Aftermath

by Charles Sheffield

  She made a final inspection of the seven bodies in the control room, again noting from the uniforms the name of every dead individual. She did not know why she was doing it. Earth records would certainly contain identification of everyone on ISS-2.

  She did it anyway, a bizarre gesture of final respect. Then with the presentiment of death inside her she drifted back along the corridor to the airlock.

  There was no sign of the other two. Zoe must still be inside, while Ludwig was presumably in one of the two orbiters. Celine headed for the nearer, noting as she approached how small it seemed. She had been to orbit and returned from it many times, but always in vehicles ten times the size of this one. It looked like a toy, a single-person reentry pod. And this little bug was supposed to hold three or four of them?

  Celine made a determined effort to avoid negative thinking. This orbiter would take them home, because it had to. She had seen ISS-2, and she knew there was no chance of waiting on the station for a possible rescue from Earth.

  Ludwig was inside the orbiter. He had pulled the front off the control board, and was studying what lay behind it using the light of his suit. He turned when Celine's light added to his in illuminating the panel. "Well? What did you find?"

  "What we expected." She did not want to go into details. "We will have to use these orbiters. Maybe we can scavenge materials from the station, and fuel. But no working electronics."

  He scowled at her. "Marvelous. But not surprising. And not good, because the electronics are shot in both orbiters. The other one is a bit bigger inside than this one, but they have identical computers and identical control systems. We won't need fuel, because both orbiters have full tanks. But we do need control systems, and that's going to be a problem. Zoe's one of the best, but even she can't fly a reentry without controls."

  "She's going to if she has to." It was Zoe's voice, thin over the radio link. "We all do what we have to do. You two stay where you are, I'm outside the station now and on my way. I'm afraid it's all bad news inside ISS-2."

  "I don't think we'll be forced to a seat-of-the-pants reentry attempt." Ludwig did not press Zoe for details on what she had found inside the station, any more than he had asked Celine. "These single-stagers, thank God, are built simple. Most of the control surfaces don't use computers, they're self-adjusting on reentry to external conditions. And where they do need computers, they're designed so you can pull and replace the whole box."

  "You mean we can use what we have on the Schiaparelli?" It was the first good news of Celine's day. "Suppose we need it there?"

  "We won't." Zoe had reached the hatch and was trying to squeeze inside. "We can take anything from there, because we won't be needing the Mars ship at all. We're going home."

  Celine, trying to move to let Zoe in, became even more aware of the cramped interior space of the single-stage orbiters. There was no way that she and Ludwig could admit Zoe. The padded seats would have to come out before a third person could get in. And what would a reentry be like, without cushioning against deceleration forces?

  Stop thinking negative. Whatever it's like, it's better than the alternative.

  Celine turned to Ludwig, who had removed the little cube of the control computer. He was staring at it dubiously. "This sucker is dead. I can replace it with a good one from our ship, but that's not the hard part. The tricky bit is going to be software. We need the right program routines."

  "Routines which we don't have." Even Zoe sounded discouraged for a moment. "The Schiaparelli never expected to need a program for Earth orbit reentry."

  "Routines which we might have," said a new and unexpected voice. It was Jenny Kopal. She, like the rest of the crew on the Mars ship, had been silently listening in on the discussion.

  "How so?" Zoe, like everyone else, deferred to Jenny on all questions related to computer software.

  "Back when we were setting up the Schiaparelli data bases, I was given a free hand as to what programs I could load. So I decided it was best to be generous—"

  "Thank God for a program pack rat," Zoe said. "Jenny, I've seen you gloating over your master files like a mother hen. I never dreamed it would pay off this way."

  "I thought it best to be generous," Jenny said calmly. "I loaded every routine in the data base that had a 'space use' descriptor. They didn't take up much storage. Even if—"

  "I don't care how much storage they took." Zoe interrupted again. "The question is, do you have the programs to control reentry of these particular single-stage orbiters?"

