Maximum Warp
Chapter 14: Man of the People

We were picked up at our hotel promptly at 2:00. The driver surprised us.

“Chauffeuring seems like kind of a strange side-gig for a Science Advisor,” Janet said with a smile.

Dr. Livingston smiled back. “But it’s a really good gig, when there’s a shortage of drivers with high-level security clearances.” She looked much better than she had in the early hours of the morning. I suspected we did, too.

“Ahh,” I said. “That makes sense. So, what super-secret, hush-hush things do you need to tell us before we meet with the President?”

“Oh, you’re not meeting with him. Not at all. He’s playing golf with me. My mom and one of my daughters are coming, too. I haven’t decided which daughter yet. The youngest, probably, though you don’t look much like her.”

I shook my head. “Sorry . . . it’s been a long couple of days. You’ve lost me.”

Janet giggled.

“I think your colleague figured it out,” Livingston said, real humor in her voice. “The President’s schedule is an open book. Mostly. So if he’s doing a round of golf, there’s a record of when, and how he got there, and who he golfed with. Right now, though, you two don’t exist and we don’t want your presence to be a matter of record. So I’m joining the President for golf today – along with a few others – and he said I could bring my mom and my daughter. One of them, anyway.”

Janet, who was in the passenger’s seat, looked over at the Science Advisor, who looked trim and athletic in pale blue shorts and a nylon top with a soft collar and capped sleeves in a pleasant shade of medium green. “You’n me could maybe be related. Maybe. If you had an off day, and I was at top form. But you and Jessica look like you came from different ends of the Anglo Saxon gene pool, if you follow me.”

Dr. Livingston laughed. “My husband’s family is old money. Perhaps the women have greater . . . . ahh . . . endowments?”

“Or, maybe it was that really cute postman’s family?” Janet grinned evilly.

“He was kind of a hunk . . . .” Livingston said playfully, before shaking her head. “It doesn’t matter, really. The story doesn’t have to be all that plausible. We just need to be able to say something.”

I looked down at the abbondanza that was causing such trouble in the plausibility department and sighed. “Perhaps we can turn to less weighty matters?” I suggested, hopefully.

“Like U-235,” Janet said, deadpan.

The President’s Science Advisor laughed uproariously.

“I’m glad you're both having a good time!” But I immediately relented. “Actually, Dr. Livingston, I am glad you're having a good time. Mostly because I was worried about you last night. But also, more selfishly, because your mood suggests that maybe you’ve had some good news?”

She nodded. “Luther Corbin called me around 10:30. The President will be announcing a reorganization of his National Security team later today. Just a routine thing; what you might expect after a couple years on the job.”

Janet smiled. “This time, the lie isn’t more interesting.”

“He accepted all of their resignations?” I asked.

“Yup. Every one. And apparently had no desire to talk to any of them, either.”

“Corbin struck me as a pretty persuasive guy,” Janet said in an admiring tone.

“Indeed,” Dr. Livingston said. “Might as well argue with the Prophet Ezekiel.”

“Doctor Livingston,” I began.

She stopped me. “Please, do me a favor. Call me Averil.”

“Really?”

“Really. Both of you – but especially you, Jessica. It’s hard for me to remember that you aren't a seventeen-year-old girl – or, at least, that you aren’t just that. We’ve all got Ph.D’s of one sort or another, and you’re closer to my mom’s age than my daughters’. When you use my first name, it reminds me.”

“Okay . . . Averil.”

“Just not when we’re around the boss!” She added.

Janet was surprised. “The President’s a stickler for formality? I never would have guessed!”

“The President? Oh, heavens, no! He’s a politician – a man of the people and all that.” She waved one hand airily. “‘Stuffy’ loses you votes. I was talking about Ezekiel.”

We laughed.

“What I was going to ask,” I said, “was whether you know who else will be with the President this afternoon. Will this be a repeat of yesterday?”

“I don’t know what it’ll be like,” she said thoughtfully. “Apart from the President, the most important player will be the SecDef, Jack Bradley.”

“Now that’s funny,” Janet said. “For the Fenway faithful, Jackie Bradley Junior is the Secretary of Defense.”

“No relation, I’m sure,” Dr. Livingston – Averil – replied. “I expect Colonel Kurtz will be there too. I’m not sure about her. Someone from Corbin’s shop, but I don’t know who. And the wild card is Stanley Aguia. The President asked for him specifically. They go way back, but I don’t know the details. Former military, I know that much.”

“Pretty weighted toward the Defense crowd again,” I said glumly. “It’d really be nice if all of us could get through the afternoon without being kidnapped, arrested or shot.”

Janet sighed. “Yeah, sometimes it’s the little things.”

Averil shuddered. “You won’t get any argument from me on that score, I promise you. But nothing’s going to happen until everyone is confident that we’re not doing anything that weakens national defense.”

“Any advice? Things we should avoid saying? Anything like that?” I felt like I was flying blind. I had sixty years of life experience, but none of it involved meeting with people like these.

None of it involved golf, either.

Averil thought for a moment. “The President takes some getting used to . . . . Hard to describe . . . . But one thing: Don’t shade the truth. He’s got an uncanny ability to sniff out lies.”

