Footfall

by Larry Niven

  "This is my sister," Juana said.

  "Mrs. Dawson?" Halverson asked. "Pleased to meet you, ma’am."He climbed down off the armored car. "As to what we intend, well, first I’m waiting for my helicopters. Takes time to get them spruced up. Meantime, we came out to see if you needed help. When the choppers get here, we’re going south and east until we see what the hell has invaded us."

  Carlotta nodded. A dozen tanks, two of those armored car things, trucks. And helicopters. Weekend warriors. Most of them are pretty old, but— "You look formidable enough. Fast work."

  "Started mobilizing the Guard the night they started shooting," Halverson said. There was pride in his voice. "Been rounding up troops from all over the county. Would have called Major Morgan, but the phones were out. Lucky we ran into him in town."

  "But what is happening?"

  Halverson shrugged. "Juana, we haven’t been in touch with any government above the county seat since those—aliens started shooting. Phones don’t work, nothing but static on the radios. Most of our communications stuff was designed to work with satellites, and we sure as hell don’t have any of those left. Even so—" His back straightened. "I don’t figure Washington wants me to just sit back and wait for orders, not while they’re dropping out of the skies! Soon as my choppers get here, we’re going to show ‘em what it means to mess around with Americans. Especially Kansas Jayhawks!"

  18

  THE JAYHAWK WAR

  A general never knows anything with certainty, never sees his enemy plainly, nor knows positively where he is. The most experienced eye cannot be certain whether it sees the whole of the enemy’s army, or only three-tenths of it. It is by the eyes of the mind, by the combination of all reasoning, by a sort of inspiration, that the general sees, commands and judges.

  —NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, Memoirs

  COUNTDOWN: H PLUS 120 HOURS

  Harry spent the night in a wheat field, using wheat straw for bedding and more of it piled on top to stay warm, He didn’t dare risk a fire. There were flashes and thunder all around him. By counting time between flash and sound, he estimated some were as close as three miles, far too close.

  Morning came, and he missed Jeri’s camp stove and cocoa. Can’t think about that. Got to get moving. But goddammit. 1 should have done something; 1 should have saved her. Hell, I should have left her by her car—she’d have been safer’ Come with me. I’ll take care of you, shit—

  The motorcycle ran fine. He estimated that he had another twenty miles to go, and fuel for thirty.

  Harry turned up the lane toward the big house and shook his head in disbelief. Made it, by God! At least it certainly looked like the place Wes had once described, and it was on the right road, ten miles west of Dighton, and there was no other house within a mile.

  It was nearly noon. The skies were blue and clear, and there were only occasional thunderclaps and flashes of colored light.

  He frowned. An army Light Armored Vehicle stood in front of the house. There were deep tread marks on both sides of the drive, leading out behind the house. Half a mile out through the fields were at least six tanks, a couple of obsolete M-1 Abrams tanks and at least two Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles.

  A big blue GM Jimmy four-wheel-drive truck stood in the driveway beside the LAV. Harry nodded at it approvingly. He let the motorcycle coast up to the front porch. Two soldiers older than Harry sat on top of the armored car. One waved at Harry.

  "Hi," Harry called.

  "Hi," one of the soldiers answered.

  Something moved behind the glass-paneled front window.

  "Is Mrs. Dawson at home?" Harry asked. No point in asking why the army had surrounded the house.

  "Think so," a sergeant said. "Hey, Juana, visitor for your sister.

  "The front door opened. Carlotta Dawson, in blue jeans, her hair bundled into a kerchief, rushed down the steps. She didn’t say anything. She just grabbed Harry and pulled herself against him, burying her face in his beard.

  She stood that way for a moment, then looked up at the soldiers on the LAV. "He came all the way from L.A.," she said. "To help me."

  "Tough going?" the sergeant asked.

  "Some," Harry said.

  "Heard it was bad out west."

  "Hoover Dam’s gone," Harry said. "They took out all the cities along the Colorado River. Same thing happened with all the dams along the Platte. They seem to like hitting dams."

  An officer came out of the house. "Colonel Halverson, this is Harry Reddington," Carlotta said. "A friend of—of Wes and me. He’s come from L.A. Harry, you must be starved."

