The Secret Servicemen nodded.

“Yes, we got to show we’re not afraid,” Max said. “Sure, we’ll get finalization; we’ll blast the buggers.”

The Secret Servicemen laughed good-naturedly.

Pleased, Max nudged the leader of the group. “I think we’re pretty goddam strong; I mean, the U.S.A. has got teeth.”

“You tell ‘em, Max,” one of the Secret Servicemen said, and they all laughed aloud. Max included.

As they stepped from the elevator they were stopped by a tall, well-dressed man who said urgently, “Mr. President, I’m Jonathan Kirk, White House press secretary; I think before you go in there to confer with the NSC people you should address the nation in this hour of gravest peril. The public wants to see what their new leader is like.” He held out a paper. “Here’s a statement drawn up by the Political Advisory Board; it codifies your—”

“Nuts,” Max said, handing it back without looking at it. “I’m the President, not you. Kirk? Burke? Shirk? Never heard of you. Show me the microphone and I’ll make my own speech. Or get me Pat Noble; maybe he’s got some ideas.” And then he remembered that Pat had sold him out in the first place; Pat had gotten him into this. “Not him either,” Max said. “Just give me the microphone.”

“This is a time of crisis,” Kirk grated.

“Sure,” Max said, “so leave me alone; you keep out of my way and I’ll keep out of yours. Ain’t that right?” He slapped Kirk good-naturedly on the back. “And we’ll both be better off.”

A group of people with portable TV cameras and lighting appeared, and among them Max saw Jim-Jam Briskin, in the middle, with his staff.

“Hey, Jim-Jam,” he yelled. “Look, I’m President now!”

Stolidly, Jim Briskin came toward him.

“I’m not going to be winding no ball of string,” Max said. “Or making model boats, nuthin’ like that.” He shook hands warmly with Briskin. “I thank you,” Max said. “For your congratulations.”

“Congratulations,” Briskin said, then, in a low voice.

“Thanks,” Max said, squeezing the man’s hand until the knuckles creaked. “Of course, sooner or later they’ll get that noise-box patched up and I’ll just be stand-by again. But—” He grinned gleefully around at all of them; the corridor was full of people now, from TV to White House staff members to Army officers and Secret Servicemen.

Briskin said, “You have a big task, Mr. Fischer.”

“Yeah,” Max agreed.

Something in Briskin’s eyes said: And I wonder if you can handle it. I wonder if you ‘re the man to hold such power.

“Surely I can do it,” Max declared, into Briskin’s microphone, for all the vast audience to hear.

“Possibly you can,” Jim Briskin said, and on his face was dubiousness.

“Hey, you don’t like me any more,” Max said. “How come?”

Briskin said nothing, but his eyes flickered.

“Listen,” Max said, “I’m President now; I can close down your silly network—I can send FBI men in any time I want. For your information I’m firing the Attorney General right now, whatever his name is, and putting in a man I know, a man I can trust.”

Briskin said, “I see.” And now he looked less dubious; conviction, of a sort which Max could not fathom, began to appear instead. “Yes,” Jim Briskin said, “you have the authority to order that, don’t you? You’re really President…”

“Watch out,” Max said. “You’re nothing compared to me, Briskin, even if you do have that great big audience.” Then, turning his back on the cameras, he strode through the open door, into the NSC bunker.

Hours later, in the early morning, down in the National Security Council subsurface bunker, Maximilian Fischer listened sleepily to the TV set in the background as it yammered out the latest news. By now, intelligence sources had plotted the arrival of thirty more alien ships in the Sol System. It was believed that seventy in all had entered. Each was being continually tracked.

But that was not enough, Max knew. Sooner or later he would have to give the order to attack the alien ships. He hesitated. After all, who were they? Nobody at CIA knew. How strong were they? Not known either. And—would the attack be successful?

And then there were domestic problems. Unicephalon had continually tinkered with the economy, priming it when necessary, cutting taxes, lowering interest rates… that had ceased with the problem-solver’s destruction. Jeez, Max thought dismally. What do I know about unemployment! I mean, how can I tell what factories to reopen and where?

He turned to General Tompkins, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who sat beside him examining a report on the scrambling of the tactical defensive ships protecting Earth. “They got all them ships distributed right?” he asked Tompkins.

“Yes, Mr. President,” General Tompkins answered.

Max winced. But the general did not seem to have spoken ironically; his tone had been respectful. “Okay,” Max murmured. “Glad to hear that. And you got all that missile cloud up so there’re no leaks, like you let in that ship to blast Unicephalon. I don’t want that to happen again.”

“We’re under Defcon one,” General Tompkins said. “Full war footing, as of six o’clock, our time.”

“How about those strategic ships?” That, he had learned, was the euphemism for their offensive strike-force.

“We can mount an attack at any time,” General Tompkins said, glancing down at the long table to obtain the assenting nods of his co-workers. “We can take care of each of the seventy invaders now within our system.”

With a groan, Max said, “Anybody got any bicarb?” The whole business depressed him. What a lot of work and sweat, he thought. All this goddam agitation—why don’t the buggers just leave our system ? I mean, do we have to get into a war? No telling what their home system will do in retaliation; you never can tell about unhuman life forms—they’re unreliable.

“That’s what bothers me,” he said aloud. “Retaliation.” He sighed.

General Tompkins said, “Negotiation with them evidently is impossible.”

“Go ahead, then,” Max said. “Go give it to them.” He looked about for the bicarb.

“I think you’re making a wise choice,” General Tompkins said, and, across the table, the civilian advisors nodded in agreement.

“Here’s an odd piece of news,” one of the advisors said to Max. He held out a teletype dispatch. “James Briskin has just filed a writ of mandamus against you in a Federal Court in California, claiming you’re not legally President because you didn’t run for office.”

“You mean because I didn’t get voted in?” Max said. “Just because of that?”

“Yes sir. Briskin is asking the Federal Courts to rule on this, and meanwhile he has announced his own candidacy.”

“WHAT?”

“Briskin claims not only that you must run for office and be voted in, but you must run against him. And with his popularity he evidently feels—”

“Aw nuts,” Max said in despair. “How do you like that.”

No one answered.

“Well anyhow,” Max said, “it’s all decided; you military fellas go ahead and knock out those alien ships. And meanwhile—” He decided there and then. “We’ll put economic pressure on Jim-Jam’s sponsors, that Reinlander Beer and Calbest Electronics, to get him not to run.”

The men at the long table nodded. Papers rattled as briefcases were put away; the meeting—temporarily—was at an end.

He’s got an unfair advantage, Max said to himself. How can I run when it’s not equal, him a famous TV personality and me not? That’s not right; I can’t allow that.

Jim-Jam can run, he decided, but it won’t do him any good. He’s not going to beat me because he’s not going to be alive that long.

A week before the election, Telscan, the interplanetary public-opinion sampling agency, published its latest findings. Reading them, Maximilian Fischer felt more gloomy than ever.