* * *
Keene called Cavan on a secure channel to inform him as he had promised he would. Cavan seemed too stunned to make much by way of reply just for the moment. However, he wouldn’t be the person to send Idorf’s message through, since doing so would invite questions about his and Keene’s previous dealings. Instead, on Cavan’s recommendation, Keene contacted a presidential defense advisor called Roy Sloane and passed on Idorf’s warning. To back it up, he quoted the figures that Idorf had revealed, adding a few pertinent observations that he and Wally Lomack had made during their visit. He kept strictly to the script that Idorf had indicated, making no mention of Athena. Sloane was familiar with Keene’s name, took the warning seriously, and asked Keene to leave it with him. Thirty minutes later, he called back.
“You say that you and your colleague Wallace Lomack actually saw these weapons with your own eyes, Dr. Keene?” he checked.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“You can describe the construction and layout, detail the main assemblies, give performance estimates?”
“Not of the actual pods, which were in shielded storage. But of the hoist and ejection systems, yes. And some idea of functions from the local backup controls.”
“We need both of you here, Dr. Keene. Can you contact Mr. Lomack down there and tell him he needs to get ready to travel tonight? Or would you rather we have one of our people call him?”
“Tonight? I don’t know if we can get a flight at that notice,” Keene said.
“Oh, we’ll take care of that. When you’re coming to meet the President, it’s on Uncle Sam’s tab.”
* * *
Keene called an astonished Wally Lomack and told him the minimum that was necessary at that point. He debated with himself about telling Vicki everything but decided that until he knew more than he did, there was little purpose to be served. So, giving her just the Idorf’s-warning part of the story, he entrusted the office into her charge once again and drove home. He just had time to pack his bag once again before a staff car with a lieutenant and a WAVE driver arrived from the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station at the end of Flour Bluff to collect him. From Keene’s place they went on to Lomack’s house to pick up Wally, and from there to the airfield, where an executive jet with Navy markings was warmed up and waiting. They flew to Andrews Air Force Base, Washington, and were met there by a car from the White House vehicle pool. The radio was running a program about vacation spots in South America for the rest of summer and fall. Athena was due to intercept Earth in less than three weeks.
PART TWO: SATURN—Nurturer of Life
25
The meeting was clearly destined to run through into the early hours. It was being held in what Keene had been told was the Yellow Room in the South Wing, furnished in Queen Anne period against a background of satin hangings, ochre carpeting, redwood panels, and landscape paintings. Twenty or so people were present, including President Samuel Hayer, David Novek, head of the National Security Council, William Born, Deputy Secretary of Defense, and General Patrick Kilburn of Air Force Space Command. Voler was there also, with his astronomer colleague Tyndam, so far acting as if Keene didn’t exist. He spent a lot of time conversing with a man called Vincent Queal, apparently from one of the intelligence agencies. Most notably absent was the Vice President, Donald Beckerson, who was conferring with defense officials at the Pentagon.
A large wall screen uncovered by sliding panels showed several views of the Osiris and a chart of its internal layout that the Kronians had released some years previously. On it, the weapon-launch housings were left unidentified and the armory serving them conveniently obscured by other details of the structure. Keene had described his and Lomack’s impressions close-up, and outlined the nature of the weapons. After being launched a safe distance from the vessel, each pod would detonate a moderate nuclear charge at the center of an array of heavy-element lasing rods, probably in the order of six feet long, that could be aimed independently at a mix of near and distant targets. In the billionths of a second before the rods and the ellipsoid-walled focusing cavity surrounding them were vaporized, the energy from the bomb would be concentrated into intense beams of X rays aligned along the rod axes, which could be aimed with precision. From the scale of the hoist machinery between the shielded armory where the weapons were stored and the launch housings, Keene guessed that the pods carried a propulsion unit, indicating that they needed to get a long way from the ship before activating. This gave a minimum estimate for their power, which fitted with the numbers that Idorf had supplied. Keene explained from beside a table near the screen, where he had placed his notes.