THE SMALL RESORT town of Gregory's Landing was spending the night under the same canopy of stars Old Earth had always known—except, of course, for the different planets that travel the Centaurian sky, and the bright yellow star in Cassiopeia that was Sol. Centaurus's red-dwarf third sun could also be seen dimly in the night sky, but it did nothing to inhibit the welcome darkness. There was a glow on the southern horizon that represented the millions of lights of McIverton; to the west there was nothing but the sleeping, dark sea.
It was all very restful.
But there was no sleep for five men hiding in a small neocolonial house at the foot of Elm Street, in the southern part of town. The men had been sitting in the darkened, shuttered room for many hours, not saying very much to one another. Two of the men had been smoking cigarettes, one after another; the air was stale with haze and the smell of nervous sweat.
Whatever worried thoughts they might have been having were interrupted by slashes of bright, intolerable light through the shutters. One of the men rose quickly and unblocked a window. He looked up, squinting. "Way high, sir," he reported. "Explosion's still spreading."
"Close the shutter, Max—and, next time, ask me first."
Max's eyes widened a bit in fear as he nodded a quick assent. "Yessir," he said quickly. "Sorry, sir."
The man who had ordered the shutter closed—a plump, pink, unruffled, fiftyish man dressed in vest and tie, and the only one of the five who seemed calm and unhurried—nodded and directed his attention to another part of the room. "That was another one," the man said. "Tirn on the 3V, Dave. Let's get some news."
Dave licked his lips nervously and nodded assent. He rose from his chair and walked to a small panel inset into the living room wall. He flicked a switch and, after a moment, something bright formed in the opposite corner of the room. The writhing swarm of light quickly resolved itself into a life-size, three-dimensional picture of a woman seated at a desk, a news script in her hands; the corner itself was replaced by the flat image of a backdrop that read NAN'S NEWSNIGHT.The picture flickered badly.
"Still a lot of interference, Mr. Barclay."
"Um."
Dave twiddled several dials, and the image became a bit clearer. He turned up the volume; there was static and buzzing under the woman's voice. "Best I can do, Mr. Barclay."
"Shut up. I want to hear this."
"—and the Ministry of Defense has confirmed this latest disaster. The destruction of the three medical aid ships was visible in daylight throughout the northern hemisphere. The Ministry says each ship was listed as carrying a crew of fifty and a complement of three hundred or more doctors, nurses and other medical personnel, and that they must all be assumed dead. Reports from sources in McIverton say the American, British and Eurasian Union ships were each hit by at least one nuclear warhead in the multimegaton range almost immediately upon taking up orbit around our planet—"
"That was unexpected," mused Barclay to no one in particular.
"—despite warnings over emergency frequencies from ground control not to approach. It's assumed that the ships were not monitoring those frequencies, since they are seldom, if ever, used. Regular subspace communication has been impossible since the antimatter blast in New Athens."
The woman paused, shuffled her papers, and continued. "The government still has not given an official estimate of the number of casualties in the destroyed capital, but unofficial figures now put the toll at perhaps a million dead—"
Three of the men in the room shuddered; Barclay and the fifth man continued to watch the newscast calmly.
"—and somewhat fewer than that injured. Government sources admit they're hard-pressed to get relief to New Athens, and as one Ministry of Health official told New American News Service when word came of the destruction of the three medical aid ships, quote, 'I don't know what we're going to do now.'"
The woman looked down at a monitor on her desktop; she quickly read what was there and continued: "And this word just in: There has been another nuclear explosion at standard-orbit altitude. Reports from witnesses all over the west coast indicate the detonation took place above, or nearly above, the new capital of Mclverton—"
Barclay sat up straighter; he waved his hand for silence as the woman paused and read something on her desktop monitor.
"—and we now have confirmation of the blast from the Ministry of Defense. In a very brief statement, the Ministry says the explosion was touched off by a Federation starship attempting to take up standard orbit. The statement does not identify the starship, but the Ministry says there had been brief two-way communication with the ship immediately before the blast, and that it had been warned not to assume orbit. No word yet on the starship's fate."
"Turn it off," Barclay said; Dave did so.
"All right, gentlemen," Barclay said to the group. "As I expected, the Federation has arrived. If this first ship has been destroyed, it matters little; another ship will be here shortly. It is time to put our contingency plan into effect. Max, you have that newspaper?"
"Right here, Mr. Barclay."
"Hold on to it, Max; you and Dave will need it. You're to approach the subject of our concern in McIverton tomorrow morning, tell him what I have told you to tell him, and stay with him until he meets with us."
"But, sir?" Max asked. "What if he doesn't want to cooperate?"
"Then kill him and leave town at once," Barclay said flatly. "But I expect he will go along; he's built that way. And Max—if either you or Dave say one word I've not authorized you to say, your own lives are forfeit. Understand?"
Max and Dave nodded together. "Yessir," Max said.
Barclay nodded back. "The keys to the flitter are on the coffee table. Take them and leave now; you ought to reach McIverton about an hour after first sunrise. I want the subject contacted before breakfast. Go." He pointed toward the door; Max grabbed the keys, and he and Dave left quickly. The door eased shut behind them.
"And now, gentlemen," Barclay said to the remaining two men, "it's time for us to move to the other hideout. I expect those two may be caught, and I don't trust them not to crack."