Footfall (10 page)

Roger worked his way out of the booth to shake his hand. “How are you, John? Have you heard the news?”

“Yeah.” They slid into the booth. “I’m surprised you’re here.”

For a fact, this wasn’t the day a militant defender of deserts could get the public’s attention! Roger had toyed with the idea of chasing after news of the “alien spacecraft.” But those who knew anything would be telling anyone who would listen, and he’d be fighting for scraps.

For a while Roger had wondered. Aliens, coming from Saturn. It didn’t make sense, and Roger was sure it was some kind of trick, probably CIA. When he tried to check that out, though, he ran into a barrage of genuine bewilderment. If there were any secrets hidden inside the President’s announcement, it was going to take a lot more than a few hours to find them. And John Fox had given Roger stories in the past.

So he said, “The day I skip an appointment with a known news source, you call the police, because I’ve been kidnapped. Now tell me what you’re doing in Washington. I know you don’t like cities.”

Fox nodded. “Have you heard what they’re doing to China Lake?” When Brooks looked blank, he amplified. “The HighBeam.”

For a moment nothing clicked. Then: of course, he meant the microwave receiving station. An orbiting solar power plant had to have a receiver. “It’s just a test facility. It’s only going to cover about an acre.”

“Oh. sure. And the orbiting power plant only covers about a square mile of sky, and won’t send down more than a thousand megawatts even if everything works. Roger, don’t you understand about test cases? if it works, they’ll do it bigger. They’ll cover the whole damn sky with silver rectangles. I like the sky! I like desert, too. This thing has to be stopped now.”

“I wonder if the Soviets won’t stop us before you do.”

“They haven’t yet.” Fox looked thoughtful. “All the science types say this thing isn’t a weapon. I wonder if the Russians believe

that?’

Roger shrugged.

“Anyway, I thought I’d better be here. Flew in on the red-eye last night. But nobody’s keeping appointments. Nobody but you.” He glanced up to see the waitress hovering. “Bacon burger. Tomato slices, no fries. Hot tea.”

“Chef’s salad. Heineken.” Brooks made notes, but mostly out of habit. Of course no one was keeping appointments! Aliens were coming to Earth. “They tell me it’ll be Clean power,” Roger said. “Help eliminate acid rain.”

Fox shook his head. “Never works. They get more power, they use more power. Look. They tell you an electric razor doesn’t use much power, right? And it doesn’t. But what about the power it took to make the damn thing? You use it a few years, maybe not that long, and Out it goes.

“The more electric power we get, the more they’re tempted to keep up the throw away society. No real conservation. Nothing lasts. Doesn’t have to last. Roger, no matter how clean they make it, it pollutes some. They’ll never learn to do without until they have to do without.”

“Okay.” Brooks jotted more notes. “So they’ll clutter up the deserts and block the stars and give us bad habits. What else is wrong with them?”

Roger Brooks listened halfheartedly as Fox marshaled his arguments. There weren’t any new ones. They weren’t what Roger had come for, anyway. Fox could argue, but the real stories would come from learning what tactics Fox intended to use. He had loyal troops, loyal enough to chain themselves to the gates of nuclear power plants or clog the streets of Washington. Fox had led the fight against the Sun Desert nuclear power plant, and won, and his tips had put Roger in the right place at the right time for good stories.

Not today, though. No one was listening to Fox today. Not even his friends.

Not even me, Roger thought. This wasn’t going to make any kind of news. Brooks was tempted to put away his notebook. Instead he said, “This could be just a puff of smoke tomorrow, or later today, for that matter. Have you thought about what an interstellar spacecraft might use for power? By the time the aliens stop talking, these orbiting solar plants could look like the first fire stick, even to us.”

Fox shook his head. “Hell we may not even understand what these ETI’s are using. Or maybe it’s worse than what we’ve got. Anyway, nothing changes that fast. Whatever that light in the sky does for us, the High-Beam is going ahead unless I stop it. And I intend to. I had an appointment with Senator Bryant. He canceled, for today, so I’ll just wait him out.”

Brooks jotted, “John Fox is the only man in the nation’s capital who doesn’t care beans about an approaching interstellar spacecraft.”

“Hell, I wish I had something more for you,” Fox said’. “Thought I did.”

