James White - Federation World

“Thank you, not now,” Beth said, looking at Martin. “We believed that our lives, at least, were safe on Keida. But the diagnostic computer is waiting. Will the patient live long enough to make it to the treatment room?”

“Certainly,” Martin said, not feeling certain at all.

When he returned from the treatment room nearly four hours later he felt fit, clear-headed, and ready for anything. The problem was that his mind seemed also to have been cleared of ideas. The doctor’s attention remained fixed on the direct vision panel.

“I’m bringing up the lander now,” Beth said. “The First’s people have been trying to undermine the meteor shield with chemical explosives, and sooner or later someone will get himself killed. Is there anything else you want me to do right now?”

“No,” Martin said. “Not until we’ve had a long, careful think about this situation and…”

He broke off as the heavy, near opaque filters clicked on across the direct vision panel and the high-pitched, warbling sound of the nuclear weapon launch warning roared from the speaker. Before they could react, the viewport blazed with light so dazzling that they had to cover their eyes in spite of the niters. They counted three flashes with less than a minute between them, followed by five more in rapid succession. Then the warning signal ceased and the filters shut off to reveal a wide area of Keida’s smooth, white cloud blanket that was growing eight enormous, dirty gray blisters.

“I don’t believe this!” Beth said, her face gray with shock. She swung around to the computer terminal. “Voice input-output mode, long-range sensors, report!”

The main computer’s speaking voice was precise and unemotional as it replied, “One minute and forty-eight seconds after the unmanned lander took off, a long-range ballistic missile with multiple nuclear warheads was launched against it. All eight of the devices exploded prematurely in the upper atmosphere, in widely scattered locations distributed evenly throughout the land mass, at altitudes between fifty-three and sixty-seven miles. None of the detonations were close enough for the lander to sustain structural damage or radioactive contamination, and it is due to dock in seven minutes and thirty-one seconds.”

Martin stared incredulously at the unnatural cloud-scape framed by the viewport. In a tortured voice he said, “I think we are partly responsible for this. When the lander took off, the First naturally assumed we were on board, that we had gone there after disappearing from our cell. He had to stop us getting back to the mother ship so he radioed the launching site to fire on us. But there must have been a misunderstanding or accident, and the wrong type of missile was launched. That, or the First is so afraid of what we might do that he would risk the contamination to be sure of killing us, while at the same time demonstrating his ultimate power to the uncommitted Keidi.”

The doctor’s focusing muscles twitched but he did not speak. Beth looked as sick as Martin had felt a short time ago. To the computer she said, “Give me a fall out report. And detail possible methods of radiation neutralization or reduction by weather control.”

“The data is too complex for the voice channel,” it replied. “Mathematical and graphics displays are necessary if full information is to be relayed.”

That would mean cutting off the doctor from the information. ‘Then summarize,” she snapped.

The summary, by its very simplicity, painted a more horrifying picture of the situation than any projection of figures and charts could have done. Dependent on local meterological factors, the computer told them, surface contamination under the air burst would occur within periods varying from a few hours to five days. The effects on unprotected organic material in these areas would result in termination of life within the half-year. In fringe areas the contamination effects would take longer, but the bursts had been so evenly distributed over the populated land mass that there were few areas which were not at short-term risk. The long-term effects would not become apparent until the next generation, when the larger life forms would have only a eight point nine percent probability of reproducing viable offspring. By that time all of the smaller and shorter-lived wild or domesticated animals would have been mutated to extinction, and there would be progressive difficulties encountered in the cultivation of edible vegetation.

Weather control could be used on five of the eight volumes of contaminated atmosphere, but the force of the artificially generated weather system necessary to remove them completely before the fallout reached the surface would require minimum wind velocities of one hundred and eighty miles per hour. Wide spread destruction of unprotected surface life forms, dwellings, the larger forms of vegetation and standing crops would result. But the contamination would not be neutralized, it would be deposited on other and more sparsely inhabited areas with identical effects.

“And,” Beth said furiously, “the First’s mess would be dumped on the Keidi who had no pan in creating it, people who wouldn’t join him. But what do we do? Clear most of the Estate of contaminated air while leveling it to the ground with a super hurricane, or leave the First’s people to stew in their own radioactive juice to buy the others a little more time?…”

She broke off as the nuclear launch warning noisily returned to life, but this time the glare niters remained in place.

“Not another one,” she whispered.

THE calm, unhurried voice of the computer resumed, “The sensors indicate a premature nuclear detonation which took place just below ground level in the crater site. For this reason local blast damage was confined to a three-mile radius, but the detonation caused nonexplosive vaporization of the fissionable material comprising a large but unspecified number of stored missiles. The debris thrown up is too densely seeded with radioactive materials, and will not attain sufficient altitude, for removal by weather control methods. The area of short-term lethal contamination will spread quickly and will cover approximately one-quarter of the land mass in three days.

“Computer insertion. This method of supplying data is imprecise and time-wasting. May I support it with graphics?”

“Yes,” Beth said.

A good picture, Martin heard it said, was worth a thousand words. These were very bad pictures indeed: visual sensor blowups of the existing conditions and equally realistic and frightful projections of what lay in the near future-and they spoke volumes even to a Keidi who could not understand the figures but was experiencing tri-di images for the first time. The patches of discoloration had returned to cover his face and speaking horn.

“You will have urgent duty obligations to discharge,” the doctor said suddenly. “But if it is possible, I should like to return to my people at once.”

“That wouldn’t help them or you…” Martin began, when Beth held up her hand.

“Doctor, yours is a coastal city,” she said quietly. “The prevailing winds are off the ocean, so that your people will have longer than those living inland on the Estate, perhaps as much as five days, before they are seriously affected. Your underground shelters are probably more effective than any other dwellings on Keida, and will give protection until the air and food becomes increasingly contaminated. By then nothing you or they can do will…”

“No,” Martin said, “there are better shelters.”

Beth gave him a puzzled look, but before she could reply the doctor said, “My people are of the second and third generations. They know nothing of pre-Exodus nuclear weapons and their effects, and they will be fearful and confused. I have a strong duty obligation to speak to them.”