“I guess I’m ready,” Roger said.

“Oh, sure. I know you are,” said Brad, surprised. “Haven’t they been giving you updates on your readouts? You’re functioning like a seventeen-jewel watch, Roger. All the surgery is over now. You’ve got everything you need.” He sat back, studying Roger. “If I do say so” — he grinned — “you’re a work of art, Roger, and I’m the artist. I just wish I could see you on Mars. That’s where you belong, boy.”

One of the watchers cleared his throat. “It’s getting toward that time, Dr. Bradley,” he said.

The worried look returned to Brad’s face. “Coming right away. Take care, Rog. I’ll be back to see you later.”

He left, and the three government agents followed him, as Clara Bly came in and fussed around the room.

A mystery was suddenly clear. “Dash is coming to see me,” Roger guessed.

“Smart!” sniffed Clara. “Well, I guess it’s all right for you to know. It wasn’t all right for me to know. They think it’s a secret. But what kind of secret is it when they turn the whole hospital upside down? They’ve had those guys all over the place since before I came on duty.”

“When will he get here?” Roger asked.

“That’s the part that is a secret. From me, anyway.”

But it did not stay a secret very long; within the hour, to an unheard but strongly felt “Hail to the Chief,” the President of the United States came into the room. With him was the same valet he had had on the presidential jet, but this time he was obviously not a valet, only a bodyguard.

“Marvelous to see you again,” said the President, holding out his hand. He had never seen the revised and edited version of the astronaut before, and certainly the dully gleaming flesh, the great faceted eyes, the hovering wings must have looked strange, but what showed in the President’s well-disciplined face was only friendship and pleasure. “I stopped off a little while ago to say hello to your good wife, Dorrie. I hope she’s forgiven me for messing up her fingernail polish last month; I forgot to ask. But how are you feeling?”

How Roger was feeling was once again amazed at the thoroughness of the President’s briefing, but what he said was, “Fine, Mr. President.”

The President inclined his head toward the bodyguard without looking at him. “John, have you got that little package for Colonel Torraway? It’s something Dorrie asked me to bring over to you; you can open it when we’ve gone.” The bodyguard placed a white-paper package on Roger’s bedside table and slid a chair over for the President in almost the same motion, just as the President was preparing to sit down. “Roger,” said the President, sharpening the creases in his Bermudas, “I know I can be honest with you. You’re all we’ve got now, and we need you. The indices are looking worse every day. The Asians are spoiling for trouble, and I don’t know how long I can keep from giving it to them. We have to get you to Mars, and you have to function when you get there. I can’t overestimate the importance of it.”

Roger said, “I think I understand that, sir.”

“Well, in a way, I guess you do. But do you understand it in your gut? Do you really feel, deep down, that you’re that one man, maybe two, in a generation who somehow or other gets himself in a position that’s so important to the whole human race that even inside his own mind what happens to him doesn’t measure up in importance? That’s where you are, Roger. I know,” the President went on sorrowfully, “that they’ve taken some mighty sacrificial liberties with your person. Didn’t give you a chance to say yes, no or maybe. Didn’t even tell you. It’s a piss-poor way to treat any human being, let alone somebody who means as much as you do — and somebody who deserves as well as you do, too. I’ve kicked a bunch of asses around here about that. I’ll be glad to kick a lot more. If you want it done, tell me. Any time. It’s better if I do it than you — with those steel muscles they’ve given you, you might damage a few of those pretty behinds on the nurses past the point of repair. Do you mind if I smoke?”

“What? Oh, hell, no, Mr. President.”

“Thanks.” The valet had an open cigarette case in one hand and a glowing lighter in the other as soon as the President stretched out his hand. He took a deep draw and leaned back. “Roger,” he said, “let me tell you my fantasy about what I think is in your mind. You’re thinking, ‘Here’s old Dash, politician to the end, full of bulishit and promises, trying to trick me into pulling his chestnuts out of the fire. He’d say anything, he’d promise anything. All he wants is what he can get out of me.’ Anywhere near right, so far?”

“Why — no, Mr. President! Well… a little bit.”

The President nodded. “You’d be crazy if you didn’t think a little bit of that,” he said matter-of-factly. “It’s all true, you know. Up to a point. It’s true I’d promise you anything, tell you any lies I could think of to get you to Mars. But the other thing that’s true is that you have us all by the genial organs, Roger. We need you. There’s a war coming if we don’t do something to stop it, and it’s crazy but the trend projections say the only thing that can stop it is putting you on Mars. Don’t ask me why. I just go by what the technical people tell me, and they claim that’s what the computers print out.”

Roger’s wings were stirring restlessly, but the eyes were intent on the President.

“So you see,” said the President heavily, “I’m appointing myself your hired hand, Roger. You tell me what you want. I’ll make damn sure you get it. You pick up that phone any time, day or night. They’ll put you through to me. If I’m asleep, you can wake me if you want to. If it can wait, you can leave a message. There’s going to be no more fucking you around in this place, and if you even think it’s happening you tell me and I’ll stop it. Christ,” he said, grinning as he started to stand up, “do you know what the history books are going to say about me? ‘Fitz-James Deshatine, 1943 — 2026, forty-second President of the United States. During his administration the human race established its first self-sustaining colony on another planet.’ That’s what I’ll get, Roger, if I get that much — and you’re the only one who can give it to me.

“Well,” he said, moving toward the door, “there’s a governor’s conference waiting for me in Palm Springs. They expected me six hours ago, but I figured you mattered a hell of a lot more than they did. Kiss Dorrie for me. And call me. If you don’t have anything to complain about, call me to say hello. Any time.”

And he left, with a dazzled astronaut staring after him.

Take it any way you liked, Roger reflected, it was really a pretty spectacular performance, and it left him feeling both awed and pleased. Subtracting 99 percent of it as bullshit, what was left was highly gratifying.

The door opened, and Sulie Carpenter came in, looking faintly scared. She was carrying a framed photograph. “I didn’t know what kind of company you were moving in,” she said. “Do you want this?”

It was a picture of the President, signed, “For Roger from his admirer, Dash.”

“I guess I do,” said Roger. “Can you hang it up?”

“When it’s a picture of Dash, you can,” she said. “It has a self-hanging gadget. Right up here?” She pressed it against the wall near the door and stepped back to admire it. Then she looked around, winked and pulled a flat black camera the size of a cigarette pack out of her apron. “Smile at the birdie,” she said, and snapped away. “You won’t rat on me? Okay. I’ve got to be going — I’m not on duty now, but I wanted to look in on you.”

Roger leaned back and folded his hands on his chest. Things were turning out rather interestingly. He had not forgotten the internal pain of the discovery of his castration, and he had not put Dorrie out of his mind. But neither was perceived as pain any more. There were too many newer, more pleasant thoughts overlaying them.