“Oh, not particularly. January’s heavy; I convene Congress, you see, and they read me the State of the Union message. But the rest of the year passes slowly. Will you really address Congress tomorrow, Mr. Courtenay? It would mean a joint session, and they usually let me come for that.” “Be delighted to have you,” I said cordially. The little man had a warm smile, glinting through his glasses. The cab stopped and the President shook my hand warmly and got out. He poked his head in the door. “Uh,” he said, looking apprehensively at the driver, “you’ve been swell. I may be stepping out of line in saying this, but if I might make a suggestion-I understand something about astronomy, it’s a kind of hobby, and I hope you won’t delay the ship’s take-off past the present conjunction.” I stared. Venus was within ten degrees of opposition and was getting farther away-not that it mattered, since most of the trip would be coasting anyhow. He held a finger to his lips. “Good-bye, sir,” he said. I spent the rest of the trip staring at the backs of the driver’s hairy ears, and wondering what the little man had been driving at. We took the evening off, Kathy and I, to see the sights. I wasn’t too much impressed. The famous cherry blossoms were beautiful, all right, but, with my new-found Conservationist sentiments, I found them objectionably ostentatious. “A dozen would have been plenty,” I objected. “Scattering them around in vase after vase this way is a plain waste of the taxpayer’s money. You know what they’d cost in Tiffany’s?” Kathy giggled. “Mitch, Mitch,” she said. “Wait till we take over Venus. Did you ever think of what it’s going to be like to have a whole planet to grow things in? Acres and acres of flowers-trees- everything?” A plump schoolteacher-type leaning on the railing beside us straightened up, glared, sniffed, and walked away. “You’re giving us a bad name,” I told Kathy. “Before you get us in trouble, let’s go to -let’s go back to the hotel.” I woke up to an excited squeal from Kathy. “Mitch,” she was saying from the bathroom, two round eyes peering wonderingly over the towel that was draped around her, “they’ve got a tub here! I opened
the door to the shower stall, and it wasn’t a stall at all! Can I, Mitch? Please?” There are times when even an honest conservationist finds pleasure in being the acting head of Fowler Schocken Associates. I yawned and blew her a kiss and said, “Sure. And-make it all fresh water, hear?” Kathy pretended to faint, but I noticed that she wasted no time calling room service. While the tub was filling I dressed. We breakfasted comfortably and strolled to the Capitol hand in hand. I found Kathy a seat in the pressbox and headed for the floor of the House. Our Washington lobby chief pushed through the crowd to me. He handed me a strip of facsimile paper. “It’s all here, Mr. Courtenay,” he said. “Uh-is everything all right?” “Everything’s just fine,” I told him. I waved him off and looked at the facsimile. It was from Dicken, on the scene at the rocket: Passengers and crew alerted and on standby. First movement into ships begins at 1145 EST, loading completed by 1645 EST. Ship fully fueled, supplied, and provisioned since 0915. Security invoked but MIA, GIG, and Time-Life known to have filed coded dispatches through dummies. Chartroom asks please remind you: Take-off possible only in A.M. hours. I rubbed the tape between my palms; it disintegrated into ash. As I climbed to the podium, someone tugged at my elbow. It was the President, leaning out of his ceremonial box. “Mr. Courtenay,” he whispered, his smile masklike on his face, “I guess you understood what I was trying to tell you yesterday in the cab. I’m glad the rocket’s ready. And-” he widened his grin and bobbed his head in the precise manner of a statesman exchanging inconsequentialities with a distinguished visitor, “you probably know this, but-he’s here.” I had no chance to find out who “he” was. As the Speaker of the House came toward me hand outstretched and the applause started from the floor, I forced a smile to my face. But it was a trick of the rictus muscles entirely. I had little to smile about, if the news about the Venus rocket had trickled down to the President. Fowler Schocken was a pious old hypocrite and Fowler Schocken was a grinning fraud, but if it hadn’t been for Fowler Schocken I