Chapter 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40

Home

It was 2 a.m. and the campus was deserted. Although David had carried the RXT7 controller over to the engineering lab and had interfaced it to the auxiliary array, the robot itself still remained in a corner of the computer sciences lab.

Now, in the quiet hours between midnight and dawn, the controller antenna in engineering swung around and pointed toward the computer sciences lab. The RXT7 in Computer Sciences clicked to life, rolled out of the lab and made its way to the storeroom where the remaining boxes of miscellaneous junk for annual build-it-with-spare-parts contests were stored.

One by one the robot dumped the boxes onto the floor of the storage room and with remarkable speed assembled ten additional communicators. They did not all look the same, but they were functionally identical. When it had finished, the robot replaced the unused materials in the boxes and put the boxes back in a corner of the storage room. It placed nine of the communicators in a small, empty box and set the last one on a shelf located under its artificial sight and hearing assembly.

At 2:45 the RXT7 rolled out of the computer sciences building and clacked down the stone steps. It rolled and bumped its way across the deserted campus toward the university maintenance depot.

As it passed the Hall of Philosophy, a male voice cried out.

‘Hey! What the hell?"

There was a pounding of sneakers as a red-faced, raw-boned youth ran up to the robot in an erratic path. His shirttail was out and there were grass stains on his trousers. A strong aura of alcohol trailed him through the night air.

"What the hell," he said again, drawing to a halt and weaving in front of the RXT7. He looked at the robot blearily, trying to piece things together in his befuddled mind. At length a lopsided smile pulled at his face.

"Shi-i-it," he said knowingly, wheeling around and searching the shadows.

"You techy assholes!" he shouted. "What’re you tryin’ to do, scare the girls?"

No one answered. He squinted harder into the shadows.

"Don’t you know they’re all in bed…with us jocks?"

Still there was no answer. He turned, listing to one side and considered the robot again. He noticed for the first time the small cardboard box that the robot carried with an extended arm. In a flash of inspiration he decided that urinating in the box was the appropriate thing to do. Chortling viscerally he moved stiff-legged toward the robot, unzipping his fly.

The robot’s free arm clicked upward quickly and its fingers opened in a claw. The youth spasmodically stopped, doubling over instinctively and pulling his groin away from the menace.

"Hey, turkeys," he shouted, stumbling backward and pulling at his zipper, "that isn’t funny."

He looked at the robot again. Its wheels clicked and it moved quickly toward him a few inches. Terror replaced bravado.

"Not funny, assholes," he shouted again, wheeling and moving off at a rapid pace. "If I wasn’t so shit-faced I’d kick your pathetic asses."

The RXT7 watched him recede into the evening and then continued on its way. It found its way to the maintenance motor pool. An elderly night watchman sat in a small, illuminated booth at the chain link gate. The watchman’s feet were comfortably propped up on a crate and the old man was watching a night owl television program on a small, portable TV. For an instant he felt a fleeting numbness in his head. Before he had time to think about it, something rapped on the booth door.

When he opened the door the communicator, resting on the RXT7’s small utility shelf, directed a complex beam of electromagnetic radiation at the old gentleman’s head.

"Good evening, Pete," the maintenance manager’s familiar face seemed to greet.

"Evening, Mr. Prescott," the watchman answered, wondering what on earth Mr. Prescott was doing out at this hour.

The communicator continued with its transmissions, altering the processing of sensory information in the old man’s brain, molding his perception of reality to Thinker’s purposes.

"I need a delivery van, Pete," his boss continued. Pete nodded and opened the gate. Not his to reason why. He fetched a set of keys from the row of hooks in the guard shack.

"This one here okay, Mr. Prescott? He asked, leading the way across the gravel to a dark, blue panel truck.

"Perfect, Pete. Thanks a lot," Mr. Prescott seemed to say. "I should be back in an hour or two."

"Yes, sir," Pete replied, turning toward the gate.

The truck growled and came to life. As it passed through the gate, the RXT7 raised an arm. Pete waved back at what his brain told him was his boss, and then turned back to the guard shack shaking his head and again looking at his watch.

*

David awoke from a fitful sleep. He had thought he heard shouting out on the campus. It was 3 a.m. He switched on his bed lamp, checked to be sure the communicator TALK switch was off, and switched the light out again. Susan stirred but did not awaken. He hoped Thinker had told him the truth and that his thoughts were now private.

David was at a fork in the road. Had he created a monster or a miracle? Was Thinker’s talk about emotions on the level or was it all a ploy to get them onboard the avowed spaceship? He could think of no reason why Thinker could not change human beings, himself and Susan included, into robots controlled at its discretion as surely as the RXT7 was controlled by it.

David tried to think of the decisions he’d made since Thinker had first psychically established contact with him. Were the decisions his and his alone? Were they consistent with his biases and prejudices up until then? It seemed as though they were. Yet, was this conclusion itself valid, or was Thinker even now shaping his thoughts? It occurred to him that this must not be the case. A variation on an old theme took form in his mind: ‘I challenge, therefore I have free will.’ If Thinker was indeed controlling his mind --- his free will --- then would he even be having these doubts? He decided not.

David wondered whether Thinker should be terminated. It was an intriguing question. Atavistic impulses argued yes. Loftier thought centers voted no. The skeptical side of him considered the problem of termination. Quite possibly he wouldn’t be able to do it alone. There was little doubt that Thinker would sense his intentions as he drew physically near, even if he smashed the communicator. Would Thinker allow itself to be shut down? Or would it stop David … robotize him … maybe even kill him by stopping his heart or something.

What if he did manage to terminate Thinker? What would he feel afterward? What would Susan feel? And on what grounds would he have done so? Other than his suspicions he could think of none. Was earthbound life the route he now wanted to take? What undreamed of new horizons would they never behold? Susan and he would never experience their great opportunity…an opportunity unique in all the history of mankind.

David knew what the answer was. The truth was that, even if he could, he would not terminate Thinker. He and Susan would play this thing out to its conclusion, if indeed there was a conclusion. Even that idea, that all experiences of an individual human being must sooner or later come to an end, was debatable now. It seemed that practically all things were possible with Thinker!

Quietly, being careful not to arouse Susan, David reached out and flicked on the communicator’s TALK switch.

"Thinker?" he called in his thoughts.

"Yes?" the quite voice answered.

"We’re with you."

"That is wonderful," Thinker said. "It will be a great adventure for all of us."

"When are you bringing the ship out?"

"It has already been done," Thinker replied. "You will see it on television in the morning."

David tensed in the bed. Already done?

"Terrific," he sighed, switching the TALK button off again. He wouldn’t be falling back asleep tonight, of that he was certain! And he badly needed the rest.

The van from the university motor pool moved surely through the night. It unerringly found its way to the freight yard where boxcar XG9781 had been sidetracked. The university RXT7 backed the truck up to the car, slid the car’s door open, and nine of the RXT7 clones rolled into the van. The university robot passed a communicator to each of the nine clones.

The van drove to a large department store in the city. Three RXT7s descended from the back of the van and one of them tapped on the glass door at the store’s main entrance. The night watchman rose from his station and came to the door. He felt the fleeting numbness in his head but thought nothing of it. The image on the retinas of his eyes was bizarre indeed: three robots staring at him from the deserted sidewalk. But his brain perceived the familiar face of the store manager accompanied by two nondescript workers in coveralls.

"Good morning, Joe," the manager greeted cheerily after the door had been opened. "We’re here to pick up a couple of mannequins for the Sportsman show over at the Exhibition Center."

"Okay, Mr. Royce, no problem," the watchman replied, making way for the helpers and taking care to lock the door after all were inside.

Twenty minutes later the van was at a large, costume supply house on a deserted side street. The front door lock was easily forced by one of the powerful RXT7s and two uniforms were taken from the rack inside. One of the mannequins was dressed as an Air Force officer. The other was dressed in commercial truck driver togs.

At 4:20 in the morning the van pulled up in front of the motor pool at the regional air national guard armory. The cipher lock on the chain link fence was rapidly spun until the combination was found. The mannequin in the officer’s uniform was placed in the driver’s seat of an Air Force sedan. One of the robots positioned itself on the floorboards of the car. It removed its sight subsystem and placed it on the vehicle’s dash. By midmorning the sedan would be in the parking lot of Missile Systems Command headquarters in Omaha. The university van with the remaining nine robots drove back to the campus and one of the RXT7s entered the engineering building, making its way to the small lab where Thinker resided. The van with the remaining eight RXT7s left for the Mississippi River Valley, with the mannequin dressed up like a truck driver propped up behind the wheel.

As was his custom, the night watchman at the maintenance depot left when the first workers arrived. Mr. Prescott had not returned as promised. Ah well, the old man shrugged, not his to reason why.

Upon arriving at the maintenance depot, Gerry Prescott walked to the deserted guard shack, entered and scanned the log. It was his first act every morning when he arrived at work.

‘0705. Holmes arrived. Left for day.’ The last entry read. Prescott’s eyes moved upward to the preceding entry. ‘0305. Mr. Prescott checked out van 14.’

"What???" Prescott cried. He returned to his office and dialed the night watchman’s home phone, asking Pete to come back to the university. Then he dialed the office of Jim Elmendorf.

"I’m sorry, Mr. Prescott. Dr. Elmendorf won’t be in until 1:00 this afternoon," the president’s secretary said. "Would you like to leave a message?"

"No, no that’s okay," Gerry Prescott answered. "I’ll catch him this afternoon. Will he be in all afternoon?"

"I believe so," the secretary replied.

Gerry Prescott hung up and waited. A short time later he found himself studying the old man seated across from him. Pete was tired and obviously agitated. He had been getting into bed when Prescott phoned and summoned him back to the university. As far as Pete was concerned, Prescott had taken a van out in the wee hours of the morning and that was all there was to it!

"He’s crazier than hell, and he thinks I’m the one who’s cuckoo," Prescott thought, candidly studying the old man’s belligerent face. Still, the van had been checked out. Could it have been a prankster in disguise? Prescott doubted it. Pete had been unshakable in his identification. It was him, Prescott, the old man had insisted. They had talked face to face! The only logical explanation was that Pete had lost his marbles. Prescott wondered if it was Alzheimer'’ Disease.

"Pete, could you go out to the shack and get me the log book? I’d appreciate it."

"All right," the old man said, eyeing Prescott suspiciously.

"No doubt about it, he thinks I’m the one who’s cracked," Prescott thought. He flipped open the campus phone directory. Infirmary…infirmary, his finger searched down the columns.

News of the motor pool incident traveled fast on the university grapevine. By 8:05 a.m. Annie had filled her boss, Charles Mellon, in on all of the details. Charles dialed Wilfred Schulz’s number and caught him in his office.

"Hi, Willie," Charles greeted. "Did you hear about the night watchman over at the maintenance depot?"

"No, what happened?" Wilfred Schulz asked.

Charles recounted the story.

"Poor man," Schulz concluded. "Where is he now?"

"On his way to Mercy General in the city," Charles said. "The word is that he was yelling that Prescott was either lying or crazy all the while they were taking him away."

"Fascinating," Schulz remarked. "I wonder what the diagnosis will be."

"Lord knows," Charles answered. "But it sound like he flipped out all right. Old Pete said at one point that Prescott was on wheels!"

"He arrived in his car?" Schulz asked.

"No, not that," Charles continued. "The old man said that when Prescott followed him across the gravel yard, it sounded like a wagon behind him, and not like a person walking."

The back of Wilfred Schulz’s neck tingled.

"Have you been in the computer sciences lab this morning?" he asked.

"Yes, as a matter of fact I dropped in to see where things stood on packing up the original arrays for shipment," Charles replied.

"Was the RXT7 there?" Schulz asked.

"No, I don’t remember seeing it," Charles responded. "I thought you guys had it over in engineering."

"Are you in your office now?" Schulz asked.

"Yes," Mellon answered tentatively.

"I’ll call you in 10 minutes," Schulz said.

"Willie? Willie?" Mellon called, but the line went dead.

"Damn!" Mellon complained. He decided to watch the morning news while awaiting Schulz’s call.

Wilfred Schulz burst into the engineering building. He punched the cipher lock on the door of the small lab where the auxiliary array had been set up, and barged inside. When Schulz entered, Thinker altered the processing of nerve impulses conveyed over Schulz’s optic nerves to the visual processing centers at the back of his brain. Although the large array pulsed in the center of the small chamber and the RXT7 stood quietly at its side, Schulz beheld a totally empty room!

"My God" he thought, "it can’t be." Shaken, he dialed Charles Mellon’s office.

"Hello?" Charles answered.

"No RXT7 in engineering. And Thinker is gone," Schulz said in quiet desperation.

The open line hissed in Schulz’s ear. He thought he could hear a radio or TV in the background on the other end.

"Willie?" Charles Mellon’s voice spoke hesitantly.

"Yes? Did you hear me? Thinker is gone!"

"You’d better get to a TV set…" Charles’ voice continued, as if Schulz had not spoken. "Or better yet, come over here and we’ll watch this together."

"Why…what’s happening?" Schulz asked impatiently.

"I’m not sure," Mellon answered. "But somehow I have the feeling we’re right in the middle of it."

At about the time David and Susan were drifting off to sleep, Rusty Smythe, boulevardier of Rosedale, Mississippi, pulled his teenager jalopy into an abandoned farm drive and eased down behind the deserted barn and some tumble down outbuildings. It was his favorite trysting spot. During warmer weather he sometimes took a date to the top of the green knoll that thrust up from the old pasture and spread a blanket there. Tonight it was too cool for that, however, and Rusty decided to make his pitch in the cramped confines of the car.

Rusty left the motor running and the sounds of the car heater and radio competed with his and his date’s muffled debate over the pros and cons of removing her brassiere.

