Between the Strokes of Night

He sank to a chair, his breath wheezing in his throat. He coughed and leaned back. His skin looked dry and white, like crumbling dough. “By then it will all be over, one way or another. The attack missiles have high accelerations. If they’re aimed at us, they’ll be here in twenty minutes. If they’re not, it will be over anyway. Hans, flag our position on the display.”

Under Hans Gibbs’ keyboard control, the position of Salter Station appeared on the screen as a glowing white circle. Hans studied the whole display for a few moments, head cocked to one side. “I don’t think they’re coming this way. For a guess, they’re heading for western Russia and the United States. What’s happening?”

Wherry was sitting, head down. “Don’t know. See what you can catch on radio communications.” He cleared his throat, the breath wheezing in his larynx. “We’ve always been worried that somebody would try a sneak first strike, wipe out the others’ retaliatory power. That’s what we’re seeing. Some madman took advantage of the high level of our launch activity — so much going on, it would take anyone a while to realize an attack was being made.” Hans had cut in a radio frequency scan. “Radio silence from China. Look at the screen. Those will be United States’ missiles. The counterattack. We knew a preemptive first strike wouldn’t work. It didn’t.”

A dense cluster of points of fire was sweeping up over the north pole. At the same time, a new starburst was rising from eastern Siberia. The launch readout had gone insane, emitting a series of high-pitched squeaks as individual launches became too frequent to be marked by a separate beep from the counter. Over two thousand missile launches had been recorded in less than three minutes. “Couldn’t work. Couldn’t ever work,” said Salter Wherry softly. “First strike never would — always leaves something to hit back.”

His head slumped down. For the first time, Charlene had the thought that she might be seeing something more than old age and worry. “Wolfgang! Give me some help here.”

She moved to Wherry’s side and placed her hand under his chin, lifting his head. His eyes were bleary, as though some translucent film covered them. At her touch he feebly raised his right hand to grip hers. It was icy cold, and his other hand clutched at his chest.

“Couldn’t work. Couldn’t.” The voice was a rough whisper. “It’s the end. End of the world, end of everything.”

“He’s having a heart attack.” Charlene leaned over to lift him, but Wolfgang was there before her.

“Hans. You could do this better than we can, but you’d better stay here — we have to know what’s going on. Alert the medical facility, tell them we think it’s a heart attack. Ask them if we should move him, or if they want to treat him here — and if they want him at the facility, tell me how to get him there.” Charlene helped to lift Wherry from the seat. She did it as gently as she could, while some part of her brain stood back astonished and watched Wolfgang and Hans. There had been a strange and sudden change in their relationship in the past few minutes. Hans was still older, more senior, and more experienced. But as events became more confused and depressing, he seemed to dwindle, while Wolfgang just became more forceful and determined. At the moment there was no question as to who was in control. Hans was following Wolfgang’s orders without hesitation. He was at the console, ear mike on, and his fingers were flying across the array of keys.

“Leave Wherry here,” he said after a few seconds. “Med Center says Olivia Ferranti will be right over. Make sure he can’t fall over, then don’t move him. Don’t try any treatment unless he stops breathing. They’ll bring portable resuscitation equipment with them.”

“Right.” Wolfgang gestured to Charlene, and between them they carefully lowered Salter Wherry to the floor, supporting his head on Wolfgang’s jacket. He lay quiet for a moment, then made an effort to lift himself.

“Don’t move,” said Charlene.

There was a tiny sideways movement of his head. “Displays.” Wherry’s voice was a rustling whisper. “Have to see the displays. Reconnaissance. Cities.” Hans had turned to watch them. He nodded. “I’ve already asked for that. Major cities. What else?”

“Can you reach the ship with the Institute senior staff on board?” asked Wolfgang. “We have to talk to JN. They’re well clear of the atmosphere, but I don’t know if they’re line-of-sight from here.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Hans turned back to the console. “We can go through relays. I’ll try to reach them. We’ll have to use another channel for that. I’ll feed them in to the screen behind you.”