Worlds in Chaos (38 page)

He did not deny any of the rumors and predictions that were circulating; neither did he go out of his way to dwell on any of them unduly in a way that would make anxieties even worse. His line was in essence a more professional and resounding version of what Keene had said to the scientists at JPL that morning. In fact, as he listened, Keene got the feeling that his own effort had perhaps been unconsciously inspired by what he had known instinctively, after meeting him, the President was going to say.

Hayer called upon everyone, individuals and organizations of every kind, to forget all the things that weren’t important anymore, and perhaps never had been: paychecks and promotions, prices and profits, prestige and pretenses. All that mattered now was helping each other get through. And he was insistent on making the point that some, maybe a lot more than the world was being told from some quarters,
would
get through—and, again as Keene in his own words had anticipated—that anyone listening might be among them. It appeared that humanity had faced a comparable crisis in its earlier history and pulled through. And that had been without modern technical resources and knowledge. Surely their descendants could do at least as well. They owed that much to the descendants who would follow. He concluded by quoting a paraphrasing of Winston Churchill’s words from 1940, in Britain’s darkest days of World War II:

“Death and sorrow will be the companions of our journey; hardship our garment; constancy and valor our only shield. We must be united, we must be undaunted, we must be inflexible. . . . Let us, then, brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that those descendants and their descendants a thousand years from now will say of us, ‘This was their finest hour.’ ”

It was hardly a moment for applause. But the nation, as it listened, had never before stood so solidly as one. But why, the question came to Keene’s mind, should it have taken something like this to do it?

Afterward, while Hayer was exchanging words with the diplomatic representatives who had attended, a TV reporter managed to get a moment with the First Lady and asked her if there was any truth to a rumor that a shuttle was being prepared specifically to evacuate children of the privileged off the surface when the danger reached its worst. She seemed taken by surprise at having to make a public comment, but recovered herself rapidly.

“Well, speaking only for my own, I can hardly do better than follow my husband’s example and give you the British Queen Mother’s response when she was asked the same thing about moving her children out of London to escape the German bombing. And what she said was, ‘They won’t go unless I go. I won’t go unless the King goes. And the King won’t go under any circumstances whatsoever.’ ”

By late afternoon California time, the country was already responding. Airlines, railroads, bus and trucking companies placed their equipment and services at the disposal of the evacuation authorities. Hotels, schools, malls, and office buildings inland began working on plans to accommodate influxes from the coasts and the lowlands. The mayor of Denver virtually opened the entire city as a refugee camp. Switchboards were swamped with calls from householders offering accommodation. Late in the evening, a White House aide called to ask Keene if he would stay on in California to assist Beckerson’s staff in briefing state administrators on the nature and scale of what was to be expected. Keene could hardly refuse. For the time being anyway, it seemed that much of the world was finally preparing to pull together. How much good would come of it in the long run was something he wasn’t prepared to brood about. The last thing anyone needed was discouragement. John was detailed to drive Keene and his companions to the hotel they had been booked into on the outskirts of Pasadena a few miles away. On reaching the parking lot, they found his car and all the others covered with a sooty ash that stuck to the windshield and needed wiping with a wet cloth to clear. The air was muggy and smarting to the eyes, and Barbara had to hold a handkerchief to her face. Colby found a dent in the roof and another in the hood. The parking lot had a grainy feeling underfoot. “Don’t hold your breath waiting if you decide to claim on the insurance,” he told John laconically. John said something about topping up with gas as soon as he got a chance.

Although it was late by the time they reached the city, the streets were restless with people emerging from their isolation to seek security in numbers. There was a lot of hurrying this way and that, groups standing and talking, others carrying things out of houses and loading up cars. At one corner, some people were trying to restrain a struggling man shouting obscenities at a woman with a bloody face, who was screaming hysterically. Farther on, a line of cars was backed up into the street from the pumps at a convenience store, where three big men carrying baseball bats were positioned conspicuously, watching the forecourt. John tried calling the hotel to confirm the rooms but was unable to get through.

The situation when they arrived in the lobby was chaotic, with a frantic manager trying to deal with guests unable to get credit card verification, as well as a swarm of unexpected arrivals who seemed to be under the impression that rooms should be available to anyone on demand. Having reservations from JPL helped, and Keene and the others obtained two connecting rooms. For safety, they decided to have Gordon take one of the beds in the double room allocated to Barbara, and keep the connecting door open. When he showered before turning in, Keene found that he had to scrub thoroughly to shift the sticky orange dust from his skin and hair. People he’d heard in the lobby had been talking about rivers and reservoirs from Arizona to Illinois turning red.

Despite his fatigue, he slept sporadically and uneasily. He was awakened before dawn by Charlie Hu hammering on the door. Keene’s personal phone was dead like everyone else’s, and the hotel switchboard hadn’t answered. Roy Sloane had called from Washington and needed to talk to Keene immediately. Leaving Colby Greene in charge at the hotel, Keene drove back with Hu beneath a luridly flaming sky along roads already beginning to fill with loaded-down vehicles. He found Sloane in a highly agitated state. The entire Kronian delegation had vanished from the Engleton. It appeared they had been kidnapped.

