His hand closed on the ancient Remington, a gift from his mother-in-law, and he sat up and removed the cap. The driver behind honked again, and Baxter extended a finger in the Hawaiian good luck tradition, then returned to the shaver. With an angry squeal of tires, the lieutenant pulled around Baxter's car, ignored the stop sign, and pulled out onto the base's main drag. With his shaver humming, Baxter pulled out and turned right.
Baxter caught a flash of a sign, "ODQ—D7," recalling Deb's comment when she first saw it. "This is our new home? Oh, I like the name; it's so much nicer than Hollywood Hills or Sutton Place." He snorted and leaned on the accelerator as he came abreast of the parking ramp for the experimental aircraft. Deb was ready with a comment for that, too. "Oh, what a nice view —Baxter, I want a divorce!" She didn't really, but she was not happy, and neither was Baxter. An experienced test pilot, he had left the Air Force during the testing cutbacks of the late sixties to begin his own advertising agency. As a reserve officer, he had assumed that, if he ever was called up, it would be as a pilot. But, the Air Force had found his advertising skills much more desirable, and dropped him in public relations. Baxter glanced out of the side window at the black, needle-pointed craft on the ramp being readied for a test. Dammit, it is a beautiful view!
He turned back to his driving and concentrated on missing the larger pieces of traffic. The Congressional delegation would show up in two days, and the presentation on the combined shuttle was still in search of a theme —or at least a theme less obvious than "Gimmie bucks!"
Then, there was the still the planning board in town to deal with. The proposed recruiting facility violated the town's zoning ordinances, and it was feather-smoothing time. Even though Federal departments aren't obligated to be governed by local zoning regulations, bad press is still bad press. The theme: cram the new facility down their throats, but in a manner that makes it look like the Air Force is doing the town a big favor.
The Concerned Women from town still had to have a number done on them. In the office, the group was known as the Anti-Slop Chute and Whorehouse League. The dear ladies objected to men from the base supplying a market in town for the growing number of bars and ladies of negotiable virtue. Theme?
Perhaps we could have all the men castrated, ladies. How would that be? Baxter chuckled, then resumed his sober expression as he remembered the school board had to be dealt with. The screams over supporting the educations of the base's dependent children were getting loud, and the charge that a group of Air Force brats had introduced pot to their playmates was no help… "Ah, nuts!"
Baxter drove it all from his mind as he pulled up to the guard shack at the security gate. An AP, three times larger than life, with a jaw the size, shape, and color of a cinder block, saluted and bent down to the car's window. "Captain Baxter?"
Baxter nodded. "Yes, I'm Baxter."
"Carl F.?"
"That's right."
The AP opened the door and motioned with his hand. "Please slide over, sir."
"What?"
"I'm supposed to drive you to a security area, Captain. Please, slide over."
Baxter reached for the door and tried to pull it shut. The AP's grip on the door might as well have been a ton of reinforced concrete. Baxter looked into the guard shack and saw Wilson, one of the regular AP's on the gate. "Wilson, will you call off this trained gorilla? I have a lot of work to do today, and no time to fool around."
Wilson stood in the doorway and shrugged. "I'm sorry, Captain, but Inovsky has his orders."
Baxter looked at the gorilla. "Inovsky, huh?"
"Yes, sir."
"You sure you got the right Air Force, Inovsky?"
The AP unsnapped the cover on his holster. "Please, Captain Baxter. Slide over."
Baxter shrugged and put the car in park. "Sure. Why not?" He slid over and watched as the huge AP slid in, slammed the door, then squealed off, heading the car in the direction of the experimental parking ramp. "What's this all about?"
The AP shook his head. "I don't know, Captain. I was detailed to get you to the experimental station." The man cracked his first smile. "But, with all the brass that's been landed out on the field during the past hour, it looks like you're going to see some important people."
"How important?"
"The Secretary of Defense, the base commander, and just about everything in between, from what I hear."
Baxter looked out of the window on his side, and tried to inch his right trouser leg down over his Argyle sock.
"A question rests without answer in my mind, Lothas."
Lothas turned away from the side port where he had been drinking in the sights of the blue-white planet Nitola—now called Earth. Medp stood next to him. "Medp, have the knowing ones among you time now for idle thoughts?" Both of them looked at Nitola.
"What is the question, Medp?"
Medp nodded in the direction of the planet. "How does a race such as that select a representative to treat with us?"
"The hue-muns?" Lothas paused, wondering how his own race would have reacted at the news of seventy-million-cycle-old visitors from the past. "I cannot even speculate, Medp." Lothas held out a clawed hand. "All those separate tribes, such confusion—I know not." He turned toward Medp. "How are the surveys progressing?"
Medp looked at a readout strapped to his wrist. "We have over twenty distinct languages, with as yet uncounted dialects, entered in the lingpile, and this from only their radio and television. Many more languages are yet to be entered. However, the tribe who is sending the representative speaks the English, and that we have entered in quantity."
Lothas turned back to the view port. "And, the other surveys?"
"Everything is much as predicted. Residual radiation is negligible; vegetable and animal life is reestablished, although the forms are highly mutated. As I said, it is all much as predicted."
Lothas nodded toward Nitola. "All except this hue-muns creature. That we did not predict." He reached up and touched a panel that dropped armor over the view port, then turned to Medp. "I have a question of my own, knowing one."
"Speak."
Lothas lowered himself into a couch and closed his eyes. "How would we choose a representative, Medp, if the positions were reversed?"
"That is easily answered; we would send the wisest of our race. Nothing less could serve such a moment."
Lothas nodded. "Perhaps the hue-muns will do the same."
Baxter looked around the room at the circle of seated high-ranking officers and officials. "What in the ever-loving, four-color-processed Hell are you people talking about?"
The Secretary of Defense looked at the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Chairman and the Secretary of the Air Force both looked at Baxter's base commander, General Stayer. Stayer's glance seemed to lower the room's temperature by twenty degrees. "You don't understand, Captain. You aren't being asked; you're being ordered. You're it."
Baxter found a chair and lowered himself into it. He realized that he was coming across as being a little wild-eyed, and he took several deep breaths before he continued. "Gentlemen, what I do not understand is how I drew the black marble on this one. It's been seven, no, eight years since I flew anything even resembling the Python."
An unnamed colonel seated next to the Secretary of the Air Force leaned forward. "Captain, you are familiar with the XK-17 Python, are you not?"
Baxter shrugged and shook his head. "Only for publicity purposes. I never flew it, or even checked out in it. The things I know are things people want to know, like cost figures, performance—"
"And, all your tickets are up to date?"