"Yes, Saber," he said, "what can I do for you?"
"Mr. President," she said, pronouncing the word with effect, and drawing the attention of everyone around her, "I wanted to wish you good luck."
That set off something of an explosion. Was it true? Had they found Henry Kolladner?
It had occurred to Charlie when he'd first gotten the news that Henry might have been fortunate. It was probably the only way he could have saved his reputation. Now he accepted their good wishes, embracing Evelyn and Saber and shaking hands with Keith and the chaplain. Then he went back to the telephone.
Saber tried to find him some privacy, but the only accessible sections on the microbus were the galley and the washroom. The galley wasn't very private and the washroom lacked ambiance. The new president would have to make do where he sat in the passenger cabin. He asked only that Keith Morley use nothing he overheard without getting specific approval.
Saber returned to the flight deck, and shortly afterward heard the hatch open. The chaplain's smiling face looked up. "I hope you don't mind," he said. "I was wondering if I could see how this thing operates."
She signaled for him to strap down in the copilot's seat.
He looked out at the luminous Earth. After a few inconsequential remarks he fell into a contemplative silence. "The universe seems very neutral," he said at last.
"How do you mean?"
"Not for publication."
"Of course not."
"Are you a believer?"
She thought about it. "I don't know, Chaplain. Probably not."
He nodded. "I cannot believe Jesus would permit what happened last night. Not the Jesus I know." Saber didn't know how to respond, understood that the comment needed no response. "Tell me, Saber," he said after a moment, "is there life on Mars?"
"Yes," she said, wondering what he was getting at. "But of a primitive order."
The chaplain nodded. "Doesn't matter how primitive. Conditions will allow what they will allow. Elsewhere conditions will be better. Right? Caribbean-style beaches. Cool, moist valleys. Rolling plains. Other Scotlands exist out there somewhere."
"Yes," she said. "I'd think that would have to be so. It's inconceivable that it isn't."
"Oh, it's conceivable that we're alone. I can conceive of it, and I wish it were so."
"Why?" she asked. Everyone she'd ever known had wanted the search for alien life-forms, alien civilizations, to succeed. The notion that anybody, anybody, would prefer an empty universe shocked her.
"Because then the story of Jesus would make sense. But in a universe like this, where we suspect there are perhaps millions of other races like our own, his sacrifice hardly seems applicable to the existing nature of things." The chaplain shook his head. "Either the crucifixion saves them all, or it does not. If it saves them all, we're asked to believe that out of this plenitude of worlds, He chose ours for His demonstration."
She could hear the chaplain's doubts, welling up from some long-blocked inner spring. She could hear the capitalized pronouns, could hear the plea for intervention. "If the crucifixion does not save everyone, then it must be carried out, in one form or another, countless times in countless places. What then becomes of His agonies, of the special sacrifice made for us?"
She thought about it for several minutes. "I never did understand the logic of the crucifixion," she said at last. "Maybe the point is supposed to be simply that he came."
2.
Skyport, Mo's Restaurant. 5:51 A.M.
Rachel Quinn hadn't slept. Like everyone else at the station, she'd been glued to the television. She recalled with mounting guilt her own anger that the Mars mission had been wiped out. But then, she'd had no idea the arrival of the comet would trigger anything like this.
Nevertheless, buried in the relentless accounts of waves, storms, and earthquakes, there were some encouraging stories; heroes were appearing everywhere. In Fort Lauderdale a man in a motor yacht picked up survivors and rode out several tsunamis. Doctors stayed at their posts in Baltimore, chopper-riding cops scooped people off rooftops in Houston, teenagers hurried toddlers to safety in Savannah. When a wave hit Vancouver Island, a man saved a group of his neighbors by piling them into a hydrogen balloon. He got clear with seconds to spare. In St. Augustine, a young woman helped several elderly couples climb an old stone tower to escape.
Even Skyport had been hit. Debris had blown out compartments on two decks, and three people were dead.
Rachel was in Mo's, having toast and coffee, watching CNN, when her cell phone trilled. The identifier indicated the call was from Operations. "Quinn," she said.
