Eon (Eon, 2)

  "Line up," Mirsky said. In the second and third compartments, he heard orders being barked. The first company commander, stationed in the first compartment, Major Konstantin Ulopov, was already in his helmet, with the cannon-bearer Zhadov tugging experimentally at the connections and seals on his suit. When he was given the okay, Ulopov would in turn assist Mirsky.

  None of them had much protection against laser or projectile hits. In this sort of warfare, an AKV or even a pistol—prepared for the vacuum, but with standard-issue bullets—was as effective against a soldier as antipersonnel lasers.

  Mirsky approached the small group surrounding "Zev," Major General Sosnitsky. "Our battalion is prepared, Comrade General," he reported.

  Sosnitsky's staff of three officers—with the Zampolit, Major Belozersky, standing nearby—were checking and re-checking the general's suit, like chicks around a hen. Sosnitsky lifted a gloved hand over the commotion and offered it to Mirsky. Mirsky grasped it firmly. "The Marshall would be proud of you and your men," Sosnitsky said. "Today—or tonight or whatever it is—will be glorious."

  "Yes, sir," Mirsky said. Even though his thoughts about the command structure bordered on the cynical, Sosnitsky had the power to make him feel emotion.

  "We will give them something back for Kiev, won't we, Comrade?"

  "That we will, Comrade General."

  He glanced up at Belozersky. The political officer's expression was a mix of exaltation and borderline panic. His eyes were wide and his upper lip was damp.

  Mirsky wiped his own upper lip. Moist. His whole face was moist. Then he backed away from the group and resumed his position.

  The queuing lights near the three circular exit hatches came on and the craft began its erratic tumbling, designed to offer unpredictable targets for marksman as the soldiers leaped forth. It would also scatter them like chaff inside the bore hole; the partners would grip each other's harnesses and jump as a group to stay together until they had their bearings.

  They would not fire randomly; there was more chance of hitting one another than an antagonist. Only in direct combat with clearly seen opponents would they fire, and they were not to waste their time even with that if it could be avoided.

  Everyone was suited and lined up. The emergency airlock surrounding number two exit hatch had been dismantled and stowed against the bulkhead. The pumps began to evacuate the compartments with throaty grumbles and a high pud-pud. The connecting hatches between the compartments slid shut. The lights were extinguished. The only thing Mirsky's soldiers could see now were the queuing lights above the exit hatches and the luminous glows of their guide ropes.

  "Check radios and locators," he said. Each soldier performed a quick diagnostic on his communications gear and the all-important beacon locator.

  The queuing lights flashed at half-second intervals. Everyone made sure they were connected to the trolley which would guide and tug them around the compartments until it brought them to their exit hatch.

  Ten seconds until hatch opening. The motion of the ship—jerking, pitching and rolling as its maneuvering jets fired unevenly—was beginning to affect even Mirsky.

  He could no longer hear the pumps. They were in vacuum.

  The hatches slid open abruptly and the queues began to spill out into darkness and silence.

  Two squads destined for the first chamber—twenty men in all—went out in the first queue.

  Mirsky was third in his queue. Ulopov went ahead and Mirsky held him by a strap attached to his thigh. Mirsky in turn was held by Zhadov, who kept the laser cannon strapped to his side. The trio gripped the hatch edge and kicked away in unison, as they had been trained, flying from the craft like a precision skydiving team, a little star of six legs in the vast darkness.

  His eyes adjusted quickly and he switched on his locator. For a heart-stopping moment he thought all was lost; he could not hear even a whisper of signal. Then came the steady high-frequency CHUFF-chuff-chuff of the beacon, placed by some unknown compatriot—perhaps dead already, murdered by the Americans—in the bore hole leading into the second chamber.

  And he could make out the tiny spot of light that was the opening to the first chamber.

  Stuff floating around. Bumping, smearing. Dark drops fuzzing out. Large chunks of metal in his helmet beam, sections of torn bulkhead and rippling sheets of steel. . . a ship!

  Tangled in something invisible ahead, the wreckage of one of the heavy-lifters vibrated ponderously, fly caught in a web, surrounded by drifting bodies, most without helmets. Pieces of limbs and trunks drifted past.

