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11: Lights In The Sky

Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.

—Matthew 10:16

COUNTDOWN: H PLUS ONE HOUR

The air was foul and growing fouler; it was like being trapped inside a whale's lungs. Giorge, gasping and coughing and fighting the soft walls, had finally fainted. The beach ball's oxygen supply wasn't designed for two occupants.

It was a hell of a situation in which to try to relax, but Wes tried: he held his breathing slow and steady (punctuated with coughing); he let his eyelids droop (though he had to watch that great armored city in the sky coming toward him!) Half curled toward fetal position, he consciously relaxed his muscles in pairs, as if he were fighting a night of insomnia.

All this, while traveling like a tethered balloon behind their massive inhuman captors.

Naked in the glare of the stars, helpless as a babe, Wes fell toward an alien artifact bigger than the World Trade Center. He saw detail as he neared the thing: a pod on a jointed arm, rectangles of blackness, a jet of blue flame from a cluster of cones. But the air was like soup. His nose was clogged with drying blood. Hold the breathing down, stay awake, there are things you have to see . . . no use. His chest heaved, a coughing fit wracked his body, and everything went out of focus.

* * *

Arvid Rogachev was finding a great deal to awe him, and not much to surprise him. A ship the size of a city: of course, if they hoped to conquer a planet! The aliens: very alien. The attack: why not? Whatever they expected from contact with humankind, it was their safest approach.

Which was not to say that he wasn't angry.

How would they treat prisoners? Human precedent showed a wide spectrum . . . but wouldn't they want to inspect the natives more closely? These attackers hadn't had time to build up a hatred for the enemy, not yet. What they found alive, they would keep alive . . . unless they were xenophobic beyond sanity, or found the human shape intrinsically disgusting . . .

Still, a corpse dead of explosive decompression was not the ideal subject for dissection. Might they prefer a healthy Soviet executive?

Arvid shrugged off that line of thought. Who still lived? Dawson, of course, and Giorge. Nikolai too had reached a survival bubble. Aliana? The other American, Greeley?

A dozen of the beasts had followed the first, the scout, through the ripped wall, paused briefly to inspect the humans, then gone off into other parts of the wrecked station. The four who remained had enlarged the rip with a series of explosive gun blasts. Now the survival bubbles were being towed toward what seemed an infinite metal wall.

He wished for a better look at the aft end, the drive; but they were approaching from the side. Dark holes showed along the flank, with doors snugged against the hull. Airlocks, or missile ports? Those oval windows: for passengers, or lasers? A sudden narrow string of twinkling points against the black sky: random dust motes reflecting a laser beam? Sure enough, a new star blazed far away, then winked off. Far below, lights flashed against Earth's night sky. Something blossomed impossibly bright, and Arvid turned his head away.

A nuclear weapon. Whose? And how close was it? He fought real panic. How long do I have to live? Almost he laughed. It had been a long way away, near the Earth's surface, ten thousand kilometers and more. I have looked upon the cocatrice and survived . . .

Other lights flared far down toward Earth. Light beams stabbed downward through space flecked with dust and debris. Bondarev is attacking the alien ship. Perhaps the United States as well. He had never felt more helpless.

They were close enough to the ship for him to see details. Grooves ran along the spacecraft's flank, like railroad tracks, but much farther apart. Smaller craft could have been anchored there . . . smaller, but still big, perhaps as big as a pocket battleship. The entire hull might function like an aircraft carrier's deck. Or—

Arvid felt hampered here. This kind of guesswork was no task for an executive, nor a soldier either. He needed a combination of mechanic and strategist: a mechanic with imagination. Had Nikolai survived, or Mitya?

The ship had become a cubistic landscape.

. . . Rectangular pock, too small to be an airlock . . . No. It was larger than he'd thought. Alien-sized, he saw, as one of his captors moved up against it. A cavity the size of an alien in a pressure suit. Alien 1 disappeared within. The door closed.

The door opened. Alien 2 pushed Arvid's survival bubble into the airlock. It brushed the sides, but it fit. The outer door closed, the survival bubble sagged, Arvid's abused ears popped. An inner door opened. Alien 1 pulled the survival bubble out into a corridor . . . a wide rectangular corridor, curved, painted in three tones of green camouflage style, with carpet along two walls. Arvid was disoriented. Would they spin the ship for gravity? Certainly he was still in free-fall . . .

The doors he saw were all closed.

