The meeting was clearly destined to run through into the early hours. It was being held in what Keene had been told was the Yellow Room in the South Wing, furnished in Queen Anne period against a background of satin hangings, ochre carpeting, redwood panels, and landscape paintings. Twenty or so people were present, including President Samuel Hayer, David Novek, head of the National Security Council, William Born, Deputy Secretary of Defense, and General Patrick Kilburn of Air Force Space Command. Voler was there also, with his astronomer colleague Tyndam, so far acting as if Keene didn’t exist. He spent a lot of time conversing with a man called Vincent Queal, apparently from one of the intelligence agencies. Most notably absent was the Vice President, Donald Beckerson, who was conferring with defense officials at the Pentagon.
A large wall screen uncovered by sliding panels showed several views of the Osiris and a chart of its internal layout that the Kronians had released some years previously. On it, the weapon-launch housings were left unidentified and the armory serving them conveniently obscured by other details of the structure. Keene had described his and Lomack’s impressions close-up, and outlined the nature of the weapons. After being launched a safe distance from the vessel, each pod would detonate a moderate nuclear charge at the center of an array of heavy-element lasing rods, probably in the order of six feet long, that could be aimed independently at a mix of near and distant targets. In the billionths of a second before the rods and the ellipsoid-walled focusing cavity surrounding them were vaporized, the energy from the bomb would be concentrated into intense beams of X rays aligned along the rod axes, which could be aimed with precision. From the scale of the hoist machinery between the shielded armory where the weapons were stored and the launch housings, Keene guessed that the pods carried a propulsion unit, indicating that they needed to get a long way from the ship before activating. This gave a minimum estimate for their power, which fitted with the numbers that Idorf had supplied. Keene explained from beside a table near the screen, where he had placed his notes.
“A medium hydrogen bomb produces around ten to the power fifteen joules of energy in a millionth of a second, which works out at ten to the twenty-one watts, or a one followed by twenty-one zeros. That’s equivalent to the output of a trillion large power plants. That power radiated equally in all directions would be distributed over a sphere, which is divided into four pi units of solid angle called steradians. That gives you a density of around ten to the twenty-twenty zeros-watts per steradian.” He paused to let that sink in and invite questions. Solemn silence persisted.
“As a conservative estimate, assuming figures I was using ten years ago, the divergence of a beam generated by this kind of device might be five feet over a distance of a thousand miles, or in other words a millionth of a steradian. That means that anything within the cone defined by that beam will be hit by a bolt of energy a trillion times brighter than a hydrogen bomb. Putting that in practical terms, you could easily destroy an ICBM booster at launch from lunar distance. Or you could take out a harder target, such as a reentry warhead, say, from ten thousand miles.” Low whistles and some ominous glances greeted his remarks.
General Kilburn shook his head. “I don’t know. . . . You said you were working on this? We could have had it years ago. What happened to it all?”
Keene shrugged. “It was talked about. But a lot of people said it was impossible, and they were the ones who were listened to. The same ones who said planes could never fly, satellites were impossible inside a hundred years, and the Moon landing would never happen, I guess.”
“So what happened to the other people who were working on it?” Kilburn asked.
“One of the top ones I used to know was Robert Sterman at Los Alamos,” Keene said. “He and his family moved out to Kronia. It wouldn’t surprise me if he had a hand in what we’re talking about now.”
Novek from the NSC sat forward on one of the couches to reach for the last of some salmon sandwiches that had been brought in earlier. “So at the hundred-mile limit that Idorf has stipulated . . .”
“Don’t even think about it,” Lomack said from a chair near where Keene was standing. “Any material absorbing energy at that rate will turn into a piece of the Sun.”
Seemingly, Novek had ordered the block on communications with the Kronians as a precaution immediately after he learned of what was still being referred to as the “situation”-which Keene wasn’t supposed to know about and Lomack still didn’t. Nobody had criticized the decision, and President Hayer had expressed approval that Novek had done no more than his job. The hold on providing a shuttle to take the Kronians up to the Osiris was simply an extension of the same policy until the official line was decided.
More serious was the demand that had been put to Idorf to allow the Osiris to be boarded, which Keene obviously knew about since it had been the last straw that prompted Idorf to contact him. The explanation given was that the President had authorized the signal after satellites observed launch preparations at Chinese and European military bases, and intelligence analysts voiced fears that a foreign move to seize the Osiris might be imminent. These reports had been exaggerated, and Born had given a contorted account blaming the confusion on a mixup in communications between Defense and State. Keene had no way of knowing whether the story was accurate or just for his and Wally’s benefit. He had a feeling of some wriggling and shoe-shuffling going on, and from Hayer’s reaction got the impression that the President had suspicions too-but it was hardly Keene’s place to comment. Why foreign powers should want to seize the Osiris had not been explained.
Hayer’s immediate concern was to smooth things with the Kronians before Idorf took it into his head to start broadcasting his grievances to the whole world. “Let’s make sure we manage our own public affairs,” Hayer said to the room. “That Idorf chose to communicate privately with Dr. Keene tells us he’d still prefer to straighten things out with us than compound the problem, so let’s use that chance while it’s there. Then we can do something about relaxing these restrictions.”
A silence followed. Keene waited for any further technical questions but everyone had evidently gotten the message. Eventually, Voler spoke. “It sounds as if we’re talking about just restoring our relationship with the Kronians to the point where we feel we can trust in their discretion, and then sending them on their way.”
Hayer nodded. “Yes, that’s pretty much the way I meant it, Professor. Their mission here is over, and we’re going to have other things to worry about. Did you have something else to propose?”
“I think that the possible seriousness of the situation forces us to be realistic about considering all our options,” Voler replied. He looked pointedly in the direction of Keene and Lomack. “However, before continuing, I should point out that there are still people present here who do not possess the necessary clearance for the subject to be discussed. Could I suggest that we remedy that situation before proceeding?”
Hayer eyed Voler pensively for what dragged into several seconds, then shifted his gaze to regard first Keene, then Lomack, with curious looks. Hayer had straight yellow hair parted conventionally, and a somewhat florid face. It was his second term, and while Keene had always regarded him as basically honest in his dealings and well-meaning, he had never been what could be described as a strong leader determined to leave his mark. Although competent and solid enough, he was not a great innovator of change, tending to opt for the easier life that came from preserving the safer, proven ways that the established corporations and institutes thrived on. He kept them happy, while they had kept the campaign funding healthy, and stability and order reigned. It really was no surprise that the Kronian endeavor should have run aground as it had, against such an administration. Keene wasn’t sure if the blandness was in Hayer’s nature or due simply to the absence of any occasion to rise to. If the latter, then the next couple of weeks should certainly put that right.
“Under normal circumstance you’d be right,” Hayer agreed. “But what we’re facing is hardly normal. We’re going to need more people like these, but we can’t use them if they don’t know what’s going on. In a matter of days, a week at the most, maybe, it’s going to be common knowledge anyway.”
“I protest,” Voler said, tossing his papers down on a table by his chair. “What I have to say is of an extremely sensitive nature.”
“I have to agree,” Queal chimed in. He was heavy-jowled and stocky, with a shadowy chin and close-cropped black hair. Keene had mentally dubbed him “Bluebeard the Black Belt” when they came in, before he knew anyone’s name. “It’s a breach of procedure. Unnecessary risk.”
“Noted and understood, but I’m pulling rank,” Hayer replied. He looked back at Keene and Lomack. “Out of curiosity, have either of you formed any theories concerning what this is all about?’ he inquired.
“Something pretty big to keep all you people up at this time of night,” Lomack said.
Keene decided he could do a little image polishing without arousing suspicions about Idorf’s discretion. Why act dumber than one needs to? “As a matter of fact, yes I have,” he replied.
“Namely?” Hayer nodded for him to continue.
Keene glanced around. “Well, we all know what happened at the recent conference at the AAAS. I see that Professor Voler is here. And suddenly the Kronians are being held incommunicado-from what I’ve heard, because of the risk of them broadcasting something that the public isn’t ready for yet. Could it be something they learned from their people at Saturn, which is in a different observational position? My guess is they have been proved right, and what supposedly couldn’t have happened with Venus has happened again to Athena: its trajectory has altered, and maybe we’re in trouble.” He looked around the room as if for confirmation and nodded in a way that said there was no need for anyone to answer. Keene was glad now that he hadn’t given Lomack the whole story. The shock on Lomack’s face couldn’t have been faked. Keene couldn’t resist a lordly look in Voler’s direction. Voler turned his head away ferociously.
“I’m impressed,” Hayer said, addressing everybody. “I said we need people like these two with us. You’re absolutely correct, Dr. Keene. Currently we’re waiting for indications to come in of just how much trouble. Our own observatories have the matter on top priority, obviously, and we’re getting the Kronian readings transmitted from Saturn. . . . And now, Professor Voler, you had a point to make.”
Voler sat up tersely, still looking ruffled. “Very well. As I said, in view of the possible seriousness of the situation, I’ll be perfectly blunt. If the first estimates I’ve been hearing are close, we could be talking about major disruption, conceivably comparable to all-out war. In times of war, one does not settle for half measures, gentlemen. Until we know more, we cannot exclude the possibility that it may prove necessary to evacuate key personnel from the surface for a period in order to ensure a smooth reintroduction of order and social controls after the worst of the disturbances have abated.” Voler raised a hand to point directly overhead. “In orbit right now over our heads is the most advanced and dependable means of affording such capability that we’re going to see. In my opinion, it would be the crassest irresponsibility not to take full advantage-for the nation’s benefit-of the unique opportunity that it represents.”
“In plain English, you mean keep the ship here as a lifeboat in case things get rough,” someone said.
“In war, you requisition whatever is needed,” Tyndam, the other astronomer, replied.
“I second it,” Queal informed the room. “Are we supposed to just sit here and let it go back to Saturn when we could end up needing every cubic foot of ship capacity we can get?” He made an appealing gesture that took in everyone. “We’re already looking into what we can mobilize from the lunar bases and remote stations. What’s the sense in talking about bringing that back while at the same time we’re letting go what’s already here?”
“So the first overt act of war is to be on our part?” the President queried. “We steal it or impound it by force-supposing we could find a way. That’s what you’re saying?”
“Not really,” one of the defense advisors pointed out. “The Osiris only came here with a complement of, what was it-twenty or something?”
“Twelve on the delegation and eight crew,” Keene confirmed.
“But it’s built to carry a hell of a lot more than that. We’d only be asking them to stay on and help their own kind in an emergency. Is that so unreasonable?”
“And what about the emigrants it was supposed to take back?” Novek asked. “Some of them have already started arriving in Guatemala. More are on the way. They’ve had places booked for months that they’ve given up homes, everything for. What do we do? Just throw them out and say sorry?”
Voler emitted a long sigh and extended his hands in a gesture of regret. “Oh, I admit, I admit . . . It’s a harsh decision. But sometimes harshness is forced.” He looked up. “I said I would be blunt. The emigrants are a mixed selection typical of the seven billion persons on this planet. Nothing exceptional or extraordinary. The space aboard that ship should be kept for individuals who are exceptional and extraordinary-the kind of individuals who will be needed if leadership and rebuilding on a large scale has to be undertaken.”
“What kind of individuals do you think go to Kronia?” Keene couldn’t help asking. Voler ignored him.
“I repeat, to let misplaced sentiments take priority at a time like this would be foolish and irresponsible. The knowledge that enabled that ship to be built originated on Earth. The wealth that went into founding the Kronian colony was created on Earth. The ship belongs to Earth.”
“How are you proposing we take it, then?” someone invited. “You heard what Landen Keene said. It could melt a battleship from a hundred miles away.”
Voler bunched his mouth for a moment, then replied, “We are already holding passports onto it. The Kronian delegation is still down here. We keep them here until the situation becomes clearer. Then, should it be necessary, we return them on the condition that the remaining places are filled with people of our choice. It’s as simple as that.”
Hayer stared hard at him. “Blackmail now? They come here as guests and you want to make them hostages. Is that it?”
Having gone so far, Voler could hardly back down. “I would have preferred a less indelicate word, but if we must use such terms, then yes. I urge us to be realistic, Mr. President. It is a time when pure pragmatism must decide.”
Hayer held his gaze for a few seconds longer, then shook his head. “No, Professor. If the situation turns out not to be so bad, we would have disgraced ourselves for no purpose. If it does turn out bad, then the goodwill of Kronia might not be something we’d want to throw away lightly. This isn’t a problem to be worked out by calculus. Proposition noted and considered. Overruled.”
From there, the meeting went on to consider practicalities closer to home. Keene was surprised that he and Lomack were involved, but Hayer seemed to want them present. National governments and UN organizations were being alerted to prepare for collaborative action, and instructions were already quietly going out to military, police, and public services to be ready to suspend leave and vacation schedules and mobilize reserves. Obviously, just about every professional and amateur astronomer on the planet was watching Athena, and it could only be a matter of time before alarms began sounding from other quarters at home and overseas. Nothing could be done about that. Assuming the news didn’t first break from elsewhere, no general announcement would be made to the media for a further twenty-four hours, by which time more information would be available from the scientific community.
The most obvious fear was of intense meteorite and dust showers from the cloud of ejection debris that had been accompanying Athena since its fission from Jupiter. The effects could be expected to be comparable to heavy, widespread air attack, with some impacts on nuclear-equivalent scale, with a small but not negligible probability of these occurring on dense population centers. Coastal inundation from ocean and offshore impacts was a virtual certainty, with hurricane-force seas likely in all areas and a distinct risk of tidal waves maybe a hundred feet high-worse if a big one hit, say, fifty miles off Miami. FEMA was cleared to activate standing evacuation plans and emergency measures at the state and city level. Military and civic command and coordination centers intended for use in national emergencies were to be readied, lists drawn up of public and private buildings with basements or parking garages, subway stations, natural caverns, and other structures capable of serving as shelters, and stocks of food, fuel, and medical supplies set aside in strategic locations. Police and auxiliary units would be briefed and equipped for dealing with looters and rioting, and the military should be prepared to take over the direction of essential services. The President’s final words before leaving were, “From what we’ve been hearing over the past year, it seems that the place to look for more hints of the kinds of things to expect might be certain parts of your Bibles. For anyone with time left over, I’d recommend reading the rest of it too.”
Keene and Lomack were asked to wait after the meeting ended. For about forty minutes they talked intermittently and drank coffee with others who were still around, and then were called into a side room where Hayer wanted to see them privately. “I kept you back because I want you two on the team,” he informed them. He looked at them searchingly. “Give me your opinion on something. This argument of Voler’s about needing the Kronian ship. What do you make of it?”
Keene and Lomack looked at each other. Keene took it. “I can’t see that it’s justified. Sure, from the guesses we’ve just listened to, the world is in for a bad time, all right. . . . But enough to warrant getting the leadership off the surface? Either he’s overreacting, which I find hard to believe. Or he knows more than he’s letting on.”
Hayer nodded and looked satisfied, as if that was all he had been waiting to hear. “And I suspect that this move to send a boarding party was not unconnected. There was more to that than we were told.” He paused. “The AAAS thing and everything before it are history, but the fact remains that you were right and the experts I’d relied on were either wrong, or they deceived me. Either way, how can I put any trust in what they tell me now? I need somebody whose word I can depend on to talk with those who are in a position to assess the situation, and report back to me independently of the people you just heard in there. That’s you, Dr. Keene. Transportation, authorization, access to anywhere you need to go-name it and you’ve got it. Mr. Lomack, you’ve been up to the Osiris too and met Captain Idorf. I want you to help us defuse the situation with the Kronians before he starts sending the world messages from the ship. Do I have your cooperation, gentlemen?”
What else was there for them to do but agree? It was past 3:00 a.m., and Hayer was weary. He still hadn’t adjusted fully to the responsibilities he found himself with suddenly, and there was no denying the edge of fear that Keene detected in his voice. But Keene also noticed something else. Though he might feel fear as much as any human, Hayer was able to control it. And there was a resoluteness in his face that Keene had never seen before in all the public images that had filled the telescreens and news magazines in the last six years.
Voler and Tyndam had left by the time Keene and Lomack came out from their interview with the President. So had Vincent Queal, the intelligence-agency official, and several others who had sided with them. Keene remembered Cavan saying something about the East Coast academic interests that Voler represented having ties to the defense and investment sectors, but what it might signify he wasn’t sure. Neither was he in a condition to think too much about it. The time was after dawn, and Keene dragged himself away to one of the White House guest rooms to grab a few hours of sleep that could no longer be put off. It was afternoon when he awoke. After showering and shaving, he emerged to join others who had also stayed over and more arrivals who were being introduced to the situation. The President was elsewhere, reportedly at the Pentagon. Lomack had left with a group who had gone to the Engleton to repair relationships with the Kronians and prepare the way for more cooperation between Terran and Kronian scientists.
The world was still unsuspecting. While emergency and mobilization orders had begun going out as agreed the previous night, and similar measures were being initiated in other nations whose leaders had been informed, few people were as yet discerning the wider pattern and starting to talk in ways that would arouse the media. At the same time, high-level contacts in the news organizations had been notified to be ready for announcements of national importance, probably within the next twenty-four hours.
Meanwhile, reports were being logged worldwide of increasing radio disturbance and unusually bright auroras at higher latitudes due to high incoming fluxes of the particles that cause ionization in the upper atmosphere. The first whispers of Athena’s approach were already reaching Earth.
The two primary focal points into which observational data poured from astronomers worldwide were the IAU center in Cambridge, where Voler’s associate Tyndam was based and seemed to command a lot of influence, and the parallel operation at JPL in Pasadena, both of which Salio had mentioned. The dependability and possible motives of the authorities responsible for the official reporting from those centers was precisely what Hayer was uneasy about, and Keene’s task, basically, was to carry out some checks by going back to the main locations where the inputs to such collecting points originated. He was given office space at the White House and assigned two secretarial staff, Barbara and Gordon, as helpers. The eventual list that they came up with in the limited time available included NASA’s Laboratory of Astrophysics at the nearby Goddard Space Flight Center, where data came in for processing from the orbiting and lunar laboratories; the Palomar, McDonald, Kitt Peak, Lick, and USN observatories in the U.S., the NASA, UCLA, and Caltech observatories on Mauna Kea in the Hawaiian Islands; the British Herschel Observatory, located in the Canary Islands; the European Astronomical Center in Geneva; and the Russian network centered on the Pastukhov Institute. Keene also called David Salio for suggestions as to possible sources in the private sector.
Salio stared somberly from the screen after giving Keene some names for him to follow up, including one at the Aerospace Sciences Institute where Salio worked. “It’s Athena, isn’t it?” he said finally, keeping his voice low.
Keene answered guardedly. “Why do you say that?”
Salio gave one of his humorless smiles, only this time coming closer to a grimace. “I know what kind of an object it is, and I saw how your case was being undermined from the beginning in that charade in Washington. Jean was telling me over dinner tonight about rumors she’s been hearing at the hospital of emergency measures being activated on a major scale. Its orbit has shifted, hasn’t it? It’s going to come closer than they thought.”
Keene nodded mutely. Laughter from one of Salio’s children sounded somewhere in the background and was answered by a female voice calling something about it being way past time for bed. It was eleven-thirty in Washington, an hour earlier in Houston.
“How bad is it going to be?” Salio asked.
“Nobody’s sure yet. That’s why I need to talk to these people. I’ve been asked to report independently of the official channels . . . as a check.” There wasn’t much else Keene could say.
Salio nodded that he understood, then hesitated. “Look . . . this may sound pathetic after what happened before, but if there’s any way I can help . . . Well . . .”
“It’s okay,” Keene said. “It wasn’t just you. That was part of something much bigger. . . .” He bit his lip and hesitated. “But if they start talking about evacuation, don’t wait for the panic and congestion. Get inland, away from the coast. In the meantime, if I need more help, sure, I’ll give you a call. Okay?”
The Goddard Space Flight Center was located twelve miles northeast of Washington center in Greenbelt, on a sprawling site of office and experimental facilities interspersed with grassy open spaces and woodlands occupying approximately two square miles. The shapes of the buildings outlined in pools of light and patterns of orange lamps marking the roadways and parking lots expanded out of the night as the helicopter bringing Keene descended beneath an overcast of cloud. Goddard had been the planning and management center for NASA’s Earth-orbiting missions and space-based observatories since its inception, and later assumed the coordinating role for all the agency’s astronomical work.
A security guard was waiting to drive Keene and the pilot from the grassy landing area to Number Two Building, a long, three-story, edifice of brick walls and a white frontage with black tinted windows, where much of the work on extraterrestrial science was concentrated. They left the pilot with the supervisor in the night office and went up to a part of the top floor which, unlike the rest of the building, was brightly lit and full of people working at screens or poring over printouts and images strewn across desktops. Waiting in his office to receive Keene was Dr. Jeffrey Hixson, who headed the Interplanetary Physics branch.
Hixson was a big, fleshily built man with a flabby neck and second chin, red-eyed and unshaven. He spoke while eating a mixed plate from a batch of hamburger meals and breakfasts that someone brought in from McDonalds just as Keene arrived. There was a hollowness in his voice, and he seemed to have a haunted look. “It’s going to come close-maybe even inside the Earth-Moon system. Never mind what they talked about yesterday night at the White House. Those were just guesses based on what they know about comets. This animal is in a different league from comets-I mean, totally. What we’re in for is going to be big.”
“You mean more than just meteorite storms and big dust infusions?” Keene said.
“That’s a piece of Jupiter coming at us. We’ve never known what’s really down under the gaseous envelope, but the core material that was ejected took part of what appears to be a rocky crust with it that has broken up and elongated into a stream of debris moving ahead of and trailing the main body. When that gets funneled down into Earth’s gravity well, it’ll be enough to obliterate whole regions.”
For the first time, a measure of the panic that Hixson was struggling to control communicated itself. Perhaps the clamminess on his brow wasn’t due just to his being overweight. “What kind of regions?” Keene asked.
“Let’s put it this way. A month from now, countries the size of England and Japan might not be here.” Hixson snatched another bite of hamburger and went on, “And it’s not just the impacts that you have to worry about. Athena carried away parts of Jupiter’s atmosphere, which make up a large part of the tail-heavy in hydrocarbon gases. Vaporized crude oil, Dr. Keene. If that penetrates and mixes with our oxidizing atmosphere, you’ve got fuel-air munitions on a continent-wide scale. They can burn at a temperature that will melt stone. With hot incoming and exploding meteorites to ignite it, a cloud like that could incinerate everything from here to the Rockies.”
