It had traveled through the silent void for countless millennia, since the formation of the solar system. A gray and black lump, it was well in advance and to the side of the rest of the hurtling swarm, a forerunner of what was to come. The irregular mass of iron and rock entered the outer atmosphere somewhere over eastern Iran, quickly heating up to become a flaming streak across the tranquil summer evening.
It had companions--specks and chunks that briefly lit up in long fiery trails before they burned out, or were deflected by the thickening blanket of air, spinning back out into space to begin a new path. But the big one flamed on, deeper and deeper, angling downward.
The air slowed it, but it was still traveling at a tremendous velocity when it struck the earth at Biskra, near the Tunisian border. In an instant the meteor obliterated the rambling Arabian town. Where forty-six thousand people had lived moments before there was only smoke, a steaming crater whose bottom was a bubbling pool of sand and rock turned into lava, and death. In the suburbs, along the roads and trails, lay blackened bodies, children and animals and twisted burned things. Every building was leveled. Sand dunes were fused to molten glass or blown away to the bedrock. Brick, flesh, machines, dolls, the mosque, animals, everything: molten, vaporized, burned.
The immense ball of orange flame that was the death knell of Biskra was seen by a crop analyzer on Space Station Three. She stared, blinked, then reached for the emergency microphone. Earth had been struck by the largest meteor in modern times.
* * *
Zakir Shastri was normally calm, even placid, as befitted an astronomer, whose chief was patience. But now he bit nervously on his full lower lip, his dark eyes intent upon the words and numbers building in glowing lines upon the screen before him. He took a deep breath and exhaled it in a sigh. He glanced away from the phosphor dots, out the side port. Earth swung into view. Across the nightside, dotted with smudges of light, something suddenly scratched a long streak of orange light. Then it vanished. Soon, another. Then two dimmer ones. He sighed, closed his eyes to blank out the sight, and chewed nervously on his lip.
The Indian astronomer sat strapped into a chair bolted to the platform. He was at the sighting focus of the main telescope, where he could "eyeball" the precise fix he wanted. This was the place where he felt most at peace in the entire Orbital Astronomical Observatory. It was not vastly different from the famous cage at Palomar, where generations of astronomers had labored through the years in the biting cold of the California mountains. Now, pollution of the seeing conditions by the billion lights of the megalopolis below made Palomar a risky site for some kinds of observations, particularly for taking spectra of dim objects. And, of course, Palomar was the prime example of the basic limitation of all Earth-based telescopes: precision of resolution. Visitors to Palomar and other great observatories always thought the point of building such a giant telescope was to see more detail. In fact, Palomar couldn't "see" any better than a twenty-centimeter backyard telescope. The rippling air above any telescope scrambled light waves coming in, erasing any detail smaller than about a half-second of arc. Telescopes bigger than twenty centimeters were just buckets for catching more light; they couldn't make out any more detail than their smaller brethren. Only by putting telescopes in orbit could astronomers see any better. So the eighty-centimeter tube directly in front of Shastri represented a new dimension in peering at the universe. Without the obscuring blanket of air, this telescope could see fine features in the optical, ultraviolet, and infrared ranges. It would, in time, open a universe in a way the great Hubble could never have dreamed.
The lean astronomer bent over the eyepiece. Despite all the machinery and computers, sighting on a distant fleck of light was best done by the human eye and hand. He peered intently through the prime eyepiece, his long dark fingers on the knobs.
There: a muzzy patch of light. Dust and gas and pebbles. It was noticeably dimmer than the last time he looked. Soon the image would fade into the background. At the center of the pale white cloud was a pinpoint of light. The source of all the debris around it. An ancient rock, chipped over the aeons by small collisions. Shastri watched it drift sideways in the focus, declination increasing.
He estimated the are width and did the numbers in his head. His face contorted in a brief, bitter grimace.
Then he caught the dim dot, calibrated it, and set the exposure time electronically. A deep plate this time, to resolve as much structure as possible in the cloud. He thumbed the proper button and sat back. He had only to wait.
Later he could measure the plate, for precision. But for the moment the computer programs would reduce the data from them, on on-line tracking. He switched on the display again and watched the figures building on the screen in long luminous lines. He wiped his palms on the thighs of his gray jumper. Once again he checked the computations, laboring through each step to be certain, the greenish screen light and the dim red bulbs making his face strange.
Shastri sat back, his face grave. Much of the life had gone out of his expression.
After a little while, he unshielded the side port and gazed out. The telescope's spherical housing was attached to one end of the three-hundred-meter-long Orbital Astronomical Observatory, commonly called Station Three. The sphere containing the telescope counterrotated against the gravity spin of the station itself. Around Shastri was the tubular bulk of the main optical telescope, dimly lit in red, and on the platform was the computer support system that controlled it.
Shastri shifted beneath the white strap that held him to the aluminum chair, glanced again at the figures building on the screen in long luminous lines, and wiped his palms on the thighs of his gray jumper. Impatiently Shastri turned and studied the readout screen from Station Six.
A third away around the same Earth orbit was Six, with its immense five-kilometer radio telescope. Radio astronomy, he thought, was where all the action was these days. But he knew if he really needed it, one call would enlist that giant ear/eye.
Both Stations were in Band Five, the outer Terran orbit. Both were awkward, bulbous objects, with spheres on protruding columns, radio discs, telemetry masts and landing docks sticking out at what seemed like random angles. Station Three had accreted over the years, growing, adding, but rarely subtracting. Shastri recalled his surprise at finding, deep within the complex, the Apollo tank which had been the foundation rock upon which the entire complex had been constructed. It was now used only for luggage storage.
Shastri shifted his hooded eyes at the dull boom of an airlock opening. He heard the clatter of someone moving awkwardly into the weightless environment of the observatory sphere. In a few moments Fakhruddin Radhakrishnan, Shastri's lean and bearded young assistant, came wriggling through the tube passage. His eyes were wide and concerned, dark with dread. His white turban was hastily wrapped, its loose and floating in the air. He scrambled into the platform and secured the wandering cloth absently as he asked, "Is…is it true?"
Shastri indicated the large screen which was still printing out figures. "Starsearch is comparing the photographs now, and eliminating all the known and logged asteroids." Radhakrishnan pulled himself hand over hand to the console, twisted into a seat, and fastened the restraining strap. Then he peered anxiously at the screen.
"You backtracked on the trajectory?"
Shastri nodded. "Luckily it showed on a plate here, and at the Planetary Studies' scope at Six. It's an Apollo object. What it's doing in this area is…" He stopped talking when the printing creased coming on the screen. He leaned forward, muttering as he read the information.
"Ah, elliptical orbit…the long axis--the semimajor axis--of um, only zero point eighty-eight…um…nearest approach to the sun is zero point three astronomical units." Shastri sat back with a grunt, his eyes staring moodily at the screen.
Radhakrishnan pointed with a thin brown finger. "The orbit is tilted to the ecliptic plane." He looked at Shastri. "Most of the Apollo asteroids stay efficiently away from the orbits of the inner planes, don't they?"
Shastri nodded, his face shadowed. "Yes. Any other orbit and…well, most of them would have hit Mars and Venus--or Earth--long ago. And probably did."
