The garments and skin colors varied with the architectural backdrops, but the scenes were otherwise depressingly alike. Seething seas of humanity: fists shaking, faces contorted in anger, mouths agape in angry chanting. Desecrated flags—usually American, with a scattering of Russian. Hand-lettered signs—always in English—denouncing the two great nuclear powers. Uncle Sam in effigy, hung or aflame or trampled underfoot.
Why isn't anything Russian ever hung in effigy? wondered Harold Robeson. An effigy bear, maybe? Hal, isn't there something more productive you could be thinking about?
There was a hesitant tap. His secretary was befuddled by his blowing off a long-scheduled confab with a key senator, for no apparent reason other than navel gazing. "Yes, Sheila."
A mass-of-black-curls head poked through a barely ajar door into the Oval Office. "Secretary McDowell to see you, sir."
Nathan McDowell, the secretary of state, was a short, pudgy fellow, his acne-scarred face dominated by a plug nose and a scruffy goatee. He evidently went out of his way to find ill-fitting suits, which he then had professionally rumpled. The contrast of his dishevelment with his ten-steps-ahead thinking could not have been starker. "Mr. President."
They were alone, old friends who'd met as Marine lieutenants in Nam. The formality was ominous. He pointed at a chair. "Take a load off. What's up, Nate?"
Ignoring the invitation, Nate studied the muted monitors. "Basking in the appreciation of our fellow citizens of Earth?"
"I never expect appreciation, but is holding down the stupidity so much to ask?"
"Not stupid, Hal, only ill-informed. Reacting to dashed hopes." His friend paused, hands clasped behind his back, watching the chanting mobs. "Do you know how many billion people on this Earth live in grinding poverty? How many have yet to use a phone?
"The arrival of the Galactics was a big deal to them." McDowell gestured at the screens. "In some ways, more than for the advanced countries. These people are taught—with some justification—to blame the major powers for colonialism and Cold War proxy wars, for the banking panics that periodically crush their economies, for global warming. The Galactics stood for hope. They promised new wonders for Earth. The poorest on our planet had the most to gain, while the envied, and sometimes hated, First World was revealed in its technological shortcomings.
"Now we and the Russians have taken all that away."
"What hope?" Robeson pounded what had once been Teddy Roosevelt's desk. "Dammit, Nate, the aliens were genocidal. We and the Russians, the ones being reviled in Cairo and Beijing, in Caracas and Lagos and wherever, we saved the world from megadeaths, to be followed by radioactive fallout and maybe nuclear winter. We suffered hundreds of casualties stopping it all."
"So we say." McDowell raised his hand. "Don't shoot the messenger. If you're a subsistence farmer or sweatshop worker in a Third World hell hole, would you believe aliens came from another star to meddle in human politics?"
"You think we should have revealed the aliens tried to destroy us for their movie?"
"Despite being the truth, that is even less believable. What's our evidence? Shot-up F'thk robots just prove the aliens were wise not to leave their ship in person. Swelk's debriefing videos? Since her responses came from a translator gadget, anyone skeptical will 'know' the tapes were dubbed." Nate shook his head. "How many Americans believe the Apollo landings were staged? No, the Krulirim first-level deception—that balance-of-power issues in their Galactic Commonwealth made Earth expendable—remains our best bet. There are lots of countries whose politicians were part of the F'thk whispering campaign."
"Do these fools think Atlantis blew itself up, that our early-warning satellites spontaneously fried themselves? Why, in God's name, do they suppose we attacked the aliens?"
McDowell finally settled into a chair. "You know why, Hal, unpalatable as it sounds. For very good reasons, we and the Russians mock-waged Cold War II. For our gambit to succeed, that mutual hostility had to be believable—and it was. We have the casualties to prove it. You can't expect everyone to suddenly believe we were kidding.
"Details vary from version to version, but here's what most people, including Americans, think. The Twenty-Minute War was our misguided attempt to turn Cold War Two hot. Radioactively hot. Benevolent aliens did their best to protect Earth from our folly, downing our missiles and slagging launching sites. In retaliation, or to disrupt the alien meddling, we killed the ETs we could reach. The other aliens, those aboard the moon-orbiting mother ship, left in disgust."
Robeson jammed his hands into his pockets—the President can't be seen plopping his head wearily into his cupped hands, not even by his oldest confidant. Too bad. "If the aliens are the heroes, what do the rioters think holds us back now? We have plenty of missiles left."
"They think," said McDowell, "we came momentarily to our senses. And that they'd better keep our minds focused." A muted screen changed scenes, from the humanity-filled Tiananmen Square to the besieged American embassy in Jakarta. "Or that the quasi-coup in Moscow cooled things down."
Robeson shivered. It had been so close. Dmitri Chernykov had failed in the first requirement of an officeholder: knowing how secure was his grip on power. He was supposed to have had another few days before the nationalists made their move. "Will their new coalition hold?"
"Nam was simpler, wasn't it?" McDowell was standing again, holding a Marine Corps-era snapshot of them he'd taken off a bookshelf. "Ending a firefight unshot and uncaptured meant things were fine." He put back the photo. "My Russia experts say the power-sharing pact may be stable. The nationalists in the coalition seem fervently to believe the credible disinformation about a shooting war. In their eyes, Chernykov is a hero for lobbing nukes at us. That said, near-immolation is a bit scary. They're content to let things simmer down. America, goes the current thinking, knows better now than to try pushing around Mother Russia."
