Footfall (25 page)

The phone chirped. Saved.

The Admiral lifted the phone. “Carrell… Yes, put the photographs up on the big screens. Let everyone see what we’re up against.”

There were five screens. One by one they filled with pictures of baby elephants. Some hung from paper airplanes and wore elevator shoes. Others were on foot. All earned weirdly shaped rifles.

Laughter sounded on the floor below, but it soon died away as the screen showed photographs of ruined buildings and wrecked cars, with alien shapes in the foreground. Bodies lay in the background of most of the pictures.

Jenny studied the photographs. They were quite good; the photographer who’d taken them said she’d sold to Sports Illustrated and other major magazines. That’s the enemy.

“They do look like elephants,” Admiral Carrell said.

“Yes, sir,” Jenny said. “But they’re not really elephants.”

“No. They’re invaders,” General Toland said.

The President studied the screens carefully, then turned to Jenny. “This ceremony. What was it?”

“Before they’ll let anyone leave the area they control, they make you lie down on your back, arms stretched out overhead. Then one of the-aliens-puts his foot on you. After that you’re free to go.”

“And your sci-fi people think that’s reasonable?” the President asked.

“Yes, sir. The way the aliens are built, they must think in terms of trampling their enemies beneath their feet. They may be the biggest animals on their planet. Most Earth species have a surrender ritual. This is theirs.”

The President nodded slowly.

God, he looks awful. I wonder if he got any sleep at all?

“Do your experts have any theories on what the invaders want?” the President demanded.

“The Earth,” Jenny said.

General Toland was adamant. “Kick their butts, don’t piss on them,” he said. “Mr. President, we cannot commit our forces piecemeal! You’ve got to let me gather my strength before we go in there.”

“American citizens are being killed there. Property destroyed. God damn it, they’ve invaded the United States .” David Coffey’s voice was cold with anger. His hands gripped the arms of his chair. “We have to do something! What’s the Army for if it can’t defend the nation?”

Toland fought visibly to control himself.

“That is hardly fair, Mr. President,” Admiral Carrell said. “The Army is not generally deployed to fight enemies within the nation.”

“If they’d let us call up some reservists before that goddam ship got here,” General Toland muttered. “Mr. President, I’m doing all I can. Our best units are in Europe and Central America and Lebanon , and there’s no chance we can get those troops home. Not while the enemy dominates space. They can see everything we do!”

See it and kill it, Jenny thought. Lasers for the airplanes, kinetic energy weapons for ships…

“So when will we be able to do something for our people, General Toland?” the President demanded.

“Two more days,sir. I hope. Mr. President, we can’t mass our forces! The commander at Fort Knox loaded tanks onto a train to send west. They hit the train. Their air defenses are superb. Anything we send into that area either gets zapped from space or hit by a ground-launched missile.”

“Or worse,” Jenny said.

They all looked at her.

“They’re setting up ground-based laser defense systems. The reports are just coming in. I’ll have them on the screens in a few minutes.”

“Lasers,” the President said.

“Yes, sir. Much better than ours.”

“So what the hell are they doing with them?” General Toland demanded.

Jenny shook her head. “We don’t know, sir. It appears they’re setting up a strong perimeter defense inside the area they control — but we don’t know, because we can’t get inside there to find out.”

“So they have it all their way.” The President’s voice was low and tired, as if he’d already been defeated.

It frightened Jenny. “Not all their way, sir,” she said. “Some reports get out. Mostly ham radio. They don’t get to broadcast long before something smashes them. Also, there’s bound to be resistance. National Guardsmen. Farmers with deer rifles.”

“Sure, they’ll fight,” Toland said. “Even without orders.”

Jenny nodded. “But they’ll be disorganized. We can’t communicate!”

“And there’s nothing else we can do?” the President asked. There was despair in his voice. “With all our power, all our nuclear arsenal-can’t we use nukes on them?”

“They’re all mixed in with our people,” Admiral Carrell said.

“General, do something. Hurt them,” the President said. “Hit them hard. Isn’t there any place where there are a lot of them, and none of our people?”

“None, no. Not many, yes,” Toland said.

The President stared grimly at the screens. “Hurt them. Now. It will help American morale.”

“But, sir—”

“That was an order, General.”

Toland snapped to attention. “Yes, sir. I take it you don’t want a general bombardment.”

“No. But they can’t have it all their way. We have to hurt them. How else will we drive them out of America ?”

Why are we so sure we can do it? Jenny almost blurted it out.

“We may not be able to drive them out,” Admiral Carrell said. “We may simply have to kill them all.”

