President Martin had appeared on prime-time TV a week after the lunar battle, an address preceded by the wildest speculation; speculation fueled by rumors of clandestine military operations along the New England coast. Rumors that President MacDonald and CIA Director Tuckman hadn't been killed when Air Force One crashed into the sea. Rumors of a secret Red Alert called at a time of abnormal international calm. And rumors of strange radar reports, leaking through the suddenly tightened security nets of a dozen nations.
Martin's delivery of the facts about POCSYM, the K'Ronarins and the Biofab War was made in his usual crisp, dry lowan tone; he might have been lecturing on torts. -
The pampered Washington press corps, already inconvenienced by the President's choice of the Capitol's West Portico for his news conference, were further miffed by the difficulty in getting there: the Mall and all adjacent streets had been closed without explanation, creating an unmoving Friday evening gridlock. Many of the reporters had to trot the final mile from their stalled, overheated cars.
Tired, sweaty, at first they weren't sure what they were hearing. By the time Martin had finished, though, everyone knew he'd cracked, latest victim to the pressures of high office.
"Poor s.o.b.," whispered the New York Times to Reuters in the embarrassed silence following the statement. Reuters said nothing, instead turning the New York Times around with a hand to her shoulder, pointing at the great bulk of Vigilant as she came in over the Tidal Basin, blotting out the night sky.
Silently hovering over the Mall, she filled it from Monument to Capitol, every instrument pod, weapons blister and observation bubble a blaze of light.
It was the biggest party Earth had ever seen. Wherever the K'Ronarin landed-and they landed only by invitation-the formal reception quickly became a street festival lasting days. When it finally ended and the guests had gone back to their ships, life went on much as before. But with the expectation that things would soon be changing.
They would.
The hundreds of Treaty signators pledged their nations' help against the presumptive Enemy. The K'Ronarins, in return, promised technical aid, colonization rights throughout the galaxy and the option of Terran application for Confederation membership. This last would bring with it the stardrive, the catch being that application had to be a unanimous one from all sovereign Earth states. And there was still one holdout.
The fat old man stood at his window, watching an angry red sunrise fire the gold capping Ivan the Great's bell towers. The East is Red. He snorted, turning back to his desk with its heap of reports detailing the dissolution of the Warsaw Bloc, the ongoing disintegration of the Soviet Empire.
Sighing, he poured himself another shot of vodka, tossing it down with practiced indifference. Leaning back in the creaky old armchair, big feet on the desk, he unbuttoned his shirt collar. Heavy with medals and ribbons, his uniform jacket lay in a crumpled heap on the ancient horsehair sofa. Lacing his fingers over his impressive gut, the old man again counted the cracks in the high white ceiling, ignoring the polite knock on his door.
At the second, less tentative knock, he grunted, "Come.
"Ah, Bakunin." He sat up, taking in without comment the other's battledress and assault rifle, then poured himself another shot. "Care for a drink, Andreyev Ivanovich? Or should I call you Andre, as your Western friends do?"
Silent and grim, Bakunin shook his head, then cleared his throat. "Sir, I have the unpleasant duty of placing you-" he began formally.
The old man waved the bottle at him. "Please, Andre, why the haste? You New Decembrists have always been a slow and careful group. Why not savor your victory?"
Bakunin couldn't hide his surprise. "You knew?"
"Of course we knew." He took another shot, finishing the bottle. "Not enough and too late. But we knew. Don't forget, we played this game a long time." The nearby chatter of automatic weapons briefly turned their heads.
"I was seven when Lenin and Trotsky took the Winter Palace, Andre. Never thought I'd outlive the Revolution." More intense, the gunfire drew nearer.
"Perhaps, sir, the Revolution has outlived itself," said Bakunin with a wisp of a smile.
The head of KGB's Second Chief Directorate gathered himself in, sitting up at his desk. "I'd be interested in your analysis of how we came to this moment, and the part your most recent assignment had in it. Did the Biofab War do this to us?" His hand swept over the reports.
Bakunin shifted his weight uneasily. "It served as a catalyst for much that would eventually have happened.
''The Presidium's refusal to ratify the Treaty cut us off from K'Ronarin technical aid. We'd have been thrown back three hundred years, the primitives of Europe-of the world this time."
Z'Sha, the courtly K'Ronarin Ambassador, had taken the UN Security Council veto graciously, going on to sign separate treaties with every member nation of the General Assembly save one.
"All it took was a spark, once the word got out. Poland flared up over food-nothing new. In a week, though, Hungary, East Germany and Czechoslovakia had risen, Yugoslavia had seceded. We were in the midst of the Third Revolution. In two weeks, Georgia led the Autonomous Republics in revolt. All the armies in the world couldn't have stopped it. Ours mostly disintegrated, caught by a tidal wave on the floodplain of history."
"And had we ratified the Treaty, Andre? Would that have saved us?"
"Ratifying the Treaty would only have postponed it, sir.
Not ratifying it compressed fifty years of social evolution into a single month."
The gunfire stopped abruptly. "Get it over with, Colonel. You're a Russian officer. Do your duty."
Bakunin all but came to attention, thumbs at his pantseams. "Colonel General Mikhail Ilarionovich Branovsky, I arrest you in the peoples' name.
"I urge you, sir, to advise those KGB units still holding out that further resistance is futile. The army, air force and Strategic Rocket Force are with us."
Branovsky nodded absently, walking slowly back to the window. He stood, hands clasped behind his back, staring down at the small riot of color in the gray-cobbled courtyard. "Take good care of my tulips, Andre. They're more delicate a perennial than you'd suspect."
