The car sped into town and slowed to a crawl. Sam looked around at the buildings, handsome widely spaced single and multistoried structures from every period of the last century and a half, terrace after terrace climbing on each side of the roadway in the curve of the world.
The car pulled up to a platform and stopped. “Please be careful,” Alard said as he got out.
Sam stepped down and stood next to the governor. As the others emerged, a man came along the sidewalk and stopped next to Alard.
“This is my assistant, Soong Weng Ling,” Alard said. “He will show you to your quarters.” Before Sam could thank him, Alard turned and walked away down the street.
“You will forgive the governor,” the assistant said, “but he is a busy man in troubled times. Please follow me.”
Soong Weng Ling led them down the sidewalk of what appeared to be the main street, which ran at right angles to the trolley line. The lake was at their left, and for a moment the street suggested an interior latitude line, sloping gently upward before them. It occurred to Sam that here one had to go “below” to see the stars, that Asterome’s observatories, its maintenance and docking facilities, were in the world’s basement.
They followed Soong Weng Ling across the street. Sam paused before the rotating doors of the Hotel Asterome-Hilton and waited for the others to catch up.
“Mr. Soong,” Sam started to say.
“You may call me Weng Ling.”
“Weng Ling, how extensive is the level below us?”
“One day it will equal the inner surface, but with less overhead space, of course. We excavate as we need more space for industrial and scientific facilities, but only a quarter of the available limit has been used.”
Sam found himself liking the young Chinese; his answer had been full of hope, like something Richard would say.
“I count three towns,” Margot said while looking up.
Sam glanced upward. The tribeam was warm on his face, a captive sun shining by stolen light in a garden world that seemed to exist outside human history.
“Shall we go in?” Janet asked.
Orton and Margot stopped their sightseeing. Soong led the way through the spinning doors into the lobby. A very ordinary-looking desk clerk gave Sam the register.
“I will take them up myself,” Soong said after they had all punched in their names. He led the way to the elevator.
Their suite was on the top floor of the ten-story structure and consisted of a large solarium-living room common area and four bedrooms. A large screen showed the earth from twenty-five thousand miles out, looking like a painting on the wall opposite the solarium windows.
The light filtering in through the orange curtains created a warm, peaceful glow, inviting forgetfulness, but the magnified image of earth was a direct link to all his fears. Sam thought of the students and colleagues he had left behind.
“There’s a good Chinese and Japanese dining room down the street,” Soong said. “I will be back later to see if you have any needs.”
He turned and went out, closing the door carefully behind him.
Janet stared at the screen. Orton and Margot sat on the sofa. Sam approached the screen and examined the controls. He touched the highest setting and the earth drew nearer.
“At that magnification,” Margot said, “you can tell time by which cities are visible.”
Sam looked closely, but clouds hid the Western Hemisphere. He imagined thick smoke rising from New York and drifting out over the ocean.
The linear sun went out at six, dimming slowly. Streetlamps came on and filled the darkened hollow with a firefly glow. The evening air was dark as Sam and Janet led the way back to the hotel. Strolling people filled the streets; couples sat in the open cafes and small groups stood talking at the corners.
Sam looked up across the world, at the lights scattered like stars across the green country; the overhead towns were galaxies of concentrated light; the ends of the world were black, as if open to the void.
Suddenly a holo of the full earth appeared in the night overhead. Janet cried out; the crowd in the street grow silent. The sunlit globe seemed terrifyingly close under high magnification.
Silently, bright flashes appeared; dark blotches covered the daylight, marring the blues, greens, browns, and whites of the home world. Alard’s voice spoke over the public address system, seeming to fill the hollow with the utterance of a quiet god.
“A massive earthquake in the Caribbean has created a running crack in the earth’s crust, moving east and south. Radio transmissions from Washington, Moscow, London, and Peking are filled with debate and accusations concerning responsibility for what is happening. The remains of New York continue to be wrapped in fire and strange electromagnetic storms….”
Sam saw the look of dismay on the faces of Janet and Margot. Orton was tapping the pavement with his cane. The magma tap was gone, Sam knew, and a new Bulero monster was wandering across the face of the planet, swallowing even more lives.
The image of earth faded from the skyspace.
Soong was waiting for them in the lobby. They entered the lounge and sat down in the air-filled furniture that formed a broken circle in one corner of the paneled room.
“You know what is happening on earth?” Soong asked.
“Yes, we do,” Sam answered.
“It was relatively easy, though costly,” Soong said, “to remove what little bulerite we had. The governor and I mean no offense to the Bulero family—“
“That’s not important,” Sam said. “The question now is what can Asterome do to help earth?”
“You think it will be very bad,” Soong said.
“There will be those,” Blackfriar said, “who will try to gain political advantage if the major powers weaken.”
“Can Asterome go on by itself?” Margot asked. It was the kind of question Richard would ask, Sam realized.
