She took a deep breath. “By, sweetie, I think you’d better put your robe on and come watch TV for a little bit.”
“My God, woman, you know how I feel about Sunday TV”
“Yeah,” she said. “I know. But you’d still better catch up on what’s been happening before you leave the house.”
The president appeared on the screen late Sunday afternoon to verify what the ET’s had said on their tape.
“Yes, it’s true that a number of men have been impregnated. This may be inconvenient for them, but all the men in question have asserted year after year that convenience really isn’t the issue. They have told us that the issue is reverence for life, and since these men have gone on record as supporting such reverence, we agree with the Pistach that now is the time for them to put their careers on hold and their bodies on the line, just as they have expected others to do.”
“Mr. President, Mr. President.” Hands waved. One was selected. “Mr. President, is it mere coincidence that none of the men selected are Democrats?”
The president looked at the ceiling. “Yes. I should think it is purely coincidence.”
He got through this without smiling, but some of the reporters in the audience kept holding up their notebooks to hide the fact they were cracking up. In the evening, one of the doctors who’d been involved in treating the pregnant men appeared on a specialLarry King Live an d told why the larvae couldn’t be removed. Each growing creature sent extensions of itself into the vital organs, and any attempt to remove them ended up killing the host. These extensions withdrew in the days preceding emergence.
“The Inkleozese furnished us with information regarding the care of the men who are carrying the larvae,” the doctor said. “They will need to avoid stress, to get regular exercise, plenty of sleep, plenty of liquids, plus calcium and iron supplements. They must avoid alcohol and tobacco and all drugs except vitamins. We’re assured the condition will last for only thirteen months, as with elephants.”
CNNHeadline News h ad pictures of Senator Morse being brought by ambulance to a local hospital earlier that day. The screaming, flailing form on the screen bore little resemblance to the dignified and poised Senator Morse with whom his constituents were familiar. Off camera, after everyone had come to his or her wit’s end, he had actually been put in restraints, though this was known only to himself, Lupe, and the hospital staff. It had to be restraints because the guidelines from the Inkleozese forbade sedatives. On hastily sought advice of counsel, no hospital was prepared to risk the wrath of the Inkleozese by failure to follow the guidelines.
Lupe stayed at the senator’s side until he finally settled down, though it took awhile, and by evening, he had stopped raving. He sent Lupe home to get the car, she had come with him in the ambulance, and his clothing. Upon the arrival of both, he checked himself out of the hospital and stopped at a pay phone on the way home to call McVane.
Chad’s cronies at the FBI had been keeping tabs on the senator for some time. The agents following him had a directional microphone that could pick up, so the technician bragged, a gnat fart at half a mile, and they had no trouble recording both sides of the conversation.
Morse yelled, “Call the damned woman, McVane.”
“She’s not there, Senator. She agreed to testify before your committee on Monday, but we couldn’t get hold of you, so the predators have already picked her up.”
“Testify? Picked her up? You mean they’ve kidnapped her? Where is she?”
In the heat of the moment McVane had neglected to arrange contact with the predators, which he admitted to, and the senator subsided into his car in a state of shock. Lupe drove him home while he fumed and snorted and made threats both general and specific about what he would do to this one or that one when this matter was over. On arrival home, he called his secretary and several staff members and dictated a press release to be sent out immediately, charging the president and the intermediary with complicity in the attack upon his body, which, he said, he intended to prove as soon as the intermediary could be found.