“Man hasn’t recovered from something like this.”
“No? Well, I’ve got a book downstairs written by that Ester Thorn lady on CNN. She says an asteroid hit a glacier on this very continent about thirteen thousand years ago during the last ice age—the Younger Dryas, she calls it. She says that’s what killed off the woolly mammoth and the saber-toothed tiger.”
“Well, cavemen were a lot tougher than we are.”
“They weren’t tougher than me,” he said. “I’d kick a caveman’s ass.”
She laughed softly, as Kane stepped out onto the back porch.
“Jack! You might want to come down and have a look at the news. Things are really going to shit in a hurry. Federal troops are firing on civilians in New York and D.C.… and it sounds like China just invaded eastern Russia.”
Twenty-One
Ester Thorn took her eye away from the telescope at the Gemini Observatory and looked at Harold Shipman. “It’s so damn close now, just seeing it is enough to curdle an old woman’s blood.”
Shipman helped her to step aside so his friend from the local television network, Sam Ash, could have a look at the asteroid for himself.
When Ash peered through the eyepiece, what he saw reminded him somewhat of looking head-on at a spiraling football. If he blinked his eye, he could capture the briefest glimpse of a rocky-looking surface illuminated by the sun, but not much more. “It’s spinning wildly, isn’t it?”
“On a number of different axes,” Shipman said, “coming right at us at a hundred thousand miles an hour, made of almost solid iron… like an artillery shell.”
“An artillery shell as big as a town,” Ester grumbled, ambling off toward the office.
Ash followed them down the corridor. “Why do you suppose no one ever named it?”
“I suppose because why bother?” Shipman said. “No one knows who was the first to spot it, and that’s who typically names these things.”
“It’s the Chittenden Bolide,” insisted Ester, stopping in the office doorway and turning to rest on her cane. “But the world doesn’t need to hear that. Marty wasn’t looking for fame. He was looking to save lives. That’s why we’ve called you, Sam. We need your help with the media again.”
“You’ve got it. What do you need me to do?”
“We need a propagandist.” She smiled mirthlessly. “Up for it?”
“Well, I guess that depends,” he said with a glance at Shipman. “What am I propagandizing?”
“Opportunity!” she said. “In less than twelve hours the United States will be dead, and that’s going to leave us all alone out here on the ocean.”
“Where exactly is the opportunity in that?”
“In the Earth and its resources, primarily these islands and their waters. I don’t want to get all preachy with you, Sam, and I certainly don’t think we should get preachy with the people, but we’ve got a chance to get it right this time, and I’m willing to cheat to make that happen.”
Again Ash glanced briefly at Shipman. “Well, maybe you need to get a little preachy with me, Ester, because I’m not sure I follow you.”
“All right,” she began. “This has been a profit-based society for the last two hundred years, and that’s why we’re all about to die. Had this been a resource-based society… we would have stopped that asteroid a month ago—or even two months ago—because we’d have been prepared. So tonight we need you to go on TV and stress that very point. You accuse the government of allowing corporate greed to kill the Earth. You get the people angry, and by getting them angry you get them motivated to take action… Then you offer them a course of action to take.
“You tell them we’ll defy the failures of the past by working together to build a sustainable future this time, a future based on a partnership with this planet instead of endless exploitation. It won’t be an easy task, hell no, but nothing worthwhile ever is. Our inexcusable failure to stop this asteroid is testament enough to that.”
She tamped her cane once against the floor and stood looking sternly between the two men. “What do you say to that, Sam?”
Ash was thoughtful for a long moment. He rubbed his chin, then he cast his gaze back to Ester. “I can’t do it.”
“What do you mean, you can’t do it?” she demanded. “You’re in charge of the network! You’re saying you disagree?”
“I’m saying I can’t sell it.”
“Hogwash! All you have to do is put some passion behind it!”
Ash looked at Shipman and smiled. “Honestly, Harold, am I the person to sell this… ‘opportunity’?”
Shipman smiled back, shifting his weight. “No. No, I don’t think you are, after all.”
Ester turned on him angrily. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“We mean, Ester, that it’s got to be you. You’re the one who brought us this far, and I’m sorry, but you’re the one who’s going to have to take us the rest of the way.” Shipman looked at Ash. “How soon can you get her on the air?”
Ash shrugged. “Within the hour if we leave now.”
“Now, wait just a minute!” Ester protested as Ash stepped toward her. “I’m an old woman. I can’t start a movement. I don’t have the energy for it!”
Ash put his arm around her shoulder, preparing to lead her down the corridor. “Ester, forgive me for saying so, but that’s bullshit. You’ve already started it, and I’m afraid you’re just going to have to finish it.”
“I didn’t start a goddamn thing,” she griped, taking a reluctant step forward. “It was Marty Chittenden who started it, by God, and now I’m the one left holding the bag!”
Twenty-Two
During the final leg into Mesa, Marty kept the Jeep off the road. He drove parallel to the highway until the Mongols spotted them, then veered deep inland and southeast to terrain that was too rugged for the Harleys. By the time they got into town it was nearly dark, and judging by the loud music blaring from most of the houses, it seemed that the people in his neighborhood either didn’t believe the world was about to end or had decided to go out partying. People were drinking and carrying on, and a few were dancing naked in the middle of the street.
“Wow,” Susan said. “It’s like a rave.”
“It’s nice to see we’ve still got power.” He parked the car on the concrete drive and took the guns inside.
“I need a shower,” she said, dropping down on the couch.
“You’re in luck. I’ve got an electric water heater, but you’d better hurry because the power could go at any time.”
She stepped into the bedroom and crossed to the master bath, closing the door behind her. Marty heated them some canned soup, since the perishable food in the fridge had gone bad during his extended stay in California. She came from the bath a little while later and sat at the table in his robe, eating her soup. Her wet hair was wrapped in a towel, and he thought she looked so amazingly sexy sitting there in his robe that his throat tightened and it was difficult for him to swallow. He was about to compliment her but didn’t trust himself to conceal the intensity of his attraction, so he tried not to look at her as he ate.
“The water’s still hot,” she said, pulling the towel from her head and buffing her hair dry.
“Okay,” he said, his voice throaty. “Thanks.” He was recalling the sight of her naked breast at the rest stop earlier that day, the strawberry nipple, and was looking forward to getting a shower of his own. He got up and took the guns from the table with him into the bedroom, where he set them down on the dresser.
Susan followed him in and sat down on the bed. “Would you mind leaving the bathroom door open so we can talk? I’m still a little scared.”