Jack McDevitt - The Moonfall

"Mr. President," Kerr said, "unless you have a preliminary comment, we're ready to go remote."

"Do it."

Split-screen images, a man and a woman, flickered onto a wall display. Henry had seen the man's face before, but he couldn't put a name to it.

He had caught a second breath since his meeting with Juarez, and his basic philosophy, that everything turns out okay if people just don't panic, had taken hold. One of the TV images, the man, wore a graveyard demeanor. We don't want that dumb son of a bitch talking to the media, Henry thought. Who brought him in? But Henry thought his cabinet members and advisors also looked gloomy.

"Before we go any farther," said Henry, "let me caution everyone that we need to be careful what we say outside this room. The Moon story's already out, but the public reaction is going to depend to a fair degree on what comes out of this meeting." That wasn't so, of course. Henry knew that the media would be the ultimate influence and they would decide how to play the story. But he needed his people to do their part. And he particularly wanted to impress the outsiders that they should be careful what they say. "When we get out of here and talk for the record, let's try to think about the impact our words will have. Things are going to be difficult enough over the next few days. We don't want panic on our hands if we can avoid it." He saw his secretary of state frame the word panic on his thin lips as if the thought had not occurred to him. Henry pushed back in his chair and removed a gold pen from an inside pocket. "Now, Al, why don't you introduce our guests."

Kerr nodded. "Professor Alice Finizio from the Jet Propulsion Lab." An African-American, she wore bifocals attached to her lapel by a silver chain. Her orange blazer seemed a bit loud to the president, who believed that the inner self, and not one's clothing, should be the source of attention. She was a slim woman, with silver hair, probably close to seventy. She reminded him quite forcibly of his late grandmother. Kerr described her as an astronomer.

"And Professor Wesley Feinberg of the AstroLab." That explained why the face had seemed familiar. Feinberg was a leading scientist, had won at least one Nobel prize, and had been on the cover of Time or Newsweek recently. He'd even been a guest at a White House dinner, although Henry couldn't recall speaking with him.

Feinberg was thin, short, bleary-eyed, with a crop of gray hair pushed back on a balding skull. His expression suggested he had more important things to do.

"I'd like to welcome you both," the president said, "and we thank you for taking time to be with us today. I'm sure you were introduced earlier to the people at the table." He knew that wasn't so, but it didn't matter. "Mercedes," he said, "where are we?"

"We are now projecting a ninety-seven percent probability that Tomiko will strike the Moon."

"Any conflicting views?" This was aimed at the faces on the wallscreen.

Finizio's eyes were slits. "I'd say it's more like ninety-nine six. There's no question about this that I can see."

"Okay." Henry took a deep breath. "It's going to hit. What does that mean?"

"If it comes in the way we expect it to," said Feinberg, "it'll splash the Moon."

Finizio confirmed the estimate by her silence.

"I'm sorry," said Jessica McDermott, his secretary of defense. "I didn't catch that. What do you mean splash?" McDermott had been CEO at Rockwell before moving over to the Pentagon. She was in her sixties.

"It means that after Saturday night there probably won't be a Moon."

The men and women around the table shifted uneasily. Chairs creaked, people cleared their throats. Harold Boatmann, secretary of transportation, glanced up at a portrait of a smiling Harry Truman. "I guess we can get by without a moon," he said. "Are there any other consequences?"

"The Moon," said Feinberg, "will probably become a mass of loose rubble, plasma, dust, and gas. Some of that debris can be expected to come our way."

All eyes turned toward the president. Henry felt his mouth going dry. He'd spent the last couple of hours convincing himself that a collision occurring a quarter-million miles away could not present a serious threat to the well-being of the United States. He looked down the table at a line of worried faces. "What are we talking about, exactly?" he asked. "Are we in trouble?"

"Probably not a great deal," said Finizio. She even sounded like his grandmother. She looked directly at him. "I think the primary danger here is not from lunar debris, but from panic."

"That's nonsense," said Feinberg. "There's going to be a lot of rock flying around and we don't know where any of it will be going. Mr. President, anything can happen."

"Define anything."

"Earthquakes. Tidal waves. God knows what conditions will be like Sunday morning. But I'll give you an example of the possibilities: If a big enough chunk of rock were to fall into the Pacific, we'd all go for a swim. Damned near the whole planet."

Kolladner heard fingernails tapping. Someone coughed.

Finizio rolled her eyes. "That's a remote possibility, Wesley," she said, "and you know it."

"It's not at all remote."

"Of course it is. Listen, you've always had a tendency to exaggerate, but I think you need to curb yourself a little here."

Henry broke in before it could develop into a food fight. "Professor Finizio, tell us what you expect to happen."

"Very little, Mr. President. Understand, with an event like this, Wes is right. Anything is possible. But none of it is very likely. What I expect is that there'll be increased meteor activity. But I suspect we'll come through it quite nicely. You may have to deal with a few isolated incidents. But probably nothing worth getting alarmed over."

"There'll also be a problem about the axis," said Feinberg, as if Finizio hadn't spoken. "The obliquity of the ecliptic is, to a degree, sustained by the relationship between Moon and Earth. Take that away-"

"Oh, for heaven's sake," said Finizio.

"In English, please," said the president.

Feinberg nodded. "The seasons depend on the tilt of the Earth's axis. You know that, of course. We're farther from the Sun in July than in December. But that could all change now. Take away the Moon, and we're going to see a much more pronounced wobble."

"Do we care?" asked Patricia Russell, the press secretary.

"Summers will get hotter, winters colder. Higher latitudes will become unlivable. There'll be a problem with farming."

"Farming?" asked Henry. He looked back at Finizio for help.

"He means the wheat belt will move south," she said. "But that's something that won't happen for a very long time. Not anything we'll have to worry about."

"The next administration?" asked one of the political advisors.

Finizio laughed. "Maybe the next millennium," she said. "Certainly not earlier. Probably considerably later."

"That's true," admitted Feinberg, "but we need to think about the future."

"Let's stick with the present for now," said Henry. "Is there anything else?"

"Be assured," said Finizio, "that the Moon is not going to go flying off in all directions. Gravity will still be present, and whatever else happens, most of the rock that now composes the Moon will stay right where it is. Oh, it'll get moved around a little. Broken apart. But no worse. I think the government's wisest course is to simply keep everyone calm." She glanced off to her left, where she must have been looking at an image of Feinberg.

The president wanted to applaud.

"I think that's an extremely optimistic view," said Feinberg.

"What do you want me to do?" asked Henry quietly. "Evacuate both coasts?"

"I'll tell you what you should do," said Finizio. "For starters, evacuate L1. It's too close to the collision. And maybe Skyport, for good measure."