Skeletons (57 page)

It seemed a good idea, so I agreed. There was a speech I had begun working on. The ride in Air Force One would provide me the time to do that. Also, Professor Einstein had invited me to meet him at the Mount Palomar Observatory, which was something I looked forward to greatly.

Eddie and Willie begged to come, too. Finally I gave in to their wishes. As soon as we were airborne, they pretty much took control of the plane, much to the chagrin of the pilot and crew. They were quite the rascals, and if I hadn't been so used to their antics, I would have gotten no work done at all. I thought they would drive poor Stanton to distraction, but I did much work on my speech, and when I showed it in draft form to the war secretary, he approved of its contents.

"It's very fine, Mr. President," he said.

"I have some doubts about this speech," I said. "But I think it will be needed."

"Oh, no doubt about that, Mr. President," Stanton said. He paused to look out the window. "It is marvelous to be flying like a bird, isn't it, though?"

I chuckled. "I have mixed feelings on that one. I'm afraid I keep waiting for all this heavy machinery to go crashing to earth. I've been told it's the weight of two ironclads like the Monitor. You remember how heavy that was, don't you? How can something this massive possibly stay in the air?"

Stanton turned from the window. "As to your speech, though, it will be appropriate to speak when the girl is found and hung."

"It will be an historic occasion."

"That it will."

I gave a deep nod. "I'm still not convinced I have the whole story."

Stanton smiled. "Your dreams again? But it is rather eerie, don't you think, Mr. President, the way everything has come to a head at once?"

"It is rather . . . strange."

Eddie chased Willie up the aisle, a tired-looking Secret Service man loping after the two of them. "I must say though," Stanton said, "that I never for one moment thought we were following the wrong course."

"Once I was on it, neither did I. Though I wish I could see what was at the end of the path!"

Stanton nodded. He turned to look out the window once more. "I've never been one for doubts, but thinking about our little space experiment, it would be tragic if this war was all for nothing."

"That," I said, giving a deep sigh, "is not something I am prepared to believe. It is why I place so much importance on the young human woman. I feel that someone—something—has guided, and will continue to guide us, on this course."

"I hope you're right, Mr. President. And your remarks will be perfect when the human girl is turned."

I looked with him out the window to the beautiful world below, before turning once again to my speech.

My time at Mount Palomar with Professor Einstein was exceptionally enjoyable. He met me at dusk. We shooed away the Secret Service, letting them guard the perimeter of the dome, and locked the door to the observatory behind us. Eddie and Willie's bedraggled Secret Service man was still with them at Disneyland. Stanton was nearby, monitoring the military situation, and would call us with news if it arrived.

"I am glad you could come, Mr. President," Einstein said as we climbed the steps to the telescope room.

"I wouldn't have missed it for the world," I said. "You know, I had quite a fancy for the stars in my other days. I used to go to the observatory in Washington occasionally to study them. Of course, they didn't have toys this marvelous to look at them with, then!"

"True," Einstein said. The two of us stopped to admire the huge, thick tube pointed through the open,
slitted
dome above us. A wash of stars filled the slit.

"Before light pollution, this was the finest observatory in the world!" Einstein said. He preceded me into the observing cage, which would rise and take us to the eyepieces.

We ascended slowly. I watched the stars seem to get closer.

"Marvelous," I said.

"I'm told you've been having dreams," Einstein said. He consulted a white-faced clock on the wall, over the door we had come through. I enjoyed his company so much because he was not only intelligent, but possessed a sense of humor. The corners of his eyes crinkled up when he was being wry.

"Yes," I said, chuckling. "Some of those around me think I'm silly to put stock in them."

Einstein said seriously, "I think they are the silly ones. These dreams could be a kind of communication, you know. There has always been a school of thought that has maintained that dreams are messages from another physical realm, or universe, and that the sleeping mind is merely a receiver tuned to receive those messages. I think in this case it would be foolish to discount that theory."

"I think you're quite right, Professor."

"Besides"—he chuckled—"I've been having them myself!"

I laughed as the cage stopped.

We were before an instrument with two optical eyepieces attached to it, one for Einstein, and one for me, which the scientist adjusted for me.

"Have a look, Mr. President."

He watched me as I gazed through the instrument.

A thick, deep, glorious wash of stars, like millions of tiny diamonds, filled the view of the eyepiece, set against a backdrop of velvet black.

"You know, Professor, I often wondered how all of those stars got up there. I know I may sound naive on this, since you yourself tried to figure out just that question, but I think it was one of the things that got me to thinking about Providence. When I was younger, I didn't give it much thought, because I was busy with other things. But looking up at the stars got me to pondering. It just seemed too beautiful, too vast, to pop into existence all by itself"

"I know exactly what you mean, Mr. President.

That's the same question that got me to thinking how it all got there, and why it does what it does. I wanted to see how God performs his tricks!"

"I used to love the magic shows! We had a man named Herman the Magician who came to the White House. I'd make him do all his tricks in slow motion so I could see how they were done. It used to drive Mother to distraction! She couldn't understand why I would want to know the secret behind the magic!"

"I think that's all you or I really want, Mr. President—to glimpse how it's done. It would take some of the mystery out of life, perhaps. But it certainly would remove a lot of the fear!"

"I quite agree with you, Professor."

While I was admiring the view the telephone in the cage rang. Einstein picked it up.

"It's for you, Mr. President."

I took the receiver. While Einstein swung the telescope to another target I spoke with Stanton.

