBI man said.

  She followed them down the hall and turned into the lounge, where Marya was watching the cube, by herself, snacking on cheese and crackers from the machine.

  Marya

  “That didn’t take long.” She offered Rory some cheese and crackers.

  Rory shook her head—”No appetite”—and got a ball of juice from the wall dispenser and poured it into a plastic cup. “Not much to tell them. That conference this morning didn’t go five minutes, and that’s what they were interested in—evidently the White House scrambling is pretty sophisticated; the CIA didn’t have a clue what went on, and they’re the ones who installed the descrambler here.”

  “You told them the truth, of course.”

  Rory eased back onto a worn couch. “Yeah, that our late great president was a demented fruitcake, which seems to have been news to the FBI man.”

  “They ask you about Pauling? That’s what CNN’s obsessing on now.”

  “A little. The CIA guy even admitted that someday he might be seen as a hero, a martyr.”

  “That’s not what they’re saying here. They’ve dug up men and women who were in the service with him, going on about how fanatical and unpredictable he was.”

  “That’s probably why LaSalle picked him. Like unto like.” She took a sip of juice and frowned at it.

  “Warm. He didn’t come on that way, though. He was the reasonable one, trying to keep dear Carly from courting votes by destroying the human race.”

  Marya looked at her watch. “They want me to do a five-minute spot sometime today. It won’t be live; we can wait awhile.”

  Rory dumped the cup in the recycler next to the couch. “Crew downstairs?”

  “Better be.”

  “Let’s just do it and go put our feet up at my place. Turn on the cube and watch Washington get nuked.”

  “Is there anything you don’t want me to ask you?”

  “No.” Rory stood and stretched. “God, no. I have a feeling truth, is going to be in short supply for a while. Anything we can do to keep Davis from launching those weapons, we ought to do.”

  “They didn’t tell you not to talk about this morning?”

  “I don’t really give a shit. What can they do to me?” She pushed open the door. “Rhetorical question. They can pull off my toenails and make me eat them. But I don’t think they will.”

  They took the elevator down to the first floor, where two cameramen were watching CNN on a small portable cube. “Let’s gear up, guys. Five-minute spot.”

  She looked at the large flatscreen that provided the interview backdrop. It had the logo of the Committee on the Coming, two concentric Cs with a question mark inside. “Don’t want this one, Deeb.

  You got one of the White House ruins?”

  “Just take a minute. I’ll run back and snatch one from CNN. You want to thumbprint it?”

  “Sure.” When the picture appeared, Marya put her thumb in a box in the lower right corner. A list of options appeared and she touched the first one, one-time reproduction rights. It chimed and the list and box disappeared.

  Rory was already seated at one of two black leather chairs that faced one another across a low table in front of a blue screen. Marya whistled at the cameras. “Position A, all three.” She stepped aside while one of the small cameras rolled onto its mark. The man who wasn’t Deeb set down glasses of ice water.

  She dropped into the other chair and looked at herself in the screen, patting her hair reflexively. She could be a frazzled mess and the editor would automatically fix the image. “No pressure, but let’s try for one take and bust outta here.
Deeb, when I look at you, maybe four minutes thirty, we want the logo back, and then segue into the deep space shot.”

  “Got it,” he said. “Editor on line now.”

  “Good.” She took a page of scribbled notes out of a breast pocket and smoothed it on the table.

  She looked at the wall clock behind Rory. “Eight seconds.” She shook her head. “No, wait. Cameras off.

  We’re two minutes from the hour. Rory, if I can clear it, do you mind if we go live?”

  “I’m a teacher. I usually go live.”

  She smiled and pushed a button on her phone. “Fez, this is Marya. Scramble.” She pushed another button. “Loud and clear. Look, you got the feds there? Figures. Look, I’ve got a White House angle that we don’t want reviewed; they’d gut it or even cancel it.” She nodded. “Dr. Bell down here talked with LaSalle and Pauling this morning. Can you give me five live ninety seconds after the hour?” She laughed.

