"Our men," Comroe said. "And the third?"

"The third is rather puzzling. You see him here, apparently standing or lying curled in the street. Observe that he is quite white, and therefore quite warm. Our temperature scans indicate that he is about ninety-five degrees, which is a little on the cool side, but probably attributable to peripheral vasoconstriction in the night desert air. Drops his skin temperature. Next slide."

The third film flicked onto the screen.

Manchek frowned at the spot. "It's moved."

"Exactly. This film was made on the second pa.s.sage. The spot has moved approximately twenty yards. Next picture.

A third film.

"Moved again!"

"Yes. An additional five or ten yards."

"So one person down there is alive?"

"That," Jaggers said, "is the presumptive conclusion."

Manchek cleared his throat. "Does that mean it's what you think?"

"Yes sir. It is what we think."

"There's a man down there, walking among the corpses?"

Jaggers shrugged and tapped the screen. "It is difficult to account for the data in any other manner, and--"

At that moment, a private entered the room with three circular metal canisters under his arm.

"Sir, we have films of the direct visualization by P-square."

"Run them," Manchek said.

The film was threaded into a projector. A moment later, Lieutenant Wilson was ushered into the room. Jaggers said, "I haven't reviewed these films yet. Perhaps the pilot should narrate."

Manchek nodded and looked at Wilson, who got up and walked to the front of the room, wiping his hands nervously on his pants. He stood alongside the screen and faced his audience, beginning in a flat monotone: "Sir, my flybys were made between 11:08 and 11: 13 p.m. this evening. There were two, a start from the east and a return from the west, done at an average speed of two hundred and fourteen miles per hour, at a median alt.i.tude by corrected altimeter of eight hundred feet and an--"

"Just a minute, son," Manchek said, raising his hand. "This isn't a grilling. Just tell it naturally."

Wilson nodded and swallowed. The room lights went down and the projector whirred to life. The screen showed the town bathed in glaring white light as the plane came down over it.

"This is my first pa.s.s," Wilson said. "East to west, at 11:08. We're looking from the left-wing camera which is running at ninety-six frames per second. As you can see, my alt.i.tude is falling rapidly. Straight ahead is the main street of the target..."

He stopped. The bodies were clearly visible. And the van, stopped in the street, its rooftop antenna still turning slow revolutions. As the plane continued its run, approaching the van, they could see the driver collapsed over the steering wheel.

"Excellent definition," Jaggers said. "That fine-grain film really gives resolution when you need--"

"Wilson," Manchek said, "was telling us about his run."

"Yes sir," Wilson said, clearing his throat. He stared at the screen. "At this time I am right over target, where I observed the casualties you see here. My estimate at that time was seventy-five, sir."

His voice was quiet and tense. There was a break in the film, some numbers, and the image came on again.

"Now I am coming back for my second run," Wilson said. "The flares are already burning low but you can see--"

"Stop the film," Manchek said.

The projectionist froze the film at a single frame. It showed the long, straight main street of the town, and the bodies.

"Go back."

The film was run backward, the jet seeming to pull away from the street.

"There! Stop it now."

The frame was frozen. Manchek got up and walked close to the screen, peering off to one side.

"Look at this," he said, pointing to a figure. It was a man in knee-length white robes, standing and looking up at the plane. He was an old man, with a withered face. His eyes were wide.

"What do you make of this?" Manchek said to Jaggers.

Jaggers moved close. He frowned. "Run it forward a bit."

The film advanced. They could clearly see the man turn his head, roll his eyes, following the plane as it pa.s.sed over him.

"Now backward," Jaggers said.

The film was run back. Jaggers smiled bleakly. "The man looks alive to me, sir."

"Yes," Manchek said crisply. "He certainly does."

And with that, he walked out of the room. As he left, he paused and announced that he was declaring a state of emergency; that everyone on the base was confined to quarters until further notice; that there would be no outside calls, or communication; and that what they had seen in this room was confidential.

Outside in the hallway, he headed for Mission Control. Comroe followed him.

