First Contact (24 page)

T
O PREVENT THE CATASTROPHIC
contingency of the entire government being destroyed in a nuclear attack, it has been American practice since the dark days of the Cold War to send, on ceremonial occasions where its leadership is gathered in a single place, one government official to a separate, secure location. This person is referred to as the “designated survivor.” It is a gloomy, ominous term, but being the designated survivor is not such a bad deal. The person is generally spared a tedious function, such as standing up and sitting down a hundred times during the State of the Union address, or shivering through the presidential inauguration. Furthermore, arrangements are made to provide the lucky official with an assortment of snacks and beverages.

D
URING THE
1980
S AND
1990s, the threat of catastrophe was taken less seriously. This is evidenced by the number of times the secre
tary of agriculture was designated as the survivor during the State of the Union address (five; excluding President Bartlett’s designation of his secretary of agriculture, Roger Tribbey, during his delivery of the State of the Union in the first season of
The West Wing
).

In 2001 by contrast, at the height of the terrorist threat, it was the then–vice president who was designated as the survivor. He watched the speech from a comfortable, secure location. Speculation abounds as to his choice of snack, though he has a well-known fondness for Diet Sprite, now called Sprite Zero, which is not of the caliber of Diet Dr Pepper, but by all accounts a fine beverage.

I
T IS ONE THING
to be the designated survivor during the State of the Union address, and quite another to be the designated survivor when the entire government is gathering in an underground shelter because of impending Armageddon.

All things considered, the designated survivor, Henry Moleman, undersecretary of commerce, took the news quite well.

Before leaving the White House, the President called and said, “Moleman, you are the designated survivor.”

“What’s the occasion, sir?” Moleman asked. “It isn’t time for the State of the Union.”

“The occasion is that an alien race is about to launch a nuclear attack against Earth,” the President explained. “The government is heading to Greek Island II. I have designated you as the survivor.”

Undersecretary Moleman thought about this for a moment and then asked, “Do you think the term is appropriate in this case, sir?”

“That’s a semantic question, Moleman. I don’t have time to debate that right now.”

“I see, Mr. President.”

“Thank you for your service.”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

H
ENRY
M
OLEMAN TOOK THE
news as part and parcel of the sense of resignation he felt about his political career. Like everyone who enters politics, Moleman had lofty aspirations at the start. But, as with anyone who does anything, life dragged him down. He was also the victim of substantial bad luck.

First of all, Henry Moleman is not the best name for politics. And Moleman came from Wisconsin, which has a great tradition of
candidates placing placards on people’s front lawns. During has first political campaign, when he was still a political science professor at U of W, Henry Moleman placed dozens of such signs across his district. Each said:

MOLEMAN

FOR CONGRESS

It was not eye-catching. Moleman’s political consultant urged that he change his name back to the German original, Mahlman, but Moleman would not hear of it. He won in spite of his name, because of his well-deserved reputation for integrity and intelligence, earned over the years as a college professor and community activist. His constituents respected him and reelected him to Congress nine times.

But twenty years later, when Moleman aspired to the governorship of Wisconsin, his name became more of an obstacle. It was his bad luck to launch his gubernatorial campaign in the same week as the release of
The Mothman Prophecies
, an account based on real events of supernatural sightings preceding the collapse of a bridge in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. The opposition used “Moleman sightings” as a catchphrase to link prophecies of doom with tax-and-spend liberalism.

Now I know what you’re thinking: few people saw
The Mothman Prophecies
and certainly no one in Wisconsin. Not true and not true. Do not underestimate Richard Gere, do not underestimate Laura Linney, and never ever underestimate the power of that combination in Wisconsin. The people of Wisconsin saw the movie in droves, and they paid heed. Unfortunately, this filtered into ill will for the gubernatorial candidate based on the similarity of his name to that of a fictitious character. Needless to say, this was irrational. But Moleman lost and that’s really all that matters. Voters, like history, are under no obligation to make sense.

So Moleman ended up returning to the House of Representatives, where he had a reputation as something of a curmudgeon, and likely would have remained there for the remainder of his career but for the Internet Pornography Reduction and Apricot Price Protection Act. The President wanted it and needed Moleman’s vote. The President didn’t like Moleman, but offering him the position as number two in the commerce department seemed a small price to pay to ensure passage of such important legislation.

For his part, Moleman had grown tired of Congress. Taking the job in commerce felt in some ways like selling out, but he deplored Internet pornography, and though he disfavored price protections, the United States did not grow many apricots. It seemed a small compromise, and Henry Moleman very much liked the idea of being in the presidential order of succession, albeit at number 733. It would be a long shot for the undersecretary of commerce ever to be called upon to serve as president, but one never knew.

U
PON THE DESTRUCTION OF
Greek Island II, it was determined by the sergeant-at-arms, chief protocol officer of Congress, that the first 732 people in the presidential order of succession had been exterminated in the attack. The presidency thus fell to number 733, Henry Moleman. The sergeant-at-arms called Moleman at his home in Madison, Wisconsin, where Moleman had chosen to wait things out. The sergeant told him Congress and the cabinet had been destroyed together with Greek Island II, and that he, Undersecretary Moleman, needed to return to the White House immediately to assume the Presidency of the United States.

“Oh,” said President-designee Moleman.

This could have been a fortuitous twist of history. Henry Moleman would have been an outstanding president. He might not have been a great orator like Kennedy or an ideologue like Reagan, but he had sound values and, after two decades in Congress, an impressive breadth of knowledge about how government worked. In the moments after the sergeant-at-arms telephoned, Moleman thought about how he would make peace with the aliens and use the out-reach to repair America’s standing in the international community. He also had a neat little plan for ending poverty, which had been dismissed by his peers, but was just crazy enough to work. Unfortunately, Henry Moleman never made it back to Washington because of that bane of the universe, the PTA.

