The throne of saturn, p.77
The Throne of Saturn, page 77
Jazz’ left hand lay stretched along the coverlet near the chair. Connie reached over and took it gently. Jazz started, the rhythm of his breathing changed, he opened his eyes, focused. A slow smile came into his face, his hand squeezed Connie’s, hard.
“Well, well,” he said in a voice a little slow and labored but beginning to get back to normal. “Haven’t I seen you someplace before?”
Connie grinned.
“Yes,” he said, releasing Jazz’ hand and tipping back in the chair, “I think you have. How you doin’, buddy?”
“Not bad,” Jazz said, his voice growing stronger as he became animated by the visit. “Not bad at all. I’m not raping my wife yet—or even any of the orderlies, for that matter—but I’m coming along.”
Connie chuckled.
“That’s good. Think you’ll be able to join me in a couple of weeks?”
Jazz frowned.
“Yes, we were listening. If you need me, pal, I’ll join you in two days. And that’s a promise.”
“I doubt if it’ll have to be quite that soon. But the day is going to come. That’s why I wanted to see you today, because I’m going home this afternoon and we probably won’t have a chance to talk in person again until we meet on the Hill.”
“Bastards,” Jazz said with a weary disgust.
“Not all,” Connie said. “We have a lot of friends up there. I don’t think we’ll be crucified, though there will be some who will try. But—” he paused thoughtfully. “We’ve got to get our story straight and stick to it.”
Jazz looked surprised.
“We’ll tell ’em what happened.” He studied Connie’s face with a sudden attention. “Won’t we, Conn?”
“If you’ve been listening,” Connie said carefully, “you know I’ve had lunch with the president.”
For a moment Jazz said nothing though his eyes said a lot.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he remarked at last. “So that son of a bitch still wants us to protect the Russians. Well, f—”
“Now, just a minute,” Connie interrupted calmly. “Just don’t sail up through the roof. He has reasons”—he enumerated them—“and he wants us to help him, insofar as we honestly can.”
“You think we should?”
“Insofar as we honestly can.”
“How does he think we should go about it?” Jazz inquired skeptically. Connie told him.
He snorted.
“How about a gunshot wound in my back? Where does that fit in?”
“Nobody knows the nature of your wound,” Connie pointed out. “Nobody knows anything yet.”
“But somebody at the hearing is bound to ask.”
“Maybe, maybe not. We’ll have a little uninterrupted narrative to paint the picture first, I think. And if they do”—Connie shrugged—“do whatever you think best.”
“I think I’ll tell ’em the truth,” Jazz said slowly, “and blow the whole thing.”
“I think probably,” Connie said, “that moment is going to come, for one or the other of us, before we’re very far into the hearing. But I can see the president’s arguments and I’m willing to go along and help him, if possible … if possible.” His expression changed, became almost hesitant. “There is—one other thing I’d like to ask of you, Jazz.”
Again, Jazz studied his face thoughtfully, trying hard to concentrate through the lingering effects of sedation, and managing.
“You want us to protect Jayvee.”
Connie looked completely surprised.
“How the hell did you know?”
“Because I figured you’ve seen Monetta and she asked you to,” Jazz said simply, and gave him a direct and candid look that Connie did not meet for a moment. But presently he did and replied with equal candor.
“Yes, I’ve seen her. Not—I mean, that ended quite some time ago. But she did ask me to come down to Galveston and tell her what had happened. I thought she had a right to know, and Jane agreed with me. So I went.”
“Quite a gal, Jane,” Jazz remarked. “She isn’t the only one who got a good break in that marriage.”
“I know that,” Connie said with a smile. “I know that, Jazzbo. Anyway, I did see Monetta, and I did tell her, and she did ask me—and asked me to ask you—to protect him when we tell our story.”
“Was she surprised?”
“She said very little. Mostly just listened. But I got the feeling she wasn’t, really. Very sad about it but not surprised.”
“And you think we should agree.” Jazz stared at the ceiling, momentarily back in Santa Maria. “The twisted son of a bitch came damned close to killing me, you know.”