"I want you to call General Wheeler," Manchek said. "Tell him I have declared an SOE without proper authorization, and ask him to come down immediately." Technically no one but the commander had the right to declare a state of emergency.

Comroe said, "Wouldn't you rather tell him yourself?" "I've got other things to do," Manchek said.

4. Alert

WHEN ARTHUR MANCHEK STEPPED INTO THE small soundproofed booth and sat down before the telephone, he knew exactly what he was going to do-- but he was not very sure why he was doing it.

As one of the senior Scoop officers, he had received a briefing nearly a year before on Project Wildfire. It had been given, Manchek remembered, by a short little man with a dry, precise way of speaking. He was a university professor and he had outlined the project. Manchek had forgotten the details, except that there was a laboratory somewhere, and a team of five scientists who could be alerted to man the laboratory. The function of the team was investigation of possible extraterrestrial life forms introduced on American s.p.a.cecraft returning to earth.

Manchek had not been told who the five men were; he knew only that a special Defense Department trunk line existed for calling them out. In order to hook into the line, one had only to dial the binary of some number. He reached into his pocket and withdrew his wallet, then fumbled for a moment until he found the card he had been given by the professor: IN CASE OF FIRE -- Notify Division 87 -- Emergencies Only He stared at the card and wondered what exactly would happen if he dialed the binary of 87. He tried to imagine the sequence of events: Who would he talk to? Would someone call him back? Would there be an inquiry, a referral to higher authority?

He rubbed his eyes and stared at the card, and finally he shrugged. One way or the other, he would find out.

He tore a sheet of paper from the pad in front of him, next to the telephone, and wrote: 2^0.

2^1.

2^2.

2^3.

2^4.

2^5.

2^6.

2^7.

This was the basis of the binary system: base two raised to some power. Two to the zero power was one; two to the first was two, two squared was four; and so on. Manchek quickly wrote another line beneath: 2^0 -> 1.

2^1 -> 2.

2^2 -> 4.

2^3 -> 8.

2^4 -> 16.

2^5 -> 32.

2^6 -> 64.

2^7 -> 128.

Then he began to add up the numbers to get a total of 87. He circled these numbers: 2^0 -> (1).

2^1 -> (2).

2^2 -> (4).

2^3 -> (8).

2^4 -> (16).

2^5 -> (32).

2^6 -> (64).

2^7 -> (128).

= (87).

And then he drew in the binary code. Binary numbers were designed for computers which utilize an on-off, yes-no kind of language. A mathematician once joked that binary numbers were the way people who have only two fingers count. In essence, binary numbers translated normal numbers which require ten digits, and decimal places-- to a system that depended on only two digits, one and zero.

2^0 -> (1) -> 1.

2^1 -> (2) -> 1.

2^2 -> (4) -> 1.

2^3 -> (8) -> 0.

2^4 -> (16) -> 1.

2^5 -> (32) -> 0.

2^6 -> (64) -> 1.

2^7 -> (128) -> 0.

Manchek looked at the number he had just written, and inserted the dashes: 1-110-1010. A perfectly reasonable telephone number. Manchek picked up the telephone and dialed. The time was exactly twelve midnight.

DAY 2.

Piedmont

5. The Early Hours

THE MACHINERY WAS THERE. THE CABLES, THE codes, the teleprinters had all been waiting dormant for two years. It only required Manchek's call to set the machinery in motion.

When he finished dialing, he heard a series of mechanical clicks, and then a low hum, which meant, he knew, that the call was being fed into one of the scrambled trunk lines. After a moment, the humming stopped and a voice said, "This is a recording. State your name and your message and hang up."

"Major Arthur Manchek, Vandenberg Air Force Base, Scoop Mission Control. I believe it is necessary to call up a Wildfire Alert. I have confirmatory visual data at this post, which has just been closed for security reasons."

As he spoke it occurred to him that it was all rather improbable. Even the tape recorder would disbelieve him. He continued to hold the telephone in his hand, somehow expecting an answer.