Precisely at one, a white Chrysler limousine with a white landau roof drove up in the hotel loading zone and Hicks climbed in through the automatically opened door. The door closed with a quiet hiss and the driver, a pale, black-haired young man in a conservative dark blue business suit, smiled pleasantly through the glass partition.

Snow lay in white and brown ridges, rucked up at the street edges by plows. This was one of the coldest and wettest falls in memory. The air smelled unusually sharp and clean, intoxicating, pouring against his face through the window, opened a small crack by the driver at Hicks's request.

The car took him out of the concentric circles and confusing traffic loops of the Capital and into the suburbs, along expressways lined with young skeletal maples and out to country. An hour had passed when the Chrysler turned into the parking lot of a modest motel. The driver guided him through the lobby to the second floor and knocked on a room at the rear corner of the building. The door opened.

Ormandy, in his middle forties and balding, wore black pants and a gray dress shirt. His face was bland, almost childlike, but alert. His greeting was perfunctory. The driver closed the door and they were alone in the small, spare room.

Ormandy suggested he take an armchair by a circular table near the window. Hicks sat, watching the man closely. Ormandy seemed reluctant to get down to business, but since he could obviously manufacture no small talk, he turned abruptly and said, "Mr. Hicks, I have become very confused in the past few weeks. Do you know what is happening? Can you explain it to me?"

"Surely the President—"

"I'd like you to explain it to me. In clear language. The President is surrounded by experts, if you know what I mean."

Hicks drew his lips together and leaned his head to one side, organizing his words. "I assume you mean the spacecraft."

"Yes, yes, the invasion," Ormandy said.

"If it is an invasion." Now he was being overly cautious, reluctant to be pushed into conclusions.

"What is it?" Ormandy's eyes were childlike in their openness, willing to be taught.

"To put it bluntly, it seems that we've fallen in the path of automatons, robots, seeking to destroy our planet."

"Could mere machines do such a thing?" Ormandy asked.

"I do not know. Not human-made machines."

"These are Godlike powers you're discussing."

"Yes." Hicks started to rise. "I've been over all this with the President. I do not see the point in bringing me here, when you've advised the President to act contrary to—"

"Please sit. Be patient with me. I'm hardly the ogre you all think I am. I am way out of my depth, and just two nights ago, that really came home to me. I've talked with the President, and made my conclusions known to him . . . But I have not been at all sure of myself."