The Legend That Was Earth (44 page)

"We can still do it!" he said, turning back. "Luodine set the mission up as a collection center for items to go back to Chryse. But they've got the same kind of gear at Cairns, where we were with Krossig. We can set up another link to Chryse from
there
—from Australia!"

Gerofsky shook his head. "Throw away the initiative and get involved in alien psychology that we don't understand, when the things we do understand are working fine? What's the point? It goes against every rule in the book."

"How would these people in Australia know how to set their end up?" Di Milestro asked.

"I don't know," Cade retorted. "But the experts who set up the one at the mission are downstairs. We can still talk to Australia, can't we?"

"We don't need it," Gerofsky said again.

Cade stared from one to the other. Why were they hesitating, looking for reasons why not? "There's nothing to lose," he insisted. "If you're right and we take the board anyway, then it'll be a piece of insurance that costs nothing. If things turn sour, it could be the most important insurance we ever took." He pointed a finger in the direction of the floor. "And either way, it gives those four Hyadeans down there a chance to play a part. Are you going to deny them that, after what happened today?"

A deadlocked silence fell over the office. It was clear that neither Gerofsky nor Di Milestro wanted to be the person who was going to take this thing further; at the same time, they could find no refutation to what Cade had said. They looked as if they wished the whole thing would just go away. Before any resolution suggested itself, the terminal by Clara's desk sounded a priority tone. She answered at once, having blocked lower-level channels for privacy. Cade didn't recognize the face that appeared—a man in his fifties, white haired, professional looking, showing a jacket collar and necktie. "Clara, is Chester there?" he asked.

Clara moved aside as Di Milestro stepped forward. "It's Ed Flomer, from Sacramento," she said.

"Chester, the VP wants you on a conference call that he's setting up right away," Flomer said. His voice and expression were strained. "Can you get to a private line?"

"Sure...." Di Milestro frowned inquiringly at the screen. "What's happening, Ed?"

Flomer shook his head. "I can't tell you. This is for a secure line only."

Di Milestro looked at Clara. "This way," she said, and led him out of the office. Cade and Gerofsky remained facing each other. After an awkward silence, Gerofsky moved over to the bookshelves to scan idly over the titles. Cade shook his head despairingly at Marie and began flipping mentally through his catalog of acquaintances for names that he might have to start recruiting to bring more weight to bear. Then Clara returned.

"Can't we have it referred to someone else?" she said, looking at Gerofsky. "Couldn't the commander at Edwards handle it? All you'd need to do is arrange an order from the top to authorize full cooperation, and then get on with your job. As Roland said, the cost is nothing. The payoff could be incalculable. There's no penalty clause. We can't lose."

"It would depend on what Sacramento has to say," Gerofsky replied. His manner was stiff, uncompromising. Clara studied him for a moment, then looked at Cade and Marie. "Why don't you go back down and update the others on what's been said?" she suggested to them. "I'll call you." Clearly, she wanted words with Gerofsky alone. Cade indicated the door with a nod, and he and Marie left.

Back in the staff room, Cade told the others the latest news, and then went on to relate his conclusion that the strike on the mission hadn't been ordered by Washington. It shook Hudro out of the stupor that had been gripping him. "Of course it wasn't Terrans who give order!" Hudro exclaimed. "How do I not see it? Hyadeans in charge now—maybe Gazaghin. Is not good."

Nyarl shook his head. "We had a channel working...."

"And we can again—" Cade began. But before he could continue, the door opened and Clara came in with Di Milestro and Gerofsky. Di Milestro was pale. He faced the room while Clara closed the door. A hush fell. Something had changed very drastically in the last few minutes.

Di Milestro looked around. He had to take a long, shaky breath before speaking. "I'm breaking security on my own decision and telling you people what I've just learned because you might represent the only chance for averting a world-scale calamity." Cade caught Clara's eye with an incredulous, questioning look. But whatever this was about had apparently left her too numbed to respond. Di Milestro shifted his gaze to Cade. "Do you really think this thing you were telling us about could work?" he asked.

