Greg Bear - The Forge of God

“He’s called Cabinet meetings. They’re discussing economic impact. Talking about making an announcement after the election. There’s nothing you could tell him…?” she asked. “He seemed to place great trust in you at first. Maybe even now. How did he come to trust you? He talked about you often.”

“It was a difficult time for him,” Hicks said. “He saw me after he met with the Guest. He’d read my book. I never agreed with his assessment…”

“Punishment. In our bedroom, that’s the key word now. He almost smiles when he talks about Ormandy’s use of the word. Punishment. How very trite that sounds. My husband was never trite, and never a sucker for religious fanatics, politically or otherwise.”

“This has changed all of us,” Hicks said softly.

“I do not want my husband undone. This Guest found his weakness, when nobody in three decades of politics — and I’ve been with him all that time — has ever gotten to him. The Guest opened him wide, and Ormandy crept into the wound. Ormandy could destroy the President.”

“I understand.” He could do worse than that, Hicks thought.

“Will you please do something? Try talking with my husband again? I’ll get you an appointment. He’ll do that much for me, I’m sure.” Mrs. Crockerman stared longingly at the French windows, as if they might be an escape. “It’s even strained our marriage. I’ll be with him on election eve, smiling and waving. But I’m thinking about staying here now. I can only take so much, Mr. Hicks. I cannot watch my husband undo himself.”

The air in the chief of staff’s office was thick with gloom.

Irwin Schwartz, face long and forehead pale, startling in contrast to his florid cheeks, sat on the edge of his desk with one leg drawn up as far as his paunch would allow, raised cuff exposing a long black sock and a few square inches of hairy white calf. A small flat-screen television perched on his desk like a family portrait, sound turned down. Again and again, the screen replayed the single videotaped record of the explosion of the Australian robot emissaries. Schwartz finally leaned over and poked the screen off with a thick finger.

Around him, David Rotterjack and Arthur Gordon stood, Arthur with hands in pockets, Rotterjack rubbing his chin.

“Secretary Lehrman and Mr. McClennan are with the President now,” Schwartz said. “There’s nothing I can say anymore. I don’t think I have his confidence.”

“Nor I,” Rotterjack said.

“What about Hicks?” Arthur asked.

Schwartz shrugged. “The President moved him out to a hotel a week ago and won’t see him. Sarah called a few minutes ago. She spoke with Hicks this morning, and she’s working on getting an appointment for him. Everything’s tight now. Kermit and I have had it out several times.” Kermit Ferman was the President’s appointments secretary.

“And Ormandy?”

“Sees the President every day, for at least an hour. Off the calendar.”

Arthur couldn’t get Marty out of his wandering thoughts. The boy’s grinning face was detailed and sharp in memory, though static. Heir apparent. He could not conjure an overall picture of Francine’s face, just individual features, and that bothered him.

“Carl’s got one last chance,” Rotterjack said.

“You think he’s giving him the good old ‘presidential’ speech?” Schwartz asked.

Rotterjack nodded.

Arthur glanced between them, puzzled.

“He’s going to talk to the President about what it means to be presidential,” Schwartz explained. “Taking coals to Newcastle, if you ask me. The Man knows everything there is to know about presidentiality.”

“The election’s day after tomorrow. Time to remind him,” Rotterjack said.

“You and I both know he’s got this election sewed up, as much as any election can be. You don’t understand what’s going on in his head,” Schwartz said.

“You’re supposed to be his cushion, his buffer, goddammit,” Rotterjack shouted, one arm shooting out suddenly and almost hitting Arthur. Arthur backed away a few inches but did not react otherwise. “You’re supposed to keep the crazy idiots away from him.”

“We’ve done everything we can to save him from himself,” Schwartz said. “McClennan tried ignoring his suggestions about national preparation. I pushed the meetings with the governors back in the schedule, lost the timetable the President drew up, changed the subject in Cabinet meetings. The President just smiled and tolerated us and kept hammering on the subject. At least everybody’s agreed to hold off until after the election and the inauguration. But between now, and whenever, we have to put up with Ormandy.”

“I’d like to talk with him,” Arthur said.

“So would we all. Crockerman doesn’t specifically forbid it…but Ormandy never lingers long enough for any of us to confront him. The man’s a goddamn shadow in the White House.”

Rotterjack shook his head and grinned. “You’d think Ormandy was one of them. ”

“Who?” Schwartz asked.

“The invaders.”

Schwartz frowned. “See what’s going to happen if the President goes public? We’re even beginning to think like gullible idiots.”

“Have you thought what could be happening?” Rotterjack persisted. “If they ‘manufactured’ the Guest, couldn’t they make robots that look human, human enough to pass?”

“I’m more frightened about what that idea can do to us than I am about it’s being true,” Arthur said.

“Yeah, well, there it is,” Rotterjack said. “Take it for what it’s worth. Somebody out there is going to think of it.”

“It’ll tear us apart,” Schwartz said. “Just what they might want. Christ, now I’m talking like that.”

“Maybe it’s just as well we bring it out in the open,” Arthur said. “We haven’t accomplished anything keeping it quiet.”

“Not the way he’d release it,” Rotterjack said. “What’ll you do if McClennan fails to get his point across — again?” he asked Schwartz.

“Eventually, after the election, I could resign,” Schwartz said, his tone flat, neutral. “He might want to put together a wartime Cabinet anyway.”

“Will you?”

Schwartz stared down at the sky-blue carpet. Arthur, following his gaze, thought of the myriad of privileges suggested by that luxurious color, so difficult to keep clean. A myriad of attractions to keep men like Schwartz and Rotterjack working.

“No,” Schwartz said. “I’m just too goddamn loyal. If he does this to me — to us, to all of us — I’ll resent him like hell. But he’ll still be the President.”

“There are quite a few congressmen and senators who’ll work to change that, if he does go public,” Rotterjack said.

“Don’t I know,”

“They’d be the real patriots, you know, not you and I.”

Schwartz’s face filled with pained resentment and frank acknowledgment. He half nodded, half shook his head and stood up from the desk. “All right, David. But we’ve got to keep the White House together somehow. What else is there? Who’ll take his place? The Veep?”

Rotterjack chuckled ironically.

“Right,” Schwartz said. “Arthur, if I make an appointment — if I ram it down the President’s throat — can you get Feinman out here, and can you and Hicks and he do your best to…you know? Do what we can’t?”

“If it can be in the next day or so, and if there are no delays.”

“Feinman’s that sick?” Rotterjack asked.

“He’s in treatment. It’s difficult.”

“Why couldn’t you have found…never mind,” Rotterjack said.

“Feinman’s the best,” Arthur replied to the half-stated query.