Greg Bear - The Forge of God

“We need you here, Harry,” the President said earnestly. “We can’t afford to lose you now.”

“That’s not what I’ve been hearing, Mr. President,” Harry said. Crockerman showed some puzzlement. “You haven’t been listening to anybody I trust around here, much less myself.”

“Gentlemen,” Crockerman said, raising his eyebrows. “Time to speak openly. And I apologize for being inaccessible recently. Time has been precious.”

Schwartz leaned forward on his chair, clasping his hands. As he spoke, he raised his eyes slowly from his feet to Crockerman’s face. “Mr. President, we’re not here to mince words. I’ve told Harry, and Trevor, and Arthur, that it’s going to take some powerful persuasion to move you back onto a rational course. They’ve come loaded for bear.”

Crockerman nodded and rested his hands lightly on the edge of the desk, as if he might push away at any moment. His expression remained pleasant, alert.

“Mr. President, the First Lady did indeed speak to me,” Hicks said.

“She’s not speaking to me, you know,” Crockerman said levelly. “Or not often, at any rate. She doesn’t share our convictions.”

“Yes,” Hicks said. “Or rather, no…Mr. President, my colleagues — “ He cast a pleading look at Arthur.

“We assume you’re still planning to tell the public about the Death Valley bogey,” Arthur said, “and about the Guest.”

“The story will break soon one way or the other,” Crockerman said. “It must be kept quiet past the election and the inauguration, but after that…” He lifted three fingers from their grip on the edge of the desk and shrugged slightly.

“We’re not at all sure about your emphasis, sir…” Arthur paused. “Surrender will not sit well with the country.”

Crockerman hardly blinked. “Surrender. Accommodation. Nasty words, aren’t they? But what choice have we against superhuman forces?”

“We do not know they are superhuman, sir,” Harry said.

“It would take us thousands, perhaps millions of years to rival their technology — if indeed we can even call it technology. Think of the power to destroy an entire moon, and push its fragments into collisions with other worlds…”

“We don’t know that these events are connected,” Arthur said. “But I think we could equal them with a couple of hundred years of progress.”

“What does it matter, two centuries or two millennia? They can still destroy our world.”

“We don’t know that,” Schwartz said.

“We don’t even know of whom we speak when we say ‘they,’” Hicks said.

“Angels, powers, aliens. Whatever they might be.”

“Mr. President,” Hicks said, “we are not facing God’s wrath.”

“It seems we face something equivalent in force, whatever the ultimate source,” Crockerman said. “Can something so catastrophic happen to the Earth without God’s approval? We are His children. His punishments are not random, not when they’re on such a huge scale.”

Hicks noted that the President’s pronoun for God had assumed traditional gender now. Was that Ormandy’s doing?

“We have no evidence the Earth can be destroyed,” Harry said. “What we need . .’. we need a smoking gun, something that proves that the power they claim to have does indeed belong to them. We don’t have a smoking gun.”

“They reveal their intentions clearly enough,” Crockerman said. “The self-destruction of the Australian robots shows them to be bringers of false testimony. When their lies are discovered, and pointed out to them, they vanish. Their message of hope is a deception. I believe I knew that, sensed it, before the news from Australia arrived. Ormandy certainly did.”

“None of us puts any faith in Mr. Ormandy,” Schwartz said.

Crockerman was obviously irritated by this, but kept his calm. “Ormandy does not expect the accolade of scientists. He — and I — believe affairs have passed out of the control of our particular witch doctors. Not to show disrespect for your hard work and expertise. He and I realized there was a job to do here, and that we are the only ones capable of doing it.”

“What exactly will your job be, Mr. President?” Arthur asked.

“Not an easy one, I assure you. Our country doesn’t believe in giving up without a fight. I acknowledge that much. But we cannot fight this. Nor can we go to our fate ignorant of what is happening. We have to face the music courageously. That’s my job — to help my country face the end bravely.”

Crockerman’s face was pale and his hands, still pushing on the edge of the desk, trembled slightly. He might have been close to tears.

Nothing was said for several long seconds. Arthur felt a blanket of shock closing around him. Microcosm of what the country will feel. The world. Not a message we want to hear.

“There are alternatives, Mr. President. We can take action against the bogeys, both in Australia and Death Valley,” Harry said.

“They’re isolated,” Schwartz said. “The political repercussions…almost nil. Even if we fail.”

“We can’t simply do nothing,” Arthur said.

“We can do nothing effective, truly,” Crockerman said. “I think it would be cruel to raise false hopes.”

“More cruel to dash all hope, Mr. President,” Schwartz said. “Are you going to close the banks and stock exchanges?”

“It’s being seriously considered.”

“Why? To preserve the economy? With the end of the world in sight?”

“To keep calm, to maintain dignity. To keep people at their jobs and in their homes.”

Hicks’s face was flushed now. “This is insanity, Mr. President,” he said. “I am not a citizen of the United States, but I cannot imagine a man in your office…with your power and responsibility…” He waved his hands helplessly and stood. “I can assure you the British will not react so mildly.”

Ganging up on him, Arthur thought. Still can’t see her face.

Crockerman opened the folder marked DIRNSA. He pulled out a group of photographs in Mylar envelopes and spread them on the table. “I don’t think you’ve seen the latest from the Puzzle Palace,” he said. “Our NSA people have been very busy. The National Reconnaissance Office has compared Earth satellite photographs from the last eighteen months for almost all areas of the globe. I believe you initiated this search, Arthur.”

“Yes, sir.”

“They’ve found an anomaly in the Mongolian People’s Republic. Something that wasn’t there a year ago. It looks like a huge boulder.” He gently pushed the photographs at Schwartz, who examined them and passed them on to Arthur. Arthur compared three key photographs, beautiful computer-enhanced abstractions of blue-gray, brown, red, and ivory. A white circle about an inch wide surrounded a bean-shaped black spot in one photograph. In two earlier, otherwise practically identical photos, the black spot was absent.

“That makes a triad,” Crockerman said. “All in remote areas.”

“Have the aliens talked with the Mongolians, the Russians?” Arthur asked. The Mongolian People’s Republic, despite a fiction of autonomy, was controlled by the Russians.

“Nobody knows yet,” the President said. “If there are three, there could easily be more.”

“What sort of…mechanism do you envisage them using?” Harry asked. “You and Mr. Ormandy.”

“We have no idea. We do not second-guess the agents of supreme power. Do you?”

“I’m willing to try,” Harry said.

“Will you disband the task force?” Arthur asked.

“No. I’d like you -to keep on studying, keep asking questions. I am still capable of admitting we might be wrong. Neither Mr. Ormandy nor I are fanatics. We must talk with the Russians, and the Australians, and urge cooperation.”