back in his chair. The display screen remained quiet, showing Europe, Asia and Africa as a half-lit disk under medium cloud cover. The seconds stretched on, for what seemed like forever.
“Well?” said Wolfgang at last. “We’re here. Where’s the action?”
He leaned forward. As he did so, the display changed. Suddenly, from different points on the hemisphere, tiny sparks of red light appeared. First it was half a dozen of them, easy to track. But within a few minutes there were more, rising like fireflies out of the hazy globe beneath. Each one began the slow tilt to the east that showed they were heading for orbit. Soon they were almost too numerous to count.
“See the one on the left?” said Hans. “That’s from Aussieport. Most of your staff will be on that; Judith, and de Vries, and Cannon. They’ll be here in an hour and a half.”
“Holy hell.” Charlene was frowning, shaking her head. “Those can’t be ships. There aren’t that many in the whole world.”
She was too absorbed by the scene in front of her to catch Hans Gibbs’ familiar reference to the Institute director, but Wolfgang had given his cousin a quick and knowing look.
“Charlene’s right,” Hans said. He looked satisfied at her startled reaction. “If you only consider the Shuttles and other reuseables, there aren’t that many ships. But I ran out of time. Salter Wherry told me to get everything up here, people and supplies, and to hell with the cost. He’s the boss, and it was his money. The way things have been going, if I’d waited any longer we’d never have been allowed to bring up what we need. What you’re seeing now is the biggest outflow of people and equipment you’ll ever see. I took launch options on every expendable launch vehicle I could find, anywhere in the world. Watch now. There’s more to come.”
A second wave had begun, this time showing as fiery orange. At the same time, other flashing red points were creeping round the Earth’s dark rim. Launches made from the invisible hemisphere were coming into view.
Hans touched another key, and a set of flashing green points appeared on the display, these in higher orbit.
“Those are our stations, everything in the Wherry Empire except the arcologies — they’re too far out to show at this scale. In another half-hour you’ll see how most of the launches begin to converge on the stations. We’ll be faced with multiple rendezvous and docking up here, continuously for the next thirty-six hours.”
“But how do you know where the ships are?” Charlene was wide-eyed, hypnotized by the swirl of bright sparks. “Is it all calculated from lift-off data?” “Better than that.” Hans jerked a thumb at another of the screens, off to the side. “Our reconnaissance satellites track everything that’s launched, all the time. Thermal infrared signals for the launch phase, synthetic aperture radar after that. Software converts range and range-rate data to position, and plots it on the display. Wherry put the observation and tracking system in a few years ago, when he was afraid some madman down on earth might try a sneak attack on one of his stations. But it’s ideal for this use.”
A third wave was beginning. All around the equator, a new necklace of dazzling blue specks was expanding away from the Earth’s surface. The planet was girdled by a multicolored confusion of spiralling points of light.
“For God’s sake.” Wolfgang dropped any pretence of nonchalance. “Just how many of these are there? I’ve counted over forty, and I’ve not even been trying to track the ones launched in the American hemisphere.”
“Two hundred and six spacecraft, all shapes and sizes, and most of them not designed for the sort of docking ports we have available here. The count for launches shows on that readout over there.” Hans waved a hand at a display, but his attention was all on the screen.
“It’s going to be a nightmare,” he said cheerfully. “We have to match them all up when they get here. Matter of fact, we won’t even try to bring all of them all the way. Lots of ‘em will stay in low orbit, and we’ll send the tugs down to transfer cargo. I didn’t have time to worry about extra thrust to bring them up here. We had enough trouble getting some of that junk into orbit at all.” A fourth wave had begun. But now the screen was too confusing to follow. The points of light were converging, and the limited resolution of the display screen made many appear close to collision, even though miles of space separated them. The two men seemed hypnotized, staring at the bright carousel of orbiting ships. Charlene went to the viewport and looked directly down toward Earth. There was nothing to be seen. The ships were far too small to show against the giant crescent of the planet. She shook her head, and turned to face the launch count readout. The total was ticking higher, skipping ahead in little bursts as orbital velocity was confirmed for the ships in a new group.
