CRADLE OF SATURN BY JAMES P. HOGAN

Crunch . . . Crunch . . . Crunch . . . Crunch . . . And so it went until the mounds of rocks and debris rose to become a huge rampart of earth and boulders standing fifty to a hundred feet high in the light of arc lamps running from a mobile generator. In places, crushed and partly buried vehicles protruded from the slope. Police, military, and emergency vehicles were clustered along a strip that had been leveled to the left of the crater wall, beyond which more lamps illuminated earth-moving machines and road gangs making an earth-and-gravel road to reconnect the severed portions of the interstate. Mitch led the way along the foot of the crater wall, at the top of which figures were clambering about, taking photographs of the other side and making observations with various instruments. The object that gouged the crater had come in from the east, throwing most of the ejecta westward in the direction that Keene and the others had come from. As they progressed along the edge, the wall gradually became lower until they were walking almost on the rim itself. The ground underfoot was hot, and the heat radiating from inside was intense enough to keep them several yards back from the actual edge, in the shadow of the lip. Even so, every now and again one or a couple of them would venture closer for a few seconds to get a glimpse of the crater floor, glowing eerily red. Red was shining above them, too, reflected down through the dust pall by the cloud blanket. What was left of Phoenix was on fire.

A sound came of distant freight trains in the sky, followed minutes later by the rumbling of explosions somewhere to the north.

* * *

The reception center was another oasis of light and activity involving trucks and earthmovers, located a short distance from the interstate beside a small airfield littered with wrecked planes. It looked like an original cluster of buildings from a one-time military base of some kind, expanded probably within the last few days to the beginnings of a minicity by the addition of scores of portable huts and cabins, only to be flattened by the meteorite storm. The work going on currently was to clear the devastation and convert as many of the buildings as were salvageable into earth-covered dugouts and sandbagged shelters. Refugee arrivals were already being moved into one part, where food was being dispensed from a field kitchen. In another area, bodies were being carried from where they had been laid out in lines numbering dozens and loaded onto a truck, presumably for burial or disposal elsewhere.

Everything was improvised and chaotic, and Mitch’s initial queries yielded mixed answers as to who was in charge. No one seemed to be, exactly, but different individuals were running different things, which they seemed to have taken charge of on their own initiative. Hopes were that it should all get more coordinated tomorrow. Eventually, they found an Army major who had set up with a small staff in a sandbagged trailer equipped with a telephone exchange operating over landlines. Apparently, he was in touch with the regional command center being established at El Paso.

Colby Greene produced his government credentials and explained that people who were involved in a vital official mission were stranded up in the hills about ten miles west where their plane had crashed, and he needed assistance. The major regarded him with much the same look as the sheriff’s deputy had given them back along the interstate.

“Well, I’m not sure that kind of authority means too much anymore,” he said. “And even if it did, we’ve got our hands kind of full right now to be worrying about a few more people ten miles up in the hills. And even if we didn’t, we don’t have any way of getting anyone there.”

“You’ve got choppers,” Dan said. “We heard one ourselves, coming in—when we were back the other side of the crater.”

“No av-gas,” the major told him. “A plane that went out of here earlier took the last we had. Two road tankers were on their way here to fill our tanks, but they didn’t make it through Phoenix. We’re supposed to be getting an emergency load flown in tomorrow morning, but until it gets here nothing’s going out. So why don’t you and your boys get something to eat, find a corner to bed down, and rest up for the night? You all look as if you could use it.”