Footfall

“Is there anything we can do?” the President asked.

Carrell nodded to Je

“We can’t think of anything, sir. We could try to send ships, but—”

“But they still have lasers and flying crowbars,” President Coffey said. “Tell me, Major, is there anything to oppose them?”

“South African Commandos,” Je

“Don’t they have a regular army?”

“Yes, sir. They’ve always had the largest army on the continent. Most of it was on the seacoast.”

David Coffey ran both hands through his thi

“Sir, there is — or at least there was, when we still had communications — a Soviet army about three thousand miles north of their landing zone, but we don’t even know if they’ve heard about the invasion.”

And when we call Moscow, nobody answers. We can’t count on the Russians.

The President nodded wearily. “They’ll see something weird happening in the sky. Can you get a message to them?”

“I don’t know. Or if they’d believe anything we said.”

“Try, Admiral. So. There’s nothing we have that can drive them out?”

Admiral Carrell shrugged. “Nothing I know of. We have a few missile subs. We could order them to attack — except that we can not know the precise areas to strike, and we can be certain they have placed their laser battle stations to protect their troops.”

“It took everything we had — everything we and the Russians had — to burn them out of Kansas,” the President said. “I guess it’s obvious. We won’t throw them out of South Africa.”

Jesus. Is he giving up?

“So long as they control space they can do as they will, Admiral Carrell said. “Suppose we throw them out of Africa. There are millions of asteroids in the solar system. Perhaps the will drop the next one on Colorado Springs. Or perhaps they bring in a series of smaller ones to land in San Francisco Bay, Lake Michigan, Chesapeake Bay …”

“Admiral, must we surrender?”

Carrell snorted. “You’re in command, Mr. President. I’m from A

“But—”

“Archangel,” Admiral Carrell said.

Coffey snorted. “Do you really believe in a spacecraft powered by atomic bombs?”

“It has to work,” Carrel! said.

“You’re saying that’s our only hope.”

“I know of no other.”

“I see.” The President looked thoughtful. “So everything depends on keeping secrets. If they learn, if they so much as get a hint that—” He frowned. “I’ve forgotten. Bellingham?”

“Yes.”

“They blast Bellingham, and we’re finished. All right. If that’s our best hope, let’s protect it. I want a personal progress report. Je

“Sir?”

“Send Je

“Jack?”

“Yes, sir?”

“You must feel useless here.”

“Yes, sir. Hell, most of the time the only person who’s armed who can get within a mile of you is me.”

“You know security procedures. Go with Colonel Crichton and look into what they’ve set up at Bellingham.” The President ruined his hair again. “I should put on a swimsuit and go talk to the Dreamer Fithp.”

Je

He gri

Dawson appeared in the cell something more than an hour after the rest arrived. He was shaking. He looked about at several sets of more or less questioning eyes, and he said, “They want me to tell the Earth to surrender.”

The Russians’ eyes met. Arvid gri

“I won’t do it,” Wes Dawson said. “Vidkun Quisling, Pierre Laval, Benedict Arnold, I’d be remembered longer than any of them!”

Dmitri asked, “Why would you consider it?”

Wes flopped on his back on the padded aft wall. Looking at the featureless ceiling, he said, “There’s a symbol. It looks like a fi’ on its back. It means ‘Don’t bomb me.’ People can paint it on greenhouses and hospitals and trucks carrying food… like a Red Cross. But if they use it wrong, it’ll be rocks from the sky again.”

“If you do not speak, you ca

“Yeah. There was some other stuff. Threats, mostly. Another Foot.” Wes shuddered. “I won’t tell them that.”

“We have no evidence that they have other asteroids ready to drop,” Arvid said.

“They don’t need them. There are plenty more where they got that one,” Jeri said. “Or in the asteroid belt. It might take a few years, but they’ve got years. They’ve already spent, what…?”

“Fifteen years just since they reached the solar system. Sure they can bring another, and another. But it’s worse than that.”

Alice demanded, “What could be worse than another Foot?”

“They’ll go to the Moon,” Wes said. “They don’t need to to Saturn, or the asteroids! They’ve wiped us off the Moon. The gravity’s low, and they can get as much Moon rock as they want.”

No. God, why? Jeri wanted to curl into a tiny ball. “Wes, what will you do?”

“You tell me. I need help.”

And all the time they’re listening, watching, while we talk about it.

“Perhaps,” Arvid said, “just perhaps it would be better if you make this speech. It would have to be carefully done. We could help you prepare.” He looked significantly at Wes.

“They want me to talk the human race into surrendering! They’ll tell me what to say. If I say something else, they’ll cut me off. What’s the good of that?”

Arvid glanced casually at the watching camera. “One must paraphrase.”

A long moment passed. Then Wes mused, “Of course, the fithp will need help with their phrasing. Their English isn’t that good…”

“But yours is.”

The rest were asleep. Alice curled in a protective ball, one arm thrown across her face, the other reaching to clutch the wall rung. They had never been given blankets; they slept in the clothes they wore. Thuktun Flishithy had gone over to spin gravity, and Alice could feel an eccentricity, a wobble. Dmitri snored with a sound like complaint. Alice uncurled. The hell with it.

Congressman Dawson slept a few feet from the rest, on his side, with his head pillowed on one arm. Alice watched him, Sleeping, he looked quite harmless. Yet he frowned in his sleep “Foot,” he muttered. “Feet. Giant mee… meteoroid imp. .”

Everybody in Me

And if she hadn’t been sent to a girls’ high school, she might have grown used to… persons of the male persuasion. She’d have known how to handle them, like other women did. If her parents — “Dinosaurs. Oh, God, like the dinosaurs…” Dawson said in a breathy moan. Alice had never seen a man whimper.

Poor bastard. He could tell the world how to safeguard their food and hospitals, but what would they remember? Wes Dawson urging them to surrender to the horrors. Wes Dawson, traitor. Unfair! Learning what the horrors had pla