“It may come to that,” General Toland said. “It comes under the heading of destroying the country in order to save it. What we need is neutron weapons.”

“What would they do?”

“They kill without destroying the cities.” General Toland drummed his fingers against the glass wall of the office. “If our people are inside, behind stone walls, in basements-don’t most Kansans have root cellars? Places underground?”

“Many do,” the President said.

“A few feet of dirt would protect our people,” Toland said. “If the elephants are out in the open, we could zap them without destroying Kansas. Only trouble is, we don’t have the bombs.”

“Why not?”

“The few we have are in Europe ,” Admiral Carrell said carefully. “Because of public protest, we were never allowed to manufacture any large number of neutron weapons. I have asked the laboratories at Sandia and Los Alamos to try to assemble makeshift enhanced radiation weapons, but they cannot give us a schedule for their delivery.”

“But this is insane,” the President said. “A few thousand elephants-how many are there, anyway?’

“We don’t know,” Jenny admitted. “Certainly fewer than fifty thousand.”

“Even so, it must be a significant part of their ground combat strength,” General Toland said. “More troops than they can afford

to lose. If we kill them all, they may have to leave us alone in future.”

“They still control space,” Admiral Carrell said. “Major Crichton, you look like a lady who wants to say something.”

“Yes, sir,” Jenny answered. “You asked me to get the science fiction people to work. It wasn’t hard. They’ve got a number of ideas about the war.”

“Well?” the President demanded.

“Sir, I think it would be better if you heard for yourself.”

David Coffey frowned. Then suddenly he grinned. “Sure, why not? As you say, they’re the only experts we have.”

When night came, David Morgan still wasn’t home. No gin, either, Carlotta thought. Only two inches in this bottle. She’d found blackberry wine in the root cellar. It would have to do.

They sat by candlelight in the living room. There were distant sounds of thunder, and far to the east and south were flashes of light.

The skies were clear overhead. Juana sat next to a kerosene lamp with a Jane Austen novel.

“Aren’t you worried?” Carlotta asked.

“Sure, but what good does that do? David’s got a good car and a rifle. He can’t phone. What should I do?”

“I don’t know. What about—” She paused, and after a moment there were more distant sounds. “About that?”

“Nothing we can do. Should we run away? Where would we go? It’s miles to the nearest house, and Lucy can’t walk that far.”

“Don’t you have another car?”

“Not one that works. Even if we did, where would you rather be?”

“I don’t know. Want some wine?”

“No.”

And you don’t think I should, either. To hell with you. Carlotta drank the blackberry wine. It was much too sweet.

Morning came, bright and clear and cloudless, a glorious Kansas day except for ominous black clouds rising far away in the east. There was still no sign of Professor Morgan. Carlotta and Juana sat outside on the patio with coffee. The night sounds were gone. An hour passed, then part of another; then there were noises, and dust to the west.

“Cars. Trucks. Lots of them,” Juana said. She listened again. “Sound strange. Now maybe is a good time to run.”

“What’s the difference?” Carlotta asked. Maybe they’ll know something about Wes!

Juana peered down the mad. “It’s the army!” she shouted. “Our army!”

Carlotta was almost disappointed.

She counted a dozen tanks, and five truckloads of soldiers. They came up the drive and circled on both sides of the house, going right on past and out toward the abandoned barn. One vehicle that looked like a tank, but had wheels, drove up to the house and stopped. An elderly officer with a graying mustache got out.

“Joe!” Juana called.

He saluted. “Lieutenant Colonel Halverson, Kansas Militia, ma’am.” He tried to grin. “Come to see if you need help.”

“Have you seen David?” Juana demanded.

“Yes, ma’am, Major Morgan will be along in a bit. He helped us round up troops. Thought he ought to come home last night and tell you, but he said you’d understand, and we sure did need him, him and that four-wheel of his.”

“What do you intend, Colonel?” Carlotta asked. She remembered she was dressed in a wrinkled housecoat, and was ashamed.

“This is my sister,” Juana said.

“Mrs. Dawson?” Halverson asked. “Pleased to meet you, ma’am.” He climbed down off the armored car. “As to what we intend, well, first I’m waiting for my helicopters. Takes time to get them spruced up. Meantime, we came out to see if you needed help. When the choppers get here, we’re going south and east until we see what the hell has invaded us.”

Carlotta nodded. A dozen tanks, two of those armored car things, trucks. And helicopters. Weekend warriors. Most of them are pretty old, but — “You look formidable enough. Fast work.”