Then an open door, and it was thick, massive . . . as one would expect aboard a warship.

The alien paused. Arvid saw that he was boxed between the two aliens.

They acted in concert. A long-handled bayonet sliced through the side of the survival bubble, a forked tentacle reached in and closed around him. Arvid couldn't help himself: he screamed and slammed a fist against the alien's faceplate. Only his fist was hurt. The tentacle birthed him from the collapsed bubble and hurled him into the room. Did they breathe poison? He was breathing it already!

He hit the far wall without the jolt he'd expected. It was padded. The room was big, and padded over walls and floor and ceiling. The air . . . the air was damp, with a smell both earthy and strange. It didn't smell like it would kill him.

A large, conspicuous glass-faced tube poked through the padding in one corner of the room. A camera.

The aliens followed him in. Arvid tried to relax as they came toward him. One still clutched the bayonet in its tentacle. Dissection? He wouldn't scream again.

But it was difficult not to fight. One alien held him—it felt like pythons were squeezing him to death—while the other used the bayonet to slice through his clothing: down the back and along his arms and legs. They stripped him naked and collected the ruined clothing and backed out, carefully, as if he might still be dangerous.

He was alone.

His fear edged over into black rage.

Dangerous? When you can see me as dangerous, then I am harmless. This hour or this day, this year or next year, you will lower your guard. By then I will know more.

* * *

Wes had missed it all. His oxygen-starved mind had been fading in and out, catching fragmentary glimpses of alien wonders while his lungs strained at the dirty air . . . as if he were trapped in a burning theater that was showing Star Wars. Half-felt forces pulled him through some kind of strangling barrier into air he could breathe. His lungs clawed at air that was damp and cool, sweet life-giving air, while something sharp ran down his torso and arms and legs, and decidedly queer hands peeled him like an orange.

He was naked. Falling. Spots danced before his eyes.

Where are the others? Is this all of us?

There were other bodies, all naked. Rogachev: white skin covered with black hair, and bright eyes watching him. Giorge: black skin, almost hairless, dull eyes that saw nothing. Another fell past him and bounced against the rubbery wall. Pale skin, joltingly inhuman shape . . . stumps for legs . . . Nikolai. There were scars on Nikolai's belly. Oh, boy, that had been some accident!

Arvid Rogachev and Nikolai talked in Russian. They sounded indecently calm.

Four. Where were the others?

Giorge was curled loosely in a ball. His mouth was slightly open. Wes took his shoulder and turned him to bring them face to face. Giorge's eyes were open, but they weren't looking at anything. "Giorge? It's all right now. All right for the moment. We're not in any danger just now. Can you hear me, Giorge?"

Giorge said a word in his own language. Wes couldn't get him to say any more.

He's nearly catatonic. Wes could understand the temptation. It would be easy to curl into a fetal position and close his eyes. Easy but not sensible.

They attacked. Without warning, without talking. Oh, God, Carlotta saw it all! She must think I'm dead. Or have they told Earth they have prisoners?

The door opened again. Dmitri Grushin flew among them, cursing vigorously in a high, hysterical voice. Rogachev snapped orders: they had to be orders. Grushin blinked and quieted, and Rogachev's voice went from authoritative to fatherly. Dmitri nodded.

Now there were five. Seven missing, Including both women.

Arvid Rogachev turned and spoke in English. "You are well, Congressman?"

Wes tested his throat. "I'd want a doctor's opinion. I'm alive, but I hurt all over. Bends, probably. How are you?"

"The same. Wes, we have seen men exposed to vacuum before. We will live. You'll see ruptured veins on your face and body—"

"Shit, there goes my career."

Arvid laughed. "President Reagan used makeup. So did Nixon."

"You're such a comfort. Arvid, what's going on? I would have—I did bet my life that conquering another planet across interstellar space just isn't cost-effective. War of the Worlds. Does it look like that to you?"

"I like the phrase your computer programmers use. Insufficient data."

"Is this all of us?"

"I do not know. Dmitri tells me that Captain Greeley is dead. He saw it, after the aliens had him in tow. An alien moved into Captain Greeley's chambers, in vacuum, mind you. The door was a bit small for the alien, and while it was in the doorway Captain Greeley fired a handgun into the alien, then continued firing through the wall. He must have been firing through his survival bubble. The aliens raked the chamber with explosive bullets."

Wes couldn't decide how he felt about that. Too many shocks . . . "Sounds like John."