  A blinding nimbus surrounded them all. High-intensity spotlights played around the ships and their disgorged soldiers, dead and alive. Zhadov let go of Mirsky's strap, and Mirsky instinctively reached for the man's weapon but caught his arm instead. The suit squirmed in his grip and the body twisted fiercely, almost dragging Mirsky away from Ulopov. Zhadov's suit had been holed and the venting gas whirled him about like a released balloon. Mirsky reached out as far as he could and gripped the cannon. He handed it to Ulopov.

  (As clear as reality—clearer, at the moment—he stood in a grassy field and contemplated this nightmare. He gathered his chute up from the yellow grass and shook his head, grinning at his imagination.)

  Soldiers filled the bore hole, hundreds of them, and all around he could instinctively feel the invisible laser needles and projectiles searching, piercing, picking away.

  Mirsky pulled Ulopov to him and swung his helmet beam around, looking for the wall they should be approaching. It was not visible. Zhadov's death had knocked them off course.

  "Use your rocket pack," he told the major. "We break up now."

  "Spshhome potato," the Major commented dryly, the voice-activated microphone cutting off the first sound of each phrase. "Sphshhotter than an oven. Spshhust be baked. Shhpood luck, Colonel!"

  Mirsky let go of the strap and fired his thruster. He swung outward, away from the entangled wreckage and awful corpses. He cut the thruster and switched on his helmet display. Before his eyes, the beacon and his relation to it appeared on a small luminous stage. He adjusted with another thrust, as did hundreds of his comrades—how many hundreds he could not say.

  He suddenly remembered the number of the entangled wreckage, now far behind. That had been the lunar ship—filled with those most recently and thoroughly trained for low-gravity combat. Their best.

  Mirsky, alone now with his signal and his thruster—unconcerned for the moment about how many of his men were behind or ahead—flew down the bore hole toward the tiny circle of light.

  "They've broken through," Kirchner said, slamming the side of his palm against the chair arm. "There's nothing in the bore hole but bodies and wreckage. About three heavy-lifters have backed out; we must have disabled the rest. Nobody's getting away, though—they can't go home."

  "The pilots will wait until we're taken," Gerhardt said wearily on the comlink. He was now overseeing evacuation of the civilian teams to the forth chamber.

  "You don't sound in the best of spirits, Oliver," Kirchner said. "Your turn now."

  "We have some transmissions from the Persian Gulf," Pickney said. "We can unscramble them. Captain, would you like to listen in?"

  "Let's hear them," Kirchner said.

  A man's voice, sounding almost mechanical after the processing of the signal, said, "One K that is Kill Seven, One K that is Kill Seven, have smoked the circle; repeat, have smoked the circle. Vampires, fourteen count, range fifty klicks, source Turgenev small platform. Repeat, fourteen vampires. Six down. Sweep two commencing. Smoking circle, up with directed fry, nine down; up with knives, eleven down. Three vampires, twenty-klicks. Priests out. Priests and vampires engage. Advising salamander crews. Starfish launched. Sea Dragons alerted. Two vampires, six klicks. Sweep three commencing. Foaming now. Short eyes out, blades out, Guardians out, knives inboard." A pause. "Two vampires, three klicks." Another pause, then, softly, "Good-bye, Shirley."

  "That's the cruiser Hous
e," Kirchner said quietly, rubbing his eyes with his hands. "She's gone."

  "Another," Pickney said. "Coast of Oman."

  "Let's have it," Kirchner said, glancing at Lanier.

  "—CVN ninety-six, group Hairball," the signal commenced, "second launch Feather Two, repeat, Feather Two, commencing Chigger, repeat, Chigger. Special fourth class nuke, postal authorities will advise."

  "The carrier Fletcher is sending in strategic aircraft for a midrange coast sortie," Kirchner translated.