"Colonel, I'm Howard Chambers, special assistant to Belle Cassidy." Cassidy was the director of operations. "She'd like to see you if you could come by her office."
Ten minutes later Rachel was led through Cassidy's door. The director was standing in a corner of the room, bent over a console with two aides. She smiled at Rachel, dismissed the aides, and invited her to sit down. Belle Cassidy was in her early forties. There was something of the drill instructor in her demeanor. She stood ramrod straight, had short black hair, marble eyes, and wide shoulders. Rachel knew her, had even dined with her once when several of the astronauts had been passing through and the Skyport staff had given a dinner.
"Good to see you again, Rachel," she said, extending a hand. A gold chain tinkled on her wrist, a subtle flash of femininity in an otherwise masculine personality.
The office was big, as Skyport offices went. On the walls were framed documents detailing its occupant's services to various federal agencies, to foreign governments, and to the Lunar Transport Authority, her current employer. Belle folded her arms and remained standing. "Rachel," she said, "we need your help."
"In what way?"
"Were you aware President Kolladner is dead?"
"Yes," she said. "I heard about it a little while ago."
"The new president is stranded out there." Belle waved her hand in the general direction of the overhead. "In about seven and a half hours he's going to sail past here, doing forty thousand-plus kilometers an hour. Unless we get something out there that has the juice to catch him, they might as well swear in whoever's next in line. That idiot Speaker, I guess it would be."
Rachel's eyes widened. "You're asking for the Lowell?"
"It's all we've got. The ferries can't handle it."
"Sure," she said. "I'll get the numbers from your people, and we'll be ready to go."
"I appreciate it."
"It's my pleasure."
Regret showed in Belle's face. "I'll be honest with you. We spent the last couple of hours trying to figure out how to do it with our ferries. I mean, how often does the LTA get a chance to rescue a president?"
"No way, huh?"
"Well… if we had to, we could give it a good run. But it's too close to take the chance." She shook Rachel's hand. "So NASA gets the glory. Again."
FRANK CRANDALL'S ALL-NIGHTER. 5:57 A.M.
For those of you tuning in late, and those who've been flooding our switchboard, let me say again, Frank's okay. He was slightly injured last night, but he's otherwise fine. As you know, the show is usually broadcast from Miami. But the storm knocked out our facility there. Frank twisted a knee, but it's nothing serious and he'll be back tonight. Meantime, this is Paul DiAngelo sitting in for the Old Trooper. Now we've got time for one more caller before we get out of here. And Llewellyn tells me we've got a live one. Hello, Margaret in Los Angeles. Caller: Hi, Paul. Tell Frank all of us in LA. wish him well. DiAngelo: He'll be happy to hear that, Margaret. Why don't you tell our listeners where you are right now? Caller: I'm in my office, on the third floor of the Warrior Warehouse on the waterfront. DiAngelo: And what are you doing there? Caller: Actually, I'm working late. I'm one of the partners at Warrior. But what I'm really doing is watching for the tidal wave. And I can tell you, the ocean is smooth as silk. DiAngelo: Wait a minute, Margaret. You're sitting down at the waterfront watching for a tidal wave? Caller: (
Laughs.) I'm perfectly safe. These are high floors. I'm almost a hundred feet over the parking lot, and the building is concrete. DiAngelo: Margaret, why are you doing this? Caller: How many times do you get to see a tidal wave, Paul? Anyway, I've got my minicam up here, and if it comes I expect to get some good pictures. DiAngelo: I hope so. Have you thought about the possibility you might get cut off up there? Caller: The freezer's loaded. Listen, this isn't the reason I called, though. DiAngelo: Okay, Margaret, but we're almost out of time. Make it quick. Caller How many people died last night? DiAngelo: I don't know. The estimates are all over the place. Caller: A lot. DiAngelo: Yeah. Caller: That's right, Paul. And we could have saved a lot of those people if those clowns in Washington hadn't just dismissed the whole thing. DiAngelo: Looks that way. Caller: I think we're ripe for an impeachment, don't you? DiAngelo: Margaret, the president is among the victims. Caller: I know. And I wish I could say I'm sorry he's dead. But they really screwed up this time. And somebody needs to pay. DiAngelo: Thanks for your thoughts, Margaret. We're out of time, folks. Don't forget, Frank'll be back tonight, at his regular time, live.