We talked as Averil drove us out into the Virginia suburbs. We knew we were getting close when we started seeing lots of unmarked black SUVs, then people wearing suits, shades and ear pieces. We were stopped by a couple fine examples of the male of the species, buff and clean cut.

Averil lowered her window. “Good morning. Averil Livingston and guests. I believe Mr. Corbin made a notation on the ID requirement?”

“Good morning, Doctor,” one of the pair said. “We’ve got you three on the list. Can you pop the hatch for us?”

His partner inspected the back. “Sweet set of sticks, Doc!”

The first guy waved us on. “Over by the pavilion, Doctor. The President’s inbound and should be here in five.”

She thanked him and drove over to the indicated area, where some more nice, discreetly armed young men helped Averil with her clubs.

I saw Colonel Kurtz over on the side and decided to take the bull by the horns. I walked in her direction, but lowered my head and said softly, “Okay, Worm, no listening until I either call you or wave both hands over my head.”

“Colonel Kurtz.” I extended my hand. “We didn’t meet under the best circumstances last night. I’m Jessica James.”

“Ms. James.” Her expression was unreadable, but she did not hesitate to shake my hand. “Mr. Corbin had me briefed in on all of yesterday’s events. I understand what happened last night – and this morning – a bit better now.”

Before I could respond, a man whose face was – like Science Advisor’s – familiar to me from television, came over to say hello. “You must be Ms. James,” he said. “Jack Bradley.” He stuck out a powerful hand.

I was a bit startled; on television, all you tended to see of the Secretary of Defense was his craggy face, bristle-brush brows and wavy silver-gray hair. The fact that he was 5’3” on a good day only registered in person. “Very pleased to meet you, sir,” I said, shaking his hand. Or, rather, taking his hand in mine so that he could do the shaking. He might be short, but I’d give him good odds of winning best of three arm wrestling a kodiak bear.

“I hear you might’ve been partly responsible for my sudden need for a new deputy,” he said.

“Well . . . ahh . . . I didn’t . . . I mean . . . .” I thought, Pull yourself together, Jessica!

He barked a laugh and gave my arm a pat that staggered me. “Don’t worry about it. The only people who’re gonna regret Trevor’s decision to spend more time with his family are related to him.”

“I . . . Oh!” I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. Agnew had struck me as being pretty unpleasant.

“So off to work I go,” Bradley responded with a smile. “And right on cue, here comes the chief. Dum-diddy-dum-diddy-dum.”

The sound of a rapidly-approaching helicopter made any further communication impossible. A big, white-topped dual-engine Sikorsky with “United States of America” on the body came over the trees and settled lightly on a designated pad.

As the rotors began to slow, a door – hatch? – opened and people began to exit the helicopter. President Taryn came out immediately after two (more) members of his security detail, looking just like he did on television – spry, silver-haired, jaunty smile. Despite the summer heat, he wore dark pants and shoes, though his sky-blue golf shirt was less somber and paired well with his famously blue eyes. He strode towards the pavilion, exuding an eagerness he may or may not have felt.

I didn’t recognize the man who came behind Taryn. Tall, almost skeletal, coal dark eyes, a lean face and a nimbus of soft white hair. More people followed.

“Ruh roh,” the President said as he came to where everyone gathered. “Averil brought her magic clubs again. Sorry, Jack, but this time she’s on my team.”

“Not very sporting, Tom.” The SecDef had the air of someone who’s repeating a familiar ritual.

“Relax!” The President was grinning evilly. “Mr. Corbin sent Tanya along. She’ll take care of you.”

An athletic looking Latina woman standing behind the president broke into a slow smile. “Sorry, Mr. Secretary. You drew the short straw.”

“I didn’t draw anything!” he protested.

“That’s okay,” President Taryn said. “I drew for you ’cuz you weren’t around.”

“Uh huh,” Bradley said skeptically. “I don’t suppose there were witnesses?”

“Of course not,” the President said cheerfully. “There weren’t any straws either. I just decided how long each of our straws would be. Yours was shorter.”

“The whole decider thing . . . it warps a man.” Bradley sounded sorrowful.

“I like to think of it as bending the arc of the universe toward justice,” the President retorted happily. “Let’s get started, shall we? Averil, why don’t you have your mom and charming daughter come with us. And . . . Katherine? Will you join us as well?”

“Of course, Mr. President,” Colonel Kurtz murmured.

“Tom’s rules, now,” the President admonished. “Once we step onto the course, no titles, offices, honorifics or protocol. Bad enough I gotta put up with it at the ranch.” He gave Tanya a winning smile. “You’ll be so kind as to not mention this to Mr. Corbin?”

“Unless he asks, Mr. President. . . . Which, he so will.” Tanya had a really lovely smile too, and used it to good effect.

The President’s only response was, “Alright, alright, let’s get this train rolling!”

We walked away from the group by the pavilion and over to the area where golfers teed off for the first hole. In addition to the people I had heard the President invite, there were two members of the President’s detail and the older man with the white hair.

The President made a point of walking with Averil, Janet and me. “Based on my morning briefing from Mr. Corbin and Mr. Grant, you’ll be Janet Seldon and . . . Jessica James?”

“Yes, Mr. President,” Janet said, defying “Tom’s rules.”

