Hasting: Three hundred thousand miles? That’s pretty big.
Ellsworth: Actually, it’s smaller than you might expect from an object this large. That might be because of the composition of the comet: There simply may not be that much material to burn off. Or it may be that its passage through the solar system has been so quick, the Sun hasn’t had time to work its way. Probably a combination of the two.
Hasting: In these pictures it has a pair of tails.
Ellsworth: Yes. The ion tail, this one, is about six million miles long.
Hasting: But when I look at it in the sky, all I see is a large fuzzy patch.
Ellsworth: The tails are running in front of it, so they’re not easy to see for an earthbound observer.
Hasting: The tails are in front?
Ellsworth: Oh, yes. Comets’ tails always point away from the Sun. The solar wind causes that. (Displays images.) These were taken from the Venusian probe.
Hasting: It is lovely…I wonder if you can tell us what’s going to happen tomorrow night?
Ellsworth: Let’s look at the graphic. You understand, this comet would be less destructive if it were moving at the velocity comets usually move in the solar system, at thirty or forty kilometers per second. But this is going much faster, and consequently it will hit the Moon very hard. You’ll observe, it’s approaching the Moon now.
Hasting: (Nods.)
Ellsworth: Here, it breaks through the outer lunar mantle. What’s actually happening is that the area where the comet impacts is being vaporized to a depth of several hundred miles.
Hasting: It almost looks as if it’s splashing in.
Ellsworth: Oh, yes. Splash is the right word. That’s how craters form, you know. The material melts under the impact. This comet is unlike anything we’ve seen before.
SSTO Rome Flight Deck. 11:10 P.M.
At Skyport they’d corrected the programming glitch. John Verrano rode his spacecraft into lunar orbit on a dime. He opened a channel. “Moonbase, this is Rome.”
“Go ahead, Rome.”
“Rome is on station and ready for business.”
Moonbase, Director’s Office. 11:11 P.M.
It was, of course, the story of the age. Keith Morley of Transglobal was outraged when his link with the news desk was severed by the Moonbase commcenter. Jack Chandler had said yes, yes, he understood how Morley felt, but they couldn’t give Morley an open channel because there just weren’t enough circuits available.
“Circuits, hell!” Morley compained. “You’re going to lose some people and you don’t want me blowing the coverup.”
“We’re not certain yet we’ll lose anybody.”
Morley didn’t care much for Chandler. He was the perfect bureaucrat, evasive, deskbound, a man who thought in terms of constraints and methodologies. From whom it was next to impossible to get a direct answer.
“What does that mean, Jack? Do you expect to lose some of your people?”
Chandler ran his hands through his thinning hair. “Yes,” he said. “We do.”
“Why are you sitting on it? Do you think it’s going to change anything tomorrow night because you don’t tell anybody?”
Chandler leaned forward, braced his elbows on his desk, and set his chin on his hands. “We’re not sitting on anything, Keith.” He glanced at his phone. “I’ll call the commcenter and see that you get a link, if that’s what you want.”
“Of course it’s what I want.” He took a deep breath. “How many people are going to be killed?”
“Possibly none.”
“Right. We’ve been through that. If you lose some, how many is it likely to be?”
“Six,” he said.
Six. Well, it wasn’t as bad as he’d thought. Assuming the old bastard was telling the truth. “Names?” he asked. “Who’s getting left?” He did not take out his notebook, of course. He’d been in the business too long and knew that you never, ever conducted an interview with a notebook or recorder.
Chandler rattled them off. Himself and Hampton. Hawkworth, Eckerd. Pinnacle.”
“The chaplain?”
“He offered to stay.”
Morley called up his image of Mark Pinnacle. “Did he say why?”
Chandler shook his head. “No. I didn’t think to ask.”
“Okay. That’s five. Who else?”
“Charlie Haskell.”
Morley did a double take. “You’re not serious. He left this afternoon, didn’t he?”
“No. He stayed off the flight.”
“But he was directed out.”
“He’s still here.”
