Moonstruck. Part 25

and wherever, we saved the world from megadeaths, to be followed by radioactive fallout and maybe nuclear winter. We suffered hundreds of casualties stopping it all."

"So we say." McDowell raised his hand. "Don't shoot the messenger. If you're a subsistence farmer or

sweatshop worker in a Third World h.e.l.l hole, would you believe aliens came from another star to meddle in human politics?"

"You think we should have revealed the aliens tried to destroy us for their movie?" "Despite being the truth, that is even less believable. What's our evidence? Shot-up F'thk robots just prove the aliens were wise not to leave their ship in person. Swelk's debriefing videos? Since her responses came from a translator gadget, anyone skeptical will 'know' the tapes were dubbed." Nate shook his head. "How many Americans believe the Apollo landings were staged? No, the Krulirim first-level deception-that balance-of-power issues in their Galactic Commonwealth made Earth expendable-remains our best bet. There are lots of countries whose politicians were part of the F'thk whispering campaign."

"Do these fools think Atlantis blew itself up, that our early-warning satellites spontaneously fried themselves? Why, in G.o.d's name, do they suppose we attacked the aliens?" McDowell finally settled into a chair. "You know why, Hal, unpalatable as it sounds. For very good reasons, we and the Russians mock-waged Cold War II. For our gambit to succeed, that mutual hostility had to be believable-and it was. We have the casualties to prove it. You can't expect everyone to suddenly believe we were kidding.

"Details vary from version to version, but here's what most people, including Americans, think. The Twenty-Minute War was our misguided attempt to turn Cold War Two hot. Radioactively hot. Benevolent aliens did their best to protect Earth from our folly, downing our missiles and slagging launching sites. In retaliation, or to disrupt the alien meddling, we killed the ETs we could reach. The other aliens, those aboard the moon-orbiting mother ship, left in disgust."

Robeson jammed his hands into his pockets-the President can't be seen plopping his head wearily into his cupped hands, not even by his oldest confidant. Too bad. "If the aliens are the heroes, what do the rioters think holds us back now? We have plenty of missiles left."

"They think," said McDowell, "we came momentarily to our senses. And that they'd better keep our minds focused." A muted screen changed scenes, from the humanity-filled Tiananmen Square to the besieged American emba.s.sy in Jakarta. "Or that the quasi-coup in Moscow cooled things down."

Robeson shivered. It had been so close. Dmitri Chernykov had failed in the first requirement of an officeholder: knowing how secure was his grip on power. He was supposed to have had another few days before the nationalists made their move. "Will their new coalition hold?"

"Nam was simpler, wasn't it?" McDowell was standing again, holding a Marine Corps-era snapshot of them he'd taken off a bookshelf. "Ending a firefight unshot and uncaptured meant things were fine." He put back the photo. "My Russia experts say the power-sharing pact may be stable. The nationalists in the coalition seem fervently to believe the credible disinformation about a shooting war. In their eyes, Chernykov is a hero for lobbing nukes at us. That said, near-immolation is a bit scary. They're content to let things simmer down. America, goes the current thinking, knows better now than to try pushing around Mother Russia."

"Meaning Chernykov must pretend belligerence. It keeps getting better." Robeson took a bottle of spring water from the well-concealed mini-refrigerator. "Something for you?"

"Got anything harder?" To Robeson's glance at a clock, Nate added, "It's late enough in London." "What did the Brits do now? Don't tell me they don't accept the truth." Robeson splashed liquor into a gla.s.s. His reach for the water carafe drew a frown; he delivered the scotch neat. Something bad was coming.

"To paraphrase a former occupant of this office, it depends what your definition of 'accept' is. Recognize the validity of our data, yes. Believe what we say transpired, yes." McDowell took a long swallow.

"Understand why they weren't party to the deliberations? Show willingness to come to terms with their exclusion? Not . . . a . . . chance."

Flashes of color outside the Oval Office window caught his eye. The first was his visiting three-year-old

granddaughter, who had, she'd proclaimed at breakfast, dressed herself. He had to laugh. Brittany had on lime-green pants, a maroon-and-gray plaid shirt, and yellow sneakers. A broken kite dragged and bounced behind her. His daughter and two Secret Service agents tagged along. He tore his eyes away. "Go on, Nate."

"It's more than the Brits. France, Germany, Canada, j.a.pan . . . pick your loyal ally. They're all outraged." Another swig. "As a diplomat, I understand. Not consulting a long-time partner is bad enough. They don't much like the explanation: we considered telling them what was really happening an unacceptable security risk. They can't handle that, for the best of reasons, I grant you, we flat-out lied to them." McDowell drained the gla.s.s. "I lied to them."

"No more than did I."

