"Clearly we have some differing points of view here," said O’Brien. "But—"

"Well, that’s the whole point, ain’t it?" said Clete. "For decades, guys like Woody been getting grants to think about alien life. It was all a good game till today. It wasn’t real science — you could never test a one of their propositions. But now, today, it all goes from being a theoretical science to an empirical one. Gonna be pretty embarrassing if everything they’ve been saying turns out to be wrong."

"Now, hang on, Clete," said Smathers. "I’m at least willing to put my cards on the table, and—"

"Well, if you want to hear my — what? Crying out loud, hon, can’t you see I’m on TV?"

A muffled female voice, off camera; Frank recognized it as Clete’s secretary, Bonnie: "Clete, it’s the White House."

"White House?" He looked directly into the camera and lifted his red eyebrows. The shot widened, showing more of Clete’s cluttered study.

Bonnie crossed into the frame, holding a cordless phone. Clete took it from her. "Calhoun here. What — Frankie! How good to — no, no. Sure, yeah, I can do that. Sure, sure. I’ll be ready. Bye." Clete put down the phone and looked into the camera again. "I gotta go, Miles — sorry ’bout this. They’re sending a car for me. I’m off to rendezvous with the alien ship." He undipped his microphone and moved out of the shot.

Cut back to O’Brien. "Well, obviously we’ve lost Dr. Calhoun. We’ll continue our conversation with Dr. Smathers. Doctor, can you—"

Clete hit the remote, and the TV went dead.