  "I don't know. I downloaded many thousands of programs. I'll have to establish a search with the appropriate parameters."

  "Do that. How long will it take?"

  "I can set it up in half an hour. The search will take longer—a lot of the files are on DNA backup storage. Very high packing density, but it has long access times. Maybe three hours."

  "Do it. Ludwig, I want these orbiters ready to receive new hardware as soon as possible. Replace chips wherever we have substitutes on the Schiaparelli. Patch around them if we don't. And mark the places where the pilot has to take over control of the orbiters and fly them directly."

  "Yeah. Right." Ludwig stared quizzically at Zoe, then turned back to the dismantled control panel. "Like me to make 'em go faster than light while I'm at it?"

  "Save that for next time. Can you finish this in twenty-four hours?"

  "Naturally. I'm Superman, remember?"

  "Get this ship ready to fly in less than twenty-four hours, and I'll buy you a new cape."

  Zoe backed out of the hatch. When Celine joined her she was hovering motionless, staring at the great bulk of Earth hanging overhead. Since entering the station, ISS-2 and the Schiaparelli had moved together in their ninety-minute orbit of Earth, and now they faced the nightside of the planet. Ship and station were in an orbit with an inclination of thirty degrees, and at the moment they were close to their northern limit. Celine knew that North America lay beneath them. No lights were visible. The great cities were in darkness, or obscured by heavy cloud. She wanted to believe the second explanation.

  "Two days." Zoe pointed up toward Earth. "Two days at the outside, and we will be there."

  She spoke with total conviction. Celine felt her own surge of confidence. She knew that Zoe as expedition leader and chief pilot might speak optimistically to boost the spirits of the rest of them. But it wasn't that. This was straight-from-the-heart Zoe Nash, Zoe sure that she could do it, Zoe knowing that nothing could stop her; Zoe able to make things happen so that nothing did stop her. That was why she was the expedition leader.

  Zoe said she would be on Earth within two days. Therefore Zoe would, beyond a doubt, be on Earth within two days.

  12

  Sometimes you didn't know when you were well off. Saul Steinmetz stared at the list in disbelief. For twelve days he had cursed the lack of telecommunications and satellite systems. Now they were creeping back to life, and his problems were worse than ever.

  He was being swamped. According to the log in his hand, he had received—over an ailing and imperfect communications system—eighteen hundred and forty-seven calls in the past six hours. They had come from every state and almost every country. Each one requested, begged for, or demanded the urgent personal attention of the President of the United States.

  Saul hit the intercom, and Auden Travis popped in with his usual promptitude.

  "Auden." Saul waved the typed list, all eight feet of it. "Doesn't anybody in this place know the meaning of the word priorities? What am I supposed to do, answer these goddammed calls in order, first called, first served? I need a cut on urgency and importance. Take the fucking thing away and organize it."

  Auden Travis was a handsome young man with clean features, a strong Roman nose, and curly brown hair. His sensitive mouth twisted with a look of pained embarrassment. Saul knew why. It wasn't the chewing-out, it was the cussing. Auden never swore, and he disapproved of it. Saul did not normally swear, either. But there were times w
hen you had to do it to get the message across hard enough. This was one.

  "Take this amorphous piece of shit out of my sight." He shook the list. "I never want to see it again."

  Travis took the paper and vanished without a word. Saul turned back to his desk and stared out of the window. People thought he was the boss and they asked him for help. They were wrong. Nature was the boss. You could plot and plan and scheme and schedule all the things you were going to do when the communications system came back on-line, and when service finally returned you couldn't do a damned thing.

  Saul looked out onto a world of white. For the third day in a row, snow blanketed the East Coast from Maine to Norfolk and as far west as Indiana. The food convoys were stalled in eastern Kansas. Steam locomotives, equipped with snowplows, stood helpless in twelve-foot drifts. High winds had brought down more trees and power lines, closing roads that had only just been opened.

  When would the snow end?

  God knows, Saul thought. But God's not telling.

