Worlds in Chaos (47 page)

“But where is there to go in it?”

“A new world. To Saturn. Get us a pilot. I don’t know about who else you want to bring. You know how many the shuttle will take. Just get to San Saucillo. I’ll be there.”

“But how do we know the
Osiris
will still be there?”

“Let me worry about that.”

Halloran started to reply, but Idorf interrupted to warn that the
Osiris
was losing contact. Moments later, the connection was broken.

Keene turned to confront the astounded faces around him. He felt light inside, suddenly, the feeling that comes of knowing that one has finally done what some instinct that knew best wanted all along. “Well, there it is,” he told them. “Scratch me off that list and let somebody else have the place. I’ll see you in orbit later.”

Nobody tried to argue, not even Sariena. Keene could have sworn that he saw a tear in her eyes when he looked at her, half expecting an objection. But at the same time there was a look that knew him finally, and accepted that it couldn’t have been any other way.

37

When the winds eased, it was found that a fallen gantry had fouled the overhead doors of one of the Boxcar launch bays. A crew went out to haul the obstruction clear with a tow tractor. The shower of rocks and gravel had slackened, but the hazard had not gone away completely. Within fifteen minutes one of the crew was killed outright. A dozen others stepped forward to fill the place. Getting the two Boxcars away had become a point of pride for all of the launch staff and workforce.

Meanwhile, loading went ahead of the first Boxcar, which would be taking the Kronians, the balance being made up of family groups and mothers with children, the children who had become separated, the expectant mother, and after them, the names heading the draw. The second Boxcar would be launched as soon as its covering doors could be opened. After that, the facility would be shut down and the remaining personnel, including General Ullman with his wife and two daughters, flown out in the Samson transport that had been held back. They would head for Peterson Air Force Base at Colorado Springs, where accommodation had been promised in the underground complex at Cheyenne Mountain. The only problem with that was that more people who had missed the evacuation by road for one reason or another were beginning to appear from among the shattered base-area buildings, many of them injured or in shock, and there was only so much room in the Samson. A search was being made for more ground vehicles, but many had been damaged and it was still far from clear how the situation would be resolved. Lieutenant Penalski with his six Marines and their pilot, Sergeant Erse, would wait for the launches, then endeavor to return in the Cessna to their unit at Twentynine Palms. Keene talked to Mitch, who agreed to detour via Texas and Montemorelos before attempting to rejoin the Eastern administration in Atlanta. Colby said he might as well go too. “I can’t think of anywhere else that appeals to me right now,” he explained. “Besides, I always wanted to see Mexico.”

Sariena and Gallian stood outside the tunnel leading through the bunkerlike concrete walls to the boarding ramp in the Boxcar launch bay, while behind them the other Kronians waved farewells and disappeared into the entranceway. General Ullman, who had come to see them off with a short, official message, watched with some of his aides. Keene stood with Colby, Mitch, Penalski, the Launch Supervisor, and others from the launch crew. He shook Gallian’s hand solidly, then took both of Sariena’s. “Well, I guess this is it again. . . . How many times have we done this? Saying good-bye to you is getting to be a habit.”

She nodded, unable to do more than whisper a low “Good-bye, Lan” in reply. Her expression and her manner conveyed as clearly as any words could have that she expected this to be the last time. Keene didn’t want to dwell on it.

The technicians directing the boarding ushered through a mixed group, among them Charlie Hu, carrying a canvas bag slung over one shoulder. He stopped in front of Keene and regarded him evenly.

“Well, Lan. . . .”

“I guess it’s time, Charlie.”

Hu looked past Keene, and his brow knotted. Cavan and Alicia were standing watching, but with Colby and the military officers, not with the line that was moving forward to board.

“I changed my mind,” Alicia said in answer to the question written across Hu’s face. “I’m too much the romantic. . . . Lan going off all the way to Texas to find this woman. I have to see what happens.”

Hu looked at Cavan. “I can’t do anything. She’s crazy,” was all that Cavan had to offer. Hu frowned; then his eyes moved to Keene. Keene said nothing. Theirs, along with Keene’s, meant three extra places available.

“We do have a couple with two young sons,” the Launch Supervisor said, keeping his tone neutral. “They’re next on the draw, but we had to put them down for the second launch.”

Sariena and Gallian had gone. The remaining passengers were moving through quickly. Charlie looked from Keene to the others, and then around. The family was standing anxiously a short distance away, where they had been told to wait in case something changed. “
Shit!
” He unslung his bag, and stepped aside to join the others. Without further ado, the Supervisor waved the family forward, and a technician followed them into the access tunnel. Keene and the others began making their way up to the control room where they had talked to Idorf earlier, from where the launch would be initiated.

Thirty minutes later, the first Boxcar roared skyward trailing a plume of flame and quickly vanished into the turbulent overcast. There would be no guidance from the ground, or even knowledge that it had reached the
Osiris
unless a contact was reestablished through Amspace or via some other means. Piloting would be entirely manual and rely on the homing signal that Idorf had promised. It would take about an hour for the Boxcar to climb to the distance that Idorf had pulled the
Osiris
back to and match its orbit.

