Footfall

Doesn’t matter. All colleges teach nonsense. She’ll outgrow it. Carlotta got up and went to Wes. He was bursting to tell her, but he had control of his face now. “Hi,” she said. “This is Troop 112. Johnny Brasicku is the Senior Patrol Leader. Johnny, this is my husband, Congressman Dawson.”

They were nice boys, and they came from the district. Wes shook hands with each one of them. When he’d finished he gave Carlotta a rueful grin. She winked at him.

The most important news we’ve ever heard, she thought. Possibly the most important thing anyone ever heard. And here we’re chatting with Boy Scouts while the staff decides what we ought to think and how Wes ought to vote, and there’s nothing we can do about it. If congressmen spent any time being congressmen and thinking about the job, they wouldn’t have the job. It’s a strange way to run a country.

2. ANNOUNCEMENTS

Suspicion is the companion of mean souls, and the bane of all good society.

—Thomas Paine, Common Sense

COUNTDOWN: H MINUS SIX WEEKS

“I really don’t think you should do that,” Jeanette Crichton said. Richard Owen paused with his hand on the telephone, then snorted. “Nothing you can do about it. The Army doesn’t have any jurisdiction over me.”

“I never said we did,” Jeanette said. “And why be paranoid? But you ought to think it over.”

“I already did,” Owen said. “The Soviets have to know. They may already, in which case it’s better if they know that we know about it. And you’re nice and friendly, but somehow I’ve got the feeling that if I wait very long a real spook might show up.” He lifted the receiver and dialed.

And now what? Jeanette thought. He’s right, the Army doesn’t have any jurisdiction, and the Russians probably know all about it anyway. If they don’t now, they’ll learn soon enough. They have a lot more in space than we do, with their big manned station.

“Academician Pavel Bondarev,” Owen said. “Da. Bondarev,” His fingers drummed against the desk, “Pavel? Richard Owen in Hawaii . Uh … yes, of course, I’ll wait,” He put his hand over the transmitter, “They have a policy,” he told Jeanette. “They’re not allowed to talk to Americans unless there are three of them together. Even somebody as high as Bondarev. Talk about paranoid, these guys own the copyright… Ah. Academician Bondarev? Your colleagues are there? Excellent. This is Professor Richard Owen, University of Hawaii , We’ve turned up something interesting I think you better know about…”

Pavel Aleksandrovich Bondarev put down the telephone and stared thoughtfully at the ceiling.

“Is it real?” Boris Ogarkov’s flat peasant lace was twisted into an inquiring frown, which made him look very unpleasant.

“Yes,” Bondarev said absently. Boris was the Institute Party Secretary. He was not well educated. Boris was from the working class. Uninspired but tireless Party activities had brought him to lie attention of his superiors He was one of those raised to a position of power, who knew that loyalty to the system was the only way be would ever be more than a menial. He had cunning enough to know that the Institute was important to the Soviet Union , and so not to interfere with its work. instead be busied himself with seeing that there was a portrait of Lenin in every office, and that everyone, scientist, secretary, clerk, or janitor, voted in every election. “I know this American well,” Bondarev continued. “We have published two papers together, and worked together when I was in the United States . He would not call me for a hoax.”

“Not as a hoax,” Andrei Pyatigorskiy said. “But could he be mistaken? We have seen no evidence of this.”

“Perhaps we have,” Bondarev said. “And perhaps not, As a favor, Anditi, will you please call Dr. Nosov at the observatory, and ask his staff to examine all the photographs that might be relevant?”

“Certainly.”

“Thank you. I need not say that Nosov must not speak of this to anyone. No matter what he finds.”

“I can call the Party Secretary at the observatory,” Boris Ogartov said. “He will help to keep this secret.”

Bondarev nodded agreement.

“But, Pavel Aleksandrovich, do you believe this story? Alien spacecraft coming to Earth?” Pyatigorskiy gestured helplessly. “How can you believe it?”

Bondarev shrugged. “If you agree that they did not lie, we have no choice but to believe it. The Americans have excellent equipment, and enough so that every observatory has comparators and computers. As you well know.”

“If we had half so much,” Pyatigorskiy said. Half the time he had to build his own equipment, because the Institute could not get the foreign exchange credits to obtain electronics and optics from the West, and unless it had been built for the military, Russian laboratory equipment did not work well.

Bondarev shrugged again. “Certainly. But there are many reasons why the Americans would see it first.”

“Perhaps it has been seen from Kosmograd.” Boris Ogarkov said.