  The Defense Department had at last managed to bring up a ground station and communicate with one of their own orbiting metsats. The succession of images proved one thing beyond debate: predictions made by the numerical weather models were garbage. A three-year-old could do as well drawing patterns with colored crayons.

  The intercom buzzed, and Saul turned to it. "Yes?"

  "Two things, Mr. President." It was Auden Travis again, speaking in an unnaturally low voice. "DOD has a working feed from one of their high-resolution birds. They don't have the use of the maximum data rate antenna, so the nature and number of images is limited. We only have Australia so far, but General Mackay feels that these images really deserve your attention."

  "Fine. Can you pipe the pictures into this office?"

  "Yes, sir. I'll do that at once. And one other thing, sir. The House Minority Leader and Senator Lopez are waiting in the outer office."

  "Christ. You've made my day."

  "I'm sorry, sir. I was given no notice of this. They just arrived. Together."

  "I'm not blaming you, Auden. I'm sure you don't want them cluttering up your work area. Send the rabble in. If they want to talk to me they'll have to watch some pictures first."

  "Yes, sir."

  Saul turned to the big display that formed one wall of his office. The lights dimmed, the windows with their polarizing filters became opaque, and the first image blinked into existence. It was in simple false color rather than the derived hyperspectral presentation that Saul preferred. He could guess the reason. Three-band color could be done with a lower data rate. The people controlling the satellite had decided—rightly, in Saul's opinion—to opt for maximum coverage area. Anything really interesting would be caught in more detail on a later orbit.

  The image had no vocal tags. Latitude and longitude tick marks were shown on the outer boundaries, and the words Sydney, Australia appeared in small letters in the bottom left-hand corner.

  Saul leaned forward. He had not visited Sydney for twenty years, but he had seen plenty of satellite coverage during the Queensland Secession War. What he was looking at was nothing like Sydney.

  The great drowned valley that had created and framed Sydney Harbor no longer existed. In its place stood a deep brown smear, miles across, as though a giant ball had rolled over the land from west to east.

  Saul heard the door behind him open and close. He ignored it and called for a zoom of the center part of the image. The effect was of flying in closer and closer, a small area viewed in exquisite detail. He should see individual roads and houses and cars, even people.

  He saw nothing but an endless wasteland of mud. Sydney was gone. What had replaced it bore no more signs of human, influence than the satellites of Neptune.

  BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA. An open expanse of water and, miles to the west, a new coastline. The satellites used absolute latitude and longitude to pinpoint their images. Brisbane now lay beneath the Pacific Ocean.

  Had any of the models predicted tidal waves, earthquakes, and massive sea-level changes? If they had, no one had presented those results to Saul. Perhaps they had been discarded, on the grounds that they were "implausible."

  He stayed with it for a few more scenes. The whole southeast of Australia, judging from the images of Adelaide and Melbourne, had shared the same fate as Sydney and Brisbane.

  Saul asked for an image of Canberra, which lay inland and on high ground. It should have escaped damage from the sea. Perhaps it had. It was impossible to tell, because the area was covered by impenetrable clouds. Their sinister tinge of dull red suggested that the surface beneath had been blown high into the atmosphere.

  In his scan of the list of incoming calls, Saul had noticed nothing from Australia and New Zealand. Now he knew why.

  He heard the creak of chairs behind him. Someone was increasingly excited or impatient. For the moment, he had seen enough. Saul killed the display, watched as a snowy vista gradually reappeared outside the window, and finally turned around.

  "Good morning. Excuse me if I did not greet you earlier. I felt that I—and you—ought to examine firsthand what is happening around the world."

  Saul knew that the smiles greeting him were as hollow as his own words. The two visitors made a splendid study in contrasts, proving once again that politics was flexible enough to accommodate every human strength and weakness.

  Sarah Mander had an unlined, guileless face. Yet she was probably the most secretive person in Washington, man or woman. She was also cultured, witty, well educated, vengeful, racist, and anti-Semitic. It depressed Saul that conversations with such a witch could be so enjoyable.