“She knows that,” Connie said. “She wouldn’t blame you, probably, if you let him have it now. But really, Jazz”—he leaned forward earnestly—“you can’t hurt Jayvee, you know. He’s probably out in Andromeda somewhere by this time, I guess. All you can hurt is Monetta. And the boy.”
“And you don’t want to hurt Monetta.”
Connie gave him a calm stare.
“No. Do you?”
“I want to hurt the bastards who forced us to take him on the crew,” Jazz said with a tired anger. “I want to hurt Percy Mercy and Kenny Williams and all their sleazy bunch. That’s who I want to hurt.”
“Well,” Connie said moodily, “you can’t even do that. Because they wouldn’t believe you. They are so tied in—they are such slaves—to the image of Nature’s Noble Savage who can do no wrong as long as he’s Black—that they simply could not accept the picture of a sick, neurotic, unhappy, unpleasant, immature, unsalvageable Black. It would drive them mad. So, you aren’t going to get any acknowledgment from them even if you do blow the whistle on him. They just wouldn’t believe you.”
For several moments Jazz stared at him. Then he spoke slowly and drowsily.
“It’s a crazy world we live in, isn’t it, Conn? Do you ever wish we could take our families and our friends and start out for some place like Mars and just keep on going and never come back?”
Connie smiled. There was no amusement in it.
“Frequently … So, what about Jayvee?”
“Whatever you say …”
“Good man,” Connie said gratefully. He stood up, took Jazz’s hand again, gave it a final, encouraging squeeze. “Now, let’s talk—often—in the next couple of weeks. Get on the screen any time you want me and I’ll do the same. We’ll work out the details and get her set. And maybe—just maybe—we can do with honor what the president wants.”
Jazz’s jawline firmed, his eyes opened wide again and grew cold.
“I’m not going to do it with dishonor, I’ll tell you that.”
“Nor am I,” Connie said quietly. “Now you take care and get your strength back fast. Two weeks isn’t any too long to get you to the point where you can appear on the Hill.”
“Oh, I would love,” Jazz said, his eyes for a moment savage with the relish of it, “I would love to be carried in on a stretcher to testify. That would give the bastards a field day they didn’t bargain for. We’d see then who could play on public sympathy, by God.”
Though they did not know it then—but had they been a little more politically sophisticated, might well have foreseen—they would soon have the opportunity to find out.
The next day’s headlines, complete with suitable accompanying editorials, columns, news stories, newscasts, and commentaries, said:
IT’S OFFICIAL: TWO DEAD ON MARS FLIGHT … HILL DEMANDS IMMEDIATE INVESTIGATION … TRASKER DELAY BID DRAWS STINGING ATTACK IN SENATE … CRITICISM MOUNTS ABROAD AS WORLD SEES U.S. COVER-UP … NASA HIDES TRASKER AS PRESSURE GROWS …
The day after that they said:
MARS STALL BRINGS RISING CLAMOR … PRESIDENT DEFENDS TRASKER, APPROVES WEICKERT WAIT … NASA FOES THREATEN TO WITHHOLD FUNDS … WILLIAMS CALLS FOR END TO “SINISTER EVASION” BY TRASKER, THREATENS BAN ON PLANETARY FLIGHT TWO … NASA FRIENDS WAVER, URGE EARLY HEARING …
The day after that they said:
SPACE COMMITTEES MEET IN JOINT CLOSED SESSION … WHITE HOUSE MAY YIELD TO HILL DEMANDS ON MARS … NASA INSISTS WEICKERT UNABLE TO APPEAR … WILLIAMS INTRODUCES RESOLUTION FOR SPECIAL INVESTIGATING PANEL … NASA FRIENDS FEAR HEAVY BLOW TO SPACE PROGRAM … PRESIDENT SEES NASA HEAD ON MARS UPROAR … CONGRESS MAY SEEK QUICK SHOWDOWN VOTE ON WILLIAMS RESOLUTION TO FORCE MARS HEARING …
On the fourth day the president called Connie in Houston to inform him of the ultimatum he had just received, in a friendly but alarmed fashion, from the chairmen of the two space committees.
An hour after that, the president issued his statement in Washington, Connie issued his in Houston and Jazz issued his in Bethesda.