Nate stared into the empty tumbler, looking old. At long last he said, "The difference is, you were elected.""No." The suggestion was too horrible to consider. "You're not resigning.""Yes, I am. America's best friends have a real problem with us. We've lost credibility, and only something dramatic will show our contrition. They want proof of our remorse." McDowell poured a refill. "It's for the greater good."

"Your resignation is not accepted. I need your help, Nate."

"Then take it. My considered opinion is I'm expendable." McDowell waved at Brittany, skipping past the window again. "I have grandkids, too. You'll be doing me a favor."

"I didn't become President to sacrifice my friends." In meaningless symbolic atonement, Robeson's

thoughts continued. At that instant, he truly hated his job."But you will." McDowell's smile was worldly-wise, as if reading his mind. "I don't recall the Const.i.tution making you the planet's guardian, either-but you are."

"Pour me a shot," Robeson said. They both knew that meant, "Yes." * * * The spring day was delightful. Only a few high clouds scudded across a blue sky. Flowering trees were in full bloom; the air was thick with pollen; the gentle breeze was warm. Elementary-school students streamed by, teachers and parental escorts shushing and herding.

Nuclear war and alien Armageddon alike seemed as unreal as snow.

"Great place," said Kyle. He sat beside Darlene on a bench at the National Zoo, the new Girillian habitat

before them. That exhibit's popularity was in no way reduced by complete ignorance where Girillia was. The snaking queue of tourists extended well past the sign that read: three hours wait from this point. The adjacent Panda House, home of the zoo's famous Chinese great pandas, was for the first time in Kyle's knowledge without its own line.

"Lovely." Darlene brushed an errant lock of hair from her eyes. "Swelk would've approved."

Nearby, an elephant trumpeted. A swampbeast-almost certainly Smelly, Kyle thought-boisterously harrumphed back. Not a day had pa.s.sed since the near-apocalypse at Reagan National that he did not think of Swelk, but visiting her charges here was especially wrenching. "I made a promise, the day we met. She was channel surfing at my house while I made arrangements for her. She asked to see elephants."

"It's not your fault, Kyle."

"She specifically sought my help. If not my fault, then whose?" As close as he and Dar had become in their grief, the silence stretched awkwardly. Kyle found himself studying the faint lunar crescent,

scarcely visible in the day sky. "I don't know that Krulirim ever wear shoes, but I keeping waiting for a huge boot to drop.""They're gone, Kyle. All gone. The hologram of the mother ship disappeared-you know this-while . . .

while the ship was burning. The satellites they left behind are inert."He understood the catch in Dar's throat: she could as accurately have identified that instant as just before Swelk's death. Delta Force surveillance cameras had captured the brief appearance amid the flames of an antenna. Much a.n.a.lysis later, he knew the dish had been aimed at the moon. Something had been transmitted: the mother ship had vanished seconds later. "In a way, I wish we had been better able to hear those last exchanges on the bridge." And in a way, that would have made their helpless witnessing of Swelk's death yet more painful . . . even though it seemed she pa.s.sed away entirely at peace. "Whatever the reason-the crackling flames, or Grelben and Swelk coughing from the smoke, or overheating of the hidden computer through which we eavesdropped-so much that we heard was garbled, incomplete.

"What was in the file 'Clean Slate'? Steps to reverse however much of the damage they could? Or some

sort of doomsday device?" Despite the balmy weather, he shivered.

"Kyle, you'll drive yourself crazy." She squeezed his hand. "Why don't we go see the girls?" Dar had adopted Swelk's kittens, now eight months old.He squeezed back. "I'd like that." And I like you, though he wasn't prepared to explore that feeling. He didn't think she was quite ready either. But there would come a time . . .

Strolling together to the subway station, Kyle tried hard not to stare up at the ghostly moon. On that lifeless world, so central to the aliens' deceptions, he somehow knew Earth's future would be determined.

CHAPTER 31.

The legendary courtier Damocles is said to have reveled at a royal banquet, oblivious to the sword suspended above him by a single hair. Humanity, in celebrating its escape from the plot of hostile Krulirim, may be as recklessly un.o.bservant as was Damocles. Like Damocles, extreme peril hangs, unnoticed, just over our heads and beyond our reach.

-excerpt from "The Continuing Danger from Krulchukor Artifacts"

(Cla.s.sified national-security briefing to the President)

* * * The sword of Damocles was a later conceit. The comparison with which Kyle first vocalized his resurgent dread was less elegant, and far less flattering to his species.

Inch-thick salmon steaks, crusted with black pepper, sizzled on the grill. Mesquite smoke rose from a bed of perfect red-hot coals. Chirps and warbles filled the air. An ice dam collapsed in the chrome bucket in which a champagne bottle was chilling for the meal, the melting cubes settling with a lyrical tinkle into new positions.

If only things were as idyllic as they appeared.

