Twenty meters wide, the Russian ships resembled Christmas decorations as they entered the bore hole. Invisible beams of energy from guns hidden beyond the rotating dock were already making parts of the leading heavy-lifter glow orange. Lanier could not begin to keep track of what was happening. His eye moved from screen to screen; Kirchner spoke rarely now. The procedures had already been outlined; his men were doing all they had been trained to do, all they could do.

"Pickney, patch me through to seventh chamber," Lanier said.

"Everyone's in first and fourth chambers by now," Gerhardt said.

"Then get me fourth chamber. Wherever. I want Heineman."

"Lead ship returning fire," said an anonymous voice from within the bore hole. "Looks like they're aiming for the tanks, maybe the cables."

"Maybe they don't see the cables," another voice suggested. The tone of both soldiers was calm, expectant.

Lanier noticed a monitor showing the tiny star of Station Sixteen, in low Earth orbit of one thousand kilometers. As he watched, the star became a glowing smudge of white light. The light winked out.

"Heineman on your button five," Pickney told Lanier. He punched the button.

"Lawrence, this is Garry."

"I was almost out the door and they pulled me back in. I'm in fourth chamber, Garry. I was on my way—"

"Lawrence, we're in—we're being attacked. Just get to the V/STOL and take it up. Hitch to the tuberider and take it down the line. Stay there until we call you back."

"Got you. I was on my way."

The button popped up and dimmed.

More brilliant white flowers grew from pinpoints to blue-white smudges over Japan and China—four in all. These were orbital nuclear bursts, designed to incapacitate communications and power nets with intense flashes of electromagnetic interference—the source of more static over the speakers. As the Stone moved in its counterclockwise orbit, and as the Earth turned beneath them, he saw more bursts over the Soviet Union and Europe—fourteen in all. A veritable nuclear springtime. They had upped the ante since the Little Death. No strategic exchanges yet—but no unshielded electronics or communications systems would survive these preliminary steps in the dance.

The smaller viewscreens showed pictures intercepted from those scanning satellites still intact and broadcasting.

The coast of North America, southern and Baja California prominent, came into dawn, high-altitude glows casting an eerie light across the ocean and land, like penlights on a relief map. The carnage still hadn't begun. What was the plan—bluff? Deception?

The negotiations would have begun already. What has been done, what will be done unless. . . How to scale back, defuse, settle for a limited confrontation. . . Who was bluffing whom, and how far they would go.

Who would surrender.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Three