Footfall

The book depicts the arrival of members of an alien species called the Fithp that have traveled to our solar system from Alpha Centauri in a large spacecraft. The aliens are intent on taking over the Earth.

Physically, the Fithp resemble man-sized, quadrupedal elephants with multiple trunks. They possess more advanced technology than humans, but have developed none of it themselves. In the distant past on their planet, another species was dominant, with the Fithp existing as animals, perhaps even as pets. This predecessor species badly damaged the environment, rendering themselves and many other species extinct, but left behind their knowledge inscribed on large stone cubes (called
Thuktunthp
, plural of
Thuktun
in the Fithp language), from which the Fithp have gained their technology. The study of Thuktun is the only science the Fithp possess. The Fithp are armed with a technology that is superior rather than incomprehensible: laser cannon, projectile rifles, controlled meteorite strikes to bombard surface targets, lightcraft surface-to-orbit shuttles the size of warships, etc.

Nominated for Hugo and Locus awards in 1986.

Linda Crichton Gillespie, a Washington debutante

Jeanette Crichton, her sister

Dr. Richard Owen, astronomer

Dr. Mary Alie Mouton, astronomer

Major General Edmund Gillespie, USAF astronaut

David Coffey, President of the United States

Mrs. Jeanne Coffey, First Lady

The Honorable Wesley T. Dawson, a Congressman from California

Mrs. Carlotta Trujillo Dawson, his wife

Roger Brooks, Special Assignments Reporter, Washington Post

James Frantza, White House Chief of Staff

Henry Morton, Vice President

Dr. Arthur Hart, Secretary of State

Hap Aylesworth, Special Assistant to the President for Political Affairs

Ted Griffin, Secretary of Defense

Admiral Thorwald Carrell, National Security Advisor

Peter McCleve, Attorney General

Tim Rosenthal, Secretary of the Treasury

Connie Fuller, Secretary of Commerce

Arnold Riggs, Secretary of Agriculture

Jack Clybourne, Presidential Protection Unit, Secret Service

Academician Pavel Aleksandrovich Bondarev, Director, Lenin Institute

Lorena Polinova, his secretary and mistress

Marina Nikolayevna Bondarev, his wife

Boris Ogarkov, Party Secretary at the Institute

Andrei Pyatigorskiy, Assistant Director, Lenin Institute

General Nikolai Nikolayevich Narovchatov, Party Third Secretary, later

Party First Secretary

Chairman Anatoliy Vladimirovich Petrovskiy, Chairman of the Supreme

Soviet

Ilya Trusova, Chairman of the KGB

Dmitri Parfenovich Grushin, KGB officer

Marshal Leonid Edmundovich Shavyrin, Marshal of the Long Range Strategic

Rocket Forces

Harry Reddington, unemployed minstrel

Jeri Wilson, Senior Editor, Harris Wickes Press

Melissa Wilson, her daughter

William Adolphos Shakes

Kevin Shakes

Miranda Shakes

Isadore and Clara Leiber

George and Vicki Tate-Evans

Jack and Harriet McCauley

Martin Carnell, Show-dog breeder

Ken Dutton, Bookstore manager

Cora Donaldson

Sarge Harris, friends of Ken Dutton

Patsy Clevenger

Anthony Graves

Maximilian Rohrs, general contractor, Bellingham

Evelyn Rohrs, former Washington socialite

Ben Lafferty, Sheriff Whatcom County, Washington

Leigh Young, Deputy Sheriff

Whitey Lowenthal, welder

Carol North, citizens of Lauren, Kansas

Rosalee Neill

Colonel Arvid Pavlovich Rogachev, Commander of Kosmograd

Nikolai, onetime Sergeant, Red Air Force

Allana Aleksandrovna Tutsikova, Deputy Commander

Dr. Giselle Beaumont, French scientist

The Honorable Giorge N’Bruhna, Nigerian politician

Captain John Greeley, USAFU astronaut

Herdmaster Pastempeh-keph

Advisor Fathisteh-tulk

K’turfookeph, the Herdmaster’s mate

Chowpeentulk, Advisor’s mate

Fookerteh, the Herdmaster’s son

Attackmaster Koothfektil-rnsp

Defensemaster Tantarent-fid

Breaker-Two Takpusseh (later Takpusseh-yamp)

Breaker-One Raztupisp-minz

Fistareth-thuktun, priest and historian

Koolpooleh, male assistant to Fistarteh-thuktun

Paykurtank, female assistant to Fistarteh-thuktun

Octuple leader Pretheeteh-damh

Tashayamp, female assistant to Takpusseh (later his mate)

