He knew one other thing about John Tyler. A small piece of intelligence from a loyalist Air Force general. The architects of the coup had had a particular role in mind for Colonel Tyler: If William had refused to retire peaceably to some country dacha, it was John Tyler who was to put a bullet in his brain.
“I watched you,” Tyler said. His voice was quiet but bitter. “I watched you leave the White House. My God, it’s startling to see a President in public without a Secret Service escort. Did you think it was all over? You didn’t need the bodyguards anymore?”
“It is over. The guards all went home, Colonel.” He looked at Tyler’s pistol. An ugly little machine. “Is this your revolution? I thought that was over, too.”
“Keep your hands down,” Tyler said. “I should kill you right now.”
“Is that what you mean to do?”
“Most likely.”
“What would be the point, Colonel Tyler?”
“The point, sir, would be that a dead President is better than a live traitor.”
“I see.”
In fact, William understood several things from this small speech:
He understood that the coup was a thing of the past; that Colonel Tyler had come here representing no one but himself.
He understood that Tyler had said no to the Travellers and was only beginning to grasp the significance of Contact.
And he understood that beneath his rigid calm, the Colonel was teetering on the brink of panic and madness. Would Tyler shoot him? He might or might not. It was an open question. It would be decided by impulse.
Choose your words carefully, William told himself.
“You had friends,” he said to Tyler, “but they all changed their minds. They woke up and saw that the world is a different place now. Not you, Colonel?”
“You can bank on that.”
“That was a week ago. Did you wait all this time to see me?” William nodded at the White House behind its spiked fence. “You could have walked in the front door, Colonel. No one would have stopped you.”
“I talked to your friend Charlie Boyle yesterday. He told me the same thing. I didn’t believe him.” Tyler shrugged. “But maybe it’s true. I mean, if you’re out taking a goddamn stroll.”
Charlie Boyle has only been my friend since he woke up immortal, William thought; but yes, Charlie had been telling the truth. The White House was open to the public. Like any other museum.
There was a twitch of impatience from Tyler, a slight pursing of the lips. William drew a slow breath.
“Colonel Tyler, surely you know what’s happening. Even if you don’t want any part of it. Even if you said no to it. This isn’t an alien invasion. The flying saucers haven’t landed. The Earth hasn’t been occupied by a hostile military force. Look around.”
Tyler’s frown deepened, and for a space of some seconds his finger tightened on the trigger. William felt the barrel of the gun pulse against his body with the beating of Tyler’s heart.
Death hovered over the park bench like a third presence.
That shouldn’t frighten me anymore, William thought. But it does. Yes, it still does.
“What I think,” Tyler said, “is that everybody has been infected with a hallucination. The hallucination is that we can live forever. That we can cohabit like the lamb and the lion in a Baptist psalm book. I think most people succumbed to this disease. But some of us didn’t. Some of us recovered from it. I think I’m a well man, Mr. President. And I think you’re very sick.”
“Not a traitor? Just sick?”
“Maybe both. You collaborated—for whatever reason. You’re not qualified to hold office any longer.”
“Am I sick? You’re the one with the pistol, Colonel Tyler.”
“A weapon in the right hands is hardly a sign of illness.”
How strange it was to be having this conversation on such a gentle day. He looked away from Colonel Tyler and saw a ten-year-old attempting to fly a kite from the foot of the statue of Andrew Jackson. The breeze was fitful. The kite flailed and sank. The boy’s skin was dark and gleaming in the sunlight. The kite was a beauty, William thought. A black-and-yellow bat wing.
For a moment the boy’s eyes caught his and there was a flash of communication—an acknowledgment in the Greater World of each other’s difficulties.
J may yet talk my way out of this, William thought.
“Colonel Tyler, suppose I admit I’m unqualified to hold the office of President of the United States.”
“I have a gun on you. You might admit any damn thing.”
“Nonetheless, I do admit it. I’m not qualified. I say it without reservation, and I’ll continue to say it when you put the gun away. I’ll sign a paper if you like. Colonel, would you care to help me nominate a successor?”
For the first time, Tyler seemed uncertain.
“I’m quite sincere,” William hurried on. “I want your advice. Whom did you have in mind? Charlie Boyle? But he’s not trustworthy anymore, is he? He’s ‘diseased.’ The Vice-President? The same, I’m afraid. The Speaker of the House?”
“This is contentious bullshit,” Tyler said, but he looked suddenly miserable and distracted.
“Colonel Tyler, it would not surprise me if you were the highest-ranking military officer not under the influence of what you call a disease. I don’t know how the chain of command operates in a case like this. It’s something the Constitution doesn’t anticipate. But if you want the job—”
“My Christ, you’re completely insane,” Tyler said. But the gun wavered in his hand.
“It’s a question of constituency. That’s the fundamental problem. Colonel, do you know how many people turned down the opportunity to live forever? Roughly one in ten thousand.”
“You can’t possibly know that.”
“For the sake of argument, let’s assume I do. The population of the Earth is roughly six billion, which yields six hundred million individuals who are not, as you say, diseased. Quite a number. But not all of them are Americans—not by a long shot. Colonel Tyler, do you recall the last census estimate of the American population? It’s vague in my mind. Something on the order of three hundred million. That would give you a constituency of roughly thirty thousand people. The size of a large town. Quite an amenable size for a democracy, in my opinion. Under ideal circumstances, you could establish direct representative government… if you mean to continue holding elections.”
Colonel Tyler’s eyes had begun to glaze. “I can’t accept that. I—”
“Can’t accept what? My argument? Or the Presidency?”
“You can’t confer that on me! You can’t hand it to me like some kind of Cracker Jack prize!”
“But you were willing to take it away with a gun—you and your allies.”
“That’s different!”
“Is it? It’s not exactly due process.”
“I’m not the fucking President! You’re the fucking President!”