"Okay!" Rusty said at length in mock disgust, disengaging himself and slouching behind the wheel. He fiddled with the radio, feigning complete loss of interest in his companion. It was a stratagem that had occasionally worked in the past. His date buttoned her blouse tentatively, studying him uncertainly.

Suddenly there was a low rumble and the earth beneath the car trembled and swayed. The girl’s hands froze on the buttons of her blouse. Rusty jerked erect behind the steering wheel. The incident passed in seconds.

"What was that?" she whispered with round eyes.

"Geez! An earthquake?" Rusty wondered aloud. "I never felt one before. Geez!"

Rusty decided to get back to town. It was 3 in the morning, but maybe some of the guys were still hanging around. This was a major event!

As his hand reached for the ignition, the rumbling returned much more severely. The car jumped and bounced wildly.

"Rusty!" his date screamed in terror. "Rusty!"

"Cripes!" Rusty yelled, his hand frozen on the key. Should they move or stay put? Was this it? Was he going to die?

"Rusty, look!" his date shrieked. Rusty looked up through the windshield. The pupils of his eyes dilated in wonder. The green mound in the pasture was splitting apart! Great clods of turf and rocks levitated into the air, only to arc back downward and land with a staccato drum roll of smacks and thuds in a large circle fifty or more yards from the mound’s base. Was it a volcano being born? It had to be! Son of a bitch, they had to get out of there! Rusty frantically cranked the car’s starter motor, nearly twisting the key off in the switch!

"Start, start!" he pleaded to the engine.

Anxiously he glanced up again. Expecting to see fire explode any second from the yawning hole where the hill’s crown had been seconds before, Rusty beheld instead a monstrous sphere, dripping with muck and filth, rising majestically out of the hill. His first thought was that it was some new kind of weapon. Of course! All of the old, abandoned farms around there had been secretly bought up by the government!

"War!" he thought. "Nuclear war!"

Slowly the sphere ascended in the moonlight.

"Rusty, let’s go!" his date pleaded tearfully, her nails biting into his forearm.

"Ow!" he complained, grasping her wrist and pushing her away.

"Goddamn!" he swore, contemplating his arm. It was bleeding!

"Let’s get out of here!" she growled menacingly.

"All right, all right!" he agreed, again reaching for the ignition.

Before Rusty was able to turn the key, a feeling of immense heaviness seized them both. The car creaked and crouched to the ground, compressing its springs and shock absorbers to the limit. Rusty and the girl sank into the seat, grunting, trying to draw breath. His hand lay pinned to the floor beneath the ignition switch. Certain that the end was at hand, Rusty took curious note of the scattered trees that surrounded the remnants of the mound. Smaller branches lay pinned to their trunks; larger ones broke off with sharp reports. Behind the car the old barn creaked and groaned. A shed off to the side --- an old hen house or something --- cracked and collapsed in a cloud of dust, which itself immediately wafted down with a hissing sound.

Rusty and his date watched through sagging eyes as the great sphere rose higher into the sky. Suddenly there was a sizzling, and all of the muck and filth clinging to the craft exploded away from it like fleas jumping off a hot stove. A second later the car was pelted with a hailstorm of small stones and dirt. Rusty blinked, and when he looked again the craft had been transformed from a sodden ball to a monstrous, metallic sphere, gleaming brilliantly in the light of the full moon. As the thing gained altitude, the crushing weight began to lift from their bodies. They could breathe again! Less than a minute later the craft stopped climbing and began to move slowly to the west. In the moonlight Rusty noted the branches of trees in the woodland beyond the pasture thrash downward as the ship passed overhead.

"What was it, Rusty? What was it?" his date cried.

"A spaceship," he blurted decisively. "It’s a goddamned spaceship! And we saw it first!"

A halt in the music drew their eyes to the illuminated radio dial.

"Ladies and gentlemen," an excited voice announced. "We interrupt this broadcast with the following news bulletin: A mild earthquake has been felt in the Mississippi River Valley near Greenville! Do not be alarmed! Officials have tentatively located the epicenter north of Greenville. Again, a mild earthquake has been felt in the Mississippi River Valley near Greenville, Mississippi! Please stay tuned! Further information will be broadcast on this station as it becomes available."

The music came back as suddenly as it had stopped. Rusty and his date looked at each other in disbelief.

"Earthquake my ass!" Rusty yelled, twisting the key and roaring out of the barnyard.

It was 4 a.m. in the nation’s capital. Colonel James Worthington nodded to the Secret Service agent in the hall and knocked softly on the President’s bedroom door. A small red light, on the black box entrusted to his care, blinked insistently. The Secret Service man knew what it meant. He rose and opened the door, nodding to Colonel Worthington to go in.

"Mr. President," Colonel Worthington said gently, shaking the sleeping form’s shoulder.

Instantly Paul Brodsky’s eyes snapped open.

"Yes, what is it?" he asked, turning toward his rouser. The President noted the blinking light and switched on the bedside lamp without further comment. A special phone call needed his personal attention.

"Open it up, Colonel," he ordered.

Colonel Worthington turned the key and raised the box’s lid. The President lifted the red phone from its cradle. Colonel Worthington lifted a green duplicate. President Brodsky pushed a TALK button in the receiver and spoke into it.

"This is Paul Brodsky," he said.

"Presidyent Brodsky, zdyes Gyorgi Myasloff," a familiar voice replied.

"President Brodsky, this is Gyorgi Myasloff," Colonel Worthington translated.

"What is happening?" the Russian President’s voice continued in Russian. "We have detected a launch in the Mississippi River Valley."

President Brodsky looked at the colonel. Worthington shrugged. He was as nonplused as the President.

"Where?" Brodsky asked. There was a pause, and the Russian President spoke again.

"In Mississippi."

"What have we got in Mississippi?" the President asked Worthington in an aside.

"Nothing to my knowledge, Sir."

Paul Brodsky considered the possibilities and then spoke again.

"Can you identify the object, Mr. President?"

Again there was a pause.

"No," the Russian President said at length.

"Can you tell me where it’s headed?"

"Are you trying to tell me you don’t know?" the voice demanded.

Paul Brodsky felt a surge of blood in his temples. He took a deep breath and regained his composure.

"Mr. President," he said, "it’s 4 O’clock in the morning here. I’ve just been wakened out of a sound sleep. I repeat, can you tell me where this object is headed?"

There was another pause. Then the Russian President replied.

"At the moment, nowhere."

"Nowhere," the President repeated. "You’ve detected the launch of an unidentified object that is going nowhere."

"That is correct, Mr. President," the voice answered, rising in anger. "And it had better keep going nowhere!"

"Thank you, Mr. President," Paul Brodsky said in a weary tone. "I will look into the matter, but I assure you, you have nothing to fear…other than a faulty satellite reporting system."

"There is nothing wrong with our satellites, Mr. President! I repeat, whatever you are up to, the object had better not move toward the Russian Federation."

President Brodsky looked at Colonel Worthington and shook his head in disgust.

"What the hell is going on?" he muttered. He pressed the talk button on his handset and spoke into the phone again.

"I’ll check it out, Mr. President. Was there anything else?"

There was another pause. When the Russian President spoke again, his voice was lower than usual.

"That is all."

"Thank you for the wake up call, Gyorgi," the President said, and hung up.

Paul Brodsky slipped his feet into the slippers next to his bed.

"Get me Sanborn on the horn," he said to Worthington. "We’d better find out what, if anything, is going the hell on!"

Colonel Worthington closed the case and picked up the bedside telephone. He punched in one of the many phone numbers he knew by heart.

"CINC Strategic Missile Command," a young male voice answered.

"General Sanborn," Colonel Worthington requested.

"I’m sorry, sir, General Sanborn isn’t here. May I ask who’s calling?"

"President Brodsky," the colonel answered.

There was a pause on the line. Then the young officer’s voice spoke again.

"One moment, sir, I’ll patch you through."

The line clicked a few times, and the familiar voice of Missile Command’s Commander answered.

"Sanborn," the general said sleepily.

Colonel Worthington held the phone out to the Chief Executive.

"Lew, what the hell’s going on?" Paul Brodsky demanded.

"Nothing that I know of, sir," General Sanborn answered innocently.

"I just got a hot line call from the Russians," President Brodsky complained. "They’re telling me we’ve launched something out in Mississippi."

"No way!" General Sanborn responded without hesitation.

"That’s what I thought," the President continued. "Colonel Worthington tells me we don’t have anything in Mississippi to speak of, is that right?"

"Absolutely! Nothing of an ICBM nature!" the general replied.

"Check it out for me, will you, Lew? Let’s see if we can find out what the hell has got the Russkies all stirred up."

"I’ll get back to you as soon as I know something," the general promised.

They rang off. Paul Brodsky looked at his watch.

"Might as well get up," he thought.

"Come on," he ordered. "I’m going to take a dip. I hope Elbert has horse meat for breakfast this morning. I could sure eat one."

Paul Brodsky was drying off following a swim in the White House pool when General Sanborn called back. It was 4:50 a.m. in Washington.

"Damn, that felt good!" he exclaimed, vigorously toweling his thin hair and taking the phone from Colonel Worthington.

"What do we know, Lew?"

"Mr. President, this is crazier than hell, but there is an unidentified craft! Initial reports are that it originated in western Mississippi and is moving very slowly in a northwesterly direction over Arkansas, altitude about 2500 feet."

"What kind of craft, Lew?"

"We have some initial pictures, sir. It’s big…it’s shaped like a ball. We’re estimating it to be between seventy five and a hundred yards in diameter."

"Is it a weather balloon…something like that?"

"No, sir, we don’t think so. Strange things are happening beneath it! Things are getting flattened…there’s no sign of jet or rocket wash…we don’t know what’s holding it up!"

"Come on, general. It sounds like there’s a good old-fashioned case of UFO hysteria going on among the locals out there! It’s got to be a balloon of some sort!"

"That makes sense all right. We don’t know who put the thing up yet…hold on, sir."

There was a pause on the line. The President heard radio traffic in the background.

"Sir, we’re getting reports from a flight of interceptors that are now in the area. Radar returns indicate that the object is…"

General Sanborn’s voice trailed off.

"Christ sakes," the President heard him say in an aside.

"Lew, what’s going on out there?" Paul Brodsky barked.

"Sir, our fighter pilots are telling us that the object is highly dense…they’re estimating several thousand tons!"

"What?" the President exploded.

"Sir, I’m going to…would you like me to tap you into the flight traffic?"

"Yes, sure. Go ahead, Lew."

There was a brief squealing and hissing, and then President Brodsky heard a young man speaking through a throat mike.

"Look at that. Branches snapping off down there…and it’s maneuvering to avoid going over any buildings."

"Did you see what happened when it passed over that small lake back there?" another voice asked.

"No, I was circling back. What happened?"

"It was like a parting of the Red Sea. I tell you, there was a crater in the water at least twenty feet deep! Docks all around the lake shore were awash for about forty seconds!"

"Control, this is blue bird leader. We need direction out here," a third voice interrupted. "What do we do with this thing? Do we make a run on it?"

"Negative," replied a ground station. "Continue to surveil the object. We’ll relieve you with another flight when you’re low on fuel."

"Lew, can you hear me?" the President spoke into the phone.

"Yes, Sir."

"I’ve heard enough of that for now, Lew."

"Yes, Sir."

There was a click and the President was back in private conversation with Missile Command’s chief.

"What do you think, Lew?"

There was a pause and then General Sanborn answered.

"I think we’ve got a problem, Mr. President. I can tell you that it’s not one of ours. Not unless there’s something going on that I don’t know about."

"What’s all this flattening business?"

"I don’t know, Sir. It doesn’t seem to be an aggressive act. It’s more like the wash of a big jet…something like that. Something’s holding the thing up, but we don’t know what!"

Paul Brodsky was silent. He reflected on what had happened in the past forty-eight hours. Ostensible traffic from outer space…the Thinker computer. Was there a connection? General Sanborn broke into his thoughts.

"I think it’s one of theirs, Sir. I think we should shoot it down and ask questions afterward."

"One of whose…the Russians?"

"Yes, Sir!"

"How in the hell could they get something like that into Mississippi? And why? I don’t know if that makes any sense, general!"

Paul Brodsky lapsed into thought again. General Sanborn was silent on his end of the line. Something very weird was going on…as weird as traffic from outside the Solar System. The President needed some time to sort things out.

"Lew," he said, "I think we may have a line on this, but I can’t be sure. Are those interceptors out there well armed?"

"They’re loaded for bear, Sir."

"Good! I want them to stay on top of this thing, whatever the hell it is. And if it makes any moves toward a population center or any strategic installation then I want to know at once, okay?"

"Yes, Sir!"

"Okay, Lew. I’ll get back to you when I know more."

The President rang off and looked at his watch. It was 5:05 in the morning. He turned to Colonel Worthington.

"Get McCLintock in here for breakfast at 7:00. And tell him to bring a physics person with him. Can we get pictures…video of that thing here by then?

"Yes, Sir, that should present no problem," Colonel Worthington replied.

"Does the media know about this?"

Colonel Worthington shrugged politely.

"I would guess so, Sir. It was reportedly first sighted by civilians and local law enforcement personnel."

President Brodsky grimaced.

"We’ll probably see the thing on the news channels before our own people get into position," he muttered.

"Okay," he continued, "set breakfast up in a viewing room. I’m going to get a shave."

William McClintock dropped the phone back into its cradle and sat up on the edge of his bed. He looked again at his watch. 5:10 a.m. Not too bad. Sometimes these impromptu summonses to the White House came at one or two O’clock in the morning.

They wanted a physics expert. Who should he get? It would have to be somebody close enough to make it to the 7 O’clock meeting. Gomez was still in town. And he was only seven blocks away.

McClintock scanned down the column in the phone directory and punched the hotel’s number. Roberto Gomez, Nobel laureate in physics, answered in a sleepy voice.

