They came to another corridor. A young man in a gray suit waited there. “Eleven o’clock,” the Marine said.

“Right. Hi, I’m Jack Clybourne. I’m supposed to check your identification.”

He smiled as he said it, but he seemed very serious. He looked very young and clean-cut, and very athletic. He inspected General Gillespie, then Jenny.

They took out identification cards. Clybourne glanced at them, but Jenny thought he looked at them superficially. He was much more interested in the visitors than in their papers. Doesn’t miss a detail. Joe Gland, thinks he’s irresistible.

Finally he seemed satisfied and led them along a corridor to the Oval Office.

The interior looked very much the way it did on television, with the President seated behind the big desk. They were both in unifonn, so they saluted as they approached the desk.

David Coffey seemed embarrassed. He acknowledged their salutes with a wave. “Glad to see you.” He sounded as if he meant it. “Captain Jeanette Crichton,” he said carefully. His brows lifted slightly in thought, and Jenny was sure that he’d remember her name from now on. “And General Gillespie. Good to see you again.”

“Thank you, Mr. President,” Edmund said.

Ed’s as nervous as I am, Jenny thought. I didn’t think he would be. She glanced around the office. Behind the President, on a credenza, was a red telephone. The phone, Jenny thought. At SAC headquarters the general in command had two telephones, one red to communicate with his forces, and one gold. This would be the other end of the gold phone…

“Captain, this is Hap Aylesworth,” the President said. He indicated a seated man. Aylesworth’s face seemed flushed, and his necktie was loosened. He stood to shake hands with her.

“Please be seated,” the President said. “Now, Captain, tell me everything you know about this.”

She took the offered chair, sitting on its edge, both feet on the floor, feet together, her skin pulled down over her knees, as she’d been taught in officer’s training classes. “I don’t know much, Mr. President,” she said. “I was at the Mauna Loa Observatory.”

“How did you happen to be there?” Aylesworth asked.

“I was invited to Hawaii to address an engineering conference. I took a couple of extra days leave. While I was swimming I met Richard Owen, who turned out to be an astronomer, and he invited me up to see the observatory.”

“Owen,” Aylesworth said pensively.

“Come on, Hap, we have confirmation from every place we logically could get confirmation,” the President said. He smiled thinly. “Mr. Aylesworth can’t quite get over the notion that this is a put-up job. Could it have been?”

Jenny frowned in thought. “Yes, sir, but I don’t believe it. What would be the motivation?”

“There must be forty science-fiction novels with that plot,” Aylesworth said. “Scientists get together. Convince the stupid political and military people that the aliens are coming. Unite Earth, end wars …”

“The Air Force Observatory reports the same thing,” Ed Gillespie said. “Now that they know what to look for.”

The President nodded. “As do a number of other sources. Hap, if it’s a plot, there are an awful lot of plotters involved. You’d think one would have spilled the beans by now.”

“Yes, sir,” Aylesworth said. “And I suppose we’re sure this isn’t something the Russians cooked up to get us off guard.”

Both Jenny and General Gillespie shook their heads. “Not a chance,” Gillespie said.

“No, I suppose not,” Aylesworth said. “My apologies, Captain, I’m having trouble getting used to the notion of little green men from outer space.”

“Or big black ones,” Ed Gillespie said.

The President eyed Gillespie in curiosity. “What makes you say that? Surely you don’t have any knowledge?”

“No, sir. But they’re as likely to be big and black as they are to be little and green. If we had any idea of where they came from, we might be able to figure something out.”

“Saturn,” Jenny said. “Dr. Mouton had a computer program.” Alice Mouton had wanted to lecture, and Jenny had listened carefully. “We don’t know how fast they came, and Saturn must have moved since they left, but if you give them almost any decent velocity, they started in a patch of sky that had Saturn in it.”

“Saturn,” Aylesworth said. “Saturnians?”

“I doubt it,” Ed Gillespie said. “Saturn just doesn’t get enough sunlight energy for a complex organism to evolve there. Much less a civilization.”

“Sure about that?” the President asked.

“No, sir,”

“Neither is the National Academy of Sciences,” the President said. “At least those I could get hold of. But the consensus is that the ship must have gone to Saturn from somewhere else. Now all we have to do is find the somewhere else.”

“Maybe we can ask them,” Jenny said.

“Oddly enough, we thought of that,” Aylesworth said.

“With what result?” Gillespie asked.

“None.” Aylesworth shrugged. “So far they haven’t answered. Anyway. Mr. President, I’m satisfied. It’s real.”

“Good,” the President said. “In that case, if you’d ask Mr. Dawson and Admiral Carrell to come in …”

Gillespie and Jenny stood. Wes Dawson came in first. “Hello, Ed, Jenny,” he said.

“Ah. You both know Congressman Dawson, then,” the President said.

“Yes, sir,” Ed Gillespie said.

“Of course you would,” David Coffey said. “You told Mr. Dawson about the alien ship. Have you met Admiral Carrell?”

“Yes, sir,” Ed said. “But I think Jenny hasn’t.”

Admiral Carrell was approaching retirement age, and he looked it, with silver hair and wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. He shook hands with her, masculine fashion. His hand was firm, and so was his voice. His manner made it clear that he knew precisely who Jenny was. He waited until the President invited them to sit, then again until Jenny was seated, before he took his own seat. “Nice work, Captain.” he said. “Not every officer would have realized the significance of what you saw.”

Interesting, she thought. Does he take this much trouble with everyone he meets? “Thank you, Admiral.”

Congressman Dawson had taken the chair closest to the President. “How will Congress treat this, Wes?” the President asked.

“I don’t know them all, Mr. President,” Dawson said.

“Will I get support for a declaration of emergency?”

“I don’t know, sir,” Dawson said. “There will certainly be opposition.”

“Damn fools,” Admiral Carrell said.

“What makes you think the aliens won’t be friendly?” Wes Dawson demanded.

“The aliens may be friendly, but a Russian mobilization without reaction from us would be a disaster. It might even tempt them to something they normally wouldn’t think of,” Carrell spoke evenly.

“Really?” Dawson said. His tone made it less a question than a statement.

“Will they mobilize?” the President asked.

“We’ll let Captain Crichton answer,” the Admiral said. “Perhaps Mr. Dawson will be more likely to believe someone he knows. Captain?”

I’ve just been set up, Jenny thought. So that’s how it’s done. But I’ve no choice. “Yes, sir, they will.” She hesitated. “And if we don’t react, there could be trouble.”

“Why is that?” the President prompted.

“Sir, it’s part of their doctrine. If they could liberate the world from capitalism without risk to the homeland, and didn’t do it, they’d be traitors to their own doctrine.”

Admiral Carrell said, “They’re jamming all our broadcasts, and they haven’t told their people anything about an alien coming.”

“It’s too big to keep secret,” Dawson said. “Isn’t it?”

Once again. Admiral Carrell turned to Jenny. This time he merely nodded to her.

Is this a test? she wondered. “Whatever it is Sir, the East Germans and Poles are bound to find out. Unless the Soviets want to completely disrupt their economy, they can’t cut off all communication from the Eastern European satellites, so the news is bound to get to Russia. To the cities, anyway.”