“He wouldn’t dare disband the group now.”

“No, he’ll keep us together, but I doubt he’ll let us do anything. I talked to Hicks a few hours ago, and from what he says, Crockerman’s even gone a step beyond Ormandy. Apocalypse. Get your papers in order. Here comes the auditor.”

“He can’t be all that…” Harry shook his head. “Can he?”

“I haven’t talked to him since we went into the Oval Office together. Now comes the media sideshow. We are going to be roasted alive over a slow fire. Since I have no specific orders, I’m going to check into the Furnace, and then go back to Oregon for a few days. Hide out.”

“What about the people in detention? Why are we holding them? They’re healthy.”

“They’re certainly no security risk,” Arthur agreed.

“We have the authority to let them go, don’t we?”

“We’re still ranked just below the President. I’ll call Fulton,” He still held Harry’s hand. He hadn’t let it go since sitting on the bed. “You’ve got to win this one, Harry.”

“Feeling mortal yourself, huh?” Harry’s face was serious. “You know, even Ithaca…She cries openly sometimes now. We cried together last night after she drove me back from the tests.”

“Nobody’s giving up on you,” Arthur said with surprising vehemence. “If your damned doctors can’t…we’ll find other doctors. I need you.”

“I feel like a real shit, letting you down,” Harry said.

“You know that’s a—”

“I mean it. I am very sick now. I don’t feel it yet, but in a week or two they’ll start other treatments, and I’ll be a wreck. I won’t be able to think straight. So let me tell you now. We have to start fighting back.”

“Fighting the Furnace, the Rock?”

“They’ve got us confused. They’ve accomplished that much…whoever they are. Blowing up their emissaries. Jesus! What a masterstroke. Giving us two stories, then making both seem like lies. And we’ve been a real good audience. It’s time to do what we can.”

“What is that?”

“You haven’t been thinking about it?”

“All right,” Arthur admitted. “I have.”

“You have to reestablish your channels of communication with the President. Encourage McClennan and Rotterjack to stay on. If that’s out of the question—”

“Too late now.”

“—Then talk to Schwartz. He knows damn well what the public reaction is going to be. Americans won’t accept this easily.”

“I’d hate to see the polls as to how many people believe anything is happening.”

“Leadership,” Harry said, his voice husky. “He has to assert his leadership. And we have to fight back.”

Arthur nodded abstractedly.

“Killing Cook. Remember?”

Arthur shook his head. “Only if they’re not omnipotent.”

“If they are, why would they try to confuse us?” Harry asked, his face darkening. He gripped Arthur’s hand more tightly. There was a time when Harry’s grip could have ground knuckles. Now it was a steady, insistent pressure; no more. “They have to believe we can hurt them somehow.”

Arthur nodded. Another conclusion had occurred to him, however, and it frightened him. He could hardly put it into words, and he certainly would not reveal it to Harry now. Poke a stick in the ants’ nest, he thought. Watch them scurry around. Learn about them. Then stomp the nest.

“Have you thought about what will happen to me if you don’t pull through?” Arthur asked.

“You’ll invite Ithaca up to Oregon, get her settled up there. Introduce her to friends. Find somebody promising who needs a good woman. Marry her off.”

“Christ,” Arthur said, crying now.

“See,” Harry said, tears running down his own cheeks. “You really care.”

“You bastard.”

Harry rolled his head aside and pulled up a pillow cover to wipe his eyes. “I’ve never been jealous of you. I could go for years without seeing you, because I knew you’d be there. But Ithaca. He’d better be a damned good fellow, the one you introduce her to. If anybody’s going to lie between her thighs but me, I’d better like him a hell of a lot.”

“Stop this.”

“All right. I’m tired. Can you stay around for dinner? I’m still able to eat. I won’t be able to keep it down much after next week. The old-fashioned treatments.”

Arthur told him he had to catch a plane shortly. Dinner was out of the question.

“Give me a call tomorrow, then,” Harry said. “Keep me informed.”

“You bet.”

“And talk some more with Hicks. He could replace me.”

Arthur shook his head at the whole idea.

“I don’t want you to get the impression I’ve been pinned to the mat by this,” Harry said. “I’ve been thinking crazy thoughts for days now. I’m going to write them down soon.”

“Crazy thoughts?” Arthur asked.

“Putting it all in perspective. The aliens, my cancer, the Earth, everything.”

“That’s a tall order.”

“You bet. Keeps my mind off the rest of this nonsense.” He thumped his chest and abdomen with his hand. “Might even be useful, sometime…”

“I’d like to hear it,” Arthur said.

Harry nodded. “You will. But not now. It still hasn’t jelled.”

29

The blue and white taxi roared and jerked along the winding road up the slope of the hill with frightful speed and efficiency. Samshow sat rigid in the back, leaning this way and that against the curves, wondering if he should have accepted the invitation when there was so much work to be done. Outside, night jungle rushed by, relieved by lighted entrances to private roads and ghostly houses floating out above the hillside. Below, visible occasionally through the trees, lay the bright spilled jewel box of Honolulu.

Sand had told him there would be interesting people at the party. He had gone on ahead two hours before. The Glomar Discoverer had put in at Pearl Harbor that morning, and the invitation from Gina Fusetti had come by telephone at ten o’clock. Mrs. Fusetti, wife of University of Hawaii physics professor Nathan Fusetti, was known across the Pacific for her parties. “We can’t turn this one down,” Sand had said. “We need a few hours’ rest, anyway.”

Samshow had reluctantly agreed.

Fingers faltering through a palm full of dollar bills and change, he paid and tipped the driver and stepped back quickly to avoid a spray of gravel from the rear wheels. Then he turned and looked at a broad, split-level pseudo-Japanese house draped with hundreds of electric folding paper lanterns, its stone walkway flanked by carved lava tikis with candle-burning eyes.

Even from where he stood, he could hear people talking — but no loud music, for which he was profoundly grateful.

A tall young woman opened the door at his knock and smiled brightly. “Mom!” she called out. “Here’s another. Who are you?”

“Walt Samshow,” he said. “Who are you?”

“Tanya Fusetti. My parents…you know. I’m here with my boyfriend.”

“You must be Doctor Samshow!” Gina Fusetti stalked intently through the archway leading to the sunken dining room, rubbing her hands and smiling gleefully. In her late sixties, hair gone completely white, she regarded Sam-show with smiling, squint-eyed worship, ushering him inside, equipping him with a beer (Asahi) and a paper plate of hors d’oeuvres (teriyaki tuna and raw vegetables). “We’re very pleased to have so distinguished an author and scientist with us,” Mrs. Fusetti said, smiling her thousand-watt smile. “Mr. Sand is in a back room with some friends…He told us you’d be here.”

Sand came through a side door. “Walt, glad you’ve finally come. Something extraordinary—”

“Ah, there he is!” She nodded at both of them, still smiling. “Such a pleasure to have men capable of saying something when they talk!” Another arriving guest drew her away. As she departed, she gave him an ushering wave of both hands — party, enjoy.

“She’s pretty extraordinary,” Samshow said.

“Acts like that with everybody. She’s a charmer.”