They inclined their heads, and when they looked up, the President was seated on a beryllium stool that traveled a three-quarter circle before the great bank of keys like the keyboard of a giant organ. He pulled on a glass helmet and adjusted the sonic amplifiers to his mastoids. He flicked the oxygen valve open and shut, and then looked at it and listened intently.
Hoshawk saw an instant's doubt on the President's face. Hoshawk wondered if the valve was leaking, and frowned. The Chamber had been tested exhaustively, but with hundreds of thousands of circuits, cut-backs, by-passes, and relays, it was possible the oxygen valve had been overlooked.
Jeffrey strapped himself into the chair. The chronometer showed five minutes before the Hour. The President looked at the huge curved map of the Atlantic, now aglow with light above the big keyboard. His eyes swept the thousands of ivory keys and he rubbed his hands together for a final limbering of his fingers.
He spoke, and his intent voice came to them through the amplifier: "HHQ."
"North America is completely evacuated, Sire, to the Polar ice-cap. There is now no human being on the continent. The Hunyas refused our request to declare New York an open city, and it was evacuated thirty minutes ago."
The President called for a chronometer check. The instrument in the Chamber had lost two hundredths of a second, and Hoshawk could see that Jeffrey was making a mental note of that. He was forced to admit that the young mutant was thorough.
There were two minutes left. Jeffrey sat straight before the great keyboard, poised an instant, and then his incredibly facile fingers played the keys, flashing from one bank to the next, shooting the chair to right and to left, while he watched the map above him and the great bank of lights on each side. Then he leaned back, relaxed.
Hoshawk was glad now they were playing it safe. Jeffrey had insisted on the Midwest Chamber in preference to the Pacific or Atlantic station. For this was modern war. There would be only one person killed. This was a war of electronics, deadly and final, but no one would be actually killed but the losing President. That was decreed by the Six-Continent Council.
It was one minute before the hour. The President pressed a key.