“Yes, sir,” Karins said. “And it’s growing. Those riots at the labor convention probably gave ’em another five points we don’t show. Give Bertram six months and he’ll be ahead of us. How you like them apples, boys and girls?”
“There is no need to be flippant, Mr. Karins,” the President said.
“Sorry, Mr. President.” Karins wasn’t sorry at all and he grinned at the Assistant Postmaster General with triumph. Then he flipped the switches to show new charts.
“Soft and hard,” Karins said. “You’ll notice Bertram’s vote is pretty soft, but solidifying. Harmon’s is so hard you couldn’t get ’em away from him without you use nukes. And ours is a little like butter. Mr. President, I can’t even guarantee we’ll be the largest party after the election, much less that we can hold a majority.”
“Incredible,” the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs muttered.
“Worse than incredible.” The Commerce rep shook her head in disbelief. “A disaster. Who will win?”
Karins shrugged. “Toss-up, but if I had to say, I’d pick Bertram. He’s getting more of our vote than Harmon.”
“You’ve been quiet, John,” the President said. “What are your thoughts here?”
“Well, sir, it’s fairly obvious what the result will be no matter who wins as long as it isn’t us.” Grant lifted his Scotch and sipped with relish. He decided to have another and to hell with the ulcer. “If Harmon wins, he pulls out of the CoDominium, and we have war. If Bertram takes over, he relaxes security, Harmon drives him out with his storm troopers, and we have war anyway.”
Karins nodded. “I don’t figure Bertram could hold power more’n a year, probably not that long. Man’s too honest.”
The President sighed loudly. “I can recall a time when men said that about me, Mr. Karins.”
“It’s still true, Mr. President.” Karins spoke hurriedly. “But you’re realistic enough to let us do what we have to do. Bertram wouldn’t.”
“So what do we do about it?” the President asked gently.
“Rig the election,” Karins answered quickly. “I give out the popularity figures here.” He produced a chart indicating a majority popularity for Unity. “Then we keep pumping out more faked stuff while Mr. Grant’s people work on the vote-counting computers. Hell, it’s been done before.”
“Won’t work this time.” They turned to look at the youngest man in the room. Larry Moriarty, assistant to the President, and sometimes called the “resident heretic,” blushed at the attention. “The people know better. Bertram’s people are already taking jobs in the computer centers, aren’t they, Mr. Grant? They’ll see it in a minute.”
Grant nodded. He’d sent the report over the day before; interesting that Moriarty had already digested it.
“You make this a straight rigged election, and you’ll have to use CoDominium Marines to keep order,” Moriarty continued.
“The day I need CoDominium Marines to put down riots in the United States is the day I resign,” the President said coldly. “I may be a realist, but there are limits to what I will do. You’ll need a new chief, gentlemen.”
“That’s easy to say, Mr. President,” Grant said. He wanted his pipe, but the doctors had forbidden it. To hell with them, he thought, and took a cigarette from a pack on the table. “It’s easy to say, but you can’t do it.”
The President frowned. “Why not?”
Grant shook his head. “The Unity Party supports the CoDominium, and the CoDominium keeps the peace. An ugly peace, but by God, peace. I wish we hadn’t got support for the CoDominium treaties tied so thoroughly to the Unity Party, but it is and that’s that. And you know damn well that even in the Party it’s only a thin majority that supports the CoDominium. Right, Harry?”
The Assistant Postmaster General nodded. “But don’t forget, there’s support for the CD in Bertram’s group.”
“Sure, but they hate our guts,” Moriarty said. “They say we’re corrupt. And they’re right.”
“So flipping what if they’re right?” Karins snapped. “We’re in, they’re out. Anybody who’s in for long is corrupt. If he isn’t, he’s not in.”
“I fail to see the point of this discussion,” the President interrupted. “I for one do not enjoy being reminded of all the things I have done to keep this office. The question is, what are we going to do? I feel it only fair to warn you that nothing could make me happier than to have Mr. Bertram sit in this chair. I’ve been President for a long time, and I’m tired. I don’t want the job anymore.”