Morley started for the door. “Can you arrange for me to talk to him?”
Chandler shook his head again. He was very good at saying no. “I’ve no control over his appointments, Keith.”
Damn. Either this was legitimate and Haskell was really going to try to ride out the comet, or something was going on. Either way, it was a huge story. But Morley’s throat caught when he thought about his options. Nevertheless, he needed only a moment to make up his mind. “Jack, I’d like to stay, too, if you don’t object.”
Chandler’s eyes widened. “You don’t mean that,” he said.
All of Morley’s instincts told him there was no way the vice president would hang in if there weren’t a way out. Politicians don’t do things like that.
And it was a hell of a story. Pulitzer, Morley was thinking. Maybe posthumous. But a Pulitzer.
FRANK CRANDALL’S ALL-NIGHTER. 11:53 P.M.
Crandall: Hi, Jason from Coos Bay.
First Caller: Hey, Frank. Cheers from the white beach capital.
Crandall: Thanks, Jason. What’s on your mind?
First Caller: What’s the straight stuff about the comet, Frank? The media always lie, and I keep hearing conflicting stories. I’m looking out my window now at the ocean. What’s going to happen tomorrow night?
Crandall: Don’t know, my man. I don’t think anybody knows for sure.
First Caller: Should I get out?
Crandall: That’s your call, Jason.
First Caller: What would you do?
Crandall: Ol’ Frank’ll be on top of a mountain tomorrow.” (Laughs) “Seriously, Jason, I’ll be right here in Miami, doing my routine, and hoping for the best. I think the media have a tendency to be very careful what they report. Everybody has to look out these days, and I’ll tell you why: There’re lawsuits everywhere. So we’re all supercautious…. We have time for one more call before we go to commercial…. Harry in St. Louis, hello.
Second Caller: Hi, Frank. Say, I’d like to change the subject.
Crandall: Go ahead. Talk about anything you want.
Second Caller: I was wondering if you’ve noticed the Cardinals have started the season with six straight wins.
Crandall: Yeah, they’re loaded with pitching, and it looks like they’ve got a serious team out there this year…
SSTO Berlin Flight Deck. 11:59 P.M.
Willem Stephan moved the throttle forward, and the spacecraft began to pick up velocity. He informed Moonbase that he was leaving orbit, and was relieved to watch the lunar surface begin to drop away. He’d been in orbit thirty-eight hours, and was starting back with 162 passengers. Not quite as many as he’d expected, but the incident with the Micro had slowed the operation down.
But Rome was in orbit now, and she would collect passengers during the night, until she was joined by the American plane early tomorrow morning.
Gruder looked at him. “I’m glad to be away,” he said.
“Yes, old friend. As am I.”
CHAPTER SIX
IMPACT
Saturday, April 13
1.
White House. 1:15 A.M.
The president had been at a party at the Polish embassy when Haskell’s message reached him: UNABLE COMPLY YOUR LAST. HAVE TO LOCK UP.
Henry read it several times. Damned fool.
The Iraqi ambassador, standing beside him, asked what was wrong.
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“Nothing of significance, Oman,” he said, sliding the paper into a pocket.
People had talked about Senator Butler’s latest gaffe (calling the voters “morons” without realizing the mike was hot), the ongoing food fight between two of Washington’s top journalists which had nothing to do with politics and everything to do with a fashion model, and the discovery that a respected late-night political commentator had been buying child pornography. But Henry could not stop thinking about his beleaguered vice president.
At around three, back at the White House, he called Kerr aside and showed him the news. “This is Hailey’s idea,” said Kerr. “They want more drama. They want you to go on TV and tell him to quit monkeying around and get on the plane.”
“That’s what I thought at first, Al. But he knows I can’t do that. They’ve admitted they can’t get everybody out and they’re starting to release names of people who’re staying behind. How will it look if I demand they send him back, and then we find out that a father with three kids had to stay instead? No. The damned fool had to get out before all this became public information. It’s too late now.” He shook his head. “You’ve got to admire him. I guess it’s that goddam Teddy Roosevelt schtick.”