Keene had in fact been prepared for something like this. The Kronians and their supporters had been reconstructing this kind of scenario for years from interpretations of ancient records and geophysical evidence written all over the planet, and they had been ridiculed or ignored. Now Keene was hearing it as if it had all been discovered the previous night. What he needed now was actual figures for how close the encounter would be, magnitudes and intensities, estimates of what they would mean on the scale of events. Hixson walked him around the other offices and lab areas to meet the scientists and analysts, some with computers on-line to the tracking stations, who summarized the latest findings and provided printouts. One of them produced a series of telescopic images of Athena moving clear from the disk of the Sun. The body of the planetoid itself was obscured by the enormous tail now pointing Earthward, twisting and contorting into fantastic plumes and braids. It brought to mind, uncannily, ancient depictions of the grotesque, multi-armed goddess, Kali, advancing across the heavens to wreak destruction upon the world. More images taken at radio wavelengths revealed structures of magnetic fields and particle streams extending across half the sky and already engulfing Earth.
They went back to Hixson’s office to discuss the implications and for Keene to complete his notes. Hixson’s last words as Keene was about to leave were to ask when a public announcement would be made. “I don’t know,” Keene replied. “That’s what this information is wanted for. I just report back.”
“What are your own plans?” Hixson asked him. He made it sound as if he was hoping to hear of something official that he might be included in.
“Plans?” Keene could only return a blank look.
It was only when he was in the elevator on his way back down to the lobby that the full realization finally sank home that this was real. It was going to happen, and he was going to be here when it did. And for the last thirty-six hours he had been too busy and too tired to give any thought to what he intended to be doing about it.
* * *
People had begun arriving to start the day when he emerged into the entrance lobby. The sky outside had cleared, but to Keene the morning still had a cold, bleak feel about it. His pilot was in the reception office, on the far side of a glass partition wall, leaning on the counter and talking to a woman who had taken off her coat but not yet hung it. The pilot said something as Keene came into view, and the woman looked in his direction. It seemed she had been waiting for him. Keene entered. A sign on the counter carried the name Christie Jones.
“Hi. Are you Dr. Landen Keene?” she greeted as he entered.
“I am he.”
“What’s going on? Anything exciting? From what I’m hearing, it sounds as if half the place has been up all night.”
“It’ll have to keep for now, I’m afraid. What can I do for you?”
Christie consulted a scribbled note. “I’ve got a strict instruction not to let you go. Somebody wants to talk to you.”
“Who?’
“It doesn’t say. Not someone who works here. He’s waiting in Room 108. I’ll show you the way.”
“I’ll try and keep it brief,” Keene told the pilot.
“No hurry, Doctor. The coffee’s pretty good here. So’s the company.”
Christie led Keene back out across the lobby floor, past the elevators, and along one of the ground-floor corridors. There was a display featuring models of orbiting space observatories and placards showing samples of images and other data obtained from them. “Your face looks familiar,” she said as they walked. “I’ve seen it on TV recently, haven’t I?”
“Sometimes I lecture on the College Channel,” Keene said.
“Yes, that must have been it. Wow, a real celebrity.”
“Hardly.”
They came to Room 108 and stopped. Christie tapped a couple of times. “Come in, please,” a voice called from inside. She opened the door, stood aside while Keene entered, and closed it behind him. A figure was standing by the window, wearing brown cords and a shapeless green sweater that looked as if they could have been for working in the yard. He was obviously tense, which perhaps explained why he hadn’t availed himself of one of the chairs while he waited. Keene’s jaw tightened. It was Herbert Voler.
The room had the basic furnishings of an office but was bare and devoid of the personal effects that denoted permanent occupancy. It looked like a room set aside for use by visitors, chosen for privacy. What was Voler, dressed this casually, doing here at such an hour, looking as if he too had been up all night? Keene waited.
“So now you know,” Voler said.
“I’d phrase it the other way around,” Keene replied. “It’s what we’ve been telling you for years happened once before. Now you know.”
Voler held up a hand as if to stay an attack. “Very well. Before we waste time getting into accusations, I admit to them. We refused to see what might threaten the things we had come to regard as the whole point of existence. Since losing them was unthinkable, we were unable to think it. Does that satisfy you? The collective psychology would doubtless make a fascinating study, but it will be a long time before this world will enjoy the luxury of being able to embark on serious psychological studies again.”
“Maybe so. I don’t have much time to think about it just now,” Keene said.
“Of course you don’t. So what are you going to do?”
“It’s funny, I was just asked the same thing upstairs. I don’t know.”
“It should be obvious to you by now that the President has no understanding of the scale of what’s going to happen,” Voler said. “None of them do. Oh yes, they’re counting their candles and checking the first-aid boxes like good Boy Scouts, but none of it is going to make a nickel’s worth of difference one way or another. It’s over, Dr. Keene-the works, the whole ball of wax. Before long, the surface of this planet may not be habitable for anything much bigger than cockroaches. Is that how you want to die-choking on smoke while you grub under rocks or fight over roots for something to eat?”
Keene answered woodenly, “I said, I haven’t had time to think much about it. You do what you can do, and that’s it. What’s your solution-find a friend in Congress who’ll cut you a better deal? That won’t work this time, Herbert.”
“There is one place where at least the semblance of civilized life will be able to continue,” Voler said. “I tried to be realistic about it the other night, but the minds involved weren’t capable of grasping what is necessitated. You’re not like them, Keene. You understand reality too, even if we have seen it from different sides in the past.”
Even now, Voler could consider himself among the rare few able to perceive reality-after he had been blocking it out for years? Again, Keene found himself listening to a distortion that he couldn’t quite believe. The psychology at work was indeed fascinating. “Are you talking about Kronia?” he asked.
“Of course I am. Look, the only people who are going to survive this with any chance of a life worthy of the word, and perhaps raise a generation with a hope for any kind of future, will be the ones who can make it there. And the only means of getting there is the one that’s in orbit over our heads right now.” Keene was already staring incredulously. Voler raised a hand before he could say anything. “I admit that the suggestion of using coercive measures to gain the cooperation of the Kronians was imprudent and hasty. There’s no need for anything so drastic. We can make a bargain with them that would be in their own best interests. Their ship has space available. We can offer knowledge and abilities invaluable to their colony, as well as other material resources that they’ll probably never get the chance to see again. All it would need is a competent mediator whom the Kronians know and trust. Someone such as yourself, for example. . . . You see my point.”
Keene did, quite clearly. Voler was unable to conceive of a situation that was beyond his ability to manipulate. He actually believed he could induce Keene to bargain a passage on the Osiris for himself and his friends. Keene remembered the military and intelligence people who had seemed close to Voler at the White House meeting. He was beginning to see now where the idea of sending a boarding party up to the Osiris had come from.
Keene looked as if he were experiencing a bad taste. “Even supposing that they offered me a place, what makes you think I’d want to take you along?” he asked.
Voler licked his lips. “Let’s not allow past personal animosities to affect things at a time like this,” he said. “I don’t have to remind you that I possess powerful connections who would be permanently in your debt as a consequence. The future position that you could expect to enjoy in the new setting could be, shall we say, very advantageous.”
New setting?
So that was it. Voler had given himself away. Already, he was talking about not merely getting to Kronia as a refugee but aspiring to running things there. Keene could guess the nature of some of the friends who would be on the list. He shook his head and smiled, managing to enjoy the moment despite the circumstances.
“No deal, Herbert. You don’t seem to understand. Your kind of influence doesn’t count anymore. Kronia doesn’t need friends like yours. They don’t have anything to offer that’s wanted there. I guess you’d better go home and start boarding up the windows of that mansion of yours.”
With that, he turned and left the room.
Ten minutes later, Keene was staring down at the morning commuter traffic filling the Beltway. News announcers were describing widespread radio interference and attributing it to Athena’s tail fanning out wider than had been expected. There was some risk of meteorite showers, and emergency services were being ordered to take precautionary measures accordingly.
The first matter, as opposed to accelerated charged particles, to begin arriving was in the form of molecular clouds and microscopic dust swept ahead of Athena by the solar wind, recorded by satellite-borne instruments and measuring stations on the lunar surface. On Earth, the effect was seen in spectacular sunsets worldwide, followed, as the grain size increased, by brilliant displays of burnup trails in the upper atmosphere. From California to Calcutta, people threw barbecue parties or just ate outside to relax in the cool while watching the shooting “stars” and electrical displays. Others took the warnings of meteorite showers more seriously by putting a fire extinguisher or two in the attics and making sure to park the car in the garage.
Not all reactions were that complacent, however. Astronomers around the world were comparing results and beginning to realize that something was amiss. While some were cautious and unsure what to make of the new factors affecting orbital calculations that had been claimed at the Washington conference, others were quick to take their fears to the media. Observational data were shared over the Web as a matter of routine, and there were thousands of amateurs and enthusiasts with the software to determine that what had been predicted wasn’t happening. Some were already connecting the rumors with visions of Athena being a repeat of Venus, and news stories appeared in Germany, Taiwan, and Australia asking if something was being covered up. Very soon it would be noticed that public and emergency services everywhere were shifting into higher gear, and then the stampede to get information would begin. In fact, more than a few news reporters, journalists, commentators, activists, and others who made a business of sensing things in the wind were already asking questions. President Hayer’s policy, in which he had asked the other world leaders’ cooperation, was still to avoid risking a premature panic by deferring an official statement until the scientific community could at least present a consensus as to the scale and extent of what should be expected.
The problem was that the stories Hayer was getting were contradictory. Hixson at Goddard, for example, was now giving figures less daunting than the ones he had supplied to Keene and had backpeddled to a position of saying that perhaps his initial fears had been exaggerated. Reports from the IAU’s Cambridge center, where Tyndam was based, were confusing and seemed to vary between Hixson-like hopes for things perhaps being not be so bad, to violent disagreement, depending whom one asked. This contrasted with the input from JPL, which was consistent and bad-worse, in fact, than the predictions that Keene had heard from Hixson to begin with. And in this, the JPL line agreed with the picture Keene was getting from the other sources that he was in contact with directly.
The Russians in particular were taking the Kronian probe measurements and revisions of the electrical properties of free space in the inner Solar System very seriously, and had calculated that Earth and Athena would come close enough for their magnetospheres to intersect. This would result in titanic electrical discharges from a white-hot body that had just picked up additional charge in its grazing course around the Sun. Nobody knew what the effects on Earth’s atmosphere or surface might be. The JPL scientists had reached similar conclusions. In one of Keene’s conversations with Pasadena, Charlie Hu said it would be like “sitting on one of the electrodes of a carbon arc.” Beyond that, the gravitational upheaval of a pass at that range would cause tides that would make the earlier estimates based on large offshore impacts seem puny. According to some European and Japanese estimates, it was not beyond the bounds of possibility that the Earth’s orbital and rotational motions could be affected, in which case entire seas could slop across continents.
All a terrifying and appalling prospect. But was it true? JPL said it was, and the collective view emerging from the sources that Keene had been polling directly seemed to agree. But Hixson disagreed, and the main center that was supposed to be the official source kept vacillating. When Voler was sought for an explanation of what was going on in Cambridge, no one could find him. Hayer’s predominant fear remained that of precipitating a wild overreaction needlessly. But with the media now converging on the scent and starting to bay, he only had so much time. Many of his advisors were amazed that a general panic hadn’t broken out already.
“This is what we’re going to do,” Hayer told a progress meeting late in the evening of the day Keene returned from Goddard. He looked spent, having been up, as far as Keene knew, since the last time they’d spoken and probably taking something to stay awake. He had stated that this would be his last function today.
The First Lady, Celia Hayer, was also showing a presence now. Tall, stately, with shoulder-length dark hair, she had always maintained a role that was strong and supportive but low-key, seeking little prominence herself in the public limelight. She had been constantly in the background throughout the day, unobtrusively filtering communications and organizing the White House staff to deal with the flood of visitors that had continued since Keene first arrived.
The President continued, “Something strange is happening with the Eastern reporting system. Some of the people we ask say one thing, others say another, and now nobody knows where Voler is. . . .” He turned to an aide as an afterthought occurred. “Did you track down his wife, George?”
“Yes, we did. She said she doesn’t know where he is. I don’t believe her.”
Hayer appealed to the room. “You see. . . . What’s going on? We don’t know, and we haven’t got time to make a deal of finding out. So from now on JPL in Pasadena becomes our official source. They seem to have their act together out there, and Charlie Hu has been pushing for the right side in all this from the beginning.” Nods and murmurs of agreement greeted the announcement. “Lan Keene has been doing a great job getting a consistent story together out of the mess. So what I want is for Lan to go there and get this set up with Hu, and for them to go through this whole thing one more time and give us a final opinion before we make a statement to the nation. I’m going to try and hold it for another day.” He looked at the harassed White House press secretary. “Can we fix it for six p.m. tomorrow, say? Have everybody here-the works.”
“That means I’ll need to leave tonight,” Keene put in. “Sleep on the plane, which will give me all morning tomorrow with Hu-plus the three-hour time-shift bonus.”
Hayer nodded and looked around. “And that brings me to the second thing. You’ve been hearing all day what we could be in for. Since we’re going to find ourselves very short of time if it’s all true, I’m setting AMANDA in motion now. What’s the status of the advance team?”
“Standing by on three hours’ notice,” one of the staff secretaries said. “The governor of California has notified the appropriate people there.”
Hayer caught the questioning look on Keene’s face. “That’s a standing plan for providing a second seat of government on the West Coast, headed by the Vice President, in the event of emergency,” he said. Keene nodded. Hayer looked away and went on, “Then let’s get them out there and begin the initial preparations tonight. Dr. Keene can go on the same plane. I’ll expect to hear from you and Dr. Hu by five o’clock Eastern Time tomorrow at the latest, Dr. Keene. Is that acceptable?”
“We’ll have an answer by then,” Keene promised.
“Any other questions?”
“No questions.”
The First Lady, who had moved to the front of the group while Hayer was speaking, came forward. “Then before anyone thinks of any, I’m going to get you out of here. It’s time to give it a break, Sam. You have to save something for later.”
Hayer looked around at the company. “Then, if you’ll excuse me, people, your President is about to hit the hay. By this time tomorrow we should all know for sure. It’s going to be a long day.”
The party would travel in an Air Force jet scheduled to leave Andrews for March AFB, southeast of Los Angeles, at midnight. The AMANDA group would proceed to an undisclosed location where a West Coast headquarters had been prepared years previously as a precaution in the event of a major war-Keene guessed it was under the mountains somewhere east of the city. Donald Beckerson, the Vice President, was expected to follow with his staff in the next day or two, after the local preparations were completed. Barbara and Gordon would accompany Keene to JPL, along with one of Sloane’s scientific aides, Colby Greene, who had been working with them.
Relationships were again on an even keel with the Kronians who, it was no longer questioned, would leave Earth’s governments to inform their respective peoples in their own way-in fact, it had never occurred to the Kronians to do otherwise. Accordingly, their plans for departure were moving again, the launch schedule for the emigrants due to leave from Guatemala had been reactivated, and in the meantime the communications block was lifted. They had not taken lightly the allegations made at the conference, all the same. In normal circumstances, a period of strained diplomatic exchanges would no doubt have resulted, probably commencing with a demand for a public retraction. But this was hardly a time to be making an issue of such things.
A staff car had been put at Keene’s disposal, and he decided there would be time to stop by the Engleton that night on his way to Andrews Air Force Base. It would be his last chance to see the Kronians on this visit to Earth-and while nobody cared to say so openly, quite possibly his last chance ever.
The setting could have been better for what would have been one of those touching farewell scenes, had it been in a movie. While the Kronians collected together not only the belongings and material they had brought with them, but in addition all their gifts, mementos, and other acquisitions, Terran officials and administrative personnel came and went and buzzed around, including Cavan, who still had duties involved with the departure preparations. Wally Lomack had gone for the night but would be staying on in Washington to see the Kronians off. At least this time Keene’s absence would have been forced.
Keene found Sariena wearing a dark jumpsuitlike garment and drew her aside for a few minutes in the suite where the reception had been given the night they first met, which now seemed so long ago-like part of another world, which in a way it was. Even now, there was no peace or solitude. Hotel staff were using the room to pack and crate an assortment of objects, and a waiter was collecting dishes from a meal brought in earlier and loading them onto a cart. Keene had said all there really was to say when he and Vicki called Sariena from Texas, and Sariena had made the appropriate responses. There was no point in repeating all that now. And besides, it would have detracted, somehow, from the understanding they had shared then-as if it needed to be reaffirmed or reinforced.
She sighed and made a gesture that could have meant many things. “How totally and unexpectedly things can change. Just when we had glimpsed what will surely be one of the most astounding discoveries in human history: the birthplace of the Earth itself; the cradle of the human race. How much more will it lead to what’s still waiting to be uncovered? The work ahead will last for generations-like those cathedrals that you talked about once.”
For the past few days, Keene had forgotten all about such things. For a moment, inside, he was surprised and troubled. Sariena was neither thoughtless nor insensitive; yet here she was talking about faraway futures when for all he knew his world might end in weeks. He tried to put it down to just not knowing how to react in a situation that was as unprecedented as it was painful. Maybe the cultural differences were greater than he realized, even now.
“Whatever follows, it seems it’ll more likely happen out there than here,” he said gruffly. “Maybe that’s the way it should be . . . if that’s where it all began.”
Sariena looked at him and shook her head. “Oh Lan, this all feels so wrong. It’s as if we’re walking out somehow . . . abandoning you to this.”
“There’s nothing you can do,” Keene said. “We had our chance long ago to be more ready. And we’ll bounce back again, eventually, the same as we did before. But it won’t have to be right back to the beginning again. Everything doesn’t have to be lost this time. We’ll be depending on you for that. It’s your turn to run with the ball now, for a while. Just don’t drop it.”
They looked at each other silently. Sariena took a step toward him, it seemed involuntarily, and hesitated. . . . Then they extended their arms and pulled each other into a hug, both at the same time. It was the first time they had touched in any way intimately. Keene felt the fullness of Sariena’s body through the suit and drew her close, oblivious to the others around them; her arms found his neck and tightened to bring the sides of their faces together. In a few timeless seconds, all the things they had left unsaid communicated themselves between them.
“I have a plane to catch,” Keene murmured, finally loosening his hold. He felt her nod and draw back.
“Be sure to see Gallian before you go,” Sariena whispered. “I think he wants to talk to you.”
“Of course I wouldn’t leave without seeing him,” Keene told her. He turned one last time to the door and sent a wave back at her.
He met Gallian in the corridor, talking simultaneously to an assistant manager from the hotel on one side and a woman with a clipboard on the other, apparently on two different subjects. At the same time, Keene’s driver, who had been waiting by the elevator, stepped forward. “Excuse me, Dr. Keene, but I have to remind you. We need to be leaving soon.”
“Just a couple of minutes,” Keene said. “Go and find Leo Cavan for me, would you? I think he’s in one of the rooms that way.”
Gallian excused himself from the two people he was with and steered Keene into one of the bedrooms-from the look of the clothes scattered around, quite possibly his own.
“Just to say good-bye,” Keene said. “More hurried than I’d have wished, but there we are. It’s been a busy couple of days.”
“Things don’t look good,” Gallian said gravely.
“It’s not your concern. Kronia did what it could.”
Gallian moved closer to grip Keene’s shoulder. Although the door was closed, he lowered his voice instinctively. “Landen, you don’t have to go through with this, you know. Not only Kronia; you did all that you could too. Why not leave it now for those who wouldn’t listen? With the departure schedule changed, not all of the emigrants who have places are going to make it to Tapapeque. There will be room to spare on the Osiris. We can take a few more in any case. Just a few days from now. . . . You can still see Saturn, Landen.”
Now Keene realized why Sariena had spoken the way she had. She had been trying to put visions in his mind of what could be. It had been her way of asking him to come back with them. And while every facet of reason and rationality within him said yes, take it, nothing else made sense, something underneath it all held him back. Gallian either saw it or sensed it before Keene made any response, and released his hold.
“Sariena said she felt as if she were running out,” Keene said. “Yet this isn’t even her world or your world. How do you think I’d feel?” He forced a tired smile and shook his head. “Of course I appreciate the thought. But I belong here, to do what I can. Don’t ask me to explain it or make sense of it.”
Gallian sighed heavily, nodded, and didn’t argue. “I’d kind of guessed, but I promised Sariena I would try. It’s a part of your culture that I don’t pretend to understand. And yet . . .” he stepped back, shaking his head, “I have to admit there is something strangely magnificent about it. Is it the same quality that makes those like Mondel-a refusal to see the obvious odds? But without it our world wouldn’t exist at all. You’re wrong about where you belong, though, Landen. You belong out there. But, of course, you’d have to experience it before you could know that.”
Keene held his eye for a moment, then checked his watch. “Maybe one day,” he said. “But not in the next couple of days. A safe voyage. And thanks for trying.” A tap sounded on the door. They shook hands firmly. Gallian opened the door to reveal Keene’s driver with Cavan standing behind.
“I’m sorry, Dr. Keene, but we really have to-”
“It’s okay. I’m done. Let’s go.” As he came out of the room, he turned Cavan around to stay with him as they walked toward the elevators. “Leo, I need a word with you and there isn’t time here. Ride with me to Andrews and we can talk on the way. The driver will bring you back afterward.”
The elevator arrived, and they stepped in. Keene saw Sariena watching from the entrance to the suite as the doors closed in front of him. He still wasn’t sure what had held him back.
The staff car moved briskly through the night streets of the capital, preceded by a police escort flashing red and blue lights. On the way out of the Engleton and for the first couple of miles in the car, Keene summarized the events of the past two days. Cavan, alongside him in the backseat, listened grimly but without interrupting.
“Something strange is going on in the reporting setup, and I’m pretty sure Voler’s at the center of it,” Keene concluded. “I want you to put these espionage skills that you’ve been developing to work, and see if you can follow up on a few things.”
“My word, you are moving up in the world, Landen,” Cavan said. “At this rate I’ll be working for you officially before much longer. Very well, what do you need?”
“The Cambridge IAU Center, Interplanetary Physics at Goddard, and a couple of other places on the East Coast are the ones causing the confusion,” Keene replied. “And they’re all places that Voler has connections with. I don’t think it’s a coincidence. It’s as if they’re trying to delay a clear picture coming out of it all for a few days. Now why would they want to do something like that? Or more specifically, why would Voler?”
“I don’t know. You’ve obviously done a lot more thinking about this than I have, Landen. So for once, why don’t you tell me?”
“All right, how does this grab you? If JPL is right and it’s going to be bad, Voler already knows. The moment it becomes official, all kinds of controls are going to be slapped on everyone’s freedom of action. The longer he can stall that, the more time he’ll have to move on whatever he’s cooking up. Because that’s what I think it is, Leo. A day like today, and he’s not around? He’s up to something.”
“Hmm. It sounds likely. How much do we know?”