30

It had been done smoothly, quietly, and without fuss; so smoothly that it was almost an hour later before anyone realized the Kronians were missing. Transportation to take them to Andrews had been expected, although without an exact time being specified since the shuttle arrangements were uncertain. Not trusting Terran arrangements, Idorf had stated that he would send down a surface lander from the
Osiris
for them; but with the increasing meteorite influx he was also taking the ship out to a more distant orbit. According to the security officer in charge at the Engleton, an Air Force major with escort had arrived and presented papers that appeared in order, the authorizing officer at the Pentagon had confirmed, and the party departed fifteen minutes later in an official bus. That was the last that had been seen of them.

Keene, using the same office that he had talked with Cavan from the day before, asked Sloane if the Pentagon contact given to confirm the order had by any chance been a Colonel Winter. Sloane had to ask Keene to hold while he checked, and then came back astonished a couple of minutes later to announce that yes, it was. How in hell had Keene known? Keene hesitated. He didn’t want to compromise Cavan’s position; on the other hand, this could be the moment for getting Cavan some official help, which would probably be the biggest favor that Keene could do for him right now. In the end, he summarized the parts of the story that he was reasonably sure of, making it sound like an offshoot of his own scientific investigating and mentioning Cavan as an old friend that he’d involved to check some references. His biggest dilemma was over the Vice President, Beckerson, whose connection so far was purely circumstantial. If Beckerson was a part of whatever was going on, as Cavan suspected, then obviously it should be said; but if the suspicion was wrong, then the whole operation to set up a shadow government on the West Coast could be impaired. As a feeler, Keene slipped in a casual question as to whether Beckerson and his party were still due to follow on to California as planned. Sloane replied that they were and should be leaving late that day. So Beckerson hadn’t vanished; nothing had changed. Keene decided to hold off on that issue until there was more to go on.

“It’s starting to make sense now,” Keene said. “Voler and his group knew early on how bad this could get. The confusion was to gain them some time before controls really start tightening up. Their aim all along has been to get themselves out, and safely to Kronia with the
Osiris
. That’s what it’s all been about.”

Sloane stared, silently assessing the pattern for himself. “They’ve grabbed the Kronians as bargaining chips,” he said finally.

“That was the line he tried to push at the White House meeting,” Keene said. “You were there, Roy. You heard him. But Hayer shot him down. Then, when it was clear that he wasn’t going to get any help officially, he tried selling me on the idea at Goddard the next morning, hoping I’d be willing to bargain with the Kronians to take them. That didn’t work, so now they’ve taken matters into their own hands and seized the delegation as hostages. . . .”

Sloane had followed it through and nodded slowly. “To force their way aboard the lander that Idorf is sending down to Andrews,” he completed.

A brief silence ensued while they thought over the various angles and options.

“Correct. And we
have
to let it land, just as Idorf has to send it, even though we know,” Keene said. “There’s no way we can afford to hold off.”

“How come?” Sloane asked.

“Because we don’t know how much time there is. Put yourself in Idorf’s place. Those are your people down there, and conditions are worsening. Even if they’ve got guys holding guns to their heads, you have to bring them up because if you don’t do it now you might never get to bring them up at all. If you refuse, who would be holding them hostage then? And the same applies to us. That’s what Voler and his people are banking on. Idorf has to provide the lander, and unless we can separate Voler’s group from the Kronians, we have to let it go. It’s out-and-out blackmail, Roy, I know, but we’re stuck.”

Sloane glowered from the screen, but there could be no serious argument. Keene was right. “Well, at least we know they’re still in the area somewhere,” he said tightly. “Probably they’ll be gearing toward all the action happening around the pad. If we can locate them it might be possible to go in with a CT team sooner, when they’re not expecting it.”

“Be careful. They’ve got Air Force FAST guys there,” Keene cautioned.

“I’m aware of that,” Sloane said. “At least we have foreknowledge now of where they’ll show up and when. One thing you can be sure of, Lan, is that from now on they won’t be able to afford one false move. We’ll have our best people in on this. Andrews will be covered tighter than a presidential parade.”

“Well, I’m not going to pretend to be an expert in that department,” Keene said. “You’ve got them all there. I’ll go with whatever you and they come up with.” He left Sloane still frowning and looking thoughtful, glad it wasn’t a decision he was going to have to make.

Further news since the previous night was that, with the failure of several more satellites and increasingly capricious atmospheric conditions, the world’s communications were beginning to falter. Domestic broadcasting cut back to reserve capacity for official traffic. Although the communications difficulties made it impossible to know the exact number and doubtless caused exaggerations, more aircraft had been lost, with the result that some airlines had grounded while others were attempting to maintain a reduced level of lower-altitude services for vital needs—in some instances against the opposition of rebellious crews. On the other hand, many among the public had taken the message of the U.S. President and other leaders who had spoken in similar vein to mean that airlines were now public property and descended on the already beleaguered airports in droves. Amsterdam, a vital European hub, was closed after a panicking crowd numbering thousands, who had been arriving throughout the night, started a rampage that led to riot police being called in with water cannon and tear gas. In JPL’s vicinity, police checkpoints had been set up to control access to both John Wayne and Burbank airports, while LAX reported traffic at a standstill on all approaches. Despite the appeals for dedication and nobility of spirit in the common cause, marauding and looting mobs had taken to the streets in several cities. Violent incidents were occurring already. People had been shot.