He continued to smile, but shook his head slightly. “First names serve an extra purpose today, so let’s shift to them. Remember, neither of you are here, officially. Jessica . . . Please accept my apology, both personally and on behalf of your government, for what happened yesterday.”

“Of course, M . . . M . . .” I blushed furiously.

“‘Tom,’ he said, firmly. “For this afternoon only, I’m afraid. And don’t tell the boss!”

“Mr. Corbin?” I asked.

“Well, not him either. But I was really thinking of Marianne.” Marianne Taryn, the President’s wife, was widely reported to stand tall and firm on her husband’s dignity.

I took a steadying breath. My late father would have been appalled at the notion of calling the Commander-in-Chief by his first name, but this was the President’s show. “Okay. Well . . . apology accepted . . . Tom. So, we’re not going to get arrested or shot today?”

“Not today,” he said easily. “And with the protection you two have, I’m thinking tomorrow looks pretty safe for you, too.”

“So you, at least, accept that the aliens are real?” I asked.

“I saw your shirt,” he responded soberly. “And the rest of the evidence Grant gathered. Hard to explain it away. Although honestly” – his expression became mischievous – "it's easier to believe in aliens than to believe you were ever a sixty-year-old guy.”

“True, nonetheless,” I said.

“You’re very attractive, for a beautiful girl with a great body,” he said, eyes twinkling.

“She’s got that going for her, which is nice,” Janet agreed.

“Ha! Well played!” the President exclaimed, delighted.

I groaned. “A little birdie warned me that you’d have an opinion!”

He grinned. “No, no, Jessica. Mere mortals have opinions; presidents have positions!”

“Keep it up, and your position might be ‘supine.’” I quipped.

“Excellent!” His face was full of mirth. “This will be an interesting day!” He turned to the Defense Secretary. “Jack, why don’t you get us started.”

The Secretary stuck something in the ground, put a golf ball on top of it, and selected a club from his bag. He made a show of looking down the fairway and gauging the wind. He took a few practice swings, then got himself positioned for his shot. His club went upward then began a smooth arc toward his ball.

“Space aliens, huh?” the President said.

Bradley’s club connected with the grass just in front of his ball. “Dammit!”

“Don’t take such a negative view,” the President said. “This could be good for us.”

“Agnew was wrong about almost everything,” Bradley replied. “But even a broken clock is right sometimes.” He returned his attention to the ball. “I’m gonna just pretend you didn’t do that intentionally, Tom.”

He was just about to raise his club again when the President said, “The evidence for their existence seems pretty conclusive, Jack.”

The Secretary growled something that involved “God” and “patience” but I couldn’t follow most of it. “Tanya, why don’t you lead us off,” he said after a moment.

She nodded and moved to set up her ball.

Bradley gave Janet and me a look of apology, then turned his attention to the President. “Tom, I had a long meeting this morning and I haven’t gone through the brief in detail. . . . But . . . the whole thing just seems too incredible. There’s a hoax here. I don’t know what it is, but there’s just got to be a hoax.”

The President looked at him thoughtfully. “It’s an attitude I know we’re going to see a lot. And I honestly don’t know what it’s going to take to change it. Averil had a direct experience, and she was convinced by it – but that’s what it took. And even that wasn’t enough for Dr. Singh.”

Tanya’s swing connected with the ball solidly, and it flew high and straight. She looked pleased.

Bradley looked even more pleased. “Well . . . We might give you a game yet. I should be able to get it on the green from there!”

“Now who’s talking crazy?” The President asked. He got his ball set up for a shot. Like Bradley, he made a point of looking toward the green, judging the wind, and generally doing things that probably made sense to a golfer.

Not that I’d know anything about that.

When he appeared to have satisfied the golf gods, he took up his stance and took a steadying breath. Then he looked over at Bradley. “Don’t even think about it, Jack!”

He turned back to the ball, then swung his club up and down with surprising grace. He grunted. “Sliced it. Damn. Well, sometimes the magic works. Sometimes, it doesn't. . . . . So science – or at least a scientist – will have to save me.”

The group started to walk down the fairway, leaving their gear behind. I wasn’t sure why, but it quickly became apparent that this group of golfers, at least, had people who took care of details like that. We hadn’t gone more than thirty yards when a pair of golf carts passed us with all the gear loaded on them.

“You’ve got to give me a better reason for skepticism, Jack,” the President said. “If we aren’t alone in the universe – which you have to admit is at least possible – and if anyone ever found us, it would by definition be something we’d never encountered before.”

“Maybe that’s just two ‘ifs,’ but even you’ve got to admit that they’re big ones,” the Secretary replied. “Quality has a quantity of its own, or something like that.”

“Size matters, maybe?” Janet offered.

I paused a moment to tie one of my new sneakers. They were white with a bit of pink piping, which described the rest of my golf outfit as well. A crisp, snow-white nylon golf shirt, pink on the inside of the collar, and a matching pair of skorts. I had added a pink visor, sunglasses, and a veritable oil slick of sunscreen.

When I stood again, I stretched and muttered. We needed to get past all of the ‘do aliens exist’ folderal and feathers. We had only six days, as I’d told Corbin when I called him back late in the morning.

Janet was waiting for me up ahead, so I trotted to catch up with her. “Getting impatient?” she asked.

