Footfall (16 page)

“We must get through — Admiral, do you believe the Soviets are attacking us?”

“Sir, I don’t know. Certainly the aliens have attacked our space installations—” Admiral Carrell’s voice broke off suddenly.

“Admiral!”

There was a long silence. “Mr. President, I have reports of ground damage. Hoover Dam has been destroyed by a large explosion.”

“A nuclear weapon?”

“Sir, I don’t know what else it could be. A moment …” There was another silence.

“God damn!” Ted Griffin shouted. “They did it, the crazy Russian bastards did it!”

The Admiral’s voice came on faintly. “One of my advisors says it could have been what he calls a kinetic energy weapon. Not nuclear. It could not have been a Soviet rocket, they couldn’t have reached here in time.” Another pause. “I’m getting more reports. Alaska. Colorado. Mississippi — Mr. President, we are being bombarded. Some of the attacks are coming from space. May I have permission to fight back?”

David Coffey looked at his wife. She shuddered. “Fight who?” the President demanded.

“The aliens,” Admiral Carrell said.

“Not the Soviets?”

“Not yet.”

“Ted?” David Coffey asked.

“Sir?” The Secretary of Defense looked ten years older.

“Is there any way I can authorize Carrell to fight a space battle without giving him the capability to launch against the Soviet Union?”

“No.”

“I see. Jeanne, what do you think?”

“I think you’re the President, David.”

Jenny held her breath.

“You don’t have any choice,” Hap Aylesworth said. “What, you’ll let them attack our country without fighting back?”

“Thank you,” Coffey said quietly. “Admiral, is Colonel Feinstein there?’

“Yes, sir. Colonel—”

Another voice came on. “Yes, Mr. President.”

“Colonel, I authorize you to open the code container and deliver the contents to Admiral Thorwald Carrell. The authentication phrase is ‘pigeons on the grass, alas.’ You will receive confirmation from the Secretary of Defense and the National Security Council duty officer. Ted—”

“Yes, sir.” Ted Griffin took the phone, almost dropped it, and read from a card he’d taken from his wallet. Then he turned to Jenny. “Major—”

“Major Crichton here,” Jenny said. “I confirm that I personally have heard the President order the codes released to Admiral Carrell. My authentication code is Tango. X-ray. Alfa. Four. Seven. Niner. Four.” And that’s done. Lord, I never—

“Admiral,” the President said. “You will not launch against the Soviet Union until we have absolute confirmation that they have attacked us. I don’t believe they’re involved in this, and Earth has troubles enough without a nuclear war. Is this understood?”

“Yes, sir. Mr. President, I suggest you come here as quickly as you can. Major Crichton, assist the President, and stay with him as long as you’re needed. I’ll put Colonel Hartley on now.”

Something rang in his head.

Harry Reddington woke, and thrashed, and slapped the top of his alarm clock: the pause, to give him another ten minutes sleep. The ringing went on. The room was pitch dark, and it wasn’t the clock ringing, it was the telephone. Harry picked up the receiver. His voice was musical, sarcastically so. “Hellooo …”

A breathy voice said, “Harry? Go outside and look.”

“Ruby? It’s late, Ruby. I’ve got to get up early tomorrow.”

There was party music in the background, and a woman’s voice raised in laughing protest. Ruby’s voice was bathetically mournful, She must be ripped; at a late party she was bound to be. “Harry, I went outside for a hit. You know Julia and Gwen, they don’t like anyone smoking anything in there. They don’t like tobacco any better than pot—”

“Ruby!”

“I went out and it’s, it’s … It looks so real, Harry! Go out and look at the sky. It’s the end of the world.”

Harry hung up.

He rolled off the Dawsons’ water bed and searched for his clothes.

He’d stayed up too late anyway. It would have been a good night to get drunk with friends, but word of honor on record. He’d come home and had a few drinks as consolation for being alone while interstellar ambassadors made first contact with humanity. The clock said 2:10, and he’d been up past midnight watching the news. There hadn’t been any; whatever the Soviets were learning, they hadn’t been telling. Eventually he went to bed. Now—

His eyes felt gritty. The cane was leaning against the bedstead. He gave up on finding a jacket; he wouldn’t be out long. He unlocked the back door and stumbled out onto the Dawsons’ lawn.