Cade nodded. "I believe it could work." What else was there to say?

"Run it by me again."

"Hyadeans see a different world here from what we see. Convince them that their government is about to destroy it and turn it into what they've got, and they'll pull out the rug." Cade flashed the Hyadeans a glance that let them know he was as mystified as they, then looked back. "What's happened?"

Di Milestro swallowed. "Admiral Varney's carrier group has been wiped out. A plane coming back off patrol shot the whole thing. I've just seen it upstairs. His flagship lit up like the Sun. There was nothing incoming on radar. The scientists are baffled."

"But Sacramento isn't budging," Gerofsky told the room. "Jeye says he would rather go out fighting than submit to a tyranny. If this other way of yours has a chance, we're going to have to do it ourselves."

THE WALL SCREEN IN THE staff room showed a replay, wired from Sacramento at Di Milestro's request, of the carrier and its closer escorts disappearing in a gigantic ball of fire and vaporized ocean. The wall of foam surging outward capsized the more distant ships or scattered them like toys caught beneath a waterfall.

"Neutron beam from orbiting warship," Hudro pronounced. He explained that the flux would send critical any fission explosive not suitably shielded or designed to be resistant. Hence, it had detonated the carrier's nuclear weapons inventory. Since neutrons were uncharged, Hyadean gravitic technology was necessary to create and focus the beams.

A watered-down press release issued from Sacramento an hour later stated merely that Varney's task group had been "engaged" by hostile forces, implied to be the other two groups still with the Eastern Union. It was also announced that President Jeye would make a public address later that night. Di Milestro predicted it would be a rallying call for maximum effort and endurance side-by-side with the Asian allies now they were on the brink of success. Making the most of Gerofsky and his military credentials, Clara found working space in the communications section of the city administration's emergency headquarters, located beneath the Corry Building, containing more offices and a meeting center, situated along the next block. It was a dismal setting of concrete walls, fluorescent lights, fireproof doors guarding vaults of generators and the air-conditioning plant, and a disaster relief shelter. The people in the building above had long ago christened it "the Catacombs." Normally, nobody worked there, but since the Federation's secession, a caretaker staff had been installed to maintain a state of standby readiness.

The first thing was to open a connection to Krossig's group in Cairns. Yassem had kept a backup of the codes for linking to the Querl relays in a portable laptop-like device that she had taken with her to Edwards, so they were not lost. However, satellite communications were disrupted, and Gerofsky had to demand military priority before technicians established a land-line and cable connection through a Navy facility in San Francisco to Hawaii to Sydney, and from there to Cairns via the regular telecommunications system. Meanwhile, Di Milestro used his security clearances to get a line through to the Catacombs from an assistant in Sacramento who would keep him updated on developments. Cade and Luke got busy organizing contacts with wire services, news studios, military press officers, and other likely sources from Cade's numerous acquaintances, in order to recreate as far as possible the collection center that Luodine had set up at the mission. Australia would need to move into Earth's dark side before the link through Cairns, beaming outward toward the Querl relays, could be tested. This wouldn't happen until the early hours of the morning, California time. The crew of the C22-E waiting out at Edwards were notified that departure was on hold for the time being.

Nyarl was the obvious one to go in Luodine's place. Besides having the experience, he was resolved as a tribute to finish the work she had begun, in the way she would have finished it. He was already assembling further material to send. In addition to the sensational clips showing the annihilation of Varney's carrier group, he now had—obtained via Di Milestro's connection from Sacramento—a shot that a Marine flight had caught of the missiles actually going in at the Hyadean mission. Nyarl asked if Cade and Marie would go too—he seemed to think Cade possessed a proclivity for drawing the right people together to deal with any crisis. Yassem needed to remain in LA to guide the people setting up the link from Cairns. Who else would be flying, and who would form the rest of the base team at the Catacombs, was still to be decided.