“Started mobilizing the Guard the night they started shooting,” Halverson said. There was pride in his voice. “Been rounding up troops from all over the county. Would have called Major Morgan, but the phones were out. Lucky we ran into him in town.”

“But what is happening?”

Halverson shrugged. “Juana, we haven’t been in touch with any government above the county seat since those-aliens started shooting. Phones don’t work, nothing but static on the radios. Most of our communications stuff was designed to work with satellites, and we sure as hell don’t have any of those left. Even so—” His back straightened. “I don’t figure Washington wants me to just sit back and wait for orders, not while they’re dropping out of the skies! Soon as my choppers get here, we’re going to show ’em what it means to mess around with Americans. Especially Kansas Jayhawks!”

Harry spent the night in a wheat field, using wheat straw for bedding and more of it piled on top to stay warm, He didn’t dare risk a fire. There were flashes and thunder all around him. By counting time between flash and sound, he estimated some were as close as three miles, far too close.

Morning came, and he missed Jeri’s camp stove and cocoa. Can’t think about that. Got to get moving. But goddammit. 1 should have done something; 1 should have saved her. Hell, I should have left her by her car-she’d have been safer’ Come with me. I’ll take care of you, shit—

The motorcycle ran fine. He estimated that he had another twenty miles to go, and fuel for thirty.

Harry turned up the lane toward the big house and shook his head in disbelief. Made it, by God! At least it certainly looked like the place Wes had once described, and it was on the right road, ten miles west of Dighton, and there was no other house within a mile.

It was nearly noon. The skies were blue and clear, and there were only occasional thunderclaps and flashes of colored light.

He frowned. An army Light Armored Vehicle stood in front of the house. There were deep tread marks on both sides of the drive, leading out behind the house. Half a mile out through the fields were at least six tanks, a couple of obsolete M-1 Abrams tanks and at least two Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles.

A big blue GM Jimmy four-wheel-drive truck stood in the driveway beside the LAV. Harry nodded at it approvingly. He let the motorcycle coast up to the front porch. Two soldiers older than Harry sat on top of the armored car. One waved at Harry.

“Hi,” Harry called.

“Hi,” one of the soldiers answered.

Something moved behind the glass-paneled front window.

“Is Mrs. Dawson at home?” Harry asked. No point in asking why the army had surrounded the house.

“Think so,” a sergeant said. “Hey, Juana, visitor for your sister.

“The front door opened. Carlotta Dawson, in blue jeans, her hair bundled into a kerchief, rushed down the steps. She didn’t say anything. She just grabbed Harry and pulled herself against him, burying her face in his beard.

She stood that way for a moment, then looked up at the soldiers on the LAV. “He came all the way from L.A. ,” she said. “To help me.”

“Tough going?” the sergeant asked.

“Some,” Harry said.

“Heard it was bad out west.”

“Hoover Dam’s gone,” Harry said. “They took out all the cities along the Colorado River . Same thing happened with all the dams along the Platte . They seem to like hitting dams.”

An officer came out of the house. “Colonel Halverson, this is Harry Reddington,” Carlotta said. “A friend of-of Wes and me. He’s come from L.A. Harry, you must be starved.”

“Yeah, but, Miz Dawson, we’ve got to move. The damned elephants”

“Elephants?” Colonel Halverson demanded. “Elephants?”

“Yes, sir,” Harry said. “The invaders—”

“Why do you say elephants?”

“They look like baby elephants with two trunks.”

“You’ve seen them, then?”

“Yes, sir, I sure have.” Harry winced. This wasn’t going to be easy. Why tell it at all? “Shot one, too, but they wear armor, so I doubt if I hurt it.”

“Armor?”

“Yeah. Body armor, and they have rifles. They kill people. They kidnapped-they took some people prisoner from a farmhouse. Killed the farmer.”

“Just how close did you get to them?”

Harry shuddered, “Too damn close! Close as you and me!” One stood on my chest — He wouldn’t say that. It shamed him.

Halverson looked skeptical. “How’d you get away from them?”

“They let me go. Look, you guys do what you want, but Mrs. Dawson and me have to get out of here. They’re all around, it’s damned lucky they didn’t get here yet.”

“Tell me more,” Colonel Halverson said. “Tell me everything.”

“There’s just not that much,” Harry said. They wore elevator shoes and they came down on paper airplanes. If I say that — “They came down on hang gliders. Then bigger stuff landed”

“How big? Where?”

“Near Logan . They had flying things about as big as a jetliner only not so wide in the wings. And a floating thing about as big as a diesel semi. That’s what I saw. There may have been bigger.”