  “Owe you one, babe.” She set the phone down and looked at the cameraman. “You didn’t hear that, right?”

  “Hear what?” Deeb said.

  “Yeah, well, go take a leak for about a minute. Be back by two.” They hustled out. “Rory, the broadcasts are going through a White House censor with a five-second delay. What they can do in New York is accidentally push the wrong buttons and leave the room. So this interview, scheduled for seven, comes in live instead, on a circuit that’s not controlled by the White House remote.

  “I don’t know how long we’ll have before they’re able to cut us off. So I’ll ask the most important questions first.”

  “We might not even get on,” Rory said. “This room is probably bugged by the CIA.”

  “Hmm. They probably wouldn’t have anybody live listening in, though. We’ll find out.” The two men came back in and she whistled the cameras to start. She looked at the main camera. “We’re going to take five minutes, commencing fourteen-oh-one-thirty.”

  Rory twisted around to look at the clock and then settled into an interviewee posture.

  Marya faced the camera and her expression became serious, then grim: “Good evening. This is Marya Washington coming to you from Gainesville, Florida. This afternoon I talked with Professor Aurora Bell, who is chief administrator of the Committee on the Coming.

  “This morning, Dr. Bell had a VR conference call from the White House. Were there other witnesses to the call, Professor?”

  “Oh, yes. The governor of Florida, the chancellor of this university, and … another professor. And science adviser Grayson Pauling.”

  “Did anything happen between the president and Pauling that might have presaged today’s tragic events?”

  “In retrospect, yes.” She shook her head at the memory. “She blew up at him. At all of us, actually.”

  “What did you say?”

  “LaSalle talked about orbiting three antimissile weapons, to destroy the alien spaceship if it made a wrong move. I think it was the DOD’s idea, but she was behind it a hundred percent.

  “This was before the new message came in. Even so, we argued that it would be suicide. The aliens’

  technology is so superior to ours that we would be like mice attacking an elephant. Ants.”

  Rory’s phone was buzzing; she took it out of her pocket and skimmed it across the room.

  “And Pauling was on your side?”

  “As any reasonable person would be. She was annoyed at him, and then openly angry. Pauling implied that the rationale for orbiting these weapons was to have them flying over Europe. Over France, in case we did decide to enter the war. If the war happens.”

  “Do you agree?”

  “I don’t know much about politics. If I were French I’d be nervous. But the issue isn’t Earth politics.”

  “Especially in light of the new message.”

  “If they believe it. The president didn’t.”

  “You know that for a fact?”

  “Oh yes. She called me back, right after the new message came out.”

  “Really!”

  “She was mad as a hornet. ‘I don’t know how you did it, but it’s not going to work.’ “

  “Well, the timing is interesting.”

  “Yes, but nobody on Earth could have done it. The signal started our way long before the conference call.”

  “We’re off,” Deeb said. “We had a second of white noise, and they cut to a commerical.”

  “Well, shit. Erase it back to Dr. Bell saying ‘conference call,’ and we’ll continue as if nothing’s happened. Okay?”

  “Sure,” Rory said. “It might be aired eventually.”

  “By historians.”

  “In five,” Deeb said, holding out five fingers and folding them one at a time.

  “Well, suppose the president were right, and it was a hoax. The hoaxers—one of whom would have to be you, or someone else who witnessed the conference call, could have had the second message made up long ago, and just signaled for it to be sent.”

  “But not from way beyond the solar system. It would take more than a day for the signal to get there, and more than a day for the message to get back. Parallax on the signal—comparing the angle of it from two different positions—proves how far away the aliens are.”

  “But a really paranoid person would point out that we have to take your word for that—yours and some other scientists’ on the Moon. They could be in on it, too.”

