The American people are not impressed with these charges. How many of us, I wonder, have fixed any emotional or rational response at all? The scandal of the destruction of the extraterrestrials refuses to spread; the Australian government’s accusations of American complicity have been practically ignored around the world.

We have lived our lives on a globe undisturbed by outside forces, and now we are forced to expand our scale of thinking enormously. Western liberal tradition has encouraged an inward-turning, self-critical kind of politics, conservative in the true sense of the word, and President Crockerman is the heir to this tradition. The more forward-looking, expansive politics of Cooper and Farb have not yet struck a chord with Americans, if we are to believe the recent NEC poll, which gives Crockerman a rock-steady 30 percent lead just three days before voters go to the polls. This, without the President issuing any statements or making any policy regarding the Great Victoria Desert incidents.

26

Mrs. Sarah Crockerman wore a solemn, stylishly tailored gray suit. Her thick brown hair was carefully coiffed, and as she poured Hicks a cup of coffee, he saw her hands were immaculately manicured, the fingernails painted a metallic bronze, glinting softly in the gray winter light entering through French windows behind the dining table. The dining room was furnished in coffee-colored Danish teak, spare but comfortable. Beyond the second-story windows lay the broad green expanse of the U.S. National Arboretum.

Except for a Secret Service agent assigned to Hicks, a stolid-faced fellow named Butler, they were alone in the Summit Street apartment.

“The President kept this flat rented largely at my insistence,” she said, replacing the glass pot on its knitted pad. She handed him the cup of coffee and sat in the chair catercorner from him, her nyloned knees pushing up against the table leg as she faced him. “Few people know it’s here. He thinks we might be able to keep the secret another month or two. After that, it’s less my private hideaway, but it’s still here. I hope you appreciate how much this secret means to me.”

Butler had gotten off the phone and now stood by the window, facing the doorway. Hicks thought he resembled a bulldog, and Mrs. Crockerman a moderately plump poodle.

“My husband has told me about his preoccupations, naturally,” she said. “I can’t say I understand everything that’s happening, or…that I agree with all of his conclusions. I’ve read the reports, most of them, and I’ve read the paper you prepared for him. He is not listening to you, you know.”

Hicks said nothing, watching her over the rim of his cup. The coffee was very good.

“My husband is peculiar that way. He keeps advisors on long after they’ve served their purpose or have his ear. He tries to maintain an appearance of fairness and keeping an open mind, having those about him who disagree. But he doesn’t listen very often. He is not listening to you.”

“I realize that,” Hicks said. “I’ve been moved out of the White House. To a hotel.”

“So my secretary informs me. You’re still on call should the President need you?”

Hicks nodded.

“This election has been sheer hell for him, even though he hasn’t been campaigning hard. Their ‘strategy.’ Let Beryl Cooper hang herself. He’s sensitive, and he doesn’t like not campaigning. He’s still not used to being top dog.”

“My sympathies,” Hicks said, wondering what she was getting at.

“I wanted to warn you. He’s spending a lot of time with a man whose presence at the White House, especially during the campaign, upsets many of us. Have you ever heard of Oliver Ormandy?”

Hicks shook his head.

“He’s well known in American religious circles. He’s fairly intelligent, as such men go. He’s kept his face out of politics and out of the news the past few years. All the other fools” — she practically spat out the word — “have turned themselves into clowns before the media’s cyclops eye, but not Oliver Ormandy. He first met my husband during the campaign, at a dinner held at Robert James University. Do you know of that place?”

“Is that where they asked for permission to arm their security guards with machine pistols?”

“Yes.”

“Ormandy’s in charge of that?”

“No. He leaves that to one of the bellowing clowns. He glad-hands politicians in the background. Ormandy is quite sincere, you know. More coffee?”

Hicks extended his cup and she poured more.

“Bill has seen Ormandy several times the past week. I’ve asked Nancy, the President’s executive secretary, what they discussed. At first she was reluctant to tell me, but…She was concerned. She was only in the room for the second meeting, for a few minutes. She said they were talking about the end of the world.” Mrs. Crockerman’s face might have been plastered on, her anger stiffened it so. “They were discussing God’s plan for this nation. Nancy said Mr. Ormandy appeared exuberant.”

Hicks stared at the table. What was there to say? Crockerman was President. He could see whom he pleased.

“I do not like that, Mr. Hicks. Do you?” • “Not at all, Mrs. Crockerman.”

“What do you suggest?”

“As you say, he doesn’t listen to me anymore.”

“He doesn’t listen to Carl or David or Irwin…or me. He’s obsessed. He has been reading the Bible. The crazy parts of the Bible, Mr. Hicks. The book of Revelation. My husband was not like this a few weeks ago. He’s changed.”

“I’m very sorry.”

“He’s called Cabinet meetings. They’re discussing economic impact. Talking about making an announcement after the election. There’s nothing you could tell him…?” she asked. “He seemed to place great trust in you at first. Maybe even now. How did he come to trust you? He talked about you often.”

“It was a difficult time for him,” Hicks said. “He saw me after he met with the Guest. He’d read my book. I never agreed with his assessment…”

“Punishment. In our bedroom, that’s the key word now. He almost smiles when he talks about Ormandy’s use of the word. Punishment. How very trite that sounds. My husband was never trite, and never a sucker for religious fanatics, politically or otherwise.”

“This has changed all of us,” Hicks said softly.

“I do not want my husband undone. This Guest found his weakness, when nobody in three decades of politics — and I’ve been with him all that time — has ever gotten to him. The Guest opened him wide, and Ormandy crept into the wound. Ormandy could destroy the President.”

“I understand.” He could do worse than that, Hicks thought.

“Will you please do something? Try talking with my husband again? I’ll get you an appointment. He’ll do that much for me, I’m sure.” Mrs. Crockerman stared longingly at the French windows, as if they might be an escape. “It’s even strained our marriage. I’ll be with him on election eve, smiling and waving. But I’m thinking about staying here now. I can only take so much, Mr. Hicks. I cannot watch my husband undo himself.”

The air in the chief of staff’s office was thick with gloom.

Irwin Schwartz, face long and forehead pale, startling in contrast to his florid cheeks, sat on the edge of his desk with one leg drawn up as far as his paunch would allow, raised cuff exposing a long black sock and a few square inches of hairy white calf. A small flat-screen television perched on his desk like a family portrait, sound turned down. Again and again, the screen replayed the single videotaped record of the explosion of the Australian robot emissaries. Schwartz finally leaned over and poked the screen off with a thick finger.

Around him, David Rotterjack and Arthur Gordon stood, Arthur with hands in pockets, Rotterjack rubbing his chin.

“Secretary Lehrman and Mr. McClennan are with the President now,” Schwartz said. “There’s nothing I can say anymore. I don’t think I have his confidence.”