“When I went to see David Salio, he said something about commonalities of interests between the academic establishment and the financial-defense sector. That could give some leads as to who Voler is working with-obviously he’s not on his own. I noticed at the meeting with Hayer that he seemed to be part of a group that voted together. It’s no secret that Tyndam up at Cambridge and he are old cronies. And Hixson at Goddard has to be part of it from the way he changed his tune so suddenly-I mean, what else was Voler doing there at that time? But most of all, I’d be interested to know more about this guy, Vincent Queal, that Voler seems to have a connection with. All I can tell you right now is that he’s with one of the intelligence agencies, which could mean that some part of the military is involved. Let me know whatever you can find out. As far as I know I’ll be with Charlie Hu at JPL, or I’ll make sure that somebody there knows how to find me. They’ve got a direct landline, so I’ll be accessible whatever happens with the communications.”
They arrived at the main gate of the air base. A sentry checked them through and directed them to the terminal building, where the rest of the party due to leave for Los Angeles was assembling. As the car drew to a halt, Keene turned and extended a hand. “Let’s hope it doesn’t turn out as bad as some people are saying. But just in case . . .”
Cavan clasped it solemnly. “It’s been an interesting few years, Landen. You know, it’s a pity you didn’t go to Kronia long ago. That’s where you should be.”
“And take care of Alicia. I never did get to meet her.”
“Ah, she’s crazy.”
“You never told me why.”
“Look at the company she keeps, for heaven’s sake.”
Keene paused and looked up as he climbed out of the car. There was a distinct reddish tint to the Moon. The sky everywhere was lit up continuously by brief flashes crossing an eerie background of violet, pink, orange, and green traceries.
Maybe because of West Coast connotations and constant mentions of the observatories in Hawaii, Keene had been half expecting somebody chubby and jovial in sandals and a beach shirt. Charlie Hu turned out to be of Oriental origins, sure enough, but lean and soberly attired in a light gray suit with necktie, even at an unearthly hour of the morning. He was in his fifties, Keene judged, with streaky graying hair and a neatly trimmed beard. He greeted Keene and his companions formally but warmly, standing as they were shown into his office and bowing slightly when they shook hands. “What in God’s name are they doing in Washington?” were his first words after the introductions. “Everyone else in the world knows what they’re supposed to be announcing, yet they have to send you here to ask me?”
The news media, abuzz by now that something big was about to break, were pressing the scientists, and many of the scientists were getting impatient and starting to talk. Rumors of the wealthy and famous quietly commencing arrangements to board up and vacate waterfront properties in Argentina and Brazil, the African Cape, Hong Kong, and to move themselves and their valuables to higher, inland retreats didn’t help to assuage the rising anxieties of average people without such options. Religious groups of every persuasion were thumbing through their tracts and finding the fulfillment of a score of prophecies, all different. Several cities in India were seeing unrest and demonstrations demanding more positive action from the government-although precisely what action was left unspecified. Several places reported mob unrest, and a number of states were preparing to proclaim martial law.
But not everyone was overreacting. Holiday package-tour operators and cruise lines reassured customers that they would get full refunds for any schedules that had to be canceled, or a discount if they let them carry over to next year. The British Prime Minister, after returning from his Scottish estate for an emergency session in Parliament, had urged his cabinet to enjoy the fireworks display, put off for a month any plans they might have to go sailing, and returned to continue his vacation.
The mood among the workers at JPL, when Hu took the arrivals from Washington out to meet them, was very different, ranging from numbed shock through restless nervousness to open fear barely being kept under control. They hadn’t had the distraction of the activity going on in Washington, and they were under no illusions as a result of contradictory accounts. After spending the night in consultation with Russian astronomers at the Pastukhov observatory, they knew. And although a direct collision with Athena was not indicated, some of the further consequences of the close pass that was expected exceeded even the horror stories that Keene had heard before leaving the East Coast. A white-haired astrophysicist whom Hu introduced as Margaret Ikels explained in a room where about a dozen somber-faced scientists and assistants were gathered:
“What they told you before about the electrical effects might be only part of the story. You see, the plasma tail streaming ahead of Athena generates an intense magnetic field. Earth’s iron core passing through it at the distance that’s predicted will become a gigantic induction generator of huge circulating electrical currents. According to our estimates, the heat generated could open up fault lines in the mantle and melt through to the crust.” Ikels nodded her head to indicate a lanky, yellow-haired young man in shorts and a sweatshirt, sprawled across one of the chairs, his arm draped along the back of another, one foot resting on a third. “John has some interesting thoughts on plate tectonics that you might like to hear.” Keene merely jerked his chin inquiringly. This latest revelation had left him momentarily incapable of saying anything.
“The conventional picture might be wrong by orders of magnitude,” John said. “The ocean floors didn’t take millions of years to spread from the rifts. That’s just the answer you get when you extrapolate back the cooled-down rate of spreading that we measure today. If the Kronians are right about Venus-which is what a lot of us here have thought for a long time-it happened only thousands of years ago, maybe in days or weeks.”
For several seconds, Keene stared, aghast. If the upswelling of the sea-floor ridges and sideways spreading that created the ocean floors had taken place on the kind of timescale that John was talking about, the rates of lava flow had to have been immensely greater than anything previously imagined. So, therefore, would the amount of heat necessary to produce it-which was what Margaret Ikels was saying.
“You’re talking about boiling oceans, here,” someone threw in from the side, as if confirming Keene’s thoughts.
“So . . . in that case, what wrote the stripes?” Keene asked, finding his voice at last. He meant the parallel lines of alternately directed magnetism found across seabeds the world over. The generally accepted theory was that they had been produced by unexplained reversals of the Earth’s field, occurring at intervals of thousands of years or more.
John shrugged. “The Russians think they’re also tied in with all the electrical activity somehow. I guess we’re about to get some interesting lessons in planetary physics. Too bad nobody will be taking notes.”
A silence fell over the room. Keene saw hopelessness written on every face. Charlie Hu looked uncomfortable, as if aware on the one hand that the morale of the group was his responsibility, yet at the same time unable to insult their intelligence by trying to tell anyone that things mightn’t be as bad as everyone knew they were.
“Maybe these guys should get some rest,” Keene suggested, looking at Hu. In case they hadn’t been informed, he added, “The President is due to make a national statement at three o’clock Pacific Time today. The main input regarding what’s to be expected will come from here. Maybe we could get together at, say, around ten to compare notes and check numbers? That would give us about four hours to get a final line together.”
John straightened up suddenly, his feelings now venting themselves as anger. “What’s the point?” he demanded. “Do you think there’s anything they can do that’s going to make a difference? Look, if they want to make speeches and play survival games, that’s okay by me-but don’t drag me into it. I might decide I wanna spend my time getting drunk, getting high, or getting laid, but I’m not gonna pretend anything.” Charlie Hu looked at his shoes. He knew that John was out of line but apparently couldn’t argue.
“It’s over,” a girl sitting near Keene told him. “It’s taken me all night to face it, but it’s real. Nobody’s going to survive this, Doctor.”
Keene turned away and paced across the room to a wall board covered in scrawled diagrams and calculations rendered in assorted colors. Maybe she’d had all night to get around to facing it, but he had not. There were people in Washington still of a will to do what they could and who were depending on him. He couldn’t let this come apart now.
“No!” he said sharply, turning to confront them. “I won’t accept that.” His tone surprised everyone. He looked around at them. “What is this? It’s easy to pretend things about yourselves when everything is going your way. It’s when things are at their worst that you find out who you really are. Did any of you imagine that it was going to last forever? Life is the chance to show that you’re up to doing what needs to be done, when it needs to be, the best that you can. That’s still as true if the time you’ve got to do it in is weeks, or thirty more years, or a thousand. Everybody can be someone special tomorrow, when everything will be just right. But it’s what you can be today that matters, when it’s not.” He extended an arm to point at the window, although it was still dark outside and he had no idea whether it faced eastward or not. “That’s what the President and the First Lady of this country are doing. The last time I saw them they hadn’t slept for two days either. They’re doing what needs to be done, as best they can, because it’s their job. . . . Well, I have a job too. And so do you.”
He looked around. Some of the eyes met his for a moment, then shifted away. Others remained staring back at him. He was getting through to them. He went on, “I know what some of you are thinking. That might be fine when it’s all for a better future. But what’s the use when there isn’t any future? You all heard it a moment ago: ‘Nobody’s going to survive this.’ Well, I don’t buy that either, and I’ll tell you why. John said that a lot of you here believe the Kronians were right about Venus. Very well, I do too. And that means it happened before-three and a half thousand years ago. And some of those people back then did survive! And they didn’t have what we’ve got today. They didn’t have underground shelters, nonperishable foods and medical supplies, generators, water pumps, communications equipment, and transportation to get away from the bad spots, or our knowledge and education. And they didn’t have the Kronians out there, able to preserve that knowledge and help with the rebuilding when the time came. But some of them made it. Maybe it was just a couple here and there, or the remnants of a tribe on a mountain, but some of them had what it took to rise to something more than just getting drunk and waiting to go down in the mud. It was because of them that we were here to have a second chance. And some are going to make it this time too-and because of them there will be another chance one day to get it right.” He studied the faces searchingly for a second. “Who knows? Some of them could be you.”
Keene moved across to a table where he had placed the papers he had been given and collected them together. “If anyone here is planning on going over the hill because there’s no hope, I’d appreciate it if you leave whatever notes and figures you have available. A final, considered report will be sent from here to Washington this afternoon. When the President goes on camera to face the nation, I’ll have done my job. Who else here will be able to say the same thing?”
There was a long silence. John’s anger had subsided. He exhaled, closed his eyes, and nodded. It wasn’t necessary to say anything. Finally, Charlie Hu took it. His manner was still grave, but with a new decisiveness. “Dr. Keene is right. We all need to get some rest,” he said quietly. “Can I take it that we will all convene back here at ten?” There were no dissenters.
With all the rushing around in Washington, Keene hadn’t learned much about the three who had traveled with him until they got a chance to talk on the plane. Barbara was built on the heavy side and moved slowly, but she was systematic and methodical in her work. Her White House job was to tide her through while she looked after an invalid mother. After that, she had planned to go abroad, maybe to take up political journalism. Gordon was the opposite: lively, impulsive, constantly on the move or on the phone with some new angle. He had intended making some kind of a career in Washington and was due to be married in August. Clearly, they were both rational, realistic people, and yet each had talked as if those plans still meant something. Keene wondered if it was because letting go of the things which at present filled those spaces in their minds would leave no way of dealing with having nothing to replace them with. Whatever the explanation, he had tried to avoid saying things that would dispel their illusions.
Colby Greene was in his thirties, slightly built with prematurely thinning hair and large, rimless spectacles that dominated his face. Originally a mathematical chemist before joining Sloane’s staff via a stint in one of the regulatory agencies-which he had despised-he was knowledgeable and quick witted, with a weirdly cynical humor that pervaded everything he did. He was under no illusions about what Athena meant, but seemed almost to regard it as not especially surprising-as if some kind of disaster or other had been the inevitable destiny toward which the absurd theater of human existence had been directing itself from the beginning. “Life is a plane you never wanted to get on, which you know is going to crash,” he’d explained to Keene in the bus that had brought them from March Air Force Base to JPL. “So what’s the big deal if you get shot down a little bit sooner?”
It all answered a question that Keene had sometimes pondered, of how people had coped and somehow managed to get through such things as genocidal war, mass bombing, political terror, earthquake, plague, and other situations of devastation and terror, and in particular how he himself would behave if ever faced by the kind of inevitability they were seeing now. The short answer seemed to be that you pretty much carried on as normal as best you could, for the simple reason that there wasn’t a lot else that you could do.
Since they had also grabbed some sleep on the plane, they spent the small hours going over the work done so far and preparing a general form for the report to be sent that afternoon, details to be filled in when the scientists returned later. Charlie Hu stayed up to guide them through and offer what other help he could. It made horrendous reading. When dawn came, Keene found himself by the window, watching the line of the San Gabriel Mountains slowly taking form in the first pink hint of day. The night had been hazy, and the now constant display of meteorite trails flashing across the sky, which had been awesome seen from the plane on the way from Andrews and was apparently all the talk among jet travelers, was obscured. He stared at the lights of the still sleeping city below, and for a moment the picture came into his mind of foaming walls of water brimming up behind the peaks and bursting through the gaps between to roll over the towns in the valley like breakers sweeping away footprints on a beach. Then he put it firmly out of his mind and turned to Hu, who was explaining some calculations to Colby.
“Charlie, is there a phone with a screen somewhere that I can use?” It would be a reasonable hour of the morning back east, even if on the early side.
“Sure.” Hu showed him into one of the empty offices and left, closing the door. A minute or so later, Keene was talking to a sleepy-eyed Marvin Curtiss. With all the things that had been going on, they hadn’t talked for two days.
“Lan, finally. I was going to call you priority today if I didn’t hear anything. Where are you?”
“At JPL in California.”
“Good God. What do you know about the confusing stories we’re hearing from everywhere? No two sources seem to be saying the same thing.”
“That’s what I’m here to straighten out. It seems there’s politics involved, even at a time like this. Don’t ask me to go into it.”
“I won’t. But is it as bad as some people are telling us?”
“Worse. I don’t know if it’s general knowledge yet, but the President will be making a statement at six tonight, Eastern Time.”
“Yes, they announced it last night.”
“It probably won’t go into everything. . . . Look, Marvin, major evacuation and emergency measures are going to be set into motion very soon. When it starts, the public authorities are going to be swamped. I think Amspace should start putting a plan together now to get its own people out to somewhere safer and then take care of them for a while. There isn’t going to be much for them to do at Kingsville.”
Curtiss compressed his mouth and nodded. “We might really lose some of the coastal areas, then?”
“Marvin, we might be losing all of the Central Plains. This is what I’m urging you to do. Collect all the transportation you can muster-the firm’s trucks and buses and whatever people have got that’s sturdy and rugged, and also anything that can fly. If things deteriorate rapidly, it may be a question of use it before you lose it. Try to keep the people together before they start scattering, and have them sort out things they’re going to need from stuff that can be left, and have it packed and ready. The rule is, travel light. Begin now on stocking food, fuel, and so on before the restrictions. Stake a claim on any piece of real estate you can get them to that’s high. I’d like to include my people over at Protonix in it too.”
Curtiss nodded his head and swallowed. “Yes . . . yes, of course.” His eyes had a glazed look. “I’ll start on it today. . . . When will you be back?”
“I don’t really know yet. But here’s a priority code that will get me if they start restricting the public system. I’ll talk to you again tonight, after we hear what Hayer has to say.”
“Very well, Lan. And thanks. . . .” Curtiss took in a long breath and shook his head. “Phew! . . . I don’t know. All of a sudden you find you have to rethink everything. I’m not really sure what’s the thing to say.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Keene replied. “I’ve been seeing it a lot lately.”
Next, he called Vicki, who had also been wondering what had become of him. He summarized his call to Curtiss and asked her to let the girls at the office know to begin their own preparations accordingly. Apparently Karen hadn’t shown up the day before. Vicki thought she might have changed her plans and gone to Dallas already.
Uncharacteristically, Vicki seemed to be looking for something further to say when there really wasn’t a lot more, as if she wanted to keep him there just a little longer. Keene realized with a start that, for the first time in the years he had known her, he was seeing her close to tears. “Oh . . . it’s not so much me, it’s Robin,” she told him. “You give your whole life and do everything you can for them, and it comes to this. . . . What did he ever do?”
What was Keene supposed to say? “What do any of the kids ever do?” he grunted. “Or most of any of the people, come to that? There was never any contract that said it has to be fair. This is the way the deal came out.” He wanted to be consoling, but to his own ears it came out gruff and callous. Maybe he was weary of the subject already; or just tired. It seemed to help, nevertheless.
Vicki nodded and brushed her cheek quickly with a knuckle. “Sorry, Lan. I’m being silly.”
“Not a bit of it. We’re all going to be getting a lot sillier before very much longer,” he told her.
While it was still morning in California, a train of meteorite impacts stitched its way like a gigantic bombing run over the tip of South America and across the southern Atlantic to beyond the Falkland Islands. Shortly afterward, a similar fall peppered the South Island of New Zealand, and satellites reported another shower in the North Pacific. The areas affected were thinly populated in all cases, but unconfirmed reports spoke of damage and some casualties in a couple of townships on the Chilean coast. An airliner on a scheduled flight from Wellington to Dunedin had disappeared, and a NASA observation satellite was no longer transmitting. On the Moon, seismometers were picking up steady impact activity; outside excursions were being limited to crews using earth-moving machinery to cover exposed parts of the bases with protective layers of regolith. Space transporters and personnel carriers were being readied to be brought back to Earth. It was evidently dawning on people in various places that life at the bottom of a deep gravity well could soon become distinctly hazardous.
* * *
“Have you ever heard of the Carolina Bays?” John asked Keene across a paper-strewn table in the lab after they had watched the latest news update on one of the terminal screens. All of the scientists had returned on time. There had been little talk among them.
“Sounds like a foxhunt somewhere,” Colby Greene murmured without looking up from what he was doing.
“No. What are they?” Keene asked.
“A lot of elliptical depressions in the ground and offshore all the way from New Jersey to Florida but mainly in the Carolinas-thousands of them; over a million by some counts if you include all the smaller ones. They’re all aligned in parallel from northwest to southeast, with a raised rim at the southern end. You get similar things in other places around the world too. They have to be from bombardments by huge meteorite swarms. And they’re recent-a few thousand years.”
Keene tossed down his pen and looked back sourly. “Well, that’s just great to know now. Where were you guys a couple of weeks ago and in the years before that when the Kronians needed some support?”
“That’s not really fair, Lan,” Charlie Hu said, turning from the wall board. “John was one of the people trying to get us into the Washington thing. We were cut out.”
Keene nodded tiredly. “You’re right. I take it back. Sorry, John. I guess we’re all a bit edgier than we think.”
“Forget it,” John told him.
Cavan called around lunchtime to report what he had, using the landline connection from Washington and a personal encryption code for security, since regular communications channels were getting erratic. Keene talked to him in an empty office.
“This character Queal that Voler seems to know is with Air Force Intelligence, so I was able to get a couple of things from nameless friends at my former employer that I remember so fondly,” Cavan said. “He’s involved with high-level security at Space Command, which gives him connections. A look at message traffic over the past forty-eight hours turns up a hive of activity between Queal’s office and a section of the Pentagon that handles FAST operations, headed by a Colonel Winter. And Winter turns out to be the person that Beckerson was visiting at the Pentagon the night before last, when you were at the White House meeting. In fact, it seems that Beckerson was instrumental in getting Winter the position.”
“Interesting,” Keene pronounced. The Facilities Security Teams were the Air Force’s assault and infiltration units, trained for the penetration of air bases, launch sites, and other installations in the event of seizure by terrorists or other such situations. Not only did Keene’s suspicion of something being planned that involved Voler appear to be well founded, but now it was beginning to look as if the Vice President might be part of it too.
“It gets more interesting,” Cavan said. “As of this morning, your man Hixson at Goddard has gone missing too. Now that strikes me as strange, seeing as how he’s supposed to be near the center of a crisis situation. So what do you make of that?”
“Something extreme, and sometime soon,” Keene replied. “Any ideas?”
“Not really,” Cavan confessed. “One thought I had was that they could be fixing to grab themselves a ready-equipped bolt-hole somewhere deep and safe, but it didn’t add up. Voler would have no trouble getting onto the official lists anyway.”
“Maybe they’ve glimpsed what’s coming and prefer to control their own private guns,” Keene suggested.
“Will it really be as bad as that, Landen?”
“Afraid so. Worse than anything you’ll hear tonight. If you get a chance to get on a list for one of those deep shelters yourself, go for it.”
Cavan nodded slowly and somberly. “And what about yourself?”
“I’m not sure where I go after the job’s done here, Leo. Maybe back to Texas to help Marvin with whatever can be done there.”
“The Kronians lift off tomorrow morning. You should have gone with them. They would have found you a place, I’m sure.”
“Gallian offered me one. There were things to be done that I couldn’t leave.”
Cavan shook his head. “You are aware that you’re crazy, I hope, Landen?”
Keene snorted. “First Alicia, now me? It must be you, Leo. You just attract crazies. That’s what it is.”
Something exploded in the upper atmosphere above Mali, showering debris over the western Sahara and heard from Upper Volta to customs posts on the southern Algerian border. Another breakup occurred over the Sinkiang province in Central Asia, where a hysterical surveyor on a road-building project described in a phoned interview cabins and trucks at a construction camp being set ablaze, and fleeing workers cut down in a rain of red-hot fragments. In Western Australia and parts of Indonesia, red, ferruginous dust was coming down out of the sky and turning rivers and lakes the color of blood. Herd animals from Africa’s veldts to the Canadian tundra were seen moving in huge, restless, undirected surges, and swarms of birds everywhere, numbering millions, fluttered agitatedly in the trees long into the night.
Not just America but practically the entire world was watching or listening when President Hayer at last went on the air from the White House to acknowledge officially what most people by now were sensing. Grave-faced leaders of Congress flanked him on either side, along with defense chiefs and scientific advisors. Celia Hayer stood a little back and to one side with their two young children, a son and a daughter.
He did not deny any of the rumors and predictions that were circulating; neither did he go out of his way to dwell on any of them unduly in a way that would make anxieties even worse. His line was in essence a more professional and resounding version of what Keene had said to the scientists at JPL that morning. In fact, as he listened, Keene got the feeling that his own effort had perhaps been unconsciously inspired by what he had known instinctively, after meeting him, the President was going to say.
Hayer called upon everyone, individuals and organizations of every kind, to forget all the things that weren’t important anymore, and perhaps never had been: paychecks and promotions, prices and profits, prestige and pretenses. All that mattered now was helping each other get through. And he was insistent on making the point that some, maybe a lot more than the world was being told from some quarters, would get through-and, again as Keene in his own words had anticipated-that anyone listening might be among them. It appeared that humanity had faced a comparable crisis in its earlier history and pulled through. And that had been without modern technical resources and knowledge. Surely their descendants could do at least as well. They owed that much to the descendants who would follow. He concluded by quoting a paraphrasing of Winston Churchill’s words from 1940, in Britain’s darkest days of World War II:
“Death and sorrow will be the companions of our journey; hardship our garment; constancy and valor our only shield. We must be united, we must be undaunted, we must be inflexible. . . . Let us, then, brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that those descendants and their descendants a thousand years from now will say of us, ‘This was their finest hour.’ ”
It was hardly a moment for applause. But the nation, as it listened, had never before stood so solidly as one. But why, the question came to Keene’s mind, should it have taken something like this to do it?
Afterward, while Hayer was exchanging words with the diplomatic representatives who had attended, a TV reporter managed to get a moment with the First Lady and asked her if there was any truth to a rumor that a shuttle was being prepared specifically to evacuate children of the privileged off the surface when the danger reached its worst. She seemed taken by surprise at having to make a public comment, but recovered herself rapidly.
