Free Our Children's Children by Clifford D. Simak

London still hadn’t been contacted by anyone when I spoke with Sterling. You can say I plan to talk with other national leaders before the day is out.”
    â€œHow about a cabinet meeting? The question is sure to come up.”
    â€œI’ve been seeing Cabinet members off and on during the last few hours. This is the first time since it’s started there has been no one in this office. And I’ll be conferring with people on the Hill, of course. Anything else you can think of, Steve?”
    â€œThere’ll probably be a lot of other questions. I’ll manage to field them. You can’t anticipate them all. This will satisfy them.”
    â€œSteve, what did you think of Gale? Your own personal opinion. How do you size him up?”
    â€œIt’s hard to know,” said Wilson. “No real impression, I’d think. Except that I can’t figure out where he’d gain anything by not telling the truth, or at least the truth as he saw it. However you look at it, those people out there are in serious trouble and they look to us to help them. Maybe they have a thing or two to hide, maybe it’s not exactly as Gale told it, but I think mostly it is. Hard as it may be to accept, I’m inclined to believe him.”
    â€œI hope you’re right,” said the President. “If we’re wrong, they could make us awful fools.”

18
    The chauffeured car went up the curving drive to the gracious mansion set well back from the street amid the flowers and trees. When it stopped before the portico, the chauffeur got out and opened the rear door. The old man fumbled out of it, groping with his cane. He petulantly struck aside the chauffeur’s hand when he put it out to help.
    â€œI still can manage to get out of a car alone,” he panted, finally disengaging himself from it and standing, albeit a little shakily and unsure of himself, upon the driveway. “You wait right here for me,” he said. “It may take a little while, but you wait right here for me.”
    â€œCertainly, Senator,” said the driver. “Those stairs, sir—they look a little steep.”
    â€œYou stay right here,” said Senator Andrew Oakes. “You go sit behind the wheel. Time comes when I can’t climb stairs, I’ll go back home and let some young man have my seat. But not right yet,” he said, wheezing a little, “not right now. Maybe in another year or two. Maybe not. Depends on how I feel.”
    He stumped toward the stairs, clomping his cane with weighty precision upon the driveway. He mounted the first step and stood there for a moment before attempting the next one. As he mounted each step, he looked to either side of him, glaring into the landscape, as if daring someone to remark upon his progress. Which was quite unnecessary, since there was no one there—except the driver, who had gone back to sit behind the wheel, studiously not watching the old man’s progress up the stairs.
    The door came open when he was crossing the pillared portico.
    â€œI am glad to see you, Senator,” said Grant Wellington, “but there was no need to make the trip. I could have come to your apartment.”
    The Senator stopped, planting himself sturdily before his host. “Nice day for a drive,” he said, “and you said you would be alone.”
    Wellington nodded. “Family in New England and the servants’ day off. We’ll be quite alone.”
    â€œGood,” said the Senator. “My place you never can be sure. People in and out. Phones ringing all the time. This is better.”
    He stumped into the entry. “To your right,” said Wellington, closing the door.
    The old man went into the study, shuffled across the carpeting, dropped into a huge, upholstered chair to one side of the fireplace. He laid his cane carefully on the floor beside him, looked around at the book-lined shelves, the huge executive-type desk, the