KIM QUIN, OCELLET of Karellia, rasped under her breath when the call came. She was just preparing to retire for the night, but it was her Defense Counselor Monte-Sho on the line. “Yes, Counselor,” she said, looking away from the receiver. She stood near the window of her study. Her own reflection was visible in the silvered pane: a slight figure, bent forward just a little, gray-streaked hair crowning her head. Her brown face was brightened by the vertical, golden slits of her two eyes, each eye bisected by a thin, horizontal band of bright green. She didn’t look bad, all things considered, but she looked tired. She felt tired. It had been a long day of meetings with representatives of the western provinces, who were dissatisfied with her administration’s trade policies.
“Apologies, Ocellet,” said Monte-Sho in a strained voice. “I know it is late—”
“You wouldn’t have called if it weren’t important, Monte-Sho,” Quin replied, trying to keep her voice neutral. The defense chief probably deserved more praise from her than he usually got. “Tell me the trouble.”
“With deepest pardon . . .”
“Yes?” Impatiently.
“We need you back at the ministry,” Monte-Sho said. “Now.” And with those words, the ocellet felt her peaceful night drain away.
“What is it?” she asked, though her thoughts leapt to the worst-case scenario.
“New sighting, Ocellet.”
Damn. Her guess was right. “How many?”
“One. But faster than any previous.”
Her hearts raced. “And—?”
“Because of the speed, the shield will be hard pressed to get it fully clear. It could get through this time.”
She turned and bent close to the talk-plate. “How soon?”
“Just under twenty hours.”
Damn damn. “Then we need to sound a public alarm.”
“I believe so, yes. And Ocellet?”
Quin closed her eyes, her hearts briefly pounding out of sync. She knew what was next.
“You asked me to advise you if I felt the critical threshold had been passed. It’s possible this might be it.”
She winced. “Perhaps. Let’s not jump to conclusions. I’ll be right over. Don’t do anything before I get there.” She clicked the call off as Monte-Sho was saying, “You know we won’t—” and brushed her fingers against her breastbone. Sky above. Is this going to be it, then? Is this when we do it?
She shuddered at the thought.
Without another word, the leader of the Karellian people reached for her cloak, decided to take half a minute to change back into a business tunic, and called the service detail for a ride back to the ministry.
***
By the time she arrived, the place was swarming with aides gathering information to send out to the provincial governments. “Show me the incoming asteroid,” she commanded, striding into the chamber.
The Defense Counselor, a tall, slender Karellian with dark hair and silver eyes banded in red, turned to greet her. He tapped the center images on the main outer-space display table. A curved line showed the day-side limb of Karellia. There was a gap of low and mid-orbital space, and then the halo of the temporal shield. Out past the shield, a small yellow marker was just clear of the Heart of Fire clouds, and was creeping inward toward the planet. It represented a small asteroid on a collision course with Karellia. “Tell me what I need to know,” she said.
Counselor Monte-Sho pointed to the marker. “At maximum deflection, there is a chance it will still catch the trailing edge of the planet. Depending on whether it breaks up in the atmosphere or stays whole, we could have impacts in the regions west of here.” He traced with a dark finger along the edge of the planetary disk. “It could be bad—”
She tasted sourness. “Planet killer?”
“Not that large. But large enough and with sufficient kinetic energy to cause heavy damage and potentially impact these cities.” He ran his finger along a line of coastal cities on the western edge of Devon Province. “If it grazes us.”
Quin cursed softly under her breath. “How large an area? Do we need to empty out all of Devon Province? We can’t do that.”
Monte-Sho worried at the top fastener on his jacket. “Hard to say. The trajectory is sensitive to small changes in the entry points and angles, and even atmospheric conditions. It might not hit anything, even if it breaks up. But if it, or the pieces, miss the coast and hit ocean, they might do as much damage from tsunami.” Monte-Sho looked up. “Yes, I would alert all of Devon, and hope that it just turns out to be good practice.”