There was a sound, almost subsonic, as if a tremendous gong had been struck. Wes saw a wall come at him: he was falling! He struck. They were all piled against the damp padding . . . and then the thrust eased off and left them floating.

"So. We still have some defenses," Arvid said.

"Zapsats?"

"Ground-based beam weapons, I would think. The aliens will know all about it before we do. At least it tells us we can still fight."

"I wish we had a window," Wes said.

I wish we had a suitcase fission bomb, Arvid thought. Do I? It would end my life too. That will come soon enough. Patience.

* * *

The B-1B flew just above the treetops at near sonic speed. For a while Jenny looked out the tiny crew windows, but there was little to see: just shapes flashing past, an occasional light. Most of the United States was dark.

There was a bright flash off to starboard. Jenny shuddered.

"What?" Jack asked. He touched her hand, then moved his away. She reached for him and brought his hand back and held it in both of hers.

"Another dam," she said.

She listened as the artificially calm voice from Colorado Springs spoke into her earphones. "Spring Lake Dam, near Peoria, Illinois," it said. "They've hit most of the dams from there north and west. Floodwaters are rising all along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. We're ordering evacuation, but it won't be in time."

"Isn't there anything else?" The President's voice interrupted the Air Force talker. "Get the National Guard out with helicopters—"

"Sir, we're trying, but we have almost no communications. Most of the reports I'm giving you come from direct observation by Air National Guard pilots flying wherever they see a flash."

We could lose a lot of pilots that way.

"Is there anything more on the Russians?"Jack asked.

"No. Just a lot of damage reports," Jenny answered.

"Then we don't even know if we're at war?"

Jenny gave a short laugh. "We're at war all right. We just don't know who with—"

"Could the aliens be allied with the Russians?"

"Don't know. I don't think so," Jenny said. "I'm sure we'd have heard if they were in communication. We'd have heard something. I think—"

"Yeah." He leaned back in the bombardier's seat and closed his eyes. In seconds he was asleep.

Jenny shook her head in admiration. Nothing for Jack Clybourne to do, so he rests up for the next assignment. I wish the President would do that. There's not enough information for him to make any decisions, not here.

I wish I could do it.

The reports continued. Missiles launched against the smaller alien ships. The large alien ship remained invisible behind a screen of noise, charged particles, and chaff. No confirmation of any Soviet missile landing in the United States, and no confirmation of any cities destroyed.

Jenny leaned back in the electronic warfare officer's seat and tried to close her eyes, but the temptation to look out the window was too much. The thick leaded glass would shield her eyes from anything that wouldn't kill her . . .

The bomber flew on toward Colorado Springs.

* * *

The steps of the bank were cold and damp. Harry settled as near the door as he could reach, and turned on the transistor radio.

"Power failures throughout Southern California," the announcer was saying. He sounded nearly hysterical. "We have reports that something hit Hoover Dam. Laser beams, for God's sake!"

The long blue flame sank into the east. Harry settled against the bank door. He thought of what else he could do. Steal a car. Steal a motorcycle. Break into the shop and steal his own motorcycle: Any of that might work, but it might not.

I'm not as quick as I used to be.

He tried to think of someone who'd help him, but anyone who'd believe him either wouldn't be any use, or would already be doing something. After a while he closed his eyes and slept a little.

He woke again when someone moved in beside him: a small, pudgy man who puffed from his climb up the steps. He settled on the step below Harry. "Mind?"

"No," Harry said. "Did you see the sky? Or the news?"

"Both. The TV's gone off, though. One of the radio people keeps saying it's all a big mistake, but I can't get through to New York."

Sure can't. Or to Dighton, Kansas. Harry nodded, The pudgy man was shivering. Harry thought he should have worn more.

"I keep remembering The War of the Worlds. What are they, what do they want? They could be . . . anything."

"Not my department," Harry said, and he closed his eyes. As he drifted off, he felt grateful for his brief military stint. He had learned to sleep anytime.

And if everything went just right, it was going to be one miserable day.

 

He kept waking to watch the sky. "There," the pudgy man said. He pointed south. "Like—what did they call it? The high-altitude atom bomb test. Back in the fifties."

"Wouldn't remember," Harry said. He frowned. Something came back to him. They'd blown off a nuclear weapon in the stratosphere, and mucked up the ionosphere and communications all over the world, and it had taken months for things to get right again. And that was one bomb.

