dejected those soldiers were. I get so angry even thinking about it. I’m telling you, Mr. President, sometimes I think that if I could just get Tiny Earth under the edge of my heel for one second I’d-”
“Okay, okay, Mr. Secretary, I hear you but please try to maintain. Do your best not to say anything that you may come to regret.” The president paced his office. Suddenly a pencil on his desk started to give off cracking noises and then the pen next to it trembled. Ink seeped from the ballpoint, staining the mahogany, and the pencil parted down the middle like the Red Sea, revealing the graphite interior. “Oh come on! I just got the place and they’re trashing it! Come on!” he yelled at the ceiling. “Can the king from Tiny Earth hear me right now?”
“We don’t believe so. But once again, Mr. President, we’re not certain.”
“I don’t care if they do hear. We’ve got to find their location! We’re not going to deal with Tiny Earth from our knees! The United States of America does not play that way! What about using our nuclear weapons?”
“We tried that too, Mr. President. We were desperate after we saw how easily they rendered our soldiers useless with antigravity so President Holcomb and I devised a more permanent way of dealing with King Johnson’s threats. After we were able to get a lock on their general location again, which happened to be somewhere in Orange County at the time, we sent a Stealth Bomber armed with a nuclear warhead into the airspace above them and dropped the bomb.”
“With all of those taxpaying voters in harm’s way?”
“They would’ve died a patriot’s death, Mr. President.”
“Still, it seems a bit much.”
“What else could President Holcomb have done?”
“A bit ruthless but, okay, I see your point. You’re saying that he felt that he had exhausted all of his resources.”
“Right.”
“And did it work at all?”
“No. They used their gravity technology to lock on to the bomb and pull it away from the Earth, sending it somewhere into space.”
“That was pretty reckless of them. Who knows where that bomb went?” Pierce continued to pace the office. “Also a complete waste of a perfectly good bomb. If they’re so smart why didn’t they just disarm it?”
“I don’t know, Mr. President. Perhaps they didn’t want us to have it again.”
“But disarming it and giving it back might’ve been perceived as a friendly gesture. Something that can never be overlooked when negotiating war. I think you and your so called experts may have overestimated the intelligence of these tiny beings, Maynard.”
“Perhaps, Mr. President.”
“Did you try to drop another bomb?”
“Yes, and it was met with the same fate, redirected somewhere into our Milky Way. Two perfectly good bombs, as you stated, completely wasted. There was no use wasting any more.”
“Right. Those bombs are expensive. I’m aware of that. And the American people are always whining about the budget and the national debt. It’s all that ever seems to come out of their mouths.” The president made a whiny voice. “How much did that cost? And what about that, and that?” He threw his hands up. “I’ve just gotten into office and I’m already sick of hearing it.”
“The American people do have a tendency to whine, Mr. President.”
The president fingered the cleft in his chin and thought hard. “We’re going to need to bring more people in on this, form a committee. Hell, after all is said and done, if we can’t kill them maybe we’ll just have to figure out a way to get along with Tiny Earth. Coexist. I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
“I don’t know either, Mr. President.”
“At this point we really need to explore all options. Why don’t you attempt to open up negotiations with them? Set up an interplanetary summit.”
“They’ve already demanded a meeting.”
“Alright. Tell them that I’m inviting them to Camp David. We’ll have some drinks, ride some horses, sort this whole thing out.”
“It’s not that easy to find or contact them. Satellites and the weather are involved. We need to wait for our window. I don’t think you’re getting a clear picture of just how small Tiny Earth is, Mr. President. Tiny Earth is very, very small.” Maynard held out his thumb and index finger and slowly closed them together until they were so close the distance between them was nearly imperceptible. “So very, very tiny, Mr. President. Even smaller than this distance between my fingers. Not very easy to find at all.”
“I understand that they’re very small, Mr. Secretary. But you do have the tracking machine.”
“Can you imagine how big this cigar would seem to them?” the secretary said, holding out his cigar.
“I imagine that the cigar would seem quite large, Mr. Secretary.”
