Footfall

“All right. We’ll have to shop, though. There’s nothing here.”

“Sure. I’ll get started, and you can go get—”

She stopped because he was shaking his head. “Let’s go together. We can figure out what we want on the way.”

“Sure.” She waited while he put on his jacket. As he always did before going out, he took his revolver out of the holster concealed inside his trousers and looked into the barrel, then checked the loads.

She’d never seen Jack angry, or threaten anyone, but Jenny never worried when she went out with him. The Post might be full of stories about Washington street crime, but no one ever bothered Jack Clybourne. Jenny wondered if it could be telepathy.

He lived in the newly rebuilt area off New Jersey Avenue,

where there were lots of apartments. It was on the other side of the White House from Flintridge.

She giggled. “Drive me home, he said. It’s on my way, he said,”

“It worked, didn’t it?”

She took his hand. “Yes, and I’m glad.”

“Me, too.”

They went toward Constitution Avenue and the Federal Triangle until they reached the wide park like Mall between Independence and Constitution Avenues. When they were in the middle of the Mall, he stopped. “Jenny, what in hell is going on?”

“With what?”

“This alien ship-look, being around the President, I hear a lot of things. I never talk about them. Not even with you, except it’s your job too-the President’s scared, Jenny. If you don’t know that, you’d better.”

“Scared? Jack-Oh, hell, darling. Let’s walk.” She led him along the path toward the great granite shape of the National Museum.

He wouldn’t talk about this in his apartment. Out here we ought to be safe if we keep our voices down and talk directly to each other. That’s silly. No one’s listening to us. Still, I shouldn’t talk to him about this, but he knows already — “Jack, what do you mean, scared? I’ve briefed him a dozen times, and he doesn’t act scared with me.”

“Not with you, not with the Admiral,” Jack said. “But with Mrs. Coffey. He’s worried because they don’t answer.”

“Well, we all wonder—”

“It’s no wonder; he’s scared! And I think he thinks the Russians are too.”

“Yeah,” Jenny said. “Of course we can only guess what they really think.”

“It’s true, though, isn’t it? Every nut with a transmitter has tried to send them messages, and they don’t answer…”

“Not just every nut,” Jenny said. “The National Security Agency, with our biggest transmitters. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Deep Space Net, with the big Goldstone antenna. The Russians are doing the same thing.”

“And nothing.” Jack shivered slightly, despite the warm June night. “Heck, maybe I’m scared too!”

She hesitated, then laughed.

“What?”

“Just thinking. If there’s anybody with a higher clearance than a man who’ll put his butt between the President and a bullet, I don’t know what it is.” There was no one around, but she lowered her voice anyway. “The Admiral’s getting worried too.”

“I guess the Soviets decided to mobilize.”

Jenny chuckled. “No. That’s like an Australian’s first reaction to anything is to go on strike.”

“Wha-at?”

“Or like the Watergate trials. The lawyers asked one of them, ‘Who ordered the cover’up?’ And he said, ‘Actually, nobody ever suggested there would not be a cover-up.’ Unless somebody actually says stop, the Soviets will mobilize.”

“Get enough of those weapons, and somebody’s likely to use them—”

“Yes. But things look reasonably stable over there. Their theoreticians are saying that any race advanced enough to have star travel would have to be economically evolved, meaning the aliens will all be good communists.”

“I wouldn’t think that follows.”

“Neither do I. We know for a fact it hasn’t helped the Russians communicate with the aliens. That ship isn’t talking to anyone.”

“Maybe it’s a robot ship.”

She shrugged. “We don’t even have any good theories, and the Admiral wants some.”

“Who has he asked?”

“Who haven’t we asked?” Jenny laughed again. “Anybody we didn’t ask has tried to tell us anyway. Out at the Air Force Academy we’ve got the damnedest collection of anthropologists, historians, political scientists, and other denizens of academia you ever saw. There’s even a psychic. But next week we go even further. The Admiral’s rounded up a collection of science-fiction writers.”

Jack didn’t laugh. “Actually that might not be such a bad idea.”

“That’s what I thought. Anyway, he’s done it. Most of them are at the Air Academy, but he’s taking a smaller group into Cheyenne Mountain. Guess what? I’m supposed to go out next week and help get them settled in. I don’t know how long I’ll be.”

“Oh. Okay. But I’ll miss you.”

She squeezed his hand, then glanced around. It was dark, and nobody was going to see her behaving in an undignified manner while in uniform, and if they did, the hell with them. She stood on tiptoe and kissed him. He was startled at first; then he held her close and they kissed again.

’We still haven’t got dinner,” she said finally. “No, What do you want?”

“Something we can cook fast.”

He laughed, “Yeah. There are better things to do than eat.”