There was nothing but static on the radio. Harry tuned across the band. Sometimes he heard stations but he couldn't really make out words. He shrugged and kept tuning.

There were a lot of faintly phosphorescent smudges, north, south, and west. East was getting pink, and he couldn't tell if explosions were there, too.

War of the Worlds? In that movie, the aliens had landed. His random sweep picked up a news station. He listened, but there wasn't much news. Official announcements, everyone to remain calm and stay home. Hysterical announcers with unconfirmed reports of anything you liked. Orphanage burned in Los Gatos. Dams broken. Trains derailed. Europe laid waste. But no one had been hurt in Los Angeles, and as far as Harry could tell, the announcer didn't know about anybody who'd been hurt. Just lots of rumors.

When the sky turned light a dozen were in line. Only two had thought to bring sleeping bags. One weathered-looking man brought an entire backpack, with sleeping bag, self-inflating mat, a blowup pillow, a tiny stove. He got himself settled, then made coffee and sent it up and down the line in a Sierra cup. He seemed to be having a wonderful time. So were the two Boy Scouts with him.

They talked in low voices. A thin woman's voice kept rising into hysteria, then chopping off. Harry dozed.

The voices changed. Harry rolled over and was looking up at two blue police uniforms. He exposed his hands, then carefully reached into his sports jacket and opened his wallet. "Harry Reddington. I'm here to make a withdrawal." He didn't bother to smile.

"Sir, why are you here?"

Harry suppressed an urge to point to the sky and giggle. "I told you, I'm here to make a withdrawal."

"The Federal Emergency Management Agency has issued orders for all citizens to stay home," the older policeman said.

"Sure," Harry said. "We always do everything Washington says, don't we?" This time he couldn't help the grin. "How'd they learn to deal with this situation? Experience?"

"Sir—"

The younger officer interrupted his companion. They whispered for a moment. Harry used the opportunity to take out his Baggie-wrapped letter. He held it out.

"If you'll shine your light here," Harry said.

The older policeman moved closer. His light showed the Capitol stationery clearly.

". . . Mr. Harry Reddington, whom I have authorized to stay in my house and guard my possessions and interests . . ."

If they had read further they'd have come to the weasel words, but they didn't, and Harry swallowed his sigh of relief.

"Yes, sir?" the officer said. This time the "sir" sounded a great deal more sincere.

Some of the crowd behind them was muttering. "Fucking pigs," someone said, not too loud. The voice sounded cultured, and not at all what you'd expect someone saying that to sound like.

Harry was tempted to take advantage of that. Instead, he spoke in a low voice. "I'll be glad to hold a place for you," he said. "Or one of your family."

The younger policeman thought that through, then nodded. "Her name is Rosabell. She'll be here in an hour."

* * *

Interstate 40 had been completely dark for an hour. One moment she had been trying to read an illuminated sign; the next moment there was no light except her headlights. The radio had gone dead at the same instant, and now she could only get static.

High mountains loomed to either side, as the car steadily climbed into the Chuska mountains of western New Mexico.

The gas gauge read less than a quarter full.

"Mom, I'm hungry." Melissa said from the back seat.

"There's bread and cheese," Jeri said.

"Not any more."

"Good God, that was supposed to last a while. You mean there's none left at all?"

"Aw, there wasn't very—what was that?"

Overhead the sky blazed in green and blue, then a long red streak that went all across the sky and downward to earth. "I don't know," Jeri said. She shuddered. Aliens. They were out there all the time, waiting, fifteen years, and now they've attacked us.

"We're gonna need gas."

"I know. Albuquerque is ahead. We can get gasoline there."

"I don't know, Mom," Melissa said.

"Huh?"

"Space war, aliens—you sure we want to go into a city? Lots of people running away, I bet. Traffic jams—"

"You could be right."

Her headlights picked up a reflective sign.

"Gas food ahead," Melissa said. "We could use some. Eat and run the car on the gas—"

"Very funny." Jeri watched for the off-ramp. There it was. Everything was dark over there, but she took the ramp anyway. If a town was nearby, it was invisible.

"There's the station," Melissa said. "Somebody's in it."

"You're right." Jeri pulled into the station.

"Yes, ma'am?" a voice said from nowhere. The station attendant switched on his flashlight. He was a young man, certainly not more than twenty, and dark. Jeri thought he looked Indian.

This is the right part of the country for it. "Uh—I need some gasoline. Badly."