Ruby had been using marijuana, and spreading the word of it like any missionary, since the mid-sixties. She worked as a clerk in the head shop next to the Honda salesroom. What had Harry outside in a coolish California May night was this reflection: a doper might see things that aren’t there, but she might see things that are.

The sky glowed. Harry was an Angeleno; he judged the mistiness of the night by that glow, the glow of the Los Angeles lights reflected from the undersides of clouds. The glow wasn’t bright tonight, and stars showed through.

Something brighter than a star showed through, a dazzling pinpoint that developed a tail and vanished, all in a moment.

A long blue-white flame formed, and held for several seconds, while narrow lines of light speared down from one end. Other lights pulsed slowly, like beating hearts.

The sky was alive with strange lights.

Harry got back inside, fished the tiny Minolta binoculars out of a drawer, found his windbreaker on a chair, and stumbled out, all without turning on a light. He wanted his night vision. The sky seemed brighter now. He could see streaks of light rising from the west, flaring, disappearing. Narrow threads of green lanced west: down. There were phosphorescent puffs of cloud, lazily expanding.

On another night Harry might have taken it for a meteor shower. Tonight … He’d read a hundred versions of the aliens conquering Earth, and they all sounded more spectacular than this flaring and dying of stars and smudges of lights. Any movie would have had sound effects too. But it looked so real.

Still without turning on the lights he fumbled his way back into the house to find a transistor radio. He carried it outside with him and tuned to the all-news station.

“… have fired on the Soviet Kosmograd space station,” the newsman’s voice said. “The President has alerted all military forces. People are asked to stay in their homes. We cannot confirm that the United States Air Force has fired on the alien spacecraft. Pentagon spokesmen aren’t talking. Here is Lieutenant General Arlen Gregory, a retired Air Force officer. General, do you think the United States will fight back?”

“Look at the sky, you silly buzzard,” a gravelly voice said. “What the hell do you think all the lights are?”

Harry watched and thought as a flame curved around the western horizon, flared and died. Then two more. No question what that was. And now what do I do?

Stay and watch the house. Only — Jesus. Congressman Wes was in Kosmograd! And Carlotta Dawson would be in western Kansas by now, present situation unknown. If she’d taken the gun … if she’d been the type to take the .45. But she wasn’t.

The radio began the peculiar beep beep of an incoming news bulletin.

“We have an unconfirmed report that San Diego harbor has suffered a large explosion,” the announcer said. He sounded like a man who’d like to be hysterical but who’d used up all his emotions.

Maybe I should go help Carlotta. Wes would want me to. Jesus, how?

The Kawasaki was in pieces. There hadn’t been nearly enough money for everything that should have been done to it, and Harry hadn’t wanted to push. He’d done most of the work himself, as much as he could. But only the Honda shop could rebuild the engine: He’d finished taking the bike apart and carried the engine in, and as far as he knew it was ready. It had better be.

There must be others watching tonight. They’d sure as hell know by morning.

Harry watched and thought and made his plans. (That long blue flame had formed again, and this time it didn’t seem to be dying. Stars rising from the west seemed to be reaching for it until threads of green light touched them; then they flared and vanished. The blue flame crept east, accelerating. The binoculars showed something at the tip. Harry’s eyes watered trying to make out details.)

Then he went inside and washed his face.

Carlotta didn’t like him. And so what? Harry opened Dawson’s liquor cabinet and opened a bottle of Carlos Primera brandy. Sixty bucks a bottle; but it was all that was left. He poured a good splash, looked at it, thought of pouring some back, and drank half.

Carlotta doesn’t like me. The country’s at war with aliens. Wes asked me to look after things. Nothing I can do here, and if I stay here long I’ll be here, and for good.

He went to the telephone and dialed the Kansas number Carlotta had left. It rang a long time. Then a voice, not sleepy. Male. “Mrs. Carlotta Dawson. Please,” Harry said. He could sound official when he wanted to.

It took a moment. “Yes?”

“Harry Reddington, Mrs. Dawson. Is there anything you want me to do?”

“Harry — Harry, they don’t know what happened up there.”

“Yes, ma’am. Can I help you?”

“I don’t know.”

Carlotta Dawson’s voice dissolved in hisses. Another voice came on the line. “Is this an official telephone call?” it asked through the static. Then the line went dead.

