Odd, how the silence spread in a growing circle.
“Leonilla Malik. An M.D., so we don’t have to take a doc.” Johnny Baker raised his voice for a wider audience. “It’s definite, the Russians are sending her up, and we’ll dock with their Soyuz. My source is confidential, but reliable as hell.”
“Maybe,” said Drew Wellen, and he was the only one talking, “maybe they think they have something to prove.”
“Maybe we do too,” someone said.
Rick felt it like a soft explosion in his belly. Nobody had promised him anything at all, but he knew. He said, “Why is everybody suddenly staring at me?”
“You’re burning the hamburgers,” said Johnny.
Rick looked down at the smoking meat. “Burn, baby. Burn,” he said.
At three in the morning Loretta Randall followed strange sounds into the kitchen.
Yesterday’s newspaper was spread across the middle of the kitchen floor. Her largest rectangular cake pan was in the middle, and was filled with a layer of flour. Flour had sprayed across the newspaper and beyond its edges. Harvey was throwing things into the cake pan. He looked tired, and sad.
Loretta said, “My God, Harvey! What are you doing?”
“Hi. The maid’s coming tomorrow, isn’t she?”
“Yes, of course, it’s Friday, but what will she think?”
“Dr. Sharps says that all craters are circular.” Harvey posed above the cake pan with a lug nut in his fingers; he let it drop. Flour sprayed. “Whatever the velocity or the mass or the angle of flight of a meteor, it leaves a circle. I think he’s right.”
The flour was scattered with shelled peas and bits of gravel. A paperweight had left a dinner-plate-size circle now nearly obliterated by smaller craters. Harvey backed away, crouched, and hurled a bottle cap at a low angle. Flour sprayed across the paper. The new crater was a circle.
Loretta sighed with the knowledge that her husband was mad. “But, Harvey, why this? Do you know what time it is?”
“But if he’s right, then…” Harvey glanced at the globe he had brought from his office. He had outlined circles in Magic Marker the Sea of Japan, the Bay of Bengal, the arc of islands that mark the Indies Sea, a double circle within the Gulf of Mexico. If an asteroid strike had made any one of those, the oceans would have boiled, all life would have been cremated. How often had life begun on Earth, and been scalded from its face, and formed again?
If he could explain succinctly enough, Loretta would lie awake in terror until dawn. “Never mind,” he said. “It’s for the documentary.”
“Come to bed. We’ll clean this up in the morning, before Maria gets here.”
“No, don’t touch it. Don’t let her move it. I want photographs … from a lot of angles…” He leaned groggily against her, their hips bumping as they returned to bed.
Apriclass="underline" Two
No one knows how many objects ranging in size from a few miles in diameter downward may pass near the Earth each year without being noticed.
Tim Hamner was waiting by the TravelAII when Harvey came out of the studio building. Harvey frowned. “Hello, Tim. What are you doing out here?”
“If I go inside, it’s a sponsor calling, and that’s a big deal, right? I don’t want a big deal. I want a favor.”
“Favor?”
“Buy me a drink and I’ll tell you about it.”
Harvey eyed Tim’s expensive suit and tie. Not really appropriate for the Security First. He drove to the Brown Derby. The parking attendant recognized Tim Hamner, and so did the hostess; she led them in immediately.
“Okay, what’s it about?” Harvey asked when they had a booth.
“I liked being out at JPL with you,” Hamner said. “I’ve sort of lost control of my comet. Nothing I can do the experts can’t do better, and the same with the TV series. And it is your series. But…” Tim paused to sip his drink. He wasn’t used to asking for favors, especially from people who worked for him. “Harvey, I’d like to come along on more interviews. Unpaid, of course.”
Oh, shit. What happens if I tell him it can’t be done? Will he talk to his agency? I sure as hell don’t need a test of strength just now. “It’s not always so exciting, you know. Right now we’re doing man-in-the-street interviews.”
“Aren’t those pretty dull?”
“They can be. But sometimes you get pure gold. And it doesn’t hurt to check in with the viewers now and then.” And I work my way, goddammit!
“What are you looking for? Can you use much of it?”
Harvey shrugged. “I won’t throw away good film — but that’s not the point. I want attitudes. I want the unexpected. If I knew what I was after, I could have someone else do it. And…”
“Yeah?” Tim’s eyes narrowed in the dim light. He’d seen a funny expression on Randall’s face.
“Well, there are strange reactions I don’t understand. They started after Johnny called it the Hammer—”
“Damn him!”
“And they’ll probably get stronger after we air the Great Hot Fudge Sundae strike. Tim, it’s almost as if a lot of people wanted the end of the world.”
“But that’s ridiculous.”
“Maybe. But we’re getting it.” Ridiculous to you, Harvey thought. Not so ridiculous to a man trapped in a job he hates, or a woman forced to sleep with a slob of a boss to keep her job… “Look, you’re the sponsor. I can’t stop you, but I insist on making the rules. Also, we start early in the mornings—”
“Yeah.” Tim drained his glass. “I’ll get used to it. They say you can get used to hanging if you hang long enough.”
The TravelAII was crammed full of gear and people. Cameras, tape equipment, a portable field desk for paper work. Mark Czescu had trouble finding a place to sit. Now there were three in back, since Hamner claimed the front seat. Mark was reminded of trips out to the desert with the dedicated bike racers: motorcycles and mechanic’s equipment braced with care, riders shoved in as afterthought. As he waited for the others to come out of the studio building, Mark turned on the radio.
An authoritative voice spoke with the compelling quality of the professional orator. “And this Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come. When ye therefore see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet stand in the holy place: then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains.” The voice quality changed, from reader to preacher. “My people, have you not seen what is now done in the churches? Is this not that abomination? ’Whoso readeth, let him understand.’ And the Hammer approaches! It comes to punish the wicked.
“’For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world unto this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days be shortened, there should be no flesh saved.’”
“Really lays it on,” a voice said behind Mark. Charlie Bascomb got into the TravelAII.
“The Gospel has been brought to you by the Reverend Henry Armitage,” the radio announcer said. “The Voice of God is broadcast in every language throughout the world in obedience to the commandment. Your contributions make these broadcasts possible.”
“Sure hear him a lot nowadays,” Mark said. “He must have a lot of new contributors.”