Radhakrishnan frowned, staring at the screen. "The Apollo asteroids we know cross the ecliptic plane only at some intermediate point between the Earth and the sun, don't they?"
Shastri nodded, his lips drawn down. "Then…" Radhakrishnan swallowed hard, his eyes blinking as they stared at Shastri. "Then the swarm has been flattering its orbit, bit by bit…drawing closer to Earth as it…as it turns on its outer orbit, before…before returning toward the sun?"
Shastri did not answer. His fingers shifted the information on the screen into storage and then pecked out another set of instructions. The screen lit up with a computer simulation of the sun, the orbit of Earth, the moon, and the known Apollo objects. Then he added the orbits of the eccentric asteroids: Hildalgo, Adonis, Amor, Eros, Ceres, and Apollo. Then Hermes, Pallas, Juno, and Vesta.
"Just to be safe," Shastri murmured, adding tiny Hygeia, Eunomia, Psyche, Davida, Hebe, and Iris. Then other, still smaller "tagged" asteroids were put into the mix. The screen was a mass of elliptical ovals. Shastri hesitated, sighed. Then he took what was known of the orbit of the asteroid that had extinguished the Tunisian town and put it into the system. The glowing line, red against the white of the earlier computations, built up into the orbit of the meteor that had struck Earth. Quite plainly they saw the orbit flattening, tilting down into the ecliptic, coming closer and closer to the orbit of Earth.
Neither man said anything. Shastri punched out more information, to freshen his memory of the Apollo objects. The words and figures rippled quickly across the screen.
The first asteroid found with a semimajor axis and period less than Earth was 1976AA. Such objects are difficult to find because they are relatively faint, fast-moving objects. The standard search plan by Earth observatories had been to compare a series of standard key shots, distributed along the plane of the ecliptic and extending to moderate longitudes north of the ecliptic. Planet-crossing objects can be recognized because they leave steaks on the twenty-minute exposures. Shorter exposure pinpointed the object precisely. The space observatories used a very similar method, but with clearer, brighter photos and with computerized comparisons. But in either case they had to be fast, us the objects quickly became lost in the star field.
"Why haven't we seen this swarm before?" Radhakrishnan blinked nervously, his hands crabbing fitfully across the control deck.
Shastri shrugged. "Most of the observation time has been directed outward, toward the outer planets, toward the stars. That's where we all thought the big payoff would be." He shrugged again and inhaled deeply. "We played percentages. Besides, a great deal of the time this asteroid has been near the sun, from our angle, or on the other side. We did see it before, only we didn't know what it was."
The youth's head snapped up. "Of course! Eleven months ago! That summer, all those meteroties!" He blinked rapidly, we his lips. "And twenty-two months ago, when we first activated this station, all those--" He stopped abruptly, and the two men stared at each other.
"Elliptical orbit," Shastri said. "No telling how long it has taken to get here again."
"Again?"
Shastri nodded. "The Arizona crater, many of the bays in Canada--all could have been the result of earlier passes by this swarm."
Radhakrishnan licked his lips, his eyes flicking toward the slit of sky. "But…but there's so much territory, such a vast volume…a few steroids…"
"It's definitely a swarm," said. "With a diameter twice that of Earth." The young astronomer stared brightly at his superior, his mouth working soundlessly.
"I'll double-and triple-check," Shastri sighed, "but…" His eyes went to those of the younger man. There was a terrible sadness in them. "There is an asteroid in the center. A big one. More than two kilometers across. It's…" His mouth moved for a moment, but he seemed to have lost the connection.
After a moment his hand reached out. He recalled the orbit projections to the screen before them. He punched in instructions and the long ellipse stretched out, away from Earth. "The fixes on position and velocity I've gotten enable us to make a prediction. Watch while I run it forward in time."
The asteroid's ellipse arced around the sun and then back out. Meanwhile, Earth moved serenely through its nearly circular orbit, a yellow bead on a string. The dot swept most of the way around the circle while the asteroid's ellipse out swiftly out from the sun's vicinity. Earth curved to meet it. The two points met.
"Collision," Radhakrishnan murmured.
"We will have to check this," Shastri said heavily. "But the closeness of the pass this time…" He shrugged.
In the silence Radhakrishnan studied his superior. He looked tired, so changed from the energetic man he knew. He changed the subject. "What do you intend to name it?"
"Name?" Shastri frowned. "Ah, yes." To the discoverer was given that honor. "I see." He stared at the screen, frozen at that moment of time when the two beads of light met.
Shastri nodded. "I name it…Shiva. Shiva, the Destroyer."
* * *
They all rose when the President of the United States came in.
"Sit, sit," he said brusquely, waving them down. He strode to the center of the lozenge-shaped table without any of the hand-shaking or camaraderie that was usually a part of John Caleb Knowles' public entrances. Several politicians exchanged glances, but none of them gave much away with their faces.
Knowles sat down, a tall, gray-haired man with a seamed, honest face. Myron Murray, his Special Assistant, took a chair behind him, a special bulky one with a computer terminal. Knowles's dark blue eyes swept around the table, gathering attention but not specifically acknowledging any of the generals, admirals, Secretaries, or other officials. He looked down at the closed folio on the table before him, resting under his hand, with the bright red diagonal markings of secrecy printed across its manila cover.
The President looked up and swung his head toward Charles Bradshaw, the operational head of NASA. Bradshaw, a thickest blondish man with his hair trimmed unstylishly short, sat somewhat nervously at the far end of the table, plainly uncertain and a little fearful at to why he had been so suddenly rushed to this Cabinet-level meeting.
Knowles assessed him in one swift look, his mind going over the dossier he had scanned just before leaving the Oval Office. It was a Top Secret Clearance dossier, Bradshaw's complete record from birth to yesterday, but John Caleb Knowles knew that what appeared on paper was never the whole man. A lot would depend on this one man, perhaps everything. Knowles could not afford a mistake in judgment, nor could mankind.
"Mister Bradshaw, I'm glad you could join us," the President said, Bradshaw nodded and muttered something inaudible. Being singled out made him even more nervous. Launchpads and control rooms didn't make him nervous. He was at home in computer complexes and welding shops. Engineering and personnel problems didn't bother him, but politicians like this did. He was awkwardly aware that more than one pair of eyes were assessing him in quick, penetrating glances.
"Ladies and gentlemen," the President said in his all-too-well-known voice, "we have a problem of some magnitude. Unless we solve it, it may be our last problem. I do not believe I am exaggerating." The chief executive looked back at Myron Murray. "Ready?"
"Yes, sir." Murray's fingers stabbed at a stud of his terminal. A stylized American eagle mural at one end of the room slid up, revealing a screen, and the room lights automatically dimmed.
The picture that appeared was static--a space shot, with a sprinkling of stars. A white circle appeared, enclosing a few tiny dots. "This is the problem," Murray said. "A meteor swarm, code-named Shiva. It is moving away now, but the disasters we have felt were from the periphery of the group." There was a murmur, but it died quickly. "It will return in eleven months, approximately, and this time--"
He covered a momentary pause by replacing the optical shot with a radar-generated computer mosaic, which was clearer. He followed this with computer animation, showing the elliptical path to the swarm and the orbit of Earth. They met. No one said anything.
"Thank you, Myron," the President said. The lights came up and the American eagle slid soundlessly back into position.
