Doomsday Eve 2

Doomsday Eve 2

Then there was the story of Colonel Edward Grant, USAF. Grant was the

only man aboard the new Earth satellite station. He was the only man

aboard because at that time no way had been found to build and to

launch a satellite that would carry more than one passenger. In fact,

no way had been found to do more than launch such a station and get it

into its orbit. It could not return because it could not carry enough

fuel for the return journey. A spaceship was being built which would

carry additional fuel and food supplies to it, but this vessel was not

yet completed when the satellite was launched.

 

Grant, who had flown everything with wings, volunteered to ride with

the station and put it in its orbit, knowing that when the power was

exhausted he might be marooned in space forever.

 

However, neither he nor anyone else had anticipated that he would

be marooned. This eventuality had only occurred when the production

demands of the new war forced a halt on the construction of his rescue

ship.

 

Colonel Grant became the loneliest man in the history of Earth. The

stars were his companions. Only the moon kept him company. He would

remain a lonely Flying Dutchman of the sky, until the end of the

war permitted finishing the ship that would bring him relief. Or

forever--whichever came first.

 

It was inevitable that the Asians would get the idea that he was spying

on them as he passed in his regular orbit far above their heads. In

reality, this was sheer nonsense; he was much too high to make out any

military details of any importance whatsoever. Also, they were taking

full advantage of his broadcasts of scientific information, which could

be obtained by tuning in to the bands he used.

 

In an effort to remove this imagined menace from the sky above them,

the Asians fired a rocket torpedo at his satellite.

 

Colonel Grant, reporting later on what had happened, said, "That

torpedo must have been on its way, when the little man appeared on my

satellite. He told me about the rocket that was coming my way. I told

him this was very interesting but that I didn't see what the hell I

could do about it. The station had no power and couldn't be moved. I

didn't even have a chute, and even if I had had one I couldn't have

used it. Anybody who jumped from that height would have frozen to death

long before he reached enough air to sustain life. Describe the little

man for you? Sure, general. He looked like a miniature Moses, white

beard, glittering eyes and everything else. No, general, I never saw

Moses. Clothes? A loin cloth, general. No, sir I am not making light of

the dignity of this court, I am telling in the words at my command what

I saw happen with my own eyes."

 

At this point, the colonel's voice became a little stiff. The general

shut up. A man who had done what Grant had done might snap a general's

head off and get away with it.

 

"What happened next? The miniature Moses told me he was going to land

the satellite. He said that even if they missed with this torpedo they

would be sure to try again, for no reason except to give the morale of

their own people a big boost."

 

"Land the satellite, colonel?" the general asked again. "But as I

understand it, the station was without power!"

 

"You understand the situation correctly, general. But that was what he

said and that was what he did. In as neat a landing as I ever saw. And

if you don't believe me, you can go look for yourself."

 

The space satellite sitting in the middle of a Kansas wheat field was

evidence that could not be ignored. It was solid, it was metal, it was

real. Colonel Grant might have gone wacky from the stress of remaining

too long in space, but the station, at least, had remained sane. Power

must have been used to move it. But what power?

 

Colonel Grant could not answer the question of what happened to the

miniature Moses after the station had been landed. He flung up his

hands. "Moses went the same way he came, without me seeing him."

 

On the basis of Grant's report, an investigation was begun. A vast mass

of data was assembled, some of it dating from the time of Jal Jonnor,

but when no practical results were immediately forthcoming, the project

was shelved, at least temporarily. Its manpower was desperately needed

for other purposes. Men fighting for their lives have no time to think

of the future.

 

This dusty, forgotten mass of data was exhumed by a tall, lean man

named Kurt Zen, a colonel of intelligence, who had a reputation for

daring even among that elite band of men who daily looked death in the

face.

 

Zen was assigned to this investigation, not only because of his

reputation, but because the stories of the new people had increased in

number to the point where they had to be given some credence. Also,

they became more fantastic in content. For instance, a bomber pilot

insisted that a woman had ridden on the wing of his ship all the way to

Asia, dropping from the plane in the highlands of western China. Zen

regarded this story as obvious hallucination. Much of the data about

the new people belonged in this category. He morosely wondered if it

was possible to tell where reality left off and hallucination began.

