Footfall

The B-1B flew just above the treetops at near sonic speed. For a while Jenny looked out the tiny crew windows, but there was little to see: just shapes flashing past, an occasional light. Most of the United States was dark.

There was a bright flash off to starboard. Jenny shuddered.

“What?” Jack asked. He touched her hand, then moved his away. She reached for him and brought his hand back and held it in both of hers.

“Another dam,” she said.

She listened as the artificially calm voice from Colorado Springs spoke into her earphones. “Spring Lake Dam, near Peoria, Illinois,” it said. “They’ve hit most of the dams from there north and west. Floodwaters are rising all along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. We’re ordering evacuation, but it won’t be in time.”

“Isn’t there anything else?” The President’s voice interrupted the Air Force talker. “Get the National Guard out with helicopters—”

“Sir, we’re trying, but we have almost no communications. Most of the reports I’m giving you come from direct observation by Air National Guard pilots flying wherever they see a flash.”

We could lose a lot of pilots that way.

“Is there anything more on the Russians?” Jack asked.

“No. Just a lot of damage reports,” Jenny answered.

“Then we don’t even know if we’re at war?”

Jenny gave a short laugh. “We’re at war all right. We just don’t know who with—”

“Could the aliens be allied with the Russians?”

“Don’t know. I don’t think so,” Jenny said. “I’m sure we’d have heard if they were in communication. We’d have heard something. I think—”

“Yeah.” He leaned back in the bombardier’s seat and closed his eyes. In seconds he was asleep.

Jenny shook her head in admiration. Nothing for Jack Clybourne to do, so he rests up for the next assignment. I wish the President would do that. There’s not enough information for him to make any decisions, not here.

I wish I could do it.

The reports continued. Missiles launched against the smaller alien ships. The large alien ship remained invisible behind a screen of noise, charged particles, and chaff. No confirmation of any Soviet missile landing in the United States, and no confirmation of any cities destroyed.

Jenny leaned back in the electronic warfare officer’s seat and tried to close her eyes, but the temptation to look out the window was too much. The thick leaded glass would shield her eyes from anything that wouldn’t kill her …

The bomber flew on toward Colorado Springs.

The steps of the bank were cold and damp. Harry settled as near the door as he could reach, and turned on the transistor radio.

“Power failures throughout Southern California,” the announcer was saying. He sounded nearly hysterical. “We have reports thai something hit Hoover Dam. Laser beams, for God’s sake!”

The long blue flame sank into the east. Harry settled against the bank door. He thought of what else he could do. Steal a car. Steal a motorcycle. Break into the shop and steal his own motorcycle: Any of that might work, but it might not.

I’m not as quick as I used to be.

He tried to think of someone who’d help him, but anyone who’d believe him either wouldn’t be any use, or would already be doing something. After a while he closed his eyes and slept a little.

He woke again when someone moved in beside him: a small, pudgy man who puffed from his climb up the steps. He settled on the step below Harry. “Mind?”

“No,” Harry said. “Did you see the sky? Or the news?”

“Both. The TV’s gone off, though. One of the radio people keeps saying it’s all a big mistake, but I can’t get through to New York.”

Sure can’t. Or to Dighton, Kansas. Harry nodded, The pudgy man was shivering. Harry thought he should have worn more.

“I keep remembering The War of the Worlds. What are they, what do they want? They could be … anything.”

“Not my department,” Harry said, and he closed his eyes. As he drifted off, he felt grateful for his brief military stint. He had learned to sleep anytime.

And if everything went just right, it was going to be one miserable day.

— =

He kept waking to watch the sky. “There,” the pudgy man said. He pointed south. “Like — what did they call it? The high-altitude atom bomb test. Back in the fifties.”

“Wouldn’t remember,” Harry said. He frowned. Something came back to him. They’d blown off a nuclear weapon in the stratosphere, and mucked up the ionosphere and communications all over the world, and it had taken months for things to get right again. And that was one bomb.

There was nothing but static on the radio. Harry tuned across the band. Sometimes he heard stations but he couldn’t really make out words. He shrugged and kept tuning.

There were a lot of faintly phosphorescent smudges, north, south, and west. East was getting pink, and he couldn’t tell if explosions were there, too.