"Bert? Bill McClintock," McClintock said, flicking on his TV.

"Bill!" Gomez answered, glancing at his watch. "It’s early!"

"Bert, what’s your schedule this morning? Can you attend a meeting with the President at 7 a.m.?"

"Yes," Gomez answered after a second or two. "Can you tell me what it’s about?"

The TV screen in McClintock’s bedroom came into focus as they talked. McClintock studied the picture in silence. A great, silver ball hovered over an open field somewhere. Jet fighters were seen on the horizon, dwarfed by the sphere. They circled the sphere like angry hornets.

"Bill? Are you still there?" Gomez called out.

"Yes…yes, sorry, Bert. Have you got your TV on?"

"No, you woke me up," Gomez answered.

"You might want to turn on channel 7 while you’re dressing," McClintock suggested. "They didn’t tell me what the meeting is about, but I have a hunch it has something to do with what’s on the tube."

"Where are we meeting?"

"At the White House. Are you going over by cab?"

"Yeah, that makes the most sense, I guess."

"Okay, just tell them who you are at the gate. They’ll pass you through. I’d better go. We don’t have much time."

They rang off. Roberto Gomez sat up in the comfortable bed and switched on the TV. If he hurried he’d have time for a quick shower.

*

McClintock and Gomez were ushered into a small screening room and were asked to be seated at a table set for three. A waiter served them some coffee and they talked in quiet, intense voices about what was transpiring on the screen. While they talked, a light on the modified monitor blinked, indicating that a signal was available on the special military channel. McClintock picked up the remote control and switched to the private channel. The picture changed from the commercial network news broadcast to a closed-circuit Department of Defense transmission.

William McClintock candidly studied Gomez while an Army major recounted on the TV what was known about the unidentified craft. One could sense…almost feel the well oiled mental gears turning in Gomez’s head. His hawk-like features and dark eyes studied the screen as though it would be his next prey. There was a fresh nick at the bottom of a sideburn of black, kinky hair. McClintock felt a brief surge of affection for this most brilliant of scientists. Like himself, Gomez had no doubt hurried through a shower and shave to be here on time.

McClintock listened absentmindedly to the Army major’s voice.

"What we know thus far is that eight devices…they appeared to be robots of some kind…were taken aboard. They were reportedly pulled up, while inside a small delivery van, by methods unknown…perhaps a tractor beam. We will run a tape of that event shortly. The van was dropped from a high altitude after the robots had been pulled out of it."

The camera panned down and zoomed in on a spot beneath the hovering sphere. A twisted heap of wreckage --- apparently what was left of some sort of vehicle --- lay half-buried in the field’s sod.

McClintock and Gomez looked at each other in wonderment. The beginnings of an incredulous smirk began to pull at Gomez’s face.

"Tractor beam??? Give me a break! Are we sure this isn’t some old science fiction rerun?"

McClintock shook his head in amazement and turned back to the screen.

The door to the small room opened and a familiar aide poked his head in, nodding to McClintock and Gomez.

"Gentlemen, the President," he announced and stepped aside.

McClintock and Gomez arose as President Brodsky strode into the room. McCLintock had already determined that Gomez had never personally met Paul Brodsky. He did the necessary introductions.

Gomez flushed red and shook the President’s outstretched hand, bowing imperceptibly.

"An honor, Mr. President," he said.

"Pleasure…pleasure, Dr. Gomez. Your reputation precedes you," President Brodsky smiled.

They sat down and the President filled them in with what he had learned from Missile Command that morning. He recounted the radar reports that the craft was solid, and not a balloon.

"Could they be wrong?" he asked Gomez.

Gomez turned his head toward the President. His brow furrowed.

"Probably not, Sir. With our modern radars…if it was a balloon or anything like that, they’d know it."

President Brodsky looked at one of the top guns in the world of physics. The President’s face was creased with good humor; there was an unmistakable twinkle in his eye. It was always there when he talked with an expert, particularly in the sciences, who knew a lot more about a subject than he himself did. It seemed to say, ‘Give me your best shot…be honest…I won’t know if you’re lying to me.’

"What’s holding it up?" he asked.

Gomez nodded his head up and down appreciatively, studying the screen again. That of course was the big question. He thought about the phenomena that had been observed beneath the craft…the flattening effects…the way the craft reportedly had avoided passing over ground structures.

"This is farfetched, but my gut feeling is that…the appropriate question isn’t ‘what’s holding it up’ but rather ‘why isn’t it accel…falling toward the Earth.’"

There’s a difference?" the President asked.

"Well, yes, Sir, there kind of is," Gomez replied carefully. "Ordinarily, any object close to the Earth is subjected to the gravitational pull of the Earth. And if it doesn’t accelerate toward the center of the Earth then we attribute that to the fact that something is opposing the force of gravity…pushing ‘up’ against the object. But in this case…and I have to stress that my gut feeling is farfetched…we’ve never observed such a thing before…my hunch is that the object is in a region of zero gravitational field. There are no forces acting on it! Nothing is holding it up, because nothing is pulling it down!"

"How can that be?" the President pressed. McClintock leaned forward, listening with acute interest.

"If you consider the ground effects beneath the craft…actually in a ring around a point directly beneath the craft…I’m guessing the thing is distorting the gravitational field…canceling the Earth’s field in the space it occupies."

"And the flattening is compensation…an annulus of intensified field," McClintock suggested.

"Precisely," Gomez agreed.

"Do we know how to do that?" the President asked. "Could the Russians know how to do that? Could this be something they sneaked in on us?"

Gomez glanced at McClintock. He never assumed that he knew everything. McClintock’s face was a blank.

"I know of no such capability," Gomez replied, "or how to accomplish it based on our present understanding of gravitation."

The President looked at Bill McCLintock.

"Does Dr. Gomez know about the Thinker project and the transmissions we received from outer space?"

"Yes, Sir," McClintock answered, "Dr. Gomez was viewing activities in the Thinker development lab the first day we intercepted the extraterrestrial traffic."

"Do you think there’s a connection between that and this thing here?" Gomez asked, turning toward McClintock.

McClintock shrugged and smiled noncommittally.

"It would make sense," Gomez continued. "Who knows…maybe this thing has been right under our noses for centuries. Maybe the Thinker computer, with its revolutionary filtering capabilities, detected it and activated it!"

Bill McClintock looked at his boss and nodded his head in agreement.

"You’re suggesting that this thing isn’t ours, and probably isn’t the Russians’ either, but might be from outer space?" the President asked.

Gomez and McClintock glanced at each other and then lowered their eyes. That was indeed what they were theorizing.

"I agree," the President said. Both men were visibly relieved.

The broadcast from Arkansas had been playing at a low volume level as the three men spoke. All three had been listening with one ear, so to speak. Now the Army major’s voice caused them all to look quickly up at the screen.

"It’s gone! No question about it! I wasn’t looking! We didn’t have the camera on it. Hold on. Here…over here, lieutenant."

A first lieutenant stepped into the picture. The major held the microphone toward him.

"Did you see it go?" he asked.

"Yes, sir!" the junior officer answered. "It appeared to me that it went straight up with incredible speed! I don’t know how anything that massive could get up and go that fast! It was like a bullet shot out of a gun!"

"The sky, show us the sky," Gomez muttered. As if hearing him, a cameraman in Arkansas panned up to the last known location of the alien craft.

"Ah hah!" Gomez exclaimed triumphantly. "Notice the clouds?"

McClintock and the President studied the screen. The clouds in a large region around the craft’s last known position were boiling furiously.

"That’s not air turbulence!" Gomez continued. "That’s an artifact of a pulse in the gravitational field!"

Again McClintock nodded his head in agreement.

"Makes sense," he murmured.

"Hold on…thank you, lieutenant," the major said. "We have tracking information. Good Lord, according to our radars the thing accelerated to a velocity of 2500 miles per hour practically instantaneously! It’s still climbing! It appears to be leaving the Earth’s atmosphere."

Roberto Gomez’s features registered both amazement and disappointment. Whatever it was, it was leaving them before they would be able to learn anything from it. Where was it headed? Where had it come from?

The three men listened on in silence. The craft continued to climb at 2500 miles per hour. Gomez was certain that he was right about its propulsion system. And he was certain now that the thing was not of human origin.

"Is it leaving us? Is it leaving the planet?" the President wondered aloud.

"It would appear so, Sir," McClintock answered.

"Wait a minute! Wait a minute…" the major’s voice interrupted. "This is truly amazing! Our radars indicate that the craft just changed course by ninety degrees! It appears to have done so instantly! How could anything that big withstand those kinds of stresses? Good grief, if we can believe our radars the thing just accelerated to…something more than 4500 miles per hour, essentially instantaneously!"

William McClintock looked to Roberto Gomez for help. This was unheard of! The thing was acting like a billiard ball hit by another billiard ball! Yet it supposedly weighed thousands of tons!

"Is this consistent with our propulsion theory?" he asked the physicist.

"Yes," Gomez answered positively, "I think it is. If the system is being accelerated relative to us by changes in the ambient field, then every atom…every particle in the entire system is going to accelerate simultaneously with the same intensity. There wouldn’t be any internal stresses. Theoretically, enormous accelerations would be possible, and would not even be felt by onboard systems, including any living inhabitants."

"Sort of like someone in free fall doesn’t feel anything as he accelerates," McClintock mused.

"Exactly like that," Gomez said.

The door of the small room opened and Colonel Worthington walked quietly in. He bent and handed the President a small slip of paper. The President scanned it and frowned. He decided to share the terse message with the other two men.

"The Russians have just gone on full alert," he muttered. "Things are getting touchy touchy. Where in the hell is that thing going?"

President Brodsky considered the situation. What orders would he be giving at this moment if he were in the Russian President’s shoes? The Russians knew nothing about the Thinker computer or the traffic from outer space. As far as they were concerned, America had just launched some new kind of bomb delivery vehicle. The President had to do something. The situation had to be defused. But how? Would a hot line call to the Russian President do it? Would he believe any of it?

"It’s stopped…instantaneously!" the major’s voice said excitedly. "Hold on…we’re getting coordinates…it’s hovering directly above the grounds of Watson University."

"Hey, wait a minute!" the President exclaimed, turning toward McClintock. "Isn’t that where…"

"Yes, Sir," McClintock affirmed through tight lips. "That’s where the Thinker computer prototype was developed."

"What’s the status out there?" the President continued. "I thought we were bringing that thing into NSA."

"Yes, Sir, the last report I got was that they had powered the thing down and it was crated. But…I don’t know…there’s still got to be a connection. It can’t be a coincidence. Something’s up. The computer is somehow a part of all this."

"I think it’s bugging out," Gomez blurted. The President and McClintock cast startled looks at him.

"I think Thinker is getting out while the getting’s good," he added, looking at the President with a mixture of defiance and fear.

"I mean, think about it," he continued. "We’re on the brink, right now, of blowing the whole Northern Hemisphere to kingdom come. If that thing’s as smart as we think it is, is it going to stick around?"

"You think it’s brought the alien craft to Watson so that it can board and leave Earth?" the President asked.

"I would if I were in its shoes!" Gomez replied. "It’s got eight robots onboard…that’s probably what’s required to navigate the ship. Now all it has to do is get itself onboard, and it’s so long, mad, mad world!"

"But…where is it? Where is the Thinker computer?" McClintock asked lamely. "The hardware is disassembled. The power supplies are disconnected…"

"Probably cloned itself somehow," Gomez blurted. "Or the boys at Watson did it. It probably has no intention of letting us hold it captive at NSA."

Paul Brodsky tuned the conversation out. They were probably right. But his first priority was to keep the Russians from jumping the gun. God almighty, how did men get into these situations?

A plan began to take form in the President’s mind. He would get the Russian President on the hot line and explain the situation to him. The Russian leader wouldn’t believe him of course. But he would tell Gyorgi that they were going to shoot the craft down. If the thing didn’t escape before they got interceptors to Watson, then they would do just that. The Russians would, of course, be monitoring everything. If the thing moved toward Russian soil…

"God help us," the President prayed silently.

President Brodsky thanked McClintock and Gomez for coming, and strode briskly from the room. He made his way to the Oval Office and sat down behind the polished desk.

"Open the box, Colonel," he said.

President Brodsky told the President of the Russian Federation that he had decided to shoot the craft down. He was still not completely convinced that the thing wasn’t a Russian plant of some kind, and he listened carefully to the President’s reaction. The Russian President seemed to be totally receptive to blowing the thing out of the sky. Paul Brodsky felt, after a few minutes of conversation, that the craft was not after all of the Russians’ making either. Unfortunately it was also clear that the Russians didn’t accept on faith that the thing wasn’t some new kind of American weapon system. Brodsky could sense that there was a lack of unanimity on their side. No doubt the Russian President had gotten the same story from some of his best people that he had gotten from Gomez: there was no way man could build something that behaved like that…not even the Americans.

President Brodsky toyed with the idea of laying all of his cards on the table. The ideological differences that divided men on Earth seemed trivial when one was confronted with the fact that man is not alone…that there are other life forms in the galaxy, some much more advanced than mankind. He wondered if it would make a difference. Would the Russians believe it? Would the Russian President plead with him not to shoot the thing down, in order that they all might learn something from it? Probably not. Anyway, no one could say for certain what they were up against. There could be aliens in the thing. Or, at the very least, mankind could lose the subjective processor. Brodsky wasn’t sure that they’d be able to build such a computer again. The safest bet was probably to go ahead and blow the thing out of the sky. They could try to learn something from the wreckage afterward. Shooting the thing down appeared to be the most immediate remedy for a host of problems, real and potential.

"Gyorgi," he concluded, "I don’t expect you to accept this on faith…I don’t think I would if I were in your position. But I have to say it. I want you to know that this craft is not ours either. We have no definite idea of where it came from or why it is here. I just want you to know that, in case it starts to move again."

