“Are you going to be sent up again?”

“I’m afraid not, Mr. President. I’m past my thirty-fourth birthday, and the limit for men going into space is now thirty-five.”

Dilman took out a cigar and busied himself with it, and then remembered to offer Jaskawich an Upmann. “Allowed to smoke?”

“Absolutely,” said Jaskawich. “But no, thanks, that cigar is too much for me. Mind if I have one of my own?”

“Go ahead.”

Jaskawich took out a slender cheroot and his crested lighter, hastily lit the President’s cigar first and then his own cheroot. He inhaled. “Good,” he said.

“Tell me,” Dilman said, “do you like Washington?”

“I like any place where there’s action and challenge, and I guess that describes Washington.”

“It certainly does,” said Dilman. He resumed walking, with Jaskawich keeping in stride beside him. “I was thinking,” Dilman went on, “how much we could use-in the Pentagon, maybe even in the White House-the judgment of a person who has been a little closer to heaven than any of us are ever likely to be.” He cast the astronaut a speculative glance. “Think you’d be interested?”

“Mr. President,” said Jaskawich fervently, “you signal retrofire-and Washington’s where I’ll land.”

“All right,” said Dilman, “you stand by, and when I-”

Dilman came to a jarring halt, teetering for a moment, waiting, as he stared straight ahead. He could see Tim Flannery rushing up the dormitory corridor toward him. At once, discerning the upset expression twisted across the press secretary’s usually pleasant countenance, Dilman’s heart began to hammer. Gone were his cheer and high hopes of the past minutes.

“Mr. President, I wanted to catch you before you went outside,” Flannery said breathlessly. “The reporters and photographers are piling up out there, waiting for you. I had Fortney order guards to hold them in line a few minutes. It’s just happened, Mr. President-goddamit-” The redhead’s freckled face became contorted, and Flannery looked as if he might weep. “The vote in the House, it’s over-” he said brokenly.

Curiously, Dilman suffered no pang of fear, and no hurt. He said quietly, not as a question, as a flat statement of fact, “I’ve been impeached.”

“Yes-goddamit, it’s terrible-I don’t know what-”

Dilman’s hand touched Flannery’s shoulder. “Easy, Tim. Details are unimportant, but-was it close?”

“The vote was 287 for impeachment, 161 against it.”

Dilman nodded. “I see. The voice of the people.”

“The voice of bigotry!” Jaskawich exclaimed fiercely.

Dilman licked his lips, and was embarrassed by his uncontrollable Adam’s apple. “Well,” he said, with a slight shrug. His eyes moved from Jaskawich to Flannery. “What next, Tim?”

“According to the radio, an announcement just came from the Senate Office Building-no wonder they call it SOB-it came from Senator Hankins. He said the Senate will be convened as a High Court, and be ready to try you a week from now. Mr. President, about those newshounds yelping outside the door-”

Dilman’s knuckles crept to his forehead. He felt dizzy and displaced. “I-I can’t see them yet, Tim. Get me out of it.”

“What can I do?” Flannery said wretchedly. “They’re fifty feet deep outside the front door and even in back. There’s no-”

Jaskawich clutched Dilman’s arm. “I can help you. There’s a fire exit at the side of this building-no one’ll know-we can slip out of there-give you a two-or three-minute jump on them before-”

Immediately Jaskawich started off, with the President and press secretary following him.

Five minutes later, dusty and panting, Dilman reached the Cadillac limousine behind Jaskawich and Flannery, as the surprised Secret Service agents and Cape security guards closed in from either side.

Quickly Dilman shook hands with Jaskawich. “Thanks for everything, General. Too bad, but I don’t expect I’ll have the authority, very soon, to send for you. You’d have liked Washington.”

“I don’t like it now,” said Jaskawich angrily. “That’s why maybe I’ll show up whether you send for me or not. You’ve still got a big chance-”

“I don’t know,” said Dilman. “I just don’t know.”

As Dilman settled heavily into the back seat, then made room for Flannery, he could observe, through the curving surface of the car’s bubble top, the herd of reporters and photographers on the run in the distance, hurrying to assault him again.

“Patrick Air Force Base,” Dilman ordered the chauffeur, as two Secret Service agents slammed into the limousine. Up ahead, the motorcycles were forming a protective wedge. The Cadillac moved, wheeled right, and pointed toward the exit gate.

“Mr. President, I was just thinking,” Flannery began earnestly, “when you make your last speech in St. Louis tomorrow, you’ll have a chance to answer the impeachment. The minute we get to St. Louis tonight, we can sit down and revise-”

Dilman had been immersed in thought. While the car sped through the gate, leaving the Cape Kennedy missile site, he suddenly said, “Tim, there’s going to be no St. Louis. No St. Louis. Do me a favor, do you mind?” His limp hand indicated the radiotelephone beside Flannery. “Ring the airport for me, and notify the crew we’re changing our flight plans. Have them get clearance to take me straight to Sioux City, Iowa. Then locate Noyes in Washington and have him cancel the St. Louis speech, the whole visit. Tell him to make any excuse. Tell him I’m sick. I am sick.” He alleviated the press secretary’s instant concern with the faintest smile. “Not the way you think, Tim.”

Dilman pointed to the mobile telephone unit again. “Book me into a Sioux City hotel for overnight. No engagements, not that anyone except the reporters would want to see me. I’ve got no patronage to hand out now. I’m nothing more than a politician under criminal indictment, and that’s like being a typhoid carrier. I think we’ll have our privacy in Sioux City.”

Flannery had heard this out with unconcealed anguish. “Mr. President, please reconsider the St. Louis speech. You’ve still-”

“No. I need time to think, and I know what must be done first. After you’ve finished the other calls, get The Judge for me. He lives outside Sioux City somewhere-”

“Fairview Farm.”

“Yes, that’s right. Tell him I’d like to drive out and have breakfast with him tomorrow morning, ham and eggs and a little talk, the two of us, an ex-President and one about to join his club, and nobody else. Tell him I won’t need much of his time, maybe an hour, before I head back to Washington.”

For quiet seconds Douglass Dilman listlessly watched the business section, the stores and offices and nightclubs of Cocoa Beach, flash by. Then, still staring outside the window, he said, “Funny how, the moment everything collapsed around me ten minutes ago, my mind went back to my father. Funny, because I never really knew my old man, except from some pictures and what my mother used to tell me. He died when I was just a child. My mind went to him, I guess, because I felt like a helpless kid they’re after, and I wanted someone old enough and strong enough to stand in front of me, between them and me. But then, I knew I had no father. So I had to adopt one, someone who was tough and sure and unafraid, someone who was-was old enough for me to respect and talk to. So automatically, in my head, I kind of adopted The Judge. Crazy, because he hardly knows me and I hardly know him either. But he’s as irascible and durable as an Assyrian goat. You know, Tim, my first morning as President he called me from his farm, and after he finished lecturing me, he said, ‘Young fellow, you listen and remember, if you ever need my advice or a helping hand, both of which are untaxable and both of which we got plenty of, you come out here and visit the Missus and me, and we’ll have a good farm breakfast and set you straight.’ That’s what he said, Tim.”