The Calculating Stars

by Mary Robinette Kowal

  The world groaned and roared and wind howled through the empty window frames.

  When the sound died away, the car had moved halfway across the road. Around us, trees lay on the ground in tidy rows, as if some giant had arranged them. Not all of them were down, but the ones that remained standing had been stripped of snow and whatever leaves they had left.

  The windshield was just gone. The driver’s side window lay on top of us in a laminated sheet of spiderwebbed safety glass. I pushed it up, and Nathaniel helped shove it out the door. Blood trickled from little scrapes on his face and hands.

  He lifted a hand to my face. “You’re bleeding.” His voice sounded like he was underwater, and he frowned as he spoke.

  “You too.” My own voice was muffled. “Ear damage?”

  He nodded and rubbed his face, smearing the blood into a scarlet film. “At least we can’t hear the news.”

  I laughed, because sometimes you have to, even when things aren’t funny. I reached over to turn the radio off and stopped with my hand on the dial.

  There was no sound. This wasn’t a matter of being deafened by the blast; the radio was silent. “They must have lost their broadcast tower.”

  “See if there’s another station.” He put the car into gear and we crept forward a few feet. “No. Wait. Sorry. We’re going to have to walk.”

  Even if the car had been in pristine condition, there were too many trees down across the road to drive it very far. But it was only two miles to the airfield, and we hiked it in the summer sometimes. Maybe—maybe we could still make it to Charleston before the tidal wave hit. If the plane was okay. If the air was clear. If we had enough time. The odds were against all of those, but what else could I do except hope?

  We got out of the car and started to walk.

  * * *

  Nathaniel helped me scramble over a tree trunk. I slipped in the slush as I stepped down, and if he hadn’t had my arm, I would have landed on my rump. I kept trying to hurry, but it wouldn’t do anyone any good if I broke my neck or even just an arm.

  He grimaced at the melting snow. “Temperature is rising.”

  “Maybe I should have packed a swimsuit.” I patted his arm as we kept going. I was being flippant in an effort to keep up a brave front, which would help Nathaniel worry less about me. In theory.

  At least the exertion meant that I had stopped shaking. I hadn’t been hearing any birdsong, but I wasn’t sure if that was due to the hearing damage or because they weren’t singing. The road was blocked in most places, but it was easier to orient ourselves if we stayed along it than if we tried to go cross-country, and we couldn’t afford to get lost. It was slow going, and even with the warm air from the blast, we weren’t dressed for an extended stay outside.

  “You don’t really think the plane will still be there?” The cuts on Nathaniel’s face had stopped bleeding, but the blood and dirt gave him an almost piratical appearance. If pirates wore tweed.

  I picked my way around the crown of a tree. “All other factors being equal, the airfield is closer than town, and—”

  There was an arm on the road. No body. Just a bare arm. It ended at a rough and bloody shoulder. The specimen had probably been an adult Caucasian male in his thirties. The fingers were curled delicately up to the sky.

  “God.” Nathaniel stopped next to me.

  Neither of us were squeamish, and the successive shocks had created a sort of numb haze. I stepped closer to the arm, and then looked up the hill. Only a few trees were standing, but their crowns, even denuded of leaves, masked the landscape in a tracery of branches. “Hello?”

  Nathaniel cupped his hands around his mouth and hollered, “Hello! Is anyone there?”

  Except for the wind rustling the branches, the hill was silent.

  I’d seen worse things than a severed limb at the front when ducking in to pick up a plane and transport it. This wasn’t a war, but there would be that many deaths. Burying the arm seemed fruitless. Still, leaving it seemed … wrong.

  I sought Nathaniel’s hand. “Baruch dayan ha’emet.”

  His rough baritone joined mine. Our prayer was less for this unknown man, who probably wasn’t Jewish, and more for all the people he embodied. For my parents and all the thousands—the hundreds of thousands—of people who had died today.

  That was when I finally began to weep.

  * * *

  It took us another four hours to make it to the airstrip. Understand that in the summer we often hiked that route in about an hour. The gentle Pennsylvania mountains were little more than hills.

