CHAPTER II
“I would suggest that you leave at once,” Scop says.
“I think the black would be better. But then again I look most dashing in blue. It is very difficult to make these decisions because they make me feel like a frivolous person. But occasions of state are frivolous,” the President adds mildly, “we really must remember that. At the heart this is a ceremonial position.” Humming he takes out the blue and ponders it at extension length. “I might as well,” he says. “And they’ll probably give me thathat at the breakfast but then again—blues for the blue, don’t you think that’s right?”
Abruptly Scop’s control breaks. More and more this has been happening to him; he has tried to slide his way into situations crosswise, moving laterally toward cautious alignment, reminding himself that results are best obtained through indirection but under the circumstances it is impossible to continue this way. Bitterness seizes him. “Leave Dallas!” he shouts, “you must leave this town at once; it is absolutely disastrous for you to extend your stay. You must go, flee, the streets are choked with assassins, at this very moment—” and then he breaks off, tormented, stricken, he has broken the code of information. Whatever he had in mind he had never planned to do this. The President looks at him bleakly and then strokes the fabric of the blue suit, tosses it casually on the bed, parts his robe to reveal himself naked but for his underclothing; a strongly built man, his body reassembled leaving only residual effects from previous injuries. “That’s all well and good,” he says, “but we’ve got only half an hour to be downtown so we’d better hurry.”
Scop cries out but no one comes.