  "Yeah, but, Miz Dawson, we’ve got to move. The damned elephants—"

  "Elephants?" Colonel Halverson demanded. "Elephants?"

  "Yes, sir," Harry said. "The invaders—"

  "Why do you say elephants?"

  "They look like baby elephants with two trunks."

  "You’ve seen them, then?"

  "Yes, sir, I sure have." Harry winced. This wasn’t going to be easy. Why tell it at all? "Shot one, too, but they wear armor, so I doubt if I hurt it."

  "Armor?"

  "Yeah. Body armor, and they have rifles. They kill people. They kidnapped—they took some people prisoner from a farmhouse. Killed the farmer."

  "Just how close did you get to them?"

  Harry shuddered, "Too damn close! Close as you and me!" One stood on my chest— He wouldn’t say that. It shamed him.

  Halverson looked skeptical. "How’d you get away from them?"

  "They let me go. Look, you guys do what you want, but Mrs. Dawson and me have to get out of here. They’re all around, it’s damned lucky they didn’t get here yet."

  "Tell me more," Colonel Halverson said. "Tell me everything."

  "There’s just not that much," Harry said. They wore elevator shoes and they came down on paper airplanes. If I say that— "They came down on hang gliders. Then bigger stuff landed"

  "How big? Where?"

  "Near Logan. They had flying things about as big as a jetliner only not so wide in the wings. And a floating thing about as big as a diesel semi. That’s what I saw. There may have been bigger."

  "Tanks? Field guns?"

  "None I saw."

  "And they let you go?"

  "Yeah, sort of."

  "They let others go?"

  "Yes—"

  "From Logan. Southwest of here." Halverson pounded his right fist into his left hand. "But we know they’re east of us, and nobody’s come out of there. They would, too, if the—if those things would let them. Maybe there’s something they want to hide. Son, you better tell me everything you know."

  Gradually Halverson dragged the story out of Harry. Finally it was done. "So I found the gun," Harry said. "I thought about going after Mrs. Wilson, but I came here, instead."

  Halverson looked thoughtful. "Hell, what else could you do? You’re no army. The next time they’d just shoot you. But I sure wish I knew what they’re hiding out to the east—"

  "Colonel?" The sergeant seated on top of the armored car jumped off. He looked older than Halverson.

  "Yeah, Luke?"

  "Colonel, I heard a funny story last night. Over in Collinston."

  "Collinston? That’s fifty miles from here! What were you doing in Collinston?"

  "Took some of the boys over for a drink. You didn’t need us. We weren’t going anywhere."

  "Next time you leave camp, you tell me," He chuckled. "Okay, so you found a bar open in Collinston. Guess it takes more than war and a parachute invasion to close the bars in that town."

  "Sure does. Anyway, there was a guy in the bar. He’d been drinking a lot, so nobody paid much attention. He said he’d seen an elephant. A little one. In a willow patch outside of town. Thought it escaped from some circus, because it was a trained elephant."

  "Trained? Trained how?" Halverson demanded, "Don’t know."

  "Harry." Carlotta’s voice was low and urgent. "Harry, that’s an invader. We have to go capture it. We
have to get it alive. Maybe it knows about Wes. Harry, we have to!"

  Harry gulped hard. "Sure, but I need gas—"

  "I’ll get it out of David’s car,"

  "Hey, hold on," Colonel Halverson said. "I can’t let you do that—"

  "Why not?" Carlotta demanded. "You’re going east. You’ll see lots of invaders, you don’t need this one."

  "But—look, those things are armed—"

  "It didn’t hurt that man in the bar," Carlotta said. "Why would he think it was trained? Maybe—maybe it lay down and rolled over!"

  "Holy shit!" Harry said. "Hey, she might be right."

  "Yeah, but—"

  "Colonel, my husband was a personal friend of the President. President Coffey himself sent Wes up to meet the aliens. It’s my right to find out what happened to him. You give Harry some gasoline, and then go fight your war. Harry and I will do the rest."

  Yeah

  , Harry thought, sure.

