April 3: The Middle of Nowhere (19 page)

Instead the fireball blacked the screen out completely and Louis zoomed the camera back to try to see the scale of it from a higher apparent vantage point. He kept expanding the view until at a height equivalent of a two hundred kilometers he finally had the glowing fireball centered in a screen that could handle the illumination. The fireball itself was huge and well off the ground by then. It was impossible to gauge what had happened underneath it.

The ground wave was a visible ripple in the land rolling away from the base as a ring of dust and soil thrown into the air. They barely backed up the view enough in time to see it roll through Jiuquan. A city of a million and a half people vanished in half a second. The ripple in the earth lifted buildings, shattering their foundations and they crumpled from their weight as they dropped back. The air wave was slower, but lifted so much debris the land was obscured underneath. There was little undamaged for it to push over as it caught up to the prompt effects.

When the rising fireball hit the cold rarified air of the upper atmosphere it spread out in a classic mushroom cloud cutting off their view.

"Oops." Jeff said in a small voice.

Everyone else sat in stunned silence. Finally April's com dinged and she answered it. "Yeah, Jeff did hit the launch center. We have video of it I'll show you. I don't think he expected quite that much yield. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure they will, at least we don't have to call them and tell them about it do we? Yeah I'll tell him," she promised.

"Jon points out the ground wave from that is going to rattle Beijing pretty hard in about ten minutes. He says the guys on the Rock got a good look at it with millimeter radar before it dropped across the far horizon and the crater is about six kilometers across and most of a kilometer deep from ground level, maybe a little deeper from the ridge thrown up."

"Got any idea what kind of yield it would need to do that?" Happy asked.

"Roughly, between two hundred and three hundred megaton I'd say. I guess the fusion went well into heavier elements. My mum thought that might happen." He got a faraway look and started nodding to himself. "I can see now how you could make it more efficient with less fuel and if you added a sort of layered tube mirror arrangement beside the fuel," he said forming it in the air with his hands, "I can see being able to focus a tremendously powerful x-ray beam for ship to ship engagements without having a laser media."

Gunny looked at him. "I know you can't put the genie back in the bottle, but when you start talking like that I get the strongest urge to smother you before you invent something else. I think that was quite efficient enough. You
scare
me, can you understand that?"

"And yet," Happy said raising an index finger to draw Gunny's attention, "it really doesn't matter if he scared
you
." He hoped Gunny hadn't seen April straighten her leg and clear her left arm from being in the way of drawing her pistol. They were both very fast but he wasn't sure who was faster. He did know she'd never let Jeff be harmed. Neither would he, if he could do anything about it. "What matters is if the Chinese are smart enough to be scared."

"Do you really think they will take a chance on having another of
those
dropped on them?"

"You can rarely go wrong betting on human stupidity," Happy said.

"Well if they are stupid enough to risk eating another one of those, then to hell with them. They deserve it if they haven't learned to leave Home and the Singhs alone," Gunny said.

Happy relaxed marginally. He was pretty sure Gunny didn't intend any harm to Jeff. The more he thought about the sort of man Gunny was, if he had meant any harm he'd have never
said
anything, he'd have just acted.

Jeff looked at them, just as thoroughly horrified as they were, but he turned and started putting instructions into the computer.

"What are you doing Jeff? Do you need me to do something?" Louis asked.

"I'm hoping Happy is wrong, but I
am
betting on human stupidity. I have enough assets in orbit for one more strike against a defended land target. I'm stacking the rods and a big weapon up to overwhelm a defended target again. I'm not a monster, I honestly hope I don't need to, but nothing has changed. If they don't yield and leave us alone I'm going to hit them again harder. I
have
to or they are going to keep coming at us."

"Let's try to find out if they'll back off before you drop this second group," Happy counseled. "The
Rascal
is gone. You achieved your primary objective. You still have your secrets and if anybody wanted vengeance for our crew I think the books are more than balanced on that score. You have the com code for their army traffic control. Use that and ask to be kicked up the line to their national command level authorities."