“More than a bit. Which is stupid, I know. We only just had our first meeting yesterday, and we’re already talking to the President of the Freakin’ United States. But . . . I’m getting pretty tired of having people look at me like I’ve lost my mind.”

“Don’t let it bother you,” she soothed. “All the best people are entirely bonkers.”

“Oh, thank you very little,” I sighed.

We caught up with the golfers. Bradley was setting up his shot, once again looking like he was contemplating a complicated problem in applied geometry or ballistics. Which, I suppose, he was.

“Alright,” Bradley said pointedly, “If I may receive from the Commander-in-Chief the same courtesy I extended to him?”

The President laughed and waved him on. “I’ll be quiet as a war memorial! As the dew! Quiet as an ant pissing on cotton! As quiet as . . . .!”

"As a corpse, if you keep it up!" Bradley glowered at him.

"Now, now, Jack. Don't make the Detail nervous. You know how they are!" But the President desisted, with a smile and a chuckle.

The Secretary set up his shot. Again, the powerful arms swung up, then down, connecting with the ball with a satisfying “crack.” The ball leapt forward and up, climbing in a smooth, parabolic arc . . . until, at its apex, it inexplicably shot straight up thirty feet or more, paused, paused a bit longer than gravity appeared to permit, then dropped straight to the ground.

“What the . . . .” The Secretary’s jaw hung open

“What did you hit?” Tanya asked, confused.

“There’s nothing there to hit! And it hovered like . . . magic.” Colonel Kurtz intervened for the first time.

The President was looking at me shrewdly. “Lucy,” he said, “You’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do.”

Bradley said, “What?” Then he saw where the President was looking. “You?”

“Not exactly,” I said. “The aliens. You might say I called in the strike, though.”

“How?” Bradley was looking at me carefully. “I mean, the mechanism.”

“The alien ship employs a tractor beam for a variety of purposes. Janet and I, and Doc . . . I mean, Averil . . . have been taken up to the ship by that method. And brought back down. I communicated with the aliens and suggested that they block your shot.”

“They can hear you? Right now?” The Secretary looked positively grim.

“They can.” I wondered whether my little demonstration might backfire. “But they don't, because I asked them not to listen.”

“And we’re supposed to take that on faith?” The Secretary was incredulous. Taking things on faith was apparently in the nature of a cardinal sin.

“I’m not sure whether there’s anything we can do about it, one way or another,” I replied. “But yes. I think you should take it on faith.”

The President decided to intervene. “Tell us why, Jessica. Why should we trust them? Why do you?” His voice was unusually serious.

I looked at them all – The President, the Secretary of Defense, all the rest of the entourage. How to convey this to them? How could I make these powerful people understand something so simple? So fundamental? “You should trust them, because they have consistently played it straight when they didn’t need to. They want weapons-grade uranium. That sounds crazy, I know. But they do. You just saw an example of what their tractor beam can do. What would stop them from just taking what they want?”

“We don’t leave that material just lying around in the open,” Bradley countered. But his voice wasn’t hostile. He was just testing my logic.

“I wouldn’t bet on that being enough to stop them. But even if they couldn’t take the material with the tractor beam alone, sure’s hell they could make us give it to them,” I said in response.

“How?” Bradley asked, curious.

Before I could say anything, the tall man with the white hair spoke. “Oh, come on Jack, I taught you all better than that. We’re at the bottom of a gravity well, they’re sitting on top of it. They can just hang out and drop rocks on us – we call ’em asteroids – until we say ‘uncle.’ And we would, right quick.”

Bradley and the President both looked thoughtful. I decided to press the advantage. “And that might be how we would be thinking, if our positions were reversed. But they don't think that way. That’s my point. They are aliens. Their minds aren’t wired like that.”

The tall man nodded to me gravely. “Exactly so, young woman – or distinguished professor, if I may violate Tom’s rules to make a point. Stanley Aguia,” he said by way of introduction. Then he turned to the President and the Secretary. “It stands to reason that a species that has attained sentience in a completely different ecosystem would reason in ways that are entirely foreign to us.”

The President said, “We need to keep talking, but for a whole host of reasons – including the benefit of pool reporters and their long-range cameras – we also need to keep playing.”

I must have looked started; the President grinned impishly. “Life in the fishbowl. Just smile and wave, Jessica. Smile and wave! Now – Averil, you’re up next.” He started walking to where the Science Advisor’s shot had fallen. The party followed him.

“I should get to redo my shot,” Bradley called over to him.

The President’ smile was feral. “Ah, no, Jack. As ye sow, so shall ye reap. Behold the wages of unbelief.”

We stood around as Averil got set to take her shot. As the others had, she carefully surveyed the lay of the land. She was much further from the green than Bradley had been, but she didn’t seem too worried about it. I know less about good golf form than Ensign Worm knows about human aesthetics, but her swing looked as smooth and polished as heirloom silver on Christmas day.

CRACK. Her shot sailed gracefully . . . gracefully . . . and landed in the heart of the green, probably ten yards from where the flag proclaimed the hole to be.

“God be praised!” The President said, appreciatively.

“Your doing again?” Bradley asked me with a glower.

“No . . . errrr . . . Jack.” I said. “I don’t think the tractor beam could do that – or at least, do it and look natural. I only asked the aliens to block your shots until I gave them the signal.”

