Gordon took a deep breath and looked at himself in the mirror. He’d lost fifteen pounds and it showed. His media consultants, however, had been right. The cameras put it all back on for him. He put the paper in his hands on the vanity and headed downstairs to wait. He knew the speech by heart. That’s where the speech was from.
‘I come before you tonight not to talk of politics, or of policy, or of war,’ Gordon began before the joint session of Congress. ‘I come to talk to you about the state of our union. I come to talk to you about the character of our people. About something we have lost. Something we must find again. Rudyard Kipling penned words many years ago that still call out to those who will hear them. “There’s no sense in going further — it’s the edge of cultivation, so they said, and I believed it — broke my land and sowed my crops, built my barns and strung my fences in the little border station tucked away below the foothills where the trails run out and stop. Till a voice, as bad as conscience, rang the interminable changes on one everlasting whisper day and night repeated — so: Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look beyond the ranges. Something lost… behind the ranges, lost, and waiting for you over yonder! Go you there!”’
The House chamber was silent.
‘But what sense is there in struggling, in striving, in forging ahead? “It’s the edge of cultivation. The trails run out and stop! There’s no sense in going further!” Have not we, as Americans, already built a nation as great as any on earth? As great as any nation that ever rose? Why should we, the prosperous, the advanced, the comfortable, the leaders of the world, risk all and press ahead toward a future whose only certainty is of unending troubles?
Gordon felt a sudden rushing sensation — as if a lens had descended before his eyes. Until that moment he’d been someone else. His mind separate from his body. Banished from it had been the sense of actually being there — of finally delivering the speech that would decide the fate of his presidency. He’d been free of the burden of appreciating just how important the moment was in his life. In the life of his country. He’d strolled like a sleepwalker down the ornate carpet and woken up in front of two Teleprompters. Behind them lay the highest rated audience in American television history.
‘Something lost, go and find it! The timid, the cautious, the perplexed… they have always halted at the edge of cultivation. But the ambitious, the curious, the daring — the men and women who built this thing we call America — they have sallied forth to carve out the roads down which we now effortlessly travel! They have listened to the whisper, ladies and gentlemen of this Congress. They have heeded its call. “Over yonder — go you there!’”
There was a burst of applause so spontaneous — so filled with unexpected energy — that Gordon felt a tingle ripple up his body and spur him on.
‘ “But are not the days of discovery now gone?” you ask!’ His shouts jarred the room into stony silence. The commotion had ended with no chatter. They had no copies of his address to distract them. Everyone looked up and waited for Gordon to continue. ‘ “But does not that whisper merely lead us down a path of fruitless adventurism? There are fields to sow. Fences to mend. More barns to raise right here, where we are now?” ’
Gordon looked up into the gallery. Elaine smiled. The shot was shown, he was sure, worldwide.
‘Beyond us lies a vast and untraveled land. The great unknown of tomorrow. You can’t see the future, but it’s waiting. And like our forebears we have a choice. A choice. Do we venture forth? Do we explore those uncharted regions with an aggressive spirit and an imaginative mind? By routes that will at some times be true… and at others lead astray? Or do we abandon our courage — neglect that urge, that force, those smoldering ambitions that have fu-ueled the engines of our progress and unleashed the all-consuming fires of human achievement?’
There was an outpouring of cheers from the partisan crowd of veteran Republican speech makers.
‘The call beckons,’ Gordon continued, ‘yet some will never hear it. They will be enslaved forever to the present. Timid, fearful, they will not understand the glories that rise up all around. The commonplace wonders that they take for granted. Those mere ornaments of convenience that were once triumphs of ingenuity and drive! They will memorize formulas, paraphrase words, digest books filled with the most powerful and brilliant thoughts of humankind! But they will not reach up to grasp the torch! They will not blaze a new trail! They will not dare to see what glories there might have been!
‘If we are to survive as a nation of free men and women — if we are to stoke the fires that must burn within us to give us the strength and the will to explore the future in search of its hidden truths — we must first look within ourselves. We must find those beliefs that lie suppressed beneath the weight of convention, and of comfort, and of ease, and we must give them voice! And so to those of you who hear the call I sa-ay… speak out! Shout at the top of your lungs that we are not a people whose time has come and gone! The time has come to stand, and be counted, or to forever hold your peace!’
There was a cacophonous standing ovation for which Gordon was unprepared. He breathed — deeply — as self-assured as he’d ever felt. He unfurrowed his brow and relaxed. He smiled for the first time. The energy surged through him and left him free of the aches and pains of his days. He waited until there was total quiet.
‘Ladies and gentlemen of this Congress, I report to you that the state of our union rests in your hands. To one side lies comfort and security; peace and tranquility. To the other, a churning sea of foam and fire through which our storm-tossed ship of state must sail. It is our choice whether we transcend our time! To slough off our current prejudices and ignorance! To break out of the limits that bind us with heavy chains to the dead weight of our certain present! We, my fellow Americans, must survey the rivers of life! We must not let fear of the difficult inhibit us! For if we do, we may never know the virgin forests of Eden that lie at the river’s source. We may never find the rich lowlands into which the fertile water flows. The state of the union, ladies and gentlemen, rests in your hands. Something lost. Go and find it.’
For a moment, the television’s small speaker was silent. President Davis’s stirring words had left everyone gathered around transfixed.
When the raucous applause erupted from the joint session of Congress, however, a similar uproar burst forth from the crowded conference room. Officers and soldiers alike seemed ecstatic and exuberant. Nate turned to look at the scene. Even the Europeans were caught up in the emotion, most particularly the British on whose lips Nate caught repeated references to Kipling in an animated discussion.
Nate turned back to the small television. President Davis slowly made his way down the center aisle. Republicans and Democrats alike stood clapping and smiling — the Republicans in a state of complete rapture. They held hands out as if to some passing celebrity. The camera switched to take in Mrs Davis and her lovely daughters, who were about the same age as Nate’s two sons.