Contact - Carl Sagan [102]
"She says if they want to do us in, they'll be here in twenty-five years or so and there's nothing we could do in twenty-five years to protect ourselves. They're too far ahead of us. So she says. Build it, and if you're worried about environmental hazards, build it in a remote place. Professor Drumlin says you can build it in downtown Pasadena for all he cares. In fact, he says he'll be there every minute it takes to construct the Machine, so he'll be the first to go if it blows up."
"Drumlin, he's the fellow who figured out that this was the design for a Machine, right?"
"Not exactly, he-"
"I'll read all the briefing material in time for that Thursday meeting. You got anything else for me?"
"Are you seriously considering letting Hadden build the Machine?"
"Well, it's not only up to me, as you know. That treaty they're hammering out in Paris gives us about a one quarter say. The Russians have a quarter, the Chinese and the Japanese together have a quarter, and the rest of the world has a quarter, roughly speaking. A lot of nations want to build the Machine, or at least parts of it. They're thinking about prestige, and new industries, new knowledge. As long as no one gets a jump on us, that all sounds fine to me. It's possible Hadden might have a piece of it. What's the problem? Don't you think he's technically competent?"
"He certainly is. It's just-"
"If there's nothing more, Ken, I'll see you Thursday, virus willing."
As der Heer was shutting the door and entering the adjacent sitting room, there was an explosive presidential sneeze. The Warrant Officer of the Day, sitting stiffly on a couch, was visibly startled. The briefcase at his feet was crammed with authorization codes for nuclear war. Der Heer calmed him with a repetitive gesture of his hand, fingers spread, palm down. The officer gave an apologetic smile.
"That's Vega? That's what all the fuss is about?" the President asked with some disappointment. The photo opportunity for the press was now over, and her eyes had become almost dark adapted after the onslaught of flashbulbs and television lighting. The pictures of the President gazing steely-eyed through the Naval Observatory telescope that appeared in all the papers the next day were, of course, a minor sham. She had been unable to see anything at all through the telescope until the photographers had left and darkness returned. "Why does it wiggle?"
"It's turbulence in the air, Ms. President," der Heer explained. "Warm bubbles of air go by and distort the image."
"Like looking at Si across the breakfast table when there's a toaster between us. I can remember seeing one whole side of his face fall off," she said affectionately, raising her voice so the presidential consort, standing nearby talking to the uniformed Commandant of the Observatory, could overhear.
"Yeah, no toaster on the breakfast table these days," he replied amiably.
Seymour Lasker was before his retirement a high official of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. He had met his wife decades before when she was representing the New York Girl Coat Company, and they had fallen in love over a protracted labor settlement. Considering the present novelty of both their positions, the apparent health of their relationship was noteworthy.
"I can do without the toaster, but I'm not getting enough breakfasts with Si." She inflected her eyebrows in his general direction, and then returned to the monocular eyepiece. "It looks like a blue amoeba, all… squishy."
After the difficult crew selection meeting, the President was in a lighthearted frame of mind. Her cold was almost gone.
"What if there was no turbulence, Ken? What would I see then?"
"Then it would be just like Space Telescope above the Earth's atmosphere. You'd see a steady, unflickering point of light."
"Just the star? Just Vega? No planets, no rings, no laser battle stations?"
"No, Ms. President. All that would be much too small and faint to see even with a very big telescope."
"Well, I hope your scientists know what they're doing," she said in a near