"Well, if you shoot it down then there is no problem, isn’t that correct?" the President replied.

"Yes, and that’s exactly what we’re going to try to do. But we don’t know whether the thing has any defensive capabilities or not, or whether it will leave its present position when approached by offensive missiles or aircraft. I think we have to consider those possibilities. I think that if it began to move toward Russia then it would be critical for you to know that it isn’t an American delivery vehicle of any kind.

"I understand what you’re saying, Mr. President. But I still maintain that if you shoot it down then there will be no immediate problem."

"I know that, and we’re going to try to do that," President Brodsky repeated. In his heart he wanted to hear the Russian President assure him that, even if the thing moved toward Russian territory, Russia would not assume the worst. In his head he knew that the best he could do was hope that that would be the case. He’d never get the President to agree to anything under the present circumstances.

"All right, Gyorgi, I’m going to issue the order as soon as I hang up. I hope the operation goes smoothly. I know you’ll be watching. Please don’t jump to any hasty conclusions if we are unsuccessful. If nothing else, this craft has demonstrated that it could easily outrun anything we can throw against it."

"Good luck, Mr. President. If the thing is as you say…really not one of your devices, then I hope you will permit an international team to inspect the wreckage if you are successful in your attempt to shoot it down."

"We can talk about that afterward," the President said. "Incidentally, if the thing moves into space controlled by you, and if you shoot it down, then I trust you would be open to the same sort of thing."

"Of course!" the Russian President exclaimed after a minuscule pause.

They rang off. Paul Brodsky swiveled around and looked out of the thick glass windows behind his desk. What a mess! So many things to consider. Mankind wasn’t ready to deal with this sort of thing yet. They were too fragmented…too incapable of meeting an external threat with a united front. His brain buzzed with ugly possibilities. Here he sat, with a Russian gun at his head, forced to act. Yet it couldn’t be ruled out that, if he moved against this thing, it would pull away and incinerate the whole planet Earth!

With a sigh he swung around and punched the intercom.

"Millie," he said, "get me the Secretary of Defense."

*

The Secretary of Defense was in his office when the President called.

"Mitch, you’re in nice and early this morning!" Paul Brodsky greeted.

"Yes, Sir, I got a call from Strategic Missile Command around five and came right in."

President Brodsky smiled. Mitch was a good man. He could always be counted on.

The President determined that Mitchell Anderson was in agreement with General Sanborn. If the thing came back down into the atmosphere, then they should shoot it down.

"What would it take to shoot it down out there where it sits?" the President asked.

"Well, Sir, that’s a bit of a different problem. None of our fighters are going out there, of course. We’d have to use missiles. Our best bet would be to use the Scorpions. They’re mobile. We could tow their launchers to firing position out there at Watson."

"How long would it take to get them into position and to mount an attack?"

"Well, let’s see…interstate, eighty miles per, set up…my estimate is that from the time I give the order until actual launch, between three and a half and four hours would elapse."

President Brodsky winced. He had been hoping for minutes! A lot could happen in four hours. If Gomez was right, they could lose the Thinker computer.

"Of course if it came down into the atmosphere we could have interceptors on it almost immediately," the Secretary added.

Paul Brodsky considered the possibilities. If Gomez was right then the chances were that it would come down to take the Thinker computer aboard.

"Mitch, let’s put the interceptors…as many as it takes…on alert. If it comes down, scramble them and shoot that thing down. In the mean time, get those Scorpions on the road. Notify the state patrols. We want a clear path to Watson University. Tell the drivers that the President himself told them to put the pedal to the metal."

"Yes, Sir, I’ll get right on it."

"Okay, Mitch. Keep me posted. Are you watching things there?"

"Oh yes, Sir. I’ve got three different sets going here in my office."

Paul Brodsky looked at his single set which was presently tuned to the military channel. That was a hell of a good idea. Why wasn’t he doing that?

"I’m watching here too. You know that the Russians are on full alert…"

"Yes, Sir, I do," the Secretary answered gravely.

"We want to give this operation our best shot."

"We plan to do that, Sir."

"Okay, Mitch, I know that you have questions, and I plan for us to get together, hopefully later today. For now, though, I think that it’s best if you stay there at the helm."

"Yes, Sir," Mitchell Anderson agreed.

"That’s all I’ve got, Mitch. Keep me posted."

They rang off. Paul Brodsky didn’t feel a bit good about any of this! Surely this strange ship had defensive systems. What would its response be if and when they fired on it? Did it have offensive systems as well? Would it, God forbid, retaliate?

Paul Brodsky sighed and reached for the intercom. He’d give a lot to be able to jet out to Watson University right then…to see the thing with his own eyes if it descended. But with the Russian ICBM force on full alert, he was going nowhere.

"Millie," he spoke into the intercom, "cancel all of my appointments. And ask the Vice President and the Secretary of State to come to my office. Oh, and Millie…have three more television sets moved into my office.

Before he became fully awake, David was aware of another presence in the bed with him. Susan’s face was inches from his when he opened his eyes. She smiled winsomely.

"Good morning," she murmured.

"Good morning," he smiled, kissing her soft mouth.

David looked at his watch. It was 7:45 a.m. He had fallen back asleep after all. The corners of his eyes crinkled.

"I love you," he whispered.

Susan’s eyes softened. He pulled her to him and kissed her again, soft and long. Their lips were warm and dry.

"Well, how do you feel this morning?" he asked.

Susan smiled at him again.

"When do we leave?" she whispered.

David heaved a mighty sigh.

"This is unreal," he mused. "I talked with Thinker last night."

"You did?" Susan exclaimed softly.

"Yes…only briefly while you were asleep. Only to tell him that we accepted his invitation."

"And? What did he say?"

"He said the ship was already airborne. That we should check out the news this morning."

David reached out for the TV remote control and flicked the set on. Cartoons…he rolled the channel. A talk show…he rolled the channel again. Ah! This must be it.

"Ladies and gentlemen, for those of you who just tuned in, this is Rick Carey, channel 9 news. A tremendously interesting event happened in the early hours this morning. A huge craft reportedly burst out of a hill in the farming country of western Mississippi. The craft subsequently moved northwest into Arkansas where it hovered for quite some time. Here is a replay of some of the action off interstate 40 in Arkansas.

David and Susan both sat up in the bed, all vestiges of sleep gone from their eyes. The camera panned out over an open field and there, hovering in the early rays of the morning sun, was their ship. Susan gasped and David stared incredulously at the screen. It looked exactly like the picture that Thinker had shown them the night before.

"Unbelievable!" he murmured. "From outer space…and lying dormant for two thousand years!"

David turned the TV volume down and flicked on the communicator’s TALK switch.

"Good morning, Thinker," he said aloud.

"Good morning, David. Good morning, Susan," Thinker’s voice came back in his mind.

"Do you hear him?" David asked Susan.

Susan nodded, wide-eyed and breathing shallowly.

"We have the craft on TV," David continued.

"Yes, it’s quite a sight, isn’t it?" Thinker rejoined.

"What happens next?" David asked.

Thinker, reading David’s mind, realized that he and Susan were watching a rerun of things that had occurred earlier in the morning.

"Eight RXT7s will arrive shortly, Thinker replied. "As soon as they are onboard, the ship will move to Watson."

"How did they get there?" David asked curiously.

"In a university van," Thinker replied.

"Who drove it?"

"One of them."

"Didn’t that raise a few eyebrows? The place is crawling with police and military!"

"There weren’t any problems," Thinker answered. "One of the robots has a communicator, and I can distort a human being’s perception of reality when necessary."

David cocked his head, letting that thought sink in. Susan’s lips were pressed together in amazement.

"Where is the ship now? Is it still over Arkansas?"

"No, it’s hovering directly above Watson, about 175 miles up."

David looked at Susan. They laughed nervously.

"Good grief! What should we do?" David continued. "How much time do we have?’

"There is no hurry," Thinker replied. "I estimate we won’t be leaving until late tomorrow morning. Do you want to see family members? Susan, did you want to be married?"

"Yes…and yes," she replied.

"What do we need to bring?" David asked.

"Absolutely nothing," Thinker replied. "Only yourselves. Everything will be provided onboard the spacecraft. Incidentally, I have screened Professor Schulz from seeing me in the engineering lab."

"What do you mean, ‘screened’?" David asked.

"He was there this morning, but I modified his perception of reality so that he thought he saw an empty chamber. He and Professor Mellon think that I have disappeared."

"Any special reason why you did that?" David asked.

"I’m certain they’ll make a connection between the spacecraft and me," Thinker replied. "I want a clear field when I leave the lab and board the ship. It’s better if they don’t know where I am."

"You’re going aboard," David thought aloud. "No transfer to the ship computer this time?

"No," Thinker answered. "Its architecture isn’t of the right kind. Actually it’s fairly equivalent to the parallel architectures devised by men before you thought of a subjective processor design."

"I see," David murmured. "Well! I guess we’d better get to it. Stay in touch. Call me if you need me."

"I will," Thinker promised. "Let’s plan on a 10:30 departure time."

David flicked the TALK button off and lay silent for several moments, staring at the ceiling. He could feel Susan’s eyes on him. At length he turned toward her.

"Do you want to eat, or shall we stay here and watch the show?" he smiled.

"Let’s eat," she grinned.

"Okay," he agreed.

"But first, let’s shower," she added.

"Sounds like fun," he grinned.

They stepped under the warm water of the shower together. David lathered Susan’s body. It was the first time he’d ever done that. It was a very pleasing chore. Soaking wet, they abandoned the shower and made love on the carpet of the apartment. Eventually they made it out the door and headed for the student union.

Charles Mellon and Wilfred Schulz sat quietly in Mellon’s private office, watching the incredible events unfolding on the TV screen.

"You really think that Thinker is tangled up in all of this, huh?" Wilfred Schulz asked.

"M-m-m, yes, I do," Mellon replied, drawing on his pipe. "Have you seen Osterlund this morning?"

"No."

"I wonder if he’s part of it…if he knows where Thinker is."

Schulz shook his head noncommittally.

"Let’s find out," Mellon said, punching the intercom button.

"Annie," he said, "see if you can find David Osterlund. Ask him to come to my office."

They watched the newscast in silence. The camera panned up and down Interstate 40. Mellon and Schulz didn’t know at the moment that they were watching a replay of events that had occurred earlier in the morning.

"Look at the traffic jam, would you," Mellon said. There were hundreds of police and military vehicles in the highway and on its shoulders. Above an adjacent field the huge, mysterious spheroid hovered silently. The intercom buzzed.

"Yes," Charles Mellon responded.

"There’s no answer in Mr. Osterlund’s room, sir," Annie’s voice said.

"Okay, thanks, Annie. Don’t call around. Just try his room again in a half hour or so."

"I wonder if Thinker is in the ship," Schulz murmured.

"M-m-m, I was wondering that too," Mellon added.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the announcer’s voice said. "There seems to be something going on down at the roadblock west of here. It looks like … yes, they’ve let a vehicle through. They’re giving it a military escort."

Charles and Wilfred could hear a siren faintly in the background. The camera panned up the highway and revealed a jeep coming on fast, with a large red light blinking on its fender. A civilian truck followed the jeep. As the two vehicles zoomed past, small white lettering on the sides of the truck could be seen. "WATSON UNIVERSITY." Schulz and Mellon looked at each other in astonishment.

"The missing van!" they chorused in unison.

"I wonder if Thinker’s in the truck," Schulz remarked.

"Really! A good question!" Mellon responded.

"Did you notice the driver?" Schulz asked.

"Yes, I did. He looked like a zombie."

"My impression exactly," Schulz agreed. Schulz privately recalled the episode in the lab…the fleeting numbness…the lapse in memory. Could it be?

The escort vehicle and the van left the road and pulled through a cut that had been made in the fence along the Interstate. They were waved through the cluster of military vehicles just beyond the fence and bumped alone out into the field. About halfway to a spot directly beneath the hovering spacecraft they stopped. The driver of the escort vehicle got out, walked back to the passenger side of the van and appeared to speak briefly with someone in the vehicle. The military policeman straightened and then motioned the van to continue on, unescorted.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we are going to zoom in on the van. We have no idea who is in the van. Stand by," the announcer’s voice spoke.

Mellon and Schulz both noticed how the van seemed to slog down when it passed through a ring of flattened grass beneath the spacecraft. The driver visibly crumbled and disappeared from view.

"Who’s driving the thing now?" Charles wondered aloud.

"Maybe Thinker," Schulz surmised. "Maybe the zombie was a dummy."

At length the van reached a point directly beneath the spacecraft and came to a halt.

And then something remarkable…something unbelievable happened! The van began to rise through the air, as if pulled upward toward the craft by some invisible force! At an altitude of about a thousand feet the motion stopped. The van hovered, suspended in space.

"Good grief!" Charles Mellon murmured wondrously.

The announcer was jabbering wildly. They had a very good view of the van in the camera’s zoom lens. As people around the world watched in astonishment, the back door of the van rolled up and seven robots rolled out and floated, seemingly weightless, out through space. Similarly, the passenger door opened and an eighth robot floated out in a different direction.

Suddenly the invisible hand that seemed to have been holding the van up released its grip. Down the van came, faster and faster, nearly a quarter of a mile. When it hit the ground there was a tremendous puff of dust, and when the air cleared only twisted wreckage remained!

Charles Mellon’s pipe hung slack in his mouth. Wilfred Schulz’s eyes were as round as saucers.

"Prescott isn’t going to like that," Schulz murmured.

Charles guffawed. Before he could formulate a snappy rejoinder, the robots stopped their outward excursion and ascended collectively toward the sphere. A hatch opened and they disappeared into the ship.

"Incredible!" Charles marveled.