3.
Micro. 6:22 A.M.
"I, Charles L. Haskell, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States."
Justice Mary B. Longbridge administered the oath by radio. She was at Egmont Air Force Base. It was the first time in U.S. history that the presiding official and the incoming president were physically separated.
In fact, other than Haskell, no U.S. citizen was present at the inauguration.
Had Mr. Haskell been visible to the electorate, they would have noted that the new president looked as if he'd been mugged. His face was swollen and he was covered with bruises.
There was no physical Bible in the microbus. Therefore, Mr. Haskell brought up an appropriate biblical verse from the ship's library and placed his left hand on the display while he took the oath. The passage, recommended by Chaplain Mark Pinnacle, was from Numbers, Chapter VI, Verses 24-26.
At thirty-eight, Charlie Haskell became the youngest president in U.S. history, surpassing Theodore Roosevelt by three years. He was the ninth vice president to succeed to the presidency on the death of the incumbent, and the tenth overall to assume the post (Gerald Ford having been inaugurated after the resignation of Richard Nixon).
His middle initial stood for Lionel, which was the name of an uncle he had met only once. He detested the name, and to the extent he was able, he never allowed it to be used or to appear in print.
He spoke for six minutes and eleven seconds, easily the shortest inauguration address on record. No other president, he said, had been sworn in at a darker moment. But he would do everything he could, with the united help of the American people, and their friends around the world, to ensure that the nation survived the event, to ease its burdens, to head off further disaster, and to begin the long process of recovery. "We will go on," he said. "We will learn from this, and we will not be turned aside. The broken Moon will remain in our skies, to remind us that we are not isolated on the Earth. There is a greater world beyond, and we must recognize we are part of that greater world. We must learn to apply our technologies to protect ourselves to the extent we are able; and we must also rethink who we are. Tonight we have arrived at a critical moment in our history. We must accept our losses, because we cannot do otherwise. But we will not accept defeat, we will go forward, because to fail to do so would be a betrayal of all who died during these last few hours."
When the ceremony ended, they drank a toast to his success. Evelyn had designed, and Saber printed, programs for the event, and everyone asked him to sign a copy.
"This isn't exactly the way I'd pictured my inauguration," he told them. "Usually the swearing-in includes a parade, ballrooms, dignitaries, lots of press coverage." He smiled at Keith Morley, who'd agreed to shut the mike off momentarily. "This one is quieter than most. But I think no other president has been so fortunate in the persons who surrounded him during the rite of passage. Living and dead." He lifted his glass to toast them. "Thank you."
4.
WPYX REPORTING. 4:33 A.M. PDT (7:33 A.M. EDT).
(Helicopter in the background, rotors slowly turning.)
"… atop the New County Courthouse in Los Angeles. From our perch up here we can see the Hall of Justice, the Federal Building, the Civic Center. Everywhere, frightened crowds are breaking into whatever buildings, whatever skyscrapers, they can, hoping to get up high." (Crowd noises, explosions, gunfire audible in background.)
"We can see lights and people moving on the upper floors of police headquarters and at the Museum of Contemporary Art. As far as we can tell, there is no longer an organized police force left in the city. The streets are filled with people. I don't know where they keep coming from.
"Our best information is that all highways out of the city remain hopelessly blocked. PacRail, of course, stopped operating earlier this evening, so right now the only salvation anyone has is to get above the water level. Whatever that might be. In fact, they're signaling me that we can hear people moving up in this building.
"Okay, that's the story from Hill Street and Beverly Boulevard. We're going to switch over now to Linda Tellier, who's in our news copter at Redondo Beach. Linda?"
