Hayer stared hard at him. “Blackmail now? They come here as guests and you want to make them hostages. Is that it?”
Having gone so far, Voler could hardly back down. “I would have preferred a less indelicate word, but if we must use such terms, then yes. I urge us to be realistic, Mr. President. It is a time when pure pragmatism must decide.”
Hayer held his gaze for a few seconds longer, then shook his head. “No, Professor. If the situation turns out not to be so bad, we would have disgraced ourselves for no purpose. If it does turn out bad, then the goodwill of Kronia might not be something we’d want to throw away lightly. This isn’t a problem to be worked out by calculus. Proposition noted and considered. Overruled.”
From there, the meeting went on to consider practicalities closer to home. Keene was surprised that he and Lomack were involved, but Hayer seemed to want them present. National governments and UN organizations were being alerted to prepare for collaborative action, and instructions were already quietly going out to military, police, and public services to be ready to suspend leave and vacation schedules and mobilize reserves. Obviously, just about every professional and amateur astronomer on the planet was watching Athena, and it could only be a matter of time before alarms began sounding from other quarters at home and overseas. Nothing could be done about that. Assuming the news didn’t first break from elsewhere, no general announcement would be made to the media for a further twenty-four hours, by which time more information would be available from the scientific community.
The most obvious fear was of intense meteorite and dust showers from the cloud of ejection debris that had been accompanying Athena since its fission from Jupiter. The effects could be expected to be comparable to heavy, widespread air attack, with some impacts on nuclear-equivalent scale, with a small but not negligible probability of these occurring on dense population centers. Coastal inundation from ocean and offshore impacts was a virtual certainty, with hurricane-force seas likely in all areas and a distinct risk of tidal waves maybe a hundred feet high—worse if a big one hit, say, fifty miles off Miami. FEMA was cleared to activate standing evacuation plans and emergency measures at the state and city level. Military and civic command and coordination centers intended for use in national emergencies were to be readied, lists drawn up of public and private buildings with basements or parking garages, subway stations, natural caverns, and other structures capable of serving as shelters, and stocks of food, fuel, and medical supplies set aside in strategic locations. Police and auxiliary units would be briefed and equipped for dealing with looters and rioting, and the military should be prepared to take over the direction of essential services. The President’s final words before leaving were, “From what we’ve been hearing over the past year, it seems that the place to look for more hints of the kinds of things to expect might be certain parts of your Bibles. For anyone with time left over, I’d recommend reading the rest of it too.”
* * *
Keene and Lomack were asked to wait after the meeting ended. For about forty minutes they talked intermittently and drank coffee with others who were still around, and then were called into a side room where Hayer wanted to see them privately. “I kept you back because I want you two on the team,” he informed them. He looked at them searchingly. “Give me your opinion on something. This argument of Voler’s about needing the Kronian ship. What do you make of it?”
Keene and Lomack looked at each other. Keene took it. “I can’t see that it’s justified. Sure, from the guesses we’ve just listened to, the world is in for a bad time, all right. . . . But enough to warrant getting the leadership off the surface? Either he’s overreacting, which I find hard to believe. Or he knows more than he’s letting on.”
Hayer nodded and looked satisfied, as if that was all he had been waiting to hear. “And I suspect that this move to send a boarding party was not unconnected. There was more to that than we were told.” He paused. “The AAAS thing and everything before it are history, but the fact remains that you were right and the experts I’d relied on were either wrong, or they deceived me. Either way, how can I put any trust in what they tell me now? I need somebody whose word I can depend on to talk with those who are in a position to assess the situation, and report back to me independently of the people you just heard in there. That’s you, Dr. Keene. Transportation, authorization, access to anywhere you need to go—name it and you’ve got it. Mr. Lomack, you’ve been up to the Osiris too and met Captain Idorf. I want you to help us defuse the situation with the Kronians before he starts sending the world messages from the ship. Do I have your cooperation, gentlemen?”