THE TIME ARMADA By Fox B. Holden Politics and science don't mix--except that Congressman Blair had once been a physicist. This was The Beginning--but The End was worlds away.... [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy October and November 1953 Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] _5:20 P. M., April 17, 1958_ Congressman Douglas Blair shivered a little, turned up his coat collar against the gray drizzle that had been falling like a finely-sifted fog all day. His head ached, his nose felt stuffy, and he was tired. It was good of Grayson to pick him up. The front seat of the dark blue sedan was soft and reassuring, and the warm current of air from the heater beneath it felt good. He let his spare, barely six-foot body slump like a bag of wet wash and pushed his hat back with the half-formed thought that it might ease the dull pressure behind his eyes. "Rough going today, eh, Congressman?" Grayson twisted the blue sedan into outbound Washington traffic, turned the windshield wipers to a faster pace. Click-click, click-click, and Blair wished someone would invent windshield wipers for the brain, to be worn like a radio head-set, maybe with a hole in the top of the head. "Hey, buddy! Republicans got your tongue?" "No, sorry, Carl. Just tired. It's that damned McKenny bill." "Off the record?" "I'm afraid so for now, Carl. He can get the thing through--he's so damn clever he should've been a woman. Got the steel men eating out of his hand. Made no bones about telling the rest of us today that what the hell, the people never had anything to say about it, anyway. The work of government is up to the professionals. The sooner the people get their nose out of it, the better off they'll be. He said that, Carl, right in front of everybody. And nobody so much as blinked." The drizzle started to develop into a dark blue rain as they headed toward the suburbs. "What's going to happen, Carl?" Blair said after awhile. "If I knew, believe me, I wouldn't be sitting here! I don't know, Doug. We'll all cook in Hell together I guess. Here, have a cigarette." "Thanks. No, dammit. That's just it--if they'd take this going to Hell business and forget about it--sink it, scuttle it. Nobody goes to Hell, he makes his own if that's the way he lives, or he makes his own personal Heaven or Paradise or whatever you call it if that's the way he lives. Most of us are in between someplace, a little scared, mostly indifferent, and too mixed up to see the simple fact that the way of living we've got in this country isn't so bad but what just plain honesty and a little intelligence couldn't run it right side up." "Sure, sure, I know and you're right, Doug. But take it easy.... Things aren't always as bad as they look."