"We play it by ear," said Porter. "We handle it as it comes. We don't go running scared."

"We have to get some facts awful fast."

"That's right. The news wires will give us some of them. We ought to send out an investigating team, fast as we can. Get hold of the FBI in Minneapolis."

"The area should be secured," said the President. "We can't have the public piling in, interfering."

He lifted the toggle. "Grace," he said, "get me the governor out in St. Paul."

He looked at Porter. "What I'm afraid of is panic."

Porter glanced at his watch. "The first evening news programs will be hitting TV in another hour or less. Even now, they'll be flashing bulletins. The news will spread fast. I imagine my phones are ringing now. Asking White House reaction, for Christ's sake. They probably know more about it than we do."

"Is Marcia still out there?"

"She was getting ready to leave, but not now. With this, she'll stay on. The woman's a pro."

"We may need some sort of statement."

"Not yet," said Porter. "Not too fast. No shooting ~from the hip. We've got to know more about it.

"Something to give the people," said the President. "Some assurance that we are doing what we can."

"They won't start wondering for a while what we are doing. They'll be all agog over the news itself."

"Maybe a briefing."

"Perhaps," Porter said. "If there is enough to go on before the night is over. No one knows about this new object in orbit, I take it. Only Whiteside and the two of us—and, of course, the trackers. But they won't say anything."

"It'll leak out," said the President. "Given a little time, everything leaks out."

"I'd rather we be the ones to tell them," said Porter. "We don't want to give the impression of any cover-up. That's what the UFO believers have been saying all these years, that the UFO information has been covered up.