Footfall

Flying saucers. Spaceships. Silly, the President thought. The sort of stuff the midwestern papers ran when there wasn’t any other news. Fakery. Or insanity. Except that Wes Dawson wasn’t crazy, had never been crazy, and even though he was acting manic, he wasn’t crazy now.

“Let me get this straight, Wes,” Coffey said. “The astronomers have seen a spaceship approaching Earth. It will be here next month. You want to go meet it.”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“Wes, do you know — scratch that. Of course you know how goofy this sounds. All right, assume it’s all true. Why you?”

“Somebody has to,” Dawson said. “And the fact that I used up all my favors to be the first to tell you about it ought to show I’m interested.”

“Yeah, I give, you that.”

“I’m on both Space and Foreign Relations. You ought to have somebody from the Congress when we go out to meet them.”

“Why go out to meet them at all?”

“Because … it’s more fitting, sir,” Dawson said. “Think about it. Mr. President, they came from a long way off. From another star—”

“Sure about that?” the Chief of Staff asked. “Why not from another planet?”

“Because we’ve seen all the likely planets close up, and there’s no place for a civilization,” Dawson said patiently. “Anyway. Mr. President, they came from a long way off. Even so, they’ll, recognize that the first step is the hard one. We want to meet them in orbit, not wait for them to come here.

“Let me try to put it in perspective,” he said. “Would the history of the Pacific Islands have been different if the first time the Europeans encountered Hawaiians, the Polynesians had been well out at sea in oceangoing boats? Mightn’t they have been treated with more respect?”

“I see,” the President said. “You know, Wes, you just may be right. That’s assuming there’s anything to this.”

“If there is, do I get to go?” Dawson asked.

David Coffey laughed. “We’ll see about that,” he said. He turned to the Chief of Staff. “Jim, get hold of General Gillespie. Get him on a plane for Washington . And the Army captain who discovered this thing.” He sighed. “And get it on the agenda for the cabinet meeting today. Let’s see what the Secretary of State has to say about welcoming the Men from Mars.”

Wes Dawson walked back from the White House to his offices in the Rayburn Building . He didn’t really have time to do that, but it was a fine morning, and the walk would do him good, and he was too excited to work anyway.

The President hadn’t said no!

Wes strolled quickly through the Federal Triangle and along Independence Avenue . He’d done that often, but he still tended to gawk at the great public buildings along the way. It was all there. Government granite, magnificent buildings in the old classic style, built to last back when America had craftsmen able to compete with the great builders of old Greece and Rome. And more than that, The Archives, with the original Constitution and Declaration of Independence to make you misty-eyed and silent and remind you that we’d done things even the Romans couldn’t, we’d invented a stable government of free citizens. Beyond that was the Smithsonian, old castle and new extension.

The President hadn’t said no! I’m going to space! Only — only would President Coffey remember? It wasn’t an ironclad promise. No one had heard it but Jim Frantz. If the President forgot, the Chief of Staff would forget too, because Coffey might have had a reason to forget. Or … It’s too fine a morning to think that way. Coffey didn’t say no! I really could go to space!

Ahead was the Space Museum , with its endless traffic, the only building in Washington that drew crowds during weekend blizzards. Wes wanted to look in. Just for a moment. There was work to do, and Carlotta would be waiting in the office to hear what happened in his meeting with the President, and he ought to hurry, but dammit. Across from the museum was NASA itself.

Wes gri

“I know a secret,” he said aloud as he looked up toward the eighth-floor corner office of the Administrator, Have they told him by now? Maybe they’ll even have him at the Cabinet meeting.

But I’m the one who told the President, and I’ve got my claim staked … And I’m the right man. I’ve been waiting for this day all my life. I’m in good shape — well, reasonably good. I’ll be in better. I’ll run every day… He ran a couple of steps, realized that wasn’t practical for a man in a dark pinstripe three-piece suit, and gri

Aliens! The full force of it hit him just as he reached the Capitol reflecting pool. They’re really here. Aliens. This is where human history breaks into two pieces. The search for extraterrestrial intelligence is over, the aliens are coming… Take that. Bill Proxmire!

He climbed the hill to the Rayburn building and walked between the two monstrous statues that faced each other across the granite steps. They were the ugliest statues in Washington, crude attempts to portray the majesty and compassion of the law in Greek classical style but done by a very bad sculptor who hadn’t understood what the Greeks were trying to do — and who hadn’t known much about human anatomy either. Wes gri

His aides hurried to intercept him as he entered his suite of offices. Wes knew he was late, but dammit! Now here came Larry with a fistful of messages. Wes waved him aside and went past the receptionist and into his office, bursting to tell Carlotta. She was seated in his chair. A dozen Boy Scouts from his district were draped on the other chairs and couches. Oh, damn, Wes thought, and put on his best smile.

Carlotta saw the fixed political grin on her husband’s face. but she could see beyond it to the glow of enthusiasm in Wes’s eyes. He didn’t need to say anything. After all, they’d lived together nearly twenty-five years, and had been married for twenty-two. She could tell.

Wes has a chance. A chance to be the ambassador of the human race. No, make that consul or whatever the hell they call the second in charge of an embassy. The Russians are likely to provide the ambassador. Thank God I made Wes learn some Russian, Her bed would be empty now, and that wouldn’t be so good, but he sure looked happy. Couldn’t wait to tell her about it.

But the Scouts were here. Bad timing, but the appointment was made weeks ago. How could anyone know Congressman Dawson would eat his breakfast at the White House?

The boys swarmed around Wes. He seemed friendly enough. Not too friendly. He wasn’t making many political points with this visit. Why couldn’t the damn kids go away?

That wasn’t really fair. She’d encouraged them to come herself. Carlotta liked boys. All congressmen welcomed visiting Bdy Scouts, but Wes and Carlotta were happier than most when they came to Washington . Not just Scouts. All boys.

If Simon had lived … Carlotta thought. But he hadn’t. Simon Dawson, age three months, dead of whatever it was that killed babies in their first year: Silent Killer, Crib Death.

The doctors had told her she couldn’t have more children. She’d gambled anyway, and very nearly died in childbirth. It was a month before she could hold her daughter in her arms, and another before she recovered, and it was obvious that Sharon would be the only child of the Dawson family, the only heir to two long and respectable lines. That was almost twenty years ago. Sharon was enrolled at Radcliffe now, and didn’t think much of her father’s career. Carlotta had never been able quite to understand why.