She laughed dutifully. He was trying to be funny and charming, but his eyes were troubled as he went on.
“If, however, I am coldly rational as my aides suggest is necessary, I have to admit there could be another explanation for what’s happening. All these ET’s could be one people who are capable of taking different shapes in order to fool us.”
“It doesn’t sound impossible,” Benita said. She didn’t believe it, but it wasn’t impossible.
“All right. Then let’s suppose for a moment they are all one people, and they want to invade Earth and prey on our population. How would they do that?”
She thought for a moment. “They might send envoys to offer us candy and chuck us under the chin and say kootchie-coo.”
He actually smiled, though only a little. “They might, yes. Then they could move in and start hunting us while keeping us pacified by telling us the predators are really a different set of people and so on and so on.”
“And while this is going on,” said the First Lady, “still more of these creatures pick up some of our congressmen and political columnists and impregnate them with what we are told are infant members of their race. The impregnation could just as well be some kind of disease or parasite that will turn us into passive livestock.”
“And they’re clever,” remarked Chad. “They pick only members of the opposition political party so that the administration would be less inclined to object.”
The president nodded. “And, by the time we work ourselves around to doing something about it, they have us whipped.”
He sat back and stared at her, switching his glance to Chad, who said, “You think Chiddy and Vess are a Trojan horse?”
“Or you think I am?” Benita asked, hearing her voice tremble.
The president shook his head. “You’re not a Trojan horse knowingly, Benita. I don’t believe for a minute that you could be. But . . . let’s say that scenario is correct. What kind of woman would the envoys look for? Someone trusting. Someone . . . ah, patient . . .”
“Long suffering,” said the FL pointedly and a little indignantly. “Someone who’d put up with a lot before she got really angry, if ever. Someone who’d go along with the way things were happening, without having hysterics or throwing a fit . . .”
“All the time telling herself it couldn’t be true,” Benita finished for her, flushing an angry red. “And you really think I’m that kind of person?”
“You’ve showed endless patience and forbearance in the past,” she said. “Although, from what you did today, that may no longer be true. Be that as it may, we’ve never had a satisfactory answer to the question, why you? Why not General Wallace? Why not the president himself, or, if he’s too surrounded by Secret Service people, then why not the Chief Justice or the Speaker of the House?”
“Because those particular people are all men,” Benita said angrily. “And the Pistach didn’t want a man. They were making a particular point when they chose me, an unknown, because any woman who’s known for anything will already have enemies. The minute a woman, including the president’s wife, tries to do something significant, even if it’s for the good of the citizenry, everybody puts her down as being a woman who doesn’t know her place. People love their heroes and heroines, but they love them in their assigned roles. Move outside those roles, and the public loves to make them stumble.”
The president frowned. “I had hoped we had grown more tolerant and understanding than that.”
Benita shook her head. “We like to think people are tolerant and understanding, but mostly we aren’t, and there are a lot of men who think of women as a kind of speaking livestock.”
The FL said, “So the Pistach picked you because . . . ?”
“Because nobody knows me, or anything about me. I’ve done one really stupid thing in my life, and that was to marry the wrong man. Get past that and I’ve had an utterly unremarkable and very . . chaste kind of life. Never used drugs, never smoked. My drinking is limited to an occasional beer in the summertime, or a glass of wine with Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner. I’ve never been able to afford dissipation. I haven’t had the time or the money to support controversial causes. The same goes for love affairs. The only men I’ve been at all close to over the years are gay, and they were my bosses. Believe me, McVane has known who I am for weeks, and if there were anything in my past to stir a scandal, it would be on the front pages by now, like a Jackson Pollock painting, all squirt and dribble! And if McVane had information he could use, then Morse would have it. There are no issues in my past for me to get past except that I’m a woman.”