Soong nodded. “We produce everything we need, but our capacity for receiving refugees is limited. There is a limit, also, on how many people can be evacuated from earth, if that becomes necessary. We can take everyone from the various earth-moon zone space installations and a certain number from earth, but the moon, Mars, and Ganymede City must look after their own. Ganymede City should have the least problem because much of it was built of nonbulerite materials; most of what they have is in their space vessels. Mars and the moon will have a lot of damage, but many will survive to rebuild. Earth is a different matter, however.”
The large screen on the far wall lit up, showing the face of Governor Alard. “There’s a first-strike missile barrage coming up from Africa and South America, moving toward North America and Europe. I don’t see much intercept response yet. You’d better get over here, Soong.” The face faded, leaving the image of earth. Soong stood and hurried out of the room.
Sam got up and approached the screen, searching earth’s cloudy face; the signs of disaster would be small at this distance, difficult to connect with what the mind knew was happening.
The relay angle changed to show earth half in darkness. Sparks played on the dark side—invisible, radiant, dark again, luminous stones sinking into a dark lake; it was impossible to tell ground hits from intercepts. Sam almost expected the planet to shudder visibly; the earth was shaking, he knew, shocks were flowing through the crust, and the final ruin would be greater than anything man could muster.
He thought of the house in New Mexico, wondering if the desert sands would begin to glow, draining the life out of the cacti as the bulerite grew more indeterminate, catching fire from within, like some primordial substance from which universes are made, finally dying into an eternal blackness, where even the starlight would be trapped….
The fools didn’t know that the bulerite alone was enough.
Janet came and stood next to him. The magnification increased, framing the entire Northern Hemisphere. Huge areas of smoke filled the daylight portion, slowly being pulled apart into delicate strands by the winds of the upper
atmosphere; the fireflies multiplied rapidly, reminding Sam of the flickerings on a computer panel.
“They’re not stopping,” Janet said.
“Return strikes have been made at every possible target,” Alard’s hushed, quavering voice said over the picture.
The cities glowed in the night, refusing to fade after multiple hits. Sam wondered if any missiles had been fired toward Asterome; they would reach the colony long after it was all over on earth. The bulerite would continue, however, second-best destroyer.
I’ll never see another sunrise on earth, he thought as he put his arm around Janet. Orton and Richard had wanted something that would present humankind with the choice of a shovel for its grave or the stars; immortality or death. Either to wait for the sun to die and the cold of space to take us, or to go when we are still able and aware of what we can become. Was he grasping at the words to make this all bearable? Civilizations have died before, he reminded himself, and new ones have grown to take their place.
Margot came and stood next to Janet. “All the people,” she said, “all the friends I knew in school, dying. Now we’ll have to survive out here.”
“Richard,” Janet whispered, and pressed her face into Sam’s shoulder.
Sam heard a breaking sound and turned in time to see Orton drop the two pieces of his cane, get up with a grunt, and walk out of the lounge.
As Sam looked back to the earth, he felt a rushing in his head, spreading outward from the terror lodged in the center of his brain. His imagination conjured up what his eyes could not see, his ears could not hear. All those who knew him, whose relationship to him gave him his identity and career, would soon be gone; his past was dying, and with it the planet’s history. This island in space would certainly not survive the earth by more than a few days; a warhead could reach the settlement in one day.
“Look—there in the Caribbean,” Margot said.
He saw a glowing red spot where the warm blood of the earth was spilling up into the sea from the magma tap. Steam clouds were rising, marking the crack’s progress through the crust.
Sam held Janet close and looked at Margot. She seemed in control of herself, despite the terror in her eyes.
“He can’t be dead,” she said, “he just can’t be. Excuse me.” She turned and left the room. Janet pulled away from Sam and went after her.
Sam watched the screen, welcoming the painful rigidity in his neck muscles. A long time ago, it seemed, the plans had all been made, the world’s problems identified; humanity had started remaking the future. Nothing so obvious as the rivalries of the last century would have led to a thermonuclear exchange; the way had been complex, hiding the result until too late. If the war continued for another hour or two, the earth would not recover for a century; longer if the bombs being used were of older design.
What would he live for if Asterome survived? Could Janet and he make a life for themselves off the earth? Suddenly he was afraid that he would never again feel useful or needed. He was worried about Janet; she might react very badly to the news of Richard’s death.
Then he realized that there might be no way for the news to reach her, that no one would ever know who was alive or dead in the ruins of earth.
7. The Cage of Life
Richard gripped the cassette case and looked through the milky transparency of the floor, down toward the base of the three-thousand-foot pyramid. Silent bursts of light passed between the bulerite floors, strange fish swimming through what should have been solid matter. The entire Bulero Complex seemed dreamlike, about to dissolve.
He hurried to the elevator, knowing that he might not reach the lobby before the building disintegrated. As he passed a giant window, he glimpsed the vast burning ruin of Chicago, its tiers caved in as in New York, the strange glow of anomalous forces becoming visible in the blue twilight.
Thanks, Jack, he said silently. You killed yourself, but you haven’t got me yet. He thought of the frenzy of the last week, feeling grateful that it had been possible to evacuate all the employees to nonbulerite areas.