“Well, speaking only for my own, I can hardly do better than follow my husband’s example and give you the British Queen Mother’s response when she was asked the same thing about moving her children out of London to escape the German bombing. And what she said was, ‘They won’t go unless I go. I won’t go unless the King goes. And the King won’t go under any circumstances whatsoever.’ ”
By late afternoon California time, the country was already responding. Airlines, railroads, bus and trucking companies placed their equipment and services at the disposal of the evacuation authorities. Hotels, schools, malls, and office buildings inland began working on plans to accommodate influxes from the coasts and the lowlands. The mayor of Denver virtually opened the entire city as a refugee camp. Switchboards were swamped with calls from householders offering accommodation. Late in the evening, a White House aide called to ask Keene if he would stay on in California to assist Beckerson’s staff in briefing state administrators on the nature and scale of what was to be expected. Keene could hardly refuse. For the time being anyway, it seemed that much of the world was finally preparing to pull together. How much good would come of it in the long run was something he wasn’t prepared to brood about. The last thing anyone needed was discouragement. John was detailed to drive Keene and his companions to the hotel they had been booked into on the outskirts of Pasadena a few miles away. On reaching the parking lot, they found his car and all the others covered with a sooty ash that stuck to the windshield and needed wiping with a wet cloth to clear. The air was muggy and smarting to the eyes, and Barbara had to hold a handkerchief to her face. Colby found a dent in the roof and another in the hood. The parking lot had a grainy feeling underfoot. “Don’t hold your breath waiting if you decide to claim on the insurance,” he told John laconically. John said something about topping up with gas as soon as he got a chance.
Although it was late by the time they reached the city, the streets were restless with people emerging from their isolation to seek security in numbers. There was a lot of hurrying this way and that, groups standing and talking, others carrying things out of houses and loading up cars. At one corner, some people were trying to restrain a struggling man shouting obscenities at a woman with a bloody face, who was screaming hysterically. Farther on, a line of cars was backed up into the street from the pumps at a convenience store, where three big men carrying baseball bats were positioned conspicuously, watching the forecourt. John tried calling the hotel to confirm the rooms but was unable to get through.
The situation when they arrived in the lobby was chaotic, with a frantic manager trying to deal with guests unable to get credit card verification, as well as a swarm of unexpected arrivals who seemed to be under the impression that rooms should be available to anyone on demand. Having reservations from JPL helped, and Keene and the others obtained two connecting rooms. For safety, they decided to have Gordon take one of the beds in the double room allocated to Barbara, and keep the connecting door open. When he showered before turning in, Keene found that he had to scrub thoroughly to shift the sticky orange dust from his skin and hair. People he’d heard in the lobby had been talking about rivers and reservoirs from Arizona to Illinois turning red.
Despite his fatigue, he slept sporadically and uneasily. He was awakened before dawn by Charlie Hu hammering on the door. Keene’s personal phone was dead like everyone else’s, and the hotel switchboard hadn’t answered. Roy Sloane had called from Washington and needed to talk to Keene immediately. Leaving Colby Greene in charge at the hotel, Keene drove back with Hu beneath a luridly flaming sky along roads already beginning to fill with loaded-down vehicles. He found Sloane in a highly agitated state. The entire Kronian delegation had vanished from the Engleton. It appeared they had been kidnapped.
It had been done smoothly, quietly, and without fuss; so smoothly that it was almost an hour later before anyone realized the Kronians were missing. Transportation to take them to Andrews had been expected, although without an exact time being specified since the shuttle arrangements were uncertain. Not trusting Terran arrangements, Idorf had stated that he would send down a surface lander from the Osiris for them; but with the increasing meteorite influx he was also taking the ship out to a more distant orbit. According to the security officer in charge at the Engleton, an Air Force major with escort had arrived and presented papers that appeared in order, the authorizing officer at the Pentagon had confirmed, and the party departed fifteen minutes later in an official bus. That was the last that had been seen of them.
Keene, using the same office that he had talked with Cavan from the day before, asked Sloane if the Pentagon contact given to confirm the order had by any chance been a Colonel Winter. Sloane had to ask Keene to hold while he checked, and then came back astonished a couple of minutes later to announce that yes, it was. How in hell had Keene known? Keene hesitated. He didn’t want to compromise Cavan’s position; on the other hand, this could be the moment for getting Cavan some official help, which would probably be the biggest favor that Keene could do for him right now. In the end, he summarized the parts of the story that he was reasonably sure of, making it sound like an offshoot of his own scientific investigating and mentioning Cavan as an old friend that he’d involved to check some references. His biggest dilemma was over the Vice President, Beckerson, whose connection so far was purely circumstantial. If Beckerson was a part of whatever was going on, as Cavan suspected, then obviously it should be said; but if the suspicion was wrong, then the whole operation to set up a shadow government on the West Coast could be impaired. As a feeler, Keene slipped in a casual question as to whether Beckerson and his party were still due to follow on to California as planned. Sloane replied that they were and should be leaving late that day. So Beckerson hadn’t vanished; nothing had changed. Keene decided to hold off on that issue until there was more to go on.
“It’s starting to make sense now,” Keene said. “Voler and his group knew early on how bad this could get. The confusion was to gain them some time before controls really start tightening up. Their aim all along has been to get themselves out, and safely to Kronia with the Osiris. That’s what it’s all been about.”
Sloane stared, silently assessing the pattern for himself. “They’ve grabbed the Kronians as bargaining chips,” he said finally.
“That was the line he tried to push at the White House meeting,” Keene said. “You were there, Roy. You heard him. But Hayer shot him down. Then, when it was clear that he wasn’t going to get any help officially, he tried selling me on the idea at Goddard the next morning, hoping I’d be willing to bargain with the Kronians to take them. That didn’t work, so now they’ve taken matters into their own hands and seized the delegation as hostages. . . .”
Sloane had followed it through and nodded slowly. “To force their way aboard the lander that Idorf is sending down to Andrews,” he completed.
A brief silence ensued while they thought over the various angles and options.
“Correct. And we have to let it land, just as Idorf has to send it, even though we know,” Keene said. “There’s no way we can afford to hold off.”
“How come?” Sloane asked.
“Because we don’t know how much time there is. Put yourself in Idorf’s place. Those are your people down there, and conditions are worsening. Even if they’ve got guys holding guns to their heads, you have to bring them up because if you don’t do it now you might never get to bring them up at all. If you refuse, who would be holding them hostage then? And the same applies to us. That’s what Voler and his people are banking on. Idorf has to provide the lander, and unless we can separate Voler’s group from the Kronians, we have to let it go. It’s out-and-out blackmail, Roy, I know, but we’re stuck.”
Sloane glowered from the screen, but there could be no serious argument. Keene was right. “Well, at least we know they’re still in the area somewhere,” he said tightly. “Probably they’ll be gearing toward all the action happening around the pad. If we can locate them it might be possible to go in with a CT team sooner, when they’re not expecting it.”
“Be careful. They’ve got Air Force FAST guys there,” Keene cautioned.
“I’m aware of that,” Sloane said. “At least we have foreknowledge now of where they’ll show up and when. One thing you can be sure of, Lan, is that from now on they won’t be able to afford one false move. We’ll have our best people in on this. Andrews will be covered tighter than a presidential parade.”
“Well, I’m not going to pretend to be an expert in that department,” Keene said. “You’ve got them all there. I’ll go with whatever you and they come up with.” He left Sloane still frowning and looking thoughtful, glad it wasn’t a decision he was going to have to make.
Further news since the previous night was that, with the failure of several more satellites and increasingly capricious atmospheric conditions, the world’s communications were beginning to falter. Domestic broadcasting cut back to reserve capacity for official traffic. Although the communications difficulties made it impossible to know the exact number and doubtless caused exaggerations, more aircraft had been lost, with the result that some airlines had grounded while others were attempting to maintain a reduced level of lower-altitude services for vital needs-in some instances against the opposition of rebellious crews. On the other hand, many among the public had taken the message of the U.S. President and other leaders who had spoken in similar vein to mean that airlines were now public property and descended on the already beleaguered airports in droves. Amsterdam, a vital European hub, was closed after a panicking crowd numbering thousands, who had been arriving throughout the night, started a rampage that led to riot police being called in with water cannon and tear gas. In JPL’s vicinity, police checkpoints had been set up to control access to both John Wayne and Burbank airports, while LAX reported traffic at a standstill on all approaches. Despite the appeals for dedication and nobility of spirit in the common cause, marauding and looting mobs had taken to the streets in several cities. Violent incidents were occurring already. People had been shot.
* * *
When people are afraid, they stop talking about individual rights and freedoms, and draw together under authorities that promise protection. The JPL employees turned spontaneously to its administration for organization and guidance, and to Charlie Hu’s admitted surprise, began showing up more or less on time, many of them bringing children that they were unwilling or unable to entrust to any other care, or simply too fearful to let out of their sight. Obviously, there was little thought of carrying on business as usual-most of which had ceased to mean very much, anyway. The Medical Department was busy treating cases of skin and eye irritation from the falling dust. A bulletin was circulated around the departments advising people to stay inside as much as possible, cover up when outside, bathe the eyes every hour in a weak alkaline solution, and avoid drinking any water tainted red. Keene was only able to catch Hu sporadically, hurrying between offices and phone calls as the Laboratory’s directors tried to formulate some kind of plan and coordinate with institutions such as UCLA. A Pasadena police guard had been added to the regular security force at the main gate after a gang tried forcing its way in the previous night-nobody knew why. Police were trying to keep the populations static in places farther inland like Pasadena so that the evacuation of areas closest to the ocean could be got under way first, but not everyone was heeding. The National Guard was already deploying in the LA basin districts, where hoarding had been declared illegal and food stocks beyond a stated limit per person or family were being requisitioned for official redistribution. There were rumors that an incoming widebody, damaged in flight, had crashed on approach somewhere in Inglewood.
Hu sent a technician with two security guards to collect the other three from the hotel. They arrived with their belongings packed, including Keene’s. It seemed there was no manager, and the few staff that had shown up were letting friends from the neighborhood help themselves to bedding, linen, and the contents of vending machines, and selling off the kitchen stores. With credit cards already as good as useless, cash was becoming suspect. Preferred currencies were nonperishable foods, any kind of drink, drugs, and gasoline. After Keene left the hotel, there had been trouble with people siphoning gas from cars in the parking lot, and somebody had been shot. Gordon, still incredulous, described the scene to Keene. “The cops were there, but then they got called away on some higher priority. Can you believe that? There’s a guy lying dead in the parking lot, and they have to leave! I mean, I know this is LA, but I thought it was only like that in the movies.”
Gordon was concerned for his folks and his fiancée back in Washington. Barbara was worried about the help who was supposed to be taking care of her mother. Keene agreed that their work here was done and asked Colby Greene to talk to the local command about getting them back before things got any worse. Colby himself offered to stay on and help Keene with the task of briefing Beckerson’s West Coast administration. “It might be safer here,” he remarked, eyeing Keene indecipherably through his huge spectacles. “From what we’ve been hearing, everything the other side of the fault might just as likely fall into the Atlantic. I always wanted a beachfront pad.”
Wally Lomack got through to Keene on the Washington line around lunchtime. He was still at the White House but due to leave that evening on an official plane going to Houston. His job with the Kronians was done, and whatever happened when they reappeared would no longer involve him. The lander from the Osiris was on the ground at Andrews; the next move was up to Voler’s group. It was time for Lomack to get back to Emma and his family in Texas.
“I don’t know that there’s much a fellow of my age can do, but what else is there?” he said from the screen. Keene couldn’t help thinking that he seemed to have aged another ten years. “At least whatever happens, we’ll all be together. I just wanted to say so long and all that while there’s still the chance. It’s been great working with a guy like you, Lan. It’s a pity we won’t be doing too much more of it for a while. What about you?”
“I don’t know. There’s more to be doing here for a while,” Keene said.
“Will you be heading back afterward?”
“Right now, Wally, it’s impossible to say. In case that turns out not to be practicable, I talked to Marvin about including my people there in whatever plans the firm works out-you know, Vicki and the others.”
Lomack nodded. “I talked to Marvin too. Look, there’s something you ought to know about. He’s arranging for that minishuttle that’s at Montemorelos to be fueled and kept at launch readiness. There’s no hard and fast plan as to how it’s to be used or when. Just a precaution. It seems like everybody in the world with access to launch capability is trying to take insurance. Everything that will move is coming back from the Moon. There’s fighting going on for possession of some of the European bases. Apparently there have been some unscheduled launchings from Eastern Siberia and China.”
Keene’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Already?”
Lomack nodded wearily. “Nobody’s sure exactly why. But then, a lot of people aren’t reacting exactly rationally, anyway.”
There wasn’t a lot else to say. Keene showed his hands and sighed. “Well, Wally, what can I tell you? It was good, as you say. We sure ran some rings around those guys, didn’t we? I guess the Kronians have the ball for a while now. . . .”
Lomack looked away as a voice shouted something from the background. “Yes, it’s him now,” he called offscreen. Then, turning back to Keene, “Roy Sloane says he wants a word. Sounds urgent.”
“Okay. Try and take care, Wally.”
“Good-bye, Lan.”
Sloane’s features replaced Lomack’s on the screen. “Lan,” he said without preliminaries. “They picked up Hixson. He was shacked up in a motel twenty miles outside the city with another Goddard name who must have been on the list.”
“You got the son of a bitch!” Keene exclaimed.
“Damn right. The FBI are interrogating them now.”
“Are they getting anywhere?”
“It looks like it. Hixson’s cooperating and agreed to carry on normally so as not to give away that he’s blown-I guess, trying to work a deal that’ll get him out. Seems we’re talking about an H-hour just before dawn tomorrow. We know the times, their movement plan, how they’ll be coming in. With that information, our CT guys can have their units right there-plus the surprise. They say they’ve got all the odds.”
Keene frowned as he thought about it.
“You don’t look too pleased,” Sloane commented.
“The intention must be for Hixson and this other guy to be collected sometime. Obviously you’re going to have to let them go. They have to be there.”
“That’s true,” Sloane agreed. “But for my money we can trust him. He’s got no future with Voler now, and he’s desperate. I can smell the sweat from here. With us he might have an out. That’ll be enough to turn him. I know the type.”
“Let’s hope you’re right,” Keene said. He was still uneasy. Why wait that long if the lander from the Osiris was already down? Maybe they had a larger party to collect together than had been realized. “Are Beckerson and his party still coming as planned?” he asked curiously.
“Leaving tonight on schedule,” Sloane answered. “No changes. Why?”
“Oh, just checking. I’ve got my own plans to think about too,” Keene said vaguely. So Cavan’s suspicions in that regard seemed to have been misplaced. Keene was glad that he had held back before making insinuations. He just hoped that when the showdown came at Andrews, nobody would lose their head or start overreacting in the ways that get people killed. Too many people would be there that he cared about.
An hour after Keene talked to Sloane, reports started coming in over the channels that JPL was linked into that a meteorite carpet had unrolled in a thousand-mile hail, which was falling from Minneapolis to Ottawa. Aerial shots showed parts of Detroit on fire and miles of suburbs with houses demolished, roads blocked by stricken vehicles, and in low passes, people frantically waving at the camera aircraft to send help. Footage from the ground in Chicago looked like the aftermath of an air raid: fire trucks and ambulances in smoke-filled streets littered with rubble; mangled cars; rescuers digging into piles of glass and debris fallen from shattered high-rises. A dazed woman talked incoherently about “a river of stones that came down out of the sky. They just kept falling and falling. . . .” Nobody knew the extent of the damage among the smaller townships and rural dwellings spread across such a huge area. The police commissioner in Toronto was filmed as saying, “There have to be thousands dead out there. . . . We’ve no way of telling. Communications are out. Everything’s out. Jesus, and this is only the beginning!”
And then Charlie Hu told Keene that he was wanted at the Tracking Center in one of the other buildings, which was still managing to maintain a link to the Osiris by juggling with the surviving relay satellites. Idorf was asking for him, and the President in Washington was also on the circuit. Four craft that had failed to identify themselves were approaching the Osiris and had ignored attempts to communicate. Idorf wanted to remind whoever had dispatched them that one of the Osiris’s laser bombs was armed and ready to launch. Until the Kronian delegation was returned safely to the ship, the hundred-mile limit that he had declared previously still stood.
Keene, Colby, and Charlie Hu stood in a semicircle of tense-faced controllers and technicians, facing an array of consoles. The screens showed Idorf on the Control Deck of the Osiris, President Hayer with several aides and service chiefs in Washington, and various data plots. All that could be ascertained of the approaching vessels were their positions, courses, and estimates of their likely sizes from radar echoes. They still hadn’t responded to signals. Nobody knew where they were from, or even if they were crewed or being remotely operated. The only observation satellite in a position to make a visual identification had been malfunctioning for several hours and couldn’t be oriented in the right direction. Suspicion was that they were the launches detected earlier in eastern Asia, but attempts to contact the authorities in those regions had so far elicited either no response or denials. Colby Greene’s guess was that Voler and Company-hardly surprisingly-had not been the only ones to think of escaping to Kronia by commandeering the Osiris. While Keene and the others had been on their way across from the other building, the Osiris had launched its bomb. The weapon was now sitting in a parallel orbit a little over fifty miles off, ready to fire.
“I want it witnessed that I have made every attempt to reaffirm my warning to whoever ordered this,” Idorf said. “The only contacts that we have been able to make from up here all claim to know nothing. It seems that your attempts have fared no better. I am left with no choice.”
“Communications everywhere are in shambles,” Hayer said.
“Then it would behoove those responsible, all the more, to make their intentions plain,” Idorf replied. “Consider my position. Our delegation has been kidnapped, almost certainly to be used as hostages. So we already have evidence of designs in some quarters to seize this ship. In such circumstances I have no option but to treat these vessels as hostile. As captain, I must place the safety of the Osiris before all else.”
Hayer closed his eyes, and nodded. Several of those with him exchanged solemn looks but none spoke.
“The lead object is approaching the fire line,” one of the operators handling the radar data announced from his console. Attention turned to a holo display that was copying the situation report relayed from the Osiris. It showed part of a translucent red sphere centered on a white, three-way cross representing the Osiris, with the four vessels shown as blue dots moving in from outside. Idorf had stated that he would have no part in any verbal melodramatics. The weapon would detonate automatically if the boundary was breached. Since the Osiris did not carry an unlimited supply of them, it was set with lasing rods registering on all four targets.
“We are transmitting at them continuously on all of your recognized international bands. . . .” Idorf reminded everyone.
Keene watched with a strangely detached fascination, having to force himself to be mindful that these slowly moving patterns of light were not part of some simulation or one of Robin’s computer games, but a depiction of real events taking place some hundreds of miles above their heads at that very moment. Beside him, Colby Greene stared unblinkingly through his spectacles and licked his lips dryly.
“Lead object at the limit now,” the radar tech announced.
Moments later, a different voice reported, “Detonation has been detected.”
And after several more seconds: “Target echoes getting weaker, starting to break up.”
On the screen showing the Osiris’s Control Deck, Idorf turned and left without another word. And that was all there was to it. Impersonalized, soundless warfare, automated and sanitized modern style.
While the link was still open, one of the Kronian crew patched in the current views from high orbit. Fires were spreading across what looked like half the grasslands of southern Africa, with burning patches of oil lighting up the western Indian Ocean from Madagascar to Somalia. The world was turning into a ball of dirty smoke. A view away from Earth showed Athena like an immense, glowing octopus, its incandescent tentacles reaching ahead as it drew nearer.
Late in the afternoon, Keene managed to get a connection to Corpus Christi through a JPL hookup into Amspace’s spacecraft tracking net and talked to Harry Halloran, the technical vice president. Curtiss had gone ahead and put together an evacuation scheme since there was still no clear direction from the city and county authorities. The intention was to move inland to Lubbock, where the state was preparing reception centers, and which put them on the way to still higher country if a further move became necessary. There had been scattered meteorite falls all over southern Texas. Les Urkin’s bedroom and the family room beneath it were demolished five minutes after he went down to join his wife for breakfast. The family had packed their things and moved to Kingsville, where everyone was assembling. The downtown office was already closed. Harry couldn’t say if any of the girls from Protonix had arrived, and as far as he knew there was no sign yet of Wally Lomack back from Washington. The weather over the Gulf was doing strange things, and fears were rising of hurricane and tornado conditions developing. The sea out there was like black, moving mountains. Keene told him that the JPL scientists had talked about immense amounts of heat being dumped in the upper atmosphere. Nobody was sure what the effects of the resultant instabilities might be. Harry said that cattle inland were going crazy from corrosive air and thirst. Water supplies were already the big concern.
After Barbara and Gordon left in a JPL shuttle bus to catch an overnight military flight heading east out of March AFB, Keene and Colby Greene sat in one of the labs, wearily contemplating the updates still coming in via JPL’s various connections to the world. The full magnitude of what was happening was at last becoming plain, leaving them numbed to the degree that they didn’t want to hear any more. There was no point.
“So what’s it with you, Colby?” Keene asked. “Don’t you have anyone there to rush back to as well? Never got married, eh?”
Greene pulled a face and regarded the papers lying around the desk in front of him indifferently. “Oh, I thought about it once or twice. I looked at the way it usually seems to go, and figured I’d do it the easy way-you know, without wasting all that time that most guys seem to go through.”
“Oh? And what’s the easy way?” Keene asked.
“Just pick a woman you don’t like very much and buy her a house-then you can forget about it and get on with your life. But I never could find the right one, somehow. I always ended up liking them. . . . How about you?”
“Aw, did it once. Crashed and burned. You won’t believe who she was.”
“Try me.”
“Her name’s Fey. She’s Herbert Voler’s wife now.”
“I don’t believe it. What happened? . . . If it’s any of my business.”
Keene really wasn’t in a mood to go into explanations. “If I just say that she found her perfect match at last, would that tell you?” he offered.
Greene nodded. “Pretty much.” He rubbed his nose with a knuckle. “So will she be involved in this showdown at Andrews?”
Keene hadn’t really given it much thought. “Yes, I guess she will,” he said. So much for the social set and the mansion in Connecticut.
Keene’s disquiet over the situation in Washington was increasing. It would be late into the evening there now, yet the latest news was that Hixson and the other man with him were still at the motel. The FBI had reported only a note delivered by messenger telling them to sit tight. If communications were a problem, it would be all the more reason to move them out sooner. Something felt wrong.
The door opened, and Charlie Hu stuck his head in. “I just wanted to let you guys know: Don’t be surprised to see Guard patrols with guns in the area if you go out. There’s been some trouble with looting. All kinds are coming through from the city, and we’ve got some pricey real estate just west of here around La Canada.”
“As if that’s going to matter for much longer,” Keene snorted.
Hu shrugged. “I guess the same people will be giving the orders for a while yet. But anyhow, be warned. The police chief advises that if you possess weapons it would be a good idea to carry them.” Colby said nothing but opened his jacket to reveal the butt of an automatic sitting in a shoulder holster. “How about you?” Hu asked Keene.
“I went to Washington to attend a meeting with the President, remember?”