Knowles gathered the eyes again. "I don't need to tell you this is a bastard. Either we fix it the first time or we're dead." He gestured around vaguely. "Oh, maybe we're alive…maybe…in some silo or Air Force underground hard base. But for how long? And what shall we govern? Who will we lead?" He shook his head, which was lowered, bull-like and fierce. "No we must destroy this…this Shiva, this space rock."
"More than a rock, Mister President," Myron Murray reminded him quietly. "It's a mountain."
"Yes, of course. But first I must determine in my own mind whether this is hokum or not. Doctor Kinney, is there any possibility that this is all a scare?" President Knowles slapped his hand down atop the papers before him.
The balding, heavy man down the table leaned forward. "There is always the chance that, at this range, there is some miscalculation, but…" He spread his hands. "At this point I do not think so. Shiva will miss us on this pass…we are only getting the outer meteors in the swarm. But it will certainly strike us on the next orbit Which, um, is approximately eleven months from now."
There was a murmur and heads bent to confer. The President rapped with his kunckles on the table. "Gentlemen. Ladies. Doctor, you are saying that a collision is inevitable."
"Unless something is done to deflect or destroy the asteroid, yes. Even then…well, Cal Tech, MIT, the Thales Center in Boston, several independent…well…they all agree, sir. Within about ten percent, that is. The swarm will strike Earth and inflict severe damage…but if this central asteroid, this Shiva, hits…" He blew out his breath and made a gesture of fatalistic acceptance.
Caleb Knowles turned his head toward Chuck Bradshaw. "Mister Bradshaw, as head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration it would seem to me that whatever we do will fall within your venue. Therefore, Chuck, I am naming you head of an emergency team." Knowles looked over his shoulder at Myron Murray. "Myron, find the right terminology, laws, presidential powers, and so on. I want it understood by everyone…" He looked around the table again, his voice firm, with that edge of danger that had terrified many an opponent, "By everyone, that Chuck Bradshaw gets whatever he wants." Knowles looked at Senator Oren Mathison, the majority leader, and then at Congressman Powell Hopkins, Speaker of the House. "I want action on this. No debates, no partisan crap, just action. Get the money, get things moving, and do it!"
"Yes, Mister President," the two politicians said together, then looked at each other questioningly.
"Chuck…"
"Yes, sir?"
"Pick your team and pick it fast. Whoever you want. Anywhere in the world. We'll arrange it. British, Russian, Chinese, anyone. If you need a Bulgarian midget with green hair, we'll find you one." His gaze moved around to Willard Woods, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. "Full cooperation, Will. And fast cooperation."
"Yes, sir, of course."
"Care banche and top speed, people," Caleb Knowles said. There were nods and murmurs all around. "And no interservice squabbles, either," he said, glaring at the uniformed men. "We have one shot at this. No more. No time for anything else. No foot dragging, no but-they're-Russians-so-we-can't-cooperate nonsense. If you don't realize that, I'll get people who do."
Gordon Brown, the Director of the FBI, spoke up in his dry, gravelly voice. "How public will this be allowed to be, Mister President?"
John Caleb Knowles grimaced. "I know, Gordy, I know. Panic, riots, the works. Then charges of cover-up if we do keep it quiet." He shrugged, then grimaced again, but this time from the terrible burning in his stomach and the involuntary cramping of his bowels. This was getting to him worse than election night nerves, he thought. "Well, keep it under wraps as long as possible, then I'll go on the tube and give 'em a straight-from-the-shoulder talk. But I'll need something definite to give them. A progress report. What we're doing about it and so on."
"What if the Russians spill if first?" a general muttered aloud.
The President swung around in his chair and looked at Gilbert McNellis, the Secretary of State. "When do I talk to Kalinin?"
The diplomat glanced at his watch. "In about fifteen minutes, sir. He was unavailable until--"
"Bull waste, Gil. He wanted to check everything out.Call up the Russian team at the Observatory and so on. What about Chairman Wu?"
"Right after, sir."
Knowles nodded and stood up. There was scraping of chairs and clearing of throats. The President looked at the table top for a moment, his face softening from the hard facade of moments before, then he raised his head, snapping back. "Gentlemen. Ladies. I am certain you will do your best. But if you don't…heads will roll. Be right the first time and don't take forever to decide. Forget all that bureaucratic bull waste you've grown to know and love…and use. This is the sudden-death play-off."
He left the room in silence and those standing around felt weak and uncertain. Then a four-star Air Force general looked down the table at Chuck Bradshaw.
"Mister Bradshaw, would you appreciate suggestions from us for personnel or action…or will you handle this yourself?"
All eyes went to Bradshaw, who had to forde his clenched hands apart. "I…I will name the basic team this afternoon. I would appreciate Air Force transportation for everyone, to Houston, as soon as possible."
The Secretary of Defense said in his high-pitched Vermont accent, "Ayuh, and you'll need quarters, supply, logistical backup…"
Suddenly there were a dozen voices, each adding to the din, each making suggestions. After a few dazed moments Chuck Bradshaw stood up. "Gentlemen! Ladies!" The voices died down and Chuck heaved a sigh of relief. "Thank you all, but…I'll can upon you and your services as we need them. I'd appreciate a few minutes with the Joint Chiefs, then with Secretary Rogers." He raised his hands as more people started to speak. His voice grew harder and colder.
"I'll decide…and I will let each of you know. General McGahan, I will appreciate full global Signal Corps cooperation and open access to the satellites." The officer nodded briskly.
"Thank you, everyone, I'll get back to you," Chuck said.
* * *
President Knowles was thinking about his dead wife, Catherine. For the first time he was glad she was not here to see this global trauma. Or what is happening to me, he thought. I feel as though I'm crumbling from the inside out, like some termite-infested house. I put up a good front, but all politicians do that automatically. But inside, where I really live, it's getting to be hollow.
"Ready, sir?" Myron Murray gestured to Giorgi Sviatopolk, Sitting nervously at one side of the dark Lincoln desk. He wore earphones and his broad fingers touched a blank pad before him.
Knowles nodded slowly. He looked around the room as if it were his first time there. It was an important room; anyone in it was an important person. History had been made here.
"Sir?"
Knowles looked at Murray. "You know, Myron, you're a good man. The perfect Number Two."
"Sir, the Vice-President is number two."
Knowles permitted himself a faint smile. "On paper, Myron, only on paper. You're Number Two, and damn good at it."
"Thank you, sir, but the premier…"
Knowles waved his hand to indicate a wait. "How long has it been, Myron?"
"Sir?"
"Since we got together? Sixteen, eighteen years?"
"Almost nineteen, Mister President. Since your second campaign for Congress."
"You happy here, Myron? Doing this job? Ever want to sit here yourself?"
A look of distaste and surprise appeared on Murray's well-trained face. "No, sir." The idea appalled him. He knew what he was good at, and had no fatal ambitions. He pitied those he saw every day who ate their hearts out because they were not closer to the sun god…or weren't the sun god themselves. That was mental cancer. He took great pride in what he did and how well he did it, but it was a secret pride. He didn't think it showed. "Sir, the premier?" "Oh, yes, of course." He turned to the interpreter with a soft smile. "Been reading up on this Kalinin, have you?"
