Footfall

“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?”