“I’ll see if we can get you fixed up.”
Cavan called a little over thirty minutes later. There had still been no move to collect Hixson and his companion from the motel.
“It’s too quiet, Leo,” Keene said. “Things should be happening by now. Either they’re onto us, or there’s more going on than we think.”
“Exactly the sentiments I’ve been having,” Cavan informed him. “So I thought I’d try using some of these official resources that I find I have access to now. It’s really quite amazing. It occurred to me that whatever Voler is really up to, his charming wife won’t be far behind. Perhaps we could get a pointer to his movements and possible plans if we knew something of hers.”
“Fey? We were just talking about her here. So did you get anywhere?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact. After I’d drawn several blanks elsewhere, I tried checking the airline reservation computers. And there she was, booked to LA. The original flight has been canceled, but she got transferred to an emergency service that left Boston earlier this evening. That must have taken a fair amount of string-pulling on the part of somebody, somewhere.”
“To LA?” Keene could only stare bemusedly.
“Intriguing, isn’t it?” Cavan agreed. “And it gets more so. Who do you think is on the same flight also? Our friend Tyndam from Cambridge. I doubt very much if they’re eloping together. I doubt if he’d be her type. I can only assume that they’re joining the rest of the party.” Cavan waited, expressionless, for Keene to figure the rest out.
Fey and Tyndam were flying to California that night. And, interestingly, Beckerson was also flying to California, practically at the same time, nominally on official duties. Perhaps Cavan’s suspicion had been correct after all, and Beckerson was part of it! . . . But if that were so, then the whole business at Andrews had to be a diversion. Nothing was going to happen there.
“Hixson and this guy with him have been set up,” Keene murmured. “They’re not going to be collected at all. They’re sacrificial-to keep us busy watching.”
“You’re getting there, Landen,” Cavan said. “So the real action will be in California. The question is where. There’s only one place I can think of. And with Queal and his connections through Air Force Intelligence, it all fits.”
Keene stared back at the sparse frame and features watching patiently from the screen. The aim, surely, was still to get aboard and probably seize control of the Osiris. They already had the hostages to get them past the defenses. The only other thing needed was a vessel to get them up there. As Cavan had said, if they were on their way to southern California, there was only one answer.
“My God!” Keene breathed. “It’s got to be Vandenberg. While everyone’s waiting for something to happen at Andrews, they’ve been quietly getting a shuttle organized there. Queal would have the contacts to arrange it.”
“Full marks,” Cavan said.
“Have you talked to Hayer?”
“Yes, but he’s not sure how to deal with it. If somebody like Beckerson is involved, how do we know who can be trusted? If the commander there is in on it too and we tip him off so that he warns the others away, the Kronians will never leave at all because Idorf is on limited time. The only way we’ll get those people back is by letting the thing go through as if we know nothing and grabbing them when they appear. And there’s only one person anywhere close who can move soon enough without drawing the wrong kind of attention. And that’s you, Landen.”
Red sulfurous dust and blinding vapors, mixed into a choking haze with the exhausts from thousands of vehicles, swirled through the headlight beams of the traffic groping its way along Interstate 5 North out of Glendale. Sheila, the technician driving the JPL shuttle bus, craned forward in her seat to keep sight, through the arc smeared by the laboring windshield wiper, of the flashing red and blue lights of the police escort leading them on the inside lane that was supposed to be reserved for official use. Outside in the murk, police, military, and volunteers in hooded capes and chemical warfare garb yelled, cursed, and waved flashlamps to direct the lines, hauled breakdowns clear, and kept interlopers out of the official lane, while fifteen million people tried to squeeze through the four main routes inland from the Los Angeles basin.
Keene, clad like the others in a military combat jacket, woollen comforter cap, and hooded smock that some JPL high-up’s talking to the local National Guard commander had procured, and packing underneath it a hip-holstered .45 automatic, sat behind the Guard captain occupying the front passenger seat. Charlie, Colby Greene, and John were wedged in the other seats, along with an armed trooper, and two more troopers were at the back, inside the rear door. The bus itself looked as if it was equipped for a safari, with boxes of supplies, extra weapons, jerrycans of gasoline and water piled inside, and a layer of sandbags lashed to the roof as a protection against falling rocks. It had been decided earlier in the day to have all the Lab’s trucks and buses preequipped for evacuation at short notice. Keene, Charlie, and Colby would be flying on to Vandenberg, 160 miles north on the coast, with a hastily organized Marine Corps detachment that they were to meet. John had come along to keep Sheila company and would return to JPL with the bus and its Guard escort afterward.
The plan was as simple as it was audacious-and in the time available, about as much as could have been contemplated. The first point agreed was that with no way of knowing where anyone stood, no approach could be made to the Space Command hierarchy at Vandenberg, which was headed by a two-star general called Ullman, commander of the Fourteenth Air Force, who lived on the base. However, Charlie Hu had, in connection with missions staged over several years involving both the Air Force and JPL, dealt with others there that he was willing to guess would be reliable. Admittedly, that meant relying totally on Charlie’s personal experiences and gut feeling, but it was the best there was. The air-base section of the Vandenberg facility was commanded by a Colonel Lacey, who, everyone was agreed to gamble, would probably not be a part of Voler and Queal’s scheme. The plan, then, was to get a small group into the Vandenberg air base, recruit Colonel Lacey’s help in making contact with names in the space-launch facility that Charlie had vouched for, and figure the rest out from there. Communications problems and other pressures had defeated attempts to contact Lacey ahead of time, and they had decided they could wait no longer. Sloane in Washington was continuing to try, but failing that they would place their hope in being able to convince Lacey after they were in. That, of course, left the question of how to get an unauthorized group of people into a top-security military facility without advance clearance. Colby Greene had come up with the obvious way after they had debated several impractical alternatives: “It’s an Air Force base. The sky’s unloading and causing emergencies everywhere. You fly in posing as a plane in trouble that needs to get down. Then play it by ear.”
One of the JPL directors had talked with the area National Guard commander, who, after being satisfied that this was coming from the President’s office, had gone back through the local military chain to acquire the means. The outcome was that a Cessna Caravan with support squad was being rushed in from the Twentynine Palms Marine base and would meet them at Burbank. JPL had essentially ceased functioning as a national laboratory and was being adapted as a transit center and shelter for public-sector workers and their kin en route inland. The last Keene and the others had seen of it had been bulldozers working under floodlights in the fog to bank earth against the walls of suitable buildings, while crews sandbagged the roofs and lower floors. South of the Laboratory, the Army was taking over the Rose Bowl golf course as a transportation depot and supply dump.
Sheila muttered something and braked as the escort car in front slowed. Tail lights beyond showed vehicles ahead of it. The sound of the police cruiser’s siren floated back above the traffic noise, but the lane to the left was solid. Finally, risking unlit vehicles pulled over, the cruiser swung onto the shoulder and began overhauling the obstructions leapfrog fashion on the inside, with the shuttle bus clinging yards behind. Lights ahead as they pulled back into the regular lane showed a group of military vehicles parked on the shoulder. Two of them moved off and swung in behind the shuttle bus as it passed, and then dropped back to head off the encroachers. A smoky halo of light in front of a stopped car revealed a knot of windblown figures struggling to change a wheel on a jacked-up camper. More lights ahead marked the tail of a military convoy. The police escort and bus closed up and stayed with it to the Burbank exit, where the tailback from the exit ramp extended for at least a quarter mile along the shoulder. The escort led them past, and they were waved through by police in capes and motorcycle visors directing airport traffic at the top.
The airport approach was a confusion of cars parked haphazardly in the roadways and others jostling for whatever space became available. Checkpoints had been set up across the road leading into the departures drop-off area. The cruiser led the bus to a gate bearing the sign authorized access only and halted. A dust-covered shape, looking in the glare from the lamps like a yeti of the desert, materialized outside Sheila’s window. He had a hood with an enormous, fur-trimmed rim, in the shadows of which could vaguely be discerned a transparent visor and mask covering the lower face. Colby squeezed forward alongside Sheila, brandishing a plastic wallet showing his White House ID and a pass from the Pasadena regional military command.
“There’s supposed to be a Marine Corps flight coming in to collect us,” he shouted out the window. “It’s top priority-White House directive. What do we do?” The yeti gave the papers a perfunctory glance, as if acknowledging that they belonged to a world already passing. “Wait,” a voice instructed from somewhere inside the hood, and the figure disappeared inside the gatehouse. Keene was impressed by the amount of organization that was managing to persist. Power was flowing; planes were flying. People were still at their jobs. But as he had said himself the previous day, what else was there for anyone to do?
Lights appeared in the roadway behind the bus, and a horn began blaring.
“All we needed was an asshole,” Sheila sighed, resting her arms on the wheel and staring at her mirror dully. More figures came out of the shadows and went back to deal with it. The desert yeti reemerged. “I can’t get ahold of anyone who knows anything. Look, there’s a traffic information center set up somewhere off the Departure Hall. They’ve got a line through to the tower, so they’ll know about as much as anybody.”
“What’s the name of the room it’s in?” Greene yelled back out.
“You’ll have to find somebody in there to tell you.”
“Where do I park?” Sheila asked.
One side of the cape rose as the gesture of a shaggy forelimb. “What are they gonna do, give you a ticket?” Sheila drove around into a service yard and found space among a jumble of vehicles and baggage carts around a side entrance. The captain detailed two of the Guardsmen to stay with the bus while he and the other accompanied the rest of the party inside.
The scene inside the airport building resembled a refugee station-which in effect it was. People sat among piles of bags or huddled on blankets and sleeping bags laid out on the floor, some trying to calm cranky, overtired children, some managing to doze, others just staring blankly. There were lines at a number of the check-in desks, where hand-lettered signs identified parties being assembled and destinations. Regular schedules had been abandoned, and it seemed that which airline owned or was operating any particular flight no longer meant very much. The public address system endlessly paged names to call various numbers or meet other parties at stated places. As Keene watched, a woman with a clipboard waited while a group whose names she had called collected their belongings, and then led them away in the direction of the gates. Along the far wall, several dozen young children in wheelchairs, many of them cuddling toys, waited while a procession of nurses brought more in from a line of ambulances and buses drawn up under the canopy outside the main entrance. Keene swallowed a lump in his throat and looked away.
Colby came back from the throng of people around the Information Desk, followed by a couple of uniformed police. “We follow these guys,” he told the others. Sheila and John fell in on either side of him, Keene and Charlie behind, the Guardsman and captain bringing up the rear. They passed a restaurant area where soup, sandwiches, and beverages were being handed out at a long table; a knot of people were sitting on the floor playing cards; a young man was playing a violin to a bar where there was no TV. Many of the faces had looked bloody, but closer up Keene realized that the streaks and blotches were red dust lodged in creases or mixed with perspiration, and skin sores angry from rubbing and scratching. There was little show of belligerence. The prevailing mood was tiredness, resignation, waiting.
The Traffic Information Center turned out to be a large room off one of the side corridors, where a score or so of people were working at tables covered with papers piled among constantly ringing phones. An improvised wall board with information entered by hand showed traffic situations and projections, and an Army field telephone exchange had been installed at the rear with cables trailing out through a far door. In one corner was a coffee pot with a tray of plates containing remnants of bagels, muffins, and vending snacks. A line of tables across the near end of the room formed a counter barring off the rest of the area. Clerks at the front were trying to deal with a press of people jostling for attention, while others updated the board.
“I always wondered what they’d do when all the computers went down at once,” Colby remarked, surveying the scene.
One of the policeman called over a man in shirtsleeves and a headset and beckoned Colby forward. Colby identified himself and explained the situation. The man in the headset went away to consult with one of the others, who referred to a screen that evidently was able to report something, then called somewhere on a phone. He returned to the counter.
“We have that flight logged, but it doesn’t look as if it’s here yet. The tower has instructions to clear it in, priority. I don’t know yet where it will be directed. We’ll put a call out when we know something more.”
“You are aware that we’re on a presidential directive here,” Greene said, appearing irritated by what he seemed to take as perfunctory treatment.
“Sir, if you were here under a directive from Jesus Christ, there’s nothing more I could do. When it shows up, we’ll let you know. A lot of flights aren’t making it.”
“Ease up, Colby. They can’t wave wands. We’re just taking up space here,” Keene murmured. Mollified, Greene let himself be ushered out to the corridor. They walked back to a part of the main ticketing concourse, where more people with children and baggage were sitting along the walls. A sad-faced black woman was dispensing coffee and hot dogs from a snack bar that seemed to have run out of all else.
“Are you people gonna need us for anything else?” one of the policemen asked.
“I’d prefer it if you stick around,” Colby told them. “We may need directions where to go when the plane shows up.”
“Could you guys use some coffee?” Sheila asked them.
“Sure, why not?”
“Better make it all of us while we’ve got the chance,” Keene said.
Sheila went to the counter and picked up a tray, John following to lend a hand. “How do we pay for this?” Sheila asked the black woman.
“You might as well just take ’em. I don’t know what else to do with it.”
They stood around, like everyone else-waiting. Sheila and John found a couple of vacated chairs. Colby stood to one side, talking with the Guard captain. Charlie Hu leaned back against the wall and sipped his coffee. Keene moved over to the policemen. “How bad is it getting to be out there?” he asked them in a low voice.
“It’s a mess, but still pretty orderly,” one of them answered. “Most people are trying to do the right thing. They’re not panicking yet.”
“You figure it’ll get worse, eh?”
“Oh, while there’s somebody to tell them what to do, and they’ve still got food and gas and electricity, to a lot of them it’s still just an adventure. When stuff starts running out and they realize it isn’t a game anymore, that’s when it’ll get ugly.”
“We’ve been lucky down here so far,” the other cop said. “There were some big falls north of San Francisco and farther on up the state. They’ve got blocked freeways up there. Lotta cars hit right out there on the road.”
Two middle-aged ladies came over and drew the policemen away to ask them about something. Keene moved over to join Charlie. “You know, we only just met, and you’re already beginning to amaze me. You’re actually managing to look serene. What’s the secret?”
Charlie smiled distantly. “Well, you know how it is. Inscrutable Orientals and that kind of thing.”
Keene drank from his coffee cup. “So which particular brand of inscrutability are you from? Chinese?”
“Taiwanese, actually. But I was born in Carson City, Nevada.”
“So . . .” Keene frowned, wondering how best to put it. “This business up the coast. You know things are going to get worse. Traveling might soon get really problematical. You don’t have someone somewhere that you should . . . You know what I’m trying to say.”
Charlie smiled again, this time cynically. “Well, yes, there is a Mrs. Hu. However, relationships are not exactly, shall we say . . . exemplary. She disappeared off to LA a week ago, I think to see the boyfriend. Anyway, I haven’t heard from her since. Which is all a long way of saying, you don’t have to worry about it.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Look, I-”
“No, it’s okay. Thanks, I appreciate the consideration.”
Sheila got up and left them-out of sensible anticipation, she said-after noticing that the line from the ladies’ room was backed up into the concourse. Colby wandered away along the side of the concourse, stood looking around for a minute or two, then came back. “If LAX is anything like this, they could easily miss them,” he said to Keene. Keene could only shrug.
Cavan had told them that Washington was arranging for Fey and Tyndam to be watched when they arrived at Los Angeles, but not apprehended. Beckerson’s flight was routed to Edwards AFB, situated in the high desert above Palmdale-reinforcing Keene’s belief that the regional command center was somewhere under the mountains in that direction. However, the plan could be to divert the flight to join up with Voler’s group, wherever it was, perhaps collecting Fey and Tyndam from Los Angeles on the way. Alternatively, another aircraft could be waiting at Edwards. Various possibilities existed as to how they might all get together. The hope was that observing how Fey and Tyndam were met and in which direction they were taken might provide further clues as to what might be expected at Vandenberg.
One of the cops left to make a circuit of the concourse. Sheila came back.
Charlie Hu returned from a newsstand with a week-old copy of Time, which he proceeded to thumb through sitting on the floor with his back to a wall. The front cover showed a picture of Athena rounding the Sun with the caption: why the doomsayers are wrong.
And then public address announced: “Colby Greene, contact Traffic Information Center. Mr. Colby Greene from Washington. We have flight information for you.”
Everyone hastened back to the room with the phones and the wall board. The same clerk that Colby had talked to before told them, “It should be landing now-a Cessna Caravan, flight code MU87. Board out on the tarmac. They’re bringing it right up to the door. Go to Gate 3 and wait at the top of the stairs leading down to the outside access door. Somebody will meet you there.” He handed Greene a pass. “Gate-area access is being controlled. You’ll need to show this.”
Preceded by the two policemen, the party hurried through the departure concourse and through the check to the gates. There was a flight boarding at Gate 3 when they arrived. A girl with dusty, windblown hair and wearing a crumpled Delta uniform under a red-streaked raincoat led them past the slowly shuffling line and unlocked a door next to the jetway entrance. They went down two flights of steel-railed stairs to a lower space and across to a door, where the girl stopped to peer through a narrow window. “Your plane is just taxiing up now. We’ll give it a minute to make its turn.”
Keene and the two leaving with him turned to face the others. There was a moment of awkward silence. Then John extended a hand and shook it with each of them. “Well . . . I guess this is it. Let’s hope it works out. Maybe we’ll . . .” He seemed to think better of whatever he had been about to say and left it unfinished.
Sheila followed suit, shaking hands first with Keene and Colby; then, on impulse, she threw her arms around Charlie in a hug. Suddenly, she was crying. “Oh shit. . . . I can’t believe you won’t be there in your office tomorrow, Charlie, with everything back the way it was. Are we even going to see you again?”
“They’re here. The door’s open,” the Delta girl informed them.
Charlie released Sheila gently, and managed a smile. “All good things, you know. . . . It’s like Lan said yesterday, you do what you have to. Take care of her for us, John.”
“You guys take care too,” the Guard captain said.
The Delta girl opened the door, and immediately swirls of wind-driven dust spattered through. A boxy, single-engined craft, its airscrew still turning, was waiting in the shadow of the huge widebody loading from the regular jetway above. Colby wrapped his parka tightly about himself, held onto his hood, and ducked out into the swirling orange fog. Charlie followed, then Keene. “Good luck, whatever it is,” one of the cops called after them.
Acrid fumes stung Keene’s nose as he followed the two hunched figures across to the plane. It had a fixed tricycle undercarriage. Military camouflage markings showed dimly in the lights from the terminal building. A shadowy figure was holding the door open below the high wing. Colby and Charlie climbed in, and Keene followed, assisted by a strong pull from above. “Lieutenant Penalski, Marines,” the figure informed them as the door closed. There were empty seats in the forward part of the cabin. Farther back, more figures in combat dress sat outlined vaguely in the semidarkness. “Which of you is Dr. Keene?” the lieutenant asked as the Cessna revved its engine and began moving again.
“I am.”
“Can we bring you up front, next to the pilot? They didn’t tell us much about the mission. You’re going to have to start filling us in right now. But there is some good news. We can forget the plan for going in flapping like a lame duck. It won’t be necessary. Somebody must have gotten through from Washington finally. We got cleared for Vandenberg just before we left.”
“I warn you guys, it’s still gonna be a rough ride,” the pilot shouted above the engine noise. He flipped his mike switch. “MU87. Burbank, we’re ready for clearance, departing Burbank to Vandenberg, IFR, military priority.”
“MU87, Burbank. ATC clears MU87 as file, SID departure runway one six. After takeoff, contact SoCal Control on three-ninety-seven point nine, or if unable, contact SoCal on one-twenty-five point four. We’ve been having trouble with higher frequencies. Contact Vandenberg approach on tower frequency one twenty-four point nine five. If contact lost, proceed with pilot’s discretion flight procedures. Vandenberg and flight service stations are notified via ground lines and will be listening.”
“Roger, clearance.”
“You guys sure you want to do this? It’s bad along them hills out there.”
“Not a lot of choice here. Thanks again.”
“Normally, I’d say have a good one.”
The Cessna rolled forward a short distance and stopped while a dark, humpy shape, looking like a whale in the mists and the dark, passed across in front of them. Then the pilot got an okay from the tower to move out. Wind hit the tiny plane like a water wave as it emerged from the shadow of the terminal building, causing it to rock crazily. Keene hadn’t realized how much the wind had been rising. He had the feeling of being inside a kite that was likely to be snatched away at any moment. As they turned onto the taxiway, lights outside revealed at least three wrecked aircraft pushed off to the side. Two of them looked as if they had collided while maneuvering on the ground, their wings entangled.
“There’s worse moving in behind this,” the pilot told him, keeping his eyes on the shapes moving in the murk ahead. “Lotta boats in trouble out there. When it hits, everything’s gonna be shut down.”
“How long have we got?” Keene asked him.
“Hours . . . maybe.”
“Santa Barbara tower. Flight MU87 en route from Burbank to Vandenberg at three hundred feet south east, three miles. We’re going to fly right through your airspace just off the coast.” A burst of static punctuated with voice fragments filled the cabin. The pilot tried again.
“Roger MU87. We were looking for you. What the hell are you doing up in this stuff? Over.”
“We just can’t resist a challenge.”
The cloud canopy above the Cessna was solid. Below, fingers of dark, coiling vapors blotted out and then revealed briefly the lights of the traffic on coast Highway 101 off to the right, beyond a line of breakers and beaches dimly discernible in the flickering of electrical light above the cloud. Sticky buildups on the wings, control surfaces, and windshield had made it impossible to clear the 3,000-foot hills inland, forcing the plane to head southwest along the Santa Clara Valley to Ventura, turning right to follow the coast from there. There had been several ominous thunks of hard objects hitting the structure, but nothing so far had penetrated the cabin.
“Okay. Watch out for three radio towers along the water’s edge, two just as you pass us, one farther up. Altitudes are three fifty feet, and the position lights are out. What are you planning up ahead?”
“Follow the highway on into Vandenberg.”
“I wouldn’t advise it. In about twenty miles, the highway turns right and climbs through some twenty-eight hundred foot hills. Try following the railroad bed along the coast, around Point Conception to Point Arguello, where there’s a navigation light. From there, you should be able to contact Vandenberg. That would put you about seven miles south, in position for approach to runway one-six. The big launch complexes should stand out. We think they still have lights there.”
“Thanks, Santa Barbara. Wilco.”
“Caution, traffic climbing out of Santa Barbara airport. Heavy to severe turbulence at all altitudes in this region. We’re getting pilot reports of intermittent meteor strikes. Set your Vandenberg security transponder settings. Over.”
“We’ve been dinged by a couple of those rocks too. No serious damage. But we’ll be glad to get this thing on the ground.”
“You must have some hot dates waiting up there.”
At least, something appeared to be going right. Not only was the stricken-aircraft ruse unnecessary, but they would no longer be faced with the task of having to convince Lacey from a cold start. Of course, there still remained the possibility that Lacey could be part of the plot and was simply allowing them to fly on into the parlor, but it seemed remote.