"Yes, sir. The full CIA file."
Knowles smiled wryly. "No one reads the full CIA file on anyone. Maybe not even me. Though bastard, is he?"
Sviatropolk nodded, his face gloomy. "Yes. sir. Survived the sweep after Stalin's death in '53. Tagged along with Khrushchev and survived his rise and fall. Really got going under Brezhnev, rose to First General Assistant of the Central Committee in the last days, then under--"
"Yes, yes," the President said impatiently, "I've read the file, too. Yaroslav Kalinin is a survivor. I'm counting on that. He'll see it is to his country's interest that they cooperate, if only to prevent us from getting all the credit if we succeed."
The dark-haired interpreter paled. "If, sir--?"
"When, when. He'll cooperate just as soon as we lay it all out for him. That Lenin Institute of their must know everything we know by now."
Myron Murray held up the red handset, his fingers holding down the disconnect. Caleb Knowles walked over, sat down, ran his tongue over his teeth, then grinned at Giorgi. Sviatopolk. "Do you know your opposite number, too?"
Sviatopolk managed a weak smile. "Yes, sir. Not personally, but well enough through the un, you know, the reports."
Knowles sank back. "And he knows you. They know me. I know them…and together we know nothing. Um, give me that." He took the handset and barked into the line, "The President of the United States here!"
* * *
In Moscow Yaroslav Kalinin handed the handset to Nikolai Menshikov, who cradled it carefully. The heavy-bodied premier looked at his interpreter with a fierce, searching stare. "Well, Comrade Petlyura?"
The young woman cleared her throat and put her fingers nervously to her chin. "Comrade Kalinin…I believe him."
Yaroslav waved his thick-fingered hand, the rough fabric of his severely plain uniform rasping in the quiet room. "The engineers will decide that when they have analyzed his voice stress, and when they are able to work on the data they are sending. Any other reasons?"
Petlyura thought a moment, her eyes on the pad before her, covered with neatly printed notes and more hastily scrawled lines shown to Kalinin during the conversation. "He is aware that we will think so. He is aware that there is a propaganda victory of incredible magnitude to be obtained. Even big enough to be shared But…"
"But I think he is genuinely, realistically concerned." The young woman inclined her head toward the blue covered report at the other end of the table. "If the institute report is correct…we must cooperate." She raised her eyes and looked steadily into the harsh, eagle-like glare of the General Secretary.
After a moment Kalinin nodded and the interpreter breathed out. "I think so, too. But we must always be aware that there are ways to burn certain events to our advantage." His dark eyes moved to Nikolai Menshikov. "I want stepped-up intelligence reports. I want predictions on their plans and I want plans of our own." As Menshikov nodded, Kalinin added, "And I want two sets of basic approaches to after."
"After, sir?"
"After they--or we--stop this Shiva and after…if they don't."
Menshikov sighed. "Is there any point…if they don't?"
Kalinin glared at him and the younger man looked distressed. "There is always a point, comrade. You must look beyond the obvious…and beyond what is beyond."
* * *
United Airlines flight 235 arrived in the Cleveland vicinity slightly early, helped by a tailwind out of the prairie states. The big jet was in its assigned flight path and the pilot was taking it easy, thinking about a steak and a stewardess on an American Airline flight that was almost certain to arrive at about the same time.
The pilot banked slightly toward the distant glow that was Cleveland, his flying sense on automatic, with regular scans of the control panels. She was a leggy blonde who didn't mind his being married at all. The cloud cover was slight. We saw a line out of the corner of his eye and turned his head.
The thin orange line high in the sky suddenly grew a ball of yellow flame at its tip. Then he could see nothing more; a white glare filled the cabin.
The copilot, who had been looking down at a clipboard checklist, looked up, startled. He missed the flash of light. Through the windscreen he saw a luminous yellow egg sitting on the distant dark horizon. A growing egg. Billowing upward. Opening…
The blast threw their heads back into the neck braces. Their ears roared. The engineer screamed. The huge jet veered as though slapped by a giant hand. The pilot struggled to right the plane, swearing, muscles tense. A quick glance showed him they had lost four hundred meters of altitude.
Ahead, the egg faded to orange.
The pilot shook his head, trying to clear it. The copilot plucked at his arm, his lips moving, gesturing at the spreading reddish haze before them. The pilot's mouth sagged open. He was deaf.
* * *
Caleb Knowles left his hand resting on the red phone. He stared at the liver spots that mottled his hand and sighed, shortly, almost sharply. He listened to a question-and-answer session between Murray and Sviatopolk with only a part of his attention.
It had been a long time, he was thinking. A very long time. Even before Catherine died, it had been a long time. He'd been faithful, even though he'd often been tempted. Politicians had groupies just like pop musicians and Caleb Knowles had been an unusually attractive candidate and president. He knew this, and had exploited it with cheerful, if ruthless, single-mindedness.
Everyone uses whatever they have to get whatever they want, he thought. Everyone. There are no rules for this. There cannot be. People are people. They want to be loved for themselves, without anyone thinking of their money, their power, their sexual attractiveness, who they know, what they do. Everyone waits a pure love, one on one, without qualification, without ulterior motives.
And none of us ever gets it.
"Mister President?"
"Oh? Eh?"
Murray was looking anxiously at him and Knowles realized that Brigadier General Sandra Cohen was standing there, looking pale. Knowles' face tightened with annoyance; he hadn't been aware that his military aide had entered the Oval Office, or that the interpreter had quietly left.
"Yes, Sandy?"
"Sir, uh…" The brigadier glanced down at the paper in her hand. Raggedly torn from a wire service machine. News.
"What is it now?"
"Cleveland, sir."
"What do you mean, Cleveland?"
"Wiped out, Mister President. Twenty minutes ago." She raised the paper, her eyes sad. "Verification from Station One, and from an overflight from--"
"Cleveland? The entire city?"
The officer nodded, her face pale and grim. "Total Apparently the meteor came in over Pennsylvania. There were reports, but there are so many shooting stars right now, that--"
"Yes, yes."
"It, uh, this meteor…we have no idea how large…it, uh…it hit, uh, Cleveland Heights, uh, plowed right through almost to Lakewood."
"Jesus Christ," the President said softly. "Anderson Petrie, Darrell Ellison…they were there…and Fielder Elliot…"
"There's more, sir," the general said uncomfortably,
"More?"
"Strikes are reported in the northern Quebec province…but in a pretty much uninhabited area. Forest fires, though. Some minor damage in western Kansas. And, uh…"
Knowles glared at her. "Go on."
"The moon, sir. It didn't hit anything directly, but the seismic quakes knocked out the Russian station on Farside. Split the domes, twisted the mass accelerator."
The president sighed deeply. He seemed to age, his clothes to deflate. He rubbed his freckled hand across his face, sighing.
"The Vice-President?" Murray asked.
"Safe. He's in transit to Station One with the Secretary of Space."
The President spoke in a weary voice. "Any idea how many more hits we're going to get?"
"No, sir, but they think we're just being brushed by the outer fringes of the swarm as it moves on past. It's on turnaround, and, uh…" She swallowed rather noisily. "We've almost eleven months, Mister President, to--"
"I know how much time we have. It's pitifully little. You can't mount an operation like this overnight." Abruptly he looked up at Myron Murray. "Is Mrs. Carr still in the building?"
