Worlds in Chaos (117 page)

“What’s the matter, Roland? I’d have expected to see a little more excitement,” Marie said. Of course she was being swept along with it too. She was still the revolutionary. Everything which, for years, she had endured dangers and hardship for, seen her friends die for, was happening.

Cade wasn’t sure what to say. He pictured again the four faces that he had just left in the room on the floor below. “I don’t know. . . . I guess maybe because it’s
our
bandwagon,” he answered.

“I’m not sure I follow,” Gerofsky said.

“Us. . . . Terrans.” Cade made a motion with his head to indicate the direction he had come from. “What about those four downstairs? They put everything on the line too, and today they lost everything. It seems as if they’re about to be left behind in the dust and forgotten, while we all go on a binge of self-congratulations.” But even as he spoke, he knew it was just words to fill the space. It wasn’t the reason.

Clara nodded, trying to be diplomatic. “I hear what you’re saying, Roland. They did a heroic job—for us, because they decided it was right. And that won’t be forgotten. But the part they wrote isn’t in the final script. Nobody was to know it would work out this way.”

“And it’s cleaner,” Di Milestro put in. “Fast. Surgical. Without depending on some other planet that nobody understands.”

“They’re in a nutcracker on both fronts,” Gerofsky said. “In the Pacific, and on the mainland. They have to know it’s over too. I’d bet even money we could get a peace offer from Washington before the end of today.”

Which made it all the more incomprehensible that they should take out the Hyadean mission, Cade told himself. What was there for Washington to gain? Downstairs, the Hyadeans had been just as mystified. “These politics are all double faces,” Hudro had said. Then his other words repeated again in Cade’s mind: “So who commands this?”

Who commands?!

It hit Cade then what was wrong. Of
course
it made no sense for Washington to have ordered the mission strike. The only explanation, then, was that
Washington
hadn’t ordered it. At least, not of their own initiation.
They were no longer in charge!

“Oh, my God,” Cade breathed. He licked his lips and looked quickly around the three faces watching him. “You’re wrong,” he told them. “All of you—Sacramento, Beijing. You’re all wrong. It isn’t over. It hasn’t even started.”

Clara gave the others a puzzled look. Marie alone seemed to have registered the graveness of Cade’s expression. “What are you talking about, Roland?” Clara asked him.

He wiped a hand across his brow, still struggling to come to terms with the enormity of it. “The mission . . . that thing today. The Hyadean high command ordered it. It wasn’t anybody in the Washington government. Don’t you see what that means? They’ve taken over. And they’ve just cut the only independent link back to Chryse that could tell anyone there what happens next. What do you think
that
means?”

Gerofsky fingered his mustache and turned away to confront the shelves on the far wall. “No. . . . No, it can’t be,” he muttered.

“That’s merely a speculation,” Di Milestro said. “It’s obviously something that’s just occurred to you. You don’t
know
.” His tone accused Cade for even being capable of conceiving it.

“Then get the Hyadeans up here and see what they think,” Cade said. “Hudro as good as said it already. Only he’s still too shaken up to put together what it means.” He looked around at them again. Di Milestro and Gerofsky were unsure, not wanting to believe him, yet unable to fault what he had said. Marie was persuaded but needed a moment to absorb it. Clara had been around long enough to know that Cade didn’t let many things become serious enough to weigh down his life, and when he did, they were serious. But for now she had to consider her official position too.

“Suppose you’re right, Roland,” she said, standing behind her desk, her knuckles resting on the surface. “How can we change it? What are you suggesting we do? Just capitulate? Are you saying we should try to get Jeye to prevail on the Chinese to call it all off, then back down and accept whatever the Hyadeans choose to dictate?”

“Never!” Gerofsky wheeled back to face them. “And hand the world over as a colony state? I’d see it in flames from end to end first.”

Just what they needed, Cade groaned inwardly. Yet this was would probably be the kind of reaction at every level. He realized that he wasn’t sure himself exactly what he wanted them to do. Di Milestro talked direct to Jeye, but Cade didn’t know him, and right at this moment he was acutely conscious of not commanding Di Milestro’s confidence. Di Milestro confirmed it a moment later. “I think you’re overreacting, Mr. Cade,” he said. “Which is understandable. You’ve lost a lot of friends. But the way I see it, this attempt to set up a back-door PR link into Chryse was only a supplement to the military effort, anyway—in case we needed extra leverage.” He shrugged. “It seems to me we’re doing just fine without.”

“Just fine? I’d say we’re doing pretty damn great,” Gerofsky said. “It looks like the Chinese are about to walk right over them in Panama. They don’t need any link to Chryse.”

Cade sighed and looked away. No, there wasn’t a link from China to Chryse because the Hyadean Washington office controlled the channels, and right now they were permitting only approved traffic. That was why Yassem and Luodine had set up their illicit connection to the Querl. Cade blinked as the obvious finally struck him. He thought back to the things he had seen at Cairns: the scientific base and its easygoing independence; the local spirit of cooperation with the aliens and getting to know them. No, there wasn’t another independent link. But there
could be
!

“We can still do it!” he said, turning back. “Luodine set the mission up as a collection center for items to go back to Chryse. But they’ve got the same kind of gear at Cairns, where we were with Krossig. We can set up another link to Chryse from
there
—from Australia!”

Gerofsky shook his head. “Throw away the initiative and get involved in alien psychology that we don’t understand, when the things we do understand are working fine? What’s the point? It goes against every rule in the book.”

“How would these people in Australia know how to set their end up?” Di Milestro asked.

“I don’t know,” Cade retorted. “But the experts who set up the one at the mission are downstairs. We can still talk to Australia, can’t we?”