  This trip was … difficult.

  The arm was not the worst thing we saw. We encountered no one living on our way down to the airfield. More trees were standing here, although anything with shallow roots was down. But I felt the first hope since the light of the blast, because we heard a car.

  The purr of an automobile idling crept through the trees to meet us. Nathaniel met my gaze, and we started to run down the road, scrambling over trunks and fallen branches, skirting debris and dead animals, skidding in the slush and ash. All the while, the car got louder.

  When we burst free of the last obstruction, we were across from the airstrip. It was really just a field, but Mr. Goldman had known Nathaniel since he was a kid, and kept a strip mowed for us. The barn was twisted at a weird angle, but standing. We’d gotten incredibly lucky.

  The airstrip was just mowed grass, set between the trees on a gentle plateau. It ran roughly east to west and was enough in the direction of the airblast that most of the trees had been pushed down parallel to it, leaving it clear.

  The road ran along the east end of the airstrip and then curved to follow it on the north side. There, partially obscured by the remaining trees, was the vehicle that we’d been hearing.

  It was the red Ford pickup that Mr. Goldman drove. Nathaniel and I hurried down the road, and around the bend. The road was blocked by a tree here, and the truck was pressed up against it as if Mr. Goldman were trying to push it out of the way.

  “Mr. Goldman!” Nathaniel hollered and waved his arms.

  The windows of the truck were all gone and Mr. Goldman was slumped against the side of the door. I ran toward the car, hoping he was just unconscious. Nathaniel and I had at least had the benefit of expecting the airblast and had been braced and relatively sheltered when it hit.

  But Mr. Goldman …

  I slowed as I reached the truck. Nathaniel used to tell me stories about his childhood trips to the cabin and how Mr. Goldman had always had peppermint stick candy for him.

  He was dead. I did not need to touch him or feel for a pulse. The tree branch that had been driven through his neck answered that question.

  THREE

  ANNOUNCER: This is the BBC World News for March 3, 1952. Here is the news and I’m Raymond Baxter. As fires continue to rage on the east coast of the United States, other countries are beginning to see the first effects of this morning’s meteorite strike. Tidal waves are reported in Morocco, Portugal, and Ireland.

  As a Women Airforce Service Pilot during the Second World War, I often flew transport missions with planes that were barely airworthy. My little Cessna was more flyable than some of the planes I’d gotten off the ground as a WASP. Dusty and scuffed, yes, but after the most careful preflight check in the history of aviation, I got her airborne.

  As soon as we were up, I made a left bank to turn us south toward Charleston. We both knew it was probably futile, but I had to try. As the plane swung around, what remained of my irrational hope died. The sky to the east was a long dark wall of dust and smoke, lit from beneath by an inferno. If you’ve seen forest fires, you know a little of what this was like. The current fire stretched to the curvature of the Earth, as if someone had peeled back the mantle and opened a gateway into Hell itself. Streaks of fire lit the sky as ejecta continued to fall to the Earth. Flying into that would be madness.

  Everything to the east of the mountains had been flattened. The airblast
had laid the trees out in weirdly neat rows. In the seat beside me, just audible over the roar of the engine, Nathaniel moaned.

  I swallowed and swung the plane back around to the west. “We have about two hours of fuel. Suggestions?”

  Like me, he tended to do better if he had something to focus on. When his mother died, he built a deck in our backyard, and my husband is not terribly handy with a hammer.

  Nathaniel scrubbed his face and straightened. “Let’s see who’s out there?” He reached for the radio, which was still tuned to the Langley Tower. “Langley Tower, Cessna Four One Six Baker request VFR traffic advisories. Over.”

  Static answered him.

  “Any radio, Cessna Four One Six Baker request VFR traffic advisories. Over.”

  He dialed through the entire radio frequency, listening for someone broadcasting. He repeated his call on each while I flew. “Try the UHF.” As a civilian pilot, I should have just had a VHF radio, but because Nathaniel worked with the NACA we had a UHF installed as well so he could listen directly to pilots who were on test flights. We never cluttered the military channels by broadcasting, but today…? Today I just wanted anyone to answer. As we made our way west, the devastation lessened, but only in comparison to what lay behind us. Trees and buildings had been knocked down by the blast. Some were on fire, with no one to put them out. What had it been like, to not understand what was coming?