“Tanks? Field guns?”

“None I saw.”

“And they let you go?”

“Yeah, sort of.”

“They let others go?”

“Yes—”

“From Logan . Southwest of here.” Halverson pounded his right fist into his left hand. “But we know they’re east of us, and nobody’s come out of there. They would, too, if the-if those things would let them. Maybe there’s something they want to hide. Son, you better tell me everything you know.”

Gradually Halverson dragged the story out of Harry. Finally it was done. “So I found the gun,” Harry said. “I thought about going after Mrs. Wilson, but I came here, instead.”

Halverson looked thoughtful. “Hell, what else could you do? You’re no army. The next time they’d just shoot you. But I sure wish I knew what they’re hiding out to the east—”

“Colonel?” The sergeant seated on top of the armored car jumped off. He looked older than Halverson.

“Yeah, Luke?”

“Colonel, I heard a funny story last night. Over in Collinston.”

“Collinston? That’s fifty miles from here! What were you doing in Collinston?”

“Took some of the boys over for a drink. You didn’t need us. We weren’t going anywhere.”

“Next time you leave camp, you tell me,” He chuckled. “Okay, so you found a bar open in Collinston. Guess it takes more than war and a parachute invasion to close the bars in that town.”

“Sure does. Anyway, there was a guy in the bar. He’d been drinking a lot, so nobody paid much attention. He said he’d seen an elephant. A little one. In a willow patch outside of town. Thought it escaped from some circus, because it was a trained elephant.”

“Trained? Trained how?” Halverson demanded, “Don’t know.”

“Harry.” Carlotta’s voice was low and urgent. “Harry, that’s an invader. We have to go capture it. We have to get it alive. Maybe it knows about Wes. Harry, we have to!”

Harry gulped hard. “Sure, but I need gas—”

“I’ll get it out of David’s car,”

“Hey, hold on,” Colonel Halverson said. “I can’t let you do that—”

“Why not?” Carlotta demanded. “You’re going east. You’ll see lots of invaders, you don’t need this one.”

“But-look, those things are armed—”

“It didn’t hurt that man in the bar,” Carlotta said. “Why would he think it was trained? Maybe-maybe it lay down and rolled over!”

“Holy shit!” Harry said. “Hey, she might be right.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Colonel, my husband was a personal friend of the President. President Coffey himself sent Wes up to meet the aliens. It’s my right to find out what happened to him. You give Harry some gasoline, and then go fight your war. Harry and I will do the rest.”

Yeah, Harry thought, sure.

“I say we go in after them.” Evan Lewis sounded very sure. “Hell, Joe, we have to! We can’t let those-things run all over Kansas ,”

“Wasn’t me arguing with you. Captain,” Lieutenant Colonel Halverson said. He looked at the others seated at Juana Morgan’s dining room table. Evan Lewis, who ran a tractor sales and repair agency, and commanded the tanks. George Mason, lawyer, who commanded the six helicopter gunships. The fourth man at the table was David Morgan, retired professor of business administration, Halverson’s adjutant and chief of staff. Morgan was the smallest one at the table, and he spoke with a clipped eastern accent that irritated hell out of Joe Halverson, but he was certainly the smartest man in the battalion.

“And I still don’t like it,” George Mason said. “Colonel, we don’t know what we’re up against, and we don’t know what the Army has in mind.”

“So what do you suggest we do?” Halverson asked.

“Wait for orders.”

“How heroic,” Captain Lewis said.

“Enough.” David Morgan spoke quietly, but they all heard him. “We don’t need bickering.”

“So which side are you on, Professor?” Evan Lewis had never liked Professor Morgan. On the other hand, it was David Morgan’s house, and they all felt like guests, military uniforms or not.

“I agree with Colonel Halverson’s reasoning,” Morgan said. “The invaders are hiding something to the east. We’re a cavalry outfit. It’s our duty to explore-but carefully. In particular, we have to be certain that any information we get will be useful. That won’t be easy. They’re jamming all communications and the phones don’t work.”

Joe Halverson nodded thoughtfully. “Suggestions, Major?”

“We’ll have to string things out. Use the Bradley vehicles as communications links.” He sketched rapidly on the table cloth. “Corporal Lewis” — Morgan nodded to Evan Lewis; everyone knew that Evan’s son Jimmy was an electronic genius — “Jimmy rigged up those shield things that let the tanks talk to each other, as long as the antennas are aimed straight at each other. Fine. We send the choppers forward as scouts and flankers, making sure they stay in line of sight to the tanks. Tanks in the middle, concentrated enough to have some firepower, spread out enough to not make such a good target. Then string the Bradleys and the LAVs out behind as connecting links.”