S
TAY WITH ME HERE
.
Around the time
Earth’s Hope
set out for Rigel-Rigel, Mrs. Moleman, Clarabella, launched her own political campaign to become the president of the East Madison High School PTA. A key plank of her platform: provide brownies at the meetings. Mrs. Moleman was a legendary baker and understood, as any good politician does, the key to winning elections is to offer good snacks.
In preparation for the vote, Clarabella Moleman prepared a giant tray of brownies and a giant tray of lasagna, each of which she stored in the family kitchen.

The complicating factor in this story is that Henry Moleman had a severe allergy to peanuts. Mrs. Moleman knew this, of course. So she wrote a large note on a sheet of loose-leaf paper and taped it to the tray of brownies. The note said:

Unfortunately, during the evening the Moleman family raccoon got into the brownies. The raccoon was not a pet in the conventional sense of the word. In fact the Molemans had attempted to evict the raccoon on several occasions. But raccoons have a way of finding their way back home, even if they are trapped and driven off several miles and deposited in the woods, as the Molemans had done several times with their pesky friend. Each time he found his way back and remade his home in the attic. Finally, after several failed eviction attempts, the Molemans accepted the raccoon’s presence. In time, they began to think of him as part of the family.

Usually, the raccoon did not venture into the kitchen, but raccoons love sweet treats and this particular raccoon found Clarabella Moleman’s brownies irresistible. During the night, he helped himself to half a tray of brownies. In the process, the raccoon dislodged the note, which attached itself to the lasagna.

Later, in celebration of his ascendancy to the presidency, Henry Moleman decided to indulge in one of his wife’s delicious brownies. He checked for warnings, saw one on the tray of lasagna, but none on the brownies. Satisfied as to their safety, Moleman took a healthy bite of chocolaty goodness, then keeled over and expired.

H
ENRY
M
OLEMAN WAS AN
intelligent man who spent his life thinking about weighty matters such as poverty, world peace, and how to get the Chinese to stop exporting so many
tchotchkes
to the United States, but he had the most ordinary of dying thoughts.

Henry Moleman often spoke to himself, a habit developed during his lonely years in academia, and he did so on this occasion. His last thought thus qualified on its face as an epitomb, but may not
have truly met the criteria for dying words since they were choked out and, hence, inaudible.

In any event, Henry Moleman’s last thought/epitomb was eminently ordinary. It was: “Why would lasagna have peanuts?”

F
OLLOWING
H
ENRY
M
OLEMAN’S UNTIMELY
demise, the sergeant-at-arms determined that numbers 734 through 948 in the presidential order of succession had also perished in the attack on Greek Island II. The presidency thus fell to number 949, the last person on the list, Ralph Bailey, assistant deputy to the chief of staff, best known in the White House as the president’s attaché.

I
ADMIT, READILY, THAT
this is all implausible. But it’s about time we had a young, idealistic man in the White House, and Ralph Bailey fits the bill. I could imagine only two ways to get him there. One was to invent a fantastic scenario in which a twenty-four-year-old ascended to the presidency and the Constitution’s age requirement had been suspended. The other was to give Ralph a really good fake ID.

T
HE NEWS THAT HE
had been designated as the president was communicated to Ralph by cell phone by the sergeant-at-arms. He said, “Sir, you need to return to Washington. The first nine hundred forty-eight people in the order of succession have died. You are now the president of the United States.”

Ralph was, obviously, stunned. “What happened to the designated survivor?” he asked.

“He had a fatal allergy attack.”

Ralph said, “Oh.”

R
ALPH ACCEPTED THE NEWS
without cheer. Since the missile struck, Ralph had been fretfully standing outside Blimpway, waiting for Jessica and wondering about his friends. Ralph counted the President among them. He did not see everything as the President did. He particularly did not agree with the President’s decision to attack the Rigelians, who Ralph believed had the very best of intentions. But the President had taken a great chance giving Ralph this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and he had always treated Ralph with respect. Ralph was sad to learn of the President’s death and, of course, the death of his friends Maude, Joe, and David.

And Ralph was sad, for the most selfish of reasons, to learn of the bunker’s destruction. He, for one, looked forward to that underground existence. Jessica may have dreaded the idea of being locked underground with the American government, but Ralph romanticized it. He would be with Jessica every day, and this was all he needed to be happy. Now, life would resume, and soon enough Jessica would leave for Tibet, as she had planned all along.

For old times sake, Ralph drifted into the store and purchased a ham and cheese sandwich. Then he sat down on a bench on the sidewalk, ate the sandwich by himself, and wondered what the odds were against this day having ended this way.

I
F THIS WERE AN
episode of
Star Trek
, Mr. Spock would chime in at this point and say, “The odds, Captain, are precisely 386,323,497 to 1.” But this is intellectual pretension. To structure an answer to a question of this complexity, certain premises need to be established.

For example, suppose the question is the chance that a Rigelian dollowarrie and an African gray parrot would be indistinguishable. Spock could offer an off-the-cuff estimate here, but it would be meaningless. The answer depends on several background facts. If we know, for example, that Rigel-Rigel and Earth have similar atmospheres and each has canopies of tall trees with nuts and berries then, given the principles of convergent evolution, the similarity of the birds is less unlikely. If we know the dollowarrie is the creation of my imagination, then the similarity of the two creatures is less unlikely still. Similarly, if we suppose God created all life in the universe, and that he had a thing for long-billed birds, then the resemblance would be eminently unremarkable. On the other hand, if the question is approached with the premise that the universe was created in a flash of energy, and the existence of life was consequently uncertain, let alone the life of someone with the time to write books and think of renaming parrots as dollowarries, then the whole thing seems mind-blowingly unlikely.