Free Moonfall by Jack McDevitt

briefcase. “Sir, we have an emergency.” The observation didn’t faze Kolladner, who saw two to three dozen emergencies daily. She extracted a picture and held it up for him. It showed afield of stars. One was especially bright. “This is Tomiko,” she said.
    “Who?”
    “The comet, sir.”
    “Oh. Of course.”
    “It’s very big. It’s traveling very fast. And it’s coming this way.”
    Kolladner put his fork down. The room seemed to have gotten cold. “And—?”
    “It’s going to hit the Moon Saturday night.”
    “Okay…” He paused for a moment, trying to recover his equilibrium. He’d thought, from her tone, the news was going to be a lot worse. “You’re telling me Moonbase is in danger?”
    She took a deep breath. “That, too.”
    He glanced up at Kerr, not understanding where this was going. “ Too? ” he asked.
    Dr. Juarez’s eyebrows drew together. “Mr. President.” She made a strange face, like a child being forced to eat asparagus. “It’s big . We’ve never seen anything this big before. It’s possible it might demolish the Moon altogether.”
    Kolladner looked at his wife, and at Kerr. Emily’s hand touched his wrist. The United States had a multi-trillion-dollar investment in the Moon. He found it hard to consider the ramifications, the idea was so off-the-wall. “There’s no mistake?”
    “No, sir. There’s a fudge factor, but it’s not worth discussing.”
    “How much of a fudge factor?”
    “Very little, as far as the actual strike is concerned. Considerably more with regard to energy release.”
    Henry pushed back from the table. “Okay. I assume they’re evacuating Moonbase?”
    “We haven’t heard anything formally yet, Mr. President,” said Kerr. “We’ve passed them the word, but I don’t thinkthey’ve had time to digest it. But yes, they’ll have to move everyone out.”
    “Yes. I’d think so.” He studied the science advisor. “What do you need from me?”
    “Mr. President,” she said, “it’s possible—likely—that fragments will be blown off the Moon. If that happens, we could catch some of the fallout.”
    “ We? The United States?”
    “The world.”
    “Pardon me,” said Emily, “but why don’t you just tell us what you know?” Emily rarely intervened directly. But she looked exasperated. “Are we really worried about falling moonrock?”
    “Yes, Mrs. Kolladner. Maybe a lot of it.”
    “How much?” asked Henry. “How likely?”
    “I don’t know. I’m not sure anybody does. We’ve scheduled a meeting so you can talk to the experts firsthand.”
    Henry glanced at Kerr. Kerr nodded. He looked worried.
    The president pushed his plate away. Falling sky was hard to take seriously. But if Juarez had managed to scare Kerr…hell, she’d scared Henry .
    Henry Kolladner was nearing the end of a long and distinguished career. He’d made sacrifices for his country. His lungs had been damaged thirty-three years ago by Iraqi chemical agents, and as a young congressman, he’d walked into a militia hostage situation, been shot twice, but brought the captives out. He’d also taken Culpepper’s dream of returning to the Moon and carried it to fulfillment, and he’d bitten the bullet and restructured Social Security and Medicare programs to compensate for the fact that people now lived longer, and the nation could no longer afford a retirement age of eighty. (He’d read only yesterday that the average person who made it to fifty could now expect to become a centenarian. My God, how were they going to handle that ? He wondered whether theyshouldn’t bring back tobacco.) He’d presided over a robust economy that had come very close to providing enough jobs for a workforce that was growing at a frightening pace.
    He was constitutionally eligible to run again. And he was popular enough to win easily. But he’d contracted a rare form of lymphatic cancer, and the doctors weren’t even sure he’d live out his present term. So he’d