  "CVN eighty-five, code Zorro Doctor Betty, Postal authorities withdraw your permit. Claws will scratch Chiggers. Sea Dragons alerted. Slow wall up and Turkey Feathers down. Repeat, slow wall up and—"

  "Group Hairball, Leading Man, Groom, and Alpha Delta Victor. . . Best Man, Chambermaid, luncheon postponed—"

  "CVN ninety-six, I count thirty-eight vampires, source deep-blue Turgenev-class platform, range ten klicks, knives up, short eyes, Sea Dragons alerted. Priests and vampires engage angels two, Jesus Christ"—an obvious expletive, not code—"they're at two klicks—"

  Kirchner flinched as the message was cut off. "I should be down there," he said. "Right in the middle of the barbecue."

  "How many OTVs did Station Sixteen get off?" Lanier asked.

  "Besides OTV 45, five. Three are coming for us. Two for the Moon."

  "Warn the three we are under attack and may not be able to receive them. Suggest they divert to the Moon."

  "If they can make it," Pickney said.

  The evacuation of the low Earth orbit platforms and other stations had already begun. The war was expanding now; not just beam defense platforms, but research and industrial stations were becoming targets.

  "Some diversion," Pickney said bitterly. "Looks like it's getting out of control."

  "Of course it is," Gerhardt said on the comlink. "Only an idiot or somebody very desperate would have thought otherwise. Garry, you done all you can there. I'll need you in the first chamber in a few minutes. I'm on my way back now."

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Vasquez slept on a bunk beneath the tent, exhausted after seven hours of intense work. Two slates, an expanded processor and several dozen sheets of paper littered the tent floor around the cot.

  Patricia, Carrolson, Farley, Wu and Chang—and of course Heineman in the V/STOL—made up the only group not confined to the first and fourth chambers. Lanier had decided her work was too important to stop completely.

  She dreamed about a drugstore on Earth. She was being refused the opportunity to buy an ice cream cone. The dream transformed and she stood by a blackboard in a large classroom, trying to explain abstruse problems to a sea of unruly students. They began throwing pieces of chalk at her. With an absolute conviction of reality, she watched the chalk hit the equations on the board. Hold it, she cried, Stop! The class ceased its commotion. She picked a piece of chalk off the floor and circled the areas of the equations that had been marked by hits. Of course, she said, these would show—

  Carrolson grabbed her shoulder and shook her awake, Patricia pulled aside wisps of black hair and looked up at the woman through sleep-puffy eyes.

  "We have to get to the fourth chamber," Carrolson said.

  "Why? I'm working—"

  "Work's over, honey. There's a truck waiting. The Chinese are going, too. All of us. Move!" Her tone was acid. Patricia picked up her bag and stuffed the slate, memory blocks, multi-meter and processor into it. Carrolson made as if to knock the bag out of her hands, then pulled back, arms clutching her own shoulders. "We don't need those now," she said. "We really don't."

  Tears slid down Carrolson's cheeks and spotted the breast of her coveralls. "Everyone's saying it," she continued. "I haven't seen, but there's stuff coming in on that hookup—the one for filching satellite broadcasts."

  Patricia clutched the bag to her breast and ran ahead of Carrolson to the truck, cursing under her breath.

  How funny she was behaving, she thought in a part of her mind where reality had not yet penetrated. How hysterical. After all, she had known. She should have been prepared.

  Carrolson, Wu and Chang climbed into the truck behind her. Farley drove them up the ramp and into the tunnel.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Mirsky was terrified. Pushed ahead by the vapor thrusters, periodically trailing a thin and quickly dissipating cloud of hydrogen peroxide, he aimed along the beacon. On every side, ground awaited him; his stomach told him he was falling in all directions. Ahead was a gray-black expanse. Clouds drifted in curving sheaths above, below, behind, before. He could not close his eyes; he had to keep the helmet display centered on the beacon signal.

  He caught sight of several fellows, their thruster bursts resembling contrails from the wings of a jet drifting in and out of moist air. How many? he asked. What countermeasures would the Americans have taken?

  He had to cross this beautiful horror, this place without top or bottom, and fly down a second bore hole. Only in the second chamber would he be able to drop away from the center and unfold his airfoil/shield, following the simple map that would be projected on his helmet display.

  Slowly his fear turned into exhilaration. The longest jump he had ever made on Earth had lasted for six minutes, better than lovemaking, better than the day he received his wings. But here he had been flying steadily, accelerating with each new burst, for ten minutes, fifteen.

