03 - The First Amendment (7 page)

“Well, that part shouldn’t present any problems.” Pace was visibly relieved
at the relaxing of tension in the room. “The escort has already been fully
briefed and knows the ropes. He’s one of yours, in fact.”

“Oh?” One brow arched high. “How do you mean, one of mine?”

“Yes,” Pace went on, warming to the concept. He actually leaned forward
across his desk, clasping his hands together. “The escort used to work for you
right here in the Complex, in fact. It’s Bert Samuels. Lieutenant Colonel Bert
Samuels.”

“Major Morley.” Janet Frasier’s soft voice demanded Morley’s attention as he
sat numbly at the table. The rest of the meeting had long since packed itself up
and headed to its respective next stops. Even Frasier had left. He was the only
one with no place to go. He had no idea how long he’d been sitting, but it didn’t matter, did
it?

And now the doctor was back. He closed his eyes. He didn’t want to deal with
the chief medical officer again.

“Major.” She wasn’t going to go away.

“What do you want?” He didn’t bother to open his eyes to look at her. It was
nice and dark and safe behind his eyelids, and he didn’t have to see the looks
on the faces of the others, the contempt, the disgust, the pity. He saw enough
other things behind his closed eyelids to punish himself with; he didn’t need
the so-called empathy of his so-called peers on top of it.

“I’d like you to come back to Medical with me,” she said.

He could hear the rustle of her crisp slacks as she slid into the chair next
to him. One cool hand covered his intertwined fingers—without pressure, without
anything other than simple human contact. Behind his eyelids, he could feel the
burning of salt.

“I know that you’re profoundly upset,” she went on. “I’d like to prescribe
something to help you through the next couple .of days. Nothing long-term.”

He inhaled sharply, the force of it lifting his head up and back, and then
let it go and got up, pulling his hands out from under hers as he shoved back
his chair and moved around the table to stand by the window wall that overlooked
Level C-2. Almost two stories below, he could see figures moving around the
Stargate and its metal ramp, like ants cleaning up around their nest or
scavenging for food. A series of probes were lined up like patient donkeys,
waiting their turn to be used. Technicians were still giving them last-minute
checks.

The Gate belched open abruptly, and he flinched at the roar and billow of
blue plasma. By the time the roiling energy had settled into the shimmering surface that was the entrance to the wormhole between worlds, he had
recovered himself. He was peripherally aware of Frasier standing beside him,
watching as the first probe rolled forward, into the shimmer, and vanished.

“Amazing, isn’t it,” she said. She was watching the activity below them, as
technicians began recording data about the probe’s journey through the warp of
space and about its nearly instantaneous arrival at its destination, lit by a
sun unimaginably far away. Several of the technicians were gathered now around
the main data console, pointing out details to each other from the various
displays. The probes gathered information ranging from atmospheric and
meteorological to visual scans of its immediate vicinity and transmitted them
back to Earth—the only kind of transmission that could be sent through the
wormhole in reverse.

“Yeah,” he answered at last. “Amazing. It sure is.” Nothing in his tone
reflected the sense of his words. “People ought to know about it.”

“I used to dream about going into space,” she remarked wistfully. “Rocket
ships and
Stand By For Mars!
Did you read science fiction when you were a
kid, Major?”

He shook his head abruptly, as if casting off some minor irritation. “Still
do. Brin, Clement, Pournelle. But it’s nothing like what’s out there.” He turned
away from the window as the Gate closed. The sudden cessation of noise rang in
their ears.

The technicians below would try to contact the probe again later, assuming
the doughty little machine survived. Meanwhile, there were others waiting to go
as soon as new coordinates and new worlds could be located. “What’s out there is
just like here. Just as bad. War is war no matter where it is.”

Frasier’s brows arched in surprise. “Surely not? They’re alien worlds, after
all.”

“They’re war zones,” he snapped. “The weapons are a little different, maybe,
but that’s all. Maybe the things using them aren’t…” He stopped abruptly.

She tilted her head, thinking about it. “I don’t agree. The teams have told
us about too many different worlds, different people. They’re not all humans,
seeded by the Goa’uld. There are adventures out there.”

