The bellhop shrugged. "You change your mind, you can find me. My name's Pete. See you around." He strode out of the room.

Cassius shrugged. He didn't like paying for it. He did like doing it, though, so maybe he'd hunt up Pete and maybe he wouldn't. In the meantime, he looked at the room-service menu. He ordered a steak and a salad and fried potatoes. Experience had taught him that those were hard for even a kitchen asleep at the switch to screw up too badly.

Another white man, this one with a foreign accent, brought the dinner into his room on a cart. Cassius tipped him, too. With a nod that was almost a bow, the waiter left. Cassius attacked the steak. They'd got medium-rare right, and the meat was pretty tender. He'd had plenty worse.

He went to bed without looking for Pete. He felt more tired than virtuous. He didn't know why sitting on a train for the trip down from Boston should have worn him out-he hadn't done anything but sit. But he'd seen several times that traveling long distances could be as wearing as a march with Gracchus' guerrillas.

After the alarm clock woke him, he showered and shaved and dressed in a sober suit set off by a bright red tie. Then he went downstairs for breakfast.

Willard's, at the corner of Fourteenth and Pennsylvania Avenue, was only a couple of blocks from the White House, on whose battered grounds the inauguration ceremony would take place. It was even closer to the security perimeter, which featured barbed wire, machine-gun nests, and search points.

Even though Cassius had one of the most recognizable faces in the USA and an official invitation, he got frisked. "I shot the President of the CSA," he complained. "You reckon I'm gonna shoot the President of the USA?"

"Not our job to take chances," answered the soldier patting him down. "But I'll tell you something-Congresswoman Blackford came through this checkpoint a few minutes ago. She was married to a guy who was President. One of our gals searched her anyway." He paused. "You're clean. Go on through."

"Thanks," Cassius said. If they were searching members of Congress, they hadn't singled him out because he was a Negro. He'd wondered.

He showed his invitation to an usher who might have been a soldier dressed up for the occasion. "Oh, yes, sir," the man said-he couldn't have been more than a year or two older than Cassius. "Come with me. We've got you a place right near the podium."

Cassius went past bleachers filling up with dignitaries and their wives. A woman waved to him. That was Congresswoman Blackford-the soldier hadn't been lying to him. He waved back.

There was a special grandstand right behind the podium where the new President would be sworn in. Newsreel cameras in front of the podium would capture the moment so people all over the country could see it. They were sure to capture Cassius. He didn't mind. Till he learned some skill to help him get through the rest of his life, all he had to trade on was the one moment when his rifle spoke for him.

Some of the people sitting around him were generals and admirals. Others had to be important Democratic dignitaries. Their party had been out of office for eight years. Now they got to run things again. They were friendly to him. They shook his hand and congratulated him. Then they went back to chatting with one another, talking about all the things they would do now that they could do them.

The seats on the podium started to fill up: there were the incoming Vice President and his wife. There was the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. There were outgoing President La Follette and his wife. And there, at last, were incoming President Dewey and his wife-and a flock of hard-eyed bodyguards around them.

Vice President Truman was sworn in first. He gave no speech and had no counterpart to shake his hand. President La Follette had been Vice President before the Confederate bomb killed his predecessor, and the office stayed empty after he left it.

When Truman sat down, Dewey stood up. So did La Follette, who took his place beside the Chief Justice. The new President took the oath: "I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

As soon as Dewey finished the oath, President-no, ex-President-La Follette took a step forward and shook his hand. Then he sat down on the podium. The Chief Justice also shook hands with President Dewey. He too sat down.

Dewey stood behind the lectern and its undergrowth of microphones. All the wireless webs would be sending his words live across the country. "It is a privilege to be here," Dewey said. "You have entrusted me with the great responsibility of winning the peace. I would like to congratulate my distinguished predecessor, President La Follette, for winning the desperate war Jake Featherston started."

Cassius clapped along with everybody else. Now that Dewey had won, he could afford to be gracious to the man who'd gone before him.

The new President looked out at the crowd. He was young and smartly dressed. He looked eager to get on with things. He sounded the same way: "Now that peace has come, we will be prosperous. And we will stay strong. Some in what were the Confederate States may think they can drive us out. I stand before the people of the United States-I stand before the people of the reunited States-to tell them they are wrong."

More applause rose. Cassius clapped harder this time than he had before. He wanted the Confederates to get everything that was coming to them and then some. People around him clapped again, too. He didn't think most of them clapped as loud as they had before. He did think that was too bad.

"And I stand before the foreign powers of the world to remind them that the United States are strong, and to remind them that we shall protect ourselves come what may, and with whatever means seem necessary," Dewey went on. "The superbomb is an awful, terrifying weapon. We shall not use it unless provoked. But those who might provoke us had better know they do so at their peril."

This time, the hand he got was loud and long. Was he telling Japan to watch out? Or was he warning the Kaiser? Cassius had found out more about foreign countries since coming to the United States than he ever knew down in Georgia. The only foreign lands he'd ever thought of there were the USA-which wasn't foreign any more-and the Empire of Mexico, because Mexicans had come to work in Augusta and Mexican soldiers had tried to kill him. The world seemed a wider, more complicated place than it had in the days before he shot Jake Featherston.

"My administration will seek to prevent nations that do not now possess the superbomb from acquiring it," Dewey said. "We have seen at first hand the devastation it inflicts. The German Empire walks side by side with us in this effort. Both Germany and the United States recognize the danger to world peace if irresponsible governments gain the ability to split the atom."

Japan, then-not the Kaiser after all, Cassius thought. He also wondered how President Dewey knew the United States and Germany would be responsible. Cassius decided he probably didn't. But they already had the superbomb, and they didn't aim to let anyone else join their club.

Wasn't Dewey whistling in the dark about his chances of succeeding? The thought had hardly crossed Cassius' mind before the President said, "I know preventing others from building superbombs will be neither easy nor cheap. We do intend to try, however. The safety of the world is at stake."

Behind Cassius, a general leaned over to his wife and murmured, "When it doesn't work, he can say we gave it our best shot." Cassius was sure he wasn't supposed to hear that. He was also sure it made more sense than he wished it did.