  Senator Nick Lopez was round-faced and brown-complexioned. The hair above his broad brow was set in a high, old-fashioned pompadour that resembled a frizzy black hat. Saul wondered where Lopez found a hairdresser willing to perpetrate such a monstrosity. Lopez had degrees in mathematics and law, but openly disdained "book learning." He was fast-talking, confident, and supernaturally bright, and after a meeting with him Saul always came away feeling that he had somehow been tricked, in a way that he didn't quite understand. Nick Lopez also had his darker side, one that would not be revealed in public.

  "The House Minority Leader and the Senate Majority Leader visiting me together," Saul said musingly. "I'm not sure what the appropriate protocol is for such a rare combination of forces."

  Sarah Mander smiled. "Count the spoons when we leave, I guess."

  In spite of himself, Saul found he was grinning back at her.

  "It's our dollar." Lopez made no attempt at small talk. "I guess we should explain why we came."

  "And we'll be brief," added Mander. "You're a busy man, Mr. President. Two thousand calls to return."

  Eighteen hundred and forty-seven. But that was twenty minutes ago, by now she was probably right. After the meeting he would learn where she had learned the number. But then it would hardly be worth knowing, since obviously she expected him to find out.

  "Thanks for your consideration, Sally. Go ahead."

  "Cheap shot, Mr. President. You can do better than that."

  And she was right. It was a cheap shot. He knew she preferred "Sarah" and hated the more informal version of her name. Sally Mander. Lizard woman. She must have been taunted with jibes like that since she was a kid.

  "Sorry, Sarah. I'm in a bad mood today and I feel stupid."

  "Sure. Pull the other one. Nick?"

  "This is only a preliminary meeting." Lopez picked up without hesitation. "We want to present an idea. I'm glad we saw those images, because they reinforce our point."

  "Which is?" Saul sensed the change. The overture was over, the action had begun.

  "This country has taken a real beating, but we will recover. And I think we'll be like a broken bone, stronger than ever when we heal."

  "God, I hope you're right. I keep telling myself that, but then I look outside." Saul gestured to the window, where the snow fell constantly.

  "It was in the la
test weather forecasts, and it's not the Fimbulwinter," Sarah Mander said. "It might last three days, but it won't last three years. It will end. I spoke with Science Adviser Vronsky early this morning. The supernova is fading."

  "And about time."

  "But other countries have not been so fortunate." Lopez ignored the others' comments, they were a sidebar to the main theme. "Australia, Micronesia, and South America are ruined. I don't know if they exist anymore. South Africa is silent, and the rest of the continent is chaos. United Europe has fragmented to its pre-Union nationalism. The Sino Consortium was about to walk all over us in trade, now the members are back in the Stone Age. The Golden Ring is broken, and their radio reports suggest a total collapse of central authority. Congresswoman Mander and I have compared notes. Outside of western Europe we cannot discover a single foreign entity that today deserves the name of nation."

  "I agree." Saul wondered at the line of logic. Nick Lopez was a dedicated isolationist, while Sarah Mander hated not just blacks, Hispanics, Jews, and Native Americans, but every foreign group that came into her sights. "What are you suggesting? I hope you are not proposing to resuscitate the foreign aid program. It ruined every country that ever received it."

  As he was speaking, Saul realized that he knew quite well where Lopez was going. His own mention of foreign aid was a way of marking time, thinking the idea over—and rejecting it.

  "Foreign aid, never." Lopez's face in repose showed a natural easygoing good humor, part of his success as a politician. The fire and conviction that sat on it now was something that no voter would ever see. "Mr. President, we can offer something much better. We, the United States, are in a position to assume a more central role in the world. We have an opportunity that may never arise again, to assert global dominance. Our military has overwhelming superiority. Our food reserves form an invaluable asset. We will soon once more have working communications, a strong infrastructure, and a stable government. We cannot lose—and people everywhere in the world will bless us for rescuing them from barbarism."