A Separate War and Other Stories by Joe Haldeman Page A

work?”
    â€œFive.”
    â€œGot a card? A business card?” I fished through my purse and gave him one. “I know some people,” he said. “I’ll call you.”
    He showed up right at five in a car driven by a younger man. It was a dusty old black Chevrolet with a magnetic sign on the door advertising a local television station. A black car in Florida? Cheap, I presumed.
    The boy had a big smile, and I couldn’t blame him for that. Looking forward to some fun. He said they had a thing, a “spot,” scheduled for right after the six-thirty commercial. I said that was fine and reached in to shake his hand. That’s when I saw the second young man in the back with a bulky camera.
    â€œRandall Armitage,” the driver said to me. “Have you ever met me before?”
    â€œNo,” I said apologetically. “I don’t watch much television. What is this?”
    â€œHe’s taking a movie of you, uncut from now until the demonstration. Is that all right? John Buford Marshall.”
    I shrugged. He didn’t have air-conditioning, but it wasn’t that far to the station. I got in and sneezed from the dust. “Let’s go,” I said. “Don’t spare the horses.”
    We parked near the entrance to the TV station and the driver helped the cameraman, carrying a heavy battery for him. They both walked backwards, taking a picture of me crunching down the gravel walk. “This is not going to be very exciting,” I said. “Walking.”
    â€œIt’s not part of the show,” Jeremiah Phipps said. “It’s for the scientists afterwards.” Randall gave an unambiguous smirk. That firmed my resolve. I wanted to see the look on their faces later.
    We sat down in a studio that was shabby everywhere the camera couldn’t see. The announcer’s desk itself was clean and smelled of lemon furniture polish. “Can I get you a coffee?” Randall asked, and I nodded, laying out the three pictures. A woman with a clipboard sat down behind us all without introducing herself.
    The coffee smelled great, but as I raised it to my lips I asked, “Will I be able to go to the bathroom?”
    â€œâ€™Fraid not,” the cameraman said. “Not until after the thing.”
    I set it down. “I’ll explain about the three pictures,” I said.
    â€œJust the one, please,” John Buford said. “The one we can verify.”
    â€œOkay.” I peered into it. “It’s rush hour, of course. Tourists crawl up Sixth Avenue and find they can’t turn left on University. Horns honking, as if that ever did any good.” I looked up. “Of course anybody could tell you that.
    â€œThere’s a short man wearing a straw boater walking a huge dog across the street. It’s a Great Dane.”
    â€œYou should send someone out with a walkie-talkie,” Jeremiah said.
    Randall nodded but said no. “This is a television thing. Not a radio thing.”
    â€œWe can do it later,” the cameraman said neutrally. “Can you explain how this happened?”
    â€œSure.” I wondered which one of them was in charge. I talked to the camera. “About eleven-thirty today, a strange-looking man walked into my real estate office. I’m a realtor for Star Realty on Thirteenth Street.” A plug wouldn’t hurt.
    So I just plunged into the story and told it as accurately as I could remember. I held the sheet up to the camera and described what I could see and smell and hear. Randall looked at me sort of like he was studying a bug. Marshall looked more charitable. The silent woman with the clipboard left.
    â€œWe’re going to do a simple test first,” he said. “I’m going to stand at the intersection and write something on this big sheet of paper.” A poster board, actually. “Nobody knows what I’m going to write— I don’t even know, yet. You tell us