The dark mass of one of the drilling platforms off Point Conception loomed to the left. It was showing no lights or sign of life, and was being battered by heavy seas. The pilot was having to alternate left and right turns to try and gain some forward visibility.
“I see it!” Keene said suddenly, peering through the right-hand window and gesturing as the yellow smear of Point Arguello’s beacon emerged from the unfolding muddiness ahead.
“Vandenberg, MU87 is five south at three hundred feet en route Vandenberg, following railroad tracks.”
Incredibly, a voice answered. “Roger, MU87. You’re expected. Barometer is twenty-nine point five-five and falling, visibility three hundred feet to occasionally zero, ceiling indefinite at around two hundred, gusting winds quartering from twenty-five to forty knots. If able, continue along tracks until you have visual. I don’t think you’re going to like this. Over.”
“Not many options here. What aids do we have?”
“ILS is out, and GPS is crazy. We’re having trouble with the VASI lights and runway lights. You should be able to see the launch complex towers; they’re still lighted. When they’re to your right, fly three-forty degrees for one minute, then start a right standard-rate turn to heading one-sixty-two. When you cross the railroad tracks, the runway is a half mile farther. Report abeam the launch complex. Over.”
“Roger that.”
The thought came to Keene out of nowhere that the spontaneous urge to help others just because they were also humans was what Sariena had been trying to explain all along. To the Kronians it was simply a natural expression of what being human meant. Why, here, did it always seem to have wait for a war or some kind of disaster? A pool of lights curdled together oozed through the darkness on Keene’s side of the plane; then another.
“Vandenberg, we’re abeam the complex, turning three-forty degrees.”
“Roger. We don’t have you yet. Turn your landing lights on.”
“Roger, lights. No joy on the runway. We should be on final.”
“Keep the complex on your right and watch for the tracks.”
“We just crossed the tracks. It splits, and both tracks go south on my left. Still no runway.”
“MU87, the tracks should be on your right-ON YOUR RIGHT! BANK LEFT, BANK LEFT!”
The left side of the world fell away, and the haze racing through the landing light beams streamed sideways as the pilot threw the plane into a turn that seemed to bring it head-on into a succession of buffeting humps in the air; then the pattern reversed itself as they quickly rolled level again. The end of a strip marked by a few dim lights slid into view in Keene’s window. “Runway to the right!” he shouted, pointing frantically. The plane banked in the opposite direction, held for a few agonizing seconds while the airscrew clawed and the overloaded control surfaces hauled it around, and then leveled out again just as the wheels thudded against solid ground. The center line was off to the left, but the Cessna had sufficient room and slowed to taxiing speed without mishap. Charlie Hu emitted an audible, shaky sigh somewhere in the shadows behind. Keene found that his palms were sweaty and he had been unconsciously rubbing them on his knees.
“Okay, we’re down. Still can’t see much, though. . . . Oh, wait a sec. We have headlights ahead.”
“That’s a follow-me truck. Follow it to parking and remain on this frequency. And welcome to Vandenberg.”
The truck led them off via a connecting ramp to a taxiway. A large military transport silhouetted in the gloom began rolling forward to takeoff position. As the Cessna moved on by, two more transports became visible, waiting behind. Everything that could move, it seemed, was being got out before the wind front moved in.
* * *
Colonel Lacey was a big man with wide, pale eyes set in a florid, fleshy face, lank ginger hair, and a matching toothbrush mustache. Or maybe his hair just appeared lank from his running his fingers through it countless times, as seemed to be his habit when considering a decision, through who-knew-how-many hours of the night and probably the day before. He looked haggard, with dark scores underneath the pale eyes and perspiration stains showing through the shirt of his crumpled uniform. Frequently, when a moment presented itself, he would close his eyes and draw in a long breath, as if to gain a few seconds of respite. He was also, Keene could tell-though doing a commendable job of containing it-very scared.
“Okay, I’ve listened, and I hear what you’re telling me, and the bottom line is: I don’t care,” he told Keene, Colby, and Charlie Hu as they came out from a glass-walled office space where they had gone to talk privately. Lacey had received the visitors up in the tower since he couldn’t spare time to be away. Lt. Penalski was with them also, having left a sergeant in charge of the other five Marines, who had been given coffee in a room on the floor below. The pilot, who they now knew to be Sergeant Erse, was with the Cessna, checking for damage and getting the aircraft fueled and cleaned. Sloane had gotten through to Lacey from Washington about two hours previously to advise that the mission would be arriving, but not trusting communications security he had not elaborated on what it was about. Around them, staff sifted reports and passed on orders, while harassed controllers tried to make sense of the fragmented information coming in and grappled with the chaotic traffic conditions. The Cessna had been one of a few landings that night. Inside the launch complex, a minimum work force was readying the few craft that could be sent up at short notice to provide additional hardware in orbit for contingencies. A large “Samson” military transport was being held back in one of the hangars to evacuate them and the tower crew after the launches were effected. Otherwise, everything was moving out.
Lacey gestured at the windows commanding views out over the field. Water was running down one of the glass panels on the far side of the floor, where a crew outside was sluicing off the encrustation of dust with a fire hose. “We have a permanent population of three and a half thousand people on this base. Ten thousand contractors’ employees live in the surrounding areas, most of them with families. I’ve got a couple of hours to do what good I can with the planes I’ve got. After that, they’re just junk. That’s my first responsibility, Doctor. I don’t care about who’s going out in a shuttle. If they’ve got somewhere to go, good luck to them.”
An adjutant with a red-streaked face, wearing a tarmac jacket, interrupted. “Excuse me, sir.”
“Yes?”
“296 isn’t going to fly. The valve isn’t responding, and it’s a strip-down to replace.”
Lacey grimaced, running a hand through his hair. “Has that C-80 started loading?”
“Not yet. It’s just rolling up now.”
“Divert it out alongside 296. Get some stairs out there and transfer the passengers straight across. Don’t bring it back to the gate.”
“Sir.” The adjutant turned away to another officer who was waiting.
“But we don’t know what they’ve got planned,” Keene persisted. “If they show up with a FAST team and take over the runway area, it could halt your whole operation.”
“I’ll take that chance when we come to it. In the meantime, my operation is best served by moving out what I can.”
“Secure the approaches to the launch complexes at least. The APs aren’t moving aircraft.”
“What APs? Do you think we’ve been expecting an invasion? They’re on the other side of the base, getting everyone out onto Highway One.”
“Colonel.” Colby Greene was visibly exasperated, managing only with difficulty to refrain from shouting in the middle of the control tower floor. “As an officer of the armed services of this country, may I remind you that you took an oath of loyalty to-”
“A week from now there isn’t going to be any country,” Lacey said. “You know that. I know that. And the only reason we’re not getting open murder and rape on the streets right now is because most people haven’t realized it yet. My first loyalty is to the people I’ve worked with on this base. It’s a family thing now. I never took any oath that talked about protecting aliens from some other planet who didn’t think our system here was good enough for them.” Lacey paused to check an indicator screen above the floor showing the current departures, where the data had just been updated. “Besides, if what you’re telling me is correct, I’d be doing them a favor by not interfering. That way, they’ll be on their way home.” From the conversation earlier, it was plain that Lacey had no particular fondness for Kronians. In a way reminiscent of the ancient practice of venting wrath upon bringers of bad news, it had almost seemed that through some devious process deep in his mind he held them responsible for Athena’s having happened at all.
Keene and Colby looked at each other helplessly. Then Charlie Hu raised his hands in a placatory gesture. “Look . . .” he pleaded. “This isn’t going to help. We’re all under stress here. Let’s recognize it. Maybe the problem doesn’t need to be addressed out here at all. The important thing is what happens inside the launch complex. If we can get the right people in there alerted, they might be able to close off access to the shuttles before Voler’s people get here. . . . They know what the options are in there better than any of us do. I’ve got some names right here of people I believe are reliable. One or two have to be in there somewhere, right on the other side of the security fence. All we have to do is call. Colonel Lacey has gotten us in this far. That’s as much as we might need. Let me make some calls, and let him get on with his job.”
“How can they deny access to the shuttles?” Colby demanded. “Voler and his people still have the hostages.”
Charlie shook his head. “I don’t know. . . . If it becomes obvious that they’re not going anywhere, they might throw it in. Whoever they’ve got helping on the inside might turn around if they realize they’re on their own. Anything that complicates the issue opens up more chances for their plan to go wrong. What else do you want in the kind of time we’ve got? They could land out there at any minute.”
“I can deploy my men to cover the access gate from the landing area,” Lieutenant Penalski offered. “In these conditions, we could have them in prepared positions right up there on the edge of the runway-even after daybreak. It’s just a question of knowing where the plane will head after it lands. Maybe the tower could cooperate by directing it to us.”
Keene looked at him: young, eager, as if it was going to affect his record for a promotion next year. Seven Marines against a planeload of Air Force FAST specialists. The spirit of Balaclava was not quite dead yet. It seemed to affect Lacey too. He stared at the Marine, then at Charlie Hu silently pleading for reason, Colby fighting back his anger, and finally at Keene. “I might be able to rustle together a few APs to help,” he said gruffly, and strode away to a desk by the far wall to pick up a phone.
* * *
They stood watching anxiously behind Charlie as he tapped in the first code at a console in a corner of the control tower observation floor. Penalski had left to collect his Marines and scout the ground while waiting for the Air Police reinforcements to show up.
It turned out that Major Sorven, who headed one of the communications sections and had been Charlie’s first hope, had moved from Vandenberg several months previously. His successor was a Major Myran, but nobody knew where he was. “Can we try a guy called Crowe Thompson, then?” Charlie asked. Thompson was a civilian technician who had worked under Sorven.
The MP operating the phones sounded as if he was beginning to think that perhaps Charlie was a little crazy. “There isn’t anybody in the labs. Didn’t anyone tell you, it’s not exactly a normal working day today?” Keene and Colby exchanged glances. Colonel Lacey, standing with them, turned away for a second to catch the dialogue of one of the controllers behind, who was getting a distress call from something coming in over the Pacific.
Charlie licked his lips. “This is important,” he told the MP.
“Everything’s important.”
“Just hold a second, will you?” Charlie consulted his notes again hurriedly. “How about the launch complexes themselves? There are things going on in there. We can see the lights. Is there anyone answering in OLC-6 East?”
“Yeah, they’re busy over in there, all right.”
“The Boxcar Flight Checkout Area. Try and find an Andy Lintz. Like I said, it’s important. I wasn’t kidding.”
“Gimme a sec. I’ll check around.”
Orbiter Launch Complex-6 East was a refurbished version of the old SLC-6 facility built for the primal NASA shuttle and virtually dismantled following the cutback in operations after the Challenger accident back in the eighties. Now it handled the newer design of one-stage “Boxcar” orbiters that were simpler, easier to assemble, and had the convenience of being prepared and loaded horizontally and under cover, to be elevated vertically only for launch. Charlie had worked for a week with Lintz on a NASA-supplied image-processing computer that had been found faulty after it was delivered to the assembly area for installation.
Across the floor, an officer who had been hunched with two operators in front of one of the consoles straightened up and turned to call to Lacey. “Sir, we’ve got something coming in low and fast from the east, not responding to calls. Strong radar emissions. ATC has no information.”
“The lame duck’s signaling that it’s coming straight in,” the former operator reported from another part of the floor. “They’re on one engine, and it’s intermittent.”
“Clear the main runway,” Lacey ordered. “Dispatch crash tenders and ambulance, and hold further movements till it’s down.” He started to turn back to the officer and the other two operators, but then looked back at the screen in front of Charlie Hu as movement caught his eye. A woman in a green coverall and yellow hard hat had appeared; but she seemed to be distracted and was looking away.
“My name is Hu. Is Andy Lintz there? It’s vitally urgent that I speak to him. . . . Hello? Ma’am? . . . I said, is Andy Lintz there, anywhere?” The woman moved aside without replying, gesturing vaguely to somebody else and keeping her eyes on something distant that seemed to be happening behind the viewer. After a few seconds, a chubby, bespectacled man in a white smock showing grease stains appeared.
“Say, Charlie. . . .” He spoke in a low voice, as if not wanting to be overheard.
Hu tossed a quick, relieved grin back over his shoulder at the others and made a thumb’s-up. “Yeah, right, Andy. How’s it been going? Look, I need some help, and it’s really important. I’m with some people across in the Vandenberg tower right now. We think something serious is scheduled to happen in there fairly soon, and I need access to somebody reliable who can organize security.”
Lintz seemed only to be half hearing, and was watching something beyond the screen in the same inexplicable way that the woman in the yellow hard hat had. The sound of voices shouting indistinctly came through in the background, and then the louder echoing of something being said over a bullhorn.
“Yeah . . . well, it might not be a good time right now, Charlie. It seems we’ve got what you might call a ‘situation’ developing here. There are guys in combat gear waving guns, and somebody just yanked the Launch Supervisor out of his office. Could be you’re a little late, Charlie.”
A roar from outside the tower, rising rapidly and then falling again, signaled the unknown intruder making a low pass over the base. Charlie turned in his seat to confront the stunned expressions on the faces of Keene and Colby. Lacey, his face paling, stepped forward behind them. “We’re too late,” Charlie repeated, his voice barely above a whisper. “All this time we’ve been trying to figure out how to stop them getting in. And they’re in there already!”
Most of the others around the floor were too busy with their tasks to realize what was happening. Lacey’s adjutant, however, had been following from a short distance and came across. “It was the C-130,” he breathed.
Numbed, Keene merely jutted his jaw at Lacey inquiringly. “We had an old C-130 come in earlier,” Lacey said. “With everything that’s been going on I’d forgotten about it. It had all the proper clearances from Launch Operations. We sent it up by Security Gate Three, which leads straight through to the Boxcar launch area. That has to be how they got in.”
“Queal fixed for it to be opened from the inside,” Colby groaned.
“The Distress Call is on final, looking okay,” the operator tracking the approaching plane from the west announced.
On the screen showing the inside of OLC-6 East, Andy Lintz looked up, sending what looked as if it was meant to be an apologetic grin to someone behind the viewing angle, and backed away with his hands raised. A moment later, the screen blanked out.
“What’s that intruder doing?” Lacey shot across at the other operators.
“Going into a tight turn about five miles out, climbing slightly. Looks as if it’s going to circle.”
“Maybe they’re not all in yet,” Colby said suddenly. “The C-130 might just have been the door-opener for Queal’s FAST team to make contact with the inside group.” He pointed to the console where the intruder was being tracked. “That has to be Voler and the rest of them showing up now. They were supposed to land as soon as the move was made inside, but the runway’s obstructed by that S.O.S. that’s coming in.”
It made sense. “Maybe . . .” Keene nodded slowly. But what could they do about it? An AP officer was trying to pull together a security contingent, but he hadn’t reported back. In any case it was all too late now. All they could do was watch impotently and wait for events to unfold. To have gotten this close . . . As the realization slowly soaked in, Keene found himself feeling sick somewhere deep in his stomach.
And then the adjutant officer took a call from the tower switchboard downstairs. “Somebody in OLC-6 is asking to talk to the tower supervisor,” he announced.
“Tell them to put it through here,” Lacey said. Moments later, a swarthy-faced figure wearing an Air Force parka and colonel’s insignia appeared on an auxiliary screen of the console that Charlie was sitting at. “This is Colonel Lacey, base commander, at present supervising tower operations. Who is this?”
“It doesn’t matter who I am. All you need to know is that we have control of the OLC complex and access to it from the runway area, and we are currently holding General Ullman and his immediate staff. Just cooperate, and nobody need get hurt.”
“His name’s Delmaro,” the adjutant murmured, moving alongside Lacey. “One of General Ullman’s staff officers.”
Keene started and caught Colby’s look as his eyes widened. Ullman hadn’t been part of it! Queal’s inside man was one of Ullman’s subordinate commanders. They could have gone to the top, all along. Keene’s feeling of nausea increased.
“What do you want?” Lacey asked tightly.
“Good.” Delmaro nodded. “The aircraft that is about to land on the main runway now is carrying the visitors from Kronia, who are under armed supervision. Their well-being, I don’t have to remind you, is a matter of considerable importance to the government of this nation. It will therefore be in your own best interests to cooperate. We require safe passage for them to Security Gate Three, where they will be received by a force from inside this complex. Is that clear and understood?”
The screen split to show a view looking out into the night, showing hooded figures with rifles moving away from the camera through a chain-link gate, perhaps taken from a vehicle parked in the vicinity. The message was that the people Delmaro represented had the gate and its approach already secured.
“Quite clear,” Lacey replied.
“Then you will give the order.”
Lacey hesitated, glancing at Keene. Keene could do nothing but nod. Lacey turned his head to address the controller and inhaled a long breath. “Turn the approaching aircraft around at the north end, and have a truck in position to lead it through to Security Gate Three,” he instructed. “Hold all other movement.”
“Very sensible, Colonel,” Delmaro approved from the screen.
Now Keene was confused. If the aircraft currently landing was the one bringing the hostages and their captors-ironically, employing the same ruse that Keene and his group had intended using-then who was in the military jet performing low, screaming turns around the base? The situation promptly got even more confusing.
“The lame duck is down,” the operator reported. His voice held a puzzled note. “But it’s not alone. We have a second contact following it, heading in on approach.”
So now there were three out there?
“Get a view of the first from one of the crash trucks,” Lacey instructed.
“Tender Two. Do you read?”
“Two here, Roger. Proceeding.”
“We’re with you back here. What do you see?”
“Difficult to make it out. . . . Some kind of turboprop, high-wing.” A view on another screen showed landing lights approaching through curtains of smoky gloom. “No sign of engine trouble. It’s running straight and true.”
“Stay out there, Two. There’s another one coming in behind it.”
“Another one? What’s going on?”
“We’re not sure.”
The lights swept by, accompanied by a passing roar of healthy engines, and the shape disappeared, heading for the remote, northwest end of the main runway, where it would turn and taxi back to pick up the guide truck. Meanwhile, the view alongside Delmaro’s image showed the armed figures moving out into a dim pool of light from a lamp over the gate approach area.
All of a sudden, the other operator called out in an alarmed voice, “The intruder is descending from the southwest, lined up on Number Two runway. It looks as if it’s going to land right across them!”
“Warn it off! Warn it off!” Lacey snapped.
“It isn’t responding to anything, sir. . . . Man, it’s coming down steep!”
“Get those crash tenders up the other end. Move ’em!”
“What in hell’s going on there?” Delmaro demanded, looking suspicious.
“We don’t know,” Lacey answered. “Except that everyone in those planes could be about to get killed.”
“The duck is at the far end, turning now,” one operator sang out.
“What about that intruder?”
“It’s down! I don’t know how he did it. Blind radar approach. It has to be a VTOL.”
“We’re getting a shot of him from the crash truck now,” the adjutant said. The bellow of powerful jet engines reversing thrust came from the screen showing the view from the tender racing back toward the north end of the main runway; then landing light beams appeared to the left, coming from a low, sleek shape sliding out of the night, closing until it seemed it was about to collide with the tender. The tender veered right as the driver started to evade, but then the intruder slewed around in a reckless turn that brought it ahead of the tender, going the same way.
“My God! It’s heading straight at the turboprop that just landed!” Colby cried out, horrified. “They’re going to hit head-on!”
And so, for an eternity of drawn-out seconds, it seemed, as the jet pulled away ahead of the tender, its tail silhouetted against the glare of the other aircraft’s lights approaching from the opposite direction. But the jet was braking hard, its shape growing larger again as the tender caught up with it. The lights of the turboprop beyond grew in brilliance until everyone watching was tensed, waiting for the impact that seemed inevitable . . . and then, at the last instant, the lights slewed sideways and then canted as the turboprop was forced off the runway. The crash tender pulled up seconds later, the view from its cab showing the two aircraft stopped with just yards separating them. Figures brandishing weapons were already pouring from doors on both sides of the intruder to take up positions around the plane it had headed off.
“How far away is that other plane that was following?” Lacey called out. “Can it get down in front of that mess? How much distance does it have?”
“It’s leveling out, sir. Looks like it’s changed its mind.”
“See, he already knows. That means they’re in contact. They must be together,” Charlie Hu said, trying to take it all in. Keene could only shake his head. Crazier and crazier.
“What was that other plane that just landed?” Delmaro demanded, looking worried now. “Where are the Kronians?”
“If they were in that first one, then they’re stranded at the top end of the runway,” Lacey said. “I can’t get there, neither can you, and I’m just as much in the dark as to what’s going on, whatever you think.” Delmaro’s composure was falling apart. He seemed about to say something, when the screen showing the scene at Gate Three suddenly brightened. He must have had a copy of the same view also, for he looked aside abruptly.
A ring of floodlights had come on, throwing the figures moving out from the gate-now revealed clearly to be FAST troopers-into sharp contrast against the darkness. There were maybe two dozen of them. Then an amplified voice boomed. “Do not make any move! You are covered from all sides. Throw your weapons in front of you and step back three paces with your hands on your heads.” The figures came to a confused halt, some raising arms to shield their eyes against the glare, others looking at each other questioningly. “You have three seconds before we fire,” the voice warned.
Keene, Colby, and Charlie Hu gasped in unison as they recognized the voice. “Jesus! . . . That’s Penalski,” Colby breathed. “He’s doing that with just si-” Keene signed to him frantically to shut up and nodded his head at the screen showing Delmaro. Colby put a hand to his mouth and turned away.
But it was true. Confident of having full surprise on their side, the FAST squad had not deployed into what they had presumed to be deserted surroundings, but just waited before the gate for the turboprop to roll up and deliver the hostages. Penalski had just six men with him out there in the darkness. Crazy Marines!
Delmaro hadn’t heard Colby, however, but was gaping on his screen, seemingly at a loss. Then the sound of a brief burst of automatic fire came from the screen showing the gate, and several of the figures ducked, presumably from bullets passing over their heads. Then, one by one, they began tossing down their guns.
Seizing the initiative, Lacey stepped forward to face the screen squarely. “You are Colonel Delmaro, I believe, right? Well, it’s over. You’re on your own, isolated from your hostages, and your men out here are disarmed. What are you going to do now? Shoot General Ullman? And what do you think that will achieve?”
Delmaro’s eyes shifted desperately. “There are still enough of us in here to take the Boxcar up,” he replied.
“Where to?” Lacey scoffed. “The Osiris? Do you know what happened to the last bunch that tried?” He shook his head. “Give it up, Colonel. Try and carry this through, and you’re definitely finished. Quit now, and you might work out a place for yourself in whatever comes next. But none of you is going to Kronia.”
Delmaro licked his lips and looked away. He seemed to be listening to others off-screen. Then he asked for a fifteen-minute hold. Lacey looked at Keene.
“Give it to them,” Keene murmured. Anything that calmed things down could only help.
“Fifteen minutes,” Lacey agreed.