  If he died upon landing, it would be worth it. To have seen a place where the land was the sky, where he could dive any direction and come to ground. Worth it all. Worth even the nightmare of the bore hole and the drifting, torn bodies of his comrades, faces bloated and livid in the vacuum, eyes protruding beyond their lids and ghastly white.

  "Pssolonel Mirsky, is that you?"

  "Yes! Identify."

  "Pshlopov. I've seen others from our ship—and hundreds more! Pshare like angels, Colonel. PshCHKCHKirst squads have dropped away, look behind PSCKHHolonel."

  He carefully inclined his neck, keeping his eye on the beacon alignment, then looked behind and below. He could see tiny white dots—parachutes—in the bluish haze above the floor of the chamber. He twisted smoothly and saw more at another quadrant—coming down, as planned, to take control of elevator entrances in the first chamber's southern wall. Pride swelled in him. Who else could have even succeeded this far? History!

  He could see the darker hole in the center of the forward wall. None of them had more than two hours of air in their suit tanks—how much longer until he could drop away?

  In the fourth chamber compound, Carrolson had given up trying to organize the members of the science team. Most of the security team had been deployed, leaving the barracks, cafeteria and grounds to the evacuees.

  Patricia sat in the cafeteria, numb, snot crusted under her nose, half-listening to the sporadic radio signals coming over the cafeteria loudspeakers. The signals from the external satellite feed were still being directed down the bore hole to transponders at the entrance of each chamber. Electronic chatter of robots calmly sacrificing themselves in orbit, seeking orbiting outposts and battle stations, or going silent as they reentered the atmosphere to search out a few million more human beings, enacting a deterrence policy now guaranteeing only more and more death.

  Out of control, Patricia thought.

  Spasm. The motions a dying person makes, or the twitches in a corpse. San Diego, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara. Spasm.

  Farley and Chang wept in each other's arms. Wu was silent and stolid, sitting on a table like a piece of sculpture. Rimskaya stood in a corner with a bottle of Scotch, almost certainly contraband, taking a gulp every few seconds until he fell down.

  A few ex-defense workers, reverting to the old banter, the old assessments and guesses, conducted a calm analysis of who was winning, who was still capable of fighting, which hardened weapons sites would open next. "Submarines under the ice caps?" "No—both sides will hold those in reserve for after." "What after? "Who cares?" "What about those trucks—you kno
w, the reverse ground-effect vehicles, hug the ground when the shock wave passes over." "Fuck 'em all."

  Spasm.

  She closed her eyes as if to block an image of her home absorbing the sudden burst of light and radiation, becoming a carbonized mockery of walls and roof.

  And within, slightly protected by the shadow of the house—roasted alive, but not quite carbonized—and then being blasted to fine ash by the shock wave—

  Rita and Ramon.

  Farley approached Patricia and tapped her on the shoulder, disrupting her reverie. "We can't go back," she said. "The engineers say none of the spaceports are left by now. Vandenberg, the cosmodromes—Kennedy Space Center, even Edwards—gone. We can't get to the Moon, either. Not enough ships or fuel. Nobody'll come up for ten, maybe twenty years. That's what the engineers are saying. We might have a few good fields left in China, but there aren't going to be any shuttles in orbit to rendezvous with the OTVs even if we could go back."

  Wu joined them. "Nothing out of China now," he said. "Russia still throwing things. Every city I live in, gone by now. We used to get civil defense instruction in school. We knew where bombs would drop. Russian bombs and maybe even American bombs. Every city had its bombs."

  "When's the funeral?" someone asked in the background. There was no laughter, only silence. It was an extraordinarily insensitive joke. Except that it couldn't be a joke. There had to be a funeral when somebody died.

  But when billions of people were dead or dying?

  Carrolson sat down beside Patricia. "Office ink is all there is," she said laconically. "Wayne is gone, and our son. They're dead by now, I'm sure. You know, in a little while this is going to hurt like hell. Adjusting is going to be. . .” Her cheeks twitched, spotted red as if she were breaking out in a rash. "Rimskaya drank all the booze, the bastard."

  "I'm going to the library," Patricia said. "

  "Can't," Carrolson said. "Off limits."

  "I need something to do."