Ephrata, Pennsylvania. 1:50 A.M.
Claire was asleep in the cab of the Pine River Furniture truck. They’d stopped in the parking lot of the Old Rock Bank on Route 322. The rest of the convoy was God knew where because the phone system was overwhelmed and Archie couldn’t patch through to anybody. Moreover, the truck’s power cells had begun to weaken. Lines at the charge stations were a mile long, so they’d given up and pulled over to wait for morning. Weather permitting, the sun would recharge their cells.
The sky was lost in the glare of security lights. The rain had finally stopped, but the night was still damp.
The parking lot was small, with a chain drawn around its perimeter. A sign proclaimed: PARKING FOR BANK PATRONS ONLY. VIOLATORS WILL BE TOWED. They were sharing space with a half-dozen other vehicles. There was still occasional traffic, but the general crush had dissipated.
Archie admired Claire’s ability to sleep in the truck cab. He’d tried every position he could, but he was still uncomfortable, dead tired, and wide awake. At no time during the entire exercise had the threat from tidal waves seemed more unreal.
The cell phone chimed.
Archie fumbled for it, trying to remember which pocket he’d put it in. “Hello?”
“Archie?” Susan’s voice, obviously relieved.
“Hello, love. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I’m at Helen’s. But it’s been a nightmare. I’ve never seen anything like this. I’ve been trying to call all night. Couldn’t get through.”
“I know. I’m glad you’re off the road.”
“Archie, the expressway was terrible. It was bumper-to-bumper all the way from South Jersey. Where are you? Are you in Carlisle?”
“No. Traffic’s been bad here too. But we’re okay. We’re parked for the night. The road looks pretty clear now. If it stays that way we’ll be in Carlisle by noon.”
“All right, champ. Be careful.”
SSTO Arlington Flight Deck. 5:50 A.M.
George brought the big spacecraft into lunar orbit precisely on schedule. He was three thousand kilometers above the surface, and it was a good feeling, watching the moonscape turn beneath him, watching Earth disappear beneath the horizon. For the first time in his life, he was out of sight of the home world.
And the comet looked very close.
Twenty minutes later, a moonbus arrived alongside, and his first passengers began to file aboard.
TRANSGLOBAL NEWS REPORT. 6:14 A.M.
Police have reported isolated incidents of overnight looting in the Baltimore suburbs of Catonsville and Edgemere. At least eleven people have been jailed, and another dozen, including three police officers, hospitalized in related incidents. Baltimore mayor Patricia Godwin, in an effort to head off the kind of disruptions that accompanied the breakdown of public order after the Gandar execution two years ago, has put on extra police and announced that violators will be dealt with severely. She added that she could not guarantee that citizens wouldn’t take matters into their own hands and shoot would-be thieves. This has been widely interpreted as a suggestion that homeowners who contemplate using deadly force to defend their property need not fear vigorous prosecution, as happened after the Gandar riots.
SSTO Copenhagen. 6:17 A.M.
After a nineteen-hour run, Copenhagen established visual contact with Skyport. When the space station appeared in the windows, people in the passenger cabin began to applaud.
TRANSGLOBAL COMMENTARY. 9:03 A.M.
“Actually, the end of the Moon, if that’s what we’re really about to see, would be a very good thing. People need to be reminded periodically that a living world is a changing one. And we reminded periodically that a living world is a changing one. And we resist change with all the ferocity we can muster.
“This instinct, this love for the status quo, this conviction that the world is a stable and reliable place to live, is an idea left over from an era when people lived exactly as their grandparents had. When change was always bad news: that the Nile had overflowed its banks again, that the barbarians had arrived, that the plague was in town. We are wired to maintain the status quo.
“This need to conserve the present is a survival instinct that now works to our detriment. We see it in our failure to pursue nanotech research, in our fear of biotechnological enhancement techniques, in the resistance to the Mars mission. We see it in our daily lives in our inability to use the technologies that lie at our fingertips. Do you know how to program your VR player? A recent USA Today poll showed that sixty-five percent of those surveyed did not believe that life had improved since the end of the twentieth century.
