by John Barnes
Because the bomb had detonated in seawater, across the next forty-eight hours, deadly radiosodium and tritium fell in dust-gray salty snow as far east as Moscow. Europe had been freezing, starving, and disintegrating before; radiation poisoning killed millions, and before the spring, millions more, their immune systems weakened by the radiation, died of tuberculosis, cholera, typhus, flu, plague, and every old returning enemy of humanity.
The bomb in Jerusalem took most of the inhabited parts of Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, and southern Syria. Detonated on land, like the Chicago bomb but with even less water, it caused a rain of radioactive tektites, some falling as far away as India; in centuries to come, the Monist faith would declare those bits of glass, in which the only remaining relics of several peoples and of shrines sacred to three great faiths were intermingled eternally, to be sacred. There were more than enough so that, no matter how big the Monist Confession grew to be, all Monists could have as many sacred tektites as they wanted.
Shanghai, Nanjing, and Hangzhou formed an equilateral triangle; at the center, the fifth great explosion worked its same monstrous results.
Though it was one of the Earth’s largest cities, with a huge population to feed and care for, the combination of discipline and cooperation, plus the sizable fishing fleet and better-than-average food reserves, had been working in Shanghai, and while there was misery enough for everyone, there had been relatively few deaths, and the civil order, if far from perfect, was functioning. In the last ten days, emissaries from Shanghai had been out to negotiate with the smaller cities that could be reached on foot or on the new oiled-linen-tire bicycles that one entrepreneur had created. Boats had begun to go south along the coast to the other commercial cities, and there had been talk of a Next China, of which Shanghai would be the leading city.
That was over in the blast and flame that smashed the western side of the city and set much of it on fire. The Shanghai city government staggered on for most of a week until deaths from neutron-induced radiation poisoning finally brought everything to a halt; the fires that had been almost controlled by hand pumping and bucket brigades broke out anew, and finished the city off in the next few days.
In Buenos Aires, perhaps the assemblers had been less careful, or the biotes had been luckier. The sixth black sphere had been breached, the enclosing plastic sphere had turned to slime, and the lithium deuteride lay in a heap in its bottom, asymmetric with respect to the nanoswarm-encrusted sphere of 131 pure fusion charges. Less than twenty of them fired. They vaporized the lithium deuteride, fused a very small bit of it, and mostly just scattered it around, creating a dense cloud of poisonous, corrosive gas that drifted into the harbor and out into the great mouth of the Rio Plata, where it killed so many fish that the sea wind stank all that following summer. The blast itself, not much more than a kiloton, leveled ten city blocks around the harbor, killed over two thousand people, broke countless windows, and scared the hell out of everyone, but by morning the next day, as news trickled in from the rest of the world, Argentines thought of themselves as the luckiest people on Earth.
ABOUT THE SAME TIME. FORT BENNING. GEORGIA. (DRET COMPOUND.) 7:30 A.M. EST. TUESDAY. DECEMBER 3.
Graham had insistently told her, after the funeral, that he was rising at 5:30 most mornings and it would be all right to knock on his door at any time after 5:45, especially if she needed company. Heather had awakened at 5:35, having slept for almost twelve hours, unable to go back to sleep, lonely, and sad. Annoyed at herself, she had knocked on Graham’s door.
He’d welcomed her in to eggs, toast, and bacon, and had to be talked out of using up his last reserve of instant coffee. Instead, after cups of hot chicory milk, he’d put the kettle on and made tea to put in sip-cups (hers with powdered milk and brown sugar, the way she liked it). “You and I are going for a walk.”
If there is any form of recreation that an Army base usually offers, it is room for people to walk long distances. The day was dawning slow and gray, the sun unable to fight through the thick cover to find the color in the grassy hills; it would only grudgingly brush the pines. They walked in silence, Graham clearly just letting her decide whether there would be conversation or not.
“I guess I’m being dumb about this,” she said.
“Are you saying that because you really think that, or because you feel you’re expected to say it?”