III
Everyone spoke at once, shouting to the President, murmuring to their neighbors, until Grant cleared his throat loudly. “Mr. President,” he said using the tone of command he’d been taught during his brief tour in the Army Reserve. “Mr. President, if you will pardon me, that is a ludicrous suggestion. There is no one else in the Unity Party who has even a ghost of a chance of winning. You alone remain popular. Even Mr. Harmon speaks as well of you as he does of anyone not in his group. You cannot resign without dragging the Unity Party with you, and you cannot give that chair to Mr. Bertram because he couldn’t hold it six months.”
“Would that be so bad?” President Lipscomb leaned toward Grant with the confidential manner he used in his fireside chats to the people. “Are we really so sure that only we can save the human race, John? Or do we only wish to keep power?”
“Both, I suppose,” Grant said. “Not that I’d mind retiring myself.”
“Retire!” Karins snorted. “You let Bertram’s clean babies in the files for two hours, and none of us will retire to anything better’n a CD prison planet. You got to be kidding, retire.”
“That may be true,” the President said.
“There’s other ways,” Karins suggested. “General, what happens if Harmon takes power and starts his war?”
“Mr. Grant knows better than I do,” General Carpenter said. When the others stared at him, Carpenter continued. “No one has ever fought a nuclear war. Why should the uniform make me more of an expert than you? Maybe we could win. Heavy casualties, very heavy, but our defenses are good.”
Carpenter gestured at the moving lights on the wall projection. “We have better technology than the Russki’s. Our laser guns ought to get most of their missiles. CD Fleet won’t let either of us use space weapons. We might win.”
“We might.” Lipscomb was grim. “John?”
“We might not win. We might kill more than half the human race. We might get more. How in God’s name do I know what happens when we throw nuclear weapons around?”
“But the Russians aren’t prepared,” Commerce said. “If we hit them without warning—people never change governments in the middle of a war.”
President Lipscomb sighed. “I am not going to start a nuclear war to retain power. Whatever I have done, I have done to keep peace. That is my last excuse. I could not live with myself if I sacrifice peace to keep power.”
Grant cleared his throat gently. “We couldn’t do it anyway. If we start converting defensive missiles to offensive, CoDominium Intelligence would hear about it in ten days. The Treaty prevents that, you know.”
He lit another cigarette. “We aren’t the only threat to the CD, anyway. There’s always Kaslov.”
Kaslov was a pure Stalinist, who wanted to liberate Earth for Communism. Some called him the last Communist, but of course he wasn’t the last. He had plenty of followers. Grant could remember a secret conference with Ambassador Chernikov only weeks ago.
The Soviet was a polished diplomat, but it was obvious that he wanted something desperately. He wanted the United States to keep the pressure on, not relax her defenses at the borders of the U.S. sphere of influence, because if the Communist probes ever took anything from the U.S. without a hard fight, Kaslov would gain more influence at home. He might even win control of the Presidium.
“Nationalism everywhere,” the President sighed. “Why?”
No one had an answer to that. Harmon gained power in the U.S. and Kaslov in the Soviet Union; while a dozen petty nationalist leaders gained power in a dozen other countries. Some thought it started with Japan’s nationalistic revival.
“This is all nonsense,” said the Assistant Postmaster General. “We aren’t going to quit and we aren’t starting any wars. Now what does it take to get the support away from Mr. Clean Bertram and funnel it back to us where it belongs? A good scandal, right? Find Bertram’s dirtier than we are, right? Worked plenty of times before. You can steal people blind if you scream loud enough about how the other guy’s a crook.”
“Such as?” Karins prompted.
“Working with the Japs. Giving the Japs nukes, maybe. Supporting Meiji’s independence movement. I’m sure Mr. Grant can arrange something.”
Karins nodded vigorously. “That might do it. Disillusion his organizers. The pro-CoDominium people in his outfit would come to us like a shot.”