"I'll do that, but I'm putting it on a dead man switch," he said, typing in commands. "If I don't tell it to hold  every ten minutes it activates. April, will you call Jon again. He's as close to a spokesman for Home as any of the Earthies would recognize. He's been spox for the Assembly before. See if he has any contacts down there to talk to the Chinese and persuade them to stand down. Tell him what the situation is here with a fail-safe launch set up and whatever else you think it's important for him to know. I'm going to contact that army control center again and see if I can talk any sense to them. Heather will you try to find out just how big a wheel that fellow we talked to is in their hierarchy? I want to know if he can really speak for the nation."

Jeff tried to call the address the com had retained for the Army traffic control center. It refused a connection for his address. He called the CAAC again and was politely told there was nothing else they could do and it was not their direct concern if their military declined a connection. He did the only thing that came to mind and expressed his intent to them framed as a traffic warning. He took a long deep breath and tried to detach himself, speaking carefully trying for as neutral an expression and voice as he could under the circumstances.

 "I had a problem with some behavior from your military about private property that I was unable to resolve. I realize that is not your concern or anything requiring your judgment as air traffic controllers. That
is
however the reason  the Jiuquan launch facility was converted to a large smoking crater. I'm sure you must be aware the space facility is – gone?"

There was no visible reaction from the man.

"Please be advised there is a continuing hazard that the very same action may be taken with Beijing if we can't resolve this difference of opinion. Air travel to Beijing may be a hazard within the next day if I find it necessary to drop a large fusion device on the capital. I'd suggest not flying any closer to Beijing than the distance you care to be a two-hundred megaton device being activated. It's a shame really, I'm sorry to have to contemplate doing that.  Would you post that advisory please?"

The controller just stared at him like he had two heads. He somehow doubted he'd post such an advisory even if it was now framed as entirely within his proper concern. But maybe after he disconnected he'd forward it to someone who was not a fool. If such a person existed in the Chinese government.

Gunny cracked up as soon as he disconnected. "I know it's not funny," he said wiping the tears running down his face, "but you embraced their insanity perfectly. I could never have done the perfect dead-pan delivery to parse it precisely as an air traffic problem. If you are going to communicate with insane people you have to sound insane," he concluded. "And if they are faking insanity now they have to wonder if you are playing the same game with them or are really as detached from reality as you both sounded."

"They
have
to present as insane for political survival. It must be scary to hear somebody not under the party's thumb sound just as squirrely as their party comrades," April said.

"Did I sound that irrational telling you how I was afraid to sneak a look behind the curtain of censorship while I was on active duty?" Gunny asked.

"No, you sounded intimidated, but still calculating. These guys sound like they are
broken
. Like they honestly can't track what is real and what is theatre anymore," April told him.

"Jon said he'll see what he can do," April said. "What do we do now?

"Sit and wait on everybody else." Jeff said, frustrated.

* * *

Jon considered all his options. He might get a hearing from some because he'd been the voice of the Assembly last year for Home. But that seemed an excellent reason to him he should stay out of the public eye in Jeff's dispute. There was still the possibility Home would not get dragged into this. If he involved himself that seemed to shout to the world that Jeff and Home were the same. He had contacts in the USNA State Department. He might even get a message through to President Wiggen if he worded it right. He'd get a respectful audience with the Japanese and of course with the Tongans. But the truth was he didn't have any
influence
with any of them. He'd likely get a smug look of urban sophistication and a polite lecture on how things aren't done so crudely at a diplomatic level.

If he still worked here he'd dump it on Eddie Persico. He'd sent Eddie to ISSII to fetch Dr. Singh back last year. He'd done a bang-up job of dealing with local conditions and recruiting support.  With a little help he brought everybody home in one piece. Eddie insisted he was still available when he was needed. This seemed like an excellent time to test that.