"I don't know, sir, I'll check." He reached for a phone.
"Ask her to come in. Thank you, Sandy, Keep me posted."
He stared at the empty desk top for a few moments, then Murray hung up the handset. "She's coming, sir."
"Thank you, Myron. Go shake up the lead-asses, will you? I don't want any foot-dragging. I told them, but I know damned well I'm going to have to tell them again."
"Yes, sir." He started for the door, looking back over his shoulder as Knowles spoke again.
"Ask Grace to send her right in, will you?"
"Of course, Mister President." He gave General Cohen a look.
"Will that be all, sir?" the officer asked and Knowles nodded. The general followed Murray out and closed the door behind her.
Knowles swung around in his chair and looked out at the darkening sky, He saw a shooting star. Twinkle, twinkle, little star, he thought, How I wonder where you'll scar. He felt sick again, the way he had in the service, before action. Helpless, vomiting into the weeds, into swamps, in the corner of the helicopter. But he'd always been all right after. Or almost always.
This is one of those "almosts," he thought sadly.
There was a discreet knock and Barbara Carr came in, her face worried and attentive. "Mister President?"
He forced a smile. It felt stitched on. "Hello, Barbara, Come in." He watched her close the door behind her and move across the thick carpet, passing through a corner of the great gold and blue seal wove into the fabric. He liked looking at her. She was in her early thirties, a handsome rather than beautiful woman, and he knew her to be efficient. "That's a lovely dress," he said.
"Thank you, sir," she replied, but her face held a questioning, alert look.
"You have excellent taste."
"Thank you, Mister President."
John Caleb Knowles sighed. "You know, I don't think I'll ever get used to being called that. It always reminds me of when a young woman first called me 'sir.'"
She smiled but said nothing. They both felt stilted and awkward. Knowles straightened up. "Well. I want to see Steve Banning the minute he gets in from the coast."
"Excuse me, sir, but I…well, there are rumors, and with all these meteor strikes…" She raised her eyebrows in a question and the President nodded.
"Tell Myron to brief you. It's true. We're on a collision orbit with a meteor swarm. A big meteor swarm. What we've been getting is just the fringe stuff." Her eyes went wide, but she retained her composure, then suddenly smiled, which surprised Knowles.
"Excuse me, sir, I…um…I can't help wondering how this is going to affect the election."
His face grew grave. "If…if we don't stop this thing, there won't be any election…or an electorate."
She attempted a cheerful disguise. "You've got my vote, Mister President."
"I had your husband's, too, when he was alive." Her smile lost a millimeter of its power. "Did a fine job for me on that farm bill. The space industries hassle, too."
She let her smile run down. "Yes, he was an effective congressman."
Caleb Knowles warmed up is smile and waved his hand. "Well, don't let me keep you, running on like that. It's just…" He sat back, his smile becoming a rather rueful grin. "Oh, I hate that stuff. You know, 'it's lonely at the top.' But it is, damnit."
Barbara raised her eyebrows. "And you no longer have your wife to talk to…?" She swallowed noisily, and covered her nervousness by changing her position in the chair.
He looked at her sharply. "Yes, Yes, you're right. I don't mind admitting that. Damned smart woman, Catherine. She had great antennae. Picked up the vibes on people and she was rarely wrong, and not by much when she was. Well…" He seemed unusually nervous, and Barbara started backing away. "No, wait," he said. "Uh…you've met Chuck Bradshaw, haven't you?" She nodded. "What do you think of him?"
She touched her tongue to her upper lip, paused, then spoke out. "Efficient. Not as confident of his own ability as his record might indicate. Smart. Inhibited. Careful, but willing to take a calculated risk. Good administrator. Gets along better with people who speak his language than those who don't, but don't we all?"
Caleb Knowles nodded, a faint smile on his lips. "Thank you, Barbara. Someday remind me to ask about the uninhibited part."
* * *
Outside, in the white corridors with the curving vault ceilings, she stopped at a water fountain. Did I do the right thing? she wondered. That's my inhibition, all right: never quite certain.
She smiled automatically at one of the aides as the passed, then walked briskly toward her office. She felt strange, and masked it with a slight frown.
Was the President of the United States really interested in me? That way?
She didn't quite know how to feel about that.
But she did know there was a stirring in her loins. A response. That kind of response she had not truly felt for some time.
It was very, very enjoyable, and made her feel guilty.
* * *
It was very quiet in the cabin of the shuttle. Earth had ceased to be a curved surface and California stretched out, green and brown beneath the scattered clouds. There were just the standard cabin sounds: the blip of the landing radar, the faint click of relays, and the buzz-blip of the special landing grid screen. They were into their final approach, the Pacific directly below them and Point Arguello a protruding point of land to the south. Vandenberg Air Force Base was directly ahead.
Colonel Diego Calderon flipped the landing-gear systems switch and waited for the answering thunk. Nothing happened. He shot Lisa Bander a quick look but his copilot was already checking. Their eyes ran quickly over the array of lights.
Rear landing gear was down, check. Forward gear showed nothing. "Malfunction," he said softly, and simultaneously reset the landing gear subsystems. He flipped the switches again. Nothing. "Madre de Dios."
In the right-hand seat Major Lisa Bander leaned forward and automatically hit her manual override controls, her dark eyes frowning beneath her level brows.
Nothing on the control panel before them changed.
"Vandenberg, we have a Mayday Able Baker," Diego said rapidly and clearly into his suit mike. "Repeat. Mayday Able Baker. Our nose wheel fails to deploy."
Diego glanced out the forward window. Cirrus clouds drifted lazily by and below a sandy brown scruff of California met the ocean. The shuttle craft was running smoothly down its glide pattern, coming in swiftly and almost silently to land. He saw Lisa point with her thumb toward her spherical glassite helmet in its clip. He shook his head. They wouldn't need them, not yet. They were almost down into breathable air.
"Shuttle Seven, we read you Mayday Able Baker. Give us a diagnostic squirt."
Lisa was already tapping out a systems inventory. She filed it into the transceiver processor with a nudge of her thumb. The screen before her rippled with a cascade of information. She tapped a blue button and a high-pitched squeal filled the cabin.
"Squirt received, Shuttle Seven."
Diego again scanned the airspace ahead. All air traffic had been rerouted, as was standard practice, since the shuttle came in as a glider and had relatively little control. But there was always the chance some civilian with a faulty radio could wander into the flight path.
"It's the hydraulics," Lisa said quickly. Her voice deepened. "I'll bet it's that damned turbo-pump shaft and housing." She looked at Diego over the metal rim of her spacesuit. "There was an amber hold on that in our preflight checkout, remember? But the board cleared before we had time to check it out further."
Diego nodded. "Seventeen minutes to touchdown."
A tinny voice spoke into his ear. "Shuttle Seven, we have repped and verified your in house diagnostics. Apparent component failure in the pump subassembly of the forward Juno housing. That is Code Able Baker Four Eight Six."
"Recovery'chances?" Diego asked.
"None. Housing has separated."