For the first time he looked her full in the face, the overhead light
catching the bruises on his face and making them stand out with brutal clarity.
“There’s death out there, Doctor. Death and a war we can’t win. We ought to shut
the damn Gate down and forget about poking sticks at the System Lords and
everything else out there. One of these days we’re going to poke too hard.
They’re going to come after us sooner or later, and when they do they’re going
to win. We might as well just get ready for it.”

“Rather defeatist, don’t you think?” she said mildly.

“Realistic,” he snapped. “And forget about drugging me up, Doctor. I don’t
need any chemical help to know what day it is. We ought to be protecting our own
turf, building up our own defenses. People ought to know what’s going on.
Because one of these days the Jaffa are going to arrive and catch this whole
world flat-footed, and people are going to die just like my team died.”

It was always easier to admit being defeated by an invincible enemy, she
thought. If failure was inevitable, there wasn’t any shame in failing.

“I know there are people who agree with you, Major. Politicians—”

“Like Kinsey. He had the right idea. Shut the damn thing down.”

“Nonetheless,” she said firmly, “I expect you in my office in the next twenty
minutes, Major. I understand that this mission was a terrible blow, but you haven’t had time to build any kind of perspective about it. All I want to do
is give you a head start on objectivity.”

“Objectivity,” he repeated, with a hollow chuckle. “How many casualties does
it take to be objective?”

“Twenty minutes, Major.” She made a point of checking the time on her
wristwatch, glanced once more at him, and then made her way out of the room.

Morley’s behavior, while more extreme than some, was certainly
understandable, she thought. He was a good man, a poor leader, and had severely
bad luck. None of that was his fault.

She hoped he really would show up down in Medical; she had an antidepressant
in mind that would do wonders for him for the time being. Meanwhile, she’d look
in on the casualties and make sure there weren’t any changes on that front.

He’d set foot on an alien world, felt the light of an alien star, and didn’t
even appreciate it. Life, she concluded, wasn’t fair.

Normally George Hammond was cool, calm, and self-possessed. He prided himself
on his ability to remain calm under fire.

There were some things, however, that would make him go up like a Titan
rocket, and that name was one of them.

“Who?”
he roared, launching himself out of his chair and slamming his
palms down on Pace’s maple guest table. The tea tray bounced and clattered. He
wasn’t so far gone that he couldn’t hear, behind him, the sudden stillness
coming from Cassidy; it was enough to let him catch hold of himself before the
second stage of his temper ignited.

“Samuels. Bert Samuels. Used to be your aide, assigned here, if I’m not
mistaken.” Pace wasn’t about to be pushed around. “Sit down,
dammit, George, you’re going to give yourself a heart attack. What’s the big deal about
Samuels, anyway?”

“That little—” Hammond caught himself abruptly. It would be poor
politics—poor
tactics
—to admit that Samuels, who, after all, had more
intimate knowledge of Project Blue Book—as the Stargate project was now known
outside its own confines—than either of the other two men in the room, was a
conniving little-He sat back down and composed himself.

“Let’s just say that Samuels isn’t the person I would have chosen for the
job,” he said icily. “But it doesn’t surprise me in the least. He’s been
associated with the senator. It makes sense that he’d volunteer to escort the
son. You’re going to find yourselves on the front page of the
Washington
Observer,
you know.”

“While you and Blue Book hide discreetly behind our skirts.”

Hammond looked Pace in the eye. “You’re damned right.”

Pace sat back in his chair and said nothing.

Hammond took a deep breath. “All right. I don’t want him anywhere near my
project, but we all understand that. I don’t like Samuels escorting him, but
that’s out of our hands. How long is he supposed to be here?”

“Three hours,” Cassidy responded. The Canadian brigadier had taken the
opportunity, while Hammond and Pace spoke, to review the schedule for the day.
“The regular briefing in the Visitors Center, a few minutes to clear the area,
and then Samuels will bring him inside. We’ll meet with him and give him the old
God-Save-the-Queen, er, Republic, speeches. He should be in our actual hair for
only an hour or so, from about 1300 to 1400, and shouldn’t have anything to do
with you lot at all.”

