"That's true, Mai," Deedee said, "but what can we do about it ahead of time?"
"There's the obvious end run," Pauling said. "Does your university have a religion department?"
The chancellor shook his head. "Philosophy. There are subheads in comparative religion and 'philosophies of social and religious morality.' "
"Well, find one of them who's ordained, if you can—a tame one—and make him a pro forma member of your committee."
"Hold it," the governor broke in. "You all act like this was some kind of a game. You'll look pretty sorry if it turns out that God really isbehind it."
This time they all stared at him. He seemed dead serious. "Now, I'm not saying that business and science aren't important. But this could be the biggest thing in history. Second biggest thing."
It actually was calculation, Rory decided. The idea had come to him while he was sitting there, and now he was going to hang on to it with all of his famous "bull 'gator" tenacity. He probably didn't have much support from organized religion, so he was going to milk this for votes.
"Now I understand the church and state thing," he continued, "and anyhow you scientists won't do much about the God end of it. Wouldn't expect you to. But Dr. Pauling's right. To be fair about it, you have to put some religious people on your committee."
"And you have a suggestion for one," Pauling said.
"As a matter of fact, I do. And he lives right near Gainesville, out in Archer, practically suburbs."
The chancellor forced an unconvincing smile. "That wouldn't be Reverend Charles Dubois."
"The same! By George, Dr. Barrett, you don't miss much, do you?" Reverend Dubois would be hard to miss. He was prominent in almost every conservative movement in the county. He had delivered Alachua County's votes to the governor in spite of the pesky liberal presence of the university.
"Um ... I'm not certain he would be qualified ... "
The governor was staring at his prompter. "He has a doctorate. He went to your own university."
Barrett looked a little ill. "He didn't earn his doctorate here?"
"Well, no. That was in California."
"Through the mail," Bacharach said. "That charlatan doesn't have a real degree at all."
"You know him?" Rory asked.
"I live in Archer, too. He tried to push through a zoning variance for his new church last year."
"We can't spend our energy worrying about local politics," the governor said, "Dubois is an energetic, intelligent man—"
"Who flunked out of UF his first—"
"Who has the trust and support of many elements of the community that do not automatically trust you academics." He glared into an uncomfortable silence.
Bacharach stood up. "Malachi, thanks for asking for my input here. I'm obviously not helping the process, though." He turned around abruptly and disappeared.
Rory realized she was in the same room with him; if she stood up and stepped away, the illusion would vanish, the dean and the chancellor staring at ghosts. Maybe she should. This was getting pretty far from the astrophysics of nonthermal sources.
Well, there was no way to keep the politicians and religionists out of it, anyhow. Might as well start dealing with them now.
"Governor," she said, "with all due respect, I wonder whether we might want a representative of the religious community who's more widely known. This Dubois man may be notorious in some circles, but I've never heard of him, and I live just twenty miles away."
Deedee smiled at her. "Aurora, I'd bet that everything you know about local politics could be inscribed on the head of a pin."
"She has a good point," Pauling said. "We should find someone of national stature. Perhaps Johnny Kale could find the time."
"Or the pope. Everybody trusts the pope." Deedee looked into her coffee cup and put it back down. Johnny Kale had been the pet preacher of the last three administrations. He had as much clout as a cabinet member.
Even Rory had heard of him. "But he's kind of old-fashioned," she said, although she meant something less charitable.
"Well, perhaps that's what we want," Pauling said, "for balance. Most of the countryis pretty old-fashioned, after all."
Rory wasn't very political, but she knew a turf battle when she saw one. The governor was thinking so hard you could hear the dry primitive mechanisms grinding away.
"There's no reason we can't have both men," he conceded. "Reverend Kale at the national level and Reverend Dubois down here."
"At any rate," Chancellor Barrett said, "we have to keep a sense of perspective. This is still primarily a scientific problem. Absent some startling revelation."
"I don't know how much revelation you need," the governor said.
"More," Barrett said.
"I guess you find it easier to believe in ETs than God?"
"Save it for the speeches, Governor." He turned to Pauling. "What sort of many-headed beast are we cooking up here? At the federal level we have you, Defense, NASA, and now that sanctimonious camp follower Kale. No doubt we'll have a boatload of senators before long."
Pauling nodded. "Half of Washington will find something in this that's relevant, as long as it's hot. I'll try to deflect them so they don't interfere with your science."
"What science?" Rory said. "Unless they begin broadcasting again, everything we do is idle speculation. Until they're close enough to observe directly."
"How long would that be?" Pauling asked.
"Depends on how big they are. Depends on what you mean by 'observe.' We have a probe orbiting Neptune that's the size of a school bus, and we can't see it optically. If that's the size of the thing, we won't see it until it's a day or so away."
"Three months' wait." The governor frowned. "That's a long time to keep people interested." Rory opened her mouth and shut it.
"We can work on that," Pauling said. "The preparations for various contingencies could be made pretty dramatic.
"When I was a kid I remember reading about plans to orbit nuclear weapons—not as bombs, but as insurance against a catastrophic meteor strike, like the one that got the dinosaurs."
" Mayhave," Deedee said.
"Anyhow, it never got off the ground, combination of money and politics. I wonder if they could do it now."
"Not in eleven months," Deedee said. "No matter how much money and politics you throw at it."
"I wouldn't underestimate the Defense Department," Pauling said. "Remember the Manhattan Project."
"It was the War Department then," Rory said, remembering from her new book, "and the threat was more immediate and obvious."
"I don't know about this Manhattan thing," the governor said. "We don't need to drag New York into this, do we?"
Barrett broke the silence. "That was the code name for the team that developed the atom bomb, Governor."
"Oh, yes. Of course. World War II."
"I don't think it's conceptually difficult," Whittier said, "putting missiles with large warheads into orbit. I'm no engineer, but it seems to me you could cobble it together with existing stuff. Peace Reserve weapons mated piecemeal with the Super Shuttle. The problems would be logistics and politics rather than engineering."
"International politics more than national," Barrett said. "A lot of countries wouldn't care to see American H-bombs in orbit, no matter which way they were pointed."