Miraculously, the elevator doors opened. A small kindness. He might never reach the shuttle, even if he got down to the lobby and out of the complex. He stepped inside and the doors closed, leaving him in darkness as the world fell away and he clasped Carlos Bulero’s records to himself. They had better be worth it. The future would have to redeem the past. It had taken him many hours to find them among Jack’s records, misfiled where only he could have found them easily; and there was no guarantee that they were not Jack’s carefully edited copies of the original papers.
Richard’s weight increased as the elevator slowed to a stop. The doors opened, revealing a floor of white light. A dark figure was coming toward the elevator, gun in hand. A looter.
“Wait!” Mike Basil shouted as Richard stepped out and turned right quickly. “I’ve got the car.”
Richard stopped as Basil walked up to him. “What are you doing here, Mike? You should be at the shuttleport. Did the rest of our people get out of the area?”
“I’m glad I found you. There’s not much time.”
“Why should you care?”
Mike noticed the cassette case. “I was Jack’s friend, as much as that was possible.”
“Let’s get out of here before his handiwork ends our friendship,” Richard said.
Mike smiled, then turned and led the way out through the main entrance to the waiting car, where he got into the driver’s seat. Richard threw the cassette case into the back seat and got in next to him.
The vehicle moved down the driveway leading out of the thousand-acre world headquarters of Bulero Enterprises. The tree-lined road was empty.
Mike did not release the car when they reached the automated road. “It goes out intermittently,” he said. “No use taking a chance.”
He turned right and the car gained speed.
“Do you think we’ll have enough power at the launch laser?” Richard asked.
“We should, since it’s powered by our own fusion plant. That’s bulerite-enclosed, but there have been no signs of instability yet.”
“How about the shuttle itself?”
“Its bulerite is too young to go; it’ll last long enough.”
The Bulero Industrial Spaceport appeared in the distance. Richard saw the launch pad, a brightly lit cut-off cone against the darkening sky. As the car drew closer, a shuttle went up, riding a thick column of ruby red laser light; in a moment the roar grew very loud, dying away slowly as the vehicle disappeared overhead. The beam followed for a minute, imparting the last of its heat energy to the fuel mixture in the ship’s reaction chamber, then winked out.
Another minute later, Richard saw the last shuttle coming into vertical position on the pad.
A mob of people pressed in around the main gate, while guards struggled to clear the way. The car came to a stop at the edge of the crowd.
A voice boomed over the public address system: “Please proceed to the airport, or to boost-train terminals. We have no way to evacuate you here. This is an earth-to-orbit line only.”
“We’ll have to go around them,” Mike said.
They opened their doors and got out. Richard reached into the back seat and grabbed the black case.
“Let’s go,” Basil said. Richard remembered that Mike was armed.
Basil started to lead the way around the crowd. The crowd was oblivious to them, shouting at the guards. They reached the fence easily and started to push through toward the gate.
A pair of hands shoved Richard against the fence. “Who do you think you are?” a voiced demanded.
“Another bigshot,” a second voice answered as Richard held himself up against the fence. A hand reached for the case.
“Where are you going, bigshot?” the first voice asked.
A roar went up from the crowd, signaling some new response from the guards. Richard pulled the case away and held it close.
“Come on!” Mike whispered, and helped him along.
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“Watch it!” a voice shouted. Richard took a deep breath of the summer air, expecting to be shoved again.
“Mr. Basil!” one of the uniformed men said, and opened a way past the line of guards.
Mike pushed Richard through and followed. Another cry went up from the mob.
“There’s no way to avoid angering them,” Mike said inside the gate.
Richard stopped and looked back. The guards were retreating inside and closing the gate.
“Come on!” Mike shouted.
“The fence may be bulerite,” Richard said, “but the ground it’s standing in isn’t. The crowd can still press it flat.”
The mass of people was now pushing against the gate.
“Even if we took a few with us,” Mike said, “the rest would mob the facility and prevent us from taking off. We can’t risk damage to the laser controls.”
The gate seemed to move; the floodlights flickered. Richard hesitated. People clambered onto the gate.
“Come on!” Mike repeated.
The guards fired tear gas grenades, but a few figures reached the top and jumped inside.
Richard turned and ran after Basil, catching up with him as the other reached an empty port car.
They got in and Basil pulled away, heading for the launch pad. As he looked back, Richard noticed that the guards seemed to have quieted the crowd.
“Another bunch will be back later,” Mike said.
The address system crackled, then a voice said: “Attention all personnel. This is a nuclear alert. Repeat: This is a nuclear alert. Please go to your shelters. Warheads will reach us within twenty minutes. This is not a drill.”
Mike pulled up to the pad as the warning was repeated. The shuttle towered a hundred and fifty feet above them, bright and silvery in the floodlights.
“The crowd’s broken through the fence,” Mike said. He jumped out and ran toward the lift cage. Richard stuffed the case into his shirt and followed. “Sada will wait for us,” Mike said as the elevator door closed.
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