“The president would like to meet you.”
“Oh, my,” she mumbled, suddenly giddy. “Oh, my goodness. The president? Did you take the thing to him?”
“We did. It amplified its pronouncements, in case you’re interested.”
She whispered, “Are you allowed to tell me what it said?”
“It specified a place and a time for a personal meeting, which took place very early this morning. I wasn’t there. Just the president and a few Secret Service people. The . . . people who showed up weren’t the ones we saw on the cube. We think you’re right. They change appearance depending on who they’re talking to. You expected aliens, I would expect military personnel, the president would expect humanoids somewhat exotically dressed. Too much StarTrek in my opinion, but we’re of different generations. They gave him another one of those cubes, for him to take to the Cabinet and the Congress, however the schedule works out. The president wants to ask how they struck you.”
Her hand went to her cheek. The general looked away. “What impression they made on you,” he said hastily.
She agreed, flushing. They took her in a stretch limousine. The Oval Office looked just like it did on TV. So did the president, and he was just as charming as she’d always thought, never mind all that other stuff that was nobody’s business. Mami used to say, “Roosters crow and cocks doodle, and so long as they don’t peck the hens, it’s God’s will.” By the time he was through talking with Benita, she had told him all about the children being at school and what she did for a living, and how the aliens had seemed perfectly trustworthy.
“And they gave you money.”
“I guess they figured it would take money for me to travel and stay in a hotel and buy meals and all.”
“Ms. Alvarez, do you think they picked you at random?”
She started to say yes, then stopped. “No. Not really. I imagine they wanted someone without any ax to grind.”
“In giving you money, were they hiring you to represent them?”
She didn’t hurry with her answer. “That’s what I told Congressman Alvarez. In a sense they did. They didn’t ask me to misrepresent anything. They could have known a lot about me before they picked me. They might have known I had a good reason to want to interrupt my life, the way it was. They told me they were ethical beings, and I think that was part of their ethic, not disrupting people’s lives or forcing them to do anything against their will. They knew I couldn’t get here to Washington without the money they gave me.”
And an incentive to do it! Never mind the other ninety-five thousand dollars. She would think about that later. “If they wanted somebody just . . . ordinary, they’d almost have to provide the wherewithal, wouldn’t they?”
“They didn’t give you anything else?”
She furrowed her brow, remembering. “No . . . no, but they said they would do me a welcome reversal.”
“What’s a reversal?”
“Mr. President, I figured out they meant they’d do me a good turn. A good turn is a welcome reversal, isn’t it?” Which she figured they already had, if the way she’d been coping for the last two days was any indication.
He nodded and thanked her. As she was about to leave, she turned to say, “If this all comes out, like in the newspapers, will you have to say who it was that talked to them first?”
He cocked his head, making a gesture that could mean yes, no, maybe, why?
“If you can … if it comes out, if you can keep me out of it, Mr. President? That awful thing that happened to Princess Di. And then, that actor who killed himself, because of the terrible lies that paper told. Those men in Congress, the ones who’ll spend more to destroy a political opponent than they will to feed the poor, you know who I mean, they’ll probably try to use this against you, and that means they’ll try to get hold of me. They’re like leeches, those . . . people. Well, I’m having some family trouble of my own just now, and I’d just as soon not . . . not, you know, have my kids read about it in the newspapers.”