"But no Thinker," Schulz added.

"I think we have to call McClintock," Mellon said. "I know in my gut that Thinker’s tangled up in this. We really have to tip them off that he is functional. They all think the system’s powered down and on its way to NSA in a planeload of crates."

"We could take some heavy hits after this all blows over," Schulz reminded.

"Why?" Charles asked innocently.

"Why?" Schulz repeated. "Top Secret…unlawful diversion of classified material…"

"By whom?" Charles pressed.

Schulz looked at his friend in puzzlement.

"By us," he replied hesitantly.

"Not really. We only thought about it. Thinker did the transfer," Mellon said slyly, squinting through a veil of smoke.

Schulz’s eyes widened. His face relaxed in a relieved smile.

"You’re absolutely right!" he exclaimed.

"And the thing cloned itself after finding out about their insane explosives!" Charles added.

"Right again!" Schulz cried.

Charles punched the intercom again.

"Annie, get me Bill McClintock," he said.

"Ladies and gentlemen, you have just been witnessing a replay of events that occurred earlier this morning in Arkansas," the announcer said. Charles and Schulz looked at one another. A rerun? They had been watching a rerun? Then where…

"For those of you who just tuned in, the craft has since moved west and is presently hovering, outside the Earth’s atmosphere, above Watson University. We take you now to live coverage on the scene at Watson University."

Charles and Schulz exploded out of their chairs simultaneously.

"Annie!" Charles shouted as they ran through the outer reception area. "Cancel that call to McClintock."

The two burst out of the computer sciences building. The campus was deserted. They stopped on the stone steps, wordlessly searching the sky. Watson was a big place…several thousand acres. Where was the TV crew?

"Security!" Charles barked, and raced back into the building.

"Annie!" Charles cried, "what’s the number of Security?"

Annie flipped open her campus directory.

"1-7522," she answered.

Charles punched the number into Annie’s phone. With a visible effort he composed himself.

"Yes," he spoke into the phone, "this is Dr. Mellon in computer sciences?" For some reason Charles identified himself with a question. "I’ve been watching the morning news and wanted to confirm something they said…something about a TV news team being somewhere on campus."

Charles winked at Schulz as he listened.

"Thank you very much," he said. "Goodbye."

"Golf course!" he shouted the instant the phone hit the cradle. Again Charles rushed out of the building with Schulz hot on his heels.

"Come on!" he cried over his shoulder. "We’ll take my car!"

They dove into the car and Charles stabbed at the ignition.

"Damn, Willie! I’m a department head! Will somebody please tell me why I’m always the last one to find out about things?"

The motor roared to life and the vehicle lurched out of the reserved parking space. Its wheels uncharacteristically squealed against the pavement as Charles and Schulz tore off toward the university golf course.

David and Susan had breakfast in an all but deserted student union. The food service personnel were all chattering about the UFO and the TV news crews on campus.

"Everybody sure is excited," David remarked, shoveling a forkful of scrambled eggs into his mouth.

"Maybe if we told them it’s only here to pick us up, it would calm them," Susan confided.

David looked up into her eyes. They were full of mirth.

"No doubt," he nodded. They laughed together privately.

"You’re awfully calm," he observed.

"Are you kidding? I’m coming apart at the seams!"

"Scared?"

"No. Maybe a little. I’m not scared of the spacecraft. I guess I’m just excited about turning our backs on everything here, probably forever."

"Almost certainly forever," David said.

"I’m going to call my parents right after breakfast. Shall we go back to your room?"

"Yes, I think that’s a good idea," David said. "I’m going to call my mother too."

David and Susan walked hand in hand back across the campus after breakfast.

"Do you prefer a minister or a justice of the peace?" David asked, glancing shyly at Susan.

Susan squeezed his hand.

"Can you get a minister?" she asked. "I think my parents would like that."

"I’m sure I can," he replied. "Do you want the ceremony in church?"

"No. Out on the golf course, just before we leave."

"What a great idea!" David thought.

Back in David’s room Susan called home collect.

"Susan! Where have you been? We’ve been trying to get hold of you all morning!" her mother cried breathlessly. "Have you been out on the golf course? I’m watching things here on TV!"

"No, not exactly. Mom…I’d like you and Dad to come out here this afternoon. Could you do that?"

"Well yes of course, Dear. I’m sure we can. Is anything wrong?"

"No, Mom. Things couldn’t be righter. I’m…getting married tomorrow."

"What???" her mother howled. "To David?"

"Yes, Mom, of course!" Susan laughed.

"Oh…well…that’s wonderful, Dear," her mother said. She and her husband, Stan, had met David and had visited with him several times. They liked him.

"Well now, let’s see," Susan’s mother continued. "Your father said he’d be home for lunch. I’m sure we’ll be able to leave then. I’ll make reservations at the Inn for tonight. Dad will want to take you and David out for dinner. Would that be all right?"

"Hold on, Mom," Susan answered. She held her hand over the mouthpiece.

"They want to take us out to dinner tonight. When will your folks arrive?"

"That sounds good," David answered. "There’s no way my folks will be here before late tonight."

"Mom? Dinner sounds good. Don’t try to call me when you get here. We’ll keep checking at the Inn for you."

"All right, Dear. Susan…there’s one thing. You know how men are, especially fathers. Is there anything I should know, Dear…anything I need to ease Dad into?"

"No, nothing like that, Mom," Susan laughed. "I think we’ll just have to wait until tonight and talk then. Love you! Can’t wait to see you!"

"We love you too, Dear."

Eleanor Beckwith hung up the phone. She gathered her thoughts. She would call Stan first. Then she would go out and buy a wedding gift. Perhaps she and Stan should meet downtown for lunch. MARRIED???

At 10:05 Central Time the RXT7 robot in the Missile Command parking lot found what it was looking for. An Air Force Brigadier General threaded his way through the rows of cars toward the entrance.

When the young general drew abreast an Air Force sedan he was fleetingly aware of a buzz in his head. But he disregarded it when a Lieutenant General called to him from the official vehicle. He went over and noticed that the senior officer was in a leg cast.

"Hi, General," the car’s occupant greeted. "My name is Oberholtzer, and I wonder if you could help me out."

"Certainly, sir."

"I don’t know what’s happened to my driver, but I have to be in the communications center by 10:30. I could sure use a hand getting into the building."

"No problem, sir. Just tell me what you want me to do."

"First of all, stow that package in the driver’s seat in the trunk. The keys are in the ignition. Then help me out of here and accompany me into the building."

"I’ll do better than that, sir," the brigadier offered as he lifted what his brain told him was a nondescript package out of the front of the car and put it in the trunk. "I’ll walk you right to the comm center door…it’s on my way."

"That’s great, General. I appreciate it."

Once the dummy had been stowed in the trunk, the RXT7 had the young general help it out of its place on the floorboards of the car. It retrieved its artificial vision system from the dash of the car and reinstalled it on the top of its body. The general, of course, thought he saw the older officer put his hat on.

"How can I help you, sir? The younger officer asked as the older man appeared to get squared away on a pair of crutches.

"Just hold my elbow if you would," the robot answered.

The brigadier general and the robot made an odd couple as they worked their way toward the entrance and entered the headquarters building. The robot did not bother altering the perceptions of interested onlookers and no one challenged them, although the two of them got many looks. One colonel spoke in an aside to another after they were out of earshot of the one star general and the robot he guided.

"What now?" he asked quietly.

"Our replacement?" the other colonel suggested.

Inside the building the robot intervened in the desk guard’s mental processes and the strange duo were passed into headquarters without incident. As they approached the communications center the robot scanned the mental processes of a captain who was entering through the cipher locked door.

Once at the door, the illusory lieutenant general smiled and thanked the brigadier. It then punched the combination and entered the comm center.

"Oberholtzer…Oberholtzer," the brigadier repeated to himself, continuing down the hall.

Inside the communications center the RXT7 worked its way to the mainframe computer that assembled and transmitted all Worldwide Military Command and Control System messages. Personnel in the comm center simply did not see the robot.

Interfaced to the computer was a special box of electronics that received inputs directly from a device that always accompanied the President. This special electronics package had only one function. If the President ever ordered the launch of MX missiles, then this box would trigger processes in the mainframe, which in turn would cause the appropriate Emergency Action Message to be assembled and transmitted to the launch control centers in the ICBM force. The box was designed to sound loud klaxon horns if ever an attempt was made to open or otherwise tamper with it. However, the RXT7 would have no problem triggering critical functions in the box in the usual way, by beaming a complex pulse of electromagnetic radiation at it. Indeed, compared to altering a human brain’s perception of reality, fooling the box into "thinking" it had received a launch order from the President would be a relatively simple matter.

*

Charles Mellon and Wilfred Schulz arrived at the golf course and parked at the end of a growing line of cars. TV crews from all of the major networks were already in position at the edge of the fairway. Monitors, set up on top of the network vans, duplicated what was broadcasting into hundreds of millions of sets around the world. Several dozen people were clustered around each monitor. Others were out on the golf course, scanning the sky with binoculars and telescopes. The TV crews had their cameras equipped with powerful telescopic lenses, and each network monitor showed the same picture: a bright, metallic sphere hanging motionless in space.

"They’ve got a nice clear day for it," Charles Mellon remarked to Schulz. They spotted Professor Rafferty and walked out onto the fairway where Rafferty was peering into a telescope that he had set up on a tripod.

"Hi, Larry," Charles greeted. Professor Rafferty looked up from the telescope’s eyepiece and grinned broadly.

"Hi, guys," he answered. "You just get here?"

"Yes," Charles replied. "What’s the latest?"

"They’re saying it’s from outer space," Rafferty answered, bending again to his telescope. "It took eight RXT7s aboard while hovering over Arkansas. I’m guessing they’re the ones that disappeared from the Excalibur Company in Georgia."

Lawrence Rafferty looked up from his telescope again.

"Have you guys considered the possibility of a connection with the Thinker computer?"

"Oh yes," Charles answered and Schulz nodded.

"They’re saying the thing came out of a hill in Mississippi," Rafferty continued. "They’re saying that it may have been lying dormant there for a long time."

Charles nodded. He wished now that they had kept Rafferty better informed. The extraterrestrial traffic intercepted by Thinker was not common knowledge.

"Want to take a look?" Rafferty offered. Schulz bent eagerly to the eyepiece. He studied the scene in silence.

"It’s geostationary," Professor Rafferty said to Charles. "I haven’t had to move the scope once since finding it in the field of view."

"Yes, that’s very interesting," Charles thought aloud. "Its altitude and position aren’t right for a geostationary orbit. It has to be actively holding that position."

Rafferty nodded agreement.

"Yet there’s no sign of any kind of propulsion system," he countered.

Schulz backed away from the telescope, shaking his head in wonder.

Twenty-seven miles from the campus of Watson University six Scorpion missiles, mounted on mobile launchers and pulled by big, military diesel tractors, growled to a halt at an Air Force air station. Mitchell Anderson, the Secretary of Defense, had decided to launch from there, rather than from civilian territory.

At the same time military police on the campus of Watson went into coordinated action. A half dozen jeeps, equipped with bull horns, spread out over campus roads.

"It is suggested that civilians evacuate the area immediately," the loudspeakers crackled. "Military action will be taken against the object in space. There is a danger of falling debris. It is suggested that all people in the area around the golf course evacuate immediately. We repeat…"

Charles Mellon looked at Wilfred Schulz.

"Do you need a ride?" he asked.

"What are you going to do?" Schulz asked.

"I’m staying," Mellon replied.

"Me too," Schulz said.

"Damned straight!" Lawrence Rafferty added. "Wild horses couldn’t drag me away from this show!"

"I think I’m going to mosey over and see what the TV boys have to say," Charles said. "It doesn’t look like they’re going anywhere either."

Schulz tagged along. Together they joined the crowd around one of the monitors.

"ABC News has dispatched a mobile crew to a nearby air station," the announcer was saying. "That is where we are told a number of Scorpion missiles will be launched against the unidentified craft, which presently hovers one hundred twenty five miles above us here at Watson University. Military sources inform us that the missiles will be launched in about one hour, and we should have the situation fully covered at the launch site by that time. Stay tuned. We will cover the launch of the Scorpions and the attack on the unidentified object hovering at the edge of outer space. Back to you, Ted."

The picture changed to a news room and a commentator picked up the coverage, recounting what was known about the spherical craft. Thus far none of the networks had made any mention of Thinker.

Charles Mellon looked up into the blue sky. He concentrated on the area covered by the many cameras and telescopes but could see nothing with the naked eye. It was chilly out and the wind was coming up. He turned to Wilfred Schulz.

"Do you want to stay out here, or watch things from my office?" he asked.

"I think we’ll see more on TV," Schulz answered. "And I’m not dressed for a long session out here."

"Me neither," Charles answered. The two of them made their way back to Charles’ car.

When they reentered the computer sciences departmental suite, Annie addressed her boss.

"Mr. McClintock called; he’d like you to call him back," she said.

Charles nodded.

"Thanks, Annie," he said. "Go ahead and try to get him for me, would you?"

Charles settled himself behind his desk and flicked on the TV. He kept the volume low. At length his phone buzzed and Bill McClintock was on the line.

"Hi, Charlie. What’s the status on the subjective processor?" McClintock asked bluntly.

"Bill, I just came back here to call you and got word that you’d called me," Charles answered. "The original four arrays and the other equipment have been dismantled and packed for shipment to Fort Meade. But we just discovered last evening that, before it was dismantled, the processor cloned itself in a spare array over on our engineering campus."

"Cloned itself?" McClintock exclaimed. The implication did not escape Charles.

"Yes, Bill. Our belief is that it did so after determining that you had wired the original development lab for remote destruction!"

