Footfall

The sign read ELVIRA. It couldn’t have been a large town to begin with, now it was deserted, except for some military vehicles.

There were soldiers in camouflage uniforms at the entrance to the Elvira Little League playing field. Brooks stopped the car.

“What?” In the backseat, Reynolds struggled to wakefulness. “Where are we?”

“Not far from Humboldt,” Brooks said. He got out. Rosalee, half awake now, got out on the passenger side. Nat eased himself out from under Carol’s head and arm and — wiggled out past the driver’s seat. Carol stretched out in the backseat without waking.

Roger had seen people sleep like that after some disaster. In the dark of Carol North’s mind, kinks were straightening out… or not. She would wake sane, or not.

“You can’t park that here,” one of the soldiers shouted.

He was a very young soldier and he looked afraid. There’d been an edge of panic in his voice, too.

Out beyond him the Little League field was covered with troops. They huddled around small fires. Plenty of soldiers. No tanks. No vehicles at all. Why? Further down the road and on the other side, in what had been a park, was a big tent with a bright red cross on it. Other tents had been put up next to it. There were stretchers outside the tents.

“A MASH unit,” Nat Reynolds said. He kept his voice low. “Full up, from the stretchers outside. Roger, Rosalee, I think we better get out of here.”

“Not yet.” Brooks went up to the soldiers at the gate. He showed them his press card. “What happened, soldier?”

“Nothin’.”

Roger pointed to the MASH. “Something did.”

“Maybe. Look, you can’t park that thing here. They shoot at vehicles. Maybe at cars! Move it, damn it, move it! Then think about going on foot!”

“In a second. Can you call an officer?”

The soldier thought about that for a moment. “Yeah.” He shouted back into the camp. “Sarge, there’s a guy here from the Washington Post wants to talk to the Lieutenant.”

They went from the Lieutenant to the Colonel in one step. By then Rosalee was back in the car, but Nat wasn’t. He found that odd, but he trailed along.

“We don’t have facilities for the press,” Colonel Jamison was saying. “In fact, Mr. Brooks, we don’t have accommodations for civilians at all, and I don’t see any reason why I should talk to you.”

Brooks looked around the tent. It held two tables and a desk, a field telephone, and a canteen hanging from the center pole. “Colonel, I’m the only national press reporter here.”

Jamison laughed. “And where are you going to publish?”

Roger gave him an answering chuckle. “Okay. I don’t even know if my paper exists anymore! But surely the people have a right to some news coverage of this—”

Jamison spoke slowly, from exhaustion. “I’ve never been sure of that. Whatever happened to Loose lips sink ships? Okay, Mr. Brooks. I’m going to tell you what happened, but not for the reason you think.”

“Then why?”

Jamison pointed to Nat Reynolds. “Your friend there.”

Nat Reynolds looked up from the map he’d been studying. “What?”

“You’re an important man, Mr. Reynolds,” Colonel Jamison said. “We have a total of no fewer than forty messages from Colorado Springs , and one of them asks us to watch out for you. That’s why Lieutenant Carper brought you to me. We’re supposed to cooperate with you, and send you back to Cheyenne Mountain first chance we get. Now why is that?”

Reynolds thought it over, and smiled. “Wade.”

The colonel waited.

“Dr. Wade Curtis. My partner. He must be working with the government. It follows that he’s alive…Reynolds looked back down at the map. “We’re still a long way from Colorado if we can’t go through Kansas .”

“We can’t,” Jamison said. “God knows we can’t.”

“So what did happen?” Brooks asked.

Jamison sighed. “Nothing to brag about. This morning we were supposed to make a big push. Throw the goddam snouts all the way back to Emporia . Went pretty good at first. And then—”

“Then what?”

“Then they stamped us flat.”

“A whole armored division?’

“Three divisions.” Jamison shook his head as if to ward off the memory. “The tanks went in. Everything was fine. We saw some of those floating tanks they use, and we shot the shit out of them! Then these streaks fell out of the sky. Lines of fire, hundreds of them-parallel, slanting, like rain in a wind, they pointed at our tanks and the tanks exploded.”

“Thor,” Reynolds said, as if he were talking to himself. He looked up from the map. “That’s what it was.”

“You know what did that to us?”

“Yah. It wasn’t just science fiction,” Reynolds said wonderingly.

“Reynolds! What did they do to my men?”

“It’s an orbital weapon system. They dropped meteors on you, Colonel. There wasn’t anything you could do. Shall I explain?”

“Sure, but not just to me,” Jamison said. “Marty! Marty, get on the line and see what’s keeping Mr. Reynolds’s transportation! They need him back at the Springs!”

The helicopter came an hour later.

Rosalee was over by the car, pacing, but Carol was awake and frightened. “What will happen to me? Nat, you can’t leave me here—”