Larry Niven - Footfall

“Sir.”

“Let Sergeant Maihey’s people act like doorkeepers. Come in and watch the action.”

“Sir?”

“Come in. You’ve earned a ringside seat.”

“But … well, thank you, sir.” Clybourne stood against one wall.

He blends into it. Like wallpaper, Jenny thought. She turned to wink at him. There was a buzz in her headset.

“Control. Gimlet.”

“Gimlet, this is Harpoon. We have a security breach. We have a security breach. This went out on police radio air four minutes ago. I play the tapes now…”

“Launch now,” General Toland said.

“There are people in Bellingham,” the President said. “A lot of them.”

“All right, so it’s hard on Bellingham! Launch! Colonel, tell them to prepare.”

“Yes, sir.” Jenny spoke into the microphone. “Prepare for launch in five minutes. Launch in five minutes.”

More sirens blared on the floor below.

“Admiral?” the President asked.

Admiral Carrell put his fingertips together and looked acros their tops at the situation maps. “Give me a minute.”

“Not much more than that,” said the General.

“All right. First, the timing is terrible. We’d be launching straight up at Bogie Two, and we didn’t hurt those digit ships enough.”

“If they drop rocks on Michael, we’ve had it!” Bland shouted.

“Yes.” Carrell glanced at his watch. “What are we afraid of? A laser can’t hurt Michael. A meteor takes time …”

“It could be on its way now!”

“And ready to hit atmosphere. All right. I say we … wait. Get ready to launch on ten seconds notice. Wait the full hour if we can, but if Gillespie sees a light in the sky he’ll launch. A meteor would flare at fifty miles up, and come in at a slant at five to six miles per second. We’d be twenty seconds in the air when it hit. Michael would survive.”

“Michael can blow Bogie Two out of the sky,” the General said. “It’s all alone. We won’t see another digit ship for an hour.”

“We have a plan,” Admiral Carrell said.

“And if we stick with it, we lose! Mr. President, you’re betting everything on this.”

“General, I’m aware that it’s important.”

“We have to fight the damn digit ships anyway! Go now.”

“And kill everyone in Bellingham,” President Coffey said.

“Better Bellingham than the whole damn human race!”

“Oh, Jesus.” President Coffey stared at the situation screens. “Admiral Carrell, you’re my naval expert. Take command.”

“Yes, sir. Colonel Crichton, get me direct communications with General Gillespie.”

“Sir.” The first three lines she tried were filled with static. “General Gillespie, sir.”

“Ed, this is Thor Carrell.”

“Yes, Mr. Secretary?”

“There’s been a possible security leak. Your local sheriff used his radio.”

“Is that why there’s jamming? We can’t talk to our own MPs.”

“That’s it. General, you’re to make ready for instant launch. Watch the skies. The first glimmer up there, and you go. It’s your ship, as of now.”

“Acknowledged.”

President Coffey looked significantly at the Admiral.

“Mr. President,” Carrell said.

“I won’t take your time,” Coffey said. “Godspeed, General.”

The sirens were still wailing on the floor below.

General Toland was still frowning. “All right, God damn it, we’ll do it your way.” He turned to Jenny. “Colonel, get me the MP commander in Bellingham. I want that sheriff’s ass in a sling.”

“General.”

“Yes, Mr. President?”

“Have your MPs do what they can for the people in Bellingham. They’re Americans too.”

“Yes, sir.”

John Fox heard it first.

There was high wind with a few raindrops in it. Fox was turning the compost heap. He’d managed to make this his own territory; nobody else would fool with it. His pitchfork probed, and he worked around the denser mass he sensed, to keep Roger hidden. Bones showed suddenly, not clean yet — a foot. Fox grimaced an picked up a pitchforkful of compost.

He stopped, cocked his head. There was a sound in the wind. Motors.

Fox placed his forkful to cover the bones deep. Then he moved briskly toward the house. He opened the door and shouted at the first human figure he saw. “Navy coming back. Alert everyone. I’ll be at the gate.”

The Navy had come twice before, first for the CBs, then for Roger Brooks. Both times they had come in force — but not like this. You could hardly hear the wind for the roar of motors, and they were only just pulling up! Armored trucks lined the road. It must be a nuisance for them, John Fox thought. All that gasoline. But they know we’ve got guns, and somebody might do something stupid if there was just a truckful of them. He counted eight trucks, and more vehicles behind them. New cars, old cars, decrepit civilian trucks, a score of them thinning out of sight into the rain.

Four men climbed out of the third vehicle and came up to the gate. They looked nervous. One was the sheriff, old Ben Lafferty. Three were Navy, and Fox had seen one of them on their second visit: Commander Arnold Kennedy. Kennedy stepped forward an said, “You know we’re coming in. We’ve been through this before. John Fox’s worries were growing. Nobody had come out the house to join him; what did that mean? Were they getting ready to shoot it out?

Two more came up. Miranda Shakes, and that deputy sheriff she dated.

“It’s all right, John,” Miranda said.

“What is it this time? Who the hell are they?” Fox waved back down the road.

“Your neighbors,” Sheriff Lafferty said.

“Civilians seeking refuge,” Commander Kennedy said, “and you will by God give it to them. We’re prepared to shoot the top off your house. What we want is the use of your bomb shelter for about two hours.”

Fox nodded. Orion, he thought. Now. “How many are there?”

“About three hundred.”

“You’re crazy. Even elbow to elbow—”

“And on top of each other too. This is serious. You tell the rest of ’em in there, this is serious. If they start shooting we’ll take the house off the top of the shelter. It’ll go anyway. Now, you and I are going up to the house.”

They walked around the greenhouse and up to the front door. Kennedy rang the bell.

The invaders trooped through the house and through the “secret” door and down.

There were storekeepers and Navy and Indians, grandparents and children and infants. Two old men and a heavy middle-aged woman had to be lifted from wheelchairs, carried inside, and deposited in the three decks of bunks. The wheelchairs stayed in the living room, along with everything else, suitcases, briefcases, picnic baskets, even heavy overcoats. The living room looked like a rummage sale. The rug was a swamp. Clara was too angry to scream, but Bill Shakes raged.

“We’ll have to tear up the floor to get rid of all they’ve trucked in! We’ve got one — count ’em, one — bathroom down there, and we’ll have to pack people in that too. We’ll have to fumigate — Commander, who’s going to pay for all this? What are you laughing at?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Shakes. You submit a bill for damages. I guarantee you it’ll be honored, but you’d better wait an hour before you add up that bill, Mr. Shakes!”

George Tate-Evans felt his insides turning to water. What were we supposed to do, conduct a point defense against the Navy? We’ve got enough firepower here to get us all killed dead, and not even Jack lost his head quite that bad. Thank God. But they … none of them thought it through … The Navy searched us whe they came for the CBs, so they knew we had a bomb shelter. Half of Bellingham is trooping through our basement because we’ve got a bomb shelter, a bomb shelter! “Commander, what happens in one hour?”