“It can’t happen the same way twice, Ester. There are too many variables to contend with… climatic, geological, evolutionary… the list goes on and on.”
“All of which were dealt with before,” she said obstinately, “and we still found a way. Though it’s too bad we’ll never know.”
“Well, we’re not extinct yet,” Shipman said. “Some of us may survive.”
“I wouldn’t hold my breath,” Ester said. “A few thousand of us survived the Younger Dryas impact, but I don’t know if modern man is up to the task.”
“Did Marty Chittenden ever call?”
She shook her head. “They’ve probably still got the boy under lock and key someplace.”
“I wonder if he regrets his decision.”
“I doubt it,” Ester said. “He was committed.”
Then Wolf Blitzer appeared on the screen, looking almost ill.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have just received word from NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory that the nuclear warhead intended to knock the asteroid off course has detonated successfully but failed to affect the asteroid’s trajectory. Preliminary calculations indicate that the detonation occurred a half second too late for the explosion to have its maximum effect…”
“Well, that’s that,” Ester said, tamping her cane twice against the carpet. “So much for world prayer.”
“There’s still the kinetic impactor,” Shipman said with a dry smile.
“Yes, perhaps our European colleagues will manage to chip its tooth,” she said. “I’m going to my room to lie down for a while, Harold. I’m exhausted.”
“Okay, Ester. I’ll wake you if there’s trouble on the island.”
“I don’t know what I’d be able to do about it,” she muttered.
Shipman chuckled. Ester’s dour sense of humor had always tickled him. Now he would have to go get his wife and aged mother-in-law to move them into the observatory with him; he didn’t want them living in town now with the Earth officially doomed.
He took some limited comfort, however, in the fact that the Hawaiian Islands had remained relatively calm throughout the crisis, the general consensus among the islanders being that they stood a better chance of surviving in the long term than anyone else in the United States and perhaps even the world. And since all flights to the Islands had been canceled a month earlier, the largest increase in population was likely to be at Pearl Harbor once the U.S. naval fleet began to arrive in port.
The entire Pacific Fleet had sortied the week before against the eventuality of an oceanic impact, which would almost certainly have resulted in a mega-tsunami that would have devastated both the Hawaiian Islands and the entire west coast of North America for dozens of miles inland. But with the asteroid still on course, that was no longer a concern, and Dr. Harold Shipman found himself feeling terribly disappointed. A mega-tsunami would have made their deaths quick and painless, and would have been an utterly breathtaking sight to behold in their final moments.
Sixteen
After Marty Chittenden’s apprehension by the Secret Service, Agent Paulis had requested clearance to keep him detained and out of sight on campus at the California Institute of Technology, much in the same manner as two other astronomers who had spotted the asteroid. They were being illegally detained elsewhere in the U.S., one under house arrest in New Mexico, the other involuntarily committed to a mental hospital in Washington, D.C.
Susan Denton had been allowed to visit Marty and bring him food during his detention, and she came to truly detest Agent Paulis, who seemed to take personal enjoyment in keeping Marty locked in a tiny room on the top floor of a deserted dormitory across campus.
Now, she stepped off the elevator and walked briskly down the hall toward a pair of Secret Service agents standing guard outside the room. “Okay, guys, you can let him out. The nuclear warhead didn’t work, so we’re all as good as dead.”
“Are you sure?” one of the men said, strangely surprised.
“Yeah. Call Agent Paulis if you don’t believe me.”
He tried reaching Paulis on the phone but all he got was voice mail. “That’s odd.”
“See? He’s obviously abandoned you guys. Don’t you think it’s about time you started thinking for yourselves?”
A minute later the Secret Service agent was able to reach someone on the phone to confirm that the warhead had failed to divert the asteroid and that most government employees were fleeing D.C.
“The government’s already shutting down,” the agent said, tucking the phone away. “I’m trying for Seattle. My sister lives there.”
“You’ll never make it,” the other said. “The interstate’s going to be total gridlock.”
“I’ll steal a fucking motorcycle if I have to. What about you?”
“I’ll go to Camp Pendleton. I’ve got some friends in the Corps who’ll let me in.”
“And what about Marty?” Susan asked.
One of them gave her the key to Marty’s room. “Good luck to you. Be damn sure you’re off the streets before dark. And tell Chittenden it was nothing personal.”
The men headed for the elevator, and Susan keyed into Marty’s room. “Hey, you.”
Marty was sitting on his bed against the wall, reading a book. “What’s happened?”
“The first rocket failed to push the asteroid off course, and the second never even made it off the ground. The Secret Service guys took off, so you’re free.”
“Then we have to get the hell out of here,” he said, getting up, then leading her out of the room by the hand. “We’ll go to my place. I’ve already stocked up on food.”
She hurried along beside him and they road the elevator to the ground floor. “Marty, we’ll never make it to your place. The highways are jammed.”
The elevator doors opened and they moved quickly toward the parking lot.
“We have to get out of town,” he said.
Her car was nearly the only one left in the lot.
“You’d better drive,” she said, giving him the keys. “I don’t handle heavy traffic well.”
“We’ll stick to the side streets,” he said, getting in and starting the motor.
“We should just go to my house. We’ll never make it to Mesa.”
“We’ll starve in California, Sue. Do you know how many people are here? The food won’t last a month. Nothing’s being produced now.”
“We’ll starve in Arizona too,” she argued. “That’s if we survive the blast.”
Traffic thickened up a mile from campus, but it was moving, and so far motorists were still obeying the traffic signals.
“Okay, we’ll stay at your place tonight,” he conceded. “That will give all these people a chance to get home to their families. Tomorrow it won’t be as bad and we can get out of town.”
She suddenly had a frightening thought and grabbed his arm. “You’re not going to ditch me if things get bad, are you? If I start to slow you down?”
He looked at her. “Susan, no.” He paused and continued, “In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m still in love with you.”
She looked down. “I’m sorry I’ve never felt the same. I feel responsible for you being stranded so far from home.”
“Hey, so long as I’m with you, I don’t care where I am. All I’m worried about is not being able to protect you.”
She opened the glove box, took out a Walther PPK .380 pistol, and gave it to him. “Will that help?”
He looked at the pistol in his hand. “I’ve never fired one.”
“I bought it after I was attacked,” she said. “If I can shoot it, anybody can.”