Going to the sofa, he put on his jacket and buttoned it, smoothing it with his big peasant hands.
"Shall we go?" he asked, taking his cap from the coat rack. "I gather the Motherland requires one last service of me."
"I don't believe it." With exaggerated care, John dazedly set the phone back on the patio table.
Zahava looked up from her coffee, concerned.
"That was our agent," he said slowly. "The book…"
"They didn't turn it down!" she cried.
Returning from Vigilant, John, Zahava and Bob had worked day and night for three months on their book, First Contact. It was all there, from their first meeting with Bill to the final battle. John had air-expressed it off to New York last Friday and never been far from the phone since.
Before he could reply, McShane, Bill Sutherland and a third man came out onto the patio from the townhouse.
"Look who dropped in!" boomed McShane.
"Andre!" They rose to greet the Russian.
"In the flesh." Bakunin grinned, sinking into a chair. But for the close-cropped hair he might have been an assistant professor, with his corduroy jacket, leather-patched at the elbows, casual summer pants and penny loafers.
"Nice house." He nodded approvingly. "At heart I'm a reactionary: the older I am, the more I like fine old things."
Climbing just above the brick wall, the hot August sun had coaxed open the last of the morning glories. A pair of cardinals flirted in the big old elm overhanging the wall, red and gray plumages soaring high into the greenery.
"So, what brings you to the States, Andre?" asked John. "A well earned rest?" Ex-CIA, it was the closest he could come to open admiration for the ex-KGB.
The dramatic footage of Bakunin helping a pale, stumbling Raoul Wallenberg through the Lubyanka's shattered gate had swept the globe. Imprisoned most of his life by a system unable to admit error, the elderly Swedish diplomat, a hero of the Holocaust, looked thin but well. He'd even made a brief but gracious speech before boarding the 727 that took him home to Stockholm and a jubilant welcome.
"K'Ronarin liaison." The Russian sipped a cup of coffee. "I'm going on the Trel Expedition. But first I have one small chore to perform at the K'Ronarin mission office in New York. And besides"-he smiled-"I wanted to tour the world's greatest tourist attraction."
"So you're going out to Andrews to tour Vigilant?" Bob asked. Bakunin nodded, crossing his legs. "I'd think you'd have seen enough of her.''
"Oh, I have. But I want to see her here on Earth, with crowds lined up outside her. Then maybe I can accept that this has all actually happened. Call it a pilgrimage for my psyche's sake." He unconsciously rubbed his healed calf muscle.
"Then?" asked John.
"Then to New York. I'm empowered by my government to sign the Terran/K'Ronarin Treaty."
"Thank God." McShane sighed, standing to shake the surprised Colonel's hand. "And thank you, Andre. This hand I'm holding will free us from our small pocket of the universe."
"And how's the CIA's new Director?" asked Zahava, lighting a cigarette as Bakunin looked thoughtfully at his hand.
"You mean 'the dedicated Intelligence officer whose brilliance and daring saved not only his country but his planet'?" quoted John, smirking maliciously.
"No more, please," pleaded Bill, holding up his hands. "The President was too effusive-you've no idea how horrible it is to be anointed a demigod! People at work vying for the honor of bringing me coffee, Emmy-chan won't let me take out the trash. And I get swamped when we go out-too many people know my face." He shook his head. "No wonder you three wouldn't let the President or me mention your contributions."
"Otherwise?"
"Otherwise, Zahava, I'm busy, keeping track of the fledgling democracy in Russia, liaison with L'Guan and Z'Sha's people helping organize the Expedition."
Bob hesitated, then buttered another croissant. "When does that leave?"
"As soon as Fleet mops up the S'Cotar in our system. Maybe two months." Adding a generous glob of boysenberry jam to the roll, he took a heroic bite.
"D’Trelna's going to lead it," said Sutherland. "He's been promoted Commodore. And L'Wrona's now Captain of Implacable."
Reaching under the table, John brought the cold bottle of Dom Perignon and some champagne flutes out from their hiding place. "I have two announcements." The loud pop of the cork scattered the cardinals.
"One." He began pouring. "Our book has been sold to a publishing consortium for an advance of five million dollars."
McShane choked on his croissant, then drained his glass in one gulp. Zahava's jaw dropped. Sutherland and Bakunin pounded backs and pumped hands, loudly congratulating the trio.
When the tumult died, John continued. "Two. Captain, Miss Tal and I are getting married next weekend by a compliant rabbi. You're all invited." Zahava's anguished "I don't have a dress!" was drowned by boisterous best wishes.
"And I also have an announcement," she said as Harrison refilled the glasses. "Admiral L'Guan's accepted John's and my application to join the Trel Expedition."
"What application?"
"The one I submitted last week through Bill."
John put down his glass. "Mindslaves. Matter transport. Biofabs. Machiavellian cyborgs. Hostile space. The 'Enemy.' And worst of all, gallant allies." He tossed down the wine. ''I can hardly wait."
Bill reached over, touching his arm reassuringly. "Don't worry, John," he said solemnly. "I'll be with you."
"And you, Bob?" asked Zahava hopefully.
"Thank you, no," the philosopher said firmly, topping his glass. "I'm going to spend my dotage with the grandchildren.
"Besides," he added cheerfully, "one of us should stay and see to the spending of the royalties. But I'll think of you while I'm on Capri."
"My friends," said John, slightly tipsy, "my dear friends, a great writer once said mankind would not just endure, but prevail, so long as we realized always that the basest of all things was to be afraid.
"A final toast, then," he offered, golden glass held high.
"To humanity and its future, bright and unafraid!"
"To the future!"