“What do they connect to?” Mason asked.

“We leave two troopers here with my wife and a radio. Juana writes down everything, if we don’t come back, she gets the hell out.”

“Not much chance she’d have to do that,” Halverson said. “Hell, we’re not an army, but we’ve got a fair amount of strength here.” He looked out the window at his command. Six helicopters, with missiles. A dozen tanks, with guns and missiles. The communications weren’t any good because the Invaders were broadcasting static from space. But even without communications a troop of armored cavalry was nothing to laugh at.

“Sounds all right to me,” Lewis said. “At least we’ll be doing something.”

“I’d rather wait for orders,” George Mason said. “But what the hell, I’m ready if you are.”

Joe Halverson stood. “Right. Let’s go.”

“I’m Jimmy Lewis,” the corporal said. He climbed through the attic window to join Harry on the roof of the big frame house.

Harry nodded greeting. “Hi. They tell me you invented this.” He hefted the hand-talkie radio whose antenna was wrapped in a tinfoil cone stiffened with coat-hanger wire.

“Yeah,” Jimmy Lewis said. His tone was serious. “It’s the only way I’ve figured to keep communications. You have to point it pretty tight, though, or you’ll lose the signal

Harry regarded the device, then the similar but larger tinfoil monstrosity on one of the Bradley Fighting Vehicles in the yard down below. “Yeah. So I point this at the Bradley, and maybe I can hear. What then?”

“Use this,” Jimmy Lewis said. He handed Harry a Sony tape recorder. “There’s three hours of tape on there. More than enough. Just plug it into the radio, here, like that, and turn it on when we move out. Listen in the earphones, and you’ll hear a tone if you’re pointed close to the tank, and nothing at all when you’re dead on, except when they’re talking; then you’ll hear them talk, of course. It sounds hard, but it’s pretty easy, really.”

“Sure.”

Major Morgan was in the front yard. Harry couldn’t hear what he was saying, but Juana Morgan didn’t like it. Their housekeeper sat in the front seat of the four-wheel-drive Jimmy, but Juana Morgan didn’t want to drive it.

Finally, though, she got in, and the blue Jimmy drove off. And now it’s just Carlotta and me. David Morgan stood very straight as he went to his tank and climbed in.

Colonel Halverson came over to stand below them. “Bout time, Jimmy,” he shouted up at them.

“Yes, sir.” Corporal Lewis waved to Harry and crawled back inside through the window.

“Thanks, Mr. Reddington,” Halverson shouted. “I need all my troopers. Good of you to fill in. I doubt you’ll be needed, but—”

“Yeah. No problem, Colonel.” Of course Carlotta’s goin’ nuts, wanting to go get that elephant. Maybe it’s safer up here!

“Thanks, then,” Halverson said. He walked briskly up the line to the lead tank and climbed in. He stood in the turret for a moment, then waved dramatically. “Wagons-hoooo!” he shouted.

The helicopters rose in a cloud of dust and swept forward and off to each side in groups of three The tanks fanned out and moved ahead, leaving the Bradleys behind.

“Watcher, this is Jayhawk One. Do you read?”

Harry keyed the mike. “Roger, Jayhawk One, this is Watcher.”

“Course is 100 degrees, moving forward at 1220 hours,” the tanker’s voice said in Harry’s ear. Harry started guiltily and switched on the tape recorder.

When the Bradley began to move eastward, it was much harder to keep the radio aimed properly. Harry braced it against the chimney. The rooftop was steep and it wasn’t easy to keep his footing.

The helicopters wove in complex patterns ahead of the tanks. “Moving, ahead at twenty klicks,” the voice said.

About ten miles an hour, Harry thought. He could still remember kilometer signs on highways, although he hadn’t seen one in years.

A half-hour went by. The helicopters and lead tanks were nearly invisible. The others were strung out behind them. Harry’s radio contact was a good five miles ahead, and it took all his attention to keep the antenna aimed properly. He was about to key the mike to tell them that.

“Light overhead,” the tanker’s voice shouted.

Harry could see it. A bright green flash, more visible high up than near the ground.

“It’s moving in a circle-Number Three Helicopter reports the beam is moving around them in a circle, it’s tightening in on them—” There was a pause. “No contact with the choppers. Colonel Halverson reports they’ve all been attacked by some kind of beam—”