“And have you?” he asked.

I smiled. “Not yet.”

He glowered at me some more, but then a rueful smile began to tug at the corners of his mouth. “Okay, well . . . I guess maybe I can believe I’m talking to a nasty old guy who tortured kids with linguistics!”

Now we walked toward the place where Jack’s aborted shot had landed.

The President looked at me and Janet. “What can you tell us about the aliens? What drives them . . about how do they think? You seem rock solid certain about them, even though – as you just pointed out – they’re alien and we can’t really get inside their heads.”

I thought about the question carefully. “What I know for a fact isn’t all that different from what you know, ahh . . . T-T-Tom,” I stuttered. “Oh, damn it! I’m sorry. I’ll try, sir, but it just cuts against everything I was ever taught!”

He smiled, but just waved me to continue.

“But what I have observed from their behavior, and taken from our conversations with them, is more extensive. It’s not exactly evidence, since it’s conceivable that they made up the whole thing. But, there’s just no reason for them to have done that.

“Anyhow, they don’t have separate genders; each of them has the equivalent of both sperm and eggs. Getting into mating ‘heat,’ if you will, is apparently difficult, and for reasons I certainly don’t understand, high octane uranium does it for them. Their young mature very slowly and they live for centuries. I believe, mostly based on what they have said about their language, that the species has some sort of collective memory. Possibly as a result, they place a very high value on social cohesion.”

“Ah,” said Aguia. “That’s interesting. Discord – fighting – would be difficult then, wouldn’t it?”

The President’s party was looking at Aguia oddly, but I nodded. “Exactly. Our disagreements – even our petty lawbreaking – caused them great distress. The youngest member of their team said they were ‘rule followers.’ And he wanted to make sure they weren’t breaking any of our rules, too. It simply wouldn’t have occurred to them to take the U-235, once they knew it was illegal.”

“The alien leader said they would only deal with Jessica because she had honor,” Averil added. “The rest of us, based on what they’ve seen so far, appear to be on probation.”

“Stopping my ball in mid-flight doesn’t seem very honorable,” Bradley huffed, though he softened the comment with a smile.

“Sore sport,” the President said.

“Well, I’m only human,” I said humbly.

Janet shook her head. “Truth is, I doubt the aliens would have gone along with Jessica’s demonstration if they’d known it broke the rules, even if it’s just a game.”

The President’s eyes grew wide in shock. “Just a game? Young woman! This is golf we’re talking about!”

Janet looked pleased. The advantage of hanging out with political leaders, I suppose, is that a sixty-year-old can feel young.

“Okay, a really, really important game, then!” she amended. “Either way, they don’t like breakin’ rules. I mean, at all. Upsets their chi. But our miasma of laws, rules, and the like is bafflin’ to them. Apparently they don’t have a lot of rules, but they follow the ones they have.”

“They sound like paragons,” Colonel Kurtz said, skepticism clear in her voice.

“No,” Janet corrected. “They sound like complete goofballs. Like a mash-up of Monty Python and the Muppets. But that’s just because our language is confusin’ to them.”

“They’ve actually done very well with it,” I said, “given that their own language is based on an entirely different principle, and depends on the stories – or, as they would say, The Story – in their collective consciousness. But Janet’s right. If you spoke with one of them – the youngest is the only one who tries to speak English – you would find it comical.”

“And that’s why you’re their spokesman? Woman? Whatever?” Bradley asked.

“I’m honestly not sure if that’s how they see my role,” I said slowly. “And their thinking on this may have evolved. I don’t know, at this point, whether they see me as an emissary from them, or an emissary to them.”

“I did point out that Jessica doesn’t represent our government,” Averil noted. “They didn’t care.”

“We’ve got a lot of rules about all that too,” I said. “Conflict of interest rules and such. But near as I can tell, they don’t.”

We had reached the ball, and Tanya squared up to it. “You didn’t ask your pals to hex my shot too, did you?”

I shook my head and smiled. “No. Should I?”

Janet said, “Repeat after me: ‘I do believe in spooks, I do believe in spooks, I do believe in spooks!’”

Tanya looked puzzled.

The President guffawed. “Damn! Tanya, tell Corbin we need a staff . . . .” He stopped, looked at Janet, and said, “I’m sorry, what’s your specialty?””

“I’m a professor of early American Literature,” she said dryly. “In high demand, as you might imagine.”

“Yeah, I can see the problem,” the President replied. “But give it a run anyway, would you T? Don’t we need a staff literature professor?”

Tanya smiled and shook her head, then got serious about her shot again. She managed to get the ball onto the green, a bit further away from the hole than Averil’s shot.

Back to walking.

“Okay,” Bradley said. “Let’s say for the sake of argument – and my golf game – that I accept that the aliens are real, and your extrapolations concerning them are correct. The essence of their proposal is that they want to trade some technical know-how for weapons-grade uranium.”

“Always after me lucky charms,” the President said, shaking his head.

“Magically delicious, after a manner of speakin,’” Janet agreed.

The Secretary eyed Janet and his superior balefully. “Allowing you two within shouting distance of each other was clearly a mistake!”

“When you lose your laugh, you lose your footing, Jack,” the President scolded.