"Mierda," Diego muttered angrily. "Then foam the field," he said firmly. He glanced over at Lisa. Her eyes were bigger than usual, and brighter, but he was proud of her. Nothing else showed. No sweat, to fear, only alertness. Trouble was no stranger to any astronaut, not even on the milk-run shuttle flights. But when it happened, it usually happened fast. It was always bad, coming down from space, catching your emotions unaware. You do what you have to do and you don't feel much until it's over. That was what training meant. But beyond training, it was in the basic choice of the people selected as astronauts. They may get scared--they were often scared--but they rarely panicked, and that made the difference.
"Shuttle Seven, We will not follow standard procedures on this. NASA Houston has taken charge."
Lisa and Diego exchanged quick looks. "What?" she broke in. "Get that foam out there or we won't have anything to slide in on! This is no time to far around."
Diego grinned at her. Her way of reacting to things was one of the reasons he loved her. She gave him a faintly embarrassed look, then her lips grew firm again.
"Ah, ah, stand by, Shuttle Seven."
Lisa was automatically cycling through the hydraulics switches, trying to let the system redeem itself. She looked up and said, "This would happen when we're rusty as hell."
Diego formed a thin smile. He was watching their progress along the glide path on the screen before him. One good thing about the shuttle was that there was no fuel in the bird. When they came in at around one hundred thirty kilometers an hour, and slammed into the lake of foam, there would be no fuel to catch fire, even if the hull ruptured. he tried to remember the percentages on this particular malfunction. Hale and Zenowski had come through one much like this perfectly. But Mort Smith and Julie Short had pranged themselves good, split the fuselage open, and dumped their cargo all over the field. He hoped to hell that didn't happen this time, and not only because his lover sat in the copilot's couch. They were piloting down over eight million dollars' worth of products. There were steel bearings, perfectly round; forming them in orbit, with no gravity, made them spherical to the limits of measurability.
Farther back in the cargo hold, well secured, were high-Q silicon crystals. This was the first big shipment to come down. There had already been numerous news stories about the long, dark bars of silicon, and a special team from the National Science Foundation was meeting the shuttle to take possession of them. The bars were the crucial element in the gravitational wave detector being built at the University of Maryland, in the old lab where Weber had stared it all. Tap one of the crystals and it would hum for over a million years. It was an absolutely perfect lattice. When a gravitational wave from some distant supernova passed by, even as weak a force as gravity would touch off a loud and clear vibration in the crystal. With signal strengths that high, astronomers would at last be able to study the ancient black hole at the center of our galaxy.
Diego sighed to himself. This cargo was damned valuable-more in potential even than in money--and they had to bring it in. What was Vandenberg stalling about?
"Shuttle Seven, this is Chuck Bradshaw."
Diego and Lisa looked at each other with raised eyebrows. What was the head of NASA doing, getting into this?
"I am ordering you to chute out. Read me, Shuttle Seven? Chute out. Jump."
"Bradshaw, that's crazy," Diego said quickly. "we've lost the nose wheel. The aft gear is deployed. Coming in on a tricycle gear with the two back wheels holding isn't that dangerous."
"I am ordering you to eject."
"And I'm countermanding your order. You know Maydays are strictly an Operations matter. What in hell is going on with you people down there?"
"Diego…" The anger in Bradshaw's voice changed. He became more reasonable. "Look, I had the regular crew bumped off this flight for a reason, believe me. You two are first-line astronauts, not just shuttle jockeys. There's something big brewing and…and NASA can't risk people like you."
"What is it?" Diego asked. The Pacific beach was passing under them. There was not much time left. "What's more important that these high-Q crystals?"
"It's classified, Diego. Lisa, can't you do something with him?"
"He's in command, Chuck." She gave Diego a quick smile. "Besides, I think he's right. On the basis of the information we have."
"Look," Bradshaw argued. "I know you're technically on contract with Space Techtronics, but that's jut a formality. You're both still Air Force officers and--"
"Come on, Chuck," Diego broke in, "you've got to do better than that."
There was a brief pause before Bradshaw spoke again.
"It's classified. I brought you two down three weeks early because I want you in on it."
"I remain unconvinced," Diego answered, watching the flight path monitor. "This is an important cargo, Chuck." The noise of passing air was building up, whistling past.
"Damnit, I'm ordering you! Jump! We need astronauts now, not crystals."
Diego looked at Lisa. "What do you think, babe?"
She grimaced, her eyes on the dials and lights. "It's not easy to risk your life for a bunch of hardware. But that's what we're paid for." She looked over at him. "I don't want to be the first shuttle crew to bail out and lose one."
A pause. They looked at each other soberly.
"Me, either."
He glanced out at the clouds. Between them it was clear and bright. Glide path good. It looked as good as it would ever be.
"Get that foam out, Chuck," he said slowly.
"Mister Bradshaw?" the Vandenberg flight director asked.
A pause. Then: "Foam it."
* * *
The shuttle appeared awkward and slow, high in the air, shimmering in the that waves reflection up from the field. As it approached the field it seemed to gather speed. The white spacecraft came down flat and straight. The vertical stabilizer split along its length, opening about thirty degrees on a side, to act as a speed brake. The ship struck the dazzling white foam, sending it flying in a bow wave. The rear wheels bit in and flared orange and two centimeters of polyrubber burned away smokily. Diego kept the nose up as long as possible. An undereddy built up at once, slowing them.
Within a few seconds the risk of destabilizing the craft became too great. He brought the nose down slowly. It was like descending into a white lake. They hit, skipped, hit again with a screeching of metal. The forward hull manifold came away with a wrenching crash, bumped against the fuselage, and clattered to pieces behind them. Vibration rattled them in their harnesses. Something crunches, howled, broke off with an explosive sound.
Diego felt the craft slew to starboard and corrected instantly, keeping the fire trucks in the corner of his eye for orientation. The howling noise battered at them, rose in pitch; a low growl began. The hull was groaning with strain, metal was popping, minor seams giving way.
But it held. It held. Shuttle Seven skidded on its belly across the foam, splashing up a sluggish bow wave, spewing blobs and steamers right and left. The big spacecraft slewed awkwardly to the left, touched one stubby wing tot he earth, and stopped.
Lisa popped the emergency exit and went out. Diego hesitated only a moment, checking on the integrity of the cargo hold. It was still intact. The silicon bars, ears to listen to the whisper of the stars, were undamaged. Then he followed Lisa out of the hatch. The ground crew snatched at him and wrapped him immediately in a protective blanket to keep off scorching metal fragments. He was smiling broadly as he trotted away from the ship, wading through neck-deep foam.
* * *
Captain Carl Jagens, the United States Navy's top-ranking astronaut, was very popular with the media people. Blond, good-looking in a harsh way, tall for an astronaut, he was always good for a story or a quote, with an uncanny ability to predict the direction and force of current thinking within the political and scientific community, and unafraid to try to sway that thinking. He was holding court for a carefully selected group of newspeople when he saw Lisa Bander and Diego Calderon enter the NASA briefing hall.
Carl frowned as two of the newspeople broke away to intercept the newcomers, but he went quickly back to his subject, the same subject he so expertly propounded all over the world: space exploration. But he remained aware of his two chief rivals for the attention of the popular press.
"Hey, Lisa, wait up," Py Rudd said. He looked over his shoulder and caught the attention of his cameraman, who swung his shoulder-mounted video camera at them. "Heard you two pulled a stunt out at Vandenberg. Care to comment?"
