"Kinda thin, aren't they?" Dutch Claggett observed.

Maine had to stay near the surface. At this alert level, she had to be ready to launch in minutes. Ordinarily they could have gone to a deeper depth, if for no other reason than to reduce the horrible motion the ship was taking right now from surface turbulence, but her reduced speed made coming up too time-consuming.

"How close is Omaha?" the chief engineer asked.

"Probably within a hundred miles, and there's P-3S at Kodiak - but we still have that Akula out there to worry about," Claggett said. "Sir, we can hang tough right here and wait it out."

"No, we have a hurt boomer. We need some kind of support."

"That means radiating," the XO pointed out.

"We'll use a SLOT buoy."

"At two knots through the water, that doesn't buy us much, sir. Captain, radiating is a mistake."

Ricks looked at his chief engineer, who said, "I like the idea of having a friend around."

"So do I," the captain said. It didn't take long. The buoy was on the surface in seconds and immediately began broadcasting a short message in UHF. It was programmed to continue broadcasting for hours.

"We're going to have a nationwide panic on our hands," Fowler said. That was not his most penetrating observation. He had a growing panic in his own command center, and knew it. "Is there anything coming out of Denver?"

"Nothing on any commercial TV or radio channel that I know of," a voice at NORAD replied.

"Okay, you people stand by." Fowler searched his panel for another button.

"FBI Command Center. Inspector O'Day speaking."

"This is the President," Fowler said unnecessarily. It was a direct line and the light on the FBI panel was neatly labeled. "Who's in charge down there?"

"I am Deputy Assistant Director Murray, Mr President. I'm the senior man at the moment."

"How are your communications?"

"They're okay, sir. We have access to the military commsats."

"One thing we have to worry about is a nationwide panic. To prevent that, I want you to send people to all the TV network headquarters. I want your people to explain to them that they may not broadcast anything about this. If necessary, you are directed to use force to prevent it."

Murray didn't like that. "Mr President, that is against -"

"I know the law, okay? I used to be a prosecutor. This is necessary to preserve life and order, and it will be done, Mr Murray. That is a Presidential Order. Get to it."

"Yes, sir."

CHAPTER 38

First Contacts

The various communications-satellite operators were fiercely independent companies and very often ruthless competitors, but they were not enemies. Between them were agreements informally called treaties. There was always the possibility that one satellite or another could go down, whether from an internal breakdown or collision with space debris that was becoming a real worry for them. Accordingly, there were mutual-assistance agreements specifying that in the event one operator lost a bird, his associates would take up the slack, just as newspapers in the same city traditionally agreed to share printing facilities in the event of a fire or natural disaster. To back up these agreements, there were open phone lines between the various corporate headquarters. Intel-sat was the first to call Telstar.