  * * *

  "I say we go in after them." Evan Lewis sounded very sure. "Hell, Joe, we have to! We can’t let those—things run all over Kansas,"

  "Wasn’t me arguing with you. Captain," Lieutenant Colonel Halverson said. He looked at the others seated at Juana Morgan’s dining room table. Evan Lewis, who ran a tractor sales and repair agency, and commanded the tanks. George Mason, lawyer, who commanded the six helicopter gunships. The fourth man at the table was David Morgan, retired professor of business administration, Halverson’s adjutant and chief of staff. Morgan was the smallest one at the table, and he spoke with a clipped eastern accent that irritated hell out of Joe Halverson, but he was certainly the smartest man in the battalion.

  "And I still don’t like it," George Mason said. "Colonel, we don’t know what we’re up against, and we don’t know what the Army has in mind."

  "So what do you suggest we do?" Halverson asked.

  "Wait for orders."

  "How heroic," Captain Lewis said.

  "Enough." David Morgan spoke quietly, but they all heard him. "We don’t need bickering."

  "So which side are you on, Professor?" Evan Lewis had never liked Professor Morgan. On the other hand, it was David Morgan’s house, and they all felt like guests, military uniforms or not.

  "I agree with Colonel Halverson’s reasoning," Morgan said. "The invaders are hiding something to the east. We’re a cavalry outfit. It’s our duty to explore—but carefully. In particular, we have to be certain that any information we get will be useful. That won’t be easy. They’re jamming all communications and the phones don’t work."

  Joe Halverson nodded thoughtfully. "Suggestions, Major?"

  "We’ll have to string things out. Use the Bradley vehicles as communications links." He sketched rapidly on the table cloth. "Corporal Lewis"—Morgan nodded to Evan Lewis; everyone knew that Evan’s son Jimmy was an electronic genius—"Jimmy rigged up those shield things that let the tanks talk to each other, as long as the antennas are aimed straight at each other. Fine. We send the choppers forward as scouts and flankers, making sure they stay in line of sight to the tanks. Tanks in the middle, concentrated enough to have some firepower, spread out enough to not make such a good target. Then string the Bradleys and the LAVs out behind as connecting links."

  "What do they connect to?" Mason asked.

  "We leave two troopers here with my wife and a radio. Juana writes down everything, if we don’t come back, she gets the hell out."

  "Not much chance she’d have to do that," Halverson said. "Hell, we’re not an army, but we’ve got a fair amount of strength here." He looked out the window at his command. Six helicopters, with missiles. A dozen tanks, with guns and missiles. The communications weren’t any good because the Invaders were broadcasting static from space. But even without communications a troop of armored cavalry was nothing to laugh at.

  "Sounds all right to me," Lewis said. "At least we’ll be doing something."

  "I’d rather wait for orders," George Mason said. "But what the hell, I’m ready if you are."

  Joe Halverson stood. "Right. Let’s go."

  * * *

  "I’m Jimmy Lewis," the corporal said. He climbed through the attic window to join Harry on the roof of the big frame house.

  Harry nodded greeting. "Hi. They tell me you invented this." He hefted the hand-talkie radio whose antenna was wrapped in a tinfoil cone stiffened with coat-hanger wire.

  "Yeah," Jimmy Lewis said. His tone was serious. "It’s the only way I’ve figured to keep communications. You have to point it pretty tight, though, or you’ll lose the signal

  Harry regarded the device, then the similar but larger tinfoil monstrosity on one of the Bradley Fighting Vehicles in the yard down below. "Yeah. So I point this at the Bradley, and maybe I can hear. What then?"

  "Use this," Jimmy Lewis said. He handed Harry a Sony tape recorder. "There’s three hours of tape on there. More than enough. Just plug it into the radio, here, like that, and turn it on when we move out. Listen in the earphones, and you’ll hear a tone if you’re pointed close to the tank, and nothing at all when you’re dead on, except when they’re talking; then you’ll hear them talk, of course. It sounds hard, but it’s pretty easy, really."

  "Sure."

  Major Morgan was in the front yard. Harry couldn’t hear what he was saying, but Juana Morgan didn’t like it. Their housekeeper sat in the front seat of the four-wheel-drive Jimmy, but Juana Morgan didn’t want to drive it.

  Finally, though, she got in, and the blue Jimmy drove off. And now it’s just Carlotta and me. David Morgan stood very straight as he went to his tank and climbed in.

  Colonel Halverson came over to stand below them. "Bout time, Jimmy," he shouted up at them.