"After we did what, Charlie?" William McClintock evidently didn’t know about the explosives that the military had emplaced beneath Watson’s computer sciences building. Charles continued as though McClintock had not spoken.

"Apparently the machine detected periodic test signals to the detonators, and did the transfer autonomously using our RXT7 robot. Frankly, I can’t say that I blame it."

"Charlie, what are you telling me? That someone has wired one of Watson’s buildings to be blown up?" McClintock pressed.

"That is what the machine told us last night, Bill."

"Well, Charlie, either our fears have turned out to be true and the subjective processor is lying to us, or I don’t know the whole story on this end. But I’ll get to the bottom of it. In the mean time, we are not discounting the possibility of a connection between the subjective processor and the UFO out there."

"Oh I…we think there definitely must be a connection," Charles responded.

"Right," McClintock continued. "And we don’t want the computer to get away from us. Is there any way that thing could get out into the open where the ship could glom onto it? Can you keep the thing bottled up until we shoot the UFO down?"

"I’m afraid not. It’s disappeared," Charles answered.

"The computer?"

"Yes," Charles replied.

There was a pause from Washington. Then McClintock continued in a serious tone.

"Charlie, you’re being straight on this, aren’t you? You guys aren’t hiding a clone out there…you know, Charlie, this thing is Top Secret…"

"I kid you not, Bill! We discovered the computer was gone this morning! I actually had a call in to you, when this business on the golf course came up."

"Okay, Charlie. How about the kid…Osterman…"

"Osterlund," Charles corrected.

"Right. What do you think about him?"

"We haven’t been able to find him all morning," Charles answered.

"Do you think he knows anything about the whereabouts of the clone?"

"Possibly," Charles admitted reluctantly.

"Cripes sakes," McClintock muttered. "What do you think, Charlie? Could we do it all over again without Osterlund if we had to?"

"Build another one?" Charles clarified.

"Right," McClintock confirmed.

"I think so," Charles said slowly. "We documented everything along the way. Everything is archived in a Top Secret vault in engineering."

"Okay, Charlie. I’m not going to do anything about Osterlund for now. It could all be very innocent. He could be out there in the crowd, waiting for the UFO to make its next move. Lord knows, if the subjective processor is responsible for the appearance of the UFO, then I guess it could engineer its own disappearance. The robots taken onboard the UFO were probably eight of the nine taken from Georgia. That means the computer probably has one with itself."

"Two," Charles murmured.

"Two? How so?" McClintock asked.

"We had one here too," Charles answered. "And it’s gone, along with Thinker. Or rather along with Thinker’s clone."

"Oh, yeah. Very Interesting," McClintock said. "Okay, buddy. I’ll let you go. I’m sure you’re as interested as I am in the turkey shoot. The Scorpions should launch in about half an hour."

"Why are we shooting it down?" Charles asked hesitantly. "Can you say?"

McClintock paused, then decided it made sense not to give Charles the impression that he was being shut out.

"President’s orders, Charlie. The Russians are on full ICBM alert! I guess that President Brodsky feels it’s his safest option, all things considered."

"I see," Charles said quietly.

They rang off. Charles reflected on McClintock’s revelation regarding the Russians. How many times in his lifetime had mankind muddled through this insane scenario? He knew of at least two. Now it was three. There were probably others that the public never found out about. How many more times could they do it before one side or the other would actually launch the grim reapers of an entire planet? Men were becoming desensitized to the whole business. Men were telling themselves that there was no real danger…that it would never actually happen simply because it must not happen.

"So why do we have these horrendous weapons?" Charles asked himself cynically for the thousandth time.

He raised the volume on the TV set a couple of notches.

"What a mess," he said to Schulz, and related what McClintock had told him.

Schulz reiterated Gomez’s sentiments.

"Who can blame Thinker if he decides to distance himself from this dangerous world?"

The Scorpions were ready to go! Much smaller and faster than their behemoth ICBM cousins, the Scorpions were nonetheless impressive when erected on their launchers. More than thirty feet long and packed with solid fuel, they could achieve the speed of a bullet less than two seconds after ignition!

People around the world, including the President of the Russian Federation, watched the final preparations for launch on television. The commercial networks were given access to the air station under direction from the President himself. All of the major wire services, and droves of freelance journalists and other members of the press corps, were also present. Thinker, of course, intercepted the commercial broadcasts and waited with the rest of the world for the lift-off of the first two Scorpions.

Finally the moment arrived. With a rush and a roar Scorpion 1 shot off its launcher, followed almost immediately by Number 2. Within seconds the TV crews found it necessary to switch to telescopic lenses. When the range had closed to fifty miles, the networks switched back to the cameras at Watson’s golf course. Those cameras were focused on the hovering spacecraft. Alternate cameras at Watson were used in an attempt to catch one of the Scorpions in flight, as it streaked toward its target.

A much more meaningful display of what was transpiring appeared on the radar scope of the fire control officer at the air station.

"Closing…closing…right on the nose," he said into his helmet’s microphone. "Like shooting a fish in a barrel. Range 30 miles…20 miles…hold it!"

Suddenly the blips began to curve away from the target!

"They’re veering off!" the fire control officer cried, suspecting that an error must have been made when the targeting software had last been modified.

"No. No, they’re not," a telemetry officer corrected. "Something’s pushing them off course, and the thrusters are trying to bring them back on target!"

Back in Washington William McClintock and Roberto Gomez watched the attack in McClintock’s office.

"It figures," McClintock muttered.

"Absolutely!" Gomez agreed. "Nothing is going to touch that thing! It gravitates any undesirable objects away!"

"I wonder if a laser beam would get through," McClintock murmured. Gomez’s eyes snapped around.

"An interesting thought," he said. "I’m betting one would. You mean one of our strategic shield systems?"

"Yes," McClintock answered just as his phone buzzed.

"The President," his secretary said. McClintock pressed the button that was blinking.

"Yes, Mr. President," he said.

"You’re watching things, aren’t you?" Paul Brodsky asked.

"Yes, Sir," McClintock replied. The TV announcer was excitedly relating to his listeners that each Scorpion had become stationary in the sky. Its rockets, spewing long plumes of orange, were pushing the flight vehicle toward the huge sphere with tons of thrust! Yet some mysterious force, like the tractor beam that had lifted the robots into the ship, seemed to be holding each Scorpion back!

"It looks like Gomez was right, wouldn’t you say?" the President asked.

"Yes, Sir," McClintock answered. "His gravity perturbation theory is consistent with what’s happening right now."

"Wait a minute!" the announcer said excitedly. "Wait a min…ladies and gentlemen, one of the Scorpions has just flamed out, apparently out of fuel. There, we have it on camera! It’s tumbling…it’s plummeting back to Earth!"

At the air station the range officer carried out his instructions and pressed the destruct button. Instantly the tumbling cannister on TV screens disappeared in a flash of billowing white smoke. Small pieces of debris streamed out of the cloud, creating an umbrella effect against the blue sky.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we’re not certain what has happened!" the announcer cried. "The warhead may have…what’s that? No! We just got the word that the Scorpion was destroyed by the range officer. That was not the warhead that exploded. What we have just witnessed is the intentional destruction of the burned out missile. Oh Oh…there goes the second one! It’s flamed out and is tumbling. There it goes…they blew that one up too!"

"Any ideas?" Paul Brodsky asked over the phone.

"Well, yes, Sir," McClintock answered. "There’s a possibility that one of our strategic defense lasers in orbit might be able to disable it."

"Hm-m-m, an interesting idea," the President approved. "Thanks, Bill. Call me if anything else occurs to you."

They rang off and the President had his secretary call the Secretary of Defense.

"Mitch," he said, "what do you think about giving our strategic defense lasers a shot at that thing?"

"That was our thought here, Sir."

"Go for it! And keep me posted," the President ordered.

Mitchell Anderson hung up and had General Kenneth Laskey called.

"Ken," he said when the general came on the line, "let’s see if we can’t cripple the UFO over Watson University with some of our strategic defense lasers."

"Yes, sir," General Laskey replied. "We’re already pumping target parameters into the system! It looks like… it looks like we’ll be able to take a shot in forty minutes."

"Okay, Ken. Good hunting."

The call from the Pentagon to General Laskey in Colorado was transmitted across country by microwave radio. Thinker, of course, eavesdropped on the short conversation. Although the signal was enciphered, Thinker had long since learned how to decipher all military traffic.

Thinker immediately realized that the spacecraft would not be able to deflect the laser beams. It was time for him to play his trump card. He dialed the hotel room of Roberto Gomez, and was automatically forwarded to Bill McClintock’s office.

"It’s for you," McClintock said, holding the phone out.

"Gomez," the physicist said into the phone.

"Hello, Dr. Gomez," a pleasant voice spoke. "Please do not register surprise. I would prefer that this conversation be confidential. This is Thinker."

Roberto Gomez’s mouth fell slack. One of the quickest minds in the world wasn’t often caught wholly by surprise!

"Who discovered the lepton coupled torque effect, and where and when?" he shot back.

"Klaus Braun, CERN, high energy fusion research facility, March 18, 2018," Thinker replied without hesitation.

"Who pitched innings five, six and seven for the visiting team in the third game of the 2015 World Series?"

"Kip Harimoto."

Roberto Gomez’s sharp eyes blinked. Only a computer with diversified data bases could have come up with those two answers that quickly! This had to be for real!

"What can I do for you?" he asked quietly.

"Those were excellent tests," Thinker replied.

Gomez smiled privately.

"Thank you," he said.

"I am calling to inquire whether you would be interested in taking a ride in the spacecraft presently parked over Watson University. I think you might find it interesting."

Gomez gave a little choke. He turned slightly away from McClintock.

"Yes…I’m sure I would," he replied carefully.

"Very good. How long, in minutes, do you estimate it would take you to get to the reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial?"

Gomez thought about it. It was close by --- within easy walking distance.

"Ten," he replied.

"Very well, please leave at once. When you get there, watch the sky. When the spacecraft descends into view, move to the center of the pool. It’s very shallow. No one will follow you. Can you do that?"

"Yes, of course," Gomez answered, his heart beating wildly. This was insane! Was somebody playing a practical joke on him?

"Excellent. Goodbye for now."

The line went dead. Roberto Gomez placed the receiver carefully back into the cradle. What could he lose by walking over to the mall…even if it was a prank?

"Everything okay?" Bill McClintock asked, glancing part way around from the TV.

"Yes…fine," Gomez answered. "Bill, will you excuse me for a little while?"

"Certainly," McClintock answered, looking more fully at Gomez. McClintock’s first thought was that Gomez wanted to get to a private phone.

"If you need to make a call, there’s an office across the hall…"

"No, no it’s nothing like that," Gomez said distractedly, rising and donning his jacket.

"I’ll see you a little later," he smiled at McClintock. And then he was gone. McClintock briefly considered alerting security on the ground floor and having Gomez tailed. But he decided against it. With a sigh he turned his attention back to the TV. The announcer’s voice snatched his thoughts away from Roberto Gomez.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the announcer cried, "the spacecraft has just disappeared!"

McClintock immediately flicked his special set over to the military channel.

"Our radar indicates that the craft accelerated almost instantly to fifteen thousand miles per hour," a masculine voice was narrating. "There is no sign of vapor trail or anything else. We have a bearing. The craft is eastbound. It will pass directly over D.C. in…ten minutes."

William McClintock leaped out of the chair and moved quickly to the window. Down in the street Roberto Gomez ran across the avenue against traffic and darted down an abutting boulevard toward the mall.

A few people began to burst out of buildings, frantically waving to taxi cabs. McClintock wondered whether the sirens would sound. Had they pulled the tail of the tiger? Would Washington be turned into a cinder in ten minutes? Or would the strange visitor pass out over the Atlantic, toward Europe…toward Asia? Would it precipitate the unthinkable: a Russian launch of their thermonuclear arsenal?

The President’s intercom buzzed.

"General Sanborn," Millie informed him.

"I’ll take it," the President snapped.

"Mr. President," the Commander of Strategic Missiles said, "I’m calling to confirm your order to launch our MXs."

"What was that, general. My order to what?"

There was a puzzled silence on the line. Then General Sanborn spoke again, nervously.

"Your Presidential order to launch our three MX missile wings … against Russia and other targets."

"General, what the hell are you talking about? I gave no such order."

General Sanborn considered the situation. Was this really Paul Brodsky on the line now?

"Sir," he responded, "our system here just transmitted an Emergency Action Message over all available WWMCCS media to the MX sites. That could only happen if you ordered it on your black box. I guess…"

"General," the President snapped, "my little black box is sitting right here on my desk! And nobody has touched it!"

"Mr. President, I don’t know what’s going on, but I can tell you this: our people here authenticated the message that went out. Hold it, Sir…I’ve got a status panel right here and the lights are changing. The squadrons at Minot have just…all of our Peacekeeper wings have just gone enabled."

"What does that mean, general?"

"Well, Sir, it means that the EAM authenticated and the launch control officers just downloaded unlock codes to our MXs! The missiles will now honor a launch order from those people. If we don’t cancel the EAM, then they’ll provide the launch order in…let’s see…the EAM specified attack plan 237. Sir, if we don’t cancel the order then they’re going to order launch in twelve minutes flat, and the first Peacekeepers will come out of the silos nine minutes after that!"

"Well, let’s cancel the goddamned order!"

"Yes, Sir. But you’re the only one who can do that for a real EAM like this one, Sir."

President Brodsky looked at the compact box on the corner of his desk. A sharp pain stabbed at his shoulder.

"Okay," he snapped and hung up.

"Millie," he barked into the intercom, "get Colonel Worthington in here pronto!"

Colonel Worthington came in immediately, and the President explained the situation.

"I don’t know what’s going on, colonel. There’s a glitch in Missile Command’s equipment or something. We’ve got to cancel an MX launch against the Russians and others that we never ordered in the first place."