Lisa smiled. "Don't quote me as saying 'no comment,' Py. We just wanted to save the taxpayers a few bob."
CBS's Nancy Darrin joined them, deserting Carl Jagens. "There's a rumor you disobeyed orders, Colonel Calderon."
Diego just looked at her, his face expressionless. "Really, Colonel," Nancy said, her smile icy, "sometimes your reputation for nonverbal behavior gets in the way of the public's right to know."
He shrugged and looked away. "When I have something to say, I'll say it." His rebuff did not stop the aggressive reporter, who opened her mouth to speak, but NBC's Rudd spoke first.
"Major Bander, what is going on here today, do you know? There are so many rumors--"
The female astronaut smiled politely. "I'm just a hired hand, Py. I come when they call."
"This is about the meteor strikes, isn't it?" he asked. Lisa shrugged, aware of Rudd's open admiration of her as a woman, as well as an accomplished astronaut. Blonde and tanned with a trim, sturdy figure, Lisa always stood erect, with a kind of coiled tension. She was not a fragile flower, nor was she the archly glamorous "astronette" and champion of women's rights as the media so often portrayed her. She was simply Major Lisa Araminta Bander, United States Air Force officer and American astronaut.
"Diego," Nancy Darrin said crisply in her no-nonsense, don't-lie-to-me-or-I'll-have-your-hide voice. "Do you have anything?"
The dark-haired astronaut shrugged. "No more than you, Ms. Darrin. Excuse us, will you?" He smiled, his white teeth flashing in his olive face, and he included the camera lens. He took Lisa's elbow and started to guide her away.
"Still lovers?" Nancy asked. Py Rudd made a sound in his throat and swallowed a smile. Diego's hardened gaze swung back to her, cool and dangerous. "Off the record," she said, her smile icy.
"Off the record--and on--it's nobody's business."
"Astronauts are everybody's business," Nancy Darrin replied, her professional shark's smile bright and predatory. "Especially since you are no longer all cut from the same goody-goody mold." She sighed dramatically, but her eyes were calculating. Diego saw the CBS camera pointing at them. Some European news agency swung another one toward them. "You space types used to be cookie-cut, all Wasps and neat. Look-alikes, even the wives."
"Uh-huh," Diego said, looking away, resisting the impulse to rise to her bait.
"They used to think the wives were all manufactured in some secret laboratory somewhere," Nancy persisted. "Maybe clones from some Miss America."
"Yeah, right, they where," Diego muttered. His dark eyes slid sideways to the reporter. "Came from the same place writers get their ideas."
Nancy's cool smile stayed on and she tipped her head to the side as though to acknowledge Diego's point. Then she made a large show of "discovering" Senator Howar and moved away, as if to more important matters. Py Rudd grinned at them and waggled his fingers as he moved off toward another important figure.
Lisa looked at Diego, a smile hidden but dancing
in her eyes. "Touchy wetback," she muttered.
"None of her business," Diego said tightly, but he, too broke into a grin. It had happened before, this invasion into their private lives, and they both knew it
would happen again.
A short, wide man came sauntering up to Lisa and
Diego, grinning and doing a little mock dance before
them. "Lisa! Amigo! Beauty and the beastie. You look just as beautiful as every," he said to Lisa, then slapped Diego on the arm. "How the hell are you, Zorro?"
Lisa smiled. "Ah, Dink--off duty?"
"You betcha, starlady. Ol' Dink Lowell has fallen heir to a plush job." His face shifted expressions for a brief moment, then the smile was confidently restored.
"Grounded, my ill-starred couple, grounded. Tied to a desk and a terminal."
"Why?" Diego frowned, holding the man's upper arm.
"Entropy," Dink sighed. "Age, m'man. Slowing down." He winked at Lisa. "My finger just isn't as quick on the button as it used to be."
"That's nonsense," Diego said over the increasing noise. "How much strength does it take to run a computer or sit still for six months? It's judgment and experience, not…" He looked briefly at Lisa. "If it took brute strength, we'd not be co-ed."
Dink sighed dramatically and pulled away. "Aw, what the hey, Zorro. Law of averages. Only so many boosts to orbit in a man, huh? So now I get kicked upstairs and I get to tell you fumble-fingered dolts what to do. How about that, huh?" He turned jerkily toward Lisa and grinned widely. "See ya around, Beauty. You, too, Lisa," He said as he turned into the crowd.
There were murmurs as someone entered. The people began moving toward the folding chairs and Lisa could see Chuck Bradshaw mounting the dais. He bent to speak to Lyle Orr, NASA's publicity chief, then moved to the podium and flicked his finger at the microphone. There was a soft metallic boom and relative quiet descended. Bradshaw stared to speak, then was interrupted by the twitchy screech of a chair being pulled across the floor. No one laughed.
Bradshaw cleared his throat, then looked around the room, his face bland, but those who knew him well read the tenseness under the calm again. "You've heard about the Algerian strike, of course…and Cleveland." There were nods and grim faces. "There's more." As he pulled a paper from his jacket there was a waver of whispers, but they quieted down as Bradshaw spread the paper on the lectern. "Uh…some minor strikes in the Quebec area. Not much damage." He glanced up, and a kind of rictus smile twitched across his face. "By the standards that have been set recently, that is. Then uh…this morning, about 5:10 our time, there was a strike on Farside. No damage to any facility but to registered eight point two on the Lunar Richter Scale."
Bradshaw rubbed at his chin, his eyes shadowed as his head hung down, bull-like. "There's, uh, there's more. Another strike. We don't know all the details yet, but it was in the Arctic Ocean at 11:17 our time. We just got it in from Station Three. It…it sent a tidal wave over Murmansk and…it's gone. Erased."
"Another meteor?" someone asked in a disbelieving voice. "My God, what's coming at us?"
"A swarm," Bradshaw said in a flat voice. There were more murmurs and Bradshaw waited it out, breathing slowly and deeply. Then: "It is going to strike the Earth." He quickly held up his hand as people began talking. "Wait a minute! Wait a minute!" The noise died down. "There are an unknown number of small asteroids in the swarm, as well as dust and pebbles and so on, most of which will burn up in the atmosphere. Now by small, I mean like those that have been impacting Earth--"
"Small?" several people said at once in startled voices.
"Yes, small…compared to Shiva."
It was the first time most of them had heard the name. It sent a cold chill through Lisa and she sought out Diego's hand and grasped it tightly.
"Shiva is approximately two kilometers in diameter," Bradshaw said, raising his voice over the tumult, "and it will hit the Earth. Our mission is to destroy or deflect it."
He stopped for a moment, ignoring the questions, looking rather blindly down at the floor before the dais. Then the questioners and the speculators ran down and he raised his head.
"We'll be giving you more definite as they come in. But…" He hesitated, then plunged on. "We…NASA…your government, that is, we request that you play down what's happening here."
"Censorship, Chuck?" someone said genially, but there was steel in the anonymous voice as well.
"No, responsibility. Things are had enough without a lot of wild stories." He waved his hand in the air. "End-of-the-world kind of thing."
"Is it?" asked the Reuters man.
"No, no, of course not, but it is very serious."
