“Yes sir?”
“I could ask you so many questions. But I know…I wouldn’t be able to understand all the answers. Maybe not any of them. And you might not want to give me the answers, because you realize I—we—are not capable. We’re just children, aren’t we?”
“Early teens,” Ethan said.
“I want this country to survive. Christ in Heaven…I want this world to survive.”
“Jason?” Derryman said. “I think you should—”
“Be quiet,” the President told him, but gently. “I have heard enough reports.” He turned his chair to peer into the silver eyes, and though the nervous tic still afflicted his face Beale looked calmer, more steady, yet older than he’d been a few moments before. “Tell me exactly why you believe you need to get into S-4.”
“Jason!” Derryman started to get to his feet, but the President waved any objections aside.
“This is on my watch, Vance. Mine. I’m sitting in here like a fucking dummy on a ventriloquist’s lap. Sure, I know what the commanders say and about the G-bombs and all the other stuff you bring me, but I have got to do something. So…go ahead, Ethan. Why get into S-4?”
“I protest this,” said Derryman. “It’s not necessary.”
“Sit there and be quiet or leave. I mean it, Vance. By God, I mean it. One more word and you’re out the door.”
Derryman said nothing else, but he pressed his fingers to both temples and looked like he wanted to let go a good loud scream.
“S-4,” the President prompted. “Speak.”
“As I told you, I’m here to stop this war. I can’t do that alone or unaided. I believe I was brought here to meet you, and to convince you to use your handprint to get me into that facility. Of the artifacts there, something may be of use.”
“But you can’t be certain of that,” was Beale’s next statement. “Why not?”
“I can read the human mind and I can sense many things. I am more powerful in my true form than in this one, but I needed the…call it…camouflage, to be able to communicate and move among you. There are many things I know and many things I can do, but one thing I can’t do is read the future. That book is yet to be written.” Ethan paused for the President to fully grasp what he’d just said. “I would tell you, though, that our best chance of stopping this war is not going to be found in commanders’ reports or in G-bombs. It’s going to be in what you would call alien technology. You have proof of the power of that, here in this installation. It’s worth going to the S-4 location to at least let me see what’s there.”
“Three hours’ flight on the helicopter,” Derryman dared to say, “through skies ruled by the Gorgons and the Cyphers, for the purpose of a fishing trip?” His jutting jaw announced that he was ready for any kind of fight to protect his charge and his territory. “Jason, do you know the risk of that? This…whatever he is…admits the aliens want him dead. They’ll come after the ’copter and swat us down as soon as we get airborne!”
“They will come after us,” Ethan agreed. “The Cyphers have a tracker in the atmosphere that’s aimed at me. They’ll know when we leave, and they’ll do one of two things: either attack us in the air or follow us to where we’re going. They’ll be curious about our destination, and so will the Gorgons. I believe that may keep them from interfering with the flight.”
“This is a choice?” Derryman asked bitterly. “I’m not hearing any positives!”
“Absolutes are difficult to predict. The odds, as you might say, are stacked against us. But I’ll give you two predictions: This installation will be attacked again, more fiercely the next time. And without some means of stopping this war that I don’t yet have, your world is finished. But you won’t care, sir, because none of you here will live beyond tomorrow or the following day.”
“Because they want you. If you left here, they’d leave us alone.”
“They might, but I’m sure you’re already aware that neither side cares to make peace with your civilization. The reason they want me destroyed, Mr. Derryman, is reason enough for you to help me get into S-4.”
“No. Wrong. We’ve got to stay where we are. Conserve,” he said. His face seemed to have grown a harder skin. “Conserve,” he repeated, now desperately, and his eyes behind the glassses darted between Beale and Ethan with a wet shine of not only anger but a touch of madness.
The President lowered his head. The tic was still bothering him. He rubbed at the place of its origin, where the nerves were corrupted. Ethan could read the confusion of the man’s thoughts, the need to get into action against a crippling fear that he would find he could do nothing, that he was useless and ineffectual and the country had been lost on his watch. That was the worst thing in the tormented mind, the knowledge that for all the power of his office, he was nearly insignificant against the might of the Gorgons and Cyphers.
At last Beale looked up.
Not at Ethan, but at Jefferson Jericho.
“You’re a man of God,” the President said. “I trust you. What should I do?”
For once in his life, Jefferson was unable to speak.
He saw it then. The purpose of his being here. The real purpose, it seemed, of his measure of days. He was being given a second chance, what might be called a shot at redemption, and maybe the peacekeeper couldn’t see the future, that book was yet to be written, but he remembered Ethan saying to Dave We might need this man, so there had been some inkling that he should not be thrown aside or executed or left to die out on the highway like a diseased dog.
At least that’s what Jefferson wanted to believe, in this moment that came upon him with an overwhelming, nearly heart-stopping force. He felt pushed back into his chair as if all the old air was being forced from a small puncture in his soul.
“You should trust Ethan,” he said. “Do what he asks.”
The President sat silently, staring into Jefferson’s eyes.
“Jason.” Derryman’s voice had weakened. “You can’t go out there. If we lose you, it’s all over.”
“When can the helicopter be ready?” Beale asked.
“Please…we can figure something out. You don’t have to—”
“The helicopter. When can it be ready?”
The reply was awhile in coming, because Vance Derryman clasped his hands together and worked his knuckles and did not want to surrender. The President waited.
“Two hours, give or take,” Derryman finally said. He looked like a man in severe conflict, but he’d realized that his first duty was to obey. “It’s been a long time since Garrett or Neilsen have flown. I’d like to put them in the simulator first.”
“Do that,” Beale said. No one could mistake that it was an official command.
“If I can’t talk you out of this in the next two hours,” Derryman told him, “I’m going with you. No argument on that point.”
“No argument, but my mind is made up. Fuel the ’copter, get the pilots ready, get whatever we need. Let’s find out what’s in S-4.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Ethan. “And thank you,” he said to Jefferson Jericho, who also had decided to go on the flight. Jefferson had come so far, it was not something he wanted to miss no matter what the danger. He thought Dave would feel the same way, and maybe Olivia would too.
There was much to be done. President Beale dismissed them, and they left the apartment to get themselves ready for a journey into the unknown.
Thirty-Two.
A heavy-duty tractor towed the big, dark green VH-71