Free Moonfall by Jack McDevitt Page B

flatten when he was reporting trouble. “We’ve got a situation,” he said.
    She was seated on the edge of the desk, watching the Boston street scene that played across one wall of the director’s office. People with umbrellas were moving through a sudden rain storm. “What is it?” she asked casually. Orly was okay, but she knew from long experience that government types in general tend to overreact to problems.
    “You know about the comet,” he said.
    “Of course.”
    “We think it’s going to hit. It’s big, and it’s coming fast. My God, Evelyn, we’ve only got three and a half days.”
    “Relax, Orly,” she said, smothering her own sudden alarm. “I’m putting you on the speaker. Jack Chandler’s here.”
    Chandler shared her view of government alarm. He said hello.
    “The thing’s going to hit what ?” asked Evelyn. “The Earth? One of the stations? What?”
    “The Moon.” He caught his breath. “The Moon. It’s going to give you one hell of a whack.”
    “You’re not serious.”
    “Do I sound as if I’m not serious?”
    “When?”
    “Saturday night. Late in the evening, looks like.”
    “How sure are you?”
    “About ninety-eight percent.”
    Evelyn tried to collect her thoughts. “You’re talking as if it’s something we need to worry about. Is it going to hit near Moonbase?”
    “Looks like Mare Muscoviense.”
    “The observatory,” whispered Jack. “Is it going to take out the observatory? ”
    “At the very least. This thing’s going to trigger major quakes. Maybe worse.”
    “What could be worse?” asked Evelyn.
    “There’s a distinct possibility it could shatter the Moon.”
    Shatter the Moon . The phrase hung in the still air. Evelyn stared at sheets of rain battering the Prudential Building, trying to understand what he was really saying. “How do you mean,” asked Evelyn, “ shatter ?”
    “How else do you want me to say it? Think of a bag of loose rock.”
    Evelyn picked up a pad and began to scribble. They had three moonbuses, which among them could carry forty people out to L1. Round-trip took a little over five hours. Between now and ten thirty Saturday night they could make seventeen round-trips.
    “Jack,” she said, “how many people do we have at Moonbase now?”
    He was already working on it. “Seven hundred thirty-four,” he read off his screen. “Plus twelve on their way from L1.”
    Evelyn stared at him.
    “I don’t think we can get them all off,” he said.
    2.
    Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Washington, D.C. 8:47 A.M.
    The SSTO Arlington was about a half hour from launch. George Culver tried to concentrate on his checkoff sheet. He’d finally scored with Annie last night and his mind was filled with images of her. In back, he could hear the passengers beginning to come on board. He shook himself and tried again to read his instruments.
    The Single Stage To Orbit space plane had capacity for two hundred thirty-five passengers, and usually carried a crew of twelve. It was slightly more compact than ordinary jumbo airliners, and baggage restrictions were far tighter. But contrasted with the old shuttles, it constituted a remarkably cheap and efficient means of getting into orbit.
    George had started his career as a carrier pilot. He’d flown the A-77 Blackjack jet, had become a squadron commander, gotten married, and made the jump to civilian aviation. In all, he’d married three times—all medical types, one physician, one nurse, one hospital systems analyst. He’d gotten bored with each, and had pulled the plug on all three. His wives didn’t seem to be all that upset when it happened, and the marriages had ended more or less amicably. None had lasted two years.
    He was just finishing with the preliminary readouts when Mary Casey, his copilot, strolled onto the flight deck and sat down.
    “How we doing, Mary?” he asked.
    “Guidance wasn’t lining up,” she said. “I put in another box.”
    He nodded, reached for his