“I’d like to find the site’s weaknesses.”

“We don’t even know what it is,” Harry said.

Lehrman shook his head. “Everybody’s guessing it’s a disguised spaceship. Do you disagree?”

“I don’t agree or disagree. I simply don’t know,” Harry replied.

“Gentlemen,” Arthur said, “I think this isn’t quite the time. We should discuss this after the President has talked with the four witnesses and we’ve all seen the site together.”

Lehrman conceded this with a nod and gestured for them to continue. General Fulton entered the lab carrying a thick sheaf of papers in a manila folder and sat to one side, saying nothing.

“All right,” Crockerman said. “Let’s have a look at them.”

Eunice’s voice came over Edward’s intercom speaker: “Folks, you’re going to meet the President now.” With a hollow humming noise, the window cover slid down into the wall, revealing a transparent panel about two meters wide and one high. Through the thick double layers of glass, Edward saw President Crockerman, two men he didn’t recognize, and several other faces he knew vaguely from television.

“Excuse me for intruding, gentlemen and Ms. Morgan,” Crockerman said, bowing slightly. “I believe we know each other, even if we haven’t been introduced formally. This is Mr. Lehrman, my Secretary of Defense, and this is Mr. Rotterjack, my science advisor. Have you met Arthur Gordon and Harry Feinman? No? They’re in charge of the presidential task force investigating what you’ve discovered. I suspect you have a few complaints to pass on to me.”

“Pleased to meet you, sir,” Minelli said. Crockerman changed his angle. Edward realized they were all facing into the central laboratory. In the farthest window, at the opposite end of the curved wall, he could see Stella Morgan, face pale in the fluorescent lighting.

“I’d shake your hands if I could. This has been hard on all concerned, but especially hard on you.”

Edward mumbled something in agreement. “We don’t know what our situation is, Mr. President.”

“Well, I’ve been told you’re in no danger. You don’t have any…ah, space germs. I’ll level with you, in fact — you’re probably here more for security reasons than for your health.”

Edward could see why Crockerman was called the most charming of presidents since Ronald Reagan. His combination of dignified good looks and open manner — however illusory the latter was — might have made even Edward feel better.

“We’ve been worried about our families,” Stella said.

“I believe they’ve been informed that you are safe,” Crockerman said. “Haven’t they, General Fulton?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Ms. Morgan’s mother has been giving us fits, however,” Crockerman said.

“Good,” was Stella’s only comment.

“Mr. Shaw, we’ve also informed the University of Texas about you and your students.”

“We’re assistant professors, not students, Mr. President,” Reslaw said. “I haven’t received any mail from my family. Can you tell me why?”

Crockerman looked to Fulton for an answer. “You haven’t been sent any,” Fulton said. “We have no control over that.”

“I just wanted to stop by and tell you that you haven’t been forgotten, and you won’t be locked away forever. Colonel Phan informs me that if no germs are discovered within a few more weeks, there will be no reason to keep you here. And by that time…well, it’s difficult to say what will be secret and what won’t be.”

Harry glanced at Arthur, one eyebrow lifted.

“I have a question, sir,” Edward said.

“Yes?”

“The creature we found—”

“We’re calling it a Guest, you know,” Crockerman interrupted with a weak smile.

“Yes, sir. It said it had bad news. What did it mean by that? Have you communicated with it?”

Crockerman’s face became ashen. “I’m afraid I’m not allowed to tell you what’s happening with the Guest. That’s irritating, I know, but even I have to dance to the tune when the fiddler plays. Now I have a question for you. You were the first to find the rock, the cinder cone. What first struck you as odd about it? I need impressions.”

“Edward thought it was odd before we did,” Minelli said.

“I’ve never seen it,” Stella added.

“Mr. Shaw, what struck you most?”

“That it wasn’t on our maps, I guess,” Edward answered. “And after that, it was…barren. It looked new. No plants, no insects, no graffiti new or old. No beer cans.”

“No beer cans,” Crockerman said, nodding. “Thank you. Ms. Morgan, I plan on seeing your mother sometime soon. May I take any personal message to her? Something uncontroversial, of course.”

“No, thank you,” Stella said. Atta woman, Edward thought.

“You’ve given me something to think about,” Crockerman said after a moment’s silence. “How strong Americans are. I hope that doesn’t sound trite or political. I mean it. I need to think we’re strong right now. That’s very important to me. Thank you.” He waved at them, and turned to leave the laboratory. The curtains hummed back into place.

13

The sky over Death Valley was a leaden gray and the air still carried the chill of morning. The presidential helicopter landed at the temporary base set up by the Army three miles from the false cinder cone. Two four-wheel-drive trucks met the party and drove them slowly over the paved roads and unpaved Jeep trails, and then off the trails, lurching and growling around creosote bushes and mesquite and over salt grass, sand, chunks of lava, and desert-varnished rocks. The false cinder cone loomed a hundred yards beyond their stopping point, the edge of a bone-white desert wash that had been filled with water just ten days before. The perimeter of the mound was cordoned off by Army troops supervised by Lieutenant Colonel Albert Rogers from Army Intelligence. Rogers, short, wiry, swarthy-skinned, and gentle-eyed, met the presidential party of eight, including Gordon and Feinman, at the cordon perimeter.

“We’ve had no activity,” he reported. “We have our surveillance truck on the other side now, and a survey team on the top. There’s been no radiation of any sort beyond the kind of signature we expect from sun-heated rock. We’ve inserted sensors on poles up into the hole the three geologists found, but we haven’t sent anybody past the bend. Give us the order, and we will.”

“I appreciate your eagerness, Colonel,” Otto Lehrman said. “I appreciate your caution and discipline more.”

The President approached the cinder cone’s tall black north face, accompanied by two Secret Service agents. The Marine officer who carried the “football” — presidential wartime codes and emergency communications system in a briefcase — stayed by the truck.

Rotterjack dropped back a few paces to snap a series of pictures with a Hasselblad. Crockerman ignored him. The President seemed to ignore everybody and everything but the rock. Arthur worried about the expression on his face; tense yet slightly dreamy. A man informed of a death in the immediate family, Arthur thought.

“This is where the alien was found,” Colonel Rogers explained, pointing to a sandy depression in the shadow of a lava overhang. Crockerman walked around a big lava boulder and knelt beside the depression. He reached out to touch the sand, still marked by the Guest’s movements, but Arthur restrained him. “We’re still nervous about biologicals,” he explained.

“The four civilians,” Crockerman said, not completing his thought. “I met Stella Morgan’s granddaddy thirty years ago in Washington,” he mused. “A real country gentleman. Tough as nails, smart as a whip. I’d like to meet Bernice Morgan. Maybe I could reassure her…Can we arrange something for tomorrow?”

“We go to Furnace Creek Resort, after this, and tomorrow you’re meeting with General Young and Admiral Xavier.” Rotterjack looked over the President’s schedule. “That’s going to fill most of the morning. We’re to have you back at Vandenberg and aboard the Bird at two p.m.”