That night the headlines said:
PRESIDENT OUTWITS CONGRESS, GRABS MARS BALL … CREATES SPECIAL COMMISSION TO STUDY DISASTER … NAMES V.P., FOUR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS, TOP NASA DUO TO SIFT TRAGEDY … HAILS “NECESSARY CLEANSING OF FESTERING WOUND IN SPACE PROGRAM” … TRASKER, WEICKERT VOW “COMPLETE DISCLOSURE ALL PERTINENT FACTS” … DOCTORS O.K. WEICKERT TESTIMONY FROM STRETCHER … WASHINGTON PREPARES FOR MARS EXTRAVAGANZA …
Shortly before 10 o’clock on the morning of the fifth day, the commander and co-commander of Planetary Fleet One arrived at the door of the Senate Caucus Room to keep their latest rendezvous with history.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The Commission will be in order!” the vice president said sharply, rapping his gavel hard on the massive committee table at the foot of the tall marble pillars. “And so,” he added pointedly, “will the Caucus Room.”
Along the high windows to his right the television cameras stared down from their wooden platforms. At the press tables just in front sharp eyes and clever faces from fifty countries gave him look for look. Crouched under the front rim of the committee table, still photographers cursed and shoved and jockeyed for position. In tightly packed rows of seats, and standing in every available inch of space along the sides and at the back, the lucky spectators who had managed to beg, borrow, or steal a pass were crowded knee to knee and elbow to elbow.
Many of them, he could see, were familiar, those inveterate committee-goers who grace every sensational show on Capitol Hill: Lady Maudulayne, wife of the British ambassador, with her inevitable companions, Celestine Barre, wife of the French ambassador; Dolly Munson, wife of the Senate Majority Leader; Patsy Labaiya, wildly dressed and wildly hatted, wife of the ambassador of Panama. Other famous wives were there, including those of many members of House and Senate. Scattered among them were officials of NASA, including the administrator; Dr. Albrecht Freer from the Cape; Dr. Hans Sturmer from Huntsville; Dr. James Cavanaugh from Houston; the editor of the Times, the editor of the Post and Percy Mercy; a number of ambassadors and ambassadorial wives; and in the first row, in a show of solidarity almost belligerent in its intensity, a number of other familiar faces he had come to know and understand and give his friendship to in the past year: fifteen or twenty of the astronauts, including Hank Barstow and Bert Richmond, Gaudy Gaudet, Emerson Wacker, Roger Webb, and Bob Curtis.
In the center of the first row, flanked protectively by their husbands’ colleagues, were three more wives: Jane Trasker, looking tense but also reassuring and comfortable in her fresh and pretty way; Clare Weickert, also tense, shy but quietly determined; and Yo-Shin Yule, gravely beautiful, impassively awaiting events.
So was he awaiting them, the vice president thought with some grimness: yet he thought that in a good many ways they had been well-prepared for. The president had done several things in the past four days. In the vice president’s estimation, he had done them very astutely.
He had delayed taking action until the outcry against Connie and NASA had become so virulent that it had begun to produce a reaction in their favor. Thousands of letters and telegrams were beginning to reach Congress and the White House, approximately 70 percent of them favorable to Connie, highly indignant toward his critics.
The president had seized the initiative from under the noses—the unwiped noses, in the vice president’s tart judgment—of Kenny Williams and his thinkalikes on the Hill, and had placed the investigation firmly in his own control.
As a sop to those friendly members of Congress who did not approve of a shotgun hearing yet had nonetheless found themselves beginning to yield to the pressure, the president had chosen his special commission largely from their own ranks, had put at its head his own man and had arranged for it to be held on Capitol Hill in the most historic room of them all.
In the process he had selected a commission heavily weighted (as the media had already pointed out with scathing alarm) with friends of the space program. The vice president was its chairman. Assisting him were Senator John Able Winthrop of Massachusetts, chairman of the Senate Aeronautical and Space Sciences Committee; Representative James L. Satterthwaite of Wyoming, chairman of the House Science and Astronautics Committee; Senator Kenny Williams, a member of the Senate committee and an unavoidable choice because of the resolution he had sponsored seeking an investigation; and that levelheaded, intelligent, and fair-minded young Black, a member of the House committee, Representative Cullee Hamilton of California.