Hans had moved back from the control console, and the three stood side by side, motionless. The room remained totally silent for several minutes except for the soft beep of the counters.
“Nearly there,” said Charlene at last. She was still watching the ship count. “Two hundred and three. Four. Five. One more to go. There. Two hundred and six. Should we be applauding?”
She smiled at Wolfgang, who absentmindedly squeezed her hand. Then she turned back to the counter. She stared at it for a few seconds, not sure what she was seeing.
“Hey! Hans, I thought you said the total was two hundred and six? The readout shows two hundred and fourteen and it’s still going.”
“What!” Hans swivelled his head to look, the rest of his body turning the other way to give low-gee compensation for the movement. “It can’t be. I scrounged every ship that would fly. There’s no way…”
His voice faded. On the screen, a fountain of bright points of light was spouting upward. It centered on an area of southeast Asia. As they watched, a speaker by the console stuttered and burst to life.
“Hans! Full alert.” The voice was harsh and strained, but Wolfgang recognized the note of authority. It was Salter Wherry. “Bring up our defense systems. Monitors show launch of missiles from west China. No trajectory information yet. Could be headed for America or western Russia or South America, some could be coming our way. Too soon to tell. I’ve thrown the switch here. You confirm action stations. I’ll be in central control in one minute.”
In spite of its tone of agonized strain, the voice had made its staccato statements so fast that the sentences ran into one stream of orders. Hans Gibbs did not even attempt a reply. He was off his seat and over to another console instantly. A plastic seal was removed and the lever behind it pulled out before Wolfgang or Charlene could move.
“What’s happening?” cried Charlene.
“Don’t know.” Hans sounded as though he were choking. “But look at the screen — and the count. Those have to be missile launches. We can’t afford to take a chance on where they’re heading.”
The readout was going insane, digits flickering too fast to read. The launch count was up over four hundred. As it escalated higher, Salter Wherry came stumbling into the control room.
It was his arrival, in person, that made Charlene aware of the real seriousness of the situation. Here was a man who rarely met with anyone, who prized his privacy above any wealth, who hated exposure to strangers. And he was there in the control room, oblivious to the presence of Charlene and Wolfgang. She stared at him curiously. Was this the living legend, the master architect of Solar System development? She knew he was very old. But he looked more than old. His face was white and haggard, like a stretched-out death mask, and his thin hands were trembling.
“The fools,” he said softly. His voice was a croaking whisper. “Oh, the fools, the damned, damned, damned fools. I’ve been afraid of this, but I didn’t really believe it would ever happen in my lifetime. Do you have our defenses up?” “In position,” said Hans harshly. “We’re protected. But what about the ships that are on their way here? They’ll be blown apart if they’re on a rendezvous trajectory with us.”
Charlene stared at him mindlessly for a second. Then she understood. “The ships! My God, the whole Institute staff is on its way up here. You can’t use your missile defense on them — you can’t do it!”
Wherry glared at her, seeming to notice the strangers in the control room for the first time. “Even the fastest of our ships won’t be here for an hour,” he said.
He sank to a chair, his breath wheezing in his throat. He coughed and leaned back. His skin looked dry and white, like crumbling dough. “By then it will all be over, one way or another. The attack missiles have high accelerations. If they’re aimed at us, they’ll be here in twenty minutes. If they’re not, it will be over anyway. Hans, flag our position on the display.”
Under Hans Gibbs’ keyboard control, the position of Salter Station appeared on the screen as a glowing white circle. Hans studied the whole display for a few moments, head cocked to one side. “I don’t think they’re coming this way. For a guess, they’re heading for western Russia and the United States. What’s happening?”
Wherry was sitting, head down. “Don’t know. See what you can catch on radio communications.” He cleared his throat, the breath wheezing in his larynx. “We’ve always been worried that somebody would try a sneak first
