Arthur had heard this same voice in his head just a few minutes ago, beckoning them through the hatches.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“I am not your keeper, but I am your guide.”
“Are you alive?” He did not know what else to ask.
“I am not biologically alive. I am part of this vessel, which will in turn soon become part of a much larger vessel. You are here to prepare your companions for me, that I may instruct them and carry out my own instructions.”
“Are you a robot?” Clara asked.
“I am a symbol, designed to be acceptable without conveying wrong impressions. In a manner of speaking, I am a machine, but I am not a servile laborer. Do you understand me?”
The object’s voice was deep, authoritative, yet not masculine.
“Yes,” Arthur said.
“Some among your group might panic if exposed to me without preparation. Yet it is essential that they come to know and trust me, and come to trust the information and instructions I give them. Is this understood?”
“Yes.” They answered in unison.
“The future of your people, and of all the information we have retrieved from your planet, depends on how your kind and my kind interact. Your kind must become disciplined, and I must educate you about larger realities than most of you have been used to facing.”
Arthur nodded, his mouth dry. “We’re inside one of the arks?”
“You are. These vessels will join together once we are all in space. There are now thirty-one of these vessels, and aboard twenty-one of them, five hundred humans apiece. The vessels also contain large numbers of botanical, zoological, and other specimens — not in most cases whole, but in recoverable form. Is this clear?”
“Yes,” Arthur said. Clara nodded.
“Most of my early communications with you will not be through speech, but through what you might call telepathy, as you have already been directed by the network. Later, when there is more time, this intrusive method will be largely abandoned. For now, when you go among your companions, I will speak through you, but you will have the discretion of phrasing and timing. We have very little time.”
“Has it begun?” Clara asked.
“It has begun,” the object said.
“And we’re leaving soon?”
“The last passengers and specimens for this vessel are being loaded now.”
Arthur received impressions of crates of chromium spiders being loaded from small boats through the surface entrance of the ark. The spiders contained the fruits of weeks of searching and sampling: genetic material from thousands of plants and animals along the West Coast.
“What can we call you?” Arthur asked.
“You will make up your own names for me. Now you must return to your group and introduce them to their quarters, which are spaced along this hallway. You must also ask for at least four volunteers to witness the crime that is now being committed.”
“We’re to witness the destruction of the Earth?” Clara asked.
“Yes. It is the Law. If you will excuse me, I have other introductions to make.”
They backed out of the shadowy room and watched as the hatchway slid shut.
“Very efficient,” Arthur said.
“The Law.’” Clara smiled thinly. “Right now, I’m more scared than I ever was on the boat. I don’t even know all the people’s names yet.”
“Let’s get started,” Arthur said. They traversed the curved hallway. The hatch at the opposite end opened and they saw a cluster of anxious faces. The smell of fear drifted out.
70
Irwin Schwartz stepped into the White House situation room and nearly bumped into the First Lady. She backed away with a nervous nod, her hands trembling, and he entered. Everyone’s nerves had been frazzled since the evacuation the night before and the rapid return of the President to the Capital. No one had slept for more than an hour or two since.
The President stood with Otto Lehrman before the high-resolution data screens mounted on the wood paneling covering the concrete walls. The screens were on and showed maps of different portions of the Northern Hemisphere, Mercator projection, with red spots marking vanished cities. “Come on in, Irwin,” Crockerman said. “We have some new material from the Puzzle Palace.” He seemed almost cheerful.
Irwin turned to the First Lady. “Are you here to stay?” he asked bluntly. He respected the woman, but did not like her much.
“The President specially requested my presence,” she said. “He feels we should be united.”
“Obviously, you agree with him.”
“I agree with him,” she said.
Never in United States history had a First Lady deserted her husband when he was under fire; Mrs. Crockerman knew this, and it must have taken some courage to return. Still, Schwartz had himself given long hours of thought to resigning from the administration; he could not judge her too harshly.
He held out his hand. She accepted and they shook firmly. “Welcome back aboard,” he said.
“We have photos about twenty minutes old from a Diamond Apple,” Lehrman said. “Technicians are putting them on the screens any minute.” Diamond Apples were reconnaissance satellites launched in the early 1990s. The National Reconnaissance Office was very zealous with Diamond Apple pictures. Usually, they would have been reserved for the eyes of the President and Secretary of Defense only; that Schwartz was seeing them indicated something extraordinary was in store.
“Here they are,” Lehrman said as the screens blanked.
Crockerman apparently had been told what to expect. Lines of glowing white rimmed in red and blue-green laced across a midnight-black background. “You know,” Crockerman said softly, standing back from the screens, “I was right after all. Goddammit, Irwin, I was right, and I was wrong at the same time. How do you figure that?”
Schwartz stared at the glowing lines, not making any sense of them until a grid and labels came up with the display. This was the North Atlantic; the lines were trenches, midocean ridges and faults.
“The white,” Lehrman said, “is heat residue from thermonuclear explosions. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, maybe tens of thousands — all along the Earth’s deep-ocean seams and wrinkles.”
The First Lady half sobbed, half caught her breath. Crockerman stared at the displays with a sad grin.
“Now the western Pacific,” Lehrman said. More white lines. “By the way, Hawaii has been heavily assaulted by tsunamis. The West Coast of North America is about twenty, thirty minutes away from major waves; I’d guess it’s already been hit by waves from these areas.” He pointed to stacks of white lines near Alaska and California. “The damage could be extensive. The energy released by all the explosions is enormous; weather patterns around the world will change. The Earth’s heat budget…” He shook his head. “But I doubt we’ll be given much time to worry about it.”
“It’s a softening up?” Schwartz asked.
Lehrman shrugged. “Who can understand the design, or what this means? We’re not dead yet, so it’s a preliminary; that’s all anybody knows. Seismic stations all over are reporting heavy anomalistic fault behavior.”
“I don’t think the bullets have collided yet,” Crockerman said. “Irwin’s hit the nail on the head. It’s a softening up.”
Lehrman sat down at the large diamond-shaped table and held out his hands: your guess is as good as mine.
“I think we have maybe an hour, maybe less,” the President said. “There’s nothing we can do. Nothing we could have ever done.”
Schwartz studied the Diamond Apple displays with a slight squint. They still conveyed no convincing reality. They were attractive abstractions. What did Hawaii look like now? What would San Francisco look like in a few minutes? Or New York?
“I’m sorry not everybody is here,” Crockerman said. “I’d like to thank them.”
“We’re not evacuating…again?” Schwartz asked automatically.
Lehrman gave him a sharp, ironic look. “We don’t have a lunar settlement, Irwin. The President, when he was a senator, was instrumental in getting those funds cut in 1990.”