“I guess because I feel I’m expected to say it. I was only with the guy, really, for about a month, but it feels like he was the love of my life.”
“Maybe he was. I haven’t heard there’s a time limit or a legal waiting period on that.”
“Yeah.”
“Love does weird things that don’t always fit in with our self-interest. That was one reason why I told students I’d advise them about everything else, but never their love lives.”
“Probably sensible of you.”
“Or cold-hearted. Take your pick.”
From the crest of the ridge, the evergreen forest in front of them was shrouded in fog; beyond, the few lights in the dark and still town dimly illuminated long tendrils of rising woodsmoke. A distant creak-and-squeak told them the cable-car rig was beginning to run for the day. It was dark from the overcast, and when distant lightning flashed, Heather said, “Maybe we should head back; that looks like it could storm.” They turned and headed back the way they had come. After a couple of minutes, she said, “It might be a while before I know what to do with myself.”
“If you don’t have any use for yourself, your country does,” Weisbrod pointed out, “and eventually you—what’s that?”
Heather knew the way a native Angeleno does. “Earthquake.” There was a second shock moments later. “I didn’t know we even had those around here.”
“I don’t know,” Graham said, “maybe the New Madrid Fault? That’s actually supposed to be the biggest one in the country but it’s up in Missouri or Tennessee, I remember, so if we’re feeling that here, St. Louis must be rubble. We’d better hurry back.”
ABOUT AN HOUR AND A HALF LATER. FORT BENNING. GEORGIA. [DRET COMPOUND.] 9:00 A.M. EST. TUESDAY. DECEMBER 3.
The lecture hall was packed to the walls. Senior personnel like Heather and Arnie were wedged in uncomfortably down front; Sherry and the other “gofers-general,” as Allie had dubbed them, were jammed shoulder to shoulder up in the back rows.
Not at all like his usual entrance, in which he’d stop to talk with or encourage a few people along the way, Cam strode in swiftly, surrounded by uniforms, straight to the podium.
He nodded at Graham and gestured for him to come down and join him.
The room had fallen terribly silent.
“I must begin by confirming some very bad news,” Cam began. “About an hour and a half ago, nuclear weapons of unprecedented power destroyed Washington, DC, and Chicago. Spectrographic data and some airborne sampling have now confirmed that these were pure fusion devices, as first identified by Jim Browder, who many of you knew as a friend and colleague.
“I am making inquiries into the possible location of anyone in the chain of succession who may have been outside Washington, but I do not think it is likely that I will find anyone; all evidence is that the President and the entire line of succession, except for Dr. Weisbrod, have perished in the attack.”
Heather sat stunned; maybe I’ve cried so much lately that I don’t have any more in me now. Around her, she could hear small gasps and sobs.
“Satellite photos, seismographs, and other reconnaissance,” Cameron added, “show similar detonations have occurred in the North Sea, near Shanghai, and in Israel. A so-far unverified military shortwave message, purporting to be from the Argentine Navy, claims that there was an abortive attack on Buenos Aires as well, but it sounds as if either the bomb fizzled or it was a different type of weapon.
“The weapons are estimated at between 225 and 400 megatons. There is no experience with anything remotely that size, so we must expect very large, surprising effects about
which at the moment we know nothing. A reporter for KP-1 in Pittsburgh has reached us via a ham operator’s backup rig, for example, and reported that when KP-1 was knocked off the air, its main antenna literally vaporized; overhead wires all over Pittsburgh are burning or melting; and in some cases water pipes, railings, and railroad tracks became hot enough to burn unprotected flesh. Dr. Solomon, our specialist for nuclear weapons physics, says she thinks it may be that a burst of that size, even at surface level, either puts out enough X-rays to reach the ionosphere and cause an EMP, or that possibly the fireball is so hot, and so long-lasting, that it is still emitting X-rays or gamma rays even as it rises to altitudes of fifty miles or more.
