28 (AUG. 18, MON.)
We must not gargle with euphoria.
—Charles de Gaulle
Gov—the real one—said to me, "It's as clear as that fake nose you were wearing last night that they sold you a pup, Sam."
I asked him what he meant.
"That so-called conscience gas we banked so much on. They must have engineered the whole thing, including your escape from Ultra."
Gov and I and the rest of his crew were at the penthouse office on Fifth Avenue.
The rally at Madison Square Garden had been a smashing success, as we'd been allowed to see, to our discomfiture, from the wings where we'd been herded after our capture.
We were now, on Monday morning, sitting or standing around in Addison Madison's office, wondering what was going to happen to us. The Monolithians had treated us gallantly so far, having put us up for the night at the Taft Hotel, guarded no more obtrusively than a bunch of suburban high-school seniors staying in town after the prom.
Now, at the Monolithian GHQ, though there was a constant flow of aliens in and out, none of them so far had had anything to say to us except busy good mornings. I didn't recognize any of them. Frij, alias Addison Madison, hadn't arrived yet, if he was due at all.
He had been very much in evidence at the Garden last night, public relationing in his most offensive manner, and I supposed he was still resting from his exertions which, Lord knew, had been a Monolithian triumph. The usually unimpressionable New YorkTimesreplated six times for it and gave it a three-line, eight-column banner head.
I had been trying to explain to Gov how he could tell one late city edition of theTimesfrom another by the decreasing number of dots between the volume and number up under the left ear on page one, but all Gov had on his mind was the conscience-gas fiasco.
"Maybe they used their defense shield against it," Gov said. "Or maybe they're just naturally immune. But the best explanation is that they palmed off a phony on you when you swiped the stuff from Ultra. It was all just too pat to be real."
Addison Madison came in and said, "Oh, yeah, Mr. former President? Is that so?" He sounded as if he'd heard everything we'd said and when I asked him he had no qualms about admitting it.
"Let me tell you wise guys something," Addison Madison-Frij went on. "The conscience gas is the genuine article. It worked on General Rafael Domingo Sanchez of El Spaniola when we kept him from O-bombing your retrograde civilization and it also worked, believe it or not, on my colleague, the new President, at the Garden last night. So put that in your pipes and smoke it, Mr. Ex-President, and you, too, Mr. Ex-Hotshot Newspaperman."
"You're crazy," I said. "Let's assume for the sake of argument that it worked on Domingo Sanchez and that the Spaniola thingwasn'ta hoax...."
"Your assumption would be correct," Frij said. "You don't know how irresponsible you Earthpeople are."
I let that go for the moment and said, "But your colleague, as you call him—the fake President Allison—was no more affected by the stuff in our phony cameras than the man in the moon."
"Ha ha," Frij said. "That shows how much you know. Hewasaffected but it made no difference." He let that sink in for a while. "Do you want to know why?"
"Why?" Gov asked.
"Because," Frij said "—now grasp this concept if you can—because my colleague, the new President, was sincere. His conscience was already clear."
Gov and I looked from him to each other. Much as we detested Frij, it began to dawn on us that he might be telling the truth.
"You mean," Gov said, "that it's true that you Monolithians have no purpose other than saving us from ourselves?"
"Precisely," Frij said. "You could not have put it more aptly."
"Then my story—the big exposé Rod and I wrote on Ultra—was all wrong?"
"It couldn't have been more wrong," Frij said.
"And Domingo Sanchezwasn'tyour patsy?" I was slowly and reluctantly patching it together.
"You assumed that a minute ago," Frij said. "Now you believe it."
Gov, looking unutterably weary, said, "I'm afraid I believe it—and all that it implies. It means that Earth really had no choice whatever. The other Presidents and the Prime Ministers and I were forced to accept the Monolithians' terms to avert the Spaniolan threat—which I am now again convinced was no idle one. So we had to agree to the super-summit on Ultra, which, of course, set the stage for the substitution of Monolithian duplicates for Earth's leaders."
Gov smiled wanly and went on. "The fact that I sent a double of myself to Ultra only delayed matters slightly. You finally got me anyway."
Mox came in then. Like Frij before him, he obviously knew everything that had been said.
Mox, looking like a saint in his Monolithian robe, in contrast to Frij's flashy American clothes, said, "Frij, I think you've been out here too long. You've adopted not only the Earthman's protective coloration but some of his sadistic ways. Why haven't you told Mr. Allison why we wanted him?"
"I was coming to it," Frij said defensively.
"Go, Frij," Mox said. "I will tell him. Go back to Monolithia on the next lighter and re-enroll at the Foreign Service School for a refresher course in interplanetary relations. Consider your punishment the fact that I have reprimanded you in public. Leave us now."
"Yes, Mox," Frij said humbly. He went out, and that was the last Earth saw of Addison Madison or anyone like him.
Mox smiled. "My apologies, gentlemen." He looked like dignity incarnate and I wondered suddenly if this were the mysterious "Mr. M.," the head Monolithian who had taken part in the conference on Ultra that decided Earth's fate. I halfway hoped so; he seemed so much the just, kindly, elder-statesman, father-image type who inspired trust and confidence.
Gov said, "Mr. Mox, I'm a tired old man, especially after last night. I'd appreciate it if you'd tell me what the hell's going on and, particularly, where I go from here. If I'm going to be led out and shot I'd just as soon get it over with, frankly, if it's all the same to you."
Mox looked shocked. "My dear sir," he said. "Nothing is further from our plans. All we want is for you to resume your rightful place in the White House, at the head of your government."
Gov exhaled a long sigh of relief.
Therefore he had no choice except to breathe in again—by which time Mox had crushed a tiny capsule in his palm and held it under Gov's nose.