Footfall

by Larry Niven

  * * *

  They were floating down the curved corridor. A sound like a ram’s-horn blared through the ship. Dawson’s guards moved quickly to one of the corridor walls. Their claws sank into the thick damp matting that lined the passageway.

  What? A warning?

  There was nothing to hold on to. It hardly mattered. The tentacles held him tightly. The air vibrated with a supersonic hum. What had been a wall became a floor. After a few moments the baby elephants seemed to have adjusted, and released their grip. They moved off down the corridor, surrounding him but letting him walk.

  They were staring. How must it look to them? A continual toppling controlled fall?

  They pushed him through a large door at the end of the corridor. One followed. The others waited outside.

  A single Invader waited behind a table tilted like a draftsman’s table. It stared at him.

  Dawson stared back.

  How long does this go on?

  "I am Congressman Wesley Dawson, representing the United States of America." "I am Takpusseh."

  My God, they speak English! "Why have I been treated this way?"

  "I do not comprehend."

  The creature’s voice was flat, full of sibilants, without emotions. A leaking balloon might have spoken that way.

  "You attacked us without warning! You killed our women!" Here was a chance to protest, finally a target for his pain, and it was just too much. Wes leaned across the tilted table; his voice became a scream. "There was no need! We welcomed you, we came up to meet you. There was no need."

  "I do not always understand what you say. Speak slowly and carefully."

  It felt like a blow to the face. Wes stopped, then started over, fully in control, shaping each word separately. "We wanted to welcome you. We wanted to greet visitors from another star. We wanted to be friends."

  The alien stared at Wes. "You will learn to speak with us."

  "Yes. Certainly." It will be all right now! it is a misunderstanding, it must be. When I learn to talk with them—"Our families will be concerned about us. Have you told Earth that we are alive?"

  "I do not comprehend."

  "Do you talk to Earth? To our planet?"

  "Ah. Our word for Earth is—" a peculiar sound, short and hissing. "We do not know how to tell your people that you live."

  "Why do you lock us up?" He didn’t get that. Maybe why is too abstract. "The door to our room. Leave it open."

  The alien stared at Wes, then looked toward a lens on the wall. Then it stared at Wes again. Finally it said, "We have cloth for you. Can you want that?"

  Cloth? Wes became aware that he was naked. "Yes. We need clothing. Covering."

  "You will have that. You will have water."

  "Food," Dawson said.

  "Yes. Eat." The alien gestured. One of the others brought in boxes from another compartment.

  Clothes. Canned goods. Oxygen bottles. A spray can of deodorant. Whose? Soap. Twelve cans of Spam with a London label. A canned Smithfield ham. The Russians must have brought that.

  Wes pointed to what he thought was edible. Then he took a Spam can and pantomimed opening it with his forefinger, tying to indicate that he needed a can opener.

  One of the aliens drew a bayonet and opened the Smithfield ham by cutting the top off, four digits for the can, four for the bayonet, He passed the can to Wes.

  Stronger than hell! Advanced metals, too . . . but you wouldn’t make a starship out of cast iron. Okay, now what?

  "Do you eat that?" the alien behind the draftsman’s table asked. The interrogative was obvious.

  "Yes."

  It was hard to interpret the alien’s response. It lifted the ears. The other, the one that brought the packages, responded the same way. Vegetarians? Are they disgusted?

  The alien spoke gibberish, and another alien came in with a large sheet of what might have been waxed paper. It took the ham from the can, wrapped it (the stuff was flexible, more like thick Saran wrap), and gave it to Wes. It left carrying the can.

  "You attack—you fight us. There is no need."

  "There is need. Your people is strong," the alien said.

  A flat screen on one wall lighted, to show another alien. A voice came into the room. It babbled, in the liquid sibilants Wes had heard them use before.

  "You must go back now. We turn now,"

  It didn’t make sense. "If we were weak, would you fight us?"

  "Go."

  "But what do you want? Where do you come from? Why are you here? Why is it important that we are strong?"

  The alien stared again. "Go."

  "I have to know! Why are you here?"

  The alien spoke in sibilants.