  “Unidentified Cessna, Sabre Two One, all nonessential air traffic is grounded.”

  At the sound of a living human, I started to weep again, but this was not a time to indulge in compromised vision. I blinked my eyes to clear them and focused on the horizon.

  “Roger, Sabre Two One, Cessna Four One Six Baker, request advice on clear landing areas. Heading two seven zero.”

  “One Six Baker, copy that. I’m right above you. Where the hell are you coming from?” His voice had the telltale hiss and rattle of an oxygen mask, and behind that was the thin whine of a jet engine. Looking back and up, I could just make out the F-86, and his wingman farther back, gaining on us. They would have to circle, because their stall speed was faster than my little Cessna could fly.

  “Hell seems pretty accurate.” Nathaniel rubbed his forehead with his free hand. “We were in the Poconos when the meteorite hit.”

  “Jesus, One Six Baker. I just flew over that. How are you alive?”

  “I’ve got no idea. So … where should we set down?”

  “Give me a sec. I’ll check to see if I can escort you to Wright-Patterson.”

  “Roger. Would it help to mention that I’m a retired Army captain and still work with the government?”

  “With the government? Please tell me you’re a senator.”

  Nathaniel laughed. “No. A rocket scientist with the NACA. Nathaniel York.”

  “The satellites! That’s why you sounded familiar. I heard you on the radio. Major Eugene Lindholm, at your service.” The man on the other end of the line was silent for a couple of minutes. When it crackled back to life again, he said, “Got enough fuel to reach Wright-Patterson?”

  I’d flown into that airbase multiple times, moving planes during the war. It was approximately one hundred and fifty miles from where we were. I nodded as I adjusted course to head us there.

  Nathaniel nodded in acknowledgment and lifted the mic again. “We do.”

  “Great. You’ll be there in time for dinner. Not that it’s much to look forward to.”

  My stomach growled at the mention of food. We hadn’t eaten since dinner the night before, and I was suddenly ravenously hungry. Even water would be welcome.

  When Nathaniel signed off, he leaned back in his seat with a sigh.

  “Looks like you have a fan.”

  He snorted. “We should have seen it.”

  “What?”

  “The meteorite. We should have seen it coming.”

  “It wasn’t your job.”

  “But we were looking for things that would interfere with the satellites. You’d think we’d spot a goddamn asteroid that was this close.”

  “Low albedo. Trajectory that put it in line with the sun. Small—”

  “We should have seen it!”

  “And if you had, what could we have done?”

  The sound of the engine vibrated the seat beneath me and underscored the hiss of air slicing past. One of Nathaniel’s knees bounced up and down with nervous energy. He sat forward and grabbed the charts. “Looks like you’ll need to lay a course southwest.”

  I’d already done that, and we had an escort, but if giving me directions made Nathaniel feel useful, then by God he could guide me all the way there. Every streaking flare of ejecta in the sky just drove home how helpless we were. I could see them, but not in time to do anything about them, so I kept my hands on the yoke and flew.

  * * *

  The good thing about the constant pinch of hunger was that it countered the soothing drone of the airplane and kept me awake. Well, that and Nathaniel’s terrible baritone. My husband was many things, but a singer was not one of them. Oh, he could carry a tune—in a bucket filled with gravel.

  Fortunately, he knew that, and leaned toward a comedic repertoire in his efforts to keep me awake. Bellowing with a vibrato like an amorous goat, Nathaniel stomped his foot on the floorboards of the airplane.

  “Oh, do you remember Grandma’s Lye Soap?

  Good for everything, everything in the place.

  The pots and kettles, and for your hands, and for your face?”

  Below us, the glorious sight of the Wright-Patterson airfield finally scrolled into view. Its identification light flashed green, then the double-white of a military field.