“I’ll worry about my footing if I’m crazy enough to take up ice climbing,” Bradley retorted. “Meanwhile . . . there are some things we probably should figure out before we consider hawking our wares in the bazaar.”

“Like whether it makes any sense to give some of the most dangerous material on the planet to aliens we don’t begin to understand,” said Colonel Kurtz.

Aguia shook his head. “As we’ve just established, they don’t need nuclear weapons to destroy us.”

“Well, maybe they want to sell them to someone who does need them?” She sounded like she was playing devil’s advocate.

Aguia countered easily. “Given their technical sophistication – at least some of which they appear willing to barter – why would they need any additional trade goods?”

Bradley scratched his head. “Katherine, when was the last time we enriched any uranium to weapons grade?”

“1992,” she answered promptly. “We’re still working off our Cold War stockpile, from back when we maintained tens of thousands of warheads. Most of them were decommissioned under the START treaties.”

“And we have a program for transferring some of that stockpile to civilian use, don’t we?” the President asked.

Kurtz nodded. “Yes. After it’s been blended so that it’s no longer weapons-grade. For use in the manufacture of fuel rods for power plants.”

“That might give us the legal authority to make the transfer. Tanya, make a note to ask Toni about that.”

“Tony Stertt?” Tanya asked.

“No, wrong ‘Tony.’ I don’t want to ship this to OLC – at least not yet.”

“The downside of using first names,” Bradley drawled, “Is that your administration has more Tony's than Hamilton.”

“Do you mean Toni Shakon, in the White House Counsel’s office?” Tanya asked.

“That’s the one,” the President replied. “She’s razor sharp and very flexible . . . like a nice concertina wire. Just what we’ll need here.”

“Shakon, not Stertt. Got it.” Tanya didn’t look happy. “But . . . It doesn’t matter if you get a legal opinion, you know. This gets out, the House’ll impeach you. You know they will.”

“You talk to Mr. Corbin about that?” the President inquired with a smile.

“I did, sir.” Tanya blushed. “Tom. Sorry.”

“And what did the house Prophet have to say about it?”

She shrugged, helplessly. “That they’re going to impeach you anyway, they just hadn’t settled on an excuse. Because that's what their voters want.”

Janet said, “They're gonna nail ya no matter what you do, so you might as well have a good time?”

“That’s it, sure enough,” The President said approvingly. He gave Tanya’s shoulder a companionable squeeze. “I know politics is your job, T, but we’re going to table that part of the discussion. I worked seventy-one years for the chance to fly in the fancy plane and have the weird-shaped office. Handling hot potatoes isn’t part of the job. It is the job.”

“Yes, sir.”

“That’s Sir Tom, to you, Tanya,” the President said as he walked onto the green near where Averil’s shot had landed. “And don’t look so glum. We’ll be fine.” He looked at Aguia. “What do you think, Stanley?”

The tall man pondered the question carefully. Finally he said, “The hybrid putter with your cross-handed grip.”

“Stanley?” Bradley asked. “I’m gonna go out on a limb and say he was asking about trading uranium.”

“Really?” Aguia looked skeptical.

The President laughed. “Actually, I was asking about the shot. First things first, you know. I need to read the course.”

“And I need to read the room,” the Secretary snorted.

The President got down on the grass in an apparent effort to determine whether there were imperfections that might interfere with the trajectory of his putt. Once he was satisfied, he said, “I wonder whether there’s anything else I should do while I’m down here, since getting up and down is such a pain in the ass!”

“Or the right knee, if I remember right,” Aguia said.

“Yeah, that too.”

Tanya came over and lent him a hand.

He lined up his shot carefully, and his swing appeared to be precise. The ball made a bee-line for the hole and dropped right in. “Happy days are here again,” he said, smiling. Then he looked at me. “I’m guessing you don’t have trouble getting up and down any more, do you?”

“No. I can’t say I miss that part,” I replied honestly.

“The report I got covered what you said had happened to you, but not why. Did the aliens explain it?”

I felt the blood rush to my face. “It’s a bit embarrassing. Actually, it’s very embarrassing. But . . . the aliens found me while I was hiking the Appalachian Trail, just after the semester ended. I was . . . honestly. I was feeling kind of sorry for myself. Used up. Our dean is always promoting the younger faculty. Particularly the young, good-looking ones. I didn’t fit the profile. So when the aliens asked if I’d speak for them, I said no one would listen. I suggested they find someone who was young and good-looking. But they apparently were short on time, so instead they just shot me with something that turned me into what I’d described.”

“And changed your gender?” Colonel Kurtz sounded curious.

Janet decided to spare me the indignity of having to explain.

Well. Sort of spare me, anyway.

“That’s where it gets really funny,” she said. “The aliens – bein’ alien an’ all – wouldn’t know an attractive variant of homo sapiens from a sock puppet. So they ask her – him, at the time – and he tells ’em to check out People Magazine!”

“People!” Averil exclaimed.

Colonel Kurt had both hands attempting to cover her surprised – and amused – expression. Unsuccessfully.

Tanya was gaping. “But that’s just a . . . Oh!!!”

“Right,” Janet said. “Oh.”

The laughter was widespread; even the ascetic Aguia joined in. But he recovered first. “I assume, based on what you said, that they simply didn’t have any reason to think a gender shift would be significant?”