“It’d probably be bigger than the sun to them.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“Relatively speaking I mean, the cigar would be bigger to them than the sun is to us.” The secretary chomped on the cigar and sucked in, creating a glowing facsimile of a sun at its tip. “Can you imagine how big our sun must seem to them?”
“Relatively speaking again?”
“No, Mr. President. Literally, this time.”
“I imagine our sun seems very, very, very large to the inhabitants of tiny earth.”
Suddenly the phone rang, causing both of them to jump. Then they stood motionless, examining it.
“Were you expecting any phone calls, Mr. President?” Secretary Maynard asked.
“No,” the president answered, shaking his head, gravely.
“You’d better let me handle this, Mr. President.”
Maynard lifted the receiver and held it to his ear. For a moment there was only silence, but suddenly, an ear-splitting horrible noise. BLAAAAAAGERRRRRAAAAA! Secretary Maynard pulled the phone away from his head and slammed it down on its crib.
“Son of a bitch, that’s painful!” Maynard said, rubbing his ear. “That was them manipulating our radio waves so that they could send you another warning.”
Behind them a painting of George Washington fell to the floor with a crash, the carpeting parted, and the priceless art piece sunk out of sight.
“King Johnson can be tremendously rude,” Maynard said. “And disrespectful,” as he watched the top of Washington’s head disappear below the line of cobalt blue. “If only General Washington was here now. There’d be some tiny ass kicking coming their way.”
“Where does this assault on my office end, Maynard? When are they going to stop?”
“This isn’t the same as our previous contact with them. They’re being particularly aggressive this time, Mr. President. I need to let you know that the last time they contacted President Holcomb they indicated that they wanted to shrink him down and bring him to their planet so that he could address their demands. Now, that would be your job, Mr. President, to go down to their planet and meet them. They don’t want to meet on our planet.”
“Holcomb just ignored their request?”
“He did. With a lot of stalling and filibustering until you took office.”
“Holcomb!” the president yelled, throwing his hands up. “That son of a bitch!” Then the president thought for a moment. “Perhaps I can stall too?”
“For four years, Mr. President?”
“How long did Holcomb stall?”
“Two. But General Peck informed me that in their last message they stated that their patience is up and they expect our leader to come down to their planet before the week’s out or else.”
“Or else? Pretty big words for a tiny planet. They don’t think I can be as tough as Holcomb?”
“Perhaps your emphasis on social programs has led them to believe that you’re a weak leader, one to be taken advantage of and pushed around.”
“What the hell?”
“I’m not the one saying that, Mr. President.”
“We’ll see who is soft.”
“What do you plan to do?”
/> “Let’s get a committee together. More brains in the room. A committee of small men, but with large constitutions. A small man brainstorm. I need a tiny person’s perspective. Why does Tiny Earth feel that they need to harass us? I want to understand what I’m up against before I negotiate or find a way to destroy them. I need to get into their tiny brains. Don’t include a single man in this committee over five foot seven, Maynard. If it’s a woman, under five feet – no – under four feet. Do you understand, Mr. Secretary?”
“That would make the women midgets.”
“No women, then?”
“No, Mr. President. You need women on the panel. When prompted women are much better at inflicting punishment than men.”
“Right. Then women midgets will be just fine. And already angry, if possible.”
“I’ll find a panel of experts that are all as short as you request.”
“Good.”
“I’m considering bringing Tom Cruise in on this, Mr. Secretary. I think he might be able to help.”
“I know it’s not necessary to point out to you, Mr. President, that Mr. Cruise is only an actor and that he’s never really solved an actual world crisis.”
“Then why did you say it? I know that. I’ve just got a gut feeling about bringing him in on this, okay? Besides, he’s only five foot seven. He fits the initial criteria.” The president waved the secretary away angrily and walked to the window, looking out at what had started to be a beautiful day but was quickly becoming overcast. “You’re still here, aren’t you, Mr. Secretary?”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“What?”
“You’ll also need to contact DC CARPET and DRAPES, Mr.