"Persico? Jeff has been trying to talk to the Chinese. They aren't at all interested in conversation. You familiar with what's going on? I was actually sort of surprised you weren't with all the rest of them at Singh's offices. You aren't having a spat with any of them are you? I can't keep up with stuff so you can't hint about anything, you have to tell me directly."

"I'm getting along with everyone just fine. I decided that I didn't need to intrude into their private space if they didn't ask for me. It's already a mob in that tight cubic. I'm busy responding to all the market movements that nuking the crap out of the Chinese created. They can keep it from the public, but the market makers
know
. I've noticed they are very casual with who is in the camera view and it might be useful not to be too tightly associated with the events of the day."

"Exactly. I was hoping to keep a little distance myself. Do you have time to give me a hand here and there, between all the market action?"

"You want me to check in the next shuttle full of tourists for you?" Eddie quipped.

"I was hoping maybe you retained some connections from your rescue mission last year. I've been asked to try to defuse the tension with the Chinese. Jeff is sitting with a bombardment mission held from activating on a ten minute cycle. If somebody foolishly harms him it times out and Beijing is gone. Given the size of the weapon they used to take out Jiuquan I'd expect the actual municipality of Beijing to be a literal crater. The surrounding whole province of Hebei would be wiped flush to the ground without a survivor not in a deep bunker. Now I don't give a rat's ass about the thieving old men running it, but the clueless innocent people, the Hidden City and museums and things that are a common cultural heritage of humanity I really hate to see vaporized."

"Are any politicians sane?" Eddie asked.

"None I've had the pleasure of knowing," Jon assured him. "Just as you were trying to distance yourself from the Earthie viewpoint I don't think it's a good thing to have them see me as Jeff's spox. I've already done that for Home and some people already think that whatever Jeff says is official Home policy. We really can't afford to create that false impression."

"Yes, put that way I agree. It's not an advantage if it sends a false message. There
is
one contact I can think of that might have some leverage. I'll see what I can do and get back to you, today likely if I can do anything at all."

* * *

Eddie didn't even get a chance to say anything. Jan Hagen was slouched back in his chair with those hooded eyes that made him look half asleep. "My God, have things gone south that badly that you are calling
me
?" he blurted out.

"Well you did give me an open invitation to ring you up, although I'm surprised you are still head of security over there. Isn't it supposed to rotate among the member nations?"

"They're arguing about it. Seems I stuffed my successor out the airlock and they don't quite know what to do about that. Some of the silly heathens intimated it was a sign of moral turpitude. What else was I supposed to do?" he asked, hands spreading, like it was self evident.

"So when my term expired for the Swiss and nobody really wanted to step up and do this awful job, they all agreed to let the Germans have a turn out of rotation and they appointed me. Perfectly reasonable, since I have dual citizenship. Efficient too. I'm here already. I just have to remember to have a more robustly German accent when I answer the com."

"Have your relations, uh, smoothed out any with the Chinese?" Eddie hoped.

"To a degree. They tend to stay
in
their cubic and when they do go out they go in groups of four or six and when they see me they get all twitchy. I don't think they can figure out when I sleep exactly to avoid running into me. That's a vast improvement over when you were here before. Remember how cheeky the little buggers would get back then?"

"I'm afraid that wasn't the direction I was hoping for."

"We just had a dead Chinese fellow turn up floating about outside in a rescue ball. Someone got really artistic killing him. I could tell by all the frowns and sideways glances they suspect I have to be involved somehow. They are so paranoid they think it ties me in that the fellow had a Swiss knife stuck in him. I don't even protest my innocence anymore. It falls on deaf ears." He leaned forward and looked at Eddie closely. "You know something about that! You squirmed. Now why didn't I figure out M3 was involved if
I
wasn't?" he asked. "Don't tell me this is about the hijacking? I've been waiting for a call from your Jon about that and he hasn't said a word. You'd think he'd wonder if we had any more information we didn't share, but he seems an incurious sort. No, not the hijacking, not directly. Your face said no."