I nodded, relieved to be able to move the conversation away from my own circumstances. “Right. It’s a shift they must make numerous times over their long lifespans. And because each of them performs both biological roles at different times, the cultural freight surrounding gender probably doesn't exist – or if it does, it’s transitory.”

“I expect wisecracks about PMS would be rarer, and a whole lot funnier, if everyone had to deal with it,” Janet observed.

Averil was smiling slightly. “I was thinking the same thing, Janet, but I wasn’t going to say it.”

Janet grinned back. “There are some advantages to bein’ a free agent!”

“The pay kinda sucks, though,” the President responded.

“Point,” Janet said. “But what else is new?”

Bradley lined up his putt, then gave me a look. “Do I get a fair shot?”

“Now, how could I prevent you, standing over here and all?”

He glowered.

I gave him my most innocent smile. I’d been practicing it.

“Witch!” he said. “Fine! I frickin’ do believe in spooks!”

I dramatically held my delicately upturned nose with the thumb and forefinger of my right hand and shook it back and forth.

“There’s s’posed to be a sound effect when you twitch your nose,” Janet said, then demonstrated.

“Yeah, but remember – the aliens aren’t listening right now.” I looked at the Defense Secretary. “Try it now.”

He was as careful as the President had been, and his shot was straight and unobstructed.

He still missed.

“Rat farts!” he exclaimed, disgusted.

We were still discussing the merits and demerits of providing aliens with U-235 when we got to the seventh hole. I noticed that Dr. Livingston had gotten more and more quiet as the discussion went on. During a lull as Tanya was lining up a drive, I asked her if something was wrong.

“I’m just starting to wonder,” she replied sotto voce, “whether we’re ever going to get around to talking about the other side of the equation.”

The President turned back to where we were standing. “I figured we’d better pander to the Praetorians first. They get titchy if you don’t.”

“You must have acute hearing,” I said to him.

“I’m not big on jewelry,” he replied. “Though to all things, Marianne is the exception.”

“Score one for Tom,” Janet said with a smile.

“Why thank you, Janet!” The President smiled like he’d just killed an eagle.

Or whatever they call it when you get the golf ball to go into the hole by the pole with one shot.

Tanya hit her ball squarely and it flew down the fairway. She seemed pleased, though no eagles were slain.

As we began to walk to where the balls had landed, the President said, “So what about it? Have we finished with our consideration of the security concerns, for now at least?”

Bradley chewed on his lip for a bit before nodding reluctantly. “I tell you, Tom, I was pretty skeptical. But I’m convinced” – he looked at me – “that the aliens exist. And Old Brains here,” he nodded at Aguia, “has convinced me that the acquisition of U-235 wouldn’t actually increase their capacity to hurt us. Those are the big-ticket items, from my perspective.”

Colonel Kurtz cautioned, “There’s still the possibility that they’ll want us to give them so much of our stockpile that it would adversely affect our deterrence posture with respect to our traditional, terrestrial, adversaries.”

“Possible,” said Aguia, “and we’ll have to find out. But honestly, I think that’s unlikely.”

“Because?” Again, Bradley mostly sounded curious.

“From everything Jessica and Janet have told us, they’re very technologically advanced. But, physics is still physics. The '235' in weapons-grade uranium refers to its nuclear mass. If they intend to load it aboard their spaceship – or tow it, or attach it to the hull – it won’t take a whole lot of it to add substantial mass. Which will affect both their acceleration and deceleration, possibly create asymmetrical stress points on the hull, maybe other engineering or navigational complications as well. Perhaps they’ve developed fixes for all of that, or maybe their ship is incredibly large. But my guess is that the ask will be something we can live with.”

Colonel Kurtz was smiling. “Old Brains,” she said fondly.

“Why Old Brains?” I asked. The gentleman seemed to inspire both affection and deference.

“Because it turned out I was better at analyzing improbable threats than fighting actual wars,” Aguia responded with a self-deprecating smile.

“Stanley’s too modest,” the President said. “Jack and Katherine are both West Pointers. So was my son Declan. Stanley was the hardest instructor there. But for the good students, he was also their favorite. Taught them all how to think. When he retired three years ago, he was probably the least decorated – but most admired – two-star in any branch of the military.”

“So – the very model of a modern major general.” Janet, naturally.

The President beamed. “I let that ball catch a ridiculous amount of the strike zone. I’d have been disappointed if you whiffed it, Janet!”

She performed an exaggerated curtsy, looking insufferably pleased with herself.

The President looked at each of his advisors and was apparently satisfied. “Alright,” he said, “Let me see if I can match Tanya’s drive, here, then let’s talk about what Averil is calling the other side of the equation.”

He actually managed to power the ball further than Tanya – indeed, it even made it to the green. “Best shot I’ve had all day!” he said.

Back to walking.

“Alright Averil,” the President said. “I’m in a good mood now. So tell me. I assume it cost the taxpayers of this great nation a bit of lucre to enrich uranium. No doubt I’ll get the exact numbers later, but I’ll assume for the sake of our discussion that it falls somewhere between a stinking heap and a crapload. Is what the aliens are offering really worth it?”

The Science Advisor nodded thoughtfully. “With a few important caveats, yes. In fact, it would be the best deal since colonists allegedly acquired Manhattan for beads.”

