3
“Mr. President, these are the ladies and gentlemen of the Council for Good Government of Topeka, Kansas.”
There were murmurs of greeting and some hesitant bows from the women in the delegation. President Bandin nodded his great head in solemn welcome, managing to convey a strong resemblance to Pope John bestowing a benediction. He did not stand, but met them eye to eye, for his chair was on a raised platform behind the great desk. His bandy legs did not match the noble breadth of his forehead, but none of his visitors were aware of this for the ceremonious hush of the Oval Room impressed and subdued even the most cantankerous. This was the heart of America and here, under the Great Seal of the Presidency, was the head of state.
“It is my pleasure to meet with you fine people from the great midwest, and I cannot tell you how much I back your efforts for good government. Though I understand that good government is not the reason that brings you so far to see me.”
President Bandin waited expectantly, the massive head tilted receptively to hear their pleas. Charley Dragoni, the presidential aide, touched the leader of the delegation on the arm, and nodded towards the President. The man took a step forward, coughing to cover his embarrassment, then spoke.
“Mr. President, I, that is we, want to… thank you for seeing us today. It's a great honor, believe me. What we come about is not so much government, I mean good government, like the name of our organization says, you know…”
“Get on with it, Frank,” the elderly woman beside him hissed behind her hand. The spokesman stammered and his words rushed on.
“You see it's the grain prices at the exchange. We been taking a beating with futures and some people are making a fortune sellin' to the Russians while some of us got to take bank loans for fertilizer and seed crop. 'Taint fair to the independent producer…”
“You sir, ladies and gentlemen, I do know your problem.” The spokesman's voice was cut off instantly as President Ban-din spoke. “I know it well and to be honest it's something that concerns me both night and day. Right here, on my desk at the present moment,” he tapped a thick folder that lay under his right hand, “is the latest study on this important topic and the draft of my plan to alleviate the situation. If there are profiteers they will be punished and they will profit no more. You people who work the soil with your own hands must prosper, not greedy speculators. You are the heartland of this great country and your crops the blood that feeds us all. Your voices will be heard. Thank you.”
With these words as a clue, and the final impressive nod, Charley Dragoni pushed on the nearest arms and began moving them towards the door. An old man, nearest to the desk, was shaking with controlled passion and he called out hoarsely, “Mr. President, I gotta be frank, I didn't vote for you test election. But being here, meeting you like this, it's something, Mr. President, and you got my vote and everyone in my family.”
“Thank you, sir, I appreciate your sincerity and know it is a free choice in a free society.” The President thought for a second, then pulled out his tie pin with the presidential seal upon it. “Your honesty humbles me. Please, take this as a reminder of this visit. It's the last one I have.”
Dragoni passed the pin to the man and his emotional thanks were audible as they all left the room and Dragoni closed the door behind the last blue rinse.
“Is that it for today, Dragoni? I hope to Christ it is.” Ban-din settled back heavily in his chair and loosened his collar while his assistant consulted a card.
“Yes, sir, the last until four this afternoon when you're meeting with the delegation of Puerto Rican Congressmen.”
“More trouble from the spies? They're getting to be worse than the nigs these days.” He took off his jacket and the waiting Dragoni was there to take it and hang it in the closet. “And don't waste your time in there,” Bandin called after him. This message was clear to Dragoni who rattled quickly in the concealed bar and emerged with a large bourbon and branch. Bandin drank heavily and smacked his lips with pleasure, then dug a presidential-seal pin out of the top drawer of the desk and pushed it carefully into his tie. After this he opened the heavy folder under his right hand and took out the betting form and handed it to Dragoni.
“This one with the red line under it, fourth race at Santa Anita. A thousand to win. What about the Prometheus doctor?”
“Finalized, sir. There was some initial problem with Doctor Kennelly but he sees reason now. It's a national emergency and he's a government employee.”
“I'll say it's a national emergency when that bastard Polyarni came up with a girl cosmonaut. After those nice talks at the tractor exhibition; hands across the sea, cooperation, all that crap. And this broad waiting in the closet ready to be pushed on at the last minute. But wait until he has to face his Comintern buddies when he finds out what we've got in our closet. Oh, baby, how I wish I could see his face then I'd give a hundred grand to any CIA spook who could bug the Kremlin room when he tells them.”
“Are you serious about that, sir?”
“You have no sense of humor, Dragoni, none at all. Fill up the glass again.”
4
All people care about is their own tiny corner of the universe, I. L. J. Flax thought to himself.
“You gentlemen do realize that in just forty-five minutes I must be at the first press conference here for Prometheus? Satellite relays for television, the world press, the works.”
He spoke in English to Vandelft who headed the American engineering team, then turned and said the same thing in Russian to Glushko, his opposite number on the Soviet side. What little they spoke of the other's language had long vanished in the heat of the moment. One from Siberia, the other from Oshkosh — it was amazing how much they resembled each other. Gold-rimmed glasses, thinning hair, tobacco-stained fingers, shirt pockets stuffed with pens and pencils, the inevitable calculator slung like a gun in a holster on each hip.
“I know that, Flax,” Vandelft said, his fingers tapping nervously on his clipboard. “But this won't take fifteen minutes, ten, you've just got to do something. What the hell is the point of a news conference if all the final testing's held up? We're never going to launch on time if that happens.”
“There is no trouble,” Glushko said, his eyes murderous and cold as he avoided looking at his opposite number. “It is the Americans who have stopped the work. We're ready to proceed at once.”
“All right, I'll come, for the sake of unity, peace, mir. Remember this is a joint project so I'd appreciate it if you would both at least act as though you wished to act jointly.” He repeated this in Russian as he lumbered out of the door and into the full heat of the day, the beads of sweat turning to rivulets as the sun smote him. Vandelft was at the tiller of one of the golf carts the NASA personnel used for getting about the sprawling base, and Flax squeezed in beside him. The Soviets scorned this effete form of transportation and Glushko was already on his bicycle leading the way.
You just never get used to the size, Flax thought. And in a couple of days I'm going to be sitting in Mission Control and coaxing this bird into orbit. It's a long way from Pszczyna.
Flax rarely thought of his native town, for America had been his home since he had been eleven. But Poland was the land of his birth, German Poland really and his family had still been considered Germans though they had lived there for generations. His father was headmaster of the local school, an educated man by any standards, and had raised his son the same way. German was spoken at home and Russian and Polish in the streets and in school, so young Flax was native in all three languages, an ability his father had not permitted him to lose when they had emigrated to the United States when threats of war were in the air. Bookish and always overweight, he had few friends, and no girl friends. The refusal of the Army to draft him because he was so fat only added to his humiliation and drove him further into his studies. He was studying engineering at Columbia University then and he smelled opportunity when the first course in electronics was offered a field so new that they didn't even have a textbook and had to work from mimeographed notes done the same day of each class. He had gone into radar research, then, when working for the same army that had refused him entry a few years earlier, he felt that justice was coming his way at last. When NASA was organized he was there at the inception, his technical knowledge and linguistic ability keeping him on top when the German rocket scientists were whisked away ahead of the advancing Russians. After this he had never looked back; some people thought that Flax was Mission Control and he never told them differently. Now with the joint Soviet-American project he was at the peak of his career. But it did get tiring.