Octuple Leader Chintithpit-mang, sleeper

Shreshleemang, Chintithpit-mang’s mate

Eight-cubed Leader Harpanet

Eight-cubed Leader Siplistepth

Rashinggith, warrior (Year Zero Fithp)

Birithart-yamp, warrior in Africa

Pheegorun, warrior in Africa, died by spear

Thiparteth-fuft, guard officer

Sergeant Ben Mailey, U.S. Army

Sherry Atkinson

Robert and Virginia Anson

Wade and Jane Curtis

Bob Burnham

Lieutenant General Harvey Toland, U.S. Army

The Honorable Joe Dayton, Speaker of the House

Senator Alexander Haswell, President Pro Temps of the Senate

Senator Raymond Carr, Senator from Kansas

Nat Reynolds

Joe Ransom

John Woodward

Carrie Woodward, prisoners

Alice MeLennon

Gary Capehart

Ensign Jeff Franklin

Hamilton Gamble

Dr. Arthur Grace

“Tiny” Pelz, crewman

Michael Jason Daniels

Samuel Cohen

Roy Cuber, shuttle pilots

Jay Hadley

Commander Anton Villars, Captain, USNS Ethan Allen

Colonel Julius Carter, U.S. Special Forces

Lieutenant Jack Carruthers, U.S. Special Forces

Lieutenant Ivan Semeyusov, Soviet Expeditionary Force

Brant Chisholm, South African farmer

Katje Chisholm, his wife

Mvubi, Zulu warrior

Niklaus Van Der Stel, Afrikaner Commando

Juana Trujillo Morgan, wife of Major Morgan

Lieutenant Colonel Joe Halverson

Major David Morgan, Kansas National Guard

Captain Evan

Corporal Jimmy Lewis

Captain George Mason

Within its broad array of nested rings, the planet was a seething storm. It had always been so. Patterns chased themselves across its brown-on-brown face in bands and curlicues. The space around it churned with activity: billions of icy particles in a broad array of nested rings; eights of moons; streamers of dust whipped by powerful magnetic fields; all whirling around at terrific velocities, at several makasrupkithp per breath. Message Bearer maneuvered within that storm.

The Herdmaster’s Advisor, gazing raptly through the thick double window, seemed to notice only the beauty of the scene.

The Herdmaster found that irritating. His own domain included collisions, industrial operations, internal quarrels, and the peaceful integration of sleepers with spaceborn. He had quite enough problems without… that.

Message Bearer’s main telescope was the equal of any astronomical installation on the world they had left behind. The alien probe was close now, by astronomical standards, and the screen showed it in fine detail.

A circular antenna. A pod at the tip of a long boom radiated infrared warmth. That would be the power supply. Two more booms thrust instruments outward. Clasp digits with me, that I may know your herd! One extension held what had to be cameras, the other some kind of electronic sensing device.

Sixty-four sleepers, the Breaker’s team, were working now to infer what they could about the creatures who had built that machine. They hadn’t told the Herdmaster anything useful. When the camera platform began to turn, the Herdmaster’s digits flexed restlessly.

“You made your decision half a year ago,” Advisor Fathistehtulk said placidly. “You did not destroy it then. How can you destroy it now?”

“Here is where their fragile spy probe must pass through endless orbiting debris, It must survive collisions, radiation, orbital fluctuations, and any unreal danger the prey may imagine. Here is where some mischance is most likely to smash it!”

“We agreed that the probe will find no trace of us. Message Bearer is tiny on this scale. Surely the probe is not seeking us: it was launched long before we arrived. But if there were something to see, yonder camera might have seen it by now. Some evidence of our presence, vivid in their receivers … and now comes a flash of light, then silence from the probe, ever after. Would that tickle your suspicions?”

“If you were Herdmaster, would you continue to worry?”

That was cruel. At the beginning of things, Fathisteh-tulk had been Herdmaster. He had entered his death-sleep expecting to be Herdmaster again. In his present subservient position the concerns of a Herdmaster seemed not to bother him at all. Sometimes Herdmaster Pastempeh-keph wondered if he was being mocked.

“Were I Herdmaster,” the Advisor said placidly, “I would do as you have done. Rest quiet while the probe passes through. Make no attempt to move the ship, send no message to our work force on the Foot. Let the probe pass. When the second probe comes, we will be established on the Foot. Let them try to distinguish us against an unknown background.”

And he turned from the telescope screen, perhaps pointedly, to gaze on the great brown-patterned world and its vast rings.

The Herdmaster said, “I worry. For much of their history the prey must have studied this … great gaudy ornament in their sky. They would know what to expect better than we do after less than a year. What have we missed?”

Outside the broad main ring system, a narrower ring still roiled from the wake of Message Bearer’s drive.

