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it’s all true. Why you?”
    “Somebody has to,” Dawson said. “And the fact that I used up all my favors to be the first to tell you about it ought to show I’m interested.”
    “Yeah, I give, you that.”
    “I’m on both Space and Foreign Relations. You ought to have somebody from the Congress when we go out to meet them.”
    “Why go out to meet them at all?”
    “Because … it’s more fitting, sir,” Dawson said. “Think about it. Mr. President, they came from a long way off. From another star—”
    “Sure about that?” the Chief of Staff asked. “Why not from another planet?”
    “Because we’ve seen all the likely planets close up, and there’s no place for a civilization,” Dawson said patiently. “Anyway. Mr. President, they came from a long way off. Even so, they’ll, recognize that the first step is the hard one. We want to meet them in orbit, not wait for them to come here.
    “Let me try to put it in perspective,” he said. “Would the history of the Pacific Islands have been different if the first time the Europeans encountered Hawaiians, the Polynesians had been well out at sea in oceangoing boats? Mightn’t they have been treated with more respect?”
    “I see,” the President said. “You know, Wes, you just may be right. That’s assuming there’s anything to this.”
    “If there is, do I get to go?” Dawson asked.
    David Coffey laughed. “We’ll see about that,” he said. He turned to the Chief of Staff. “Jim, get hold of General Gillespie. Get him on a plane for Washington . And the Army captain who discovered this thing.” He sighed. “And get it on the agenda for the cabinet meeting today. Let’s see what the Secretary of State has to say about welcoming the Men from Mars.”
    Wes Dawson walked back from the White House to his offices in the Rayburn Building . He didn’t really have time to do that, but it was a fine morning, and the walk would do him good, and he was too excited to work anyway.
    The President hadn’t said no!
    Wes strolled quickly through the Federal Triangle and along Independence Avenue . He’d done that often, but he still tended to gawk at the great public buildings along the way. It was all there. Government granite, magnificent buildings in the old classic style, built to last back when America had craftsmen able to compete with the great builders of old Greece and Rome. And more than that, The Archives, with the original Constitution and Declaration of Independence to make you misty-eyed and silent and remind you that we’d done things even the Romans couldn’t, we’d invented a stable government of free citizens. Beyond that was the Smithsonian, old castle and new extension.
    The President hadn’t said no! I’m going to space! Only — only would President Coffey remember? It wasn’t an ironclad promise. No one had heard it but Jim Frantz. If the President forgot, the Chief of Staff would forget too, because Coffey might have had a reason to forget. Or … It’s too fine a morning to think that way. Coffey didn’t say no! I really could go to space!
    Ahead was the Space Museum , with its endless traffic, the only building in Washington that drew crowds during weekend blizzards. Wes wanted to look in. Just for a moment. There was work to do, and Carlotta would be waiting in the office to hear what happened in his meeting with the President, and he ought to hurry, but dammit. Across from the museum was NASA itself.
    Wes grinned from ear to ear, startling passersby who weren’t used to people looking happy. A couple of runners came past and returned the grin, although they couldn’t know what made him so cheerful.
    “I know a secret,” he said aloud as he looked up toward the eighth-floor corner office of the Administrator, Have they told him by now? Maybe they’ll even have him at the Cabinet meeting.
    But I’m the one who told the President, and I’ve got my claim staked … And I’m the right man. I’ve been waiting for