To them the president had added two from NASA: Dr. Robert Hertz, director of Flight Control, and Astronaut Stuart Yule.
This, the vice president recognized—as there came a sudden electric stirring by the great oaken doors and he knew the big arrival must be about to take place—had aroused the frantic ire of Percy and his pals. But it was a mighty shrewd list of choices and mighty difficult to attack with any show of rationality.
The president had made it even more difficult because he had persuaded Connie and Jazz to issue statements giving every indication of a genuine willingness to cooperate. And he had refrained, as far as the vice president could ascertain, from approaching any of the commission members or attempting in any way to influence the course of the hearing.
On this last point, admittedly, the vice president reserved some small area of skepticism, since it was out of character for a man of such dominant political instinct to leave the outcome entirely to chance. He would also not put it past the president to have done something to influence the testimony. If so, it was not going to do him much good.
The vice president did not know what had occurred at that famous White House luncheon with Connie, but there might have been something. If so, he intended to smoke it out, for he, at least, was not here for any cover-up. He was deeply loyal to the space program, deeply upset by the tragedy of Piffy One, deeply fond and admiring of Connie and Jazz: but he was also his own man and an honest one and he hoped to find the truth. He thought the country and the world had a right to know. NASA had a friend in the chair, but it did not have a blind partisan.
Nor could the rest of the commission be faulted on that ground. With the exception of Kenny Williams, who had his own axes to grind, its members were fair and honest men who also wanted to find the truth. They were not here to whitewash, the program was too important to them. Connie and Jazz would find, aside from Senator Williams, a friendly atmosphere and a fair examination. They would not find an easy forgiveness if they fell short of the integrity their friends expected of them.
But now the time for reflection was over.
Abruptly the drama was upon them.
The room suddenly roared up into a wild excitement. There came a sudden glare of lights, a sudden rushing forward of photographers, a sudden standing, exclaiming, pointing, and gawking from media and spectators alike.
Guards pushed them back and swung open the great doors.
Into the room came two white-uniformed orderlies carrying a stretcher.
From it the co-commander of Planetary Fleet One managed to raise his left hand with a cheerful grin and a thumbs-up gesture.
Walking beside him, right hand resting lightly but reassuringly on his left shoulder, came the commander, a little tension in his eyes for those who knew him but outwardly calm, pleasant, determined, and unperturbed.
While the guards shouted and shoved and swore, and the photographers, bent like mindless lemmings upon their noisy, bothersome but necessary tasks, swore back, the little procession moved slowly along the front row of seats to the point where it must turn right and come up to the witness stand in front of the committee table.
As it reached center point it halted on command of Connie Trasker. Both Jane and Clare stood up and came forward to kiss their husbands. (“God, what corn!” the Post murmured to the Times. The Times shrugged and said wryly, “It will wow them in Dubuque.”) Again, the photographers had a field day. Jane and Clare returned to their seats. Connie gestured to the orderlies. The procession moved up to the witness table.
Carefully the orderlies locked the legs of the stretcher in place, gently set it down to the right of the witness chair. Jazz smiled and waved to the members of the commission, who smiled and nodded back, save for Senator Williams, who returned an elaborate scowl which was duly recorded by the television cameras. A committee aide brought two small microphones and hung them carefully around Jazz’s neck, and Connie’s.
Connie took his seat in the chair, bowed solemnly to the commission, and turned upon the vice president a grave and expectant look.
The room became so quiet that only the whirring of cameras broke the silence.
The vice president raised his gavel and brought it down sharply. Everyone jumped.
“Colonel Trasker,” he said quietly, “Commander Weickert: this commission, appointed by the president to investigate the flight of Planetary Fleet One, is pleased to have you with us. Do you object to being sworn?”
“No, indeed,” Connie said calmly, Jazz shook his head and said, “No, sir.”
“Very well,” the vice president said. He stood and raised his right hand, Connie did the same, Jazz raised his right hand. “Do you solemnly swear the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?”
“We do,” they said together, and knew in that moment they could not comply with the president’s wishes. But they also knew, though they did not exchange a glance or any sign of communication, that they would comply for as long as they possibly could.
