Footfall

Jack Clybourne followed them into the cavernous room. He looked puzzled, and Jenny felt sorry for him. There was no real need for a presidential bodyguard, not here in the national command center. His job was done the moment they got the President into the Hole, but nobody had thought to tell him that.

And I sure won’t.

Admiral Carrell stood to attention as the President entered. So did the mustached civilian who’d been seated with him. Admiral Carrell wore a dark civilian suit, but he looked very much an officer. “Glad to see you, sir.”

“Thank you.”

He sounds a million years old, and I feel older. I look like a witch — She felt giddy, and suppressed an insane desire to giggle. Suppose Admiral Carrell inspects my uniform, with wrinkles and unbuttoned buttons and — and I’m drunk on fatigue poisons. We all are. I wonder when the Admiral slept last?

“The cabinet will be coming later,” Coffey said. “That is, State and Interior will be. We’re dispersing some of the others so that — I don’t really know the aliens’ capabilities.”

Admiral Carrell nodded. “They may know the location of this place,” he said.

“Could they do anything if they did know?”

“Yes, sir. They hit Boulder Dam with something large and fast, no radioactive fallout. As my Threat Team keeps telling me, they’re throwing rocks at us. Meteorites. They have lasers that chew through ships. Mr. President, I don’t know what they could do to Cheyenne Mountain .”

They, they, they, Jenny thought. Our enemy has no name!

“Let’s hope we don’t find out, then. What is the situation? What about the Russians?”

“They’ve been hit badly, but they’re still fighting. I don’t know what forces they have left.” Admiral Carrell shook his head. “We’re having the devil of a time getting reports. We used up half our ICBM’s last night, firing them straight up and detonating in orbit. The aliens got half of what was left. They seem to have targeted dams, rail centers, harbors — and anyplace that launched a missile. I presume they did the same to the Soviets, but we can’t know.”

“We can’t talk to them?”

“I’m able to communicate with Dr. Bondarev intermittently. But he doesn’t know the status of his forces. Their internal communications are worse than ours, and ours are nearly gone.” Carrell paused a moment and leaned against a computer console.

He’s an old man! I never really saw it before. And that’s scary—

“What about casualties?” the President demanded.

“Military casualties are very light — except for F-15 pilots who launched satellite interceptors. Those were one hundred percent. We’ve lost a number of missile crews, too.

“Civilian casualties are a little like that. Very heavy for those living below dams or in harbor areas, and almost none outside such areas.”

“Total?”

Carrell shrugged. “Hard to find out. I’d guess about a hundred thousand, but it could be twice that.”

A hundred thousand. Vietnam killed only fifty thousand in ten years. Nobody’s taken losses like that since World War II.

“Why don’t you know?” the President demanded.

“We depend heavily on satellite relays for communications,” Carrell said. “Command, control, communications, intelligence, all depended on space, but we have no space assets left.”

“So we don’t know anything?”

“Know?” Admiral Carrell shook his head again. “No, sir, we don’t know anything. I do have some guesses.

“Something seems to have driven their large ship away; at least it withdrew. The Soviets attacked it heavily. According to Bondarev they probably damaged it, but if he has any evidence for that, he hasn’t told me about it.”

Jenny cleared her throat. “Yes?” Carrell asked.

“Nothing, sir. We all know about claims. If I were a Soviet official and I’d just expended a lot of very expensive missiles, I’m sure I’d claim it was worthwhile too.”

The President nodded grimly. “Assume it wasn’t damaged.”

“Yes, sir,” Carrell said. “It’s very hard to track anything through the goop in the upper atmosphere — and above, for that matter. The aliens have dumped many tons of metallic chaff. This gives some very strange radar reflections.

“As far as we can tell, they’ve left behind a number of warships, but the big ship withdrew. We think they headed for the Moon.” Admiral Carrell’s calm broke for a moment. “God damn them, that’s our Moon.”

“Have we heard from Moon Base?”

“Not ours, and the Soviets have lost contact with theirs. I think they’re gone.”

Fifty billion dollars. Most of our space program. Damn!

The President looked older by the minute. “What do we know about their small ships?”

Carrel shrugged. “They have several dozen of them. We say small, but the smallest is the size of the Enterprise . I mean the aircraft carrier! We shot some of them out of space. I know we got two, with a Minuteman out of Minot Air Force Base. Then they clobbered Minot . We think the Russians got a couple too.”

“None of which explains why they ran away,” the civilian said.

“Mr. President, this is Mr. Ransom, one of my Threat Team,” Admiral Carrell said, “He and his colleagues are the only experts we have.”