Jack McDevitt - The Moonfall

Nevertheless, buried in the relentless accounts of waves, storms, and earthquakes, there were some encouraging stories; heroes were appearing everywhere. In Fort Lauderdale a man in a motor yacht picked up survivors and rode out several tsunamis. Doctors stayed at their posts in Baltimore, chopper-riding cops scooped people off rooftops in Houston, teenagers hurried toddlers to safety in Savannah. When a wave hit Vancouver Island, a man saved a group of his neighbors by piling them into a hydrogen balloon. He got clear with seconds to spare. In St. Augustine, a young woman helped several elderly couples climb an old stone tower to escape.

Even Skyport had been hit. Debris had blown out compartments on two decks, and three people were dead.

Rachel was in Mo's, having toast and coffee, watching CNN, when her cell phone trilled. The identifier indicated the call was from Operations. "Quinn," she said.

"Colonel, I'm Howard Chambers, special assistant to Belle Cassidy." Cassidy was the director of operations. "She'd like to see you if you could come by her office."

Ten minutes later Rachel was led through Cassidy's door. The director was standing in a corner of the room, bent over a console with two aides. She smiled at Rachel, dismissed the aides, and invited her to sit down. Belle Cassidy was in her early forties. There was something of the drill instructor in her demeanor. She stood ramrod straight, had short black hair, marble eyes, and wide shoulders. Rachel knew her, had even dined with her once when several of the astronauts had been passing through and the Skyport staff had given a dinner.

"Good to see you again, Rachel," she said, extending a hand. A gold chain tinkled on her wrist, a subtle flash of femininity in an otherwise masculine personality.

The office was big, as Skyport offices went. On the walls were framed documents detailing its occupant's services to various federal agencies, to foreign governments, and to the Lunar Transport Authority, her current employer. Belle folded her arms and remained standing. "Rachel," she said, "we need your help."

"In what way?"

"Were you aware President Kolladner is dead?"

"Yes," she said. "I heard about it a little while ago."

"The new president is stranded out there." Belle waved her hand in the general direction of the overhead. "In about seven and a half hours he's going to sail past here, doing forty thousand-plus kilometers an hour. Unless we get something out there that has the juice to catch him, they might as well swear in whoever's next in line. That idiot Speaker, I guess it would be."

Rachel's eyes widened. "You're asking for the Lowell?"

"It's all we've got. The ferries can't handle it."

"Sure," she said. "I'll get the numbers from your people, and we'll be ready to go."

"I appreciate it."

"It's my pleasure."

Regret showed in Belle's face. "I'll be honest with you. We spent the last couple of hours trying to figure out how to do it with our ferries. I mean, how often does the LTA get a chance to rescue a president?"

"No way, huh?"

"Well… if we had to, we could give it a good run. But it's too close to take the chance." She shook Rachel's hand. "So NASA gets the glory. Again."

For those of you tuning in late, and those who've been flooding our switchboard, let me say again, Frank's okay. He was slightly injured last night, but he's otherwise fine. As you know, the show is usually broadcast from Miami. But the storm knocked out our facility there. Frank twisted a knee, but it's nothing serious and he'll be back tonight. Meantime, this is Paul DiAngelo sitting in for the Old Trooper. Now we've got time for one more caller before we get out of here. And Llewellyn tells me we've got a live one. Hello, Margaret in Los Angeles. Caller: Hi, Paul. Tell Frank all of us in LA. wish him well. DiAngelo: He'll be happy to hear that, Margaret. Why don't you tell our listeners where you are right now? Caller: I'm in my office, on the third floor of the Warrior Warehouse on the waterfront. DiAngelo: And what are you doing there? Caller: Actually, I'm working late. I'm one of the partners at Warrior. But what I'm really doing is watching for the tidal wave. And I can tell you, the ocean is smooth as silk. DiAngelo: Wait a minute, Margaret. You're sitting down at the waterfront watching for a tidal wave? Caller: (Laughs.) I'm perfectly safe. These are high floors. I'm almost a hundred feet over the parking lot, and the building is concrete. DiAngelo: Margaret, why are you doing this? Caller: How many times do you get to see a tidal wave, Paul? Anyway, I've got my minicam up here, and if it comes I expect to get some good pictures. DiAngelo: I hope so. Have you thought about the possibility you might get cut off up there? Caller: The freezer's loaded. Listen, this isn't the reason I called, though. DiAngelo: Okay, Margaret, but we're almost out of time. Make it quick. Caller How many people died last night? DiAngelo: I don't know. The estimates are all over the place. Caller: A lot. DiAngelo: Yeah. Caller: That's right, Paul. And we could have saved a lot of those people if those clowns in Washington hadn't just dismissed the whole thing. DiAngelo: Looks that way. Caller: I think we're ripe for an impeachment, don't you? DiAngelo: Margaret, the president is among the victims. Caller: I know. And I wish I could say I'm sorry he's dead. But they really screwed up this time. And somebody needs to pay. DiAngelo: Thanks for your thoughts, Margaret. We're out of time, folks. Don't forget, Frank'll be back tonight, at his regular time, live.

Micro. 6:22 A.M.

"I, Charles L. Haskell, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Justice Mary B. Longbridge administered the oath by radio. She was at Egmont Air Force Base. It was the first time in U.S. history that the presiding official and the incoming president were physically separated.

In fact, other than Haskell, no U.S. citizen was present at the inauguration.

Had Mr. Haskell been visible to the electorate, they would have noted that the new president looked as if he'd been mugged. His face was swollen and he was covered with bruises.

There was no physical Bible in the microbus. Therefore, Mr. Haskell brought up an appropriate biblical verse from the ship's library and placed his left hand on the display while he took the oath. The passage, recommended by Chaplain Mark Pinnacle, was from Numbers, Chapter VI, Verses 24-26.

At thirty-eight, Charlie Haskell became the youngest president in U.S. history, surpassing Theodore Roosevelt by three years. He was the ninth vice president to succeed to the presidency on the death of the incumbent, and the tenth overall to assume the post (Gerald Ford having been inaugurated after the resignation of Richard Nixon).

His middle initial stood for Lionel, which was the name of an uncle he had met only once. He detested the name, and to the extent he was able, he never allowed it to be used or to appear in print.

He spoke for six minutes and eleven seconds, easily the shortest inauguration address on record. No other president, he said, had been sworn in at a darker moment. But he would do everything he could, with the united help of the American people, and their friends around the world, to ensure that the nation survived the event, to ease its burdens, to head off further disaster, and to begin the long process of recovery. "We will go on," he said. "We will learn from this, and we will not be turned aside. The broken Moon will remain in our skies, to remind us that we are not isolated on the Earth. There is a greater world beyond, and we must recognize we are part of that greater world. We must learn to apply our technologies to protect ourselves to the extent we are able; and we must also rethink who we are. Tonight we have arrived at a critical moment in our history. We must accept our losses, because we cannot do otherwise. But we will not accept defeat, we will go forward, because to fail to do so would be a betrayal of all who died during these last few hours."