On the morning of the seventeenth, Lavalle was making breakfast and half-listening to the Shanghai news when she heard, "The man killed by an angry mob in Florence, Italy, yesterday has been identified as Ed Stone. So ends a tragic chapter in the history of mankind. We now return you to-One moment. Something seems to be-"
Her spoon clattered on the floor. Behind the announcer the camera had tilted up; something dark and blurred was descending. "Yes! There it is!" the announcer shouted. "This is a historic day, ladies and gentlemen, here comes the-"
A babble of voices speaking Mandarin drowned him out. Something faintly glittering in the searchlight was dropping-long gossamer threads that searched for the top of the Cube, clung and stiffened.
"Some sort of ropes or cables," the announcer was saying, "but they're really too thin for that, and it's probably something we've never-"
There was a roar and a cloud of dust that obscured the camera. "Ladies and gentlemen," the announcer shouted, "it's happening-the aliens have come! The aliens have come!"
The smoky scene vanished and was replaced by a more distant view. Above the cloud of yellowish dust, the top of the Cube could be seen rising with incredible swiftness, now only a dark square, then nothing at all. The scene went black.
"Just as predicted, the aliens have come to take the Cube away! Those of us who are left must have believed it would never happen, but we've seen it with our own eyes! Ah, I am informed that our transmission from the Cube site has been interrupted. What a day, ladies and gentlemen! While we try to reestablish contact, let's go now to-"
The holo went dark.
After a moment it lighted up again. "This is Charles Severinson in New York," said the talking head. "I'm sorry to report that we are experiencing some technical difficulty with our feed from Shanghai, but while we are waiting for it to be restored, we have Professor David Krug in the virtual studio with us. Professor Krug is the former head of the Palomar Observatory and a noted expert on planetary motions. Professor, nice to have you with us."
Krug, a bearded man in his sixties, replied, "Glad to be here, Charles."
"Now, Professor Krug, is it your belief that the Cube was not destroyed-that the aliens, in fact, actually came and got it?"
"Yes, I think that is obviously the case." On the screen behind him, the viewers saw the structures hovering over the Cube; then the glimpses of pale filaments descending. The screen went dark, lighted again, and the same sequence repeated.
"Professor Krug, you have a novel theory as to how this was accomplished, do you not? Will you explain it to our viewers?"
"Certainly. To begin with, you must understand that this Earth of ours, which seems perfectly motionless, is actually moving very rapidly through space. " The picture of Shanghai was replaced by a computer image of the Earth moving around the Sun, turning as it went. "Of course we all know it is rotating at a speed of more than a thousand miles an hour at the equator. And we know it is moving in its orbit around the sun at the rate of more than sixty-six thousand miles per hour."
"Sixty-six thousand? That hardly seems possible."
"Nevertheless it is true. And at the same time, it is moving toward a point in the constellation Hercules at a rate of more than forty-two thousand miles an hour." A star chart appeared behind the Earth and Sun, with a little arrow pointing to the appropriate constellation.
"But these are fiddling figures," said the Professor. "Much more significantly, the galaxy as a whole is rotating"-a spiral galaxy appeared, majestically turning-"at a rate, in our neighborhood, of four hundred and forty-six thousand miles an hour."
"That is truly amazing," said the anchor. "Now please tell us, Professor Krug, how does this relate to the disappearance of the Cube?"
"Well, it's quite simple. If any object on the surface of our planet stopped partaking of the various motions of the Earth, it would appear to us that it would fly away in a straight line, at some hundreds of thousand miles an hour, in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius. And that is exactly what has happened."
"In other words, the Cube is actually standing still, while we keep on whirling around?"
"Yes. Of course, we don't know that the aliens came and got it, but that seems a very reasonable assumption."
"Thank you, Professor, for that very lucid-Pardon me. I am told that we are receiving an important message from Nanchang, China. One moment."
An agitated-looking young Chinese appeared in the tube, speaking in Mandarin. The English translation ran along the bottom: "This is HBQX in Nanchang. Our links with Shanghai, Hangchow, Chinkiang and Nanjing have all been lost during the last fifteen minutes. Satellite photos, just in, suggest that some kind of zone of destruction is moving outward from the site of the Cube in Shanghai. We have a camera trained in that direction, and will try to bring you some record of the destruction if it reaches us." In the screen behind him, they saw a vista of city roofs and expressways against a cloudy sky. The translation of the announcer's voice continued:
"Based on the time elapsed between the loss of our links with various cities, COSAI estimates the speed of expansion of the zone at approximately one thousand, five hundred ninety miles an hour. Therefore, if this calculation is correct, we should be seeing some evidence of the arrival of the zone at about this time."
In the tube, the sky at the horizon seemed to be darkening slightly. "I believe-" said the translation.
The buildings in the distance turned cloudy. Something was racing toward the camera, like a black shout. Then the tube was empty.
One by one, the holocasts from other Chinese cities ceased. In some places, technicians had left cameras trained out windows or on rooftops and had abandoned the studios. At more distant locations, the announcers were barely coherent, and some of them were weeping.
Lavalle sat in front of the holo, too stunned even to cry. After a moment she opened a comm window and logged on to the net. The words "<PRINCESS IDA> is here" flashed on the flatscreen. Something else was already scrolling up with Kitty's icon on it:
sister in Changsha, and the last thing she said was "I'm sorry."
<JOHN THE BAPTIST> Hello, Ida. We've got to stop meeting like this.
<KITTY> Hi, Ida. <hugs>
She typed in: "Go on, I'll listen. I just wanted to be with you."
<FULTON> One of the heads on CBS said it will be 50 hrs b4 its all over. I used to wonder what id do if i knew i only had I day to live. Hugs Ida.
<ZINTKALA NUNI> Where do you live Fulton?
<FULTON> Scotland
<KITTY> Can't you get out?
<FULTON> No and whats the point
<SCARAMOUCHE> is here.
<KITTY> Hi, Scaramuche. <hugs>
<SCARAMOUCHE> Hello all, is this a wake?
<FULTON> Yes
<ZINTKALA NUNI> <pouring the whisky>
<JOHN THE BAPTIST> I'll have beer please, Nuni/
<SCARAMOUCHE> Did anyone here think this was really going to happen?
<KITTY> No.
<FULTON> Not i. im drinking the whisky. Brought my own actually. eat drink & be merry.
Blinded by tears, she typed "Later" and logged off without waiting for the good-byes. She knew she had to get out of the house or suffocate. Without bothering to take her rifle, she climbed down the ladder and stood in the cleared space in front of the house, looking, listening, smelling the world as if it were newly created. She walked around to the back and looked at her lettuce and snap peas. How beautiful everything was! She had not prayed since she was a little girl, but she closed her eyes now and said, Dear God, if you make this go away, I promise to appreciate your wonderful world and take better care of it.