Sixty Days and Counting by Kim Stanley Robinson Read Free Book Online Page A

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him. This was what parental love came down to, apparently, sometimes, especially with a toddler, a human being in one of the most transient and astonishing of all the life stages. Someone coming to consciousness!
    But the world was no respecter of Charlie’s feelings. Later that morning his cell phone rang again, and this time it was Phil Chase himself.
    “Charlie, how are you?”
    “I’m fine, Phil, how are you? Are you getting any rest?”
    “Oh yeah sure. I’m still on my postcampaign vacation, so things are very relaxed.”
    “Uh huh, sure. That’s not what Roy tells me. How’s the transition coming?”
    “It’s coming fine, as I understand it. I thought that was your bailiwick.”
    Charlie laughed with a sinking feeling. Already he felt the change in Phil’s status begin to weigh on him, making the conversation seem more and more surreal. He had worked for Phil for a long time, but always while Phil had been a senator; Charlie had long since gotten used to the considerable and yet highly circumscribed power that Phil as senator had wielded. It had become normalized, indeed had become kind of a running joke between them, in that Charlie often had reminded Phil just how completely circumscribed his power was.
    Now that just wasn’t going to work. The president of the United States might be many things, but unpowerful was not among them. Many of the administrations preceding Phil’s had worked very hard to expand the powers of the executive branch beyond what the constitutional framers had intended—which campaigns made a mockery of the “strict constitutionalist” talk put out by these same people when discussing what principles the Supreme Court’s justices should hold, and showed they preferred a secretive executive dictatorship to democracy, especially if the president were a puppet installed by the interested parties. But never mind; the result of their labors was an apparatus of power that if properly understood and used could in many ways rule the world. Bizarre but true: the president of the United States could rule the world, both by direct fiat and by setting the agenda that everyone else had to follow or be damned. World ruler. Not really, of course, but it was about as close as anyone could get. And how exactly did you joke about that?
    “Your clothes are still visible?” Charlie inquired.
    “To me they are. But look,” passing on a full riposte, as being understood in advance—although Phil could no doubt see the comedy of omnipotence as well as the comedy of constraint—“I wanted to talk to you about your position in the administration. Roy says you’re being a little balky, but obviously we need you.”
    “I’m here already. I can talk twelve hours a day, if you like.”
    “Well, but a lot of these jobs require more than that. They’re in-person jobs, as you know.”
    “What do you mean, like which ones?”
    “Well, like for instance head of the EPA.”
    “WHAT?” Charlie shouted. He reeled, literally, in that he staggered slightly to the side, then listed back to catch himself. “Don’t you be scaring me, Phil! I hope you’re not thinking of making appointments as stupid as that! Jesus, you know perfectly well I’m not qualified for that job! You need a first-rate scientist for that one, a major researcher with some policy and administrative experience, we’ve talked about this already! Every agency needs to feel appreciated and supported to keep esprit de corps and function at the highest levels, you know that! Isn’t Roy reminding you? You aren’t making a bunch of stupid political appointments, are you?”
    Phil was cracking up. “See? That’s why we need you down here!”
    Charlie sucked down some air. “Oh. Ha ha. Very funny. Don’t be scaring me like that, Phil.”
    “I was serious, Charlie. You’d be fine heading the EPA. We need someone there with a global vision of the world’s environmental problems. And we’ll find someone like that. But