  Rory smiled. “You could have said that, a month or two ago. But now it’s close enough for two sites on Earth to triangulate it. It’s a little fantastic to think of a conspiracy involving every astronomer in the world.” Off-camera, Marya nodded to Deeb.

  “Don’t think nobody will suggest it, Dr. Bell. So … would you have any advice for President Davis?”

  “Only the obvious: listen to the experts. LaSalle’s problem, and finally her undoing, was that she surrounded herself with yes-men, and then followed their advice when they parroted her views.”

  “Pauling the exception.”

  “Which became obvious. She might have saved her life by replacing him. Though as Pauling said in his … suicide note, she would have died a month later, along with the rest of humanity.”

  “And suppose Davis does follow her example, and orbits these weapons?”

  “I suspect the aliens won’t even bother demonstrating with Phobos. They’ll just destroy us out of hand.”

  “A terrible thing to contemplate … thank you, Dr. Bell, for being with us on this strange and awful day. This is Marya Washington, reporting from Gainesville, Florida.”

  “Out,” Deeb said.

  “Just wrap it and send it on up with no comment,” Marya said. “As if.”

  “You’re going to be in real trouble over this,” Rory said.

  “All of us. Maybe they’ll put up a statue someday.” She shook a pill out of a vial and took it with the ice water.

  She leaned back. “Off the record. It could work, couldn’t it?”

  “The maser weapon? It’s never really been tested.”

  “I mean in principle. It goes at the speed of light, right? The alien ship wouldn’t have any warning.”

  “Assuming there’s only one alien ship, and the beam doesn’t miss, and they don’t have any defense against twenty-first-century weapons. A lot of assumptions.”

  “Just trying to look at the bright side.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Rory crossed the room and picked up her buzzing phone. ” Buenas.”

  It was the chancellor. “Rory, what did you do? The governor’s been on the phone screaming at me.

  He wants you fired immediately, yesterday!”

  She played dumb. “Because of this morning?”

  “He just saw you on the cube. Says you betrayed him and the country and the sacred memory of the president. Divulged top secret information.”

  “I don’t have clearance to get top secret information. Was this an interview?”

  “Yes, with that black New York woman.”

>   “Well, I did an interview. But it won’t be aired until seven o’clock tonight.”

  “That might be what they told you. But the governor sure as hell saw it.”

  “So I’m fired? Just like that?”

  “No, no. But I have to give you a sabbatical, get you out of the public eye. Out of the line of fire.”

  “No longer head of the committee?”

  “No. In fact, off the committee altogether. You have other things to pursue—go do them until mid-January. Full pay. You don’t have any classes this semester?”

  “No, because—”

  “So do some research. Preferably somewhere far away. Turn your phone off and disappear.”

  “Is that an order, Mai?”

  “You know it’s not. Just advice, good advice.” His voice was tight. “For all of us, Rory. You should’ve heard the governor. Our budget’s in committee! He’s liable to do anything.”

  “Okay, I’m out. Won’t make a fuss over it. Can I choose my own successor?”

  “Sure, of course. Thanks, Rory. I know you could fight it.”

  “And win. Academic freedom.” She took a deep breath. “Pepe Parker would be the logical successor. I’ll see whether he wants the job.”

  “I owe you for this, Rory. I haven’t seen the interview myself … “

  “The governor’s probably right. I was not respectful of the late president. But then she was a lunatic.”

  “Rory … “

  “I’m off-camera. Are you?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’m coming to think that Pauling was a brave man. He didn’t see any other option, so he gave his life to save the world. You were there, Mai. Am I wrong?”

  There was a short silence. “No. I don’t think you’re wrong. But don’t ask me to back you up, not until after the governor signs the budget.”

  “Understandable. I’ll call Pepe.” She pushed the “off” button without saying goodbye and stood there looking at the phone. The other three were looking at her.

  “You got the axe?” Marya said.

  “Yeah. Until the aliens go home or the world ends, or whatever.” She punched two keys.