17 (AUG. 7, THURS.)
Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better.
—Émile Coué
I had one of those heartbeat hangovers where every pump of blood sent a hammer of pain to my head.
Mae was being very good and gave me coffee and eggs and tomato juice and aspirin, and I managed to shower and shave under my own power.
An expense-account taxi took me downtown to the White House. The guards at the gate glanced at my identification and waved me on. It should have been a proud moment—my first day on the job in the Executive Mansion—but I felt like hell. It wasn't only the hangover, which had begun to recede to a dull throb. It was the disenchantment with the whole picture. Instead of walking in with head high I sort of shuffled in, looking at my feet, and almost bumped into a man in the lobby.
It was Rod Harris of the AP. I'd never met him but I knew him by sight. If there was anybody I didn't want to see right this minute it was a representative of the free and untrammeled press.
"You're Sam Kent, aren't you?" Rod said, introducing himself. I gave him a hearty but phony handshake and said, "I hope you haven't got sixteen questions to throw at me all at once. I'd appreciate it if you'd give me a chance to find my way around first."
"Sure," Rod said. "No hurry at all. I just wanted to say congratulations, on behalf of the White House Correspondents Association."
"That's very nice of you. Thanks. I appreciate it."
"One thing, though," Rod said. "I might as well say it and get it over with. We held a meeting last night and voted to drop World Wide from membership. Nothing personal, and we were sorry as hell to have to do it, but—well, I think you understand."
"Oh?" I said. "You did, eh? Well, I'm sorry to hear that. But Ian beat you to it and quit."
"I know. Ian's one of the best. It's rough on him. It's also rough on Stew Macon. World Wide rushed him down here to replace Ian and he's wandering around like a dog with skunk-smell all over him, poor guy."
"Stew? Where is he?"
"He's in your office."
"I'd better go cheer him up. Look, I'll see you and the other guys later. Josh used to hold his daily briefings about eleven, didn't he? I'll try to have something for you then."
"Okay," Rod said. "Good luck."
"Thanks." I didn't say I'd need it, but I sure thought it.
I knew where the Press Secretary's office was from earlier junkets to Washington. I went in and found Stew pacing up and down the room, smoking.
"Hi, chiefie," he said. "Boy, am I glad to see you. I feel like a pariah."
"Misery loves company, eh?"
"You can say that again. Boy, do you look terrible. Aren't you happy here in the old lap of the gods?"
"Happy as the ninth pup at feeding time," I said. "I spent the night getting drunk with your predecessor and I've got the grandfather of all hangovers."
"Poor Ian," Stew said. He sat on the big desk that was now mine and put his cigarette out in an oversized ashtray. "Poor me, too. I thought this was going to be a big deal, taking over the Washington bureau. John Hyatt told me Ian quit, but he didn't tell me why. I thought my biggest problem was going to be getting along with Reb Sylvester, who must have figured he was in line for bureau chief. But this is another kettle entirely."
"I suppose you'repersona non gratain the press room?"
"The chill is on, believe me. Continental's in the same boat. But their man didn't even show up this morning."
Ian had mentioned that Continental Broadcasting Corporation had also been bought up.
"Look," I said. "You don't have to go back to the press room. Ian said last night WW's moved into the White House. All we have to do is find Door C. That's where he said it is. Let me ring the old bell and find out where Door C is."
"I'd rather be in the press room," Stew said, but I found a button and pressed it.
"Yes, Mr. Kent?" a woman's voice said.
"Where's Door C?"
"I beg your pardon?" The voice sounded vaguely familiar.
"Where is World Wide?"
"Oh. It's just on the other side of your office, Mr. Kent. I'll be glad to show you."
"Good."
One of my three doors opened and Joy Linx came in. "Good morning, Sam," she said.
"Well, good morning," I said. "What are you doing here?"
Then I remembered that Gov had said she'd be with me in Washington.
"I'm your secretary," Joy said. "I thought they told you."
"They did and I'm delighted," I said. "Forgive me for not remembering. I'll need every friendly face there is. Joy, I want you to meet another fly in the web—Stew Macon. Stew, this is Joy Linx, somebody's Girl Friday. I guess now she's mine."
"Some people have all the luck," Stew said. "Hi, Joy. I'm delighted, too."
"Now for that door," Joy said. She opened the third door and said, "Behold, World Wide."
It was virtually a duplicate of World Wide's New York newsroom. There were the banks of teletype and the piles of newspapers and the desks. Reb Sylvester sat in the slot, a cup of coffee on the desk next to a row of freshly sharpened pencils. He was smoking a pipe and reading the comic page of theWashington Post.
"What's new, Reb?" I said.
He put down the paper. "Funny you should ask that, Sam," he said. "Nothing is. It's absolutely dead. Have you got a dispatch, perchance?"
"Hi, Reb," Stew said.
"Hi, Stew. What's happening at the crossroads of the free world? What's the true poop? Are there any bulletins or flashes to be sent this humid forenoon?"
Reb was obviously in a bitter mood. He'd been passed over for promotion, not to mention being sold out.
"What's on the wire so far?" I asked him.
"Out of Washington? Well, we've got a hundred words on the little girl who was mauled by the lion in the zoo and a fifty-word follow-up on the woman who had quadruplets yesterday. Aside from that it's been rather quiet. At the moment we're waiting, you might say, for the morning briefing by the Presidential Press Secretary to learn whether our proud Ship of State is still afloat."
