Footfall

The General half closed his eyes. He seemed in no hurry to answer. Rohrs finished his glass and poured again. He was watching the screens.

The screens hadn’t changed in several minutes. One, from a camera on the dome wall, showed Michael in full. Two great towers stood on the curve of the hemispherical shell, with cannon showing beneath the lip, aimed inward. Four smaller towers flanked them. A brick-shaped structure rose above them. The Brick was much less massive than the Shell, but its sides were covered with spacecraft: tiny gunships, and four Shuttles with tanks but no boosters. The Brick’s massive roof ran beyond the flanks to shield the Shuttles and gunships.

Rohrs said, “The biggest spaceship ever built by Man. Done by God.”

“And I’m done too,” Harry said.

— 

Gillespie said, “If we win this. If. We’ll kill a lot of snouts and the rest will surrender. Thousands of snouts, all trying to join what our Threat Team has started calling the Climbing Fithp. Thousands of snouts — sane snouts, mostly — all learning to be human. Who will want to learn the name of the man who first captured a snout?”

“Pour me some more of that,” said Harry.

40. THY DASTARDLY DOINGS ARE PAST

Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD’S wrath…

—ZEPHANIAH 1:18

A fire devoureth before them; and behind them a flame burneth.

—JOEL 2:3

COUNTDOWN: M HOUR

Jenny winked at Jack, then went into the balcony office. The Situation Room down below was crowded. Every console held a group, all the regular duty-crew plus most of the Threat Team, and anyone else who could think of a good reason to be there.

“Come in, Colonel,” Admiral Carrell said. “Your station is here.” He indicated a table facing the big screens beyond the glass wall. The table held a small switchboard and computer terminal. Jenny put on the headset with its microphone and single headphone, and pushed buttons.

“Operations, Colonel Walters.”

“Control here, communications test.”

“Roger. I read you five by five.” Another button.

“Dreamer Fithp here,” a voice said.

“Control here. Communications test.”

“Fine.”

She pushed other buttons. Finally she nodded to Admiral Carrell. “Communications checked out, sir. The link with Michael has a lot of static.”

“It will probably get worse. All right.” Carrell went to the door. “Mr. Clybourne, please tell the President that everything is ready, and he can join us whenever he likes. Colonel, begin Operation Moby Dick.”

“Yes, sir.” Jenny touched another button. On the floor below a siren wailed and red lights flashed. “Harpoon, this is Gimlet. Let fly!”

They could hear the cheers through the glass wall. Then the Situation Room fell silent. Crews hunched over consoles.

One of the situation screens showed the locations of the Invader Mother Ship and all the digit ships they could locate. The mother ship and sixteen digit ships were in geosync over Africa. They posed no danger yet. The moon was just setting; snout installations there would see nothing. Africa was wrapped in night. For whatever it was worth, the Invaders would start from their sleep to find themselves attacked.

Eight digit ships were in twelve-hour orbits, evenly distributed around the Earth, and three of these passed to east, center, and west of the United States every twelve hours. One would be passing over the South Pole when Michael launched. The others would have to be distracted.

Another screen showed all the effective missiles remaining under U.S. control. Lights blinked and colored lines flowed across the screens as the main battle computer matched missiles with Invader targets.

General Toland came in. “All ready at my end,” he said.

Not that the Army has much to do — unless the snouts start dropping rocks at random!

“Good.” Carrell stood at the balcony window, his eyes fastened on the screens below. After a moment, General Toland sat at one of the desks.

One screen faded, then was replaced by a map of the South Atlantic. A bright red line rose from the ocean and arced toward Johannesburg.

“God, what if it really hits?” Toland said to no one.

“It won’t,” Carrell said.

Other lines arced upward from the South Atlantic. One rose straight up: the EMP bomb. Then a bright blue ring sprang up to surround that area.

“We’ve lost communications with Ethan Allen,” Jenny reported. “The Nathaniel Greene is launching now.” The EMP bomb bloomed into a red patch, wide of Earth’s arc. More lines sprang up, this time from farther south, almost directly below the Cape of Good Hope. After a few moments a blue circle appeared there, too.

“No communications with Nathaniel Greene,” Jenny said. “Or anywhere else for the next few hours. We got our electromagnetic pulse.” The room seethed with static.