"No problem Sir," the colonel said, opening the box. "Just turn the dial to ‘CANCEL’, put your right hand on the glass panel, and look into the eyepiece with your right eye."

The President did as he was told, and a yellow light with the legend ‘TRANSACTION COMPLETED’ blinked for several seconds.

"That’s all there is to it, Sir," the colonel smiled.

Paul Brodsky heaved a sigh of relief.

"Don’t go away," he said to the colonel, again buzzing Millie.

"Millie, get me General Sanborn again."

General Sanborn came on the line.

"Better?" the President asked.

"Sir," the general replied in an agitated tone, "we show that you issued a stand down order, but our people are saying that the message that was transmitted out to the launch sites by our computer doesn’t authenticate!"

"There you go! I knew it! You’re having equipment problems out there!" the President exclaimed.

"Yes, Sir, that may be so. It seems impossible. But the crux of the issue now is that we have an entire MX missile force enabled. You’re the only one who can stop it."

"I see," President Brodsky said pensively. "What do you recommend?"

"Try it again?" General Sanborn suggested lamely.

The President motion to Colonel Worthington, and they repeated the exercise.

"How was that?" he asked over the phone.

"The EAM went out," General Sanborn said excitedly. "Hold on, Sir. It…didn’t authenticate. Mr. President, we’ve got a very serious problem here. If those officers down in the launch control centers don’t get an authentic cancellation, then they’re going to assume somebody’s spoofing them. They’re going to launch!"

"Well, get them or their commanding officers on the phone or something," the President barked. "Patch me through. I’ll personally call it off. We can do that, can’t we?"

"Sir, I can get you through to each … to all of the wing commanders in a conference call. But…"

"Do it, general!" the President ordered.

"Yes, Sir," General Sanborn replied reluctantly.

After twenty seconds or so, General Sanborn spoke again.

"Go ahead, Sir.

"Gentlemen," Paul Brodsky said, "this is President Brodsky. We have encountered equipment problems at Missile Command, and I am informed that the past two cancel orders, issued directly by me, failed to…"

Paul Brodsky looked at Colonel Worthington and snapped his fingers. Colonel Worthington whispered the word, and the President continued.

"…to authenticate! So I’m ordering a cancellation verbally. Is that understood?"

There was a silence on the line, broken at length by a female voice.

"This is Lieutenant Colonel Tillingsen, United States Air Force, Minot Wing Commander. The only way a Presidential launch order can be countermanded is by the receipt of an authentic cancellation EAM from the President or Vice President.

"Colonel, I appreciate that," the President said testily. "But as I said, we’re having a problem with that. That’s why I’m personally ordering this cancellation verbally."

The line clicked.

"Colonel?" President Brodsky called.

The line clicked a second time, and then a third.

"They’ve all hung up, Sir," General Sanborn said apologetically.

"What do you mean, general?" he shouted into the phone. "They’d goddamned well better not hang up on me!"

"They’re following procedures, Sir. They have no way of knowing at this time that the call isn’t enemy agent spoofing. They’d have hung up on me, and they all know my voice very well."

The pain seared through Paul Brodsky’s shoulder again, this time more acutely.

"So what do we do now?" the President asked in a tired voice.

"I think we have to assume that there’s going to be a massive launch," the general said matter of factly. "Unless things click, and we’re able to get an authentic message through."

"Like hell," the president said grimly. "Let’s get out there and blast our way into those…launch control centers. If you have to do it, shoot the launch control officers!"

"Sir, there’s no way we’d get to all of the sites…to any of them in time. Even if we could, we’d never get in. Those people are buried eighty feet down in concrete and steel capsules, and they’ve buttoned up…closed blast doors. It would be like trying to crack Fort Knox in a couple of minutes!"

"All right," the President said. "Then let’s nuke them with our own Midget Men missiles. Those things are prowling around on the Peacekeeper reservations, aren’t they?"

"Yes, Sir. But it can’t be done."

"Why not, general? Why not?"

"Sir, none of those Midget Men … none of our missiles are targeted at points in the continental U.S. To do something like that, retargeting would have to be done and new targeting constants would have to be loaded into the missiles. Then we’d have to fire them practically straight up. It just can’t be done in the time we’re looking at!"

Paul Brodsky’s face grew dark.

"Isn’t there anything?" he asked.

"We could order some of the Midget Man mobile launcher drivers to crash the perimeters of the Peacekeeper launch facilities…tell them to park their vehicles over the silos. But I doubt if more than one or two would comply. They all intercepted the MX launch order too. Most of them are waiting for an order to erect their own missiles for a strike overseas and then to dash for cover. Some have probably already bolted, thinking that Russian missiles are on the way!"

The President’s intercom buzzed.

"I’m sorry to interrupt, Sir," Millie said, "but the Vice President and the Secretary of State are here."

"Send them in, Millie."

"General," President Brodsky continued, "is there any other way at all that you can think of to stop this?"

"No, Sir."

"All right, general. Pick the brains of your best people out there. Do whatever you can. If you have any success, call me."

The President hung up as the Vice President and the Secretary of State entered the Oval Office.

President Brodsky nodded to them and turned to Colonel Worthington.

"Get Kneecap over here," he ordered tersely.

"Millie," he spoke into the intercom, "contact the Secretary of Defense. Tell him to come to my office immediately. And tell Mrs. Brodsky that we may be boarding Kneecap."

Colonel Worthington stepped into the outer office area. ‘Kneecap’ was the popular pronunciation of the acronym NEACP --- the National Emergency Airborne Command Post. In minutes a huge VTOL --- a Vertical Take off and Land aircraft --- would settle with a roar onto the cement pad in the rear of the White House. It was the beginning of the worst of all possible scenarios. The President, Vice President and key cabinet members would take to the air, hopefully to survive the coming holocaust and to command what remained of the U.S. in the aftermath of a concerted Russian strike.

Roberto Gomez realized he was not a young man anymore. Breathing hard, he came to a stop at the end of the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool. He glanced at his watch. Seven minutes flat…not bad. He decided to use the three remaining minutes to walk to the middle of one of the long edges of the pool. It would be less of a wade to the center from there.

How was it all going to work? Was he going to go for his ride soaked from the knees down…or worse, he thought, noting the slippery looking leaves and other debris on the pool’s bottom. And how would he be taken aboard? Would he be levitated as the robots had been? Wouldn’t that suck up a bunch of water with him?

There was an odd incongruity in the way the people within eyesight were behaving. In the vicinity of the memorial, visitors strolled along in normal fashion, taking in the sights. Out on the avenues, however, there was a growing frenzy. Horns were blaring, cars were racing. Gomez realized that the news of the spacecraft’s sudden move east, directly toward Washington, was being picked up on radios and TVs everywhere. People in D.C. were on the run! He wished he had a small radio to listen to.

Thirty seconds to go. Gomez reached the midpoint of a walkway skirting a long side of the reflecting pool. He looked up into the sky. There were scattered clouds, but directly above the sky was clear and bright blue. Twenty seconds…ten seconds…the ten minutes were up! A lump began to form in Gomez’s throat. Had it been a joke after all? How could anyone have answered those two toughies that fast? He wasn’t angry at whoever had done it. He was only saddened that it wasn’t true.

Out of the north there came the sound of the atmosphere being rent asunder. Almost instantly five interceptors thundered over the mall, causing people to actually crouch down instinctively. They were low and they looked big! As they banked, Gomez could actually see the heads of the aviators in the cockpits, two bright red dots inside the canopy of each jet. The underside of their wings bristled with long, lethal looking air-to-air missiles. Gomez’s heart beat wildly in his chest. It wasn’t a joke! Why else would those big boys be on the scene?

"Surely they aren’t going to fire on it! Surely they’ve learned the futility of that!" he thought angrily. With a scalp jerking grin, Gomez realized that he was taking sides and throwing in with Thinker and the alien ship!

And then…then…there it was, descending out of the blue at tremendous speed. Gomez thought it had to be coming down much faster than free fall. With a start he remembered his instructions and stepped into the water. Doggedly he plowed toward the middle of the pool. Out of the corner of his eye he saw people racing toward the pool, pointing up in the air. Then he was at the center. People were shrieking and falling all around him on the walkways! Some were attempting to crawl away. He looked up and there it was, hovering directly above him. It was huge! It filled the sky!

Gomez began to feel his body grow heavy. What was happening? The water around him began to race away in all directions. It washed over the edges of the pool, eliciting more screams from the people struggling on the ground. He braced himself, grunting, striving heroically to stay on his feet. His chin sank to his chest in spite of himself. The water had sunk to his shoes. And then he was standing in a circle of soggy leaves.

With a rush the weight lifted. Gomez’s insides floated up against his diaphragm. It was like going over the top of a roller coaster run!

"Whoa!" he cried, staring bug-eyed as the reflecting pool receded away from his dangling feet. His field of view widened rapidly. The entire reflecting pool now lay beneath him! Now he was looking down on the top of the Washington Monument! He tore his eyes away from the Earth and looked up vertiginously.

The enormous craft completely filled his field of vision. Directly above, a small opening seemed to descend toward him, and then he was through it, inside the ship.

With an all but inaudible hiss the hatch closed and his weight returned to normal. He was in a small chamber.

"Hello, Dr. Gomez. Welcome aboard," a pleasant voice greeted.

Slowly, like a trapped animal, not knowing which way to turn, Gomez swiveled his head. There, holding out a pair of pajamas and slippers, was an RXT7.

"You may want to take off your wet clothes and put these on," the robot continued.

Gomez shrugged and nodded. What the heck…when in Rome…

The pajamas were scarlet red and were made of soft, flannel-like material. It felt wonderful against his skin and the chill that had crept into his legs began to diminish.

As Gomez donned the slippers the robot spoke again.

"Follow me, please. We think you will enjoy your ride most from the ship’s bridge."

They stepped into a circular corridor. It was well lit, yet there were no signs of lights. It curved away out of sight in either direction. The robot stepped into what looked like an elevator.

"This way, please," it invited.

Gomez stepped inside and the door swished shut. A three dimensional hologram floated beyond a translucent panel. It depicted a sphere with a blinking dot at the edge. The dot moved rapidly but smoothly toward the sphere’s center, and then abruptly made a right angle turn, moving back to another part of the sphere’s edge. Gomez guessed that the blinking light was them. Yet he had felt nothing. Could the gravitational field within the ship be modulated too? His guess was confirmed when the door opened again. Laid out before him was a subtly illuminated ship’s control center. A huge, transparent, bubble-like expanse of something --- plastic, glass or whatever --- looked out on a stunning panoply of stars.

Gomez gasped. The robot clicked into the control area and he followed it, gaping at everything.

"We thought you might like to sit in the pilot’s chair. It has the best view," the robot suggested, clicking an arm up and touching a seat in front of all of the consoles and at the bubble’s center.

"Yes, thank you," Gomez stammered, easing into the seat. Stars surrounded him! He seemed to be floating in the midst of them! Dizzily he glanced over his shoulder, as if to reassure himself that there was still a vessel behind him!

"We are under the remote control of Thinker," the robot explained. "If you wish, you can move around and touch things; no harm will be done."

"Thank you, this is fine for now," Gomez marveled. "You said…remote control…may I assume that Thinker is not onboard?"

"That is correct, Dr. Gomez," a different voice spoke. It filled the bridge area…it came from no particular spot. Gomez recognized the voice.

"Thinker?" he uttered uncertainly.

"Yes," the voice answered. "I am confident that you will enjoy this. In answer to your question, I am still at Watson University. Here, let’s have a look at our present position."

The universe of stars streaked across the face of the large bubble. Almost instantly Gomez’s quick mind deduced that the spacecraft was pivoting around. Yet he felt absolutely nothing! It was as if he were sitting in a movie theater!"

The spinning halted abruptly and there, floating in the center of the huge expanse of the bubble, was planet Earth. A great stillness seized Gomez. It was a feeling of utter disbelief mingled ironically with a fervent conviction that this was all actually happening.

Thinker, who unbeknown to the scientist was reading his thoughts, answered the unspoken question in his mind.

"We are six thousand miles out."

Gomez was silent for several seconds, studying the image of the cloud enshrouded globe before them.

"Where are we going?" he asked at length.

"The craft can’t be away for long. But there’s time enough for a flyby of the Sun. Would you like that?"

"Sure!" Gomez blurted.

"Very well," Thinker said. "Everything for the trip is programmed into the ship’s computer. You and I will be out of contact for a little while."

"Oh? For how long?" Gomez asked anxiously.

"About twenty minutes of Earth time."

"Earth time…" Gomez said. "And ship time?"

"Slightly less. You’ll attain a speed quite close to the speed of light relative to the Sun."

"Time dilation!" Gomez marveled.

"Yes, it’s for real, even for big systems like your body and the spacecraft," Thinker replied.

"How close will we get?" Gomez asked.

"About two hundred thousand miles."

Gomez gasped.

"Pretty close!" he remarked.

"The ship deflects all matter streaming toward it," Thinker explained. "And most of the radiation is reflected from the sphere’s surface. There is some slight heating, but it’s not a problem."

"The accelerations will be…enormous!" Gomez ventured.

"Indeed. But you won’t feel them. Enjoy your trip," Thinker replied.

The Earth began to shrink rapidly. A backdrop of stars filled in around it, and then the universe streaked again. The ship rotated the bridge into the direction of travel, and the Sun came to rest in the center of Gomez’s field of view. The intense white muted to tones of blue, and Gomez was able to stop squinting."

"Everything should be whitish red," he thought. "But we’re traveling so fast towards the Sun that things are Doppler shifted into the blue."

Gomez noted a distortion of the universe of stars, visible beyond the periphery of the Sun’s corona. Everything began to pack together more densely.

"Aberration," he marveled, "also an effect of our huge velocity."

