“Good speech and good responses to questions, Mr. President,” Vice President Ann Page said a few moments later after her image reappeared on the director’s station monitor in the command module. “A lot of veteran astronauts have trouble doing press conferences down on Earth, let alone just minutes after arriving in space for the first time. I didn’t leak any parts of the military restructuring, as you requested, so everyone in the world got it all at once. The phones are even now ringing off the hook. Are you going to take any calls up on station?”
Phoenix thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. “I’m going to call Alexa, and then I’m going to sit down with the space station crew, try some of their food, check on poor Charlie Spellman, check out a little more of station, and prepare for the return flight. We talked about responses to several questions we anticipate reporters and heads of state will ask, and I’ll let you handle those until I get back and get checked over by the docs. The last thing I want to do is spend my last couple hours on station talking on the phone.”
“I hear you, sir,” Ann said. “I’ll take the calls from heads of state, then the major media outlets. You enjoy yourself up there. No more spacewalks, okay, sir? Go through the docking tunnel like the rest of us mere space travelers.”
“If you insist, Miss Vice President,” President Phoenix said with a smile. “If you insist.”
THREE
The mere apprehension of a coming evil has put many into a situation of the utmost danger.
—MARCUS ANNAEUS LUCANUS
THE WATERGATE HOTEL
WASHINGTON, D.C.
THAT SAME TIME
“Of course I saw it!” former U.S. senator, Senate majority leader, and secretary of state Stacy Anne Barbeau exclaimed on the phone, staring dumbstruck at the large high-def television in her hotel suite. “Get the senior staff in here right now!”
Despite being in her early sixties, Stacy Anne Barbeau was still a beautiful, energetic, ambitious woman and a veteran politician. But those in the know knew that Barbeau was not a sweet Louisiana magnolia—she was a venus flytrap, using her beauty and southern charms to disarm and disable men and women alike into lowering their defenses and submitting to her wishes, willingly clamped tightly between her ruby-red lips. The whole world had known for a decade that she had presidential ambitions, and now those ambitions had been transformed into a high-powered, well-funded campaign that had maintained a small but consistent lead in the race against incumbent president Kenneth Phoenix . . .
. . . a race that had just been turned on its ear with that unexpected news conference from space.
Barbeau’s Washington campaign headquarters occupied an entire floor in the Watergate Hotel and office building. She had just returned to her hotel suite from a fund-raising dinner and turned on the news to watch the press conference, full of energy and excitement over another successful appearance. Now she stood in complete shock, listening to the stunned and flabbergasted commentators trying to make sense of what they had just seen: the president of the United States speaking to the world from Earth orbit.
Luke Cohen, Barbeau’s campaign manager and chief adviser, was the first to dash into her hotel suite. “That had to be faked or CGI’d,” he said breathlessly. Cohen, a tall, thin, good-looking New Yorker, had been Barbeau’s chief of staff during her years as Senate majority leader and as secretary of state. “No president of the United States would ever be stupid enough to fly into space, especially six months before an election!”
“Shush, I’m listening,” Barbeau said. Cohen turned away to answer his cell phone while she listened to the commentary.
“CNN,” Cohen said at the next break. “They want five minutes.”
“They can have two,” Barbeau said. An aide whose only job was to record every word that came out of Barbeau’s mouth rushed in, tablet computer at the ready. “It was the most audacious, sensationalist, dangerous, and irresponsible election-year stunt I have ever seen in my thirty years in Washington,” she recited. “President Phoenix is risking the safety and security of the entire nation and the free world with this reckless act. I seriously question his judgment, as should all Americans. For the good of the nation, as soon as he returns, he should undergo a series of medical and psychological examinations to check to see if he has suffered any ill effects of traveling in space, and if any are found he should immediately thereupon resign his office.” The aide tapped a button, and the words were sent to Barbeau’s chief speechwriter, who would put together talking points for her and the campaign’s spokespersons within minutes.