“If renaming the goddamn thing a dicky-joo would guarantee me 270 electoral votes I’d do it,” says the president, “but your point remains hazy.”
“My point is that our branding is godawful. We’re fighting the so-called Second Mid-Pacific Entity War. Give me a break. This shouldn’t be the monster’s story. It shouldn’t even be the world’s story. It should be an American story; our monster, our nemesis,
“North Korea says a lot of asinine shit,” mutters the president.
“The big difference is that we can make our asinine shit stick,” says Aldrich-Haines. “Why let the Russians and North Koreans and Japanese dare what we won’t? Whether we can kill the beast or not seems to be in God’s hands, Mr. President. In the meantime we can name it, claim it, slap trademarks and copyrights on every available surface, and flood the market with our version of the story. Use that story to sell America. Even to Americans. You know in your heart we’ve got a pretty good product, Mr. President. Let’s make the world want to buy it ag—”
A knock at the door precedes the sudden arrival of an out-of-breath National Security Advisor.
“Don’t suppose you brought a butterfly net, did you Henry?”
“Mr. President, it wants to talk!” Kissinger waves a roll of thermal paper. “The MidPac-3 entity. It sent a message by radio fifteen minutes ago. It’s intelligent! It wants to have a sort of, uh, parley! With you and other world leaders. On an atoll in the Marshalls, in about twenty-six hours. It claims the offer will not be repeated.”
“Oh, the Secret Service is going to love this.” The president’s mouth creases upward at the thought of all the browned trousers among the security men, whose blood pressures rise when he steps out for so much as a walk in the Rose Garden. “Ms. Aldrich-Haines, I’ll have the secretarial pool put as much of a travel kit together for you as they can manage before we leave.”
“Mr. President, you want me to—”
“Yes. Come with. You’re completely nuts. But maybe that’s what the situation needs. Let’s go talk to a sea monster.”
Speaking directly to the local sapients is always a near-final resort, but what’s a watchseed to do? These natives are as stubborn as plate tectonics.
The meeting is held on a bright sand beach on Likiep Atoll. Naval vessels prowl the topaz water at a distance, and delegations from various countries and blocs wait at the lagoon’s edge, some strolling bare-footed in the surf (which Messenger has assured them is not particularly contaminated). It has also left them chairs extruded in glistening black polymers from its own spinnerets, but the humans seem reticent to lounge in the alien beach furniture.
Shortly after local noon a shadow rises from the sea and glides carefully into the lagoon, taking care not to send waves crashing over the tiny figures awaiting it. The watchseed’s third and most successful battle configuration centers all four of its car-sized eyes, scintillant with sungleam in thousands of facets, on the humans below.
“I’m…very sorry you believe we have cultural shortcomings to discuss,” says Richard Nixon. Henry Kissinger, assorted aides, and Eugenia Aldrich-Haines stand nervously behind him. He gestures as though offering to shake with the gigantic creature. “I’m the president of the United States of America, generally acknowledged as the leader of the free world, and on behalf of my friends and allies, I’d like to welcome you to this historic—”
“My honorable colleague is so excited by this unique opportunity,” says the president of France, Georges Pompidou, “that he speaks prematurely on behalf of all of us, who do indeed welcome you to this historic—”
“My very good friend is, of course, trying to lighten the burden of this great moment by humorously underplaying the objective significance of the, ah, United States,” interrupts Nixon. “As is his, uh, charming custom.”