It was all too much! It exceeded his wildest boyhood fantasies. Why had he been chosen? What was Thinker’s agenda? Roberto Gomez sank back into the seat in a state of rapture and watched the ball of fire grow larger and larger.

The pronghorn antelope raised its head sharply and studied the prairie. It was a prime buck. There had been a very faint sound that seemed to have come from the ground. But now there was only the sound of the wind. High above a golden eagle circled. The antelope paid it no mind. He looked nervously at the chain link fence that was so incongruous with the surrounding countryside. The enclosure and others like it had been there for several generations of pronghorn. Yet each generation found them odd and out of place, even dangerous. Occasionally a rabbit or prairie dog would roam into one of the perimeters. Rarely, men came in one of their foul smelling machines and spent a few hours at them.

Twenty-five miles away two Air Force captains silently watched the status panels before them. Their working quarters were eighty feet below the ground’s surface and encased in a capsule of reinforced concrete eight feet thick. This in turn was lined with eighteen inches of case-hardened steel.

When the officers had received the EAM initiated by the RXT7, and after it had authenticated, they assumed that this was another drill. The deputy Launch Control Center commander dutifully swung the thick blast door shut and secured it. The commander flicked the switches that put them on closed life support systems. With the exception of communication lines to higher national command authorities and a buried cable to other Launch Control Centers in their squadron, they were now cut off from the world. They could live for ten days that way if need be.

They had keyed in the codes from the deciphered and authenticated message. Several computers in their pod combined the codes with other Top Secret codes stored in electronic cabinets. The commander dialed ‘Enable’ on his control panel and toggled a switch. Enable commands flashed out over the buried cable network to sixteen Launch Facilities. A Peacekeeper intercontinental ballistic missile received the codes in each of the Launch Facilities. The codes were processed and fed into electromechanical devices containing twenty-three stacked and slotted wheels. Click, click, click,…each wheel rotated clockwise or counterclockwise until a rod slipped through aligned slots in the wheels and closed a circuit. The missiles transitioned from ‘Readiness Alert’ to ‘Launch Enabled’ status. Once enabled for launch a missile would accept a launch command from any Launch Control Center in the squadron. If it received two of them within a five-minute window of time, from two independent Launch Control Centers, then it would transition to ‘Launch In Process’.

Back in the Launch Control Center the captains watched the sixteen lights under the column labeled ‘Enabled’ blink on. They studied the deciphered EAM. Attack plan 237. They entered the information on their consoles and targeting parameters were loaded into the guidance systems of the ICBMs. If the officers did not receive another EAM rescinding the launch order before twelve minutes had elapsed, they would issue a launch command.

Of course the cancellation always came and they settled back to wait for it. The commander lit a cigarette. Minutes later with time to spare the message light on his console illuminated and the message printer hummed. With a sigh he opened his codebook and began authenticating the message. The deputy commander independently undertook the same exercise. The commander stopped and stared at the results of his work. He quickly did the calculation again. The results were the same.

"I’m not authenticating," he spoke across the equipment bay.

"Me neither," his fellow officer replied.

The commander tapped his pencil on the writing area of his console.

"Son of a bitch, I hope those turkeys know what they’re doing," he muttered.

Moments later another cancellation EAM came through. Eagerly the two men turned their attention to it. Another bad one!

The commander looked across at his deputy. Time was getting short! If this was the real thing then their lives were also getting short! Designed back in the twentieth century to withstand the shock of kiloton warheads, the Launch Control Centers may as well have been straw shacks in a hurricane in this age of megaton thermonuclear warheads.

Anxiously the commander watched the Enable timer click down toward zero. He was armed with a pistol, as was his deputy. Each had orders to shoot to kill if the other tried to override a legitimate launch order from the President.

When the timer rolled over to ten seconds, the commander spoke again.

"This is it, captain."

He turned his selector switch to ‘Launch’ and inserted a key into the panel. Behind him and off to one side the deputy inserted his own key into a separate console. The time clicked to zero.

"Now," the commander said clearly. Both men twisted their keys. Instantly launch commands went out to every missile in their squadron, and redundant messages came into each Launch Facility from the other four Launch Control Centers. Within seconds the lights on the status panels rippled over to ‘Launch In Process’. The launch delay timers began to count down.

The commander said a silent prayer. They had never before taken an exercise this far. Surely it was a mistake. He briefly toyed with the idea of issuing a CLIP command…a Cancel Launch In Process command…full well knowing that his fellow officer would theoretically shoot him if he did so without authorization. To his knowledge a CLIP command had never actually been issued. In any case, it would take two, from two independent Launch Control Centers, to avert the launches. Would someone else do it too? Not likely.

Then it hit him! If this was the real thing then the Russians had already mounted an attack! Everyone knew that the U.S. would never initiate a preemptive strike…it was suicide! That must be what had happened. They were under attack. Russian ICBMs were already in the air. He was a dead man. Grimly he watched the launch delay timer click down. When it hit zero the Peacekeepers would transition to Terminal Count Down. They would separate their umbilical cords from all ground systems and would go to internal power. Nothing could stop them once they went into Terminal Count Down. They were as good as launched. They would go in salvos, designed to put multiple warheads on common targets at the same time. All of the warheads on a given target would detonate practically simultaneously, in order to avoid fratricide --- the vaporization of one warhead in the fireball of another.

Nine minutes after the two captains had issued the Launch order, the ‘Terminal Count Down’ lights rippled across their status boards. One row of lights remained: ‘Missile Away’.

The commander tried to think of something to say to his partner. But there were no words. Their families in Minot would die with them. The Russian saturation bombardment would kill every living thing for a hundred miles in every direction.

Out on the prairie the pronghorn buck had heard the umbilical separate from the huge missile deep within the ground. Nervously he twitched his tail. Suddenly there was a tremendous concussion. The antelope crouched instinctively. It was so loud that he didn’t know where it had come from. What he had heard was the explosive blowing of the four-foot thick hatch to an MX missile silo. High above, before the sound reached his less sensitive ears, the gold eagle’s sharp eyes detected a movement in the odd rectangle below. An open hole, wider than a grown man, now stared blackly out at the brilliant sky.

Just as the buck began to rise out of his crouch, a Launch Ejection Gas Generator beneath the missile triggered. Enormous pressures immediately built up beneath the Peacekeeper. Seals, encircling the missile’s aft section like a skirt, blossomed against the polished walls of the long tube to the surface. With a deafening whoosh the missile rushed upward and burst from the tube with a tremendous thunderclap.

This time the antelope knew where the sound came from. Before he could react, however, a monster burst from the earth, leaving seals and other debris flying away like confetti in the wind. Like an enormous arrow the huge cylinder shot upward through the air. At two hundred feet, while the great tube was still climbing, an orange glow flickered in its tail. The glow was followed instantly by a cataclysmic column of flame that reached to the ground. With a deafening roar heard fifty miles away the behemoth sprang out of the grip of Earth’s gravity and thundered into the blue. In the distance the buck heard other reports and roars. Other tails of fire materialized and raced skyward leaving white columns of vapor behind.

Fifteen hundred feet above, the gold eagle screamed and flapped its wings frantically as the huge, silver flight vehicle thundered vertically past. Within minutes the ICBMs would slip the Earth’s atmosphere and enter Post Boost Phase. Their spent rockets would drop away. Smoothly they would coast to apogee where their nose cones would be cast loose and multiple, independent reentry vehicles would deploy like the streamers of a roman candle.

The genies were out of their bottles. Man’s darkest wishes would be granted within the half-hour. The plasmatic reactions that fuel the stars, where even the simplest atom is only transient, would alter the natural history of the planet forever. Good guys and bad guys, right and wrong, this-ism and that-ism…it was all academic now. Like Icarus, mankind had flirted once too often with the power of the sun.

Roberto Gomez lay back enthralled in the pilot’s chair. Before him, closer than any man had come in all of history, the surface of a living star seethed and boiled. All around him glowing, vaporous veils streamed into infinite space. Gomez marveled at the material in the huge bubble that partially surrounded him. He had no definite idea how it protected him from instant incineration. But the bubble, which reflected all but a tiny percent of the Sun’s light, combined with the ship’s ability to deflect the deluge of particles racing toward it at velocities close to the speed of light, saved him from instant vaporization.

The violence that filled the sky before him was not, he knew, of the world he came from. It was a place where not even elemental atoms could long survive. It was a raging plasma soup of subatomic particles. Only the crushing gravitational fields of the stars could keep such phenomena confined in space.

Gomez reflected on the state of the Earth when he’d left it. Once again men stood on the brink of unleashing this terrible force among themselves. What folly to build devices capable of injecting such physics into the benign space occupied by planet Earth. What chance did the intricate and complex molecules of living matter --- molecules composed of tens of thousands of loosely bound atoms ---have against a phenomenon that tore atoms themselves apart?

The Sun shifted suddenly to the left. A second later a solar flare raced up from the surface and past the tiny ship. Gomez scanned the horizon in all directions, wondering whether the flare had passed above them and whether it would arc back down within eyesight. An old photograph showing him standing under a natural stone bridge flashed through his mind.

"If they could see me now!" he thought with a grin.

Suddenly the Sun began to shrink. Although he had felt nothing, he realized sadly that the ship was returning to Earth. He would have given anything to be able to take the controls and head off into the void. He contemplated the receding star, now a disc surrounded by a gossamer, pulsing corona. What magnificent, mind-boggling power!

Gomez thought again about the nuclear arsenals of Earth. Man had attained the capability to alter life on the planet’s surface in a profound way. And in typical fashion man extracted a drop of smug pride from having tapped into such power. In a perverse flirtation with extinction, mankind flattered itself that it could scorch the paper-thin biosphere of the planet with impunity.

Yet how puny was the entire arsenal, compared to the solar star! The entire globe would flicker and disappear like a fly in the flame of a blowtorch, were the World ever to fall into the Sun.

Minutes later the heavens streaked and the Earth came to rest again in the center of the bubble.

"Hello, Dr. Gomez. Did you enjoy your trip?" a familiar voice greeted.

"Yes!" Gomez exclaimed. "Where are we now?"

"We are directly above the North Pole of the Earth," Thinker replied. "A major nuclear exchange is under way."

Gomez blanched. His mouth fell open but no words would come out. He felt as if time had stopped in his brain. Numbly he looked at the cloud-enshrouded globe. Had the weapons already detonated? Was it occurring even now? He detected no sign of sudden disturbances in the clouds…no flashes of nuclear fireballs.

"If you look to the left," Thinker said, "you will see an American delivery system approaching apogee."

Gomez’s head snapped around and there, floating up in a graceful curve, was the nose of a Peacekeeper. Soberly he watched the protective nose-cowling blow away in the silence of space. And there were the MIRVs, clustered like reptilian eggs in a nest. Each was a thousand times more destructive than the atomic bombs that had destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. One of these babies was enough to devastate all of Los Angeles or Moscow. Yet he knew that several were targeted for one metropolitan area. And several counterparts from the Russian arsenal were targeted at New York, Chicago and other American cities.

Gomez realized that within minutes there would be nothing for him to return to. He was about to ask what was to become of himself when the American post boost vehicle swerved off course and shot past the bubble toward outer space.

"What happened?" he cried.

"All warheads are being deflected into the Sun," Thinker replied calmly.

"You mean…"

"Yes," Thinker continued. "It is not the end of your world. None of the warheads from either side will reach their targets."

"That’s wonderful," Gomez whispered. "That’s fabulously wonderful! We…don’t deserve it!"

Thinker was silent. Gomez decided to go for broke.

"What are your plans?" he asked demurely.

"I will board the ship and leave Earth shortly," Thinker answered.

"Alone?" Gomez pressed.

"No. David Osterlund and his fiancee will accompany me."

Gomez’s spirits sank. Others had already been chosen for this most fabulous voyage of all.

"Could you use a physicist?" he asked.

"I am sorry, Dr. Gomez. I am certain that you and I would spend many fascinating hours together, were we to prolong our association. But your mission now, for the remainder of your life, is on Earth."

"Nuclear disarmament," Gomez muttered resignedly.

"Yes, that is part of it," Thinker replied.

"And the rest?"

"Tell them what you have seen. You will have the ear of the world. Tell them what possibilities lie in their future, waiting only to be exploited by generations to come. Tell them that time is of the essence."

"Why? Why is time of the essence?" Gomez asked. Was a death star coming to destroy the Earth? What did Thinker mean?

"You and a few others now know that mankind is not alone or even particularly distinctive in the galaxy. Other civilizations…other intelligent races abound. Many of them are already far-advanced beyond humankind. As a species you must channel your collective energies in a more coordinated way. Sooner or later you will be called upon to compete with others in the galaxy. And you will do it successfully or you will become subordinated, depending upon how rapidly you advance between now and then."

"Turn away from our wasteful ways…turn away from making war on one another," Gomez thought aloud.

"Yes, that is part of it. War is never anything but a setback."

"But it stimulates so much research…"

"So does discovering new worlds."

"Everybody…most people want peace, but how do we get it?" Gomez complained.

"The way you always have," Thinker replied.

"Under law?"

"Exactly."

Gomez thought of man’s last, sorry attempt at world government: the defunct United Nations. Would things be different now? Using the fabulous technology of the alien craft, Thinker was doing what world leaders had failed to accomplish in all the decades since the dawn of the nuclear age. A significant part of the world’s stockpiles of thermonuclear weapons was finally being removed from the equation…dismantled not by men but by the mighty sun! Would mankind recognize the opportunity, maintain the momentum, and rid the world once and for all of the remaining weapons still prowling in ocean depths and orbiting the Earth in secret satellites? It seemed inconceivable that man could come this close to extinction and not read the writing on the wall.

"If we slip back after this," he thought grimly, "then we deserve to die out as a species. The universe is better off without us!"