Solstice

'My judgement.'

'Yes.'

He nodded, and she felt a little foolish. What was going through Clarke's mind just then was nothing that simple or visible. 'Maybe you're right. And maybe not. Anyway, you asked a good question. Why are all these people coming here? You ever hear of the Cambridge Mandate?'

'No.'

'Don't feel ashamed. I hadn't either, and it is supposed to be a secret. But I've been doing a lot of reading recently. Mainly because I don't like being surrounded by people who know a whole lot more about what's going on than me. The Cambridge Mandate goes back to the Kennedy administration. Bay of Pigs. All that nice part of our history when a lot of people in Washington suddenly got real scared that nuclear war was around the corner. Kennedy was in Cambridge at the time, which is where it got its name. What it did was pull together all the civil defence plans that had been put in place over the years and put them into a rounded whole. A neat, tidy set of executive orders that you can employ when the occasion arises and throw as tight a grip around this country as you can get. Martial law by any other name. And mark the timing of this. The Cambridge Mandate was designed to be used before the bombs started to fall. They were all Boy Scouts back then: Be prepared.'

'Is this still around?'

'Oh yes. Updated and approved by every one of my predecessors, including Rollinson, not that I knew anything about it, of course. Bill always did think he was immortal.'

She nodded. 'You have to have something like that. Even with the Cold War over. I didn't realize it was quite so tightly organized, but I rather expected something would be in place.'

'Sure, and that's what these guys are bringing down for me to sign. They don't want to wait to see what happens with the Shuttle. Their advice is we should put up the barricades now, take out the current Federal Defense Act, and tie the nation up nice and tightly this very minute.'

"This bothers you?'

Clarke looked behind them, saw the distance they were keeping from the Secret Service people. It was a false security, he knew that. If they wanted, they could pick up the conversation anyway. 'Of course it bothers me. Once that goes into place, this country is to all intents and purposes under a form of martial law. We take control of the telecommunications networks, install mandatory censorship in the news media. All existing forms of government are suspended and we work on the framework of the civil emergency network, which, in case you didn't know, is ostensibly answerable to local county officials and, in the end, state governors. Hell, I even have to hand over a whole piece of my powers to some new federal emergency council on the grounds that there's no other way to counterbalance the loss of democratic control elsewhere. This is a big thing. Every last detail is there, right down to the disposal of human remains. And it's open-ended. Think about that.'

She tried to imagine what this world would be like. What the alternative might be. 'In the short term, it might be a good thing. We don't need any distractions right now. We have to track those people down, not get pulled off-line by civil unrest issues.'

'Yeah. I know. But what worries me is this: How often do you see people voluntarily handing power back these days? If the Children do get to cause us some damage, how long is it before we return to some kind of normalcy? And if they don't, what happens then? Do we all tear up the piece of paper and go back to what we were doing? As everyone keeps telling me, this Pascal woman is smart. Isn't it possible we're just playing into her hands? By treating this as the end of the world, maybe we prompt the sort of response she's trying to get.'

'Sir, if you are going to impose some kind of order, you need to do it before the emergency if that's possible.'

'Yeah. You're the millionth person to make that point to me today.'

'It's a question of contingency, Mr President.'

'Really? You're right, up to a point. But think about it. In 1961 you could walk state troopers down the street and tell people to stay indoors and believe every word Walter Cronkite said on the one TV channel that was still broadcasting. You think that's a possibility now? Or is some guy going to come at you with a gun and decide to take advantage of the situation and do what he wanted to do all along? Or post some crap on the Net that scares the living shit out of everyone — and there's no way we can close that thing down entirely, believe me, not short of cutting off the power supply to the entire nation. Think of some of the right-wing crazies out there. You can imagine what they'd be saying. We've got a nigger in the White House who's taken our birthright away. We'd have so-called independent states springing up everywhere the moment they heard that Washington was taking over everything and running it through whoever we felt like. And like I keep asking, in a way, isn't that what these Gaia people want?'

They were at a big empty crossroads. No people. No cars. Just barren roads running off into the flat desert nowhere, and the husks of burned-out, shattered buildings. She shivered, even in the intense heat. What Clarke was talking about gave her pause for thought. 'I don't know, sir. That's your call.'

'Oh yeah, I'm aware of that. This is one big switch we're talking about throwing. So tell me. Is the Shuttle going to work? And if it doesn't, are we going to catch these people some other way?'

She thought about Yasgur's Farm and the woman in Mallorca,

Martin Chalk and fireballs raining from the sky. And, more than anything, about three astronauts edging their way toward Sundog in orbit above them.

'You bet. The Shuttle can do it. If that fails for some reason, we'll get them ourselves. They're here. Everything points to that. This was as much a test site, for them as a warning for the rest of us. They're watching. And we will track them down. I can't guarantee you this will blow over without some damage. Lieberman thinks we would probably be in line for that even without the Children. But we will find them. We will put a lid on this thing.'

And nearly added: Trust me.

Clarke smiled at her and said, 'Well, in that case, I think you've made up my mind.'

Twenty minutes later, Helen Wagner followed mutely behind Graeme Burnley as they entered the conference room at Nellis. Clarke walked in, looked at the assembly of suits and uniforms, looked at the pile of executive orders awaiting his signature, and said, 'Gentlemen, you can file these papers for another time. We're here to beat these people. Not give in to them.'

He listened to the murmur run around the room, wondered who would be the first to object. Much to his surprise, it was Graeme Burnley, who laid his pen on his notepad and sighed, like a man at the end of his tether.

'Mr President. This is your decision. You're the chief of the Armed Forces. What you decide, we will do. But I have to warn you — '

'Warn me, Graeme?' Clarke replied, half-amazed. 'Is that what I'm paying you for?'

'I'm paid to tell things how I see them. What you're suggesting, this wait-and-see idea, it runs counter to the advice of everyone. We have discussed this and there really is-'

'Mr President,' Ben Levine interrupted, 'we're twelve hours away from what could be the worst global disaster imaginable. We need to act now. Not wait until the last minute.'

Clarke watched the men in uniform nodding. 'Really, Mr Levine?'

'Yes, sir. This is plain practical preparation. And we're all of one mind on this.'

'No we're not,' Dan Fogerty interjected. 'None of you even asked my mind. You just took it for granted I'd go along.

The President's right. This is premature. We're accepting defeat before we've even given the game a good run.'

'Twelve hours, Dan,' Levine objected. 'After that we could lose everything we've got to get the message over. TV. The phone system. Everything. You want to try putting some order into this country after that?'