David Brin - Earth

When images began pouring in through Intrepid’s unleashed instruments, Mark began thinking that might be the very answer.

The sky lit up with the debris of battle.

Sepak Takraw didn’t have an astronaut’s professionalism to buffer him. He simply stared at the great hole where New Guinean hills had formerly sheltered a vast network of secret caves. Now a lake of pulverized dust lay in a broad oval between the slopes… dust so fine the faint breeze made undulating ripples in it, as if across water. Gusts wafted glittering tendrils into the air like spindrift.

Sepak wasn’t the only one staring. The soldiers who came running from their guard posts stopped to gape as well. For days they had played hide-and-seek, his jungle savvy against their high-tech sensors, they in blur-weave armor, he in loincloth and feathers. Now, however, they stood nearby like predator and prey stunned by the same sudden cataclysm, their quarrel instantly forgotten. Side by side he and a soldier gazed across the bowl, brimming with matter so fine it might have been the same primordial stuff that formed the sun and planets long ago.

“I surrender,” Sepak told the soldier numbly, dropping his bow and quiver. The commando looked at him, then, without blinking, unstrapped his own gleaming weapon and let it fall to earth beside Sepak’s. There seemed no need for words.

The wind picked up, wafting powder like fog to coat their clothes and faces, getting into their eyes, making them blink and tear. Sepak and the soldier backed up and then turned away. In retreat they kept glancing back nervously over their shoulders, unlike the forest animals, most of whom had already resumed their normal serious business of living, unburdened by anything as useless as memory.

Stan Goldman’s view of events wasn’t impeded by trees or jungle or hills. He and a few others shared a privileged vantage point several kilometers from the Greenland resonator. That was where the local commander had ordered “nonessential personnel” when Alex Lustig’s warning came. Those who fit aboard the encampment’s tractor and Malus crane fled even farther, putting as much distance as possible behind them.

Unable to prevail on the commander to let him stay, Stan insisted on at least departing on his own two feet. As well as NATO support staff, the walking exodus comprised men and women from the Hammer Dig, who by this time needed little persuasion that their obscure corner of the world had grown entirely unwholesome. With their background studying long-ago catastrophes, the paleogeologists knew just how small and fragile humans were, in comparison.

Still, by consensus everyone stopped where a gentle rise offered their last view back the way they came. Temblors swept the pebbly moraine. Fortunately, the horizon was nearly flat all the way to the distant coastal clouds, so if anything was going to harm them, it would have to reach right out of the Earth to do so.

Which, of course, is entirely possible , Stan thought. In fact, these minor tremors were only superficial symptoms of a battle taking place far below, as volunteers back at the dome helped Alex’s team on Rapa Nui try to fight off these mysterious new foes. “Any luck, Ruby?” he asked a woman seated cross-legged before a portable console.

“I’m linking up now, Dr. Goldman. Just a nano, while I tap a status update.”

Stan peered over Ruby’s shoulder at a miniature version of the familiar globe hologram. As before, the most furious activity took place where the plasti-crystalline mantle met the molten outer core, especially right below Greenland site. Filaments and twisting prominences glowed with energy drawn from the planet’s whirling dynamo, flickering lividly each time slender rapier probes lanced down from the surface, tickling and inciting the most inflamed. Those glimmering threads pulsed hypnotically in rhythms Stan compared to a multipart fugue, beating countertime to Beta’s imperious metronome. The combination spun off beams of warped space-time.

It was a stygian, multidimensional fencing match, and Stan knew his side was now badly outnumbered. New Guinea’s gone completely dark , he saw. And halfway around the globe, another familiar pinpoint glowed wan amber. The African resonator’s barely on idle, probably damaged and out of action .

Those had been early targets of the enemy’s surprise onslaught. The foe had taken them out in quick gazer strikes, like the one Alex had barely warded off. Or maybe they were sabotaged, as had been tried here — an attempt foiled only when last-minute security shakedowns revealed several well-placed limpet bombs. Since then it had been open warfare at long range, with the outnumbered side just beginning to learn the rules.

In an ironic way it actually gladdened Stan to see the innocent incompetence of Spivey’s people. The American colonel’s goal nust never have been terror weaponry after all. Or else his officers would surely be better geared for such a fight. All their gazer programs were scaled too small — to lift objects rather than blast them willy-nilly to oblivion. It would take time to bypass all the safeguards put in place to cut civilian damage, readjusting the cylinders to throw deadly force on command.

Time was exactly what Spivey’s people clearly didn’t have.

After the first wave of temblors, earth movements ceased, and Stan knew why. Triggering quakes might in principle offer a bludgeon against big targets like cities. But even a major jolt to this level plain might leave the Greenland resonator intact, ready to strike back. The enemy weren’t taking their advantage for granted. They had to keep the NATO crew occupied parrying thrusts until an opening was found to take them out decisively, once and for all.

“The bogeys,” Ruby said, referring to their unknown foes. “They’re uniting on a lambda band now, fourteen hundred megacycles… with what looks like a Koonin-style metric-impedance match. Beta’s responding! Damn, will it — no! Alex came in from below and blocked ’em. Yeah! Bought us some time. Take that, assholes!”

Stan appreciated the young Canadian’s colorful commentary. It lent those abstract symbols verve and emotion appropriate to combat. Stan balled his fists and tried for the adrenaline rush one expected in a situation like this. Only what is a situation like this? Maybe if there were bombs going off, or visible foes …

The sky was so peaceful and blue though, with a bracing, wintry breeze coming off the continent of ice. He felt incongruously comfortable and calm with gloved hands jammed into his jacket pockets.

“Uh-oh… Alex has run out of excited states along any path between Rapa Nui and us. I see nothing in reach for ten minutes!”—

“Ten minutes?” Someone nearby sighed. “Might as well be forever.”

Stan read the display. Sure enough, the gleaming filaments along one entire sector had gone dim — still pulsing, but now exhausted, banked back, almost contemplative compared to the glittering ferment going on elsewhere. Until they replenished, Alex’s team would be unable to render any help warding off attacks on Greenland.

“Lustig signals he’s going onto the attack meanwhile… Says good luck and godspeed… Now he’s gone.”

Stan nodded. “Same to you, Alex. Don’t worry about us. Go get ’em.”

He and the other evacuees turned their attention to the distant white dome they had left just a little while ago. Even this far away they were still in danger. In this new, terrifying type of warfare, the ground beneath you might suddenly turn liquid with color, or vanish in a titanic flash, or propel you toward far galaxies. Whatever happened, he wanted to share jeopardy with those brave technicians over there across the moraine valley. He planned on staying when the crane-zep returned for another pickup.