John Barnes - Directive 51

Ramirez glanced around first, and kept his voice low. “You’ve known President Weisbrod a long time?”

“Twenty-one years. More than half my life.”

“Do you think he’s up to the job?”

“I think he’ll do his absolute best to do it,” except of course when he’s reveling in having his ego massaged—and whatever else Allie is massaging for him.

Meow, she self-critiqued. She knew that wasn’t completely fair, and hell, a few months ago, if Graham had found a younger, intelligent girlfriend like Allie… Well, but I have to clean up the mess that this made of Arnie to keep our Genius in Chief functioning, and deal with Allie’s complete devotion to Graham’s career; used to be he had a chief of staff who would tell him when he was being an idiot, not encourage it. It seems dumb in an egotistical way, Graham, I just want to say that to you and have you listen, I just want you to consider it.

“I guess that’s all we can really ask of anyone,” the bandleader said.

His words fit her thought so well that it took her a moment to retrace the conversation. “I wish I knew for sure that Graham Weisbrod’s best would be as much as we need. I wasn’t really trying to evade your question, or not much, anyway. It’s just that there’s three questions behind it. Will Graham do his best? He always has, as long as I’ve known him.” Crossed fingers. “Will his best be good enough for the job? I wish I knew.” Crossed till the knuckles bleed. “And could anyone’s best be good enough to do the job, or is it just impossible? Only God knows that.” And You’ d better be crossing Your fingers, too.

The man nodded. “Well, tell him we all pray for him to succeed.”

“He knows, but I’ll tell him again.”

Comparatively, arranging the Rangers was easy; they knew how to march, they all knew where they were going, they’d march there. “I don’t think we can get lost,” Captain Parmenter said, grinning. “We know we’re between the band and the screaming junkpile.”

She grinned back. “Thanks for giving me a one-minute break between people with difficulties. Congratulations on the unit honor and I’m going to applaud my brains out when you receive it.”

Her next stop was at the “screaming junkpile”—the experimental coal-dust turbine car from Evergreen State that was going to be carrying the mayor, the governor, and the base commander from Lewis. Its best feature was also its worst; the experiment with putting a damped hydraulic into a double-bowed axle, so that the whole thing could run on steel-rimmed wheels, seemed to be working, but with only a greased axle for a bearing, it made a horrendous grinding squeal. At least it would keep people from noticing any mistakes by the band. Actually it could easily keep people from noticing a fire engine, an air raid, and Rainier erupting.

The two engineering professors in charge of it were warming it up, so it was hard to hear each other over the whoosh and howl of its exhaust, but she figured they knew that they were supposed to follow the Rangers and not drop back where their foul blue exhaust might annoy the president, who would be riding with General McIntyre, the new Secretary of the Armed Forces, in a ceremonial coach, pulled from a museum, in which an early governor of Washington had once ridden.

And if Allie is in there with them, I’m going to rip her hair off to use for wadding when I ram her puny tits down her throat. The least he could do is make a First Lady of her; they should be thinking about how it looks to have the Chief of Staff be the presidential skank. Whoa, that thought came naturally. Guess I’ll have to keep working on those professionalism and civility issues. Maybe HR will offer a seminar or something.

Behind Graham Weisbrod and Norm McIntyre, there would be a wagon with the rest of the Cabinet-To-Be, mostly politicians with a scattering of professors and businesspeople, all from Washington and Oregon.

Heather made sure the new Cabinet were all there, ready to “walk and wave.” Heather told them that as far as she was concerned, it would be fine if Commerce and Future held hands during the parade; made sure Education’s backup wheelchair would stay within easy reach; and reassured Treasury and Foreign Relations that this wasn’t too much like a circus coming to town. Not too much. Actually I’m afraid it may not be enough.

Wonder if anyone will even notice that Graham Weisbrod reorganized and renamed half the jobs in the Cabinet? Let alone that he should have waited for Congress to do that, that it’s their prerogative.

After the Cabinet, there was the agglomeration of volunteer organizations and units whose positions Heather had allocated by rolling dice, which she privately thought of as the Department of Everything Else: everyone who just wanted to be in the first inaugural parade ever held in the new national capital. There were Boy Scout troops, fragmentary high-school bands, and the GLBT Small Apple Growers (it had become clearer once she realized that it was the farm, not the apple, that was small); several unions, veterans’ associations, and the Daughters of the World Wars; antique machinery buffs driving steam combines and highwheels, a diving salvage company that was pledging to be the “first back in the water,” and the “Portland to Reno Reconstituted Pony Express, Orphans Preferred.” She wasn’t sure she wanted to speculate about how you reconstituted a pony.

The parade took a surprisingly long time, for many reasons. Some of the marching units were made up of the elderly, some of the rolling units broke down, and the Secret Grand Master of the Parade appeared to be Murphy, but miraculously, though it was chilly, it wasn’t painfully cold. The weather was astonishingly good; Rainier gleamed magnificently in the distance, the sky was a deep cloudless blue, and the winter sunshine was almost warm. Graham Weisbrod and Norm McIntyre seemed to be perfectly happy to just stand and wave from their platform in front of the Winged Victory statue, as an hour went by getting the last unit into the West Circle between the Capitol and the Governor’s Mansion.

When, finally, everyone was in place, and it was established that the hand-built tube amp was working for the moment, the ceremonies began. Graham took the oath of office again, this time from an Appeals Court judge. If he wants to go any higher he’ll have to appoint some Supremes. They all said the new, modified pledge to the old, unmodified fifty-star flag—Graham’s position was that there was no other government, just a somewhat-uppity temporary regional military command; that no other states had aligned with it, just some were reporting to that temporary office as a matter of convenience; and that the eleven states in the Northeast that many people were calling the Lost Quarter were going to call in any minute now. Graham had General McIntyre confer the new title of the President’s Own Rangers on the Second Ranger Battalion, which was authorized to expand into a regiment with all deliberate speed.

Finally, Graham began his Inaugural Address. It might have earned an A on a creative writing prof ’s assignment to “write your inaugural address,” Heather thought. Weisbrod pledged that everyone would work hard, thanked everyone for coming, announced the Cabinet lineup officially, and urged every state that was able to do so to elect or appoint replacement Senators and Representatives and have them here by February 1st. He commended the offer from the Governor of Washington, who had prepared a list of citizens of other states who were known to be in Washington and willing to be appointed if getting someone here before February 1st would be too difficult.