With the first launch completed, the crew that had been working to free the doors of the second launch bay was able to go back outside and resume. Until they were through, there was little for anyone else to do. Charlie Hu and Colby remained in the control room with the engineers keeping the communications vigil. Alicia, who was a trained nurse, was helping with the casualties. Keene and Cavan, the leaders of the two military squads and their aircrews, accompanied by six of Mitch’s twenty-two Special Forces troopers, went out to the hangars by the runway area to check their aircraft.

Most of the buildings had sections of roof or wall torn away, and all were missing windows. The spaces and roadways between were covered with rubble and broken glass. One office block had been cleaved through the middle by a steel-frame tower which now lay twisted amid piles of desks, file cabinets, wall sections and other wreckage that had spilled from the sagging floors. A number of cars, some turned over on their sides, were buried under wreckage, two more thrown against the chain-link fence separating the runways from the launch complex. Medics wearing helmets with red crosses were tending a blood-covered figure on the ground, while APs and others struggled to extricate another. Three more forms laid out nearby were not moving.

The runways beyond were littered with fallen gravel and wind-blown debris. An earthmover with a blade would be needed to clear the way before any takeoffs could be attempted. True, the Rustler could get off vertically or from a football field if it had to, but it gulped fuel doing so. The control tower was a splintered shell open to the winds and looked out of commission, although figures were moving around inside. The other base buildings were all damaged, and a fire had started in one of them. The group from the launch complex walked on, saying little, their boots crunching on the grit and gravel. Keene stooped and picked up a piece curiously. It was still warm, not especially dense, like a bit of sinter from a furnace. A year before, it had been part of Jupiter.

People were clustered inside the open doors of the large, concrete-roofed hangar housing the Samson. As Keene and the others drew closer, they saw that a group of maybe two dozen was confronting several Air Force officers backed by a knot of APs carrying rifles unslung. The smaller hangar beyond, where the Cessna and the Rustler were parked, was still closed and seemed to have escaped attention. A big man, wearing a leather jacket, red hair hanging to his shoulders, was berating the officers loudly.

“Who was in the shuttle they launched? How many more shuttles are they getting ready in there?”

“There aren’t any more. That was it,” the officer at the fore told him.

“Then what about this plane you’ve been saving here? It’s big enough for everybody. There are people hurt back there.”

“It’s reserved for the launch personnel and their dependants. All the space has been allocated.”

“Well, nobody asked
us
about any allocating. What right does anyone have? We say the allocation needs to be gone through again, with fair chances for everybody.”

“You should have availed yourselves of the road evacuation. Why weren’t you there when you were supposed to be? We’re trying to find more vehicles now. That’s the best I can tell you.”

“What good’s that? There’s people coming back in off the highway. They were murdered out there. . . .”

The rest was lost as Keene’s party moved to the farther hangar. They let themselves in through a small door that gave access to the main area inside via offices. The floor was covered with glass from shattered windows above, and wind blowing through had left a coating of fine dust over everything. The roof had been breached at the end where the Cessna was parked, and the plane had been hit and punctured in several places. A check over the Rustler showed it to be unmarked. Sergeant Erse would have to stay on and assess the degree of damage to the Cessna. Dan, the Rustler pilot, said he’d give him a hand. Mitch assigned two of his troopers to stay behind with them.

As they came back out onto the tarmac, the radio on Keene’s belt squawked. He fished it from its pouch and acknowledged. It was Charlie Hu, calling from the control room inside the launch complex, where they had found a NASA cable route to the tracking station on Hawaii, which had opened up again, giving another connection to the
Osiris
. “Hello, Lan. The Boxcar is about five hundred miles out and starting to close,” Charlie said. “We thought you’d want to follow it.”

“We’re on our way,” Keene acknowledged. “The Boxcar’s going in to dock with the
Osiris
now,” he told Cavan.

Cavan nodded but seemed more concerned about what was going on at the larger hangar. “Leave your other four men here as well to secure those two planes,” he said to Mitch. “When we get back, draw up a roster with the others to relieve them. I want a permanent guard mounted here until we’re ready to leave.”

As Keene, Cavan, and the two commanders passed the large hangar, a jeep carrying Colonel Lacey and an AP escort drew up in front of the doors and became the focus of attention. Leaving him to it, they continued tramping back in the direction of the gate to the launch complex. When they were about halfway, the gloom around them brightened, making them look up. The light was from above, too high to be the setting sun. Through a brief thinning of the blanket of dust and cloud, they glimpsed Athena, looming ever more huge, glowering redly behind the folds and twisting pillars of its tail. Far above, a hollow boom rolled down from something exploding high in the atmosphere. The air had a smell of crude-oil vapors, like the areas around the refineries on the Texas coast.