“Observers everywhere are also reporting an apparent meteor shower, dwarfing anything ever seen before, in broad daylight, which we are guessing is a hitherto-unknown form of space-transiting fallout.
“Most of you will already have urgent business on your desks; the rest of you can expect to have something vital to do within a short time. I only ask that you show even more of the dedication you have shown as we cope with this latest enemy attack; I don’t for a minute believe we will go down, but if we must, let us go down fighting. Better yet, let us win.”
TEN MINUTES LATER. FORT BENNING. GEORGIA. 9:15 A.M. EST. TUESDAY. DECEMBER 3.
Graham Weisbrod and Cameron Nguyen-Peters had become not so much close friends as close comrades, and Weisbrod knew something was up from Cam’s careful politeness. He didn’t know General McIntyre or General Phat well, but one way or another, I guess I am going to.
After they had gathered in a small room, and Cameron had offered them all water and coffee, Graham Weisbrod said, “Cameron, you have thoughts you haven’t shared with me. There’s some reason you didn’t just rush into swearing me in and getting the NCCC monkey off your back. Is there a Cabinet officer out there who might be alive?”
The younger man looked down at the floor, and then up into Graham’s eyes. “We sort of established, during the whole horrible Shaunsen Acting Presidency, that the NCCC is not only responsible for locating the presidential successor and getting him sworn in, but also sort of for… well, the quality of the successor.”
“I’m not mad or brain-damaged, I haven’t been kidnapped, and no one is holding any of my loved ones hostage.”
“But you’re the very last in line; there is no legitimate successor after you, at least not till you appoint a Vice President, and a new Congress—which there is no provision for creating—confirms him. So I need to think; if we swear you in, you’re the President, period, from then on, with no ability to take it back.” Cameron sighed. “Shaunsen was a bad precedent.”
“Cam, plainly you think that I’m not fully competent to be President. I’m liberal and you’re conservative, but that isn’t the reason, unless you’re much more petty-political than I’ve always taken you for. Look, pretend we’re just having a beer and talking pure theory. So… why should I not be president?”
Cameron looked straight into Weisbrod’s eyes. “I made a terrible mistake before when I made Shaunsen president. And a more terrible mistake in not removing him promptly. And you would be the President, not the Acting President, so I could not Constitutionally remove you. I know you’re not Peter Shaunsen, and you would not turn the whole thing into a corrupt bonanza.”
“I understand that. When the President of the United States died in my arms, it made an impression. That’s not the answer to my question. I understand that if I am a terrible mistake, you will have no way to undo it, and that makes you hesitate. But you still haven’t told me why you think that making me President might be a terrible mistake.”
“Because as far as I can see, we are in a war—a war for national survival—and I must have a president who will seriously prosecute that war, all the way to victory.”
Weisbrod considered. “General McIntyre, General Phat, I’m assuming you are here as witnesses?”
“Actually,” Phat said, “I wasn’t told why we’d be gathering, and I’m not altogether sure that the Army should be playing a role in choosing the commander in chief. It feels too much like Bolivia.”
McIntyre nodded slowly. “I suppose Cam wanted to make absolutely certain that we knew why he hadn’t sworn you in, because if I thought the rightful President under the Constitution was being prevented from taking office… well, I’d have to take action. I took an oath, and I meant that oath.”
Cameron nodded. “It seemed best that no matter what we decided, the military leadership should at least know what was going on.”
Phat said, “I guess I’m stuck with asking the question then. I’ve spent most of my time making sure our troops have some mobility and that our units are holding together. I purposely haven’t followed the policy debates. So… Dr. Weisbrod, if you wouldn’t mind… I understand that Mr. Nguyen-Peters thinks there is a war, and based on the events of the past few months—and particularly today—it sure looks like a war to me. Maybe you can explain why you think it’s not a war? If that is what you think.”