Harry emptied his glass. Now what? She didn’t say. And if I stay in Los Angeles tomorrow, I’ll be in Los Angeles forever …

He drank half an inch more brandy and closed the bottle. Firmly.

When he left he was in clean shirt and a sports jacket that was years old but had almost never been worn. He carried ID and a sleeping bag and Congressman Dawson’s letter. At 3:30 A.M. he was on the front steps of the Security Pacific National Bank, spreading his sleeping bag.

Pavel Bondarev stared at the blank screen. All around him officers and aides at the command and communications consoles began to speak at once, and the babble brought him to life. “Colonel, I wish this chatter to cease.”

“Da, Comrade Director.” Colonel Suvorov was efficient if unimaginative. He shouted, and the cacophony of voices died away.

The aliens had fired on Kosmograd. He had seen that much before all communications were lost. The aliens had fired without warning, without provocation.

An amber light blinked insistently. Pavel lifted the scrambler telephone. “Da, Comrade Chairman.”

There was only a soft hiss, then a sudden rush of static. The officers at the command consoles burst into chatter again.

“What has happened?” Bondarev demanded.

“A high-altitude nuclear explosion. Perhaps more than one. The pulse effect has crippled our telephones,” Suvorov reported.

“I see.” And without communications — Bondarev felt rising panic. The scrambler phone was dead. “Get me Marshal Shavyrin.”

“There is no answer,” Suvorov said.

“It is vital. Use another means. Use any means,” Bondarev ordered. He fought to keep his voice calm. The scrambler telephone remains silent. Is the Chairman in communication with anyone else? Perhaps not. Perhaps we are safe.

“I have Shavyrin,” Colonel Suvorov said.

“Thank you.” Pavel put on the headset. “Comrade Marshal—”

“Da, Comrade Director?”

“Have you launched any missiles?”

“No, Comrade Director. I have received no instructions from the Defense Council.”

Bondarev discovered that he had been partially holding his breath. Now he let it out slowly. “You understand that the aliens have fired on Kosmograd?”

“Comrade Director, I know someone has. Two of my generals believe this a Western trick—”

“Nonsense, Comrade Marshal. You have seen that ship. Neither we nor the United States nor both nations working together could have built that ship.”

There was a long pause. Pavel heard someone speaking to the Marshal, but he could not make out the words. “Marshal,” Bondarev insisted, “that ship was not built on this Earth, and we know the United States cannot have sufficient space facilities. If they did, they would long ago have defeated us.”

There was another long pause. Then Shavyrin said. “Perhaps you are correct. Certainly that is true. What must we do now?”

I wish I knew. “Immediately before the aliens destroyed Kosmograd, they launched many smaller ships. I say smaller, although they were each larger than Kosmograd. Have you had success in tracking any of those?”

“Only partially. Even with our largest radars it is difficult to see through the electronic storms in the upper atmosphere. The aliens have set off many weapons there.”

“I know—”

“Also, they have fired laser beams at three of our large radars,” Marshal Shavyrin said.

“Laser beams?”

“Da. The most powerful we have ever seen.”

“Damage?”

“The Abalakovo radar is destroyed. The Sary Shagan and Lyaki radars are damaged but survive. We have not activated the large radar near Moscow for fear that it will draw their fire.”

“I see.” Intelligent of him. “We will need information, but not at that cost. Now tell me what you know of their smaller ships.”

“My information is not complete. We have lost communications with many of our radars.”

“Da, but tell me what you have learned.”

“The ships have scattered. Most are in polar orbits.”

“Track them. If they come within range of the ion beam weapons, fire at them. Be prepared to fire SS-20 missiles under ground detonation control. Meanwhile, attack the main alien ship with the entire force of SS-18 missiles based in Kamensk.”

“Comrade Director, I require authorization from the Chairman before I can do any of this.”

“Comrade Marshal, the Chairman has directed me to conduct this battle. We have no communication with Moscow. You must launch your forces against the aliens, particularly their large mother ship. We must cripple it before it destroys us on the ground.”

“Comrade Director, that is not possible—”

“Comrade Marshal, it must be made possible—”

“If we attack the alien ship, we will destroy Kosmograd as well. And all survivors.”