"Thanks, Rod. We're about a half mile off shore, awaiting the first of the waves that the National Weather Service has been predicting for the last few hours. We're just over the water now, and while you can't see it in the dark, Redondo Beach is experiencing an extraordinarily low tide. That's one of the sure signs of an approaching wave.
"Looking east, we can see the lights of Torrance and Inglewood. Interstate 405 is almost dark, Rod. It's filled with abandoned cars. Police and military units were up there until about an hour ago, just pushing vehicles off the highway, but they're gone now too. And when we looked at it a few minutes ago, we saw only a few people wandering aimlessly, and some who were stripping cars.
"We were in touch with the Coast Guard-wait, I think I see something now. You're not getting this in your picture, but I can see what looks like a wall across the horizon. The ocean just seems to be rising up. And up." (Long pause.) "And up. God help us, Rod, it's hard to tell for sure, but that thing might be fifteen stories high.
"I hope everyone's out of Redondo." Pacific Coast. 4:39 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time (7:39 A.M. EDT).
The first wave struck well before dawn. It roared ashore between Point Conception and Santa Barbara and boiled into the Santa Ynez Mountains. Forewarned, the population had scattered to high ground, and only a handful of casualties were recorded. The National Park Service estimated that the wave was one hundred fifty feet high.
Within minutes other tsunamis hit Seattle and Coos Bay. The Seattle wave was initially reported to have been a half-mile high when it struck the city, but videos taken from office buildings and aircraft put the crest at only a tenth of that figure. It was enough.
Between four thirty-five and five A.M., the Pacific rose from its bed and overwhelmed the coastline from Juneau to San Carlos. In the Los Angeles area, the city simply disappeared, save for a few downtown skyscrapers and the surrounding hilltops. Most of Santa Monica and Redondo, Inglewood and Long Beach went with it.
San Francisco also died. A wave estimated at six hundred fifty feet took down the Golden Gate Bridge, submerged the city from the Presidio on the north to San Andreas Lake on the south. It buried Oakland and Berkeley, and poured through the Simi Valley and the bays north of San Francisco into the California interior. The San Joaquin Valley became an inland sea.
Initial estimates put the death toll at two million in greater Los Angeles alone. Curiously, throughout the bombardment San Diego remained untouched. It reported lower than normal tides.
In Mexico the ocean surged over Baja California, spilled into the Gulf of California, and maintained enough power to impose severe
damage on the eastern shore from Isla Del Tiburon to Mazatlan. County Route 6, southeast of San Francisco. 4:59 A.M. PDT (7:59 A.M. EDT).
There were no emergency services. Phones were dead and the radio in the police car brought only a carrier wave. As the first gray light of dawn was appearing, a helicopter owned by Short Haul Airways arrived with a doctor and some medical supplies.
"Best I could do," said the pilot, whose name Marisa never caught. "It's pretty grim out there."
Among the group trapped by the landslide, there'd been only one physician, and he'd broken his back. Marisa and Jerry had taken charge of the rescue effort.
They had converted the restaurant into a makeshift hospital, and the antique shop into a morgue. She'd tried to treat the seriously injured where they fell, despite the threat presented by the cliff. But the ground had continued to shake, and eventually she'd bitten the bullet and ordered everyone away. Ten minutes later the mountain had collapsed.
Jerry had rounded up volunteers and they pitched in to help, cleaning wounds, setting bones, and applying tourniquets. The doctor who'd come in aboard the chopper had been vacationing at a mountain cabin when Short Haul found him.
They had about forty people who needed hospital treatment. "Not going to happen," said the doctor. His name was Hardacre and he was in his early thirties. He was a young, good-looking guy who complained that it was his first vacation in three years. He seemed to regard the disaster as a personal imposition. But he'd come, and he seemed competent, so Marisa wasn't complaining.
"What do you mean, it's not going to happen?" she demanded.
"You been watching the TV?" he asked.
"Not for the last hour or so."
"When you get a minute, take a look. Whatever hospitals are left will be swamped. It's likely to be a long time before anybody's going to have beds available."
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