Footfall

She didn’t look back as they drove out of the town.

15. THE WHEAT FIELDS

When even lovers find their peace at last,

And Earth is but a star, that once had shone.

They were through the last of the foothills and into the rolling prairies of Kansas , a land of straight roads and small towns. Wheat and cornfields made the landscape monotonous. Whenever they stopped, the hot winds and bright sunshine drove them back into motion again.

Conversation was impossible over the noise of the motorcycle. The radio had nothing to say. Harry drove mindlessly, trying not to think of his back and the cramps in his legs. Fantasies came easily.

Jeri’s a right pretty woman, and she’s all alone. Don’t know what she’ll do in Kansas . Maybe there wouldn’t be enough rooms. They’d have to share a room and a bed, and the first night he could just hold her, and—

Part of his mind knew better, but the thoughts were more pleasant than his back pains.

— =

Dighton , Kansas , was forty miles ahead. The engine sputtered, and Harry switched to the reserve tank. They’d just make it, with a dozen miles to spare. Good enough, thought Harry. Good enough. There was a smaller city four miles away. Logan , Kansas . Nothing to stop there for—

There was a bright flash ahead and to the left. “Holy shit!” Harry shouted. He clamped the brakes, skidding the bike to a halt. “Off! Off and down!” He’d heard George and Vicki’s lectures too.

Jeri and Melissa threw themselves into the ditch alongside the road. Harry laid the motorcycle down. He found he’d been counting. It was nearly a minute before thunder rolled over them. There wasn’t any shock wave.

“Ten, twelve miles,” Harry said.

“We were closer to the other one,” Melissa said. She was trying to look brave and calm, but she was having trouble forgetting that she was a ten-year-old girl who’d been protected all her life.

There were more rumblings, a series of sonic booms, and the sky was full of sound.

“What in hell is worth bombing here?” Harry asked.

Jeri sat up. She shook her head. “I don’t — Harry!” She pointed up. Something dart-shaped crossed the sky, high up, glowing orange at the nose and leaving a wavery vapor trail. “What is that?”

Harry shook his head. The fading vapor trail curled and twisted. Winds did that in the high stratosphere. “Russian? Not like any American plane I ever saw.” They looked at each other in wonder. “Naw,” Harry said. “It couldn’t be.”

The craft was already too small to see … until it began blinking, pulsing in harsh blue pinpoints of light, like the lights Harry had seen that first night.

Dust motes were drifting out of the vapor trail.

Another ship crossed the bright sky, and another, on skewed paths. Dust sifted from the vapor trails. The motes left by the first ship were growing larger, becoming distinct dots. Harry watched with his knees in ditch water. A fourth ship … and the first two were pulsing now, pulling away.

They must be much larger than they seemed. Thirty miles up or more: they had to be that high, given what they were doing. They were streaking through the high atmosphere at near-orbital speed, dropping clouds of … dots, then accelerating free of Earth. So. Dots?

The fourth ship wasn’t pulsing. It was turning, banking in a wide arc.

The dots had become falling soap bubbles, and the lowest of them were breaking open. Hatching. Hatching winged things—

“Paratroopers,” Melissa said. Her voice held wonder. “Mom, they’re invading!”

At nearly sixty-four makasrupkithp of altitude[] the troposphere tore at the hull, blasting the digit ship with flame. Its mass seemed no more protection than the transparent bag around Octuple Leader Chintithpit-mang. The planet was all of his environment, vast beyond imagination, and dreadfully close.

[] {Thirty to thirty-five miles. (A standard trunklength or srupk = 5.8 feet = 176.78 cm = 1.77 meters. 512 skrupkithp = 1 makasrupk = 905.13 meters.)}

He was one in eight rows of sixty-four bubbles each, and each flaccid bubble held a fi’, his face hidden by an oxygen mask. He was first in his line, with the transparent door just a srupk from his face.

They were holding up well. Why not? The lowest ranks were all sleepers. A planet was nothing new to a sleeper. This must be like homecoming to them. As for the spaceborn, the Octuple Leaders and higher ranks, how could they let the sleepers see their fear? And yet—

Aft is raw chaos, a roiling white fog of vapor trail. But look down, where greens and blues and browns sweep beneath. Here the patterns are equally random, for worlds happen by accident, and there is no sign of mind imposing order. Layers of curdled water vapor almost make patterns. They seem more real, more solid, than the land. The snaky curve of yonder river holds more water than is stored in all of Message Bearer. Any one in that line of mountains they’d crossed a few 64-breaths ago would outmass the Foot itself—

“Octuples, you disembark now.”

Octuple Leader Chintithpit-mang’s breathing became shallow, fast.

He had been born in the year that Thuktun Flishithy rounded this world’s primary star. The Year Zero Herd had all been born within a couple of eight-days of each other — naturally — and that age group was closer than most. One and all, males and females, they were dissidents. They had no use for worlds.

Chintithpit-mang fiercely resented the Herdmaster’s splitting of the Year Zero Herd. He did not want to be here.

The aft door cracked. Air hissed away. The bubbles grew taut. The door folded outward while the chamber filled with a thin singing: troposphere ripping at the digit ship. A line of bubbles streamed out, sixty-four fithp falling above the fluffy cloudscape. Another stream of bubbles followed them. Then — The Octuple Leader was first in line, of course.

Falling meant nothing to Chintithpit-mang. It was the buffeting that held him in terror. The survival bubbles dropped through the troposphere, slowing. The digit ship shrank to a dot … and presently began pulsing, accelerating, pushing itself back to orbit.

The buffeting increased. Thicker air. The shape of the land was taking on detail. There, the crater that was both landmark and first strike; beyond, the village that was their target. Chintithpit-mang watched the numbers dropping on his altimeter.

Now. He opened the zipper. Air puffed away. He crawled out of the fabric and let it fall away into the wind. The land was yellow and brown, crossed by a white line of road, and now was a good time to learn if his flexwing would open.

It popped out by itself, and dragged at the air, unfolding as pressurized gas filled the struts. His senses spun as blood tried to settle into his feet. The landing shoe on a hind foot had been jerked almost loose. He bent his head and stretched to adjust it; his digits would just reach that far.

The shoes prisoned his toes: big, clumsy platforms of foamed material that would flatten on impact so that the bones of his feet would not likewise flatten.

He looked for other flexwings. The colors of his Octuple were rose and black and green. He found six others and steered toward them. One missing. Where?

The land drifted: He steered above the road that the crater had broken, then along the road toward the city. Six flexwings moved into line behind him. Still one missing. And no way to avoid the ground now. The planet was all there was.

Details expanded. Three dots scrambled from a tiny vehicle to lie by the side of the road. He steered toward them. They grew larger, LARGER! Chintithpit-mang bellowed and pulled back in his harness to catch more air in his flexwing, increasing lift, striving desperately to avoid contact with the planet.