  "Yes, sir." Corporal Lewis waved to Harry and crawled back inside through the window.

  "Thanks, Mr. Reddington," Halverson shouted. "I need all my troopers. Good of you to fill in. I doubt you’ll be needed, but—"

  "Yeah. No problem, Colonel." Of course Carlotta’s goin’ nuts, wanting to go get that elephant. Maybe it’s safer up here!

  "Thanks, then," Halverson said. He walked briskly up the line to the lead tank and climbed in. He stood in the turret for a moment, then waved dramatically. "Wagons—hoooo!" he shouted.

  The helicopters rose in a cloud of dust and swept forward and off to each side in groups of three The tanks fanned out and moved ahead, leaving the Bradleys behind.

  "Watcher, this is Jayhawk One. Do you read?"

  Harry keyed the mike. "Roger, Jayhawk One, this is Watcher."

  "Course is 100 degrees, moving forward at 1220 hours," the tanker’s voice said in Harry’s ear. Harry started guiltily and switched on the tape recorder.

  When the Bradley began to move eastward, it was much harder to keep the radio aimed properly. Harry braced it against the chimney. The rooftop was steep and it wasn’t easy to keep his footing.

  The helicopters wove in complex patterns ahead of the tanks. "Moving, ahead at twenty klicks," the voice said.

  About ten miles an hour

  , Harry thought. He could still remember kilometer signs on highways, although he hadn’t seen one in years. A half-hour went by. The helicopters and lead tanks were nearly invisible. The others were strung out behind them. Harry’s radio contact was a good five miles ahead, and it took all his attention to keep the antenna aimed properly. He was about to key the mike to tell them that.

  "Light overhead," the tanker’s voice shouted.

  Harry could see it. A bright green flash, more visible high up than near the ground.

  "It’s moving in a circle—Number Three Helicopter reports the beam is moving around them in a circle, it’s tightening in on them—" There was a pause. "No contact with the choppers. Colonel Halverson reports they’ve all been attacked by some kind of beam—"

  Jesus

  . "So far nothing’s shot at us—"

  There was a roar and the sharp snap of multiple sonic booms. Harry looked up. Dozens of parallel white lines c
rossed the sky from the southwest; they dropped like the lines in Missile Command, downward toward where Colonel Halverson’s force was centered. There were bright flashes at the horizon and along the line where the connecting vehicles had been strung out. After a long pause, there was the sound of thunder.

  "Jayhawks, this is Watcher," Harry said. "Any Jayhawk, this is Watcher. Come in—"

  Harry poured the last of the gas into the motorcycle.

  "What was it?" Carlotta asked.

  "I don’t know. It looked like a video game. It was unreal." Harry went on checking the motorcycle. Making a motorcycle work was a good test of sanity, and one he could win. Death from the sky—we owned the sky once. Then the Soviets took it away. Now we’ve got to take it back from baby elephants.

  "Motor’s in good shape. We’ll make it fine. You’ll have to hold the rifle." He handed Carlotta the 30-06 Winchester that David Morgan had loaned him.

  "Not an elephant gun, but it’ll give them pause to think," Morgan had said.

  Not a loan anymore. They were dead, all of them. He’d waited an hour. "Maybe I ought to go look?"

  "No." Carlotta was positive. "You’ll get yourself killed. It’s more important that we capture that stray—"

  "Mrs. Dawson, you don’t know that’s a stray."

  "What else could it be?"

  Harry shruigged. All I know is I’m gettin’ damned tired of ridin’ this motorcycle, and I wish I had another tube of Preparation H. But my back isn’t as bad as it was. "All aboard."

  He patted his pocket to be sure the tape was in it. Somebody would want that tape.

  "I will never go metric—" Harry sang.

  A clump of cars and people was clustered around a big semi ahead. "We’re just about to Collinston," Harry shouted. "That looks like trouble."

  He slowed, and drove the motorcycle up to the semi. A highway patrol cruiser was parked nearby, and a lieutenant of the highway patrol stood facing a knot of angry farmers and truckers. Most of them held rifles or shotguns.

  "Oh, shit," Harry muttered.

  The lieutenant eyed Harry and Carlotta. Red beard, dirty clothes; middle-aged woman in designer jeans. He watched Carlotta dismount. "Yes, madam?"