"You didn't say this was off the record," the Yomiuri Shimbun representative said testily.
"That's right, I didn't," Chuck said with obvious nervousness. "But I am counting on you, as responsible members of the--"
"Cut it out, Chuck," the London Daily Express stringer snapped. "We know our job--the public has the right to know!"
Chuck nodded several times as others made similar comments. He held up his hand and after a moment got silence. "Yes, the public does have that right…but remember the adage about shouting 'Fire!' in a crowded theater. This is a crowded planet--and we have no place to go. At least no place what Shiva can't…that…where there might not be a strike. What would happen if you told them the whole truth now? Where will they go? We just don't have enough data as yet. We do not know the strike zone…or zones. They might run right into it. Don't you think it is better not to let this out until we have more definite information and some kind of suggestions of offer?" There was some muttering, but no one spoke up.
"Look, people," Bradshaw said, "I'm just asking you to cool it, to report it, yes, but don't write inflammatory reports."
Nancy Darrin spoke up, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "You mean, 'End of the World, story on page six'?" There was some laughter, but Chuck Bradshaw spoke through it.
"In a way, yes. This is just too important. We might easily have more deaths from panic than from any strike."
"But hundreds of thousands--a couple of million!-have died alrady!" cried out the PBS reporter.
"I know. But why add to that toll?"
There was an uncomfortable silence, then Hughes Michaels of ABC spoke up. "It's that serious?"
Bradshaw nodded. "It's that serious. I'm talking about millions dead, about, yes, the end of the world, in a way." His next words were drowned out in sudden turmoil, but the calmed them down and continued. "I'm asking for your cooperation for a few days, then we'll have a presentation for you, something that will show the magnitude of this whole thing. Then you can decide what to trumpet and what no." He rubbed at his chin, then put his arms straight out at the podium and lowered his head, looking at them from under his eyebrows.
"There's a lot more out there than we ever guessed," he said in a low voice. "Every day the observations log more…more things. More asteroids, more stars, more galaxies. The radio telescopes are turning up all sorts of strange things. There are more interstellar molecules floating around out there that we ever thought, more dust and rocks, more whole galaxies than we even dreamed!"
He paused, his voice almost a whisper, and they listened attentively. "And some of that space debris is too big to burn up in the atmosphere. Some of it…some of it will get through. Some of it has." He raised his head. "Ladies and gentleman, we have eleven months. Maybe a little less. I ask your cooperation. Panic can kill millions, and we may be able to aver the whole thing."
"May?" Nancy Darrin asked.
There was no answer to that, and everyone knew it.
* * *
It was a small meteor, a mere metric ton of space debris. Mostly iron and rock, it was white hot when it came down to Earth. Small enough to be deflected by the atmosphere, it took an erratic course and was one of the few meteors to strike in the southern hemisphere.
John Fitch was having a pipe, sitting on a park bench facing south, near the modest monument to the first settlers of Adelaide, South Australia. There was a searing blue-white streak in the crisp, cold air and a thundering crack that brought shopkeepers and customers out of the hotel and shops around the square.
Fitch tugged his sheepskin coat tighter about his bony frame and sauntered toward the beach. He stopped at the edge of the sand, the biting wind coming up from the polar cap tingling his face, making it blotched and red. He squinted at the horizon, the pipe clenched between his teeth, his ears still ringing.
"Oh, my God," he muttered. The overcast had parted and a distant gray-white column rose, growing fast, that shocked him. Coming in across the Spencer Gulf from the southwest was a tidal wave.
"Goddamn bloody meteor." he said without much passion. He turned and walked quickly back toward the square.
"What is it?" a butcher asked his hands white and wet.
"One of those space rocks," Fitch said. "Better get inside Sean."
The butcher looked past him. "Don't think to would do much good, John, but thank you. Better…better find the wife."
Fitch walked on, warning others. A woman grabbed his arm. "A tidal wave, y'say? Why, in the name of God, why?"
Fitch shrugged and pulled his arm free. "Not for me to say, mum." He crossed the street, nimbly avoiding the trolley tracks buried in the tar, and went into the hotel bar. He caught the eye of the bartender. "Wave coming," he said softly. "Bloody damned Shiva, anyway."
"Big?"
Fitch nodded, taking the offered whiskey without answering. He swallowed it in a gulp and set down the glass with exaggerated care. "Thanking you, Carey," he said soberly, but the bartender was gone.
Fitch went into the hotel lobby and turned left into the dining room. "Missus Bray?"
"Yes, Mister Fitch?" The middle-aged woman looked up with a twinkle.
"It has been nice knowing you, Margaret."
She raised her eyebrows and a sudden comprehension crossed her face. "The sonic boom, John?" He nodded and she rose from the table where the had been having tea with friends and excused herself. Without haste she walked into the lobby, preceded by John Fitch. They embraced awkwardly, but with affection. He was still patting her shoulder when they heard the roar.
The water crushed all the seashore buildings and carried the debris up toward the hills. Much of the city was saved. The long beaches had a new configuration along the southern shore.
* * *
10 July: Collision minus 10 months, 16 days
* * *
Chuck Bradshaw stepped up to podium, which was set to one side of the stage. Behind him was a screen. About half the seats in the little theater were filled. There were military uniforms, some in police garb. Most wore summer-weight suits, with pens and pocket calculators sticking out of their pockets, radiolink phones clipped to their belts. Both sexes were represented, mostly middle-aged, but many in their twenties and thirties. All appeared serious.
Lisa came in, saw Diego, who was watching for her, and waved. She slipped into the seat next to him. Most of the astronauts were sitting together, at one side, toward the back. Carl Jagens was in the front row.
"All right, let's get the picture," Bradshaw said. He cleared his throat. "Doctor Canfield?"
A tall, thin man with a man of graying hair stood up and walked tot he side of the dais, nodded at Bradshaw, and started to speak. People jerked their heads as he spoke too loudly and too closed to the mike. Bradshaw whispered to him and Canfield nodded impatiently. "Yes, yes," he said. He peered out at them. "The object designated as Shiva will intersect the orbit of this planet in, um, ten months, twenty days, and…" He peered at his wristwatch, "um, eight hours, twelve minutes. Plus or minus forty-two hours, four minutes."
"Yes, Doctor," someone said from the front, "but what will be the effect?"
"Ah, the effect. Well, um, if it hits land--and there is a none-out-of-four chance it will--this is approximately what the result will be." He took and electropad from his pocket and turned it on. He peered at it, his lips moving silently. "Ah. From the readings at the site of the Cleveland strike we assume a nickel-iron composition. Shiva itself is estimated to be thirty billion tons."
There was a murmur from the audience and Canfield stopped, peering curiously at them. "Yes, that much. Now the energy of a moving body equals half its mass times the square of its velocity. Or, in other words, E equals one-half M times V to the second. When a moving body is involved in a collision, as you know, the energy of movement degrades into heat."
Dr. Canfield's voice was swift, as if he were hurrying through obvious facts and impatient to get past that point. "Now whatever the angle of collision, a meteorite's impact is violently explosive. Its speed--and thus the speed of the explosion of super-hot gases which will result-is vastly greater than those of chemical reactions." He smiled, peering at the crowd with a pleased expression.
Copyright © 1980 by Gregory Benford and William Rotsler
