“I’m sure you understand that this is all very … hard to accept, Admiral.” said Jim Hacker, and the admiral nodded. He understood better than the chief of staff did, and they had notably left out the details of the whereabouts of all eight Agents, focusing instead on the satellites that were their first priority.

Jim Hacker continued, “You’ve shown us a lot of compelling material, but I hope you’ll understand when I say that, in my opinion, it is all fairly circumstantial.” Again the admiral nodded, and Jim went on, “I guess I am saying, Admiral, that, again, in my opinion, while such a theory from such a man as you cannot be taken lightly, I think it is my duty to say that I cannot recommend any action on the part of the United States government without further evidence and information.”

“Wait,” said the president, “action? I am not ready to even begin talking about action.”

The president went on, “We have talked a lot of theory, and you’ve shown me lots of photos of nothing in space and nothing on the bed of the Indian Ocean and insisted that all this nothing means something very important. I know you are clearly absolutely convinced of this information’s efficacy, and that, in and of itself, is very powerful, I don’t disagree. But so far I have to agree with my chief of staff’s analysis. I respect each of you enough to accept that you clearly believe you have something concrete here. But none of you have talked about action. What action do you want me to take exactly? What is this ‘response’ you mentioned earlier that you want to make to something so … incredible?”

The admiral nodded again thoughtfully, reflecting that he was probably doing that too much, and then checked his watch.

Good, they should be getting the report any moment. After a moment’s pause, the admiral spoke again, slowly, as if filling time, “Mr. President, the response I have spoken about is just that: a response. I concur that your chief of staff makes a good point. While my colleagues and I have seen enough by now to come to the strong conviction that this threat is very much a reality, we did not expect to convince either of you without significantly more … concrete evidence.”

The admiral glanced at his watch again, aware that it might now be starting to look like an affectation, then went on, “Plus, we knew that if we had approached you earlier you would have been forced to pursue this, possibly in ways that we know would have been detected by them, causing them to react in ways that I do not wish to contemplate.”