Footfall

“Perhaps,” Arvid said.

“And then-excuse me,” Dmitri said. He spoke rapidly in Russian. After a while the Russians moved away to their own corner, leaving Wes Dawson alone again.

They don’t trust me. I might do something to warn the aliens. At least I have a few answers. I need answers!

Nat Reynolds could remember exactly when he got into trouble. It started the second morning after the aliens blew up Cosmograd, ending the science-fiction convention where he was guest of honor, and stranding him in Kansas City . He was sitting in Dolly Jordan’s breakfast room, with good coffee and eggs su

Why couldn’t it have been Wells’ martians? We’d have had ’em in zoos inside of twenty-four hours.

“There’s somebody here to see you,” Dolly Jordan had said. She set another plate and a coffee cup at the table.

Nat looked up with irritation. Someone he’d met at the OZcon? But the man Dolly led into her breakfast room didn’t have the look. He was too old (although there were older science-fiction fans) and too well dressed (although some fans dressed well), and what was it? He just didn’t have that sensitive fa

“I’ve looked all over for you,” the man said. “Hah. You don’t remember me, do you? I’m Roger Brooks. Washington Post.”

You’d think the press would know by now: no science-fiction writer can be expected to function before noon. Nat shook his head. “I have a lousy memory.”

“It’s all right. Mind if I sit down?”

“Dolly already set a place for you.”

Brooks sat. Dolly appeared with a coffeepot. She was plump and cheerful, and smart enough not to chatter in the morning. After she filled Brooks’s cup, she went back to the kitchen, leaving them alone.

“Why were you looking for me?” Reynolds asked.

“Because you probably know where the government is.”

Reynolds shook his head in confusion.

“Just before the aliens arrived, all the science-fiction writers vanished,” Brooks explained. “At least all the hard science-fiction writers did.”

“Oho!”

“You do know something.” Brooks leaned forward eagerly. “What?”

“Nothing real,” Nat said. “A month or so ago, Wade Curtis called. Asked where I’d be when the aliens arrived. When I told him I’d be Guest of Honor at OZcon, he changed the subject.”

“And that’s all?”

“Yeah. Wade wouldn’t ask me to violate that kind of promise. What’s this about the government?”

“The President left Washington two hours after the aliens blew up Kosmograd,” Brooks said. “By yesterday morning, the Cabinet and most of the Pentagon brass were gone.” Brooks shrugged. “No stories left in Washington . Nobody there knows what’s happening.”

“So you came looking for me?”

“Yeah.’ The writers vanished a couple of weeks ago. Then just before the aliens arrived, the President sent an important intelligence officer to Colorado to talk to them. I figure that’s where the government went, to Cheye

“Sorry you went to so much trouble for nothing—”

“Maybe not for nothing,” Brooks said. “Look, the writers are in Cheye

I don’t have any invitation to Cheye

And I always sign too many book contracts. I have trouble saying no. If I were a woman I’d be pregnant all the time.

Reynolds stood at a second-story window at Collins Street . The apartment building was separated from the street by a wide grassy strip. The buildings were old brick, with a new McDonald’s just down the block.

They were in Lauren , Kansas , somewhere near Topeka . He’d never been in the town before, and didn’t want to be here now, but there wasn’t much choice, because while they were driving across Kansas the sky erupted with paper airplanes carrying baby elephants.

He’d met Carol North at the convention, and his address book showed she lived in Lauren , Kansas . They’d gone to her apartment. We could have kept on driving. There can’t be that many aliens. They can’t be everywhere…

Instead they’d parked in an underground lot and waited.

The invaders came.

A ceremony, Reynolds thought. It even makes sense. Humiliating, but it makes sense. And once they’ve put you through that, they leave you alone.

What do they want?

Reynolds turned back to the window. In the street outside, three men hid among the trash cans behind the McDonald’s. They’d laid di

“You had to tell them,” Reynolds said.

“It was a story I’d heard from the Hungarian uprising. How did I know they’d try it?”

“Bat turds, Roger! George Bergson was itching to kill an alien, so you told him how! You knew he’d try it if it killed him. It will, and we’re too close. What if they bomb this building?”

Roger Brooks shrugged. “George promised they wouldn’t to anything to call attention to this place.”

“He’s going to get himself killed,” Reynolds said. “And probably us with him.”

“Stop saying that,” Carol North said. “Please stop saying that.”

“Okay.” But it doesn’t change anything. Your friend is doomed, lady. A thought came unbidden. She’d come to his, room at the convention. Her relationship with George Bergson was clearly an open one. Would she be faithful to his memory once he got killed? That could be inconvenient.

The roaring grew louder. “They’re coming,” Roger said. “The snouts are coming …” He stayed well back in the room and aimed his camera out toward the di

Two large armored vehicles came into view. They floated a foot or more off the road surface. Their crews were invisible inside.

It’ll be okay. George will kill some invaders and live through it, and we’ll all learn levitation and fly to safety. Right? But Nat’s belly and guts were knotted in fear. He heard Roger say, “It worked in Budapest …”

The first ground effect vehicle approached the line of di

George Bergson and his friends stood and threw their bottles at the armored vehicles. Two of the bottles hit the lead tank, and burst into flames, Flame spread across the vehicle, and rivers of fire ran off its sides and were dispersed by the ground effect fan. There was a high-pitched whine and grinding noises, and the vehicle fell heavily to the roadway.

Two more gasoline bombs arced out.

The second vehicle began rapid fire. Holes the size of baseballs appeared in the buildings behind Bergson and his crew. The men dashed behind the McDonald’s building.

The gunfire continued, The McDonald’s building was chopped nearly in half. The upper part of the building fell into the lower part.

From somewhere far above a beam of greenish light speared the McDonald’s building. The wreckage exploded in flame. The green light-pencil drew an expanding spiral around the pillar of flame, first tightly, then in ever-spreading arcs that grew and grew…

Reynolds dived away from the window.

There was the sound of crashing glass. The tank outside continued to fire, and two large holes appeared in the wall in front of him. Carol and Roger Brooks dove into the hallway. Carol lay next to Reynolds. “Jesus,” she whispered. “Jesus Christ. They’re killing everybody-you knew!”