As she closed the gate and automatically picked up a scrap of paper that had blown into the yard, Linda Gillespie realized that she was beginning to think of this house — a typical California development split-level — as home. That would mike the second home since she was married. There had been three other places they hadn’t stayed in long enough to think about as homelike at all. Five moves in four years. The Air Force was a mobile service, especially for hot fighter pilots. The best place had been in Texas, when Edmund had been with the astronaut office, and they’d lived in El Lago.

But this couldn’t really be home. It was just a rented house, a place to stay during Edmund’s tour at the Space and Missiles Systems Organization in Los

Angeles. Now that he’d been assigned as a shuttle pilot, they’d move again. Back to Houston! That would be nice. Houston treated astronauts and their families very well indeed.

It was a gloomy Los Angeles November morning, chilly even through her cashmere sweater, with low clouds and fog. The air smelled damp, with a trace of the odor of smog. There was no sunshine, although by noon there would be. It wasn’t pleasant outside.

Inside was better. She poured coffee and sat at the kitchen table. Too early for Ed to call. He wouldn’t anyway. He never did when he was out of town. It’s all very well to be married to an astronaut hero, but it would be nice to have a husband at home once in a while. The Los Angeles Times lay on the table, and she thumbed through it.

She didn’t like to be alone at home, but she didn’t want to go anywhere, either. Ed could assure her she was perfectly safe, much safer than in

Washington, where she’d grown up, and she could believe him — but she knew

Washington, and Los Angeles was a mystery. One San Francisco columnist kept teasing Los Angeles about being invisible.

There was also the Hollywood Strangler, and a man alleged to be the Freeway Killer was on trial for the torture sex murders of a dozen young boys. Great place to raise children. She folded the paper. Time to wax the kitchen floor, she decided. Ed didn’t care much, but his colonel would come to dinner next week, and Colonel McReady’s wife was inclined to snoop. Besides, it wasn’t that hard to do floors.

Ed wouldn’t approve. Not now. She grinned and looked down at her stomach. Didn’t show a bit. She wasn’t sick, either, and if it hadn’t been for the missed periods and medical reports there’d be no reason to suspect she was pregnant. Even so, Ed treated her like she was made of Dresden china. He carried out the garbage, did all the lifting, and worried about hurting her during sex.

That thought made her frown. Ed went all gooey over her pregnancy, but it turned him off! Maybe I’ll lose interest in a month or so. I sure hope so, the way he acts.

Linda poured more coffee. The telephone rang, startling her so that she dropped the cup. It was Corningware and didn’t break, but it clattered loudly on the floor, spilling coffee everywhere.

“Hello?”

“Linda?”

“Yes?”

“By golly, it is you! It’s Roger.”

“Oh. How are you, Roger?”

“Great. Glad you haven’t forgotten me.”

“No, I haven’t forgotten.” You don’t forget your first, she thought. First love, first sex experience, first-a lot of firsts with Roger, back in high school and just after. And what should I say? That he hasn’t called in a long time, but that’s all right because I didn’t want him to? “Roger, how did you get our number?”

“We reporters have our ways. Hey, I’d like to see you. What about a really unusual experience?”

She giggled. “Roger, I’m a married woman.”

“Sure. Happily?”

“Yes, of course!”

“Good. Good for you and Edmund, anyway. What I have in mind is in Edmund’s line. JPL. The Saturn encounter. Voyager is out there getting pictures nobody understands, and we can see them firsthand.” He paused a moment. “It’s this way. I’m here in Los Angeles covering the Saturn story. Not exactly Pulitzer Prize material, but I took the assignment to get away from Washington for a while. So I’m out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory where the pictures come in. We get briefings from the scientists, and there’s science-fiction writers, and it’s a hell of a show. Let me pick you up on my way out, you’re almost on the way. I’ll have you home by dinnertime, and I won’t try to seduce you.”

And Ed was gone for a week. “It’s tempting. It really is, but I can’t.”

“Sure you can.”

“Roger, my sister is staying here!”

“So what? I’ll have you home before dinner.”

Linda thought about that. Jenny was off somewhere for the day. Saturn pictures. Reporters. It might be fun. “You said science fiction writers. Is Nat Reynolds there?”

“Yeah, I think so. Just a second, there’s a list — yeah, he’s there. Know him?”

“No, but Edmund likes his books. I bought one for his birthday. Think I could get it autographed?”

“An astronaut’s wife? Hell, those sci-fi types will turn flips to meet you.”

Nat Reynolds was hung over, and it was far too early to be up. It was a miracle he’d made it up the arroyo to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory parking lot and got the Porsche into the tiny slot the JPL guard had showed him.