"I like it." Britt's sweeping gaze encompa.s.sed the old fieldstone house, the rough-surfaced redbrick terrace framed in ma.s.sive weathered timbers, the ranks of pine and mountain ash and dogwood in full

flower that graced the nearby hillside. Kyle's other guests were at that moment hiking up that steep slope. "Very calming."

"Thanks, boss." Kyle expertly flipped the salmon as he tried to imagine a segue into what was bothering

him. Darlene had succeeded, at his instigation, in drawing those other guests, the balance of the erstwhile crisis task force, from earshot. The more time he spent with her, the more glaring were his own rough edges. How would she-had she known-bring this up?

He needn't have worried.

"We've been colleagues how long?" Britt nibbled on a deviled egg. "This is my first time here. And, no offense, you're an every-silver-lining-has-a-cloud sort of guy . . . not to deny that your annoying

pessimism all too often turns out to be annoying realism. In short, you're the last member of our merry band I'd expect to host a victory party. What is this really about?"Still unsure how to begin, Kyle pondered the salmon sizzling on the grill. "It's like shooting fish in a barrel," he blurted. "And we're the fish." In plain English, that was the unnerving conclusion of weeks of

confidential research.

Darlene, Erin Fitzhugh, and Ryan Bauer emerged into the clearing on the crest of nearby Krieger Ridge.

From where they stood, the burned-out site of Swelk's arrival remained evident. All recognizable fragments of the lifeboat had long ago been taken to the Franklin Ridge lab. Good job, Dar: they'd be away long enough to cover the basics.

"Would you mind elucidating, Kyle?"

"The Krulchukor weapon platforms. They're orbiting over our heads, beyond our reach. They're quiescent, but we can't know what may set them off again." Now that the topic was broached, icy calm settled over him. He was as certain of this a.n.a.lysis as any work he'd ever done. "Ever ask Ryan about his fear of flying?"

"Care to pick up the pace? I imagine you arranged our friends' absence to speak alone with me. They'll

surely be back for dinner soon."Guilty as charged. "The masersats have been quiet since the destruction of the Consensus. We've taken that to mean the starship controlled them. No starship, no threat. But that was only inference. People at the lab have been poring over the records from that day. We can't interpret the radio signals from the Consensus, but there is no obvious time correlation between messages and maser blasts. We witnessed several smooth hand-offs of attack roles as Earth's rotation took some satellites out of line-of-sight of their targets. And we now know the masersats didn't all stop shooting at once." Kyle suppressed an irrelevant twinge of cognitive dissonance at calling the tactical transfers hand-offs. Krulirim did not exactly have hands.

"And this means?"

"It suggests that the satellites have autonomous capability. That worries me. And we can see from Swelk's translation program, and dealings with the F'thk robots, that Krulirim have better language- understanding software than humans. Natural language understanding is one of the largely unmet

challenges of artificial-intelligence research. The observations all confirm Swelk's claims of widespread AI usage at home, technology far beyond anything we have."

A wind gust riffled Britt's hair as he thought. "Then why did the masersats stop firing? What would

make them start again?""Now I'm drawing my own inferences. There might have been multiple causes for the halt. First, we were attacking the masersats as best we could. We probably damaged or destroyed a few. Meanwhile, and second, some masersats might just have hit all their preprogrammed targets. Before stopping, they'd already destroyed our and the Russians' experimental ground-based ABM/antisatellite laser facilities. They'd obliterated the International s.p.a.ce Station"-thankfully abandoned since shortly after the Atlantis disaster-"and far too many other satellites. They'd nailed dozens of ICBMs in flight, missiles we'd retasked as antisatellite weapons, then fried the silos those rockets launched from." Kyle scowled in remembrance of the casualties.

"Point three. The masersats are solar-powered. Even one microwave blast uses lots of stored energy.

Infrared observations during the a.s.sault suggest some masersats were temporarily drained. They would

have had to recharge before they could fire again."The Krulirim didn't expect our ambush. My hypothesis is that the masersats were in an automatic self-defense mode. Once they hit all preprogrammed targets"-like, presumably, the innocent, sitting duck of a s.p.a.ce station-"and once we stopped providing targets of opportunity by firing at them, there was nothing obvious left to shoot at. Who knows what activity, what overheard radio chatter, AIs on the satellites might interpret, or misinterpret, as threatening? Who's to say under what circ.u.mstances they can self-designate new targets?"

Kyle rushed on. "And we still don't know the meaning of 'Clean Slate.' Or what the Krulirim did on the moon. We must go there, we have to."Britt's beer stein shattered on the patio. Kyle stared. His boss never lost his temper.

"No." Widened eyes revealed Britt's self-amazement. "Kyle, there are limits."

"But we don't . . ."

"I said, no. Do you honestly believe Nate McDowell wants to retire right now? Do you understand what