Joe Haldeman - The Coming

“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 country is 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.”

“ May have,” 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.”

“And there’s a law against it,” Pauling admitted. “‘Weapons of mass destruction’ have been proscribed, in orbit, for almost a hundred years.”

“Has anybody told the Pakistanis about this?” Rory said.

Pauling shrugged. “Outlaws don’t obey laws. We have to step lightly, of course, especially given the European situation. There’s no reason all the bombs should be American, and of course their launching wouldn’t be under the control of any one nation.”

“Dr. Pauling,” Rory said, “don’t let yourself be too impressed by a few hundred megatons in orbit. We’re still the ants in this picture.”

“We must remind ourselves of this constantly,” the governor said, “and not fall prey to the sin of pride.”

“How very true,” said Pauling in a weary, neutral tone. “Hubris. Get you every time.” He stood up. “I think we have a sense of how everyone feels. We need more data; we need time for the data we do have to sink in. Shall we meet again two days from now, same time?”

Rory was the only one who didn’t nod or mumble yes. This was going to be nothing but an impediment.

Suddenly the three academics were sitting alone at their too-large table in Room 301. Barrett turned to Whittier. “So. Do you think we’ve lost Bacharach for good?”

“Pretty sure,” Deedee said. “He doesn’t have any real stake in staying.”

“He could lose his position.”

“Al wouldn’t lift a finger to retain his deanship,” Rory said. “You know that. He’d gladly trade the extra pay and perks if he could do science full-time again.”