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«ACS troopers get drunk and stoned a lot, Mr. President. 'Cause we're always the ones who clean up the battlefields after the generals fuck us. And after all the fucked-up calls on Barwhon, this one takes the cake.»
President Edwards held a hand up to the Detail chief, who was about to explode. «So. What do you think I should do? Resign?»
«No,» said Hadcraft in a firm tone. «Ru
The President nodded his head. «So it's time to leave?»
«Yes, Mr. President,» said the Detail chief, with a final glare at the Marine.
«Where are we going?» asked the chief executive disinterestedly.
«Camp David, Mr. President,» said the Detail chief.
«But there's a teensy problem,» noted the Marine. There was a note of grim humor in his voice.
«We can't stay here. Because of all the bridges, General Horner won't guarantee that there won't be a crossing. But we've had landings all over, Mr. President,» noted the Detail chief with a harried sigh. «We just had another one in Pe
«And don't forget,» noted the captain in a wry voice. «There's a division between here and there. And some of them might not be as forgiving of presidential errors as I am.»
The President held up his hand again to the Detail chief. «So, what's the answer?»
«Put you in a suit,» answered Hadcraft.
The President blinked rapidly in surprise. «I thought that only one person could wear a suit.»
«Well,» said the Marine, turning his hands palm up. «There's a long story there.»
«Make it short,» said the President.
«Okay,» sighed the captain. He walked over and sat on the edge of the conference table without asking permission. The President noted that crumbs from the secretary of defense's last meal danced off the table top and hung momentarily in the air. He finally realized that the suit's antigravity system must have activated to reduce the impact of the half-ton suit on the relatively fragile table.
«The first thing is, suits are fitted to a person,» said the captain. «And once they've been 'hardened' to that shape, it takes an act of God, or at least an Indowy master-craftsman, to get 'em changed. That's why we try to make sure that people are go
«But somebody can put on another person's suit. If they are generally the same shape.»
«I take it that I'm generally the same shape as someone in the Unit?» asked the President, dryly.
The suit was silent for a moment. The President was sure that if he could see the face of the officer it would show a certain amount of chagrin.
«It's not something that we talk about, sir,» Hadcraft continued, reluctantly then stopped.
«What?»
The suit finally did the palm-up gesture again. The President realized that it might be the only gesture open to a combat suit user. «More than half of the Unit is chosen on the basis of the physiology of the sitting President. We always realized that if the shit hit the fan we'd want the protectee in armor.»
«Oh.» The President looked at the Detail chief, who was trying hard to hide a stu
The Secret Service officer shook his head. «You guys pla
«Hey, Agent,» said the Marine with a grim chuckle, « 'expect victory and plan for defeat' is the only way to survive on Barwhon. So, yeah, we pla
The suit did not change position an iota, but something told the Secret Service agent he was being regarded. He nodded in acceptance of that important point.
«Anyway,» continued the Marine after a moment, «we've got an open suit. Sergeant Martinez was on leave and won't make it back anytime soon. Home of record is Los Angeles.»
«I take it that Sergeant Martinez is my size,» said the slight President with a chuckle.
«Yeah,» answered the captain. «That ain't the other problem.»
«So what is the other problem?»
«Well, there's two more. One major and the other minor.»
«Tell me the major first,» said Rohrbach, humorlessly.
«Okay. The way these things work is that they 'read' our nervous signals. It generally takes about thirty hours for them to get fully worked in. And the program that drives the pseudonerves is an autonomous AID that picks up not only our neural signals but also our 'personality.' And it's built off of a completely different algorithm than the AID's,» the Marine continued, pointing at the President's AID on the desktop. «So the 'gestalt' is capable of taking over control of the suit if the human inside is injured and doing all sorts of things that an AID would be constrained against. Like, surgery, combat, all sorts of things.»
«Hold it,» said the Detail chief. «You mean there's a self-directing computer in there with some sort of 'personality'? How is it going to react to the President being in there?»
«We don't know how it's going to react,» admitted the Unit commander.
«No,» snapped the Detail chief. «No way!»
«What,» asked Hadcraft in a tired, cynical voice, «you want to truck him through a landing in one of your fuckin' Suburbans?»
«Wait,» said the President. «Just stop. Captain, can we . . . talk to this personality? Tell it what's happening? Reason with it?»
«Yes, probably and I don't know. You see, we don't even notice the gestalt. The thing is us. Do you carry on a conversation with your spleen?» he asked rhetorically.
«So you're going to try to talk to it before I try it on?»
«Yes, sir. And if we think it's too dangerous, we won't proceed,» he continued, more to the Detail chief than to the President.
The President held up his hand to forestall the protest of the Detail chief and nodded his head. «Okay, we'll try it. I agree that wandering around in a Suburban given the situation is not a good idea. You mentioned there was one more minor problem?»
«Uh, yeah,» said the Marine, with a chagrined tone.
* * *
Roselita Martinez was apparently a very angry woman. If there was such a thing as ESP, President Edwards was experiencing it. The rage of the suit transmitted up a link that was supposed to be u
«Mr. President,» said the captain. The voice sounded odd, incredibly crisp and relieved of all background noise by the transmission technology.
The President tried to turn his head against the enveloping jelly in the helmet. He could barely move against it, but the viewpoint of the helmet shifted wildly as he struggled against the Jell-O. The way it flew around was dizzying.
«Mr. President,» said the captain again, grabbing the suit and turning it. The President finally got the viewpoint settled down and focused on the officer. The view was cluttered by dozens of indecipherable readouts. «Just keep looking forward and walk carefully. If the viewpoint starts shifting all over just look forward and close your eyes.»
«There's all sorts of readouts,» the President said, closing his eyes as the viewpoint started to swivel again.