CHAPTER VIIAlan remembered only vaguely what happened then. Side-arms were whipped out by the guards. One dignified member of the Council lunged across the table, dignity forgotten, and tried to slap Alan. The reporters, sensing something important when Alan had broken away from the guards downstairs and plunged inside the White House, had entered the room. Now the television cameras were grinding. There was not a friendly face in the room.
“Listen to me!” Alan shouted. He could not make himself heard over the babble of excitement in the room. He pounded on the table and cried, “You’ve got to listen! Do you think I came here to die with all of you and all Earth tomorrow night? Do you?”
The guards held him again, one of them wrenching his right arm up and back painfully. The members of th
