The Time Armada

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....
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.