Skyfall

“My God,” was all that Bandin could say, in a hoarse whisper, not even knowing that he spoke, slumped against the open bathroom door with the forgotten towel clutched in his hand.

“My God, oh my God. . “

It took seconds, then minutes, then almost an hour to find out what happened in any detail. Colonel O'Brian, the silent witness at Ground Command Control, in Kapustin Yar, knew that something had gone completely wrong at the precise moment the controllers did. He had the same readouts before him, the same information. His fists tensed, tighter and tighter, as he saw the first erratic firing, then the continuous firing — then the change in orbit. The new orbit could not be measured quickly or easily and he was aware of the growing panic, the hysteria in the voices calling to each other and he was to verify this in many secret interrogations in the coming months. But right now all he could do was watch.

As the figures flowed in the computer worked out an orbit. An unbelievable one. Slowly the voices died away and all sound ceased as the orbit was plotted on the screen. Changing, turning, downward, accelerating. With their mind's eye they could see the danger growing unbelievably before them, watch enacted out minutes after the tragedy the last flight of the core booster of Prometheus One. Watch until the utterly incomprehensible moment when the orbit, the path of the booster in space, ended.

The computer, which had been printing out the rows of figures, came to the end of its information and fell silent. The chattering of the printer stopped at the same moment. The silence was absolute.

“Send this!” O'Brian ordered, and was surprised at the roughness in his voice. Silverstein looked up at him, taken unaware, for he did not know one word of Russian and even less of space technology, and had not the slightest idea of what had gone wrong. “Top priority, and I mean top. For the President. Core booster malfunction. Appears to have impacted the Earth. Site unknown.” He scrabbled in the papers before him and made some quick calculations. “First estimate would be area fifty-two degrees north latitude, zero degrees longitude.”

“Where is that, Colonel? Where is it?” The sergeant was beginning to have some realization of what was happening.

“Zero longitude? Greenwich, England…”

They looked at each other in mutually shared horror. They both knew England well. Knew how crowded with people that island was. Silverstein slowly tapped out the information that O'Brian gave him, but knew this was only the outline of the tragedy. When there was nothing more to report he typed a query for return information soonest on point of impact.

The orbit analysis from Kapustin Yar was sent directly to the White House, followed by Houston's own orbit from their tracking stations. Then Houston ran their own figures and the Russian ones through the computer once more and came up with an estimated point of impact, theoretically correct to within a quarter of a mile. Instead of bringing the raw data to the President the Information Officer in the White House made a xerox of the southern half of England and drew a red circle with a felt tip pen on the site. He then put the map and the final figures in a leather attaché case and ran for the elevator. Because he was well known, plus the fact that rumors of what had happened were already circulating, the guards at the conference room door opened it as he approached. Almost the entire cabinet was there, hastily summoned, and every eye was on him when he entered. The President held out his hand and the officer gave him the papers. Bandin looked at them in silence until the door had closed, then raised his head slowly. There was a faint tremor in his hands.

“It looks from here, I can't really tell, as though the rocket came down in the countryside. There's a lot of countryside in England.” His voice was hollow, his words unconvincing even to himself. General Bannerman reached for the map and he passed it over in silence. Forgetting that he had never worn them at a public meeting before, Bannerman took the gold-rimmed pince-nez reading glasses from his breast pocket and put them on.

“Countryside, yes,” he said. “But the motorway cuts right through here. It's heavily traveled, I know. And there is one name here, not easy to read in the xerox. Looks like Gottenham New Town.”

“Cottenham New Town,” Dr. Schlochter said in his best scholastic voice. Unlike the others the Secretary of State seemed outwardly unmoved by the developing events. “One of the more successful British attempts to move light industry out of the cities and into areas in need of development. You will remember that I was there at the dedication ceremonies with the Minister of Labor.”

No one remembered or cared. The President turned to Charley Dragoni who sat at the secretarial table, a telephone pressed to his ear. “Well?” he called out.