She turned to the driver. “Any word?”
“They’ve left Grossman at the top with a radio. The rest are in the elevator. Don’t worry, he’ll report as soon as there’s anything worth saying — unless he loses contact when they get down there and approach Lazenby’s quarters.”
Which would be the most crucial time. Naturally.
On the television set in front of Celine, the test pattern vanished and was replaced by the Great Seal of the United States. A disembodied voice bade her good morning and informed her that this was America.
But then, of more interest: “. . . the major speech made yesterday evening by the President.”
Celine and the strike force had been on the way here and otherwise engaged. She had asked Wilmer to attend and note what was said, but she didn’t have much hope. Wilmer heard what he wanted to hear. Anyway, he and Dr. Vronsky, along with a dozen other scientists, were too busy playing with semirigid body dynamics and space construction methods to notice much of anything. Celine kept one eye on the external scene monitors and turned most of her attention to the television.
President Saul Steinmetz was standing at a lectern. On the black-and-white image his face was pale and his eyes sat deep in their sockets. Somehow he seemed to have grown taller since her meeting with him, and the familiar voice was firm and commanding.
“This nation and the world have over the past two months been through very difficult times. Supernova Alpha caused tragedy on the largest scale, for which no nation was prepared and from which no nation emerged unscathed. Now everyone, here and through the whole world, faces the enormous problem of rebuilding. I feel sure that it will come as a surprise to most of my fellow citizens, as it did to me, to learn that this country was one of the luckiest ones in terms of the supernova’s effects. But that is true. Our friends abroad were far less fortunate.”
The camera scanned the crowded hall to show the audience of Senators and House members, then returned to the people standing directly behind the President. Celine recognized the new Vice President, Brewster Callaghan. Next to him on his left was the House Minority Leader, Sarah Mander, and on the right the Senate Majority Leader, Nick Lopez. Next to Lopez was the young male aide that Celine had met when she visited the White House. In front of Lopez stood the strikingly beautiful young woman who had accompanied Celine and Wilmer from the State Department to the White House. Yasmin Silvers presented her profile, because her eyes remained fixed on the President.
“A unique tragedy,” Saul Steinmetz was continuing, “which we will certainly never forget. However, tragedy is not our business. Our business is the future. And now it is my duty to deliver a warning to us all. In the future — all our futures — half a century away, lies an event which without action on our part will kill every member of the human race. If humanity is to survive, we must undertake an enterprise of unprecedented size, difficulty, and duration. This Grand Design must be the construction of a vast shield, out in space, which can divert deadly follow-on radiation from Supernova Alpha. In order to build such a shield, the combined resources of the whole globe—”
“Getting a message,” the driver interrupted. “Our man at the top thinks we got problems down below. Signal interrupted. He’s trying to make contact again.”
“They failed?”
“Don’t know that, but apparently it’s not going clean. Keep quiet a minute, let me listen.”
Celine stared at the displays. They showed the same morning scene, with the schoolhouse sitting peaceful at the bottom of a gentle incline. The van was suddenly uncannily quiet, except for Saul Steinmetz’s voice continuing from the television.
“ — at once, and with not a day to lose. Therefore, I am arranging an immediate series of meetings with the heads of governments all around the world. In those meetings, I propose that this country pledge its manpower and materials to the rebuilding of the infrastructure and industry of other less fortunate nations. Let me remind you that such an act is not without precedent. Eighty years ago, in one of this nation’s finest hours, we rebuilt the economies of those who had recently been our adversaries in the most bitter war in human history. Surely we will do no less now, for our friends. And, in return, we will ask their total commitment to a project which will save the world. Before seeking the support of other nations, however, all of us here must first be convinced that this action is necessary and indeed inevitable. To that end, I have arranged for a series of briefings, to begin tomorrow morning. The first ones will demonstrate both the danger and the need for action. Then the scale of the operation will be outlined—”
“Shit.” The driver dragged off his headset and hurried to the rear of the van, for a direct view of the schoolhouse. “It’s looking bad. We have casualties. They’re on the way back up, but they didn’t have time to disable the other elevators. I’m going to join Grossman and give them fire cover. You stay here and get in the driver’s seat. If you see anything coming out and it’s not our own people, don’t wait and don’t watch. Take off in the van and don’t stop ’til you reach Washington.”
He was already in full body armor. Without waiting to hear Celine’s response he dropped his helmet into position and jumped off the open rear of the van.
She took one step toward the empty driver’s seat, and paused. If the long years of the Mars expedition had taught her one thing above all others, it was that you did not abandon a teammate in trouble. Not ever, not for any reason. At the moment she was a part of the Pearl Lazenby capture team — she was even responsible for its existence. There was just one important difference: the others had to obey the commands of their team leader; she did not.
She went to the side wall of the van, inspected the body armor suits, and took down the one that seemed closest to her size. It took a minute to climb into it, but her experience with spacesuits helped a lot.
The choice of weapons was more difficult. She hated the idea of killing anyone, but gas bombs might be useless if the Legion of Argos followers had their own gas masks.
Finally she hooked three gas grenades to her belt and picked up an automatic rifle. The gun’s advanced capabilities had been dumbed down a lot by the gamma pulse, but that suited her just fine. It was now a simple single-shot point-and-shoot projectile weapon, with a hundred-round ammo cartridge.
Celine carefully climbed from the open rear of the van and walked down the hill. The schoolhouse at the bottom seemed astonishingly normal and neat. It was hard to imagine violence taking place in or underneath it.
She recalled Eli’s cold, unblinking face and the belts of live ammunition around his chest. She began to walk faster. Soon she was at the door of the schoolroom, and still no sound came from within.
She looked inside, past the broken glass window. The driver and the radioman Grossman stood side by side, guns raised. They were covering two of the three elevators.
The driver had seen her arrive, and he gestured angrily at her to leave. She ignored him. An elevator was on its way up — no, two were rising in the shafts, she could hear the creak of their cables.
The big question: Who was inside them?
Apparently her companions had no more idea than she did. The third elevator sat silent, but their guns veered between the other two.
She heard a final rattle of cables. The door of one elevator slid open. She held her rifle at the ready. Two people in body armor staggered forward. They were carrying a long object swaddled in light-colored material.
“Take this and get out of here.” She recognized the captain’s voice, hoarse and strained. “Grossman, you and I cover.”
The driver grabbed the end of the burden thrust at him by the captain and started with the other man up the hill. Celine, ready to turn with them, saw from the corner of her eye that the door of the second elevator was sliding open. Grossman and the captain stood right in front of it. They began to shoot, but gray-clad soldiers at the back of the elevator were shielded by those in front. Celine saw a black oval fly through the air to explode right at Grossman’s neck. His head vanished. Celine felt a hail of shrapnel on her armor and saw the captain blown backward — injured, dead, or stunned, she could not tell.