Larry Niven - Footfall

For a moment the roar of wind and rain drowned out even John Fox. It was as if a bathtub of salt water had been poured on Marty’s head. He screamed, “John, John, what’s happening?”

“The damned aliens, they’re terraforming Earth to their own needs! They’ve thrown an asteroid in the Indian Ocean! And I was trying to stop atomic plants. I should have been screaming for atomic plants to power laser rockets! I tried to stop the Space Shuttle, damn me for a fool. They’ve smashed every environment on Earth! Damn you,” he shouted into the sky. “Pour fire on the Earth, pile bodies in pyramids! We can live anywhere! We’ll hide in the deserts and mountain peaks and the Arctic ice cap, and one day we’ll come forth to kill you all!”

Death Valley was a bowl of steam. There was nothing to see, yet John Fox peered into it, seeing nightmares. “An old sea bed,” he said in an almost normal voice. “A salt sea. They’ll all die.”

The rain fell.

The contorted moonlet dropped away, dwindled, vanished. Earth grew huge. A flashbulb popped above the Indian Ocean, and was replaced at once by a swelling, darkening fireball. Ring-shaped shadows formed and faded in and around it. Far from the central explosion, new lights blinked confusingly in points and radial streaks.

The Earth’s face streamed past, terrifyingly close but receding now. A wave in the cloud cover above the Indian Ocean raced outward, losing its circular shape as it traveled. Northward, it took on a triangular indentation, as if the edge of a blanket had snagged on a nail.

“India,” Dawson said. “How fast are you running this tape?”

“Thirty-two times normal,” Tashayamp answered.

“What is … that?” Alice asked.

“Land masses. The tsunami distorts the clouds,” Arvid said.

“So does the ocean floor,” Dawson amplified, “but not as much. That’s India going under. Those flashes would have been secondary meteors, debris, even water from the explosion thrown out to space and reentering the atmosphere.”

That’s India going under. Good-bye, Krishna, and Vishnu the elephant god. Jeri shuddered. “Dave took me to India once. So many people. Half a billion.”

Arvid stood near. She felt his warmth and wanted to be closer to him.

Tashayamp said, “Number?”

Arvid said, “Eight to the eighth times eight times three.”

“Human fithp in India? Where the wave goes now?”

“Yes.”

Dmitri spoke rapidly in Russian.

“Stalin thought that way,” Arvid snapped.

Dmitri shrugged expressively.

What was that about? Jeri wondered. Arvid didn’t like it at all. Stalin? He would have been pleased to have a simple answer to the India “problem.” It’s easier to deal with “problems” than people.

The distortion in the clouds swept against Africa, then south. Here was clear air, and a ripple barely visible in the ocean… but the outline of the continent was changing, bowing inward.

“Cape of Good Hope,” Jeri muttered. She watched the waves spread into the Atlantic. Recorded hours must be passing. She found herself gasping and suspected she had been holding her breath. The waves were marching across the Atlantic, moving on Argentina and Brazil with deceptive slowness and a terrible inevitability.

Cloud cover followed, boiling across the oceans, reaching toward the land masses. “My God,” Jeri said. “How could you do this?”

“It is not our choice,” Raztupisp-minz said. “We would gladly have sent the Foot safely beyond your atmosphere, but your fithp would not have it so.”

“Look what you made me do,” Alice said in a thick, selfpitying whine. Her voice became a lash. “All the sickies say that — the rogues say that when they’ve done something they’re ashamed of. It was somebody else’s fault.”

“They can say all they like,” Carrie Woodward said. “We know. They came all the way from the stars to ruin the land.”

“You should not say such things,” said Takpusseh. “You do not want this to happen again. You will help us.”

“Help? How?” Dawson demanded.

“You, Wes Dawson, you tell them. More come.”

Dmitri spoke again in Russian. Arvid shuddered.

The screen changed again. Clouds moved so unnaturally fast that Jeri thought they were still watching a tape until Takpusseh said. “That is now. Winterhome.”

Earth was white. The cloud cover was unbroken.

“Rain. Everywhere,” Nikolai said. “The dams are gone. There will be floods.”

The Earth was distant now, and no longer turning beneath them “Synchronous orbit,” Nikolai said. “Above Africa. Look!”

White streaks blazed across Earth’s night. That was Africa, and the digit ships were going down.

“Go now. Tashayamp, take them,” the Bull Elephant said. “Dawson, Raztupisp-minz, stay.”

The Herdmaster waited until the rest had left the theater. Then, before he could speak, Dawson said, “I will not tell my fithp to surrender.”

If Dawson made to grip his eyelid, the Herdmaster would simply slap him across the room. He said, “You will. Raztupispminz, tell him details, but later. Wes Dawson, did you speak with Fathisteh-tulk?”

“Name not known.” Dawson’s eyes flicked sideways, at Raztupisp-minz. “Wait. Second in leader status? Advisor?”

“Yes.”

“He came to me.”

“Raztupisp-minz, you permitted this?”

Breaker-One Raztupisp-minz hesitated, then gestured affirmation. “The Advisor thought he might find an unusual angle of approach. I thought it worth a try.”

Takpusseh’s thuktun at the time had been the Soviets. Raztupisp-minz had been studying Dawson alone. Balked by Takpusseh, Fathisteh-tulk would have had to go to Raztupisp-minz. “Dawson, what was said?”

The human still lacked skill in the speech of the thuktunthp. Questioning him took more time than the Herdmaster liked, but he persisted.

According to Dawscon’s tale, when he reached his room after his first foray into the ducts, there was a piece of cloth over his night light, and a fi’ was waiting for him. A pressure suit helmet and glove covered its face and digits.

“Then how can you know you spoke to Fathisteh-tulk?” the Herdmaster demanded.

“I make him take it off.”

“Did you. How?”

“Reason he was in my room, he will not tell. He asked questions. ‘We take Winterhome. Query: is this wrong? We use moons and circling rocks, not want planets. Query: is it true? Tell why. Tell if humans took wealth from space.’ ”

The rogue human shrugged. “I tell fi’, Wes Dawson. Congressman. 514-55-2316.”

“I don’t understand,” said the Herdmaster.

“Warrior under foot of enemy give his name, standing, and number, and not else.”

“Wrong. Tell more.”

“He said, ‘Dawson, you gave your surrender.’ I said, ‘I not surrendered to you. Who are you? If I talk to you, who is enraged?’ ”

The arrogant creature actually had a point. “Very proper.”

“He take his helmet off. I take the cloth off the light. He said, ‘I am the Herdmaster’s Advisor. Query: war with Earth is wrong? We want Space, not Earth?’

“I said, ‘Yes.’”

“Of course you did. Go on.”

“What is …” Dawson tried to wrap his mouth around an unfamiliar fithp word “… fufisthengalss?”

Dissident. “You have no need to know. Speak further.”

“He said he is fufisthengalss. Fufisthengalss are many. Fufisthengalss want to go away from Winterhome. I say, ‘It sound pretty to me. Query: I can help?’