“It’s all right.”

“No, it’s not,” Fox said. “You’re like me, Brooks. A nut. Monomaniac.” He held up his hand when Roger started to protest. “It’s true. I love my deserts, and you love snooping. Well, heft, I’d help you get a Pulitzer if I could. You’ve always played fair with me.” He chuckled. “But not today. Nobody’s paying attention to a damn thing but that ETI comin’. Do you really believe in that thing?”

“I think so. You know that army officer who was in Hawaii when they saw it coming? I know her. I just don’t think she’s part of anything funny. No, it’s real all right.”

“Could be.”

“There are a lot of scientists in the Sierra Club,” Roger said. “Any of them have an opinion?”

“On High-Beam? Damn right—”

“I meant on the ETI’s, John.”

Fox grinned. “I haven’t heard. I will, though, and I’ll be sure to let you know.”

Jenny surveyed her office with satisfaction. The furniture was battered. Fortunately, there wasn’t much of it, because if there’d been more, the office couldn’t have held it all. She had a desk with nothing on it but a telephone. There were also a small typing table, three chairs, and a thick-walled filing cabinet with a heavy security lock. They said they’d get her a bookcase, but that hadn’t come yet. Neither had the computer terminal.

The room was tiny and windowless, in a basement, but it was the White House basement, and that made up for everything.

The phone rang.

“Major Crichton,” she said.

“Jack Clybourne.”

“Oh. Hi.” He’d come in for coffee after he drove her home. They’d sat outside under Flintridge’s arbor, and when they noticed the time, two hours had passed. That hadn’t happened to her in years.

“Hi, yourself. I’ve only got a moment. Interested in dinner?”

Aunt Rhonda would expect her to eat at Flintridge. “What did you have in mind?”

“Afghan place. Stuffed grape leaves and broiled lamb.”

“It sounds great. But—”

“Let me call you after you get home. No big deal, if you can’t make it, I’ll go to McDonald’s.”

“You’re threatening suicide if I don’t have dinner with you?”

“I have to run. I’ll call you—”

“I haven’t given you the number,” she said. “How will you call?”

“We have our ways. Bye.”

She put the phone carefully on its cradle. Holy catfish, I’m actually light-headed. Stupid. I just need lunch. But I was thinking about him just before he called.

The private phone on Wes Dawson’s desk was hidden inside a leather box. It rang softly.

“Yes?” Carlotta said.

“Me.”

“How’s Houston?”

“Hot and wet and windy. I’m in the Hilton Edgewater, room 2133.”

She made a note of the room number. “I miss you already,” he said, “Sure. You probably have a Texas girl already.” “Two, actually.”

“Just be careful. I’ve seen the Speaker. We’ll arrange for you to be paired whenever we can, so it’ll go in the Congressional Quarterly.”

It was standard practice: a congressman who couldn’t be present for a vote found another who intended to vote the opposite way, and formed a pair. Neither attended, and both were recorded as “paired” so that the outcome of the vote wasn’t affected, but neither congressman was blamed for missing a roll-call vote.

“Good. Can you ask Andy to look after my committee work?”

“Already did. What kind of administrative assistant do you think I am, anyway?”

“Fair to middling.”

“Humph. Keep that up and I’ll ask for a raise I suppose Houston’s full of talk about the aliens?”

“Lord, yes,” Wes said. “And the TV shows-did you watch the Tonight Show? Nothing but alien jokes, some pretty clever I think the country’s taking it all right.”

“So do I, but I’ve got Wilbur checking things out in the district,” Carlotta said. “So far nothing, though. Not even phone calls, except Mrs. McNulty.”

“Yeah, I expect she’s in heaven.” Mrs. McNulty called her congressman every week, usually to insist on protection against flying saucers. “Look, they’ve got me on a pretty rigorous schedule. Up before the devil’s got his shoes on. Physical training, yet! Ugh.”

“You’ll be all right. You’re in good shape,” Carlotta said.

“I’ll be in better in a month. You’ll love it—”

“Good. Call me tomorrow.”

“I will. Thanks, Carlotta.”

She smiled as she put the phone down. Thanks, he’d said. Thanks for looking after things, for letting me go to space. As long as she’d known Wes, he’d been a space nut. He’d even signed up to be a lunar colonist, and was shocked when she told him she wasn’t really interested in living on the Moon. His look had frightened her: he would have gone without her if he’d had the chance.