"Meaning Chernykov must pretend belligerence. It keeps getting better." Robeson took a bottle of spring water from the well-concealed mini-refrigerator. "Something for you?"
"Got anything harder?" To Robeson's glance at a clock, Nate added, "It's late enough in London."
"What did the Brits do now? Don't tell me they don't accept the truth." Robeson splashed liquor into a glass. His reach for the water carafe drew a frown; he delivered the scotch neat. Something bad was coming.
"To paraphrase a former occupant of this office, it depends what your definition of 'accept' is. Recognize the validity of our data, yes. Believe what we say transpired, yes." McDowell took a long swallow. "Understand why they weren't party to the deliberations? Show willingness to come to terms with their exclusion? Not . . . a . . . chance."
Flashes of color outside the Oval Office window caught his eye. The first was his visiting three-year-old granddaughter, who had, she'd proclaimed at breakfast, dressed herself. He had to laugh. Brittany had on lime-green pants, a maroon-and-gray plaid shirt, and yellow sneakers. A broken kite dragged and bounced behind her. His daughter and two Secret Service agents tagged along. He tore his eyes away. "Go on, Nate."
"It's more than the Brits. France, Germany, Canada, Japan . . . pick your loyal ally. They're all outraged." Another swig. "As a diplomat, I understand. Not consulting a long-time partner is bad enough. They don't much like the explanation: we considered telling them what was really happening an unacceptable security risk. They can't handle that, for the best of reasons, I grant you, we flat-out lied to them." McDowell drained the glass. "I lied to them."
"No more than did I."
Nate stared into the empty tumbler, looking old. At long last he said, "The difference is, you were elected."
"No." The suggestion was too horrible to consider. "You're not resigning."
"Yes, I am. America's best friends have a real problem with us. We've lost credibility, and only something dramatic will show our contrition. They want proof of our remorse." McDowell poured a refill. "It's for the greater good."
"Your resignation is not accepted. I need your help, Nate."
"Then take it. My considered opinion is I'm expendable." McDowell waved at Brittany, skipping past the window again. "I have grandkids, too. You'll be doing me a favor."
"I didn't become President to sacrifice my friends." In meaningless symbolic atonement, Robeson's thoughts continued. At that instant, he truly hated his job.
"But you will." McDowell's smile was worldly-wise, as if reading his mind. "I don't recall the Constitution making you the planet's guardian, either—but you are."
"Pour me a shot," Robeson said. They both knew that meant, "Yes."
The spring day was delightful. Only a few high clouds scudded across a blue sky. Flowering trees were in full bloom; the air was thick with pollen; the gentle breeze was warm. Elementary-school students streamed by, teachers and parental escorts shushing and herding.
Nuclear war and alien Armageddon alike seemed as unreal as snow.
"Great place," said Kyle. He sat beside Darlene on a bench at the National Zoo, the new Girillian habitat before them. That exhibit's popularity was in no way reduced by complete ignorance where Girillia was. The snaking queue of tourists extended well past the sign that read: three hours wait from this point. The adjacent Panda House, home of the zoo's famous Chinese great pandas, was for the first time in Kyle's knowledge without its own line.
"Lovely." Darlene brushed an errant lock of hair from her eyes. "Swelk would've approved."
Nearby, an elephant trumpeted. A swampbeast—almost certainly Smelly, Kyle thought—boisterously harrumphed back. Not a day had passed since the near-apocalypse at Reagan National that he did not think of Swelk, but visiting her charges here was especially wrenching. "I made a promise, the day we met. She was channel surfing at my house while I made arrangements for her. She asked to see elephants."
"It's not your fault, Kyle."
"She specifically sought my help. If not my fault, then whose?" As close as he and Dar had become in their grief, the silence stretched awkwardly. Kyle found himself studying the faint lunar crescent, scarcely visible in the day sky. "I don't know that Krulirim ever wear shoes, but I keeping waiting for a huge boot to drop."
"They're gone, Kyle. All gone. The hologram of the mother ship disappeared—you know this—while . . . while the ship was burning. The satellites they left behind are inert."
He understood the catch in Dar's throat: she could as accurately have identified that instant as just before Swelk's death. Delta Force surveillance cameras had captured the brief appearance amid the flames of an antenna. Much analysis later, he knew the dish had been aimed at the moon. Something had been transmitted: the mother ship had vanished seconds later. "In a way, I wish we had been better able to hear those last exchanges on the bridge." And in a way, that would have made their helpless witnessing of Swelk's death yet more painful . . . even though it seemed she passed away entirely at peace. "Whatever the reason—the crackling flames, or Grelben and Swelk coughing from the smoke, or overheating of the hidden computer through which we eavesdropped—so much that we heard was garbled, incomplete.
"What was in the file 'Clean Slate'? Steps to reverse however much of the damage they could? Or some sort of doomsday device?" Despite the balmy weather, he shivered.
"Kyle, you'll drive yourself crazy." She squeezed his hand. "Why don't we go see the girls?" Dar had adopted Swelk's kittens, now eight months old.
He squeezed back. "I'd like that." And I like you, though he wasn't prepared to explore that feeling. He didn't think she was quite ready either. But there would come a time . . .
Strolling together to the subway station, Kyle tried hard not to stare up at the ghostly moon. On that lifeless world, so central to the aliens' deceptions, he somehow knew Earth's future would be determined.