

                   Meeting at the White House


The news hit him like an atomic steamroller right out of hell.

A Flying Saucer? And Aliens? On Earth?

President Harry Truman took a deep breath. He'd already been
called upon to make one momentous decision in his lifetime, and
he didn't particularly relish the notion of making a second.

"Are you sure?"

"Mr. President, we have one of the aliens already in custody, and
Colonel Mitchell at Holloman is putting the wraps on this as best
he can. He wants some direction from the War Department telling
him what he should do, and... well... I felt that maybe you'd
like to be in on this seeing as this is our first contact with...
with aliens from outer space."

The Secretary didn't like the way that sounded. It was almost the
sort of thing you'd expect from bad science fiction, but it was
true, and for the love of God, he didn't know what to do about
it.

"I would like to speak with this alien," the President finally
stated. "Does he... does he speak English?"

"No sir, I'm afraid not."

"I see." Truman leaned back in his chair, hoping the rest of the
day wasn't going to turn out this weird. "We're going to have to
find some way to communicate with him. You understand that, don't
you?"

"Yes, of course... but right now the doctors have their hands
full just keeping him alive. He's having trouble with our air.
With your permission, sir, I'd like to move him to Ohio."

"Ohio? What's in Ohio?"

"Wright-Patterson. We have a research facility there, plus one of
the best military hospitals in the nation."

Truman nodded, mainly for lack of a better idea. "Okay, go ahead.
But keep this out of the press until we figure out exactly what
happened. It won't do us any good if the papers find out our
first contact with space aliens results because we blew one of
their saucers out of the sky."