That chance never came. The U.S. Lunar Base was a tiny affair, never more than six astronauts and currently down to four. The Russians had fifteen people on the Moon-and they made it clear that a larger U.S. effort wouldn’t be welcome.

What would they do to the Americans sent more people to the Moon? President Coffey hadn’t wanted to find out. Maybe it wouldn’t matter now.

Carlotta went back to the papers on Wes Dawson’s desk. Aliens might or might not be coming, but if Wes Dawson wanted to remain in Congress, there was a lot of work to finish here in Washington.

Academician Pavel Bondarev sat at his massive walnut desk and flicked imaginary dust specks from its gleaming surface. The office was large, as befitted a full member of the Soviet Academy who was also Director of an Institute for Astrophysics. The walls were decorated with photographs taken by the new telescope aboard the Soviet Kosmograd space station. There were spectacular views of Jupiter, as good as those obtained by the American spacecraft; and there were color photographs of nebulae and galaxies, and the endless wonders of the sky

There was also a portrait of Lenin. Pavel Aleksandrovich Bondarev needed no visit from the local Party officials to remind him of that. Visiting Party officials might know nothing of what the Institute did, but they would certainly notice if there was no picture of Lenin. It might be the only thing a visiting Party official was qualified to notice.

He waited impatiently. Because he was waiting, he was startled when the interphone buzzed.

“Da”

“He has arrived at the airport,” his secretary said.

“There are papers to sign—”

“Bring them,” Bondarev said brusquely.

The door opened seconds later. His secretary came in. She carried a sheaf of papers, but she made no move to show them to him.

Lorena was a small woman, with dark flashing eyes. Her ankles were thin. One wrist was encircled by a golden chain which Pavel Bondarev had given her the third time they had slept together. She had been his mistress for ten years, and he could not imagine life without her. To the best of his knowledge, she had no life beyond him. She was the perfect secretary in public, and the perfect mistress in private. It had occurred to him that she genuinely loved him, but that thought was sufficiently frightening that he did not want to deal with it.

Better to think of her as mistress and secretary. Emotional involvement was dangerous.

She came in and closed the door. “Who is this man?” she demanded. “Why is Moscow sending an important man who does not give his name? What have you been doing Pavel Aleksandrovich?”

He frowned slightly. Lately she had begun speaking to him that way even at the office. Never when anyone was around, of course, but it was bad for discipline to allow her to address him in that way inside the Institute. A rebuke came to his tongue, but he swallowed it. She would accept it, yes, but he would be made to pay, tonight, tomorrow night, some evening in her apartment…

“It is not a difficulty,” Bondarev said. “He was expected.”

“Then you know him—”

“No. I meant that someone from Moscow was expected.” He smiled, and she moved closer to him until she was standing beside his chair. Her hand lay on his arm. He covered it with his own. “There is no difficulty, my lovely one. Calm yourself.”

“If you say so—”

“I do. You recall the telephone call from the Americans in Hawaii? It concerns that.”

“But you will not tell me—”

He laughed. “I have not told my wife and children.”

She snorted.

“Well, yes. Even so, this is a state secret. It is a matter of state security! Why should I deceive you?”

“What have we to do with state security? How can the state be affected by distant galaxies?” she demanded. “What have you been doing? Pave I, you must not do this!”

“But what—”

“You wish to go to Moscow!” she said. “It is your wife. She has never been happy here.” Her voice changed, became more shrill, accented with the bored sophistication of a Muscovite great lady, daughter of a member of the Politburo. “Yes, the Party found it necessary to send Pavel here for a few years. The provincial people are so inefficient. I suppose we simply must make the sacrifice.”

“I wish you would not mock Marina,” he said. “And you are wrong. This has nothing to do with a return to Moscow. Resides, when we do go back, I will take you with me. All Russians want to live in Moscow.”

“I do not want to go. I want to stay here, with you. Your wife is not so careful here. In Moscow she would be concerned, lest her friends learn her husband has a mistress.”

That was true enough, but it hardly mattered. “None of this is important.” he said. “Not now. Things will change soon. Sooner than you know. Great changes, for all of us.”