“If the Moon truly disappears from our skies tonight, it will serve to remind us that nothing is forever, that the world keeps changing, and that we’d better learn to change with it. This is Judy Gunworthy with the Transglobal News Service, at the Johnson Space Center.”
Moonbase, Grissom Country. 10:47 A.M.
Charlie shook hands with each of his agents, thanked them for efforts in his behalf, and tried to reassure them he would be all right. He explained that he’d notified their superiors that they’d left under protest, that he’d ordered them out, and that under the circumstances they had no choice but to obey. “I’ve recommended in-grade increases for all of you.”
They smiled. Isabel momentarily lost her professional demeanor and embraced him. “I wish you’d change your mind,” she said.
After they left, Rick came by and tried so hard to talk him out of staying that he lost track of time and had to dash out to catch his own flight.
Then Charlie was alone.
Pacifica, California. 8:35 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time (11:35 A.M. EDT).
Jerry Kapchik watched the images of crowded expressways on his TV. Fortunately, the scenes were all east of San Francisco. Route 1, which he could see from his front porch, was quiet. After the first wave of nervous reaction, few of his neighbors had left town. It might have been they were more worried about looters than moonrock. There’d already been reports of break-ins in San Mateo and Palo Alto.
He could see Marisa setting up the water sprinkler out back. She’d be leaving in about forty-five minutes, taking the kids to the park. She was not happy that Jerry had volunteered to go into work, but she understood that such things were not entirely within his control.
The big news this morning was that the vice president was staying behind at Moonbase. Jerry had watched a brief interview in which Haskell said he hadn’t given up hope that they’d all get out. Hadn’t given up hope. How could we allow a vice president to get put in that kind of position? It didn’t make sense, and Jerry wondered if the government was even more incompetent than it looked.
There were other stories. Terrorists had seized an embassy in Djakarta and we
re demanding the release of several hundred criminals from Indian prisons. Red Cross workers had been murdered in the Transvaal. There’d been a shoot-out in the Japanese Diet. In a group action, several thousand families were suing the Los Angeles school system for failing to educate their kids. Everything seemed normal enough.
Jimmy came down the stairs. Seven years old, bright-eyed, big smile. He had his mother’s blond hair. “Dad? Are we going to watch the comet tonight?”
The kids had stayed up late last evening, and they’d stood out near the garage with neighbors. The comet was out over the ocean. It was big, several times bigger than the Moon, and misty, like a big blob of fog caught in moonlight. It looked out of place, and Jerry’d had a sense that it belonged in another sky.
“Sure,” he said. “If you want.”
“Dad, I was wondering if we could do something.”
“Like what?”
He hesitated. “Could we get a telescope? Like the Ryan’s have?”
Actually, Jerry had been thinking about investing in one. He saw a chance to interest his kids in astronomy, and he’d been looking at an inexpensive telescope in the downtown Wal-Mart yesterday. “Sure,” he said. “I think we can manage that.”
Then there was Marisa. She’d been in a strange mood, saying she felt fine but refusing to meet his eyes.
Jerry, fortunately, was hard-headed, down-to-earth, eminently practical. Whatever might be happening a quarter-million miles away, the real world would continue to be caught up in tax law and mortgage payments and Little League games.
NEWSNET. 12:30 P.M. UPDATE.
(Click for details.)
NATION BRACES FOR MOONWRECK
Tens Of Thousands Flee Coastal Areas
Carnage On Highways
PALADINI, CORMAN, ALMYER ATTEND PRAYER VIGIL FOR LUNIES
Almyer: “A Time To Put Politics Aside”
BUSES EVACUATE INNER-CITY SAN FRANCISCO
Poor People’s Crusade Mobilizes Volunteers
TELESCOPES TO SEARCH FOR FALLING MOONROCK
Moonfall Page 20