All flights grounded, the skyport in a turmoil, but that little silver card got him and Karin through. Nobody knew yet what was going on. They were readying