Kea's security split into three elements. One group took up a defensive perimeter around Kea, a second charged the ships, their task to make sure all the attackers were down. The third element quickly, skillfully, began searching the bodies and, after making sure the wounded were disarmed, dragging them toward a common collecting point. Kea watched, his mind suddenly dulled. After some time, his Head of Security approached. "Sir, I have a report."
"Go ahead."
"There were at least seventy-three invaders, possibly more. We don't know how many were aboard the ship. Twelve are still alive."
"Who are they?"
"No IDs on any of the bodies. The two that're talking claim they're indies, hired out of Pretoria by freelancers they'd worked with before. Neither of them know who's the original hire. Assuming that this was a for-hire hit, which I don't."
"Keep looking. Will your two injured stand up to interrogation?"
"Negative, sir. Not now, maybe not ever. Those thirty-mill rounds tear hell out of everything."
"Do you have a prog?"
"Not really," the security commander said slowly. "Maybe meres, working for one of your enemies. Maybe coverts that got sheep-dipped and this is a deniable black." Kea nodded. It could have been the Federation, Earthgov, Mars Council, or any of the supercorporations.
"What about the wounded, sir? I mean, after we've gotten whatever we can?" Kea hesitated, as an aide approached.
"Sir, we have a com from NewsTeam Eleven. Leda. They say they've gotten six calls reporting gunshots and explosions, and want to know what happened. They'd like to talk to you... and they want to dispatch a team."
Kea thought quickly. At first his reaction was to welcome the newsies. He'd have time to change into a bathrobe and bewildered expression, and throw a conference on the basis of Who Would Dare, Why Would Anyone Attack an Innocent? and so on and so forth. He reconsidered. "You can tell them that my security was conducting an extremely realistic exercise. They're welcome to send a newsteam—Ganymede is a free world—but they are not welcome to land on my property. As for me—I'm offplanet. Testing a new ship. You have no contact with me at the moment. You can tell them that when I return, you imagine, I would be willing to talk to them, although about what, you have no idea."
The aide blinked—a thickie, Richards thought—frowned, then scurried away. Kea turned back to his security commander. "Does that answer your question?"
"Yessir." The officer took his pistol from its holder, chambered a round, and walked toward the enemy-casualty collection point.
Kea walked out of the shambles and looked up, beyond the sky-filling bulk of Jupiter, his eyes going beyond, toward the settled worlds. Now we'll wait. Until someone whines. And then we'll know who my biggest enemy is.
But he never found out. There were not even rumors in the grayworld of the mercenaries.
Kea grew even more concerned. This attempt could have worked. And it wouldn't be the only one or the biggest. It had been handicapped because "They" wanted Richards alive. But sooner or later someone would determine that at least the status quo must be maintained—and surely one of Kea's people knew the secret of stardrive.
No one did, of course. But that would not bring Kea Rich ards back from the grave. He needed a miracle.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
THE MIRACLE ARRIVED in late spring. It was first observed and tracked by a Callisto-Mars Yukawa drive ship. It was an irregular chunk of rock not much more than a kilometer in diameter. It might have been considered a small asteroid, but its characteristics showed no semblance to the rocks tumbling beyond Mars. The navigator noted the orbit and roughly calculated the meteor's speed. He reported and forgot it. The report was logged, and the navigator's figures checked, rechecked, and extrapolated. The tech at MarsNavCentral blinked, swore, and ran the problem again.
The figures indicated that this chunk of interplanetary/stellar debris was on a collision track with Earth's moon, plus-minus 15 percent probability. The tech told his supervisor. His supervisor, realizing the navigation center's annual budget was up for review, commed the existence of this hurtling rock to a local vid science-news reporter. And the reporter's editor knew what buill ratings and sold ads: FLASH: Scientists Report a New Interstellar Meteor on a Collision Course with Luna! Superspeed Asteroid to Crash into Moon in 158 E-Days! Mars Entire Population in Jeopardy! Earth Itself Endangered!
Chaos and craziness, from scientists to the media to the public. Early on, a literate antiquarian named the rock Wanderer. The name was seized on as the only thing everyone agreed about as the Solar System's sanity level dropped like the long-ago ocean in Hilo Bay. Kea, from Ganymede, watched and read in growing amazement and concern.
Theories were offered. Studied. The Solar Federation set up an emergency headquarters on Mars, in the central Clarke complex. It took a week or so, but eventually enough pols had been reassured there'd be more than enough time and ships to evac them before Wanderer impacted. And then the speeches and the "viewing with concern" went on. A state of emergency was declared. But nothing was done. Worse, as the probable impact time grew closer, nothing was even suggested.
Should the Moon be evacuated? How? There were almost two million people living under its cratered desolation. And what about Earth's population? Should everyone move to high ground, in the assumption Earth would experience the most erratic and deadly tides in humankind's history? Words, words. No actions.
Kea had thought his cynicism to be unshakable in his belief that society, as presently constituted, could muck up a rock fight. He should have been unsurprised as the media hollered, the pols debated, the scientists chased ever-receding decimal points, and the people clamored. The clamor included new prophets preaching that the sins of the past were about to be paid for. Mobs who knew that the world was coming to an end, and therefore utter license should be the order of the day. Cops and soldiery who seemed more worried about the possibility of riots than what response they would have to catastrophe.
Words, and more words, as Doomsday grew nearer and nearer. There were even some utter stiffs who suggested nothing should be done. This was part of nature, was it not? Man had evolved through catastrophe. This was Intended to Happen. This would usher in the Next Level of Being. Intended by Whom varied from fruitbar to fruitbar.
Seventy-three days.
Kea sent for Doctor Masterson, his head scientist. He respected the man, as much for his pragmatism as for his ability to keep secrets and administer equally individualistic and iconoclastic scientists and technicians. Masterson ran his own prognoses: Prog: that Wanderer would collide with the Moon. 85 percent. Prog: that Wanderer would bankshot and crash Earth. 11 percent. Prog: that the Moon will shift its orbit closer to Earth. 67 percent. Prog: that the impact would be great enough to shatter Luna completely. 13 percent. Prog: that Wanderer would knock some fairly impressive chunks off the Moon. 54 percent.
Prog: that one or more of those moonlets could impact Earth. 81 percent.
The effects...
Kea did not need to listen. He was enough of a scientist to envision the radioactivity that would be produced if a decent-sized chunk of Luna, say about the size of Wanderer, hit land. And to consider the likelihood of great earthquakes and even the slight possibility of tectonic plateshift? Wanderer promised the cataclysm—but still no one proposed any action as it rushed onward. Pols were besieged with solutions, it was true, from using all the Solar System's rockets to push the Moon out of the way to building a great cannon that would blast Wanderer out of its lethal orbit. But none of them, even those that might be possible, were implemented. Studies were authorized. Military and police forces were put on alert.