"Hey, you don't like me any more," Max said. "How come?"
Briskin said nothing, but his eyes flickered.
"Listen," Max said, "I'm President now; I can close down your silly network – I can send FBI men in any time I want. For your information I'm firing the Attorney General right now, whatever his name is, and putting in a man I know, a man I can trust."
Briskin said, "I see." And now he looked less dubious; conviction, of a sort which Max could not fathom, began to appear instead. "Yes," Jim Briskin said, "you have the authority to order that, don't you? You're really President…"
"Watch out," Max said. "You're nothing compared to me, Briskin, even if you do have that great big audience." Then, turning his back on the cameras, he strode through the open door, into the NSC bunker.
Hours later, in the early morning, down in the National Security Council subsurface bunker, Maximilian Fischer listened sleepily to the TV set in the background as it yammered out the latest news. By now, intelligence sources had plotted the arrival of thirty more alien ships in the Sol System. It was believed that seventy in all had entered. Each was being continually tracked.
But that was not enough, Max knew. Sooner or later he would have to give the order to attack the alien ships. He hesitated. After all, who were they? Nobody at CIA knew. How strong were they? Not known either. And – would the attack be successful?
And then there were domestic problems. Unicephalon had continually tinkered with the economy, priming it when necessary, cutting taxes, lowering interest rates… that had ceased with the problem-solver's destruction. Jeez, Max thought dismally. What do I know about unemployment! I mean, how can I tell what factories to reopen and where?
He turned to General Tompkins, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who sat beside him examining a report on the scrambling of the tactical defensive ships protecting Earth. "They got all them ships distributed right?" he asked Tompkins.
"Yes, Mr. President," General Tompkins answered.
Max winced. But the general did not seem to have spoken ironically; his tone had been respectful. "Okay," Max murmured. "Glad to hear that. And you got all that missile cloud up so there're no leaks, like you let in that ship to blast Unicephalon. I don't want that to happen again."
"We're under Defcon one," General Tompkins said. "Full war footing, as of six o'clock, our time."
"How about those strategic ships?" That, he had learned, was the euphemism for their offensive strike-force.
"We can mount an attack at any time," General Tompkins said, glancing down at the long table to obtain the assenting nods of his co-workers. "We can take care of each of the seventy invaders now within our system."
With a groan, Max said, "Anybody got any bicarb?" The whole business depressed him. What a lot of work and sweat, he thought. All this goddam agitation – why don't the buggers just leave our system? I mean, do we have to get into a war? No telling what their home system will do in retaliation; you never can tell about unhuman life forms – they're unreliable.
"That's what bothers me," he said aloud. "Retaliation." He sighed.
General Tompkins said, "Negotiation with them evidently is impossible."
"Go ahead, then," Max said. "Go give it to them." He looked about for the bicarb.
"I think you're making a wise choice," General Tompkins said, and, across the table, the civilian advisors nodded in agreement.
"Here's an odd piece of news," one of the advisors said to Max. He held out a teletype dispatch. "James Briskin has just filed a writ of mandamus against you in a Federal Court in California, claiming you're not legally President because you didn't run for office."
"You mean because I didn't get voted in?" Max said. "Just because of that?"
"Yes sir. Briskin is asking the Federal Courts to rule on this, and meanwhile he has announced his own candidacy."
"WHAT?"
"Briskin claims not only that you must run for office and be voted in, but you must run against him. And with his popularity he evidently feels -"
"Aw nuts," Max said in despair. "How do you like that."
No one answered.
"Well anyhow," Max said, "it's all decided; you military fellas go ahead and knock out those alien ships. And meanwhile -" He decided there and then. "We'll put economic pressure on Jim-Jam's sponsors, that Reinlander Beer and Calbest Electronics, to get him not to run."
The men at the long table nodded. Papers rattled as briefcases were put away; the meeting – temporarily – was at an end.
He's got an unfair advantage, Max said to himself. How can I run when it's not equal, him a famous TV personality and me not? That's not right; I can't allow that.
Jim-Jam can run, he decided, but it won't do him any good. He's not going to beat me because he's not going to be alive that long.
A week before the election, Telscan, the interplanetary public-opinion sampling agency, published its latest findings. Reading them, Maximilian Fischer felt more gloomy than ever.
"Look at this," he said to his cousin Leon Lait, the lawyer whom he had recently made Attorney General. He tossed the report to him.
His own showing of course was negligible. In the election, Briskin would easily, and most definitely, win.
"Why is that?" Lait asked. Like Max, he was a large, paunchy man who for years now had held a stand-by job; he was not used to physical activity of any sort and his new position was proving difficult for him. However, out of family loyalty to Max, he remained. "Is that because he's got all those TV stations?" he asked, sipping from his can of beer.
Max said cuttingly, "Naw, it's because his navel glows in the dark. Of course it's because of his TV stations, you jerk – he's got them pounding away night and day, creatin' an image." He paused, moodily. "He's a clown. It's that red wig; it's fine for a newscaster, but not for a President." Too morose to speak, he lapsed into silence.
And worse was to follow.
At nine P.M. that night, Jim-Jam Briskin began a seventy-two hour marathon TV program over all his stations, a great final drive to bring his popularity over the top and ensure his victory.
In his special bedroom at the White House, Max Fischer sat with a tray of food before him, in bed, gloomily facing the TV set.
That Briskin, he thought furiously for the millionth time. "Look," he said to his cousin; the Attorney General sat in the easy chair across from him. "There's the nerd now." He pointed to the TV screen.
Leon Lait, munching on his cheeseburger, said, "It's abominable."
"You know where he's broadcasting from? Way out in deep space, out past Pluto. At their farthest-out transmitter, which your FBI guys will never in a million years manage to get to."
"They will," Leon assured him. "I told them they have to get him – the President, my cousin, personally says so."
"But they won't get him for a while," Max said. "Leon, you're just too damn slow. I'll tell you something. I got a ship of the line out there, the Dwight D. Eisenhower. It's all ready to lay an egg on them, you know, a big bang, just as soon as I pass on the word."
"Right, Max."
"And I hate to," Max said.
The telecast had begun to pick up momentum already. Here came the Spotlights, and sauntering out onto the stage pretty Peggy Jones, wearing a glittery bare-shoulder gown, her hair radiant. Now we get a top-flight striptease, Max realized, by a real fine-looking girl. Even he sat up and took notice. Well, maybe not a true striptease, but certainly the opposition, Briskin and his staff, had sex working for them, here. Across the room his cousin the Attorney General had stopped munching his cheeseburger; the noise came to a halt, then picked up slowly once more.