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The human and humanoid members of the audience rose as he walked up to the podium, then took their seats again as he placedhis hands on either side of the lectern. An in-head window showed him an audience-eye view of himself, and he adjusted hisface to an expression of gravitas.

“Good afternoon,” he began. “Although by now most of you have already heard the news, I come before you to announce the destructionof the spaceport outside of Quito, and the severing of the space elevator. We believe that this was carried out using a smallnuclear device smuggled into underground caverns beneath the city. Port Ecuador has been completely destroyed with tremendousloss of life. All service up and down the elevator to SupraQuito has been suspended while engineers assess the damage andbegin carrying out repairs. We do not, as yet, know who was responsible for this outrage, but I promise you that we will bring justice to those who carried out this cowardly and dastardly attack.

“Those of you with friends and relatives in Synchorbital—at the naval support facilities and the recreational and industrialcompounds in orbit—I can assure you that they are in no immediate danger. I have been told by my scientific advisors thatthe space elevator cannot fall, and that while it might move out of its orbit somewhat, because the anchor point has been destroyed, it is in absolutelyno danger of either crashing to Earth or flying off into space. Engineers and technicians with the Space Elevator ControlBureau have already released the small planetoid tethered to the outer end of the cable so that it does not pull the elevatorand attached facilities out of orbit.

“As for the approximately sixty thousand people currently stranded in SupraQuito, and the additional five thousand or so atMidway, I will again stress that they are in no danger. Communications with Synchorbital have been interrupted by the sheerload of calls up- and down-cable, but they should be restored shortly.

“Finally, one sad, personal note. The blast disrupted the magnetic locks on a number of space elevator pods moving up- ordown-cable, and many of these fell, re-entering Earth’s atmosphere at high velocity. I have been informed that former PresidentAlexander Koenig was a passenger on one of these pods, and that despite attempts to grapple with his pod and bring it downsafely, those attempts failed. His capsule burned up in the atmosphere and was destroyed. The former President was a closepersonal friend of mine, and I deeply, deeply regret his passing. My heart goes out to those whom Alex left behind, as indeedit goes out to the families and friends of all of those lost in this disaster.

“This concludes my prepared remarks. I will take questions now.” He pointed. “Ms. Halley.”

A woman in the second row stood. “A question and a follow-up, Mr. President. You say sixty thousand people are trapped in Synchorbital. How will they be fed without elevator service? And my follow-up—do you have any plans for evacuating them from orbit?”

“I did not say they were trapped, Ms. Halley. I said they were stranded—definitely a less loaded term. SupraQuito is a fair-sized city, as you are aware, and they have considerable reserves bothof food and water, and of the rawmat necessary for technic processing. Besides, we do expect to have service resumed shortly.

“As for an evacuation, since they are in no danger, we have no plans to abandon SupraQuito at this time because it’s not necessary.I’m told that our military vessels at the naval yards will be made available to transport people back to Earth or to transportfood and water to the residents if such should become necessary, but it won’t. Yes . . . over there.”

A young man with a beard in the far left of the room stood. “Mr. President . . . who do you think is responsible for thisattack? And a follow-up . . . if we learn who did this, are you prepared to go to war to punish them?”

Walker had been waiting for that one. “We do not as yet know who was responsible. At this point, we doubt that it was anothernation, because every nation on this planet depends on cheap and rapid access to synchronous orbit. It’s absolutely vitalto our infrastructure, and to our continued prosperity, for every nation on the planet, not just us.

“There are, however, hundreds of grassroots organizations, rebel groups, and secret political action cadres with both themeans and the motives to carry out such an attack. I suppose it’s even within the realm of possibility that the attack wascarried out by a lone nut, a whack-job with a pocket nuke and a hell of a grudge against . . . somebody. Or a looney who justwanted his name to be in the news. We don’t know, but we will find out. And we will take action.”

“But will you go to war over this?”

“We will take whatever action is appropriate. You . . . in the red.”

A woman toward the back stood up. “Mr. President, do you think this might be the work of an anti-space group or one of the anti-AI organizations?”

“As I said, we have no idea as yet.” He pointed. “You . . .”

And the questions continued.

Koenig Residence

Columbus, Ohio

1503 hours, EST

Five hundred and thirty kilometers to the west, a gynoid robot watched the President’s face, three meters high and fillingthe viewall, wishing that she could cry.

Chapter Fifteen

24 April, 2429

Deep Space

Sol System

0514 hours, FST

The mountain-sized Nungiirtok ship, a converted asteroid, had been joined by others, a fleet called in by the massive Ashtongtok Tah. In ponderous procession, they dropped out of their version of faster-than-light drive out near the orbit of Saturn and beganto move inward, toward the sun.

Toward the Earth.

The first to notice the intruders twenty-three minutes later was the High Guard patrol cruiser Steregushchiy, a Russian vessel watching for asteroids or comets that might someday pose a threat to Earth. At first, the line of asteroidscoming in from Beyond looked natural. Comets occasionally were broken into pieces and strung out in long, eerily straighttrails by a