Jack McDevitt - Ancient Shores

The country loved Matt Taylor as they had no other president since FDR. He was perceived by many as a new Harry Truman. He possessed several of Truman’s finest characteristics: an unbending will when he believed he was right, uncompromising integrity, and a willingness to say what he meant in plain English. This latter tendency sometimes got him in trouble, as when he offhandedly remarked within the hearing of journalists that it might be prudent, during the visit of a certain Middle Eastern potentate, to hide the White House silver.

Taylor explained his solid ratings by saying that the American people understood that he did what he thought was right, and to hell with the polls. “They like that,” he would say. “And when they reach a point where they don’t trust my judgment anymore, why, they’ll turn me out. And good riddance to the old son of a bitch.”

The president’s political alarms over the North Dakota business had been sounding all winter. His advisors had told him not to worry. It was just a crop circle flap, the sort of thing to stay away from, to deflect at press conferences. A chief executive who starts talking about flying saucers is dead. No matter what happens, he is dead. That was what they said. So he had kept away from it, and now it was blowing up. The stock market today had dropped 380 points.

“They’re already calling it Black Wednesday,” said Jim Samson, his treasury secretary. Samson was now trying to pretend he’d been warning the President all along to take action.

It was a turbulent time. There were six wars of strategic interest to the United States being fought with varying degrees of energy, and another fifteen or so hotspots. Famine was gaining, population growth everywhere was shifting into overdrive, and the UN had all but given up the dream of a new world order. The American transition from an industrialized economy to an information economy was still creating major dislocations. Corruption in high places remained a constant problem, and the splintering of the body politic into fringe groups that would not talk to each other continued. On the credit side, however, the balance of trade looked good; the long battle to reduce runaway deficits was finally showing positive results; racism, sexism, and their attendant evils seemed to be losing ground; drug use was way down; and medical advances were providing people with longer and healthier lives. Perhaps most important for a politician, the media were friendly.

The truth was that Matt Taylor could not take credit for the latter trends any more than he could be blamed for the former. But he knew that whatever else happened, he had to have a strong economy. If he lost that, the dislocations accompanying the evolution through which the western world was now passing were going to get a lot worse. He could not allow that. He was not going to stand by and watch hordes of homeless and unemployed reappear on the American scene. No matter what it took.

“A blip,” Tony Peters said. “These things happen.”

Peters was chairman of the president’s Fiscal Policy Council. He was also an old ally, with good political instincts. Of the people who had come up with him from Baltimore to the White House, no one enjoyed a greater degree of Taylor’s confidence.

“Tony,” the president said, “it’s only a blip if there’s nothing to it. What happens if they really have a metal up there that won’t break down or wear out?”

“I agree,” said Samson. “We need to find out what the facts are here.”

Peters frowned. “As I understand it, Mr. President, it’s not a metal.”

“Whatever.” Taylor pushed back in his chair and folded his arms. “They can make sails out of it. And they can make buildings. The issue is, what happens to the manufacturing industries if they suddenly get materials to work with that don’t break down periodically?” He shook his head. “Suppose people buy only one or two cars over a lifetime. What does that mean to GM?” He took off his glasses and flung them on the desk. “My God,” he said, “I don’t believe I’m saying this. All these years we’ve been looking for a way to beat the Japanese at this game. Now we have it, and it would be a catastrophe.”

Taylor was short and stocky. He wore nondescript ties and well-pressed suits that were inevitably last year’s fashion.

“Mr. President,” said Peters, “it’s all tabloid stuff. No one is going to be able to mass-produce supermaterials.”

“How do you know? Have we looked into it?”

“Yes. Everybody I’ve talked to says it can’t happen.”

“But we have samples.”

“We saw a lot of lightning before we learned how to put it into a wall switch. What we need to do is get everybody’s mind off this thing. Pick one of the wars, or the Pakistani revolution, and start sounding alarms.”

There was this about Tony Peters: He was the only person Taylor had ever known who seemed to understand what drove economies, and who could make that insight clear to others. He also knew the Congress, the power brokers, and the deal makers. He was an invaluable aide to an activist president. But Taylor knew his chairman’s limits. To Peters, experience was everything. One learned from it and applied its lessons succinctly, and one could never go far wrong. But what happened when you ran into a problem that transcended anything you’d seen before? What good was experience then?

“I want you,” said Taylor, “to talk to some of the people who’ve been out there. Top people, right? Find out what’s really going on. What the risks are. Not what your experts say can’t happen.”

Peters stared back. “You’re not serious,” he said. “We shouldn’t get anywhere close to this thing, Mr. President. We start asking questions, and it’ll get around.”

“Try to be discreet, Tony. But goddammit, the markets are in the toilet. Find somebody who understands these things and get me some answers. Definitive ones. I want to know if that thing is for real. And if it is, what’s it going to do to the economy.” He felt tired. “I don’t want any more guesswork.”

Al Easter was the most aggressive shop steward the Dayton, Ohio, subsidiary of Cougar Industries had ever known. The rank and file joked that managers did not go out alone at night, fearing Al might be roaming the streets. Management cautiously sought union advice on any decision that could be construed as a change in work conditions. And they tended to be very lenient with the workers. Even Liz Mullen, who’d been caught taking staplers, computer disks, and assorted other office supplies home, where she’d been running an independent retail operation, had survived. She’d gotten a reprimand when she should have been fired and gone to jail.

Al’s most effective tactic was the threat of the instant response. He was quite willing (or at least management believed he was, which amounted to the same thing) to call a work stoppage or slowdown to protest the most trivial issue. No attempt to warn a recalcitrant employee or to revise a work schedule was immune to reprisal, should Al consider principle at stake.

The steward made no secret of his view that everyone in management was on a power trip and that only he stood between the vultures in the executive suite and the well-being of the workers.

He was not empowered by the national union to act in so arbitrary a manner, but their occasional formal rebuffs were halfhearted and hypocritical. They knew who held the cards in Dayton. When Al announced a slowdown or called the workers out, everyone in the plant responded as one person. The National Affiliated Union of Helpers, Stewards, and Mechanics might get around several days later to chiding him, but in the meantime he would have made his point.