“No,” he shouted back, “it was only baseball! All-Star Game, you know.”
And he hardly heard the raucous bellowing of the drunks for the next half hour, inhaling the fragrance of her hair.
They were released at last, Denzer making bail; the bail corresponded to the amount of their fines for A.R.P. violation, and small print at the bottom of their summons pointed out that they could forfeit it if they chose, thus paying their fines, simply by failing to appear at the magistrate’s trial. They got out just in time to get the bulldog edition of Nature’s Way from a sidewalk scriber.
They looked at once on the spread, pages 34 and 35, expecting anything, even blank pages.
Tragically, the pages were not blank at all.
Pages 34 and 35 had nothing to do with Aztec Wine of Coca. It was a straight news story, headlined:
U. S. MISSILE VULNERABILITY TOTAL IN
ALL-STAR GAME, SAYS GOVERNMENT
STATISTICS EXPERT
From there it got worse. Maggie screamed faintly over Denzer’s shoulder as she read parts of it aloud: “ ‘The obsessive preoccupation of the American public with baseball stems from a bread-and-circuses analogy with ancient Rome. Now, as then, it may lead to our destruction.’ Denzer! Does this maniac want us to get lynched?”
“Read on,” moaned Denzer, already several laps ahead of her. Neatly boxed on the second page was a digested, sexed-up version of something Denzer recognized faintly as the study of cement in the shelter program Chase had mentioned. What the Nature’s Way semantic-digester had made of it was:
SHELTERS DEATH TRAPS
Study of the approved construction codes of all American shelter projects indicates that they will not withstand even large chemical explosives.
“I think,” sobbed Arturo Denzer, “that I’ll cut my throat.”
“Not here, Mac,” snapped the news-scribing machine. “Move on, will you? Hey! Late! Whaddya read?”
Shaking, the couple moved on. “Denzer,” Maggie gasped, “where do you think Joe got this stuff?”
“Why, from us, Maggie,” Denzer tried to swallow, but his throat was dry. “Didn’t you hear Chase before? That was the mix-up at the desk; we must have got his papers, and I suppose what’s his-name’s, Venezuela’s, and bundled them off to Joe. Nice job of rush typography, though,” he added absently, staring into space. “Say, Maggie. What Venezuela was talking about. You think there’s any truth to it?”
“To what, Denzer?”
“What it says here. Optimum time for the Other Side to strike-during the All-Star Game, it says. You think-?”
Maggie shook her head. “I don’t think, Denzer,” she said, and they walked on for a moment.
They heard their names called, turned, and were overtaken rapidly by Valendora and the cement engineer. “You!” cried Chase. “You have my thesis!”
“And you have my study!” cried Valendora.
“Not I but humanity,” said Denzer sadly, holding out the damp faxed edition of Nature’s Way.
Valendora, after one white-faced oath in Spanish, took it calmly. He glanced up at the sky for a second, then shrugged. “Someone will not like this. I should estimate,” he said thoughtfully, “that within five minutes we will all be back in the calabozo.”
But he was wrong.
It was actually less than three.
V
It was the third inning, and Craffany had just benched Little Joe Fliederwick. In spite of the sudden ban on air travel the stadium was full. Every television screen in the country followed Little Joe’s trudging walk to the dugout.
In the White House, President Braden, shoes off, sipping a can of beer, ignored the insistent buzzing in , his ear as long as he could. He wanted to watch the game, “-and the crowd is roaring,” roared the announcer, “just a-boiling, folks! What’s Craffany up to? What will he do next? Man, don’t we have one going here today? Folks, was that the all-important turning point in today’s all-im-in today’s record-breaking All-Star Game, folks? Well, we’ll see. In sixty seconds we’ll return to the field, but meanwhile-“
The President allowed his attention to slip away from the commercial and took another pull at his beer. Baseball, now. That was something he could get his teeth into. He’d been a fan since the age of five. All his life. Even during the Century of the Common Woman, when that madman Danton had listened to the Female Lobby and put girls on every second base in the nation. But it had never been this good. This Fliederwick, now, he was good.
Diverted, he glanced at the screen. The camera was on Little Joe again, standing at the steps to the dugout, looking up. So were his teammates; and the announcer was saying: “Looks like some more of those air-to-air missile-busters, folks. A huge flight of them. Way up. Well, it’s good to know our country’s defense is being looked after and, say, speaking of defense, what do you suppose Craffany’s going to do now that-“
The buzzing returned. The President sighed and spoke to his invisible microphones. “What? Oh. Well, damn it... all right.”
With a resentful heart he put down the beer can and snapped off the television set. He debated putting his shoes back on. He decided against it, and pulled Ms chair close to the desk to hide his socks.
The door opened and Senator Horton came in.
“Mr. President,” cried Horton, “I want to thank you. There’s no doubt your prompt action has saved your country, sir. I imagine you’ve been filled in on the, ah, incident.”
Well, he had been, the President thought, but by Senator Harkness, and maybe the time had come when Jim Harkness’ view of world affairs needed a little broadening. “Suppose you tell me about it,” he said.
Horton looked faintly perplexed, but said promptly: “It was basically an accident. Two men, working independently, came up with reports, strictly unofficial, but important. One was a graduate student’s thesis on shelter construction; happens the boy was looking for a job, the Cement Research and Development Institute recommended him to me, he was on his way to see me when the thing happened. That’s how I became involved in it. The other fellow’s a lab worker, at least as far as earning a living’s concerned, but he’s a mathematician something-or-other and was working out a problem with his lab’s computers. The problem: If the Reds are going to sneak-punch us, when will they do it? The answer: today. While we’re all off base, with the All-Star Game. In the old days they’d maybe pick a presidential election to put one over, just like Hitler used to pick the long weekends. Now all they need is a couple of hours when everybody’s looking the other way, you see. All-Star Game’s a natural.”
The President said mildly, “I can see that without using a computer, Senator.”
“Certainly, sir. But this boy proved it. Like to meet him, by the way? I’ve got the lot of them, right outside.”
In for a penny, in for a pound, thought the President, motioning them in. There were three men and a girl, rather young, rather excited. Senator Horton rattled off introductions. The President gathered the other two had been involved in the security leak that had occurred on the reports.
“But I’ve talked to them,” cried Senator Horton, “and I can’t believe there’s a grain of malice in all of them. And what they say, Mr. President, requires immediate action.”
“I was under the impression I’d taken immediate action,” said the President. “You asked me to ground all civilian air traffic so the missile-watchers could have a clear field; I did. You asked me to put all our defense aircraft airborne; I did. You asked for a Condition Red defense posture and you got it, all but the official announcement.”
“Yes, Mr. President. The immediate danger may have been averted, yes. But what about the future?”