Lucifer's Hammer - Larry Niven [104]
The picture stayed in Charlie Sharps's mind. Flashes in the Atlantic. Europe dotted with bright smears, all over, with a big one in the Mediterranean. A bright flash in the Gulf of Mexico. Any west of that wouldn't be visible to the Apollo, but Dan Forrester was playing with the computer. All the data they had, from any source, was supposed to go into it. Speakers were screaming. Several of them, on different channels, different sources, riding over the sudden static.
"FIREBALL OVERHEAD!" someone's voice shouted.
"Where was that?" Forrester called. His voice was just loud enough to go over the babble in the room.
"Apollo recovery fleet," came the answer. "And we've lost communications with them. Last words we got were: 'Fireball southeast.' Then 'Fireball overhead.' Then nothing."
"Thank you," Forrester said.
"Houston, HOUSTON, THERE IS A LARGE STRIKE IN THE GULF OF MEXICO; I SAY AGAIN, LARGE STRIKE THREE HUNDRED MILES SOUTHEAST OF YOU. REQUEST YOU SEND A HELICOPTER FOR OUR FAMILIES."
"Jesus, how can Baker be so calm about it?" someone demanded.
What damn fool is that? Sharps wondered. New man. Never heard the astronauts when there's a real problem. He glanced over to Forrester.
Dan Forrester nodded. "The Hammer has fallen," he said.
Then all the TV screens went blank, and the loudspeakers hissed with static.
Two thousand miles northeast of Pasadena, in a concrete-lined hole fifty feet below ground, Major Bennet Rosten idly fingered the .38 on his hip. He caught himself and put his hands on the Minuteman missile-launch-control console. They strayed restlessly for a moment, then one went to the key on its chain around his neck. Bloody hell, Rosten thought. The Old Man's got me nervous.
He had justification. The night before, he'd got a call direct from General Thomas Bambridge, and the SAC Commander in Chief didn't often speak personally to missile squadron commanders. Bambridge's message had been short. "I want you in the hole tomorrow," he'd said. "And for your information, I'll be up in Looking Glass myself."
"Goddam," Major Rosten had answered. "Sir … is this the Big One?"
"Probably not," Bambridge had answered, and then he'd gone on to explain.
Which wasn't, Rosten thought, very reassuring. If the Russkis really thought the U.S. was blind and crippled …
He glanced to his left. His deputy, Captain Harold Luce was at another console just like Rosten's. The consoles were deep underground, surrounded by concrete and steel, built to withstand a near miss by an atomic bomb. It took both men to launch their birds: Both had to turn keys and punch buttons, and the timing sequence was set so that one man couldn't do it alone.
Captain Luce was relaxed at his console. Books were spread out in front of him: a correspondence course in Oriental art history. Collecting correspondence degrees was the usual pastime for men on duty in the holes, but how could Luce do it, today, when they were unofficially on alert?
"Hey, Hal … " Rosten called.
"Yo, Skipper."
"You're supposed to be alert."
"I am alert. Nothing's going to happen. You watch."
"Christ, I hope not." Rosten thought about his wife and four children in Missoula. They'd hated the idea of moving to Montana, but now they loved it. Big country, open skies, no big-city problems. "I wish—"
He was interrupted by the impersonal voice from the wiregrill-covered speaker above him. "EWO, EWO," the voice said. "EMERGENCY WAR ORDERS, EMERGENCY WAR ORDERS. THIS IS NO DRILL. AUTHENTICATION 78-43-76854-87902-1735 ZULU. RED ALERT. RED ALERT. YOUR CONDITION IS RED."
Sirens screamed through the concrete bunker. Major Rosten hardly noticed as a sergeant came down the steel ladder to the entrance and slammed shut the big Mosler Safe Company bank-vault door. The sergeant closed it from the outside and twirled the combination dial. No one would get into the hole without blasting.
Then, as regulations required, the sergeant cocked his submachine gun and stood with his back