  Tentacles wrapped around his waist and encircled his throat. He was dragged from the room. As they went down the corridor, the ram’s-horn sound came again, and the aliens held him against the wall.

  "You don’t have to hold me," Wes said.

  There was no response. The alien soldier carried a warm smell, something like being in a zoo. It wouldn’t have been unpleasant, but there was too much of it, this close.

  How many of them speak English? He—it—said I should learn their language. They’ll try to teach me

  . He looked down at himself, naked, wrapped in tentacles. Think like them. They’re not crazy—assume they’re not crazy! Just different. Differences in shape, and evolution, and senses. What do I smell like to this . . . soldier, pulled right up against its nostrils like this? It held him like a nest of snakes, and its black-and-gray eyes were unreadable. You knew the job was dangerous . . .

  13

  THE MORNING AFTER

  Now a’ is done that men can do,

  And a’ is done in vain.

  —ROBERT BURNS, "It was A’ for Our Rightfu’ King"

  COUNTDOWN: H PLUS SEVEN HOURS

  Son of a bitch!

  Sergeant Ben Mailey shepherded his charges off the helicopter and watched them climb into the staff car. The President! Son of a bitch! He grinned widely, then sobered. It took a war to get the President Inside. And I’m not going in with him.

  Jenny ushered the President into the Command Center. She had enjoyed her previous trip Inside. Maps and screens showed what was going on across the nation. You could see everything at a glance. A dozen Army and Air Force officers sat at consoles. Large screens flashed with maps of the United States. Aircraft in flight, major trains, and larger ships showed up as blobs of light on the maps.

  But there weren’t many lights, and many of the harbors showed dark splotches. Rail centers like Omaha had pinpoint dark spots as well.

  Jack Clybourne followed them into the cavernous room. He looked puzzled, and Jenny felt sorry for him. There was no real need for a presidential bodyguard, not here in the national command center. His job was done the moment they got the President into the Hole, but nobody had thought to tell him that.

  And I sure won’t

  . Admiral Carrell stood to attention as the President entered. So did the mustached civilian who’d been seated with him. Admiral Carrell wore a dark civilian suit, but he looked very much an officer. "Glad to see you, sir."

  "Thank you."

  He sounds a million years old, and I feel older. I look like a witch

  —She felt giddy, and suppressed an insane desire to giggle. Suppose Admiral Carrell inspects my uniform, with wrinkles and unbuttoned buttons and—and I’m drunk on fatigue poisons. We all are. I wonder when the Admiral slept last? "The cabinet will be coming later," Coffey said. "That is, State and Interior will be. We’re dispersing some of the others so that—I don’t really know the aliens’ capabilities."

  Admiral Carrell nodded. "They may know the location of this place," he said.

  "Could they do anything if they did know?"

  "Yes, sir. They hit Boulder Dam with something large and fast, no radioactive fallout. As my Threat Team keeps telling me, they’re throwing rocks at us. Meteorites. They have lasers that chew through ships. Mr.
President, I don’t know what they could do to Cheyenne Mountain."

  They, they, they

  , Jenny thought. Our enemy has no name! "Let’s hope we don’t find out, then. What is the situation? What about the Russians?"

  "They’ve been hit badly, but they’re still fighting. I don’t know what forces they have left." Admiral Carrell shook his head. "We’re having the devil of a time getting reports. We used up half our ICBM’s last night, firing them straight up and detonating in orbit. The aliens got half of what was left. They seem to have targeted dams, rail centers, harbors—and anyplace that launched a missile. I presume they did the same to the Soviets, but we can’t know."

  "We can’t talk to them?"

  "I’m able to communicate with Dr. Bondarev intermittently. But he doesn’t know the status of his forces. Their internal communications are worse than ours, and ours are nearly gone." Carrell paused a moment and leaned against a computer console.

  He’s an old man! I never really saw it before. And that’s scary—

  "What about casualties?" the President demanded.

  "Military casualties are very light—except for F-15 pilots who launched satellite interceptors. Those were one hundred percent. We’ve lost a number of missile crews, too.