The colonel soon discovered that his job was not going to be as easy as

he'd hoped.

 

Aside from the stories told by the soldiers--and the Asian fighting men

also had their tales to tell--only one thing was certain: if the new

people existed at all, they were very elusive. Only the grave of the

man who had founded the group, old Jal Jonnor, was still to be found in

the high Sierras of California. Zen did not go looking for this grave,

but he saw photographs of it. He also studied the biographies that had

been compiled on this colossal but enigmatical figure. Were the grave

and the thick files the only remaining evidence that at least one

human had dared to dream of a new day? Zen did not think so. Most of

all, he longed to capture one of the new people for questioning.

 

Then, in a daring coup that was intended to strike a spearhead at the

heart of America, Cuso, the top Asian fighting leader, and thousands

of tough Asian paratroopers floated down into the mountains between

British Columbia and the United States.

 

Cuso and his men, hiding out in the high mountain ranges, resisted all

efforts to dislodge them. They became a festering thorn in the side

of America, a threat that was not quite big enough to take seriously,

or slight enough to overlook. He was hidden so deep in the mountain

caverns that he could not be bombed out and the terrain was so rugged

that his paratroopers could withstand the assault of a full army.

 

As his men began making forays into the lower ranges, searching for

food and women, the inhabitants of the area fled in terror.

 

This was the situation when Kurt Zen accompanied a body of troops up

the last fairly good trail toward Cuso's hidden lair. Neither the

troops nor Cuso really interested him. What interested him was an army

nurse with the medical detachment. He suspected this nurse was one of

the new people.

 

In months of patient, painstaking work, she was the only good lead to

this group that he had uncovered.

 

He was going up a steep mountain trail, with troops ahead and behind,

when something that sounded like a wounded lion began to cough in the

sky overhead.

 

 

 

 

II

 

 

Kurt Zen heard the lion cough in the sky overhead. He knew that it

would hit in about four minutes and that it would seem to open a tunnel

upward from hell, that the mountains would shake and tremble, that the

air would vibrate and rattle as if a dozen thunderbolts had exploded

at the same instant, and that a good number of the troops laboriously

circling the incline of the ridge above would die.

 

He knew that more of them would die a horrible lingering death as a

result of the radioactivity that would be released by the blast.

 

"Pardon me, Nedra," he said to the nurse, who was just ahead of him.

 

She had stopped to stare upward.

 

"Hit the dirt!" Zen yelled at the troops. A few had already heard

the lion cough in the sky and had begun to take cover, following the

pattern of experienced fighters who never need an order to dive for the

nearest hole. He saw, as he shouted, that the number who had already

begun to hit the dirt was pitifully few and he knew the reason for

this. Most of these men were green conscripts on their first fighting

mission, the results of digging deep into a population that had already

been scoured to the bone for manpower--and for everything else.

Conscripts were likely to stare at the sky and die with their mouths

open.

 

"What is it?" the girl asked. "What's wrong?"

 

"Don't you hear that blooper in the sky overhead?"

 

"No. That is, I heard something make a noise up there. But--" Mixed

emotions moved across her face but fear was not among them. Instead,

she seemed to be curious. "But what is a blooper?"

 

From a nurse, or from any living American, such a question was

incredible. Zen stared at her in amazement.

 

"Did I say the wrong thing, ask the wrong question?"

 

"You sure did," Zen answered. "Come on."

 

"But where are we going?"

 

"There!" He nodded toward a prospect hole, one of the many that had

been dug in these mountains by miners. As soon as he had heard the

blooper cough its interrupted rocket blast when it changed direction in

the sky, he had instantly looked for a hiding place. This tunnel seemed

to fill the bill.

 

"Is something going to happen?" the nurse asked.

 

"In less than two minutes you will find out," he answered. His long

legs had already started taking him toward the hole. After hesitating

for an instant, the nurse hastily followed him.