"The power's off," the attendant said. "Can't get the pumps to work."

"Oh. But I have a long way to go, and I really need some gasoline. Isn't there anything you can do?"

He looked thoughtful. "I have a hand pump. I suppose I could pump some out into a can. It'd be a lot of work—"

"Oh, please," Jeri said. "I'd be glad to pay you."

"Not sure money's worth much now. Did you hear the news?"

"Yes—" If you don't want money, what do you want?

"Guess it'll be all right, though." He went inside the station. The flashlight flickered through the windows.

He seems nice enough. So why am I Scared? Is civilization that fragile?

Part of her kept saying Yes!

* * *

The eastern windows blazed. The television hissed and sprayed random light. The radio spoke of an explosion on Interstate 5 between Everett and Marysville.

Close. Isadore rolled to his feet and turned the TV off. The radio announcer sounded hysterical. That's got to be the long causeway, Isadore thought. We got over it just in time . . .

All of the kids were asleep. Vicki Tate-Evans had staggered away an hour ago. Her husband George was snoring on the couch with Clara's feet in his lap. They got along fine as long as they were both asleep.

Isadore felt punchy, twitchy, as if he should be doing something. War in the sky . . . Just in time! Clara was right, push on, don't stop, something might happen. If we'd waited any longer for Jeri, it would have been too late.

And where is she? On the road somewhere, and nothing I can do about it.

We were near enough dead getting in last night. He remembered the bright flashes on the highway behind them. Maybe that was the causeway. We hadn't got to Sedro Wooley, so if we'd been an hour later—That's cutting things close . . .

They'd come in ready to collapse, to find the television set running and a dead silence in the crowd that faced the set. When the TV went blank they'd all trooped outside to watch the war in the sky.

He said, as he'd said before, "Son of a bitch."

"Yeah," Shakes said. He came in from the kitchen carrying a cup of coffee. "You were right." He looked like he would never sleep again.

"We were right." Isadore laughed, and didn't like the high pitch of it. "Seventeen years we were right before it looked even sensible. We should be putting the shutters over the windows. We should have bricked up the windows! Is anybody feeling ambitious?"

Nobody stood up and went out to fix the metal screens in place. Shakes said, "I never thought it was real."

"So what are you doing here?"

"My whole damn family gets to use this place for only about thirty percent of what it would cost us. That's a damn good deal for a vacation spot. I don't even mind admitting it now. We haven't slacked off. This place is built to keep all of us alive, and me and my family did most of it. You haven't even seen the shelter, Izzie."

Clara suddenly sat upright. "Food. How are the food supplies?"

"The food supplies are fine," Shakes said in some irritation.

"Good. I could eat your arm off. I'm going to make breakfast," Clara said, and she stood, staggering a little, and made her way into the kitchen, veering around Jack and Harriet McCauley, who were asleep on the rug.

* * *

By eight-thirty the line ran around the corner. The original police had gone, but two other pairs had come, and one team of two had stayed.

Rosabell Hruska had come at eight. She was a slender, frightened woman in her twenties. She carried a baby girl, and she didn't talk to anyone except one of the visiting police.

At ten Harry watched an old man in a guard's uniform open the doors. The line behind him rustled impatiently, but he waited. When the doors opened, Harry held it for Rosabell. Two more elbowed past him before he could let go and get to a cashier.

The cashier looked nervous.

At least there is a cashier, Harry thought. He'd been worried. Would they all stay home? There were twelve windows, but only four had cashiers.

"I want to make a withdrawal," said Harry.

"We're restricting withdrawals to five hundred dollars." The cashier was an older woman, probably long since graduated from sitting in a cage and talking to customers, now filling in. She looked defiant and afraid at the same time.

The eastern banks had been open for three hours. Harry wondered, not whether there was a rush on the banks, but how bad it was.

Two windows down, Rosabell was shouting at the younger cashier she'd chosen. "It's our money!" she screamed.

Too bad, Harry thought. But it was no skin off Harry's nose. He had only fifty-eight dollars in his account. He asked for it all in coins, got two twenty-dollar rolls of quarters and eighteen ones. Then he moved to the deposit boxes. His contained one Mexican gold peso and thirty silver dimes. He'd been able to keep them because of the symbolic number; if he'd spent one, he'd have spent them all.

Once there had been a lot more. He took his money and left the bank. Tap city, he thought. Tap city on my total resources.

The radio spoke of the need for calm.

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