She frowned. “You are serious.”

“I have never been more serious.”

“Changes for the better?”

“I do not know.” He stood and took both her hands in his. “But I promise you there will be changes beyond our power to predict, as profound as the Revolution.”

Pavel Bondarev studied the papers he had been given, but from time to time he looked past them at the man who had brought them. Dmitii Parfenovich Grushin, a Lieutenant Colonel in the KGB despite his seeming youth. Grushin wore a suit of soft wool that fit perfectly, obviously made in Paris or London. He was of average height, and slender, but his grip had been very strong, and he walked with an athletic spring to his step.

The papers told him what General Narovchatov had already said. “I see,” Bondarev said. “I am to go to Baikonur.”

“Yes, Comrade Academician.” Grushin spoke respectfully. It was difficult to know what the man was thinking. He seemed perfectly in control of his face and his voice.

He brought a letter from General Narovchatov, inviting Marina and the children to Moscow, and enclosing the necessary travel permits. Marina would be pleased. “There is much unsaid here,” Bondarev said.

“Yes. I can explain,” Grushin said.

“Please.”

“General Narovchatov has become First Secretary of the Party.” Grushin said carefully. He paused long enough to allow the full weight of that to wash across Bondarev. “This will be announced within the week. The Politburo finds this alien ship a matter of some concern. Many of the marshals of the Soviet Union do not believe in aliens.”

“Then they think—”

“That this is a CIA trick,” Grushin said. “It cannot be.”

“I believe that. So does Chairman Petrovslciy.”

“And Comrade Trusov?”

Grushin shrugged. “You will understand that I do not often see the Chairman of the KGB however, I am informed that the vote of the Defense Council was unanimous, that a civilian scientist should command the preparations for receiving the aliens. You, Comrade.”

“So I was told. I confess I am not especially qualified.”

“Who is? I am trained as a diplomat. Yet what training is there, to meet with aliens from another star? But we must do what we must do.”

“Then you have been assigned as my deputy?” That would be common enough practice, to have a KGB officer as chief of staff to a project of this importance. Certainly the KGB would insist on having its agents high within the control organization.

“No, another will do that,” Grushin said. “My orders are to proceed to Kosmograd.”

“Ah. You are a qualified astronaut?”

“No, but I have been a pilot.” Grushin’s smile was thin. “Comrade Academician, I have been ordered by your father-in-law to trust you, to tell you everything I can. This is unusual. Stranger yet, Comrade Trusov himself instructed me to do the same.”

Strange indeed. So. The Politburo did take this alien craft seriously. Very seriously. And General Nikolai Narovchatov had said, “You will trust the man sent by KGB. As much as you trust any man from KGB.” What that could mean was not obvious.

“So,” Bondarev said. “What is there that I must know?”

“The military,” Grushin said. “Not all will cooperate, and not all will be under your command. You will need great skills at Baikonur to learn which marshals trust you and which do not. I need not tell you that this will not be easy.”

“No.” It was safe enough to say that much. Not more.

“It is also vital that the Americans do not learn the extent of our mobilization.”

“I see.” I see a great deal. Some of the marshals are out of control. They mobilize their forces regardless of the wishes of the Kremlin. The Americans can never be allowed to know this! “What else must I know?”

“The crew aboard Kosmograd,” Grushin said. “Who is there now, and whom we shall invite.”

“Invite—”

“Americans. They have already requested that we allow their people aboard Kosmograd when the alien ship arrives. The Politburo wishes your advice within three days.” He paused. “I think, though, that they will invite the Americans no matter what you say.”

“Ah. And if the Americans wish this, other nations will also.” He shrugged. “I do not know how many Kosmograd can accommodate.”

“Nor I, but I will tell you when I arrive there. As I will advise you of the personnel aboard. Of course you will also receive reports from Commander Rogachev.”

“A good man, Rogachev,” Bondarev said.

Grushin’s smile was crafty, like a peasant’s, although there was little of the peasant about the KGB man. “Certainly he has a legend about him. But he is not everywhere regarded as you regard him.”

“Why?”

“He is a troublemaker when he feels his mission is in danger. A fanatic about carrying out orders. Make no mistake, technically he is the best commander we have for Kosmograd.”

“But you doubt-doubt what? Surely not his loyalty?”