The wind was causing sand and dust to rattle against the windows of the control tower as Keene and the others watched several vehicles carrying Air Police arrive to provide backup behind the cordon around the stranded turboprop transport. The turboprop’s doors opened, and figures began emerging to surrender in the light from the headlamps of the circle of vehicles. After them, the rescuers began leading out a procession of tall forms who could only be the Kronians. They were difficult to distinguish in the heavy outer garments they were wearing, until Gallian threw back the hood of his flapping parka to reveal his white hair as he shook hands with a helmeted figure toting a submachine gun, who seemed to be in charge of the rescue troops. Keene thought he glimpsed Sariena in the background, but it was impossible to be certain. And then the figure with Gallian turned to say something to one of the soldiers, at the same time removing the sand visor he was wearing and tilting back the helmet to scratch the front of a scrawny head. Keene’s knees almost buckled right there in the middle of the control tower floor. The figure who had arrived in the nick of time with his cavalry from the sky was-Leo Cavan!
Outside Gate Three, a truck filled with Air Police arrived to join the seven Marines in rounding up the incredulous FAST soldiers just as Delmaro reappeared on the screen, his face registering defeat. “Very well,” he agreed. “We have released General Ullman and are turning over our weapons.”
The other plane that had been following-a jet, from the sound-had been circling without making any further attempt to land. It broke off, finally, and flew away toward the south.
While the tower controllers got back to their business of dispatching the remaining transports, and ground crews towed the two recently landed aircraft into hangars for protection against the incoming storm, Keene, Colby, and Charlie Hu drove out with Lacey to meet the convoy from the north end at Gate Three, where others were appearing from inside the launch complex. The first feeble light of a restless, orange dawn was filtering through. Figures came tumbling out of vehicles laughing and back-slapping with relief after the tension, oblivious of the rising wind carrying needles of ocean spray mixed with the stinging dust. Colby went around shaking hands with the rescue team, who turned out to be a Special Forces unit that Cavan had “borrowed” from a friend in the Pentagon. Lacey poured congratulations on Lt. Penalski, who seemed slightly bewildered and not quite sure what he was supposed to have done that was exceptional. Keene sought out Gallian and Sariena to make sure they were all right, as well as others among his Kronian friends. And finally, he confronted Cavan.
“You’ve always had this habit of dropping surprises, Leo, but this time you’ve surpassed yourself,” he shouted above the wind. “Okay. How, for God’s sake?”
“Do you really want to stand out here discussing it, Landen, or shall we go inside first? I don’t know about you, but I could use a cup of strong coffee. We’ve been flying supersonic for over two hours. I don’t know how that aircraft held together. An incredible machine, Landen. Enough electronics to fly itself to China. It’s a long-range bomber airframe fitted with a modified power plant for Short and Vertical Take-Off and Landing-intended for getting Rapid Deployment units to odd corners of the world fast. Called the ‘Rustler.’ Just what we needed.”
“Where the hell did you get it?”
“Come on, Landen. I was in the Air Force for long enough as you well know. I still have friends there. Most of them have been at their wits’ end for something useful to do in all this. They were only too willing to help. I’ve been telling you for years: I wasn’t cut out for shuffling pieces of paper around.”
A broad figure wearing a beret under the hood of a combat smock and wearing a pistol as well as carrying what looked like an Uzi came out of the background. His insignia showed him to be a major. “Seems it’s all buttoned up,” he said to Cavan. Cavan gestured toward Keene.
“This is the man in the middle of it all, Mitch. Lan, meet Major Harvey Mitchell.” They shook hands.
Following Mitch was a woman wearing some kind of cap under a fur-trimmed hood, with blond hair showing on either side of her face, tucked down into her jacket. She moved over to stand close to Cavan as they came up, and smiled. Even with the outlandish garb and the spray and the wind, the first impression that Keene registered was that she was stunningly beautiful. “Hello. You are Dr. Keene. I recognize you from the television,” she said. Despite everything, her voice was managing to laugh. Keene came close to falling instantly in love.
“Ah, yes. It’s about time that you met Alicia too,” Cavan told him.
Keene blinked. “This is Alicia? But how on earth did you find the time to collect her as well?”
“I could hardly leave her behind, Landen. There’s no telling how, or when, or even if we’ll be going back.”
They moved with the others through the gate into the launch complex. Wind whistled through the fifteen-foot-high, razor-wire-topped fence. Engines opening up for takeoff roared from somewhere behind them.
The turboprop, it turned out, had been carrying just the Kronian hostages and their escorting force. Voler and the other names involved in the plot had all been in the plane following, which had flown away. Evidently, the idea had been for the inside force to seize one of the Boxcar orbiters being readied for flight and secure the launch facility, then board the hostages and their guards, with the elite arriving last, when everything was in place.
General Ullman, none the worse for his experience, met them in the Transit Lounge of the OLC-6 East complex, which was where outgoing personnel were assembled prior to launch and incomers awaited transportation. Nobody had any idea where the jet might be heading now, but with the hostages freed that had become a secondary issue. The first priority was to get the Kronians out before conditions got any worse, and the means to do it was right there, in the form of the Boxcar orbiter that Delmaro’s force was supposed to have seized. The Launch Supervisor was summoned and asked to initiate preparations accordingly, while the communications section tried to get a connection through to the Osiris to update Idorf on what was happening.
Communications with the East Coast administration were erratic and confused. When Cavan and his Special Forces contingent left, preparations had been in hand to relocate the entire executive arm of government to the FEMA Southern Region command center in Atlanta, using one of the special aircraft originally equipped to provide a mobile headquarters in the event of nuclear war. An AWACS flying command post that was to provide communications while the Washington facilities were being moved had gone off the air suddenly, it was suspected from a meteorite hit. The Washington area had suffered heavy bombardment, with a lot of fires started. Cavan didn’t know how much of the East Coast was affected, but when they took off there had been huge detonations lighting up to the north. On the flight over, they had seen large fires in the vicinity of Indianapolis.
Then it was discovered that one of the launch technicians, acting on his own initiative when Delmaro’s soldiers appeared, had disabled the hydraulic systems that elevated the Boxcar orbiters to the launch position. The damage wasn’t fatal, but it could take several hours to fix. And that meant that the Kronians were not going to get out before the storm.
Personnel not involved in fixing the Boxcar elevation hydraulics or trying to establish communications with the Osiris had been moved into the sturdier, safer structures. Grid power had gone, and the facility was running on its own gas-turbine-driven generators. Outside, the air was filled with pieces of sheeting torn from roofs, metal covers and cowls, and other windborne missiles. Fifty-foot waves had demolished the boat dock and were washing over the beaches and dunes on the north side of the base. The launch complex and runway were situated on the three-hundred-foot-high Burton Mesa dominating the area, and had escaped inundation so far, but the winds had torn loose and wrecked several launch vehicles at the exposed gantries and carried away parts of the buildings and other structures. The Boxcar orbiters were protected beneath the doors roofing their enclosed servicing bays, but there could be no question of launching them until conditions eased. In the general base area, those who had not yet left on Highway One had no choice but to sit tight. Perhaps they were better off than those who had gone.
Sitting scattered around the Transit Lounge were Keene, with Charlie Hu and Colby, most of the Kronians, including Sariena but not Gallian, a mixture of Mitch’s Special Forces and Penalski’s Marines, and some staff from the complex. The walls carried posters and cutaway drawings of various spacecraft, engineering charts and procedure guides, a map of the base and another showing the surrounding area, and a bulletin board covered with notices concerning things that didn’t matter anymore. All the windows were sandbagged, and those not already blown in or smashed by flying objects had been taped. Cavan answered the remaining questions from a worn easy chair by one of the tables, sipping black coffee from a plastic mug. Alicia sat by him, her parka thrown over the back of an adjacent chair to reveal golden hair that fell to her shoulders in sinuous waves, and an equally sinuous body that drew glances from every male in the room.
“Landen and I had already agreed that it had to be Vandenberg. We figured the rest out from what happened at LAX. Beckerson and a small group who were with him on the flight from Washington announced a change of plan and transferred to a T-43 that was waiting for them when they got to Edwards. It took off within minutes, before anyone there knew what was going on. A half hour later, the same T-43 landed at LAX and collected your good woman, Fey, and her traveling companion, along with a couple of others that had also arrived there. Now, a T-43 is a biggish aircraft to be using for such a small number, but all the same we didn’t think the Kronians were on board it. You wouldn’t bring your hostages into a place like LAX. Too much risk of something going wrong. You’d keep them out of the way until the time came to produce them. But it would either lead us to them or rendezvous with them somewhere, depending on the plan.”
“Now, just a minute. Let’s get this straight,” Colby Greene said, sitting forward. “You weren’t still in Washington when this happened. You couldn’t have been. I don’t care how fast that Rustler is, you couldn’t have got all this organized and crossed the country in the kind of time we’re talking about here.”
Cavan shook his head. “We were already on our way by that time-just about over Nevada?” He looked inquiringly at Mitch, who was tilting his chair back with his feet on the table on the far side of the room.
“We were close to Vegas when we got the report from LAX,” the major confirmed.
Keene looked at Cavan, even more perplexed. “So what are you telling us, Leo? You’d left Washington two hours or whatever before? Without knowing where they were or when they were going to show up? You help yourself to a plane and a bunch of guys, and just decide to go joyriding west with the end of the world going on, just in case something turns up. Is that what you’re telling us?”
The others around the room could do little more than shake their heads at each other, too much out of it all to really follow what was being said.
“Ah, well, it wasn’t really like that, now,” Cavan said.
Alicia raised her eyebrows at Keene, then looked at Cavan. “Maybe you don’t know him so well, even after all these years, Lan,” she said. “You’re being too modest, Leo. I’d say it was pretty much like that, yes.”
“Not at all, not at all. We knew they were heading for LAX. And something had to happen pretty soon after they got there. All we needed was to be in the vicinity and equipped to react quickly.” Cavan looked around the room and appealed as if to a jury. “All right, I took the law into my hands and cut a few corners. So I’ll take the reprimand when it comes, right? But if I’d stopped to try it the proper way, we’d still be in Washington waiting for the right rubber stamps even now. There’s an old piece of Irish philosophy that says contrition is easier than permission. The service doesn’t agree, of course. But I don’t think they’ll be doing too much worrying for a while. As I said, I’ll take the reprimand when it comes.”
Keene leaned back in his seat, managing a thin smile and shaking his head. “Okay, Leo, go on. Then what?”
Cavan was about to reply, when the crashing sound of something large striking the building came from above. The lights flickered, then stabilized again. Several people started or raised their arms protectively. Others exchanged strained looks. Everyone was getting jumpy. Several seconds went by, but apart from the ongoing background of wind gusts thudding and the rattle of sand scouring the walls, nothing further happened. Cavan went on, “We got them on radar as they climbed out from LAX-another nice thing about that machine I borrowed. They headed north, and seemed to rendezvous with another plane that appeared from somewhere inland.”
“Which had to be carrying the Kronians,” Colby completed, nodding in a way that said he could see it all now.
“Exactly. Both of them headed out to sea for a while, and then went into a wide turn that brought them back lined up on Vandenberg. The one carrying the hostages was in the lead, obviously intending to land first. And there was our chance. If we could get in ahead of the second plane and grab the Kronians while they were separated from the Society of Friends, there would be nothing for anybody to bargain over. And the rest you know. . . . We weren’t aware at the time that an orbiter had already been seized, of course. But it worked out all right. Without the hostages to get them a safe passage aboard the Osiris, what could Delmaro and his force inside do with it? I must say, our young lieutenant friend from the Marines couldn’t have timed things better. His move at the gate clinched it. Where is he?” Cavan looked around, but Penalski was not in the room.
“I think he’s with General Ullman,” one of the technicians said.
The Launch Supervisor came in through the doorway. All the heads turned, waiting. “It looks as if we might be able to get two Boxcars off if this mess ever eases up,” he announced. “Forget the rest. Nothing else is getting off the ground. We’ve got forty-eight places in each one. There are thirteen Kronians. The Kronians have nominated six individuals for places on the Osiris. We have two children separated from their families, who get to go. There are eight more children with mothers only-six mothers-and they get to go. We have one expectant mother; she gets to go. That means there’s room for sixty more, assuming the Osiris confirms that it can take them. We think it’s likely that it will, since not much is going to be going up from Guatemala-but we haven’t made contact yet. In the meantime, we’re taking names now in the office outside of all those who want to be on the list. The places will be decided by drawing lots. Immediate family groups-that’s parents with children-get one chance, but if it comes up they all go. I’ve got my name down. Anyone else who wants to leave the planet, step along. It’s open to all. General Ullman and his family are there, just the same as the rest. Nobody’s playing God over this. For once, that job’s being left where it belongs.”
Keene stood with Sariena on one side of a concrete-walled space full of motor housings, cables, huge pipes, and color coded valves in the lower levels of the complex serving the Boxcar launch bays. People were camped around and under the machinery, and children were having fun climbing about on the pipes. Those who could, kept themselves busy preparing soup, sandwiches, and hamburgers, or bringing pieces of furniture or other comforts from the offices and labs higher up; others played chess or cards, read, or tried to entertain the children. An area had been set aside for treating the growing number of casualties, from people venturing outside and being hit by flying debris to lacerations from imploding windows.
Not being as big as most of the Kronians, Sariena had managed to find some Air Force fatigues to change into from the clothes she’d been wearing since the abduction in Washington, and so looked a little fresher, if obviously tired. She had told Keene their side of the story, not that there was a lot to it. They had been collected from the Engleton by what everyone assumed to be the official bus to take them to Andrews AFB, but the escorts turned out to be captors who took them to another airfield somewhere. From there they flew several hours to a landing strip in a desert location, where the plane was covered under an awning until departing an hour or so before its arrival at Vandenberg. Their escorts were all military, following instructions, and couldn’t or wouldn’t disclose anything beyond what the Kronians could see for themselves. The Kronians had been held in a couple of trailers under guard. All in all they had been treated well and courteously, if firmly.
“Why not try and get some rest?” Keene said. “Even when they get the repairs finished, nobody’s going anywhere until the weather lets up.”
“Oh, I’ll try and hold out until we get back to the ship. Then I’ll sleep for a week. I’m sure all of us will.” Sariena’s eyes flickered over him briefly. “At least we were just sitting around most of yesterday and last night, waiting for something to happen. You should be just about ready to collapse when we get up there.”
Keene grunted and shuffled restlessly, looking away. He knew that Sariena had made the remark deliberately to sound out the discontentment that she sensed in him. Keene wasn’t sure himself why he felt it.
Following the example of their commanders, none of the Marine contingent or the Special Forces rescue team had put themselves on the list for the draw. Keene had been one of the six named by the Kronians for guaranteed places, but he had declined to be privileged and opted to go into the draw along with everyone else. Nevertheless, his name had come up anyway. It didn’t sit well with him. The other five had been Charlie Hu, who had accepted; Cavan and Alicia, who had accepted only because Cavan had insisted on Alicia’s accepting, and she had refused flatly to do so without him-but he didn’t seem happy with it; the engineer who had foregone a place on the last evacuation plane in order to supervise the hydraulics repairs; and Colby Greene, who, like Keene, had opted for the draw instead but been unlucky. Gallian admitted that perhaps it had been a mistake to offer any nominated places, but it was done now and couldn’t be changed.
“It’s not a time to feel ignoble,” Sariena told him. “Sending the women and children first might have some point on a sinking ship, where there’s an intact civilization for them to go back to, but in this situation we’re going to have to rebuild civilization. It’s going to need people like you every bit as much as new blood. You’re an engineer and a scientist, Lan. What will you do here when it’s over? Charlie can see the logic of it. He’s only being realistic.”
Keene was reacting to an instinct that he was unable to articulate and so took the opportunity to steer the talk onto a different tack. “I used to be a scientist,” he said. “But that was only until I saw what it was turning into.”
“What Earth turned it into,” Sariena replied. “What’s at Kronia is different-the way you’ve always said science should be. We’ve talked enough about it. Don’t you want to be a part of that?”
Keene leaned his elbows on a guardrail beside an access pit leading down under some machinery and sighed, giving her a tired smile. She was still selling hard-and doing a good job. “The beginnings of a whole new science,” he said. “It was just starting to get interesting too, wasn’t it? Did you ever think any more about the dinosaurs? When did Vicki and I call in the middle of the night? Five days ago, was it? I’ve lost all track.”
“We had some exchanges with the Kronian scientists while we were in Washington,” Sariena said. “Basically, they’re intrigued by the idea. They’ve got a possible theory about why that estimate of yours didn’t work.” She meant the rough calculation that Keene had made of how much Earth’s surface gravity would be reduced in a phase-locked orbit close to Saturn.
“What?” Keene asked.
“They think Earth may have gone through not one phase of gravity increase, but two. You only covered one of them.”
“Two?” Keene repeated, looking puzzled.
“Somebody there came up with the thought that maybe the account of an impacting body wiping out the dinosaurs, is only half the story. If it was high in density, say, five to ten times that of the crust, and large enough, then absorbing it into the Earth’s core would cause a significant increase in surface gravity. So before the impact, two factors were operating: the mass was smaller, and you had the effect of being close to the giant primary. When the gravity increased due to the extra mass being added, none of the giant life-forms that had existed previously could survive.”
Keene stared at her, trying to visualize what she was saying. It did make a strange kind of sense. A planet like Earth was molten inside a sticky bag of mantle, topped by a crumbly crust-not solid all the way through in a way that would shatter. A small, dense object penetrating and being absorbed would certainly have been possible. “But we’re still a satellite of Saturn,” he checked.
“Right. Maybe knocked out to a looser orbit.”
“So life is reduced in size, but still bigger than what we’ve got today.”
Sariena nodded again. “And how’s this for a coincidence? Taking the figures I used a moment ago, with the impacting body a fifth of Earth’s initial volume, the amount you’d have to shrink a dinosaur by to get back to the same strength-weight ratio that you had under the lower-gravity conditions, works out at about forty percent. That gets you just about down to the size of the titanoheres-the giant mammals that lived until the end of the Pliocene.”
The implication was clear. Keene scanned her face, as if looking for a hint that he wasn’t jumping ahead prematurely. “So are you saying that was when Earth detached from Saturn-and gravity increased a second time to become what we’ve got now?” He nodded slowly to himself as he thought about it. And by that time, humans could have existed to witness it-the Joktanians and very likely others, long predating what had been thought to be the earliest civilizations. Huge, too. The giant humans had existed along with the giant mammals.
“We don’t know what caused it to detach,” Sariena said. “Maybe another impact event-enough to have ejected the artifacts that were found on Rhea. That’s just a guess, of course, but it fits. . . . In fact, it fits with a lot of things.” Keene stared at her again. And so the temporarily orphaned Earth would have begun falling toward the Sun, away from the cradle that had seen its life begin, and warmed it benignly and nurtured it. For how long would it have fallen inward?
“The ice age,” he murmured.
“Yes. And when Earth found a stable orbit the ice melted, and Earth entered an age where grasslands and forests flourished where there are now nothing but deserts, temperate belts extended up into what today is the Arctic, and animals of every kind flourished in millions. The axis was more perpendicular to the orbital plane. We think those times lasted about five or six thousand years, through to three and a half thousand years ago.”
“And then Venus happened,” Keene said. The axis was tilted more. The climatic bands shifted and became narrower.
“Well, maybe. Some of our scientists have suggested that it could have been the Venus encounter that detached Earth from Saturn-which might explain why astronomy didn’t reemerge as a science for nearly two thousand years. All kinds of things become possible once you free yourself from the insistence on gradualism that has been stifling science here for two centuries.” Sariena moved forward to grip his arm. “These are the things we will be working on through the years ahead, Lan. A new science of Earth, written around a new history of humankind and its origins. Who knows what more it may turn up? The old, sterile ideas are dead. They were the products of a world that’s over. A new world is being born out there. And one day Kronia will rebuild Earth, but that might be generations away. It first has to build itself. There’s nothing for you to do here in the meantime. The place where you can do something that will matter is with us.”
Keene looked across at the children playing among the piping. He still didn’t feel at ease and wasn’t sure why. “I don’t know. . . . Somehow it feels like running out. A lot of people are going to need help,” was the best he could manage.
Sariena stopped short of scoffing. “From doctors and priests. And maybe later, anyone who can catch a fish, grow a potato, or throw together a shack that will stand up. But it’s going to be a long time before they need nuclear engineers again.”
Cliff, the Rustler’s young Flight Electronics Officer, who along with the pilot, Dan, made up its two-man crew, appeared at the top of a metal stairway nearby. He looked down over the machinery bays, spotted Keene and Sariena, and waved to get their attention. “You’re wanted upstairs,” he called to them. “They’ve just got a connection to the Osiris. There’s no telling how long it might last.”
The global satellite system had suffered appalling attrition, causing havoc with the official networks. A connection had eventually been established via the ground line to NORAD and Space Command’s underground city at Cheyenne Mountain near Colorado Springs, and a still-operational AWACS flight, to Amspace’s tracking facility, which was still managing to get through when the Osiris was above the horizon.
Idorf was on a screen in a local control room in the OLC complex, patched through from the main communications center. Colby and Charlie Hu were there with a group of comtechs and engineers, watching infrared views, taken from orbit during a temporary thinning of the haze, of the devastation farther down the coast from Los Angeles to San Diego and beyond. Marina Del Rey, Venice, and Long Beach no longer existed. Whole waterfront districts had been washed away, with street after street of wind-flattened houses farther inland looking as if they had been carpet bombed. LAX looked like an aircraft breaker’s yard, and JPL was a mess of collapsed buildings, upended and scattered vehicles, and demolished communications hardware-which explained why there had been no success in getting a link in that direction.
By the time Keene and Sariena arrived, Idorf had been updated on the freeing of the hostages and had confirmed that the Osiris would be able to accept the the two Boxcar loads of additional evacuees. “But you should begin boarding them now,” he advised. The wind you are getting is part of a general pattern that’s developing across the north-eastern Pacific, but a calmer center is moving south toward you right now. As soon as it gets there, you should be ready to go. We’ll transmit a beacon for you to home on.”
“What’s happening in other places?” Colby asked. “We weren’t prepared for the whole global system going down at once. Since Washington went off the air, we don’t know what’s been going on.”
“Visibility in most places is too bad to for me to say much,” Idorf replied. “There have been large bolide explosions over Eastern Europe and much of Asia. Our radar shows more to be expected in the next few days. Big waves caused by offshore impacts in the western Mediterranean have done a lot of damage along the French and Spanish coasts. Barcelona has been practically wiped out by a direct strike.
The room listened grimly. Nobody asked further questions. Keene licked his lips. “You’re coming in via Amspace?” he queried.
“Yes.”
“Is there anyone available on the circuit there? Can I see how they’re doing while we’ve got the connection?”
Idorf looked away and seemed to be asking somebody something about how long they’d got. “Yes, we have someone there,” he replied. “They’re putting him on. But keep it brief. We’re getting near the edge of our range.”
