Read Online The General's President by John Dalmas - Free Book Online
Authors: John Dalmas
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liked looking at it. Simply, it excited him.
In the plant, from a catwalk, he peered out across the assembly line. It was cleaner than it needed to be; the manufacturing conditions necessary for the GPC were not especially demanding. Men and women there wore white coveralls; the place was nearly spotless, and thoroughly and softly lit without noticeable shadows. Silent circulators cycled the air, removing dust electrically.
The activity here was not intense; the chief wasn't big on intensity, just on production and quality. He preferred things calm and businesslike. Thick ceramic housings—head-high cylinders with one end open—lay on low electric jack trucks along one side, then ranged trackless down an assembly line on the other side in a sequence of increasing metamorphosis. They looked like maroon culvert sections with bases. On feeder lines that ribbed the space, workers assembled modules which other workers installed in the housings.
None of them knew what they were making, though they thought they did. Not even the U.S. Patent Office knew what they really were. The designs and models had them in miniature as part of something else entirely.
A nearby warehouse stood half full of the devices, ready for freight cars. And assembly lines were being installed in new buildings at International Falls, and at Fort Frances, Ontario.
Phase Two, to be financed by Phase One, would produce small, lightweight units in several sizes.
As he turned and started back for his office, Dave Fiori had both a sense of exhilaration and a nervous stomach. This time , he told himself, it's really on. This time we're going to do it.
EIGHT
The Chamber of the House of Representatives contained almost a hundred senators and more than four hundred representatives, plus media people and guests—all the room would hold. One of them was Senator Robert Morrows, and for the moment he was hardly aware of the crowd around him. His attention had turned inward, and backward in time.
It had been hard to do anything the last week and a half. The word of the week was futility . For a couple of days it had seemed that the country was starting its death throes, and government had been frantic. But since Donnelly's resignation, it was as if everything in Washington had gone suddenly on hold —everything but the media and hopefully the Pentagon. And even the media were notably less frenetic than usual. Except in the area of emergency relief—especially food distribution—almost no one in civilian government was doing more than the absolute minimum, if that. A sort of lethargy—a waiting to see what would happen next—hung over everything. Congress was getting very little input from the agencies, and none at all from the White House. But then, Congress wasn't doing much with what it did get.
It had been a time for talking in corridors in small groups, mostly talk with little heat or any other energy. What heat there'd been was over Donnelly's use of the Emergency Powers Act to appoint his successor without congressional approval, but it was a heat that hadn't spread. Donnelly was under psychiatric care at Bethesda, and somebody had been needed fast. And as Grosberg and Kreiner had pointed out, under the circumstances they'd undoubtedly have approved the appointment without debate. This was no time for campaigning for favorite candidates, and according to Blake, the White House legislative affairs assistant, the option had been Cromwell. In fact, Blake admitted, Cromwell had recommended Haugen.
They'd find out soon enough whether the goddess Serendipity was with them, or whether Murphy's law applied.
The rumor was that Chief Justice Fechner had been so angry with the whole situation that he'd refused to swear the new president in, or attend the swearing in. So Justice Killian had done the honors. Who swore a president in was a matter of tradition, not law.
Months before the violence began, Morrows had had this recurring sinking feeling that the
In the plant, from a catwalk, he peered out across the assembly line. It was cleaner than it needed to be; the manufacturing conditions necessary for the GPC were not especially demanding. Men and women there wore white coveralls; the place was nearly spotless, and thoroughly and softly lit without noticeable shadows. Silent circulators cycled the air, removing dust electrically.
The activity here was not intense; the chief wasn't big on intensity, just on production and quality. He preferred things calm and businesslike. Thick ceramic housings—head-high cylinders with one end open—lay on low electric jack trucks along one side, then ranged trackless down an assembly line on the other side in a sequence of increasing metamorphosis. They looked like maroon culvert sections with bases. On feeder lines that ribbed the space, workers assembled modules which other workers installed in the housings.
None of them knew what they were making, though they thought they did. Not even the U.S. Patent Office knew what they really were. The designs and models had them in miniature as part of something else entirely.
A nearby warehouse stood half full of the devices, ready for freight cars. And assembly lines were being installed in new buildings at International Falls, and at Fort Frances, Ontario.
Phase Two, to be financed by Phase One, would produce small, lightweight units in several sizes.
As he turned and started back for his office, Dave Fiori had both a sense of exhilaration and a nervous stomach. This time , he told himself, it's really on. This time we're going to do it.
EIGHT
The Chamber of the House of Representatives contained almost a hundred senators and more than four hundred representatives, plus media people and guests—all the room would hold. One of them was Senator Robert Morrows, and for the moment he was hardly aware of the crowd around him. His attention had turned inward, and backward in time.
It had been hard to do anything the last week and a half. The word of the week was futility . For a couple of days it had seemed that the country was starting its death throes, and government had been frantic. But since Donnelly's resignation, it was as if everything in Washington had gone suddenly on hold —everything but the media and hopefully the Pentagon. And even the media were notably less frenetic than usual. Except in the area of emergency relief—especially food distribution—almost no one in civilian government was doing more than the absolute minimum, if that. A sort of lethargy—a waiting to see what would happen next—hung over everything. Congress was getting very little input from the agencies, and none at all from the White House. But then, Congress wasn't doing much with what it did get.
It had been a time for talking in corridors in small groups, mostly talk with little heat or any other energy. What heat there'd been was over Donnelly's use of the Emergency Powers Act to appoint his successor without congressional approval, but it was a heat that hadn't spread. Donnelly was under psychiatric care at Bethesda, and somebody had been needed fast. And as Grosberg and Kreiner had pointed out, under the circumstances they'd undoubtedly have approved the appointment without debate. This was no time for campaigning for favorite candidates, and according to Blake, the White House legislative affairs assistant, the option had been Cromwell. In fact, Blake admitted, Cromwell had recommended Haugen.
They'd find out soon enough whether the goddess Serendipity was with them, or whether Murphy's law applied.
The rumor was that Chief Justice Fechner had been so angry with the whole situation that he'd refused to swear the new president in, or attend the swearing in. So Justice Killian had done the honors. Who swore a president in was a matter of tradition, not law.
Months before the violence began, Morrows had had this recurring sinking feeling that the
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