Jack McDevitt: The Moonfall

The glut of voices asking mission control for a status report had faded into background noise. If Feinberg didn't respond in any meaningful way, it could only be because he had no news to give. They had done everything they could, thrown the full weight of the world's fleet into the effort. And it hadn't been enough.

POSIM-38 rumbled across the sky, and Charlie rode with it, he and thirty-odd others, like Slim Pickens in the old movie riding the H-bomb to its target.

Dead.

They were all dead and the world with them.

Charlie was usually inclined to take an optimistic view of events. If on this occasion he'd given up and concluded all was lost, it was easy enough to understand: the Percival Lowell was engulfed in flames and shaking itself to pieces, Feinberg was cackling on the command channel, and he was suddenly beginning to feel the tug of gravity after a long period of zero-g.

That the latter fact was a good sign, that it indicated the rock was changing course, never occurred to him. He waited for the killing blow, consoled only by the knowledge he had given his best effort.

At forty-eight hours, his would be the shortest presidency on record, easily eclipsing William Henry Harrison's thirty-one days. He wondered whether he might not also be the last U.S. president. He was considering that doleful possibility when his cell phone trilled. It was a remarkably prosaic sound, cool and mundane amid the chaos. He pulled the instrument out of his pocket. "Haskell," he said, impressed at how good his voice sounded.

"Mr. President." It was Feinberg. "Congratulations. We've done it. It's headed back out."

Charlie felt his pulse throbbing. "You're sure?"

"Yes. I'm sure."

"Thank God," he said.

"It'll take a while to analyze the new orbit. We need to determine whether, and to what degree, the Possum will remain a threat."

"But it's not coming down today?"

"No, Mr. President. I can assure you it's not coming down today."

Charlie clicked off, closed his eyes, and allowed himself to luxuriate in the moment. He was drenched, and was deliriously happy. And he suddenly realized he was starved.

Rachel's voice broke in. "Good show, Mr. President," she said.

Within minutes Charlie was talking to a global audience, giving them the news. The world began to celebrate in its time-honored fashion: church bells rang, drums beat, fireworks exploded, politicians made speeches. At that moment, Charles L. Haskell could have been elected planetary chief executive, had such a position existed. He knew that his popularity could not fail to carry him to the White House. He also understood that the acclaim would last only until the first recession.

But it was a thought unworthy of the hero of the hour.

Up front, Rachel's comm board had lit up. The entire population of the Earth wanted to talk with him.

The first call he took was from Evelyn.

Tuesday, April 15,2025 The New White House, Presidential Dining Room.

The dinner had included notables from around the globe, celebrating the first anniversary of what many were now calling the birth of the Space Age, but what President Haskell liked to think of as the long-delayed birth of the Human Family. They'd watched year-old videos of crowds cheering in Paris and Shanghai, Jerusalem and Kansas City, as the Possum sailed across the skies over Florida, trailing fire, and faded at last from human sight.

Not forever, of course. They had a six-year reprieve. Which meant that the nations of the world had no choice but to see Project Skybolt to its conclusion.

The first lady had made it her special responsibility to coordinate the construction of a memorial museum to be dedicated to those who gave their lives in the common effort, to the flight crews of Copenhagen, Rome, Berlin, the Christopher Talley, to Bigfoot Caparatti and Tony Casaway.

A new world had emerged from the catastrophe. Los Angeles was gone, apparently forever. The lake that formed in the desert regions of central California between the coastal ranges and the eastern peaks was being described by geologists as "temporary," but they were talking in millennial terms. A group of towns was already springing up along its shores.

No one was left unscarred. The drain on national treasuries caused by the destruction forced world leaders into a cooperative effort unlike anything history had seen before. Military forces seemed to have lost, at least for the time being, their ancient function. No one, in the days after the coming of the Possum, seemed willing to take up arms against a neighbor. The peoples of the world had stood together against a common misfortune, and a new bond may consequently have formed among them, a bond that transcended national and religious identities, that recognized a common vulnerability. Even in Jerusalem, at long last, an accommodation seemed to have been reached.

In its own dark way, the comet may have been a blessing.

The special guests at the White House dinner had been Andrea Bellwether and Tory Clark. The architects of survival, the president had called them, knowing that Rick Hailey would have approved of the phrase. Tory had said the usual things, spread the credit around, looked embarrassed, and sat down to waves of applause. Andrea said only that her father would have been proud.

Feinberg remarked later that history would remember the technique as the Bellwether Maneuver.

Later the president invited both women to a private party in the Kolladner Room, where they passed the evening with Saber, Keith Morley, Chaplain Pinnacle (who with quick thinking had selected Evelyn Hampton to carry the crucial message to the president), Wes Feinberg, Orly Carpenter, Jonathan Porter, and the flight crews of the various vehicles of Project Rainbow. And of course, with the first lady, Evelyn Haskell.

There are plans to make the celebration an annual event. Unfortunately, however, Rachel Quinn and Lee Cochran will be unable to attend next year. They'll be on their way to Mars.