Hammond nodded sharply in approval. “All right then. We’ll take the appropriate actions.” He was still seething; every time
that name came up—either name in fact, Kinsey
or
Samuels—it meant
trouble. He should never have lost it that way. Cassidy and Pace were exchanging
meaningful glances over his head as it was.

He took a deep breath and tried to bring the discussion back to the regular
Friday agenda. “All right, you can tell that Samuels isn’t my favorite person,
but I’m going to trust you to keep him and his tame reporter where they belong.
Meanwhile, let’s deal with some of the other issues on the table and see if we
can get back to business. My personnel tell me they’re getting some flak from
your procurement people—”

The meeting turned to more everyday matters of how to keep a large facility
with thousands of employees and billions of dollars’ worth of equipment running
smoothly and in a state of constant readiness. Systems and procedures were
reviewed. Decisions were made. Scones were consumed. By the time they were
finished, all three men were well satisfied that operations would continue
uninterrupted for at least another week, without undue friction between the
ostensible mission of the Complex and the black op that functioned in its
shadow.

It was eleven-thirty when George Hammond left the CinC’s office, heading back
to his own demesne. Time, he thought, for lunch, to be followed by the latest
information review and preparation for his weekly update to the President. Which
would definitely include a few comments about some interfering Senators and
their sons.

Just another damned day at the office.

Frank Kinsey sat across a restaurant table from Lieutenant Colonel Bert
Samuels and contemplated the massive hamburger and mountain of steak fries on
the colonel’s plate. The cholesterol from the mayonnaise alone should be enough
to hospitalize the man.

And maybe that would be a good thing. He was beginning to be actively annoyed
at the self-satisfied smirk that had taken up permanent residence on the man’s
face. He was very tired of the “I-know-some-thing-you-don’t know” attitude.

The restaurant was one of those down-home places with farm implements on the
wall and red-checked tablecloths, just off the state highway leading south out
of Colorado Springs. It specialized in “American food,” like hamburgers and
fried chicken and meat loaf. Most of its clientele seemed to consist of service
personnel from the nearby base and truckers handling semis across the Colorado
Rockies. The food in the place actually smelled pretty good, if you liked
grease.

“I don’t know how you can eat that stuff,” Samuels said, dolloping a large
glop of catsup over his fries.

Kinsey smiled vaguely and dug into the big scoop of tuna on top of three
kinds of lettuce, discreetly edging the slice of hard-boiled egg off to one
side. He’d been surprised to find a whole section of “healthy alternatives” on the menu. Grease
and
tuna. Go figure.

“What are you, some kind of vegetarian?” Samuels said the word as if he
wouldn’t be surprised in the least that the man across from him was such a
reactionary.

Kinsey forked in a mouthful of fish and smiled. “Watching my weight.”

Samuels snorted and picked up a knife and fork and started cutting up the
hamburger. Kinsey paused in mid-chew in surprise.

“Little trick I picked up in London,” Samuels said. “Nobody eats with their
hands over there. It’s considered very rude.”

Kinsey, who had spent some time on the British beat himself, nodded. He
had
seen the British eating that way. It struck him as a bit pretentious to
do such a thing in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Maybe Samuels was trying to
impress him with how cosmopolitan he was. But then, Kinsey had also seen the
Brits eating vinegar-soaked fish and chips out of a newspaper cone, so maybe
Samuels wasn’t as cosmopolitan as he thought he was.

“You’re going to see some amazing things this afternoon,” Samuels promised,
reaching for a soaked french fry—with his fingers, Kinsey noticed. So much for
“British” decorum. “The things that go on in that mountain are just beyond
belief.”

“North American Aerospace Defense? I still don’t see what’s new about that.”
Kinsey pretended not to be interested. The
Observer
editor really did
want a story; access to the actual interior of the complex had been shut down
some time ago, all allegedly “for security reasons.” He supposed that was why
he’d gotten saddled with Samuels, his father’s military liaison guy. It didn’t
mean he had to like it. In his experience, military escorts meant making sure he
didn’t see anything good. When he said so, the senator and the colonel had exchanged one of those I-know-something glances, as
if they had a huge surprise waiting for him. “Let me guess. They brought one of
the Roswell aliens to Cheyenne Mountain and they’re interrogating it even as we
speak.”