“I had an instructor who used to advise putting the caveats before the horseshit,” Bradley said, pointedly looking up at the sky. “Not that his saying applies in the present instance, of course.”

“Oh, of course not!” Aguia said with a smile.

Averil laughed. “I’ll start with the caveats then, but they’re straightforward. We don’t know the materials that are used in the battery, whether they are readily available, or what they cost, nor do we know whether we can manufacture it. The aliens have given us their assurances on each of those points. But, however much Jessica – or even you, Tom – would like to simply take all that on faith, it would be better to have confirmation before transferring anything valuable.”

“Trust, but verify?” the President asked.

“Right,” she answered. “I mean, listen, we’d probably learn a tremendous amount even if those caveats weren't met. But no question, it’d be a different deal.”

“Jessica, did the aliens say anything about sequencing the transaction?” the President inquired.

“We didn’t really get to the negotiating stage,” I said. “Since I had to get to the right people before we could.”

“Looks like it’s your lucky day.” The President looked at his advisors. “Anything else on the caveats? No? Alright then. Why do we care about a new and improved Energizer Bunny?”

“The case for it is compelling just as a matter of economics,” the Science Advisor said. “The amount of energy that is lost just through the process of transmission is enormous. But what takes this from being simply an incredibly big deal to being a complete game changer is climate change.”

“You’ve still got to generate all the power you’ll be storing,” Bradley cautioned. “So you still get the greenhouse gas emissions, don’t you?”

“The ramp-up to renewables is much, much faster with an efficient power storage tech, though,” Averil countered. “Clean energy technology is cost competitive right now in many parts of the country, but it’s uneven. Solar arrays in desert areas are more efficient than in, say, Minnesota. And even in the desert, the sun doesn’t always shine. The wind doesn’t always blow. But if we could harvest solar and wind power where and when it was most efficient, then store and transport it safely, efficiently and easily . . . . You see what a difference that makes? And that’s not even getting into the fact that this technology would solve one of the toughest nuts to crack, which is accelerating the transition to clean transportation.”

“Okay,” the President said. “But why that technology? Shouldn’t we shoot for, I don’t know? Fusion power? Or maybe something in the biomedical line.”

“I’ll have what she’s having,” Kurtz said, pointing a thumb in my direction and smiling.

“Exactly!” Taryn replied. “It seems we’re kind of going down this track in a hurry. Shouldn’t we think a bit more about our ask?”

One by one, I found all eyes were on me.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “When they showed up, a few weeks ago, it was just Janet and me, okay? A couple old humanities professors at a small college. No one else believed what had happened. My own damned doctor wouldn’t believe it. I mean, to the point where he called the police. We needed something that would get us a hearing, that they would be willing to make. So . . . I came up with the battery idea.”

They were all still looking at me, and I couldn’t read their expressions. “We thought about the type of shot I got . . . but even if they’d give us that, which I doubt, widespread use would cause tremendous population problems. . . . Dammit. I’m a linguist, not a scientist! We did the best we could!”

The President held up a hand to stop me. “Jessica, you did fine. Averil here thinks you did better than fine. I’m really just trying to determine whether it’s worth considering other alternatives.”

Don't shade the truth, I thought, remembering Averil’s admonition.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But what they’ve told me is that we’ve got six days to work out a deal. And . . . they won’t trade just anything. They have something like the Prime Directive from the old Star Trek show. We had to convince them that we might get something like the battery tech sometime in the next fifty years before they would put that on the table.”

“The Prime Directive? Really?” The President looked both surprised and displeased.

“Fascinating,” said Aguia.

“What happens if we can’t get it done in six days?” Bradley asked. “Do they just go home? Do they try to deal with someone else?”

“That’s the problem,” I said. “They won’t tell me. And I expect Justin Abel is behind that.”

“Just enable what?” Kurtz looked puzzled.

“Sorry. Abel’s their lawyer. He’s advising them on the negotiations. And, I have no doubt, telling them they should leave us guessing what they’ll do if we can’t get it done.”

“Where did they find a lawyer?” Kurtz asked.

“How could they avoid it?” Bradley responded. “From what I’ve seen, you can’t take a leak in this town without pissing on one. If you’ll excuse my French.”

“I’m afraid that’s our fault, too,” I said. “We asked a lawyer to analyze the scope of their Prime Directive. They took a shine to him.”

“Lawyers and aliens?” Bradley shook his head sadly. “That’s got to be even worse than Cowboys and Aliens.”

“Nothing could be worse than Cowboys and Aliens!” Tanya shuddered in horror.

The President grinned. “Nothing? Oh, Tanya! You forgot that our story has politicians, too.”

“Shysters and termites and crooks, oh my!” Janet quipped.

When the laughter subsided, Averil said, “Whether the lawyer’s behind it or not, I guess we should assume the deadline’s real.”

Bradley nodded. “Of my options, I’m sure we’d rather have them leave altogether than work out some shady deal with Russia . . . or some even less savory operators, if you can imagine such a thing. But that wouldn’t be in our control.”

“Then it sounds to me like uranium for the battery tech is the only deal that can be done in the time we’ve got,” the President mused. “Go or no go? What do you think, Stanley?”

“The Fairway Wood. Definitely.”

To be continued. Definitely.