Worlds in Chaos (39 page)

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.

31

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.