"Several." A playfully sly expression came into Madden's eyes. "One might be to utilize our beam-weapon space platforms on a joint basis and put them to some practical use instead of floating around up there playing catch-as-catch-can. A return on all those billions of dollars and rubles we've invested, so far to no purpose."
"Perhaps," Burdovsky conceded cautiously.
"However, the final choice will have to be decided at a senior scientific level," Madden went on briskly. "And with utmost secrecy. Major Jones here has come up with a code name. He suggests 'Longfellow.' The major is a student of poetry," Madden added dryly.
"I know of the poet Longfellow," Burdovsky said. "But I do not see
>>
"What's the piece, Major?" Madden prompted.
Major Jones straightened up and recited solemnly:
"Sail on, O Ship of State! Sail on, O Union, strong and great! Humanity with all its fears, With all the hopes of future years Is hanging breathless on thy fate!"
"From a poem entitled The Building of the Ship,' " he informed them.
"This will be a tremendous scientific challenge, gentlemen," Madden said. "Perhaps the greatest since the invention of the atomic bomb!"
Colonel Burdovsky nodded slowly, reminded of something.
"You spoke of getting near the ball, Colonel. But you did not say the ball is a time bomb that might explode in our faces."
17
WASHINGTON--CHICAGO--KANSAS CITY
Everywhere they went there were questions. The same questions over and over again.
Why hadn't Chase spoken out about the U.S. government's indolence in enforcing environmental legislation?
Was it true that the Russians had abandoned Project Arrow?
What about the Australian big drought situation?
When was Earth Foundation going to move into the political arena?
What were his views on the pyro-assassinations? Who did he think was behind them, and why?
What were conditions really like in the south? As bad as had been reported?
This last question was top of the list and uppermost in most people's minds. The mounting concern was brought home to them when their cab from the airport to the hotel was held up by a demonstration. A procession of several hundred people bearing placards with the slogans
OKIES NOT OK HERE and KEEP KANSAS KLEAN--KILL A TEXAN TODAY.
It was in protest against the migration from the south, the cabdriver told them, which over the past fourteen months had swelled from a trickle to a flood. The Federal Resettlement Program wasn't able to cope with the problem. Citizens' militia groups had set up roadblocks along the southern state line to stop the "illegals" spreading north.
ACROSS THE PLAINS TO NEBRASKA
There was a small Earth Foundation community on the shores of Lake McConaughy. Since the shift in climatic patterns the temperature for late September was an appreciable ten degrees F. warmer than usual. Many people were taking a late vacation--boating, fishing, water-skiing, and swimming along the banks of the North Platte.
Dan couldn't get over it. Never before had he seen people bathing in inland "fresh" water. And the fish being caught were edible!
They sat under a striped awning and watched him splash about, his body flashing in the sunlight. In pleasant contrast to the sultry south and muggy Washington, the climate was mild and the air was clear and refreshing. Chase became wistful, seeing his son's face losing its soft boyish roundness, his features hardening and becoming more defined as the genetic template molded them into adulthood.
What went through Cheryl's mind when she looked at the boy? She was now forty-one. Even if the miscarriage five years ago had not made the possibility remote, the likelihood that she might have a child of her own was fast receding. She had been as good as a mother to Dan, he thought, leaning back in his chair and studying her profile against the glittering water. Never mind as good as; rather had been. Yet maybe she still yearned for her own child . . . ?
Cheryl turned, caught him watching her, and stuck her tongue out.
He loved the woman.
EAST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS
Over Wyoming the twelve-seater turbojet was twirled in the grand-daddy of all thunderstorms and they had to make a forced landing near a spot in the wilderness called Muddy Gap.
They sat on the single runway gazing out as hailstones as big as golf balls clanged and bounced off the wings. The pilot told them that he was quite seriously thinking of quitting. Sure, the pay was good, but three forced landings in two months were one hell of a strain on his nervous system. Besides, he had a wife and kids to consider.
BREAKFAST IN IDAHO
In the hotel coffee shop Cheryl thought Dan looked sickly. "How do you feel? Are you all right?"
He shrugged listlessly, scooping up cereal. "I just wish we could stop somewhere for a few days."
"I thought you wanted to see America?"
"You call this seeing it? Can't we stay somewhere?"
Cheryl looked at Chase over her waffles and syrup. Then she said to Dan, "We do have a lot of people to meet. Gavin has meetings and interviews lined up all the way to California. It's a vacation for you, Dan, work for us."
"Some vacation."
Chase sympathized. To an active sixteen-year-old this continual moving from one hotel to another must have seemed like changing prison cells. But the itinerary was fixed and he couldn't alter or cancel it.
He said, "We'll stop for a few days when we reach the coast, fair enough?"
"The Pacific?" Dan said, brightening.
Chase nodded, avoiding Cheryl's eye. The great and glorious Pacific. He prayed that the waves still moved.
As he pressed the lever on the wrought-iron gate and stepped out of the elevator Claude Alain Lautner had only one thing on his mind. Ash-blond, five feet seven, twenty-two years of age, and her name was Marie-Rose Duvall.
They had met by chance at an embassy cocktail party--but then weren't all such providential meetings by chance? Lautner considered himself extremely lucky, at forty-four, divorced, rather lonely, to have won such a luscious young prize. He was even beginning to believe that he might be in love with her. She certainly seemed infatuated with him.
Humming under his breath, he turned into the short corridor leading to his third-floor apartment on the rue Fontaine and startled the plainclothes policeman sitting outside the door, who dropped his Agatha Christie paperback.
"Good evening, Maurice," Lautner greeted him genially.
Maurice stood up hastily, clutching the mangled paperback in his huge fist. "Evening, Monsieur Lautner."
"I shall be going out at eight o'clock," Lautner said, letting himself into the apartment. "Tell the overnight man--who is it? Charles?--I shan't be back till around two."
"Very good, sir." Maurice hesitated. His thick eyebrows lifted a mere questioning millimeter. "Ministry transport, sir?"
In other circumstances Lautner would have been annoyed, but right now he felt a warm glow at the promise of the evening ahead. He nodded, gave a brief smile, and closed the door.
Churlish of him to be irritable with the guards. They were simply obeying instructions from the minister of the interior. There had been too many incidents recently involving high-ranking government officials, and it was only common sense to take precautions against terrorist groups, cranks, and media vamps--deranged people who sought ephemeral glory by some act of atrocity that got them into the headlines and on TV.
Still, it was tiresome to be shadowed day and night by hulking members of the prefecture. No doubt they'd even have somebody posted in the restaurant while he and Marie-Rose dined by candlelight. Next, he thought resignedly, going into the bedroom, they'd have a man at the bedside reading a thriller while they made love. . . .