Chapter 16

Hindsight is confoundedly futile. At the moment the first saucer landed the menace could have been stamped out by one determined man and a bomb. At the time "The Cavanaughs"-Mary, the Old Man, and I-reconnoitered around Grinnell and in Des Moines, we three alone might have killed every slug had we been ruthless and, more important, known where they all were.

Had Schedule Bare Back been ordered during the fortnight after the first landing it alone might have turned the trick. But by the next day it was clear that Schedule Bare Back had failed as an offensive measure. As a defense it was useful; the uncontaminated areas could be kept so, as long as the slugs could not conceal themselves. It had even had mild success in offense; areas contaminated but not "secured" by the parasites were cleaned up at once... Washington itself, for example, and New Philadelphia. New Brooklyn, too-there I had been able to give specific advice. The entire East Coast turned from red to green.

But as the area down the middle of the country filled in on the map, it filled in red, and stayed so. The infected areas stood out in ruby light now, for the simple wall map studded with push pins had been replaced by a huge electronic military map, ten miles to the inch, covering one wall of the conference room. It was a repeater map, the master being located down in the sublevels of the New Pentagon.

The country was split in two, as if a giant had washed red pigment down the Central Valley. Two zigzag amber paths bordered the great band held by the slugs; these were overlap, the only areas of real activity, places where line-of-sight reception was possible from both stations held by the enemy and from stations still in the hands of free men. One such started near Minneapolis, swung west of Chicago and east of St. Louis, then meandered through Tennessee and Alabama to the Gulf. The other cut a wide path through the Great Plains and came out near Corpus Christi. El Paso was the center of a ruby area as yet unconnected with the main body.

I looked at the map and wondered what was going on in those border strips. I had the room to myself; the Cabinet was meeting and the President had taken the Old Man with him. Rexton and his brass had left earlier. I stayed there because I had not been told where to go and I hesitated to wander around in the White House. So I stayed and fretted and watched amber lights blink red and, much less frequently, red lights blink amber or green.

I wondered how an overnight visitor with no status managed to get breakfast? I had been up since four and my total nourishment so far had been one cup of coffee, served by the President's valet. Even more urgently I wanted to find a washroom. I knew where the President's washroom was, but I did not have the nerve to use it, feeling vaguely that to do so would be somewhere between high treason and disorderly conduct.

There was not a guard in sight. Probably the room was being scanned from a board somewhere; I suppose every room in the White House has an "eye & ear" in it; but there was no one physically in view.

At last I got desperate enough to start trying doors. The first two were locked; the third was what I was looking for. It was not marked "Sacred to the Chief" nor did it appear to be booby-trapped, so I used it.

When I came back into the conference room, Mary was there.

I looked at her stupidly for a moment. "I thought you were with the President?"

She smiled. "I was, but I got chased out. The Old Man took over for me."

I said, "Say, Mary, I've been wanting to talk with you and this is the first chance I've had. I guess I-Well, anyway, I shouldn't have, I mean, according to the Old Man-" I stopped, my carefully rehearsed speech in ruins. "Anyhow, I shouldn't have said what I did," I concluded miserably.

She put a hand on my arm. "Sam. Sam, my very dear, do not be troubled. What you said and what you did was fair enough from what you knew. The important thing, to me, is what you did for me. The rest does not matter-except that I am happy again to know that you don't despise me."

"Well, but-Damn it, don't be so noble! I can't stand it!"

She gave me a merry, lively smile, not at all like the gentle one with which she had greeted me. "Sam, I think you like your women to be a little bit bitchy. I warn you, I can be so." She went on, "You are still worried about that slap, too, I think. All right, I'll pay it back." She reached up and patted me gently on the cheek, once. "There, it's paid back and you can forget it."

Her expression suddenly changed, she swung on me-and I thought the top of my head was coming off. "And that," she said in a tense, hoarse whisper, "pays you back the one I got from your girlfriend!"

My ears were ringing and my eyes did not want to focus. If I had not seen her bare palm, I would have sworn that she had used at least a two-by-four.

She looked at me, wary and defiant, not the least apologetic-angry, rather, if dilated nostrils meant anything. I raised a hand and she tensed-but I just wanted to touch my stinging cheek. It was very sore. "She's not my girlfriend," I said lamely.

We eyed each other and simultaneously burst out laughing. She put both her hands on my shoulders and let her head collapse on my right one, still laughing. "Sam," she managed to say, "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have done it-not to you, Sam. At least I shouldn't have slapped you so hard."

"The devil you're sorry," I growled, "but you shouldn't have put English on it. You damn near took the hide off."

"Poor Sam!" She reached up and touched it; it hurt. "She's really not your girlfriend?"

"No, worse luck. But not from lack of my trying."

"I'm sure it wasn't. Who is your girlfriend, Sam?" The words seem coquettish; she did not make them so.

"You are, you vixen!"

"Yes," she said comfortably, "I am-if you'll have me. I told you that before. And I meant it. Bought and paid for."

She was waiting to be kissed; I pushed her away. "Confound it, woman, I don't want you 'bought and paid for'."

It did not faze her. "I put it badly. Paid for-but not bought. I'm here because I want to be here. Now will you kiss me, please?"

So help me, up to that moment she had not turned on the sex, not really. When she saw that the answer was yes, she did so and it was like summer sun coming out from a cloud. That is inadequate but it will have to do.

She had kissed me once before; this time she kissed me. The French are smart; they have two words for it . . . this was the other one. I felt myself sinking into a warm golden haze and I did not ever want to come up.

Finally I had to break and gasped. "I think I'll sit down for a minute."

She said, "Thank you, Sam," and let me.

"Mary," I said presently, "Mary, my dear, there is something you possibly could do for me."

"Yes?" she said eagerly.

"Tell me how in the name of Ned a person gets anything to eat around here? I'm starved. No breakfast."

She looked startled; I suppose she had expected something else. But she answered, "Why, certainly!"

I don't know where she went nor how she did it. She may have butted into the White House pantry and helped herself. But she returned in a few minutes with a tray of sandwiches and two bottles of beer. Corned beef and rye put the roses back in my cheeks. I was cleaning up my third when I said, "Mary, how long do you figure that meeting will last?"

"Let me see," she answered, "fourteen people, including the Old Man. I give it a minimum of two hours. Why?"

"In that case," I said, swallowing the last bite, "we have time to duck out of here, find a registry office, get married, and get back before the Old Man misses us."

She did not answer and she did not look at me. Instead she stared at the bubbles in her beer. "Well?" I insisted.