There were cars parked for half a mile along the road leading to where JPL nestled in what had once been a lonely arroyo. The sweet immediately outside the press center was nearly blocked by TV vans, and a thick web of cables spanned the sidewalk to vanish through open loading doors. The press corps had turned out in force, bringing almost as many cameras and crews as they’d send to the site of a bank robbery in progress.

The von Karman Auditorium was a madhouse. Nearly every square foot of floor space was covered by someone: scientist, public relations, press corps, most holding coffee cups or carrying bulky objects.

The press corps was divided. There were the working press and there were the science-fiction writers, and no doubt about who was who. The press was there to work. Some had fun, but all had deadlines. The SF types were there to gawk, and be part of the scene, and absorb the atmosphere, and maybe someday it would get into a story and maybe not. Their world was being created and they were here to see it happen.

This is Saturn!

Huge TV screens showed pictures as they came in from the Voyager. Every few minutes a picture changed. A close view of the planet, black-and-white streamlines and whorls. Rings, hundreds of them, like a close-up of a phonograph record. Saturn again, in color, with his rings in wide angle. Sections of the rings in closeup. Shots of moons. All just as it came in, so that the press saw it as soon as the scientists.

At the Jupiter passings the pictures had come in faster, in vivid swirls and endless storms, God making merry with an airbrush, and four moons that turned out to be worlds in their own right. But to balance that they’d soon see Titan, which was known to have an atmosphere. Sagan and the other scientists weren’t saying they hoped to find life on Titan — but they were certainly interested in the giant moon, which had so far been disappointingly featureless.

The screens shifted, and the babble in the room fell off for a moment. A moon like a giant eyeball: one tremendous crater of the proportions of an iris, with a central peak for the pupil. Anything bigger, Nat thought, would have shattered the whole moon. He heard a female voice say, “Well, we’ve located the Death Star,” and he grinned without turning around. What do the newspeople think of us? He could picture himself: the idiot grin, mouth slightly open, drifting down the line of screens without looking where he was going, tripping over cables.

Nat couldn’t make himself care. A screen changed to show something like a dry riverbed or three twined plumes of smoke or … F-ring, the printout said. Nat said, “What the hell …”

“You’d know if you’d been here last night.”

“I’ve got to get some sleep.” Nat didn’t need to look around. He’d written two books with Wade Curtis; he expected to recognize that voice in Hell, when they planned their escape. Wade Curtis talked like he had an amplifier in his throat, turned high. Partly that was his military training, partly the deafness he’d earned as an artillery officer.

He also had a tendency to lecture. “F-ring,” he said. “You know, like A, B, C, rings, only they’re named in order of discovery, not distance from the planet, so the system’s all screwed up. The F-ring is the one just outside the big body of rings. It’s thin. Nobody ever saw it until the space probes went out there, and Pioneer didn’t get much of a picture even then.”

Nat held up his hand. I know, I know, the gesture said. Curtis shrugged and was quiet.

But the F-ring didn’t look normal at all. It showed as three knotted streamers of gas or dust or God knows what all braided together. “Braided,” Nat said. “What does that?”

“None of the astronomers wanted to say.”

“Okay, I can see why. Catch me in a mistake, I shrug it off. A scientist, he’s betting his career.”

“Yeah. Well, I know of no law of physics that would permit that!”

Nat didn’t either. He said, “What’s the matter, haven’t you ever seen three earthworms in love?” and accepted Wade’s appreciative chuckle as his due. “I’d be afraid to write about it. Someone would have it explained before I could get the story into print.”

The press conference was ready to start. The JPL camera crew unlimbered its gear to broadcast the press conference all over the laboratory grounds, and one of the public relations ladies went around turning off the screens in the conference mom.

“Hmm. Interesting stuff still coming in,” Curtis said. “And there aren’t any seats. I had a couple but I gave them to the Washington Post. Front-row seats, too.”

“Too bad,” Nat said. “What the hell, let’s watch the conference from the reception area. Jilly’s out there already.”

On the morning of November 12. 1980, the pressroom at Jet Propulsion Laboratories was a tangled maze of video equipment and moving elbows. Roger and Linda had come early, but not early enough to get seats. A science-fiction writer in a bush jacket gave up his, two right in the front row.

“Sure it’s all right?” Roger asked.

The sci-fi man shrugged. “You need ’em more than I do. Tell Congress the space program’s important, that’s all I ask.”

Roger thanked the man and sat down. Linda Gillespie was trapped near the life-size spacecraft model, fending off still another reporter who was trying to interview her: what had it been like, marooned on Earth while her husband was aboard Skylab?