  “Mrs. O’Malley, down in the valley

  Suffered from ulcers, I understand—”

  “Saved!” I adjusted altitude. “Let ’em know we’re coming in?”

  Nathaniel grinned and grabbed the mic. “Sabre Two One, One Six Baker. So how’s the food on the base?”

  The radio crackled and Major Lindholm laughed. “It’s everything you would expect. And more.”

  “That bad, eh?”

  “I did not say that, sir. But if you’re real nice, I might share my wife’s care package.”

  I laughed along with Nathaniel, far more than the joke deserved.

  Nathaniel switched the radio to the tower frequency, but before he could get the mic to his lips, another voice crackled out. “Aircraft on heading two six zero, eight thousand five hundred feet, this is Wright-Patterson Tower. Identify yourself.”

  “Wright-Patterson Tower, this is Cessna Four One Six Baker at eight thousand five hundred, direct to the field.” Nathaniel had flown with me often enough that he had the routine down. He lowered the mic for a moment, then grinned and raised it again. “And Tower, we have Sabre Two One flight in tow.”

  “Tower, Sabre Two One. We are escorting One Six Baker, request direct to the field.”

  I snorted. It had to irk a fighter pilot to be trailing a scrubby little plane like my Cessna.

  “One Six Baker and Sabre Two One, Tower copies. Approved direct to the field. Remain clear of One Six Baker. Be advised, we have reports of—”

  Light streaked past the nose of the plane. A crack like a bomb going off. The entire plane bucked. I wrestled it level again—

  And suddenly, I could see the propeller. The nearly invisible blur had become a stuttering, uneven bar. Part of it was just gone. It took me a moment to grasp what had happened. That streak of light had been a chunk of ejecta slamming into the nose of the plane, and it had taken part of my propeller with it.

  The engine vibrations shook the yoke in my hand and slammed the seat against the base of my spine. This was only going to get worse. It could shake the engine right out of the plane. I slammed it into idle and began the sequence to secure the engine—by which I mean, shut it down.

  Damn it. I wasn’t going to make the base. “I need a landing field. Now.”

  At least we were in farm country, al
though the snow was going to mask the actual terrain. I pulled the throttle knob all the way out to idle and the engine shut off, leaving only the hiss of wind around us. What was left of the propeller windmilled as air rushed over it.

  “What…?”

  “Gliding.” If the ejecta had hit a wing, we’d be in much worse trouble, but the Cessna was a darn good glider. I just wouldn’t get a second chance at landing.

  There was a road cutting between the fields, which might be a good bet, if it weren’t for the fences bordering it. Field it was. I banked to line up the approach.

  In the corner of my eye, Nathaniel still clutched the microphone. As a WASP, I’d had engines cut out on me far too often. This was his first time. He brought the radio to his mouth and I was so proud of how steady his voice was. “Wright Tower, this is Cessna Four One Six Baker declaring an emergency. We’ve had an engine failure and are making a forced landing on a field … um…” He fumbled for the map.

  “Cessna Four One Six Baker, Wright Tower. We have eyes on you. You just concentrate on landing. Sabre Two One, Wright Tower. Orbit to assist and pinpoint where they land.”

  “Wright Tower, Sabre Two One. Already on it.” The roar of the jet passed overhead as Major Lindholm and his wingman did a wide sweep past us.

  My pulse thrummed through my veins, taking the place of the engine noise. This was not my first unpowered landing, but it was the first time with my husband aboard. After everything else that had happened today, I would not be the cause of his death. I refused. “Buckled up?”

  “Um. Yeah.” But he was fastening his seat belt as he spoke, so it was a good thing that I had asked. “Can I do … anything?”

  “Brace.” I tucked in my chin and watched the altimeter.

  “Anything else—”

  “Don’t talk.” He just wanted to help, but I didn’t have time for that. I had to slow the plane down as much as possible before I touched down, but not so much that we landed short of the field. The ground rose up to meet us, changing from a smooth white expanse to a model train set of a snowy field, and then—without transition—full size and beneath us. I kept the nose up so that the tail wheel touched down first.