  "Civilian casualties are a little like that. Very heavy for those living below dams or in harbor areas, and almost none outside such areas."

  "Total?"

  Carrell shrugged. "Hard to find out. I’d guess about a hundred thousand, but it could be twice that."

  A hundred thousand. Vietnam killed only fifty thousand in ten years. Nobody’s taken losses like that since World War II

  . "Why don’t you know?" the President demanded.

  "We depend heavily on satellite relays for communications," Carrell said. "Command, control, communications, intelligence, all depended on space, but we have no space assets left."

  "So we don’t know anything?"

  "Know?" Admiral Carrell shook his head again. "No, sir, we don’t know anything. I do have some guesses.

  "Something seems to have driven their large ship away; at least it withdrew. The Soviets attacked it heavily. According to Bondarev they probably damaged it, but if he has any evidence for that, he hasn’t told me about it."

  Jenny cleared her throat. "Yes?" Carrell asked.

  "Nothing, sir. We all know about claims. If I were a Soviet official and I’d just expended a lot of very expensive missiles, I’m sure I’d claim it was worthwhile too."

  The President nodded grimly. "Assume it wasn’t damaged."

  "Yes, sir," Carrell said. "It’s very hard to track anything through the goop in the upper atmosphere—and above, for that matter. The aliens have dumped many tons of metallic chaff. This gives some very strange radar reflections.

  "As far as we can tell, they’ve left behind a number of warships, but the big ship withdrew. We think they headed for the Moon." Admiral Carrell’s calm broke for a moment. "God damn them, that’s our Moon."

  "Have we heard from Moon Base?"

  "Not ours, and the Soviets have lost contact with theirs. I think they’re gone."

  Fifty billion dollars. Most of our space program. Damn!

  The President looked older by the minute. "What do we know about their small ships?"

  Carrel shrugged. "They have several dozen of them. We say small, but the smallest is the size of the Enterprise. I mean the aircraft carrier! We shot some of them out of space. I know we got two, with a Minuteman out of Minot Air Force Base. Then they clobbered Minot. We think the Russians got a couple too."

  "None of which explains why they ran away," the civilian said.

  "Mr. President, this is Mr. Ransom, one of my Threat Team," Admiral Carrell said, "He and his colleagues are the only experts we have."

  "Experts?"

  "Yes, sir. They’re science-fiction writers." Who else? And the President isn’t laughing . . .

  "Why did they run away, then, Mr. Ransom?"

  "We don’t know, and we don’t like it," Ransom said. "Back in the Red Room you can get a dozen opinions. Curtis and Anson are back there trying to get a consensus, but I don’t think they’ll do it. The aliens could have their mates and children aboard that main ship. They came a long way."

  "I see," David Coffey said. He looked around the big control room. "Is there somewhere I can sit down?"

  "You’d do better to get some rest," Admiral Carrell said.

  "So should you."

  "After you, sir. Someone has to be on duty. We might get through to the Russians again."

  This time Jenny couldn’t help laughing. When the President and Admiral Carrell stared at her, she giggled, then sobered quickly. "I never thought we’d be so eager to hear from the Russians."

  Carrell’s smile was forced. "Yes. It is ironic. However—"

  He broke off as red lights flashed and a siren wailed through the enormous room. The Admiral took a headset from one of the sergeants. After a moment he said, "They haven’t all left. They just hit a major highway junction."

  "Highway junctions. Railroad yards. Dams." the President muttered.

  "Yes," Admiral Carrell agreed. "But not cities or population centers. San Diego but not New York harbor. Cities along major riven are flooded, some severely. Some parts of the country are—undamaged but have no electricity. Others are without power, and effectively isolated. Some places have electric power and are utterly untouched. It’s an odd way to fight a war."

  * * *

  Message Bearer

  hummed. The vibration from the main fusion drive was far higher than any normal range of hearing; but it shook the bones, and it was always there. Sleepers and spaceborn alike had learned to ignore it during the long days of deceleration into Winterhome system. It could not be sensed until it was gone. . . . It was gone. Thrust period was over. The floor eased from under the Herdmaster and he floated. Six eights of digit ships had been left behind to implement the invasion, while Message Bearer fell outward toward the Foot. The acceleration, the pulses of fusion light and gamma rays, had been blocked by the mass of Winterhome’s moon. Let Winterhome’s masters try to detect her, an inert speck against the universe.

