meras have been waiting secretly in your yard for
hours for your return."

As his eyes adjusted, Rothwell distinguished a camera crew, their small
portable instrument, and a young, smooth-talking announcer that he had
seen several times on television. He forced the annoyance out of his
eyes. This, he thought, is all I need.

"What the general doesn't know," the announcer went on, "is that earlier
this evening it was announced by Moscow Central that the computers had
picked his son as one of the evacuees!"

The shock was visible on 150,000,000 TV sets. Completely unexpected, the
surprise of the announcement hit Rothwell like a physical blow; his eyes
widened, his chin dropped, and for an instant the world's viewers read
in his face the frank emotions of a father, unshielded by military
veneer. Then years of training took command, and he faced the camera,
apparently calm, though churning internally. The odds, he thought
confusedly, the odds must be at least ten thousand to one! Then he
realized that someone was talking to him, waving a microphone.

"Er, I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch ..." he mumbled at the camera.

The announcer laughed amiably. "Certainly can't blame you, this must be
a really big night! How does it feel, General, for your son to be one of
the evacuees?"

Something in the back of his mind twisted the question. How does it
feel, General, to turn your only son over to a poker-faced alien who
shoots when you walk near his ship? "I'm not sure," he said, "how I
feel."

Talking excitedly, the announcer drew closer. "To think that your name
will live forever in the vast star clusters of the galaxy!" He lowered
his voice. "General, speaking now unofficially, as a parent, to the
thousands of other parents whose children may also be selected, and to
the rest of us who ..." he seemed to stumble for a word, and for an
instant Rothwell saw him, too, as a man worried and afraid, instead of
as part of a television machine. "Well, General, _you've_ had contact
with the aliens, are you glad your son is going?"

Rothwell looked at the strained face of the announcer, at the camera
crew quietly eyeing him, and at the small huddled group of neighbors
hovering in the background, and he knew that his next words might be the
most critical he would ever use in his life. In a world strained
emotionally almost beyond endurance, the wrong words, a hint of a
suspicion, could spark the riots that would kill millions and bri