dark, and one of the observatory cameras gave them its low space view southward, the black curve of the planet blocking the stars. Shooting stars were blazing down at an angle out of the western sky, as fast and bright as if they were perfectly straight lightning bolts, or titanic tracer bullets, spraying in a sequence eastward, breaking apart in the last moments before impact, causing phosphor blobs to burst into existence at every impact point, like the first moments of a whole string of nuclear explosions. In less than ten seconds the strike was over, leaving the black field dotted with a line of glowing yellow smoke-obscured patches.
Nadia closed her eyes, saw swimming afterimages of the strike. She opened them again, looked at the screen. Clouds of smoke were surging up into the predawn sky over west Tharsis, pouring so high that they got up out of the shadow of the planet and were lit by the rising sun; they were mushroom clouds, their heads a bright pale pink, their dark gray stalks illuminated by reflection from above. Slowly the sunlight moved down the tumultuous stalks, until they were all burnished by the new morning sun. Then the lofty line of yellow and pink mushroom clouds drifted across a sky that was a delicate shade of indigo pastel: it looked like a Maxfield Parrish nightmare, too strange and beautiful a sight to believe. Nadia thought of the cable’s last moment, that image of the incandescent double helix of diamonds. How was it that destruction could be so beautiful? Was there something in the scale of it? Was there some shadow in people, lusting for it? Or was it just a coincidental combination of the elements, the final proof that beauty has no moral dimension? She stared and stared at the image, focused all her will on it; but she could not make it make sense.
“That may be enough particulate matter to trigger another global dust storm,” Sax observed. “Although the net heat addition to the system will surely be considerable.”
“Shut up, Sax,” Maya said.
Frank said, “It’s about our turn to get hit, right?”
Sax nodded.
They left the city offices and went out into the park. Everyone stood facing northwest. It was silent, as if they were performing some religious ritual. It felt completely different from waiting for bombardment by the police. By now it was mid-morning, the sky a dull dusty pink.
Then over the horizon lanced a painfully bright comet; there was a collective indrawn gasp, punctuated by scattered cries. The brilliant white line curved down toward them, then shot over their heads in an instant, disappearing over the eastern horizon. There hadn’t even been time to catch one’s breath as it passed. A moment later the ground trembled slightly under their feet, and the silence was broken by exclamations. To the east a cloud shot up, redefining the height of the sky’s pink dome; it must have plumed 20,000 meters.
Then another brilliant white blaze crossed the sky overhead, trailing comet tails of fire. Then another, and another, and a whole blazing cluster of them, all crossing the sky and dropping over the eastern horizon, down into great Marineris. Finally the shower stopped, leaving the witnesses in Cairo half-blinded, staggering, afterimages bouncing in their sight. They had been passed over.
“Now comes the U.N.,” Frank said. “At best.”
“Do you think we ought to. .” Maya said. “Do you think we’re. .”
“Safe in their hands?” Frank said acidly.
“Maybe we should take to the planes again.”
“In daylight?”
“Well, it might be better than staying here!” she retorted. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to just get lined up against a wall and shot!”
“If they’re UNOMA they won’t do that,” Sax said.
“You can’t be sure,” Maya said. “Everyone on Earth thinks we’re the ringleaders.”
“There aren’t any ringleaders!” Frank said.
“But they want there to be ringleaders,” Nadia said.
This stilled them.
Sax said mildly, “Someone may have decided things will be easier to control without us around.”
More news of impacts in the other hemisphere came in, and Sax settled down before the screens to follow it. Helplessly Ann stood over his right shoulder to observe it as well; these kinds of strikes had happened all the time back in the Noachian, and the chance to see one live was too much for her to pass up, even if it was the result of human agency.
While they watched, Maya continued to urge them to do something— to leave, to hide, whatever, just
“I hope it does,” Maya said. She was pacing back and forth like a great cat in a cage. “It will help us escape.”
“Escape where?” Sax asked.
Maya sucked air in through her teeth. “The planes are stocked. We could go back to the Hellespontus Montes, to the habitats there.”
“They’d see us.”
Frank came onto Sax’s screen. He was staring into his wristpad, and the image quivered. “I’m at the west gate with the mayor. There’s a bunch of rovers outside. We’ve locked all the gates because they won’t identify themselves. Apparently they’ve surrounded the city, and are trying to broach the physical plant from the outside. So everyone should get their walkers on, and be ready to go.”
“I told you we should have left!” Maya cried.
“We couldn’t have,” Sax said. “Anyway, our chances may be just as good in some sort of melee. If everyone makes a break for it at once, they might be overwhelmed by numbers. Now look, if anything happens, let’s all meet at the east gate, okay? You go ahead and go. Frank,” he said to the screen, “you should get over there too when you can. I’m going to try some things with the physical-plant robots that should keep those people out until dark at least.”
It was now three p.m., although it seemed like twilight, as the sky was thick with high, rapidly moving dust clouds. The forces outside identified themselves as UNOMA police, and demanded to be let in. Frank and Cairo’s mayor asked them for authorization from U.N. Geneva, and declared a ban on all arms in the city. The forces outside made no reply.
At 4:30 alarms went off all over the city. The tent had been broached, apparently catastrophically, because a sudden wind whipped west through the streets, and pressure sirens went off in every building. The electricity went off, and just that quick it went from a town to a broken shell, full of running figures in walkers and helmets, all of them rushing about, crowding toward the gates, knocked down by gusts of wind or by each other. Windows popped out everywhere, the air was full of clear plastic shrapnel. Nadia, Maya, Ann, Simon and Yeli left the city building, and fought their way through crowds toward the east gate. There was a great crush of people around it because the lock was open, and some people were squeezing through; a deadly situation for anyone who fell underfoot, and if the lock were blocked in any way, it could turn deadly for everyone. And yet it all happened in silence, except for helmet intercoms and some background impacts. The first hundred were tuned to their old band, and over the static and exterior noises Frank’s voice came on. “I’m at the east gate now. Get out of the crush so I can find you.” His voice was low, businesslike. “Hurry up, there’s something happening outside the lock.”
They worked their way out of the crowd, and saw Frank just inside the wall, waving a hand overhead. “Come on,” the distant figure said in their ears. “Don’t be such sheep, there’s no reason to join the toothpaste when the tent’s lost its integrity, we can cut through anywhere we want. Let’s go straight for the planes.”
“I told you,” Maya began, but Frank cut her off: “Shut up, Maya, we couldn’t leave until something like this
