Footfall

Anson leaned forward in his chair, and Mailey noticed that the others stopped talking and turned toward him. “We’ll see enough,” he said.

“Sure,” one of the others said. “Bob, we trust hell out of you, but can’t you tell us what we’re doing here?”

“Ten minutes.” Anson looked up at Mailey. “That’s about how long it will take to get inside?”

Mailey nodded “Yes, sir.” Another one who’d been in the hole. They had that distinctive way of pronouncing the word. Inside. If you’d been there, you knew.

“Anyway,” Anson said, “we’ll learn as much, and as quickly, as anyone in the United States. Admiral Carrell assured me of that.”

The grins on the others were unmistakable, although some of the wives didn’t seem so happy about it.

“Sounds good,” someone said. “And an audience that wants to be told what to do, and can do it! Who could ask for more?”

Virginia Anson laughed in silver. Robert Anson leaned forward again, and again everyone else fell silent. I’ve seen generals get less respect than that, Mailey thought.

“What have you done with Nat Reynolds?” Anson asked Curtis. “I thought you two went everywhere together.”

“We have since his divorce,” Curtis said. “But he’s got a convention in Kansas. Yeah, I thought of that too, but where is he safe?”

He’d be safe Inside, Mailey thought. If there’s one safe place in the world, this is it.

The motors changed pitch and the helicopter descended.

Je

She’d only been Inside a few times, and it was still an awesome experience. The station wagon drove through doors the size of a house, then on into the mountain — And on, and on. Eventually it stopped and they entered an

elevator that had no difficulty holding all of them, with room for the station wagon if they’d wanted it.

No one was talking much. People didn’t, the first time.

The buildings sat on coil springs as tall as people. Except for the springs, and the granite walls overhead and everywhere, the buildings might have been standard military barracks and offices.

Je

The army troopers stood when she came in. So did Robert Anson, although Je

They waited while she went to the blackboard.

Then one of them said, “I suppose you’re all wondering why I’ve asked you here,” and everyone laughed. Which made it a lot easier.

“I suppose you are wondering,” Je

“Makes sense. Who else knows about aliens?”

She looked at her seating chart. Curtis. She nodded. “The first thing is to explain why you are here, rather than at the Academy with your colleagues and the anthropology professors. You are the Threat Team. The others will assume the aliens are friendly. Our group will examine the possibility that they will be hostile.”

Everyone looked thoughtful. Then a hand was raised. Je

“Do we have a choice in the assignment?”

“Not now,” Je

“Too bad.”

“I thought it valuable to have you with us, Sherry,” Anson said. “The rest of us are paranoid. You are not. It seemed reasonable to have one intelligent but trusting person on this team.”

Sherry Atkinson melted back into her seat.

“I’m afraid things will be a bit hectic,” Je

“There that much to know about the aliens?”

“Actually, Dr. Curtis, there is very little to know about the aliens. However, you are to be briefed on U.S. and USSR strategic weapons systems. One of the possibilities Admiral Carrell intends to examine is that the aliens make alliance with the Soviets. Against us.”

Academician Pavel Bondarev sat at his desk. His large leather chair was swiveled toward the window, with its view of the Black Sea. The weather outside was pleasant. It was pleasant inside the office as well. His secretary sat on his lap. Slowly she unbuttoned her blouse.

This was far better than he had expected! He had more power and prestige than he had ever imagined possible. To add to his joy, Marina and his grandson had vacationed on the shores of the Black Sea and were now on an airplane to Moscow.

It couldn’t last, of course. Soon the aliens would come, and things would change. He could only guess at how they would change.

He may have been the proper man for this task. I know few who could have done it, and of those, two are not reliable…

On his desk lay thick reports from the Soviet military leaders. The largest was the report of the Strategic Rocket Command. Bondarev had always known that the Soviet Union possessed thousands of intercontinental nuclear-tipped missiles; now he knew the location and targeting of every one of them.

He also knew their reliability, which was not high. Despite the full alert, nearly a quarter of the missile force was not in readiness, and the generals did not expect more than two thirds of those remaining to launch on the first attempt.

The reports contained information on which missiles could be retargeted and which could not. Of those, some could be aimed at objects in space, and some could be targeted only toward other points on the Earth, because their warheads could not be detonated until after re-entry. He had turned so that he wouldn’t have to look at those reports. Could he not keep his mind on Lorena for these few precious moments? But his mind ran on. He had a large force that could be used to engage the United States, and a small force that could fight an enemy in outer space if that became necessary. It was not possible to estimate what that force could do because they knew nothing of the onrushing alien spacecraft. What defenses did it have? How thick was its hull, and how close would it come to Earth?

All probably u

That would not be easy, because it was no simple task to combine the targeting information with the figures on readiness and reliability. The result would only be a probability. It is well that I am doing this. Few military officers would know how to do the mathematics. Nor would I be able to in time except for-.

He glanced at the table next to his desk. An American IBM home computer stood there. It was an excellent machine, simple to use, and it had come with a number of probability and statistics programs that he had adapted to this purpose.

“You have no need of that machine at this moment,” Lorena said firmly. She took his hand and guided it to her breast.

He had been expecting the telephone, but it startled him anyway. Pavel Bondarev disengaged his hand from within his secretary’s blouse. The ringing phone was on a secure line, permanently attached to a scrambler. He had been told that not even the KGB could listen to calls on that line. Pavel didn’t believe that, but it was well to act as if he did. He lifted the receiver. “Academician Bondarev.”

“Narovchatov. The Voice of America a

“I heard. There was no jamming.”

Narovchatov chuckled. “So long as they do our work, why should we interfere? But it is a good sign. They are not upset by our mobilizations.”