And then the Secretary of Defense himself.
"Major Thorn, Captain Streeter.... There is probably little I can add
to all that has been so thoroughly ingrained in you in your five years
of training for this experiment, or learned by both of you, the hard
way, in war. But there are certain points I feel I ought to emphasize
personally ... even though I know you've heard them many, many times
before.
"First, this is your country. In the adventure--in the duty, that you
are about to undertake, there must be no mistake that your nation comes
above _all_ other considerations! Now, I don't question your devotion,
I merely re-impress...."
Pause. The man was good, all right.
"Second, despite what you may have heard from--from any of various
sources in recent months, our cold-war Enemy is hard-pressed; he is
desperate, and he is likewise determined. Determined as even you may
not guess. Our Intelligence has learned that he has trained women to
bear arms as well as children for his armies. He has trained them to
march, to bivouac, to fly intercontinental bombers, to fly rocket
interceptors, to go to the attack with men--and on an equal basis, and
in almost equal numbers. A point to remember, even from where you shall
soon sit! Don't forget it.
"Last, if--and we all pray that it won't happen in this or any other
generation--but, _if_ war should come--if some unsuspecting midnight it
should suddenly erupt (and such eruption would be on both our shores,
smashing all of our greatest cities even as we retaliated) if this
happens, gentlemen, you must not forget one thing. You must not forget
for an instant that in such a war, _all_ the Enemy must die.
"If I sound melodramatic forgive me, and bear with me. You both
realize, I'm certain, that any Next War would be a war to the death.
After which--" the skillfully-modulated voice lowered, softened,
paused, softened again.... "After which, there will be only one of us
left. _Because there will be no time for armistice, for truce...._ It
will be Our Side, or Theirs. Gentlemen, it _must be Ours! So if there
is war, I repeat_, all _the Enemy must die!_
"That's all I have, except to say good luck and God-speed."
Very firm hand-shake for each of them, and Final Briefing was over.
* * * * *
Even yet Joshua Thorn could remember that first emotion shared by
himself and Streeter after the effects of the four-G blast-off had worn
away, after the tension of establishing orbit was eased, the first
report made to Home Plate, and they were at last granted a moment's
rest, a moment's respite to look back, to realize....
Done it. Done it.... They had _done_ it!
They could almost see themselves, the National Emblem emblazoned
brilliantly on their chalk-white metal skin, riding in dignified,
silent triumph over all of the Earth. Now let anybody--anybody, anybody
anywhere (for weren't they above all of anywhere?) shake a fist, rattle
a sabre!
First Men in Space. Like God, somehow....
They thudded each other on the back, they yelled things they could
not remember, they let the tears flood down their cheeks without
noticing, and they laughed; they laughed long and loudly with words
and wordlessly, and then they watched again, watched mighty Earth below
them turning by some power that was not theirs to see on an invisible
spit over Infinity.
It was at the end of the fourth month that Streeter died.
"Josh? Josh what's our trouble?" Young, earnest. Wiry and pink-cheeked
and an eternal glint of excitement in his light blue eyes.
Thorn kept studying the instruments as he answered, slowly, and without
alarm in his voice. It wasn't much, but the bunching of his thick
eyebrows had given him away. It always did.
"Port reflector's all, I guess, Johnny. Been watching it; a hair off,
so we're down just enough BTU's to make a dent in power supply. Must
have come out a little cockeyed when we popped it. Want to watch the
panel a few minutes while I--"
"Second-guessed you, Skipper--" Johnny Streeter was already halfway
into a pressure-suit. "Just zip me up the back and check my
petticoat...."
Josh Thorn grinned, closed Johnny's suit, secured his soap-bubble
helmet. They'd both been Out before so it wasn't as if this was the
first time. It was just that this was the first time it _had_ to be
done.
"Suit-check, Johnny...."
"I read you--" crackled the bulkhead audio.
"Air?"
"Fourteen point seven psi, oxygen 26 per cent, nitrogen...."
They finished the check; all the complex machinery of Baggy-Drawers was
functioning perfectly. Then Instrument Check--Methodically, Johnny's
gauntleted mitts touched each magnetic hook on the wide girdle, named
each implement suspended from it, replaced it.
"Can I go out and play now?"
"Be a good boy, Johnny."
The lock hissed, cycled down, and then Thorn was hearing the metallic
noises of Johnny's feet striding ponderously like some story-book
Colossus along the "upper" hull, sternward, and then to port.
"Be a cinch, Josh," the audio crackled. "If they're all this easy I'll
feel like a draft-dodger! Maybe if I swab the deck while I'm ou--" A
sound that wasn't Johnny but it was.
