He rubbed his eyes clear, blinking. Then he heard the other comlines in other rooms throughout the barracks, all chiming. Footsteps sounded in the hallway.

He punched a number into the unit. A shaky voice answered, "First chamber communications."

"This is Garry Lanier. Are we having a central alert?"

"Yes, Mr. Lanier."

"Why?" Lanier's voice was infinitely patient.

"I'm not sure, sir."

"I want to speak with axis communications right now."

"Yes, sir."

When a woman's voice answered some seconds later, he requested a briefing.

"We have DefCon three from London and Moscow," the woman said. "Radar activity is up, especially orbital tracking. There's been some action against communications and navigation satellites."

"Any messages from Florida or Sunnyvale?"

"None, sir."

"Messages from the lunar settlement?"

"Nothing to us, sir. They're farside to us now."

"I'm coming up to the axis now. Tell Link and Pickney to set up a special situation room with seating for about fifteen people."

Roberta Pickney's voice interrupted. "Garry, is that you? Everything's already set up, Kirchner's orders. He wants science and security coordinating on this. Get up here immediately."

In the elevator, surrounded by security personnel and baffled engineers who hadn't heard details yet, Lanier tried to think of all the things left to be done, all the preparations yet to be made. He felt his rough, unshaven chin.

It had all been hypothetical, a long-running nightmare. Down below, where he had spent most of his life, where most of the people he loved—and how few they were!—still lived, it was probably beginning.

He couldn't block images of what people back home were doing at this moment. He had lived through it as a pilot, but never as a civilian. Listening to radios, to sirens, to civil defense instructions never comprehensive enough to be of real value. Orders to evacuate, issued over cable communications from neighborhood to neighborhood. People afraid, people throwing things into automobiles or scrambling for buses or trains or Civil Defense trucks. . .

He tried to quell such thoughts. He needed his wits about him.

At the axis chambers, the security guards organized the people into priority tram groups. He was plucked from crowd by three young marines and ushered almost forcibly into a special car.

The center of Stone external communications was a walled-off area about twenty meters square in one corner of the prime dock staging area. Six marine corporals stood by the door, rifles at ready, their boots hooked into special loops to brace them in case they needed to aim and fire. Lanier passed between them. Inside the room, ten people had gathered. They watched him closely as he pulled himself into a seat.