  The Herdmaster blew a fluttering sigh. Several hours of maneuvers had left him exhausted. It was good to be back in free-fall, even for a few minutes.

  "That’s over," he said. "Now we’ll trample the natives a little and see what they do."

  "It’s their terrain. We will lose some warriors," Fathisteh-tulk’s lids drooped in sleepy relaxation, and the Herdmaster spared him a glare. The Herdmaster’s Advisor had himself been Herdmaster; he could have saved the Herdmaster this chore, spared him for other work . . . except that spaceborn warriors might not take his orders. He was a sleeper; his accent marked him.

  So he was being unjust. But Fathisteh-tulk enjoyed the situation. The Herdmaster sighed again and turned to the intercom. "Get me Breaker-Two."

  Takpusseh too spoke with the archaic sleeper accent, He stood at a desk littered with alien artifacts.

  "You have spoken with the prey," the Herdmaster asked.

  "I have spoken with one of them, Herdmaster. This one is of the Land Mass Two herd that babbled to us as we approached. Some of the others speak that language, but they are not part of that herd."

  "What have you learned?"

  "Herdmaster, I do not know what we learned from that interview. Certainly that herdless one did not submit."

  The Herdmaster was silent for a moment. "It was helpless?"

  "Herdmaster, I sent an armed octuple to fetch it. I left it naked, and required it to stand before my table. It demanded explanations. It was abusive!"

  "Yet it lives? You show remarkable restraint."

  Takpusseh vented a fluttering snort. "I did not understand all it said at the time. It was only after it was sent back to the restraining pen that we listened carefully to the recordings. Herdmaster, these are alien beasts. They do not obey properly. It will take time to mak
e them a part of the Traveler Herd."

  "Perhaps, being herdless, it is insane. Were there others of its herd in the satellite?"

  "Yes. It said that its mate had been killed in the attack."

  "It is insane, then. Kill it."

  "Herdmaster, there is no need for haste. It speaks this language the prey call English far better than do the others."

  "Have the others submitted?"

  "Herdmaster, I believe they have."

  "The herdless one comes from the continent with the most roads and harbors and dams. Surely the most advanced herd will not all be insane."

  "Surely not, Herdmaster."

  "Do you have advice?"

  "Herdmaster, I believe we should continue the plan. Trample the prey before we speak with them. If they are arrogant in defeat, they must be impossible before they are harmed."

  "Very well. Will you continue to speak with this one?"

  "Not without new reason. I found the interview painful. I will speak with it again when we have obtained more of its herd. Perhaps it will regain its sanity. Until then, Breaker-One Raztupisp-minz will study the herdless one. He chooses not to speak with it."

  The Herdmaster twitched his digits against his forelegs. Takpusseh was being tactful. Raztupisp-minz was not fluent in the language of the prey.

  "The other prisoners are in my domain, but we house them together," Breaker-two Takpusseh finished.

  "Do any of them submit?"

  "I have had no opportunity to examine the others while Message Bearer maneuvers violently. Instead, we have experimented with their living conditions. We gave them cloth from the great stores they kept in the orbiting habitat. They draped themselves with it. We gave them water and watched how much they used, and analyzed their excreta. We change their environment. How do they treat their food? Which of our foods can they tolerate? Do they like more oxygen, or less? Warm air or cold? To what extent can they tolerate their own exhalations?"

  "I expect they breathe the air mixture of Winterhome."

  "Of course, but where on Winterhome? Equator or poles? High altitude or low? Wet or dry? We are learning. They like pressure anywhere between sea level and half that. They can tolerate our air mix but prefer it dryer. They cover their skins with cloth even when far too hot; that deceived us for a time. They drink and wash with clean water and ignore mud. Their food is treated; they have to wet it and heat it. They would not eat ours. And in the process of experiment, we gave them strong incentive to learn to speak to us."