Jack McDevitt - The Moonfall

She was out of her chair, searching furiously through cabinets and utility drawers. When she found nothing, she opened the hatch to the passenger cabin, saw the darkness below, snatched up a torch, and dropped down the ladder. "Everybody okay?" she asked, trying to mask her concern.

"Yeah," said the vice president. "We're fine. What's going on?"

She flashed the beam around the compartment. "Anybody see a helmet?"

"You mean this?" Keith Morley held it up so she could see it. "You gave it to me as you ran by."

Thank God. "Thanks, Keith." Dropping her professional demeanor, she hugged him.

"Saber." Charlie's voice had steel in it this time. "What's happening?"

She explained that the lower deck had been punctured. "We'll have to go outside to fix it."

"Outside?" said Morley. "In this?"

She nodded. "We've shut down life support temporarily. If it starts getting a little close in here, oxygen masks will drop from the ceiling. Use them."

"What about Bigfoot?" asked Evelyn.

She shook her head. "No way to know," she said, taking the helmet and starting back up the ladder. "We'll pass the word as soon as we do."

She closed the hatch behind her. "You think we can try this now?" she asked Tony.

The radar screen was quiet again.

The passenger compartment had a dozen masks, far more than enough to wait out a rescue coming from Moonbase or L1. Waiting would have been standard procedure last week. Keep the passengers safe, and sit tight till help gets there. That was the credo. But conditions had changed.

"We've got another problem," Tony said. He was digging into the equipment cabinet, from which he produced a wrench, a couple of screwdrivers, a bar, a torch, and two rolls of duct tape. "The airlock down there's got a trouble light. Outside hatch doesn't respond." He looked up to see Saber putting on her helmet.

"Not now," he said.

"You want to wait?"

"Yeah. We've got time. Let's wait till it gets a little less crowded out there."

"Okay. That makes sense."

"There's something else."

"What?"

"You're not going."

"Why not? I don't think we should chance losing the pilot."

"Hell, Saber, that's not the point. We might need some muscle to get the hatch open. You don't have a lot of heft." Quebec. 10:56 P.M.

Twenty-one minutes into the event, streaks of light were seen over Saguenay Provincial Park in Quebec. It was the first recorded sighting of impact debris.

SSTO Arlington Passenger Cabin. 10:57 P.M.

Andrea Bellwether had relaxed somewhat after those early terrifying minutes. She'd been literally paralyzed by fear, unable to stop imagining what it would be like if one of the rocks struck the plane, splitting it open and dumping her and her seat into the void. She'd never thought of herself as a coward. There'd been times during her life when she'd stood up to be counted, when she'd confronted bullies, and even once a mob when an IRA demonstration had turned ugly in London. But this was different, and she was left weak and shaken in the aftermath.

If the fire had not entirely drained from the sky, at least it seemed to have subsided, and the constant hammering and banging on the hull had stopped. Periodically the captain spoke to them, reassuring them. Just now she needed to be treated like a child. Pat me on the head and tell me it's okay. Skyport Orbital Lab. 10:59 P.M.

Tory Clark was connected to a vast array of instruments in space and around the world, and data were pouring in. Windy Cross had gotten so excited, he'd forgotten his outrage at her. They were getting magnificent images, and the circuits were filled with excited voices. Infrared scans had penetrated the fireball. As predicted, the impact had shattered the Moon, had literally broken it apart. Pieces the size of Texas had torn loose and were adrift. It was too soon to ascertain where they were going, but theory suggested most of the debris would spread out at about the present lunar radius, with most of it remaining along the orbital line.

Some had argued that even if the comet did break up the Moon, gravity would soon draw the sphere back together. Looking at the images, Tory didn't think that was going to happen. Not now, and probably not in the foreseeable future.

At this point, one thing seemed certain: The world had received a scare, an object lesson far more impressive than the one Shoemaker-Levy 9 had delivered thirty years ago. Maybe Skybolt, which would be able to defend the planet with an array of chemical oxygen iodine lasers, would now become a popular cause. Moreover, Tomiko had demonstrated that we could not rely on having a year or two to get ready for an impact.

It struck her that losing the Moon might not be a bad trade-off if we got lucky and the Earth escaped without serious damage, provided we applied the lessons. Provided we made preparations for the next time.

Her displays carried images of the boiling cloud from several of the orbiters, from Mount Palomar, from Whipple and Kitt Peak.

One of her telltales began to blink furiously.

"POSIM-1," said Windy.

POSIM was Possible Impactor, the agreed term assigned to objects that might strike Earth. The determination that an object was potentially hazardous was made after evaluating approach angle, size, estimated mass, and velocity.

Tory tagged it for the Houston threat assessment unit. Houston might request more imaging, infrared, whatever; they might dismiss it as a nonthreat; or they might confirm and send out a warning to the good people of Tuscaloosa to clear out of town. It was going to be a nerve-wracking process because nobody knew in advance how fast the fragments would be coming, how many there might be, what would disintegrate and what wouldn't.

POSIM-1 was sixty meters in diameter, approaching at 180 kilometers per second. The front of the blast wave was just now approaching, and they were seeing mostly pebbles, gas, and dust. And a few rocks. POSIM-1 was the exception. Its trajectory would take it into the atmosphere at a wide angle, subjecting it to almost maximum friction before it hit ground. If it hit ground.

Tory watched a confusion of blips spreading across the displays. She wondered whether the instruments would be able to sort out the big rocks from the assorted rubble.

Houston responded to the hit: POSIM-1 would come to ground in the interior of South America, in the Gran Chaco Region. But not enough of it would remain to do serious damage, other than maybe scare a few cattle. Disregard.

POSIM-2 was slightly smaller, but on a tighter angle. Into the Pacific. Again, not big enough to do any damage.

At Zelenchukskaya, in the Caucasus, they were following the action. Someone, apparently annoyed that Skybolt had never been built, suggested sending the politicians up to beat the POSIMs off with sticks.

Radar put one fragment at a diameter of two hundred meters. But it did not get a POSIM listing because it was going to sail past the planet altogether and go into solar orbit.

The common wisdom was that the big stuff, if any was en route, would be moving more slowly and would therefore arrive later.

There had been speculation that nuclear missiles were being readied, but Tory knew there was no time for targeting. It was all happening too fast. They were just going to have to sit back and let events take their course.

The alarm sounded again.

"POSIM-3," said Windy. Point Judith, Rhode Island. 11:26 P.M.

Luke Peterson had followed the reports coming in from the moon ships and around the globe. He'd felt a wave of regret when they lost contact with the vice president's party, and again later when the space plane had disappeared.

Transglobal's Bruce Kendrick had explained on both occasions that the LTA and NASA were still optimistic, and believed the problems resulted from the communications breakdowns one would expect under these conditions. Luke stayed with them for another half hour or so, but there was no more word on Haskell or the missing plane. When they started interviewing another astronomer about comets, he shut off the TV, made a rum and Coke, and walked out onto his front porch.