Leo Frankowski - Copernick's Rebellion

Thanks to automatic alarms, 820 of the station’s 957 people aboard were able to get into intact space suits in time.

By then no spacecraft on Earth was able to take off, primarily due to punctures in their fuel tanks.

Due to their low polar orbit, no other station could help them in time.

The station’s only functional ship was capable of landing a cargo of only twelve thousand pounds. The station commander, a 180-pound man, decided to save the maximum number of people, and so ordered the ship to be filled on the basis of weight. There were no acts of violence, and only minimal objections to the plan. One hundred and nineteen persons, mostly small women, were loaded aboard.

The ship made it safely to Earth. Seven hundred and one people in orbit died with dignity.

They would have received more sympathy if those on Earth hadn’t had troubles of their own.

The metallic larvae ate thin sheet metal along its entire thickness, cutting irregular slashes in car fenders, aircraft wings, and missile hulls.

Fuel tanks were among the first components to be rendered useless. While two percent of the world’s aircraft crashed and one percent of the land vehicles were wrecked due to mechanical failures, the great majority of them sat on their runways and driveways and simply fell to pieces.

The left engine on Lou von Bork’s Cessna 882 Super Conquest died within a second of the right.

“Seat belts, gang!” He shouted over the intercom: “We are going down.”

Senator Beinheimer had been dozing in the copilot’s chair. “What? What’s up, Lou, boy?”

“It looks like we’re out of fuel, Moe.” Von Bork tried to restart the turbo props, then gave up and feathered his propellers.

“Out of fuel? But we just tanked up at Fort Scott!” Beinheimer said.

“I know, but for the last ten minutes the fuel gauges have been moving left like you wouldn’t believe. I was hoping that it was an electrical problem until the motors quit. We must have sprung a leak.”

“Oh. My. God.”

“It’s not that bad, Moe. We’re still at thirty-one thousand feet, so we have ten minutes to find a soft place to land. And in Kanssas, that’s not all that hard to do. At least I think we’re still in Kansas.”

“You think? I thought that Loran gizmo of yours was supposed to tell you where you were within a hundred yards.”

“It does, usually, only it started to act up just after takeoff. It’s trying to tell me that we’re over Kentucky.”

“You gotta believe your instruments, boy. First rule of instrument flight.”

“Moe, we left Fort Scott, Kansas, fifty-five minutes ago. I have been flying into the sunset since then. This plane cruises at three hundred forty knots. Those are wheat fields down there. I’m not going to believe that I’ve flown five hundred forty miles due east.”

“Well, hadn’t you better radio for help?”

“The radio’s quit working, too. Both of them.”

After hearing the news about the attempted bombing of Life Valley, von Bork had spent a day collecting up his two secretaries, Senator Beinheimer, and the staff of the Crystal City installation. He had piled them, along with absolutely no baggage, into his Cessna and topped off his fuel tanks. The senator’s name was sufficient to get them immediate clearance for takeoff at 1545.

Dusk was coming down even more rapidily than the twin engine turbo prop. Very few lights showed in the farming country, and none of those lit up a suitable stretch of highway.

Von Bork continued due west, heading for Life Valley, hoping that a lighted highway or—please God!—an airport would appear.

At a thousand feet, he settled for the planted field up ahead. Lowering his landing gear and flaps (they worked!), he came in to what he thought was a wheat field.

“Dear God… dear God… dear God,” Beinheimer muttered, clutching the armrest with fear-whitened fingers.

“That the only prayer you know, Moe?”

“The only one, by God, but it’s sincere! After this, I’ll learn some more. I swear I will!”

“Hang on, gang!” von Bork shouted into the intercom. “The old barnstormers could do it, and we’re only eighty ahead of them in technology!”

Von Bork was no farm boy, and what with the speed, altitude, and darkness, he was wrong about it being a wheat field; it was corn, tall Kansas corn.

The Cessna’s landing gear had been designed for use on a surface infinitely harder than rich, tilled soil. All three wheels sheared off within twenty yards of touchdown. This was good, because von Bork’s air-speed indicator had been rendered grossly inaccurate by two metal-munching larva. He had come in more than eighty knots too fast.

The Cessna sliced through the mile-wide cornfield, narrowly missing the center pivot irrigation machine. The wings took an amazing beating, each cornstalk sending its own thump through the airframe.

The plane had slowed to sixty before the wing strut gave way almost exactly in the center and both wings tore off together. This too was lucky, for had one gone before the other, the plane would have rolled.

The battered fuselage skidded to a stop, and all was suddenly quiet.

Von Bork took his hands from the wheel, hardly able to believe it was over and he was alive. He said into the intercom: “How’s it going back there?”

“We’re all okay, Mr. von Bork.”

“Well,” von Bork said to Beinheimer, “I guess that was a good landing.”

Public consternation was, of course, extreme. Every political body in the world sat in emergency session. Crash programs and task forces were funded, but none had time to accomplish anything. Research takes years. The larvae took only days. Accusations and counter—accusations flashed across national borders.

India abruptly ceased all communication with the rest of the world on the same day that the swans flew. Israel, the fifth most powerful nation after Russia, the U.S., China, and India, took her silence as an admission of guilt for the metal-eating plague. The Israelis’ aircraft and missiles were already useless, but their tanks were made of thicker metal. Even perforated with holes, char—bram armor could stop most projectiles, and turbine engines contain little iron or aluminum. Damaged fuel tanks were fitted with plastic liners, gun barrels were given a cursory inspection, and the attack was launched.

The last tank stopped twenty kilometers from its depot. A tread weakened by hundreds of holes had broken.

So ended the last mechanized war the world would ever see.

Radio and television stations suspended their regular programming, devoting their time to emergency broadcasts, but the messages from the world’s governments were monotonously similar: “Don’t panic. Stay in your homes. We’ll take care of you.”

But there was nothing that anyone could do.

Air time was also allotted to religious programs. A thousand priests, ministers, and shamans called on as many gods to help them, but the gods remained silent.

Many of the religious leaders proclaimed that the end of the world was at hand. And in a sense, they were right.

Trains, being made of thicker metal, lasted a week longer than cars or trucks. Their last freights were mostly food and water for the cities; very few places on Earth had more than a week’s supply of food on hand. Canned food became useless as the cans were slashed and destroyed. And the larvae soon riddled the refrigerator units that kept frozen food fresh. The trucks and trains that once brought fresh supplies no longer existed.

The food trees sprouted quickly, and each grew six vines that spread out evenly for fifteen feet and then generated new roots at these spots. The space between was quickly covered with heart-shaped leaves, close to the ground. Each leaf had a red cross at its center. Though Guibedo had no love for the Red Cross (or any other organization, for that matter), the red cross was the only symbol of help that he could think of that was universally known.