“That may be the politest way I’ve ever been asked to prove I’m not crazy.” Weisbrod relaxed, and sketched out the basic ideas and evidence from Arnie’s work in a few minutes. “The problem is that most of the analysis we would use to locate the enemy, formulate strategy, and fight the war would be coming from Arnie’s analyses—but those same analyses show that there’s no enemy, no war, just a self-extinguished system artifact that left behind an undetermined number of booby traps.”
“Well,” McIntyre said, “it seems… it’s an odd idea. So it’s a system artifact that grew out of people sharing their self-hatred with each other—through the net… wallowing in it, really, I guess… and it took over and called all these forces into being, including planting the sleeper bombs… and now it’s gone, except for whatever traps it left behind, and here we are in the ruins. I hope you’ll pardon me when I point out that even if it’s true, an old soldier like me would probably rather believe in a real bombable, shootable enemy.”
Weisbrod smiled. “I guess I’d understand that.”
Phat was picking at his fingers nervously; he looked up, and asked, “So suppose Dr. Weisbrod is unfit to be president? I guess not believing in the existence of the enemy, in wartime, would qualify as unfit—unless there really isn’t a war or an enemy, I mean. But suppose you declare him unfit, Mr. Nguyen-Peters. What would you do then?”
“In a general way, I’d ask our military and our intelligence agencies to find the people, organizations, nations, whatever, responsible for these terrible attacks; defeat and subjugate them; bring them to justice and to unconditional surrender so that they can never do it again. Then rebuild the country, find ways around all the Daybreak roadblocks to technology; I suppose it’s a hundred or thousand year program.”
“And Dr. Weisbrod? If you are made president?”
“It’s surprisingly similar in many ways. I’d start from the idea that the enemy is gone and was never exactly a person or people anyway, though for public morale we should haul some of Daybreak’s minions in front of a judge. Because I wouldn’t spend years chasing an enemy that doesn’t exist, we’d still have more of our nuclear ships, operating aircraft, all the tools to make the job of reconstruction easier and faster. If we try to fight a war, no matter how careful we are with the little bit of remaining high-tech hardware we have, it will be gone before we realize that there never was any war, and it’s all been a tragic error. I just don’t think there’s a war, and therefore I think there’s better, more urgent use for resources that we’ll be losing very soon anyway, the way we lost the USS Reagan, or the way the reconnaissance planes are going now.”
The silence stretched.
Cameron said, “I’ve never had a duty this painful before. Graham, I am going to hold you incommunicado, and announce that in view of our wartime situation, although you are the president, you have been moved to a confidential location for security reasons; I’ll have to issue orders over your n
ame, I suppose, and I’m sorry for that as well. Gentlemen, I’ll need a few chosen troops to help carry out this decision, and they are to be absolutely discreet—and as gentle and kind about this business as it is possible to be. We need to accomplish this before Graham leaves this room.” He visibly forced himself to look directly at Graham. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorrier for your broken oath than I am for me being locked up,” Graham said quietly.
“I think I’m keeping my oath. It’s my heart that’s breaking.” Cam turned to the two generals, who were standing frozen, numb, unsure what to do. “General McIntyre, I’m making that officially an order; please detain Graham Weisbrod incommunicado, with all the reasonable comfort—”
“Sir, no. With all due respect, I cannot obey that order, in light of my oath.”
“General Phat, please relieve General McIntyre and carry out my orders.”
Weisbrod watched, numbly, as it all happened; it wasn’t until he and McIntyre were being led between armed guards to their new home that he thought of something to say. “General, do you play chess?”
“Not as well as I should.”
“Me either. Perhaps we’ll get better with all the practice.”
“Mr. Nguyen-Peters,” General Phat said, “may I have a word with you?”
“Of course.”
“I don’t much care for this situation. I am thinking strongly of following McIntyre into arrest. You would probably find Grayson, the next officer in line, to be a much more cooperative person.”
“I see. I had thought that too; I had also thought that if General Grayson takes over the Army, the Army is very likely to take over everything. But I don’t think I can safely try to remove him at the moment.”
