Footfall

by Larry Niven

  "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. "N
ow, 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?"