“We don’t need it,” Gerofsky said again.

Cade stared from one to the other. Why were they hesitating, looking for reasons why not? “There’s nothing to lose,” he insisted. “If you’re right and we take the board anyway, then it’ll be a piece of insurance that costs nothing. If things turn sour, it could be the most important insurance we ever took.” He pointed a finger in the direction of the floor. “And either way, it gives those four Hyadeans down there a chance to play a part. Are you going to deny them that, after what happened today?”

A deadlocked silence fell over the office. It was clear that neither Gerofsky nor Di Milestro wanted to be the person who was going to take this thing further; at the same time, they could find no refutation to what Cade had said. They looked as if they wished the whole thing would just go away. Before any resolution suggested itself, the terminal by Clara’s desk sounded a priority tone. She answered at once, having blocked lower-level channels for privacy. Cade didn’t recognize the face that appeared—a man in his fifties, white haired, professional looking, showing a jacket collar and necktie. “Clara, is Chester there?” he asked.

Clara moved aside as Di Milestro stepped forward. “It’s Ed Flomer, from Sacramento,” she said.

“Chester, the VP wants you on a conference call that he’s setting up right away,” Flomer said. His voice and expression were strained. “Can you get to a private line?”

“Sure. . . .” Di Milestro frowned inquiringly at the screen. “What’s happening, Ed?”

Flomer shook his head. “I can’t tell you. This is for a secure line only.”

Di Milestro looked at Clara. “This way,” she said, and led him out of the office. Cade and Gerofsky remained facing each other. After an awkward silence, Gerofsky moved over to the bookshelves to scan idly over the titles. Cade shook his head despairingly at Marie and began flipping mentally through his catalog of acquaintances for names that he might have to start recruiting to bring more weight to bear. Then Clara returned.

“Can’t we have it referred to someone else?” she said, looking at Gerofsky. “Couldn’t the commander at Edwards handle it? All you’d need to do is arrange an order from the top to authorize full cooperation, and then get on with your job. As Roland said, the cost is nothing. The payoff could be incalculable. There’s no penalty clause. We can’t lose.”

“It would depend on what Sacramento has to say,” Gerofsky replied. His manner was stiff, uncompromising. Clara studied him for a moment, then looked at Cade and Marie. “Why don’t you go back down and update the others on what’s been said?” she suggested to them. “I’ll call you.” Clearly, she wanted words with Gerofsky alone. Cade indicated the door with a nod, and he and Marie left.

Back in the staff room, Cade told the others the latest news, and then went on to relate his conclusion that the strike on the mission hadn’t been ordered by Washington. It shook Hudro out of the stupor that had been gripping him. “Of course it wasn’t Terrans who give order!” Hudro exclaimed. “How do I not see it? Hyadeans in charge now—maybe Gazaghin. Is not good.”

Nyarl shook his head. “We had a channel working. . . .”

“And we can again—” Cade began. But before he could continue, the door opened and Clara came in with Di Milestro and Gerofsky. Di Milestro was pale. He faced the room while Clara closed the door. A hush fell. Something had changed very drastically in the last few minutes.

Di Milestro looked around. He had to take a long, shaky breath before speaking. “I’m breaking security on my own decision and telling you people what I’ve just learned because you might represent the only chance for averting a world-scale calamity.” Cade caught Clara’s eye with an incredulous, questioning look. But whatever this was about had apparently left her too numbed to respond. Di Milestro shifted his gaze to Cade. “Do you really think this thing you were telling us about could work?” he asked.

Cade nodded. “I believe it could work.” What else was there to say?

“Run it by me again.”

“Hyadeans see a different world here from what we see. Convince them that their government is about to destroy it and turn it into what they’ve got, and they’ll pull out the rug.” Cade flashed the Hyadeans a glance that let them know he was as mystified as they, then looked back. “What’s happened?”

Di Milestro swallowed. “Admiral Varney’s carrier group has been wiped out. A plane coming back off patrol shot the whole thing. I’ve just seen it upstairs. His flagship lit up like the Sun. There was nothing incoming on radar. The scientists are baffled.”

“But Sacramento isn’t budging,” Gerofsky told the room. “Jeye says he would rather go out fighting than submit to a tyranny. If this other way of yours has a chance, we’re going to have to do it ourselves.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

The wall screen in the staff room showed a replay, wired from Sacramento at Di Milestro’s request, of the carrier and its closer escorts disappearing in a gigantic ball of fire and vaporized ocean. The wall of foam surging outward capsized the more distant ships or scattered them like toys caught beneath a waterfall.

“Neutron beam from orbiting warship,” Hudro pronounced. He explained that the flux would send critical any fission explosive not suitably shielded or designed to be resistant. Hence, it had detonated the carrier’s nuclear weapons inventory. Since neutrons were uncharged, Hyadean gravitic technology was necessary to create and focus the beams.

A watered-down press release issued from Sacramento an hour later stated merely that Varney’s task group had been “engaged” by hostile forces, implied to be the other two groups still with the Eastern Union. It was also announced that President Jeye would make a public address later that night. Di Milestro predicted it would be a rallying call for maximum effort and endurance side-by-side with the Asian allies now they were on the brink of success. Making the most of Gerofsky and his military credentials, Clara found working space in the communications section of the city administration’s emergency headquarters, located beneath the Corry Building, containing more offices and a meeting center, situated along the next block. It was a dismal setting of concrete walls, fluorescent lights, fireproof doors guarding vaults of generators and the air-conditioning plant, and a disaster relief shelter. The people in the building above had long ago christened it “the Catacombs.” Normally, nobody worked there, but since the Federation’s secession, a caretaker staff had been installed to maintain a state of standby readiness.