This was a boy who needed stepping on. Or else he was a thoroughly disillusioned reporter masking his true feelings with quips.
I gave him the benefit of the doubt and said, "The old ship has survived a lot worse than this. As for the other, I'll be seeing Gov in a little while. That might produce a little news."
Stew said, "See you later, then. I'll stay here and try out the typewriters."
My hangover was waking up again and I was glad to get out of the newsroom and back to my own office. Joy Linx was waiting for me with an Alka-Seltzer and a cup of coffee.
"Thanks, Joy. How'd you know?"
"It's my job to know, Mr. Kent."
"Cut out that Mr. Kent stuff. I'm just old Sam, the confused man. What do you know about all these new goings-on?"
"Which new goings-on in particular? There've been a whole passel of them."
"Oh, there have, have there? Tell me about World Wide and Continental for a starter."
"It all ties in with the big picture," Joy said. "We want the Americans to have the true official position when the big stories break."
"Who'swe? And why couldn't the free press be depended on to give the true story? It always has."
"Weis the government, of course. As for the other, I think it has to do with point of view. The facts have a way of being misinterpreted by a hostile press."
"Oh, and it'll be the job of World Wide and Continental to spoonfeed the official line down the public's throat?"
"That's a rather crude way to put it, but I'd say it's accurate. We've hired Clyde B. Fitchburn to help."
"What?" I said. "Not the Voice of Doom?"
Joy smiled. "The same. We couldn't afford to have him on the other side, spreading hysteria. So he's been persuaded to join up."
"It's amazing," I said, "what a lot of money will do."
"Don't be cynical, Sam."
Joy said no more than that. She didn't have to. As a dweller myself in a big glass house I was especially vulnerable to rocks. I took a contrite swallow of coffee and said, "Okay. We'll ease away from that one. Now what are the big stories? It seems to me that I'm the least-informed Press Secretary of all time."
"Well, there's the summit conference," Joy said. She couldn't have been more off-hand about it if she had said "It's ten o'clock."
"Whatsummit conference?" I practically yelled. "When? Where?"
"I'll start withwho," Joy said. "It'll be the heads of government of the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, France, Germany, India, Israel, the United Arab Republic, Japan and China. Both Chinas. I think that's all. Oh, and the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the Monolithians, of course."
"Of course," I said, dazed. "And when is this little huddle taking place? It's bound to take months of preparation."
"Not at all. It's scheduled for Saturday."
"Saturday! NotthisSaturday? The day after tomorrow?"
"That's right. Saturday, August ninth."
"You'd better make me another Alka-Seltzer."
"Okay," she said. "That'll give you a chance to brace yourself for thewhere."
I poured down the fizzing drink and felt it start to work in my poor stomach.
"I guess I'm ready now. Where is this crazy summit conference going to be held? Here? London? Moscow? If it's here I'm going to cut my throat right now. It's bad enough covering such a free-for-all, it'll be murder organizing it."
"Put your razor away," Joy said. "It's not going to be held here. It's going to be held in space."
The President buzzed for me while I was still trying to take it all in. He was very businesslike, with none of the man-to-man intimacy of the other night. He welcomed me to the job, said he assumed Miss Linx had filled me in on the summit conference and told me he wanted me to make the announcement at my 11 o'clock press briefing. He handed me a prepared statement that he said was being issued more or less simultaneously in London, Moscow, Cairo, Paris and all the other capitals concerned.
Gov looked tired. I tried to question him but he said most of the answers were in the statement, which ran to about 600 words. Everything else was off the record and I'd have to say "no comment."
As for himself, he was not going to hold a press conference this week and there probably wouldn't be any other news until after everybody got back from Ultra.
"Ultra?" I asked.
"That's the name of the space station where we'll be meeting. The Monolithians moored it out there in whatever the hell it's called—cislunar space. This side of the moon. It's in the handout."
"Yes, sir," I said, glancing through it quickly. "When will you be leaving?"
"Tomorrow morning, but that's off the record. You'll be going, too, Sam, and so will Miss Linx, so you'd better pack an overnight bag."
My reaction to that must have shown in my face, because the President said, "I'm not looking forward to the trip, either, Sam, but it has to be made and we might as well reconcile ourselves to getting it over with. Everything ought to be a lot simpler afterward."
I was curious to know what hidden meaning, if any, there was in that last remark, but he waved me out.
My first meeting with the press, which I had been dreading, went off beautifully. Any personal or sarcastic questions the reporters might have asked were forgotten as I made the summit-in-space announcement and passed the handout around. I answered a few questions without going beyond the words of the announcement, but then, on being pressed, I made up a headline phrase to summarize the purpose of the precedent-shattering conclave. Its aim, I said, cribbing a bit from the Constitution, was to secure the blessings of interplanetary peace, friendship and liberty. Actually, that was what the 600-word statement added up to, more or less.
Just before they began their mad dash to the telephones I told them the lid was on—that there'd be nothing further from the White House today.
Joy closed the door behind the last of them and I collapsed into my chair. She gave me a sympathetic smile.
"So much for that," she said. "I think it went very well. Now is it time to lock up the shop and pack for our space journey?"
The old keyboard test, designed to cover all contingencies, came to my mind. "Pack my bag with six dozen liquor jugs," I said. "And maybe that wouldn't be a bad idea."