die.”
“And you can’t find out what’s happened in Jacksonville?”
“Not a thing,” said a four star general called Barghin, who had already presented the report demonstrating that Jacksonville, Florida, had been cut off from the world. He sounded weary, but patient, as though he were a good Republican and didn’t expect a Democrat president to have more than the brains of a louse. “Every highway is blocked with wrecked cars, houses dynamited with the families still in them, even, on one road, with a pile of a hundred corpses. We tried to put a reconnaissance tank in across country. It stopped reportingafter ten minutes and aerial surveys showed it ran full speed into a gasoline storage tank and blew up. The crew had probably been blanked out like the search party that found the
Queen Alexandra
.”
“What happened to the ship?” the president demanded.
“The dampers were pulled on the pile before they left her,” a Navy spokesman answered. “When we got a party aboard, they found the engine room was a puddle of fused uranium and other stuff. It took us a whole night to decontaminate the search party. We took her in tow and she’s being kept at sea till we get a ruling from the owners what to do with her. Can’t bring her to port, she’s radiating like crazy.”
“What about aerial reconnaissance over Jacksonville?” The President was not to be put off.
“As usual,” General Barghin sighed. “We have high-altitude TV planes circling the city, but clouds have been bad, and the two times we’ve tried to get remote-controlled ships down to below a thousand feet, they’ve been shot down. He got a coastal defense missile station along with the city, of course, and there are about sixty homing missiles of the Thunder-horse class in store there.”
“Vassiliev was right,” muttered Gordon despondently.
“What was that, Dr. Gordon?” the President rapped.
“The captain of the Soviet bathynef,” Gordon explained. “He said it would be safest to sink the
Queen Alexandra
with the monster aboard, using a nuclear torpedo if necessary.”
“Agreed!” said General Barghin forcefully. “Something of the sort will become inevitable. Mr. President, there may be no limit to this creature’s powers. He may ultimately enslave the whole United States, the world in fact!”
“I’m not going to authorize the construction of a nuclear missile without UN approval,” the president said bluntly. “It took us years of squabbling to get rid of the damnable things, and I for one hope there’ll never be another madeon this planet! How about conventional missiles? Is there any way of pinpointing the exact location of the monster?”
“He could be anywhere in four or five hundred square miles,” Barghin answered. “The limits of the blanked-out area have remained constant since early yesterday, when he took over Jacksonville, but it’s unlikely he’s remained at the geometrical center of it. He probably just chose the most convenient limits, geographically and demographically.”
“And we daren’t let it spread,” the naval spokesman added in a tone of sepulchral gloom. “With a hydrogen warhead, it would be possible to make sure we don’t miss; once he’s extended his domains, we’d have to go on hitting till we got him, and that might use up several bombs.”
“I think Washington should be evacuated,” said Barghin suddenly. “Here, we’re too damn close to the scene.”
A knock came at the door, and the President grunted permission to enter. An aide placed a stack of photographs before him.
“These were taken from a scanner rocket flying too fast for countermissiles, Mr. President,” he said. “A courier just delivered them and said they’d try again by daylight tomorrow. And there’s a young woman and a Chinese from Atlantica who were sent to see Dr. Gordon.”
The President glanced at Gordon, who nodded. “I’m expecting details of the creature’s hideout,” he said.
“And you can’t find out what’s happened in Jacksonville?”
“Not a thing,” said a four star general called Barghin, who had already presented the report demonstrating that Jacksonville, Florida, had been cut off from the world. He sounded weary, but patient, as though he were a good Republican and didn’t expect a Democrat president to have more than the brains of a louse. “Every highway is blocked with wrecked cars, houses dynamited with the families still in them, even, on one road, with a pile of a hundred corpses. We tried to put a reconnaissance tank in across country. It stopped reportingafter ten minutes and aerial surveys showed it ran full speed into a gasoline storage tank and blew up. The crew had probably been blanked out like the search party that found the
Queen Alexandra
.”
“What happened to the ship?” the president demanded.
“The dampers were pulled on the pile before they left her,” a Navy spokesman answered. “When we got a party aboard, they found the engine room was a puddle of fused uranium and other stuff. It took us a whole night to decontaminate the search party. We took her in tow and she’s being kept at sea till we get a ruling from the owners what to do with her. Can’t bring her to port, she’s radiating like crazy.”
“What about aerial reconnaissance over Jacksonville?” The President was not to be put off.
“As usual,” General Barghin sighed. “We have high-altitude TV planes circling the city, but clouds have been bad, and the two times we’ve tried to get remote-controlled ships down to below a thousand feet, they’ve been shot down. He got a coastal defense missile station along with the city, of course, and there are about sixty homing missiles of the Thunder-horse class in store there.”
“Vassiliev was right,” muttered Gordon despondently.
“What was that, Dr. Gordon?” the President rapped.
“The captain of the Soviet bathynef,” Gordon explained. “He said it would be safest to sink the
Queen Alexandra
with the monster aboard, using a nuclear torpedo if necessary.”
“Agreed!” said General Barghin forcefully. “Something of the sort will become inevitable. Mr. President, there may be no limit to this creature’s powers. He may ultimately enslave the whole United States, the world in fact!”
“I’m not going to authorize the construction of a nuclear missile without UN approval,” the president said bluntly. “It took us years of squabbling to get rid of the damnable things, and I for one hope there’ll never be another madeon this planet! How about conventional missiles? Is there any way of pinpointing the exact location of the monster?”
“He could be anywhere in four or five hundred square miles,” Barghin answered. “The limits of the blanked-out area have remained constant since early yesterday, when he took over Jacksonville, but it’s unlikely he’s remained at the geometrical center of it. He probably just chose the most convenient limits, geographically and demographically.”
“And we daren’t let it spread,” the naval spokesman added in a tone of sepulchral gloom. “With a hydrogen warhead, it would be possible to make sure we don’t miss; once he’s extended his domains, we’d have to go on hitting till we got him, and that might use up several bombs.”
“I think Washington should be evacuated,” said Barghin suddenly. “Here, we’re too damn close to the scene.”
A knock came at the door, and the President grunted permission to enter. An aide placed a stack of photographs before him.
“These were taken from a scanner rocket flying too fast for countermissiles, Mr. President,” he said. “A courier just delivered them and said they’d try again by daylight tomorrow. And there’s a young woman and a Chinese from Atlantica who were sent to see Dr. Gordon.”
The President glanced at Gordon, who nodded. “I’m expecting details of the creature’s hideout,” he said.
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