"Johnny? Johnny, do you read me?" Josh Thorn could feel sweat dripping
on his stomach. "Johnny--"
He left the mike, made his way aft in clumsy haste, the simulated
gravity confusing long-conditioned reflexes. And he listened beneath
the hull section over which Johnny would be. Listened for a thump, a
scrape of metal on metal, a vibration of life....
Nothing.
His own Baggy-Drawers seemed built for a midget with one leg as he
struggled into it. Cursory check--enough, she worked, she'd have to....
Out. Aft. Port. Johnny....
Johnny Streeter was still standing, but it was an odd kind of stance;
the stance of a marionette on slack strings. Motionless. Standing by
the reflector mast, some of his magnetized instruments clinging to it.
And then he saw Johnny Streeter's helmet, and saw that it was no longer
transparent. Josh tasted vomit on his lips.
A chance in how many million, how many billion? What was it the
statisticians had said? About the same chance as a fatal auto accident,
having a meteor hit you....
* * * * *
Equipment converted, recalibrated for Earthside observation. Equipment
checked. Emergency reflectors out (power drain still damned heavy) and
radar full out; close-down scanners on, recording equipment humming,
ready.... Coast coming up in--oh-nine minutes, three-seven seconds.
Tapes ready at play-back, UHF set.
Now wait.
You can watch while you wait....
His eyes hurt, their sockets hurt as he pressed them too hard into the
binocular eye-piece.
Damn the fogging! Damn the blue fogging--_blue_?
_No!_
It filled the object-lens; it swirled, it calmed, it coalesced, it
thinned, and there was a second's sight through it, and then Josh Thorn
was swinging the refractor in near-abandon on its panhead ... there!
Clear! Clear, you could see--at the edges! Coming in again, drifting,
drifting slowly, drifting ... blind.
His fingertips slipped, grabbed again, swung the telescope too
violently, steadied.
Blue fog, moving slowly, deliberately, and yet so fast, so
unbelievably fast, why, they said if it ever happened it would take
weeks, months, maybe years, but they could've been wrong, so many
things they couldn't have known....
Blue.
Cobalt blue.
With some force of sheer power of reason, Joshua Thorn forced himself
from the refractor; forced himself past the blue-faced scanners
(maybe it was only an Enemy trick; an Enemy screen, the biggest blue
smoke-screen ever made!) to the UHF. Maybe. Sure. He was overdue.
Minutes overdue; they were waiting for him down there, waiting for his
call, wondering if perhaps the screen had really fooled him, or if it
were really effective in blocking his sight, or if....
They were right down there, right underneath him, waiting under the
blue smoke-screen.
"Home Plate Home Plate this is Mrs. Grundy over...."
Crackling.
"Home Plate Home Plate this is Mrs. Grundy. Home Plate Home Plate
what's the matter can't you read? Home Plate Home Plate this is Mrs.
Grundy, over.... _Over!_"
Crackling.
The meters.... All right--on the nose, right. What were they, asleep
down there? Maybe the smoke-screen reflected even UHF. He could try a
bounce and see. Narrow beam. Tight. Watch the screen....
Pip. Pip. Pip.
Getting through. Lousy smoke, just couldn't see through it....
"Home Plate Home Plate Home Plate--"
He had been around fifty times; he had counted. It had taken one
hundred hours; he had counted. He had transmitted steadily since the
twentieth time, in the few languages he knew beside his own, for sixty
hours; he had counted.
He had only a whisper for a voice now, and only aching places where his
ears were.
But it didn't matter. It didn't matter.
"Home Plate, this Mrs. Grundy--
"Can anyone read me? Does anyone read me down there?
"_Kann jedermann mich hören? Antworten-Sie, bitte...._
"_Repondez, repondez si vous m'entendrez...._
"_Damn you can't you hear me_ CAN'T YOU HEAR ME?"
* * * * *
He'd tried to keep track of the time.
He thought it had been a month; maybe more, but a month anyway.
And now the blue was solid over Earth, over all of it. There were
still little swirls, little eddies of it here and there, but most
of it--already, most of it had settled like a fixed shell, like the
quiescent surface of a stagnant pool.
And somehow he'd accepted it.
They were all dead down there.
Cobalt blue had killed them all, killed them all....
Funny. It had a rhythm to it. Cobalt blue had killed them all, killed
them all, Cobalt bombs had killed them all--
_STOP IT!_
But if they were all dead....
And if he were not dead....
Then he was the last human being left alive.
That was crazy.