The screen faded for a moment, then stabilized again to show a begrimed figure with a bandaged head, wearing a forage cap and dust-streaked shirt. It took Keene a moment to recognize him as Harry Halloran. “Harry?” he said, just to be sure.
“Lan Keene. Since we’re linking the Kronians to their ship, I take it you’ve got them back.”
“Yes, but don’t ask me to tell you the story. Listen, Harry, we may not have much time. I just wanted to know how it’s going there. Did Marvin get the evacuation started?”
Halloran shook his head. “Everyone’s still here at Kingsville. When we began assembling them here, rumors started going around that Amspace was buying up food and gas and hoarding it, and we got invaded.”
“Invaded? Who by?”
“People coming in from the coast. Some of them just seemed to go crazy-tearing the fences down and taking whatever they could grab. It’s still ugly, Lan. We’ve had to fight to hang on to what’s ours. There’s been shooting. I don’t know what we’d have done without our own security guys. The police are too stretched to deal with it.”
“Shooting? Anybody hurt?” Keene asked.
“Sure. Some dead on both sides. The plant was like a battleground this morning. It’s calmed down now, but for how long, I don’t know. We’re still trying to organize the move to Lubbock but a lot of people here are quitting and just going with the general flow.”
Keene put a hand to his head. It had to come. But so soon? And it was going to get worse. “Harry, do you know anything about the people from my outfit-Vicki and the girls there? They were supposed to have come into Kingsville too. Have you seen them anywhere? Do you know where they are?”
Halloran shook his head. “I did see them here last night. But now? Who knows? They could be anywhere in this, if they’re still around. There are people showing up and leaving all the time.”
Keene stared at the screen. Sariena was watching him. Suddenly, he knew what it was that had held him back. It had been there all the time, for years, and he just hadn’t let himself see it. He needed to get back there. But once he did-if he did-there would be only one way out.
“Harry, do one thing for me,” he said. “Find Vicki and tell her to get to San Saucillo with whoever of the girls can make it there. And tell her to stay there. Whatever happens.”
“Lan, we’ve got about-”
“Just do it, Harry. Find her, and tell her! This one thing. Okay?”
Halloran gulped and nodded. “I’ll try.”
“Not good enough, Harry.”
Halloran nodded rapidly. “Okay. If she’s here I’ll find her and I’ll tell her. What are you going to do?”
“Did Wally ever get back from Washington?” Keene asked.
“We heard he was on a plane that had to put down in St. Louis. I don’t know where he is now.”
“He told me that Marvin was getting the shuttle down at Montemorelos checked out. You have to know about it.”
Halloran nodded. “But we never figured it into anything.”
“Well, that’s where we’re going,” Keene said.
“We?”
“Don’t you want to get out of this, Harry? You’ve seen how bad it’s getting already. You think that’s the end?”
“But where is there to go in it?”
“A new world. To Saturn. Get us a pilot. I don’t know about who else you want to bring. You know how many the shuttle will take. Just get to San Saucillo. I’ll be there.”
“But how do we know the Osiris will still be there?”
“Let me worry about that.”
Halloran started to reply, but Idorf interrupted to warn that the Osiris was losing contact. Moments later, the connection was broken.
Keene turned to confront the astounded faces around him. He felt light inside, suddenly, the feeling that comes of knowing that one has finally done what some instinct that knew best wanted all along. “Well, there it is,” he told them. “Scratch me off that list and let somebody else have the place. I’ll see you in orbit later.”
Nobody tried to argue, not even Sariena. Keene could have sworn that he saw a tear in her eyes when he looked at her, half expecting an objection. But at the same time there was a look that knew him finally, and accepted that it couldn’t have been any other way.
When the winds eased, it was found that a fallen gantry had fouled the overhead doors of one of the Boxcar launch bays. A crew went out to haul the obstruction clear with a tow tractor. The shower of rocks and gravel had slackened, but the hazard had not gone away completely. Within fifteen minutes one of the crew was killed outright. A dozen others stepped forward to fill the place. Getting the two Boxcars away had become a point of pride for all of the launch staff and workforce.
Meanwhile, loading went ahead of the first Boxcar, which would be taking the Kronians, the balance being made up of family groups and mothers with children, the children who had become separated, the expectant mother, and after them, the names heading the draw. The second Boxcar would be launched as soon as its covering doors could be opened. After that, the facility would be shut down and the remaining personnel, including General Ullman with his wife and two daughters, flown out in the Samson transport that had been held back. They would head for Peterson Air Force Base at Colorado Springs, where accommodation had been promised in the underground complex at Cheyenne Mountain. The only problem with that was that more people who had missed the evacuation by road for one reason or another were beginning to appear from among the shattered base-area buildings, many of them injured or in shock, and there was only so much room in the Samson. A search was being made for more ground vehicles, but many had been damaged and it was still far from clear how the situation would be resolved. Lieutenant Penalski with his six Marines and their pilot, Sergeant Erse, would wait for the launches, then endeavor to return in the Cessna to their unit at Twentynine Palms. Keene talked to Mitch, who agreed to detour via Texas and Montemorelos before attempting to rejoin the Eastern administration in Atlanta. Colby said he might as well go too. “I can’t think of anywhere else that appeals to me right now,” he explained. “Besides, I always wanted to see Mexico.”
Sariena and Gallian stood outside the tunnel leading through the bunkerlike concrete walls to the boarding ramp in the Boxcar launch bay, while behind them the other Kronians waved farewells and disappeared into the entranceway. General Ullman, who had come to see them off with a short, official message, watched with some of his aides. Keene stood with Colby, Mitch, Penalski, the Launch Supervisor, and others from the launch crew. He shook Gallian’s hand solidly, then took both of Sariena’s. “Well, I guess this is it again. . . . How many times have we done this? Saying good-bye to you is getting to be a habit.”
She nodded, unable to do more than whisper a low “Good-bye, Lan” in reply. Her expression and her manner conveyed as clearly as any words could have that she expected this to be the last time. Keene didn’t want to dwell on it.
The technicians directing the boarding ushered through a mixed group, among them Charlie Hu, carrying a canvas bag slung over one shoulder. He stopped in front of Keene and regarded him evenly.
“Well, Lan. . . .”
“I guess it’s time, Charlie.”
Hu looked past Keene, and his brow knotted. Cavan and Alicia were standing watching, but with Colby and the military officers, not with the line that was moving forward to board.
“I changed my mind,” Alicia said in answer to the question written across Hu’s face. “I’m too much the romantic. . . . Lan going off all the way to Texas to find this woman. I have to see what happens.”
Hu looked at Cavan. “I can’t do anything. She’s crazy,” was all that Cavan had to offer. Hu frowned; then his eyes moved to Keene. Keene said nothing. Theirs, along with Keene’s, meant three extra places available.
“We do have a couple with two young sons,” the Launch Supervisor said, keeping his tone neutral. “They’re next on the draw, but we had to put them down for the second launch.”
Sariena and Gallian had gone. The remaining passengers were moving through quickly. Charlie looked from Keene to the others, and then around. The family was standing anxiously a short distance away, where they had been told to wait in case something changed. “Shit!” He unslung his bag, and stepped aside to join the others. Without further ado, the Supervisor waved the family forward, and a technician followed them into the access tunnel. Keene and the others began making their way up to the control room where they had talked to Idorf earlier, from where the launch would be initiated.
Thirty minutes later, the first Boxcar roared skyward trailing a plume of flame and quickly vanished into the turbulent overcast. There would be no guidance from the ground, or even knowledge that it had reached the Osiris unless a contact was reestablished through Amspace or via some other means. Piloting would be entirely manual and rely on the homing signal that Idorf had promised. It would take about an hour for the Boxcar to climb to the distance that Idorf had pulled the Osiris back to and match its orbit.
With the first launch completed, the crew that had been working to free the doors of the second launch bay was able to go back outside and resume. Until they were through, there was little for anyone else to do. Charlie Hu and Colby remained in the control room with the engineers keeping the communications vigil. Alicia, who was a trained nurse, was helping with the casualties. Keene and Cavan, the leaders of the two military squads and their aircrews, accompanied by six of Mitch’s twenty-two Special Forces troopers, went out to the hangars by the runway area to check their aircraft.
Most of the buildings had sections of roof or wall torn away, and all were missing windows. The spaces and roadways between were covered with rubble and broken glass. One office block had been cleaved through the middle by a steel-frame tower which now lay twisted amid piles of desks, file cabinets, wall sections and other wreckage that had spilled from the sagging floors. A number of cars, some turned over on their sides, were buried under wreckage, two more thrown against the chain-link fence separating the runways from the launch complex. Medics wearing helmets with red crosses were tending a blood-covered figure on the ground, while APs and others struggled to extricate another. Three more forms laid out nearby were not moving.
The runways beyond were littered with fallen gravel and wind-blown debris. An earthmover with a blade would be needed to clear the way before any takeoffs could be attempted. True, the Rustler could get off vertically or from a football field if it had to, but it gulped fuel doing so. The control tower was a splintered shell open to the winds and looked out of commission, although figures were moving around inside. The other base buildings were all damaged, and a fire had started in one of them. The group from the launch complex walked on, saying little, their boots crunching on the grit and gravel. Keene stooped and picked up a piece curiously. It was still warm, not especially dense, like a bit of sinter from a furnace. A year before, it had been part of Jupiter.
People were clustered inside the open doors of the large, concrete-roofed hangar housing the Samson. As Keene and the others drew closer, they saw that a group of maybe two dozen was confronting several Air Force officers backed by a knot of APs carrying rifles unslung. The smaller hangar beyond, where the Cessna and the Rustler were parked, was still closed and seemed to have escaped attention. A big man, wearing a leather jacket, red hair hanging to his shoulders, was berating the officers loudly.
“Who was in the shuttle they launched? How many more shuttles are they getting ready in there?”
“There aren’t any more. That was it,” the officer at the fore told him.
“Then what about this plane you’ve been saving here? It’s big enough for everybody. There are people hurt back there.”
“It’s reserved for the launch personnel and their dependants. All the space has been allocated.”
“Well, nobody asked us about any allocating. What right does anyone have? We say the allocation needs to be gone through again, with fair chances for everybody.”
“You should have availed yourselves of the road evacuation. Why weren’t you there when you were supposed to be? We’re trying to find more vehicles now. That’s the best I can tell you.”
“What good’s that? There’s people coming back in off the highway. They were murdered out there. . . .”
The rest was lost as Keene’s party moved to the farther hangar. They let themselves in through a small door that gave access to the main area inside via offices. The floor was covered with glass from shattered windows above, and wind blowing through had left a coating of fine dust over everything. The roof had been breached at the end where the Cessna was parked, and the plane had been hit and punctured in several places. A check over the Rustler showed it to be unmarked. Sergeant Erse would have to stay on and assess the degree of damage to the Cessna. Dan, the Rustler pilot, said he’d give him a hand. Mitch assigned two of his troopers to stay behind with them.
As they came back out onto the tarmac, the radio on Keene’s belt squawked. He fished it from its pouch and acknowledged. It was Charlie Hu, calling from the control room inside the launch complex, where they had found a NASA cable route to the tracking station on Hawaii, which had opened up again, giving another connection to the Osiris. “Hello, Lan. The Boxcar is about five hundred miles out and starting to close,” Charlie said. “We thought you’d want to follow it.”
“We’re on our way,” Keene acknowledged. “The Boxcar’s going in to dock with the Osiris now,” he told Cavan.
Cavan nodded but seemed more concerned about what was going on at the larger hangar. “Leave your other four men here as well to secure those two planes,” he said to Mitch. “When we get back, draw up a roster with the others to relieve them. I want a permanent guard mounted here until we’re ready to leave.”
As Keene, Cavan, and the two commanders passed the large hangar, a jeep carrying Colonel Lacey and an AP escort drew up in front of the doors and became the focus of attention. Leaving him to it, they continued tramping back in the direction of the gate to the launch complex. When they were about halfway, the gloom around them brightened, making them look up. The light was from above, too high to be the setting sun. Through a brief thinning of the blanket of dust and cloud, they glimpsed Athena, looming ever more huge, glowering redly behind the folds and twisting pillars of its tail. Far above, a hollow boom rolled down from something exploding high in the atmosphere. The air had a smell of crude-oil vapors, like the areas around the refineries on the Texas coast.
The bay doors had been freed when Keene and the others got back to the OLC complex. Boarding of the second Boxcar was about to commence. Mitch and Penalski disappeared to organize the guarding and resupply of the two planes, while Cliff, the Rustler’s second officer, left with an airframe mechanic to help the two pilots working on the Cessna. Cavan went with Keene up to the control room.
Colby and Charlie were with a group around the console handling the Hawaii link, which was showing Idorf on one of the screens. He was looking suspicious. The atmosphere seemed confused. Idorf spoke before Keene or Cavan could ask anything.
“I was told that you were having trouble with one of the shuttles, that only one had been launched. How is it we have two craft approaching? I hope this isn’t some kind of trick, I’ve seen enough of them already.”
The Launch Supervisor, who was standing immediately in front of the screen, shook his head. “The other Boxcar is still here. . . . We’re as baffled as you are.”
“Did our delegation leave in the one that was launched?”
“Yes, of course they did.”
“How do I know that? Something strange is going on here.” Idorf moistened his lips. “I’m deploying an X-laser as a precaution. It can be recovered later if this is a false alarm.” He proceeded to issue orders to others off screen.
“What is it?” Keene hissed at Charlie.
Hu indicated a display showing the projection of a hemispherical radar plot being generated by the Osiris’s radars. “There are two ships closing up there. One’s leading the other by about a hundred miles. Nobody can figure it.”
“Which one is the Boxcar?”
“We don’t know.”
The Supervisor turned around, saw that Keene and Cavan had joined them, and shook his head. “We don’t have any ground-station or satellite data to go on anymore. What can I tell him?”
“Maybe there was something up there already that latched onto the Osiris’s beacon,” Cavan mused.
“Maybe.”
Idorf looked back. “So far we have had no identification response,” he said. “Why are there two if you only launched one? How can we even be sure that either of them is the one that you launched? Once again, I have to take precautionary action.” As he spoke, a blip detached itself from the Osiris symbol on the radar plot and began moving away toward a standoff position. Keene felt his stomach tightening. He had seen this before. Visions raced through his mind of a ghastly mistake about to unfold.
“We think one of them might just be something that picked up your beacon,” the Supervisor said. “Don’t do anything hasty, for God’s sake.”
Idorf’s brow creased. “What are you implying? I can assure you that I don’t relish being in this position. But need I remind you that one attempt has been made already to take this ship by armed force?”
“What?”
“It happened yesterday,” Colby said from the back of the group. “Four of them. We’re not sure where they were from.”
The Supervisor glanced back, read the confirmation on Keene’s and Hu’s faces, and looked again at the screen. “I . . . didn’t know about that,” he told Idorf.
Idorf looked away, off-screen, suddenly. “Just one moment. . . .”
“What happened?” one of the techs next to Hu murmured.
“They didn’t get even close,” Colby answered. Idorf looked back. “Apparently we have just begun receiving an identification transmission . . . BZ650 . . .” He glanced away again. “Which is as we were given to expect.”
“That’s it! That’s the Boxcar!” the Supervisor confirmed. Exhalations of relief came from around the room. Keene’s muscles untightened. He moved forward into the viewing angle of the screen where Idorf would see him.
“Hello, Captain. It’s no trick. Who the other ship is, I don’t know, but I can vouch for these guys.”
Idorf’s expression relaxed. “Ah, Landen Keene! You, I know I can trust. Why didn’t you tell me sooner that you were there?”
“I only just arrived. We’ve been kind of . . . busy down here.”
Idorf nodded. “I can imagine. . . . A moment, Lan. . . . Yes, okay, we’re getting a beam from them too, now.” Again, he looked away to follow something that was going on nearby. Then, tension around the control room rose again as his face took on an ominous frown. Evidently, all was not so well after all. “They’re saying they have an emergency,” Idorf reported. “They’re being pursued by an armed vessel that’s attempting to use them as cover to get to the Osiris. They have weapons trained on them. They’re asking us to fire on it.”
Keene and Cavan exchanged looks. Neither had anything to offer. There could be craft up there from just about anyone with launch capability, in who-knew-what state of desperation. This wasn’t exactly a time to be expecting everyone to be displaying rational behavior.
“The beam is definitely coming from the lead ship?” Charlie Hu queried.
“We can’t tell. . . . And apparently it’s not clear that they are receiving our signal. They’re not acknowledging, just transmitting.”
“Who is sending to you? Who do you have on your screen?” the Supervisor asked.
Idorf paused to check off-screen once more. “Dr. Stacey.”
The Supervisor looked around, puzzled. “Stacey? Who in hell’s he? . . . That’s not right. Who’s commanding the Boxcar?”
“Corlaster,” somebody said.
“That’s what I thought.”
“He says he’s the senior person aboard, and in control,” Idorf informed them.
Somebody had produced the passenger list and was scanning it frantically, but nobody had heard of the name.
“Can you copy us here with your incoming channel?” Keene said after a few more mystifying seconds. Idorf nodded and made a signal mutely to somebody. One of the technicians seated at a console near Keene read a code and entered a command. . . . And moments later, Keene found himself looking in astonishment at the features of Herbert Voler. Colby gasped somewhere behind him. Cavan was staring in disbelief. Nobody else in the room knew Voler or recognized him. Fey was to one side of him, Queal slightly to the rear on the other with the shoulder of somebody else showing next to him.
“Well, is this your man or is it not?” Idorf snapped. “Be quick. The range is closing.”
Meanwhile, Voler was imploring, “Please, if anyone there is receiving us, our situation is critical. This is Doctor Stacey, in command of Boxcar BZ650 from Vandenberg, calling Osiris. Repeat, we are being pursued by unknown craft that is armed. Suspect intention is to use us as cover to board and seize your ship. Imperative that you intervene and destroy. Your delegation is aboard with us, and their lives are in jeopardy.”
Then Voler moved to reveal the view along a cabin extending behind him. Soldiers in combat jackets were in the nearer seats. And behind them, farther toward the rear were . . . the Kronians! All of them. Keene could make out Sariena’s black tresses distinctly and, beside her, Gallian’s white crown. Clearly, the image was being faked. As much would be evident to the others in the room as well. Besides the obvious fact that Voler’s people had not been aboard the Boxcar, Sariena was wearing a green tunic, as were the others. When she went aboard the Boxcar, she had changed into freshly supplied light blue Air Force fatigues.
“This is Captain Idorf of the Osiris. We are receiving you, BZ650. Can you hear me?”
But either Voler couldn’t or was pretending not to. “This is urgent. Boxcar BZ650 from Vandenberg calling the Osiris. We are closing to dock with you. . . .” Everyone in the room was looking bewildered. The Supervisor threw his hands up helplessly. “What in hell’s going on?” he pleaded. “Who are those other people?”
“What do I do?” Idorf demanded.
Keene thought frantically. There was no reason for Voler’s group to think anyone might be monitoring this latest stunt, let alone anyone who knew them. They had banked on being able to get away with faking the image because they had presumed this encounter would involve only the Osiris. On the screen, a figure behind Voler moved aside, showing itself to be Beckerson, at the same time uncovering more of the cabin beyond. Several of the soldiers had rifles propped between their knees. The Kronians had been wearing green tunics when Mitch’s force got them out of the turboprop just after it had landed early that morning-the tunics they had been wearing since they were hijacked in Washington. The picture was a superposition of Voler and the others with him, which was genuine-they were up there now, inside one of the ships-and a background taken aboard the aircraft in which the Kronians had been flown to California the day before. The two had been combined to give the impression that the transmission Idorf was receiving was coming from the Boxcar just sent up from Vandenberg. But the ship was transmitting the Boxcar’s correct identification code. The Boxcar with the Kronians aboard was up there in orbit somewhere. It had to be the radar blip that was following.
“Charlie,” Keene shot across. “Would it be feasible for the ship in front to intercept the ID code from the ship following, retransmit it, and use some kind of ECM to blot out anything else from the ship behind?” he asked.
Hu looked at him strangely for a moment, then nodded. “Sure . . . if you had somebody who knew what they were doing. Just about any ship would carry the equipment you’d need.”
Keene moistened his lips. He looked back at Idorf. “That view of the Kronians is a fake,” he said. “They’re not there at all. The background is being manufactured.”
Idorf’s face hardened. “Target both objects,” he instructed off-screen.
Keene felt perspiration on his forehead. Everyone else was leaving it to him now, with no idea of how his mind was working. There was no time to debate with them.
Voler and his party had left at first light in a T-43 jet transport, heading south and climbing. Keene did a quick mental calculation, then added several hours for storming a launch pad, taking up a shuttle that had been readied in hope of arriving emigrants, making orbit, and maneuvering into position. “Guatemala,” he muttered aloud. “That’s where they went. They seized a shuttle at Tapapeque. That’s what the lead ship is.” Colby looked emptily at Cavan. Cavan shook his head and shrugged. Keene followed his reasoning through, visualizing in his mind what would happen if the seized shuttle were allowed to dock with the Osiris by an unsuspecting crew expecting other Kronians. A FAST team, armed and waiting to go, would take the ship in minutes. And then, the full extent of what was intended unrolled itself in all its ghastliness. The Boxcar and everyone in it were sacrificial. Idorf was being urged to fire on it-with his own people aboard-to provide a diversion and maximize the surprise when the shuttle carrying Voler and his force docked.
And with extra room aboard the Osiris thus created, and its defenses neutralized, how many more of Voler’s “elite” would be brought up afterward? With all but a skeleton crew to fly the ship eliminated, how many of their kind would go to Kronia, and with what intentions? And so it would start, all over again.
“Captain Idorf,” Keene said. Despite himself, the words came out shakily. “Ignore what he’s saying. There is no Doctor Stacey. Target the lead vessel only and fire. The one following is BZ650, and your people are aboard it.”
If Keene’s reconstruction of events was correct. . . .
The room around him had frozen into statues, all staring at him. From the screen, Idorf’s eyes interrogated him silently. Both of them understood that there could be no discussion or inviting of second opinions. “You are certain of this?” was all he said.
How could Keene be? His shirt was sticking to his back, his throat dry. He closed his eyes and nodded mutely. Idorf gave the order.
And somewhere high above the Pacific, a spacecraft and several score human beings flashed briefly and turned into vapor that dispersed into the swirling gas clouds of Athena’s tail.
Hawaii lost contact before Idorf was able to identify the vessel that remained.
The second Boxcar was launched a little over an hour later, into the night. By then, everyone remaining was too exhausted to contemplate evacuating before morning. There were several incidents that night involving bands from outside coming into the base, presumably looking for supplies and weapons, some involving sporadic shooting. Mitch and Penalski posted extra guards on an extended perimeter around the hangar, with the reserves sleeping under the wings of the Rustler.