“Not his loyalty to the Soviet Union.”

“Ah.” There had been an edge to Grushin’s voice. Rogachev had not always shown proper deference to the Party. In what way is he a trouble-maker?”

Grushin shrugged. “Minor ways. An example. He has aboard Kosmograd his old sergeant, the maintenance crew chief of his helicopter during the Ethiopian conflict. This man lost both legs in the war. When it came time for this sergeant to be rotated back to Earth, Rogachev found excuses to keep him. He said that no better man was available, that it was vital to Kosmograd that this man remain.”

“Was he right?’

Grushin shrugged. “Again, that is something I will know when I arrive there. Understand, Comrade Academician. I am to be only a Deputy Commander of Kosmograd when I board. Thtsikova will be First Deputy. But I will report directly to you. If there is need, you may remove Rogachev from command.”

Bondarev nodded comprehendingly. Inside he was frightened.

I command this space station, but there are many technical matters. I will not know which are important and which are not. I require advice-but whose advice can I trust? He smiled thinly. That would be the dilemma faced by Chairman Petrovskiy and First Secretary Narovchatov. It is why I have been given this task.

It will be a great opportunity, though. At last, Pavel Bondarev thought, at last I can tell them where to aim the space telescope. And be able to see the pictures instantly.

It was a bright clear spring day, with brilliant sunshine, the kind of day that made it worthwhile living through Bellingham’s rainy seasons. The snow-crowned peaks of Mount Baker and the Twin Sisters stood magnificently above the foothills to the east. The view was impressive even to añative; it was enough to have Angelenos gawking. They stood near the old Bellingham city hail, a red brick castle complete with towers and Chuckanut granite, and alternately looked out across the bay to the San Juan Islands, then back to the mountains.

When Kevin Shakes saw a uniform coming toward them he wondered if something was wrong. His eyes flicked toward the truck-had he parked in the wrong place? A city kid’s reaction. In a small town like Bellingham you could park nearly anywhere you liked.

The uniform was brown, short-sleeved, decorated with badges and a gun belt. The man wearing it was three or four years older than Kevin’s eighteen. He was grinning and taking off his hat, showing fine blond hair in a ragged cut. “Hello. Miranda,” he called. “Is this the whole clan?”

“All but Dad and Mom.” Miranda was smiling, too. “Leigh, meet Kevin and Carl and Owen. We were just doing some shopping.”

Carl and Owen-thirteen and eleven, respectively, with identical straight brown hair but a foot’s difference in height between them-were looking mistrustfully at the uniformed man, who seemed mainly interested in Miranda. He said, “Looks like you bought out the store.”

Kevin said, “Well, maybe Miranda told you. we, don’t own the ranch all by ourselves. There are three other families, and they each own a fifth, and they’re all coming up for a vacation.”

“Won’t that be crowded?”

Kevin shrugged. Miranda lost a little of the smile. “Yeah. We’ve never done this before. The idea was to take turns, one week Out of five, a vacation spot, you know? But it never seems to work out that way. We’ve lucked out a lot. This time, well, maybe it’ll work out. The other families aren’t as big as we are. But I don’t know them very well.”

Miranda and the cop drifted away, and Kevin let them have their privacy. Later, when they were in the truck, he asked, “Who is he? How did you meet him?”

“Leigh Young. He was at the club and we played some tennis. He’s not very good, but he could be.”

“You like him?”

“Some.”

“I think Dad would approve of your dating a policeman. Useful.”

Miranda smiled. “It doesn’t hurt that he’s got good legs, either.”

Kevin looked back to be sure his younger brothers were settled inside the truck with the mounds of groceries before he started the truck. “Sure going to be crowded.”

“Yeah.”

“Rafidy, what do you think about all this? Is Dad right?”

She shrugged. “I didn’t used to think so. All our friends laugh at George, old Super-Survivor. I think Dad used to laugh at him, too.”

“You never know with Dad,” Kevin said. Miranda was only a year older than Kevin, and they’d become good friends as well as brother and sister. They both knew about their father’s half smiles.

He also kept their home computers busy analyzing the cost of everything they did. William Adolphus Shakes hadn’t wasted a nickel in years.

Gee, Kevin, there really is an alien spaceship.”