"They've been found!" Stanton said.

"That's good," I said.

"A tiny island off the coast of Alaska. It will be secured by tomorrow."

“Thank you, Mr. Stanton."

I hung up.

"It seems the stage is set for Act Three of our little drama," I said to Einstein.

"The last humans have been found?"

"Yes."

Einstein had taken out his pipe and was stuffing it with tobacco. "Well, perhaps tonight we will get a preview of the denouement."

He nodded toward the eyepiece, and I looked in. There, surrounded by stars, was a sharp dot of light. "Is that your fellow?"

"Yes," Einstein said. "And very brave he is, too. It took NASA and the Soviets long enough to put together the mission. But he wasn't the only one who wanted it. They were fighting for the job. Our Grissom wanted it badly. But, in the end, they let Gagarin have it, since he had been first into space."

'The first shall be last, eh?" I said, looking at Einstein.

The corners of his eyes crinkled.

Once again, Einstein consulted the white-faced clock over the entrance door. "I'm expecting a phone call of my own soon. I thought it might be instructive if we actually watched while it happened."

He turned back to his eyepiece and I to mine.

I watched carefully. There was a dot of light, and it continued to be a dot of light. Einstein pulled himself away from his own eyepiece, consulted the wall clock, and announced, "It's happened."

"He's out of the cloud?"

"As of now. And the earth will be out tomorrow.”

“Darned if I saw any difference in that dot of light when it happened."

"We'll have to wait"

The phone rang then. I must admit my heart came up into my throat.

Einstein took the call, and said once, then again, "I see."

I waited for the results, and when he had slowly hung up the phone and paused to light his pipe, he told me.

"Hmmm," I said.

Einstein said, "I once stated that God doesn't play dice."

"No, but he certainly does play chess, doesn't he?" The corners of Einstein's eyes crinkled up. "He certainly does. Perhaps we are due for another dream, eh?”

“Perhaps."

For a few more minutes we lingered over the stars, watched their place in the universe. Then I went back to where I was staying and took my speech out of my hat, read slowly through it, still not convinced that the words were exactly right.

Finally I gave up, and slept.

That night, as if in answer to a prayer, both my old dream of a ship approaching an unseen shore and the new one of the young woman with brown skin came to me. Only now I was on the ship, and I could see the shore, and I knew suddenly who the young girl was, what was going to happen, and what I was supposed to do.

5

And so, finally, began the most momentous day in the history of life on earth. I had spent the later hours of the night in a long limousine, speeding amidst a caravan of cars containing Stanton and others north to Seattle, Washington, where a navy ship waited to take me to sea. There was a quick side trip to the Seattle Zoo, affected only after many presidential orders and with Stanton ultimately throwing his hands in the air and sputtering, "Dreams!" Eddie and Willie slept beside me in the car, Eddie snuggling over during the night to rest his head on my lap. Willie had wedged himself into the far corner of the seat against the door, but I managed to pull him over close to me as I stared at the passing lights in the sleepless night.

As dawn broke we reached the Seattle shipyard. I stretched myself out of the limousine and walked the gangplank to the ship's deck. It was a sleek, long thing, covered in turrets and saluting midshipmen. The sun was rising on what looked to be a beautiful morning.

"Welcome aboard, sir," Admiral John Paul Jones said.

I waved off his salute, smiled, and slapped him on the shoulder. "No need to salute, Admiral," I said. "Just get me to that island by three this afternoon."

"Will do, Mr. President!"

Eddie and Willie scooted past me, preparing to wreak havoc on the ship. Admiral Jones merely smiled. Soon he had us steaming north by west at high speed, toward Little Diomede Island, with five destroyers in tow.

"Think we'll need 'em?" I laughed, pointing out the trail of ships to Stanton.

He scowled.

I laughed, and turned my face to feel the salt spray, and watch the waves break behind us.

We reached the island before noon. We anchored well off, in sight of a beached ship. The seas were calm.

An advance party of armed men hit the beach before us, making me wonder what all the fuss was about. The two humans we were looking for, along with a very changed Roger Garber, were waiting calmly for us on the sand.

"Just in case," Stanton growled, and I'm afraid I annoyed him again with my laugh.

Eddie and Willie had pretty much destroyed the admiral's ship in the short time we were aboard, and they did their best to scuttle the launch that brought us to shore. Finally, yards from landing, the admiral let them roll up their pants and lowered them over the side so they could splash to the beach.

"Look, Father, humans!" Eddie said, stopping dead, with water still lapping around his ankles. He pointed to the young man and woman who, side by side, stood regarding our party calmly. Nearby were a sleek pair of wolves, who watched us noncommittally.

My bones creaking, I got out of the launch and lowered Eddie's finger with my hand.

"It's not polite to point," I said. Then reserving as always that understandable revulsion we have for these humans, I held out my hand and said, "How do you do?"

The young man stepped forward. "Hello, Mr. President. My name is
Kral
Kishkin
." He took my hand in a surprisingly warm grasp. "It's very nice to meet you." He introduced the young woman standing next to him. "This is Claire St. Eve."

"Yes, it is," I said, taking the hand of the young woman, whose face looked as though it were lit from within.

I turned to our spy, Mr. Garber, and said, "Well, I see you've decided to join the ranks!"

He grinned sheepishly and said, "Well, uh, yeah, kind of an accident, but I still hope we have a deal . . ."

"Good work, Mr. Garber. I'm sure something will be worked out."