* * *

President Jeye's message went out at nine o'clock and was along the lines that Di Milestro had anticipated. Jeye admitted that Varney's losses had been "more severe than we were initially led to believe" and included the admiral along with his flagship, but the full extent of the disaster remained undisclosed. But this was not a time to let one setback, however grievous, deter us from pressing home the victory that was already within grasp. The armies in Texas were moving up to leap across the Mississippi to where our Southern brothers and sisters were waiting to greet their liberators. Canada was opening a vast superhighway for supplies and reinforcements. Jeye concluded: "I don't pretend that this will be a pleasant task. The people of New York and Boston, Atlanta and Pittsburgh are not enemies. But the regime that they have been duped and coerced into serving has become an alien power standing for alien interests. We, in the Western Federation, must defend and preserve the values that have always been America. I call on each one of you to play your part and stand firm until our AANS allies sweep through in their millions to bring this sad episode in our history to a just and honorable close. Out of it will emerge a restored United States, prouder and stronger, ready to take its place alongside the other free nations of this world as a full partner in the planetary community that we are all now, irrevocably, a part of."

Forty minutes later, the AANS fleet steaming east-southeast from Hawaii suffered the same fate as Varney's force. It was deployed in several squadrons spread over a greater area, however, and a number of the capital ships presumably not carrying nuclear devices escaped destruction by the induced fission explosions. They were taken out during the next half hour by bombs sent down from orbit. Some of the lesser vessels survived to scatter away across the Pacific. In retaliation, the Chinese used tactical nuclear missiles against the naval force immobilized in the Panama Canal and Gatun Lake, including Hyadean defensive positions. By midnight, Union forces in Mexico were responding in kind against bases that the Chinese airborne units had seized earlier. Meanwhile, the two remaining carrier groups in the Pacific were continuing northward, now unopposed. Guesses were that their commanders had been threatened with similar treatment to the others if they failed to carry out their missions as ordered.

* * *

An exchange of nuclear weapons, even if relatively small ones, in Central America was hardly something that could be concealed from a world wrapped in communications networks. The early hours of the morning brought fear that the escalation would spread to the Midwest and Southern battle areas, and then engulf the whole continent. Emergency plans were set in motion to evacuate local populations from the vicinities of military installations and other likely targets. Indiscriminate destruction of cities was considered improbable, however, for the same reason that nobody in Sacramento felt any great urge to wipe out populaces wholesale in Pennsylvania or New Jersey—but with an imponderable alien element, who could be too sure? As a precaution, key government and military personnel began occupying their long-prepared emergency bunkers, while public announcements called for everyone else to keep calm, stay tuned, and heed the authorities. Even so, the night saw mass exoduses from major metropolitan areas from San Francisco to Minneapolis, burning up gasoline and precipitating clashes with police bent on imposing order before general panic could set in. No doubt similar scenes were occurring between the Mississippi and the East Coast too.

Staff called in on emergency shifts began arriving in the offices of the Corry Building, many of them bringing their families through fear of being separated in the event of sudden evacuation. The Catacombs below became a scene of increasing noise and activity as more functions were staffed and brought on-line, and personnel from above came down seeking space to move into, now at a premium.

A 2:00 A.M. news bulletin brought the surprise announcement that Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Kansas, no doubt following secret negotiations, had come over to the Federation, opening the way to the Mississippi. Virtually simultaneously, Federation aircraft and ground-based missiles opened a wave of attacks against Union positions on the far side. Gerofsky guessed that secretly prepared assault units for the crossing were already moving into position, while the armies in Texas raced forward in support. It all followed the policy that Jeye had committed to: going all-out now, before the odds against success got any less. And it seemed he was getting others to go along.

Then, at 3:35, Di Milestro's private channel from Sacramento brought the terse statement that McConnell Air Force Base near Wichita, one of the Federation's primary bases flying combat and support operations for the central sector of the front, and the air logistics center at Tinker, southeast of Oklahoma City, had been obliterated. Not simply "attacked," but "obliterated." Nine minutes later, it was the turn of the bomber and missile-support base at Grand Forks, North Dakota. They were being picked by something in polar orbit. The next sweep could be north-south through California. If so, Edwards would surely be a prime target.