Her Public Safety Counselor, a stocky, sad-eyed Easterner, was looking on. She shifted her gaze to him. “Will you see to that immediately?”
“Of course,” he said, and hurried away.
She gazed steadily at Monte-Sho. “About that conversation we need to have. Are you prepared to recommend we launch?”
The Defense Counselor bonged before replying. “I am not saying that,” he said in a low tone. “I am saying this attack fits the criteria we’ve talked about—under which you could launch, and may be expected to by the Body of the People.”
Body of the People! she muttered under her breath. A thorn in her side at the best of times, and utterly useless in times of stress. And yet . . . no matter her own feelings, the decision was ultimately only partly hers. Those deep-space missiles with their fusion warheads belonged to the people, all of the people.
“If we lose a city in this attack—or even many citizens—”
She lifted her chin and cocked her head slightly, and touched her thin, brown fingers to her lips. “Then yes, I rather expect the Body of the People will have my job if I don’t launch a counterattack.” She closed her eyes. And rain destruction on a world we have never seen, a people we have never met. Lords, we’ve been over this a hundred times . . .
She blinked her eyes open. “If we launch, we’ll have a real war to wage. Suppose they step up the attack. You’ve said it yourself. Are we ready for that?”
“I haven’t changed my mind,” her counselor assured her. “I’m no more eager than I ever was to start a war we might not win.” He ran his fingers over the display, and she could practically hear his thoughts: War against a world that can hurl asteroids! What kind of power do they have? He had spoken his fears often enough in the past. Karellia was not defenseless, but neither was it prepared for all-out war. The Karellians had never contended with war from space before.
“Their power might not be so different from ours,” Quin said softly. We have the power to deflect asteroids, don’t we? Even if imperfectly?
Monte-Sho grunted. “There’s only one way we’ll ever know.”
Quin sighed, thinking, None of this is the point. The point is, can we afford to show weakness? None of us wants war, but maybe we need to stop our mysterious foe before they learn how fallible our defense really is. She looked back at the display and suddenly laughed harshly, with a mixture of fear and determination. “Monte-Sho, my friend, you are on the verge of persuading me that we should be ready to launch our attack now. Destroy their capability before they decide to come take a look. If they discover how their carefully aimed rocks are missing us, they might do something about it!” She studied his face, his eyes. “Did you cleverly plan this argument to convince me?”
Monte-Sho stretched his arms wide. “No, Quin. I meant what I said.”
“Well . . .” She was thinking out loud now. “Anyone who wants to force the issue either way needs a mandate from the Quorum.” The inner core of the Body of the People. She made a tsking sound. Getting a mandate about anything was nearly impossible. In this particular case, she wasn’t sure whether that was bad or good.
“That might be less of a problem than you imagine.” The defense counselor rubbed his knuckles against his chest. “Enough people have had it with the demon in the sky throwing things at us. I think if there’s an impact this time, a lot more of them will think the sooner we throw something back, and hard, the better.”
Quin rubbed her thumbs and fingertips together. A short, costly war in hopes of preventing a longer, even costlier one? The logic was not without its power.
Monte-Sho’s eyes were bright and steady. “But you and I know our shield has worked well. It likely will continue to work. We have time for better preparation. If we can get support for that.”
Quin murmured softly, not precisely in agreement, but neither in disagreement. She placed a finger on the moving figures in the display. “When will we know?”
“In a little under nineteen hours. That’s when we’ll know if there’s likely to be penetration into the atmosphere. As for precise impact location—” He flicked his gaze from the display to Quin. “We won’t know until it happens. Perhaps you should consider a personal address to the people of Devon Province?”
“Of course,” she said with a hissing sigh, and then an exasperated chuckle. “Don’t worry, I don’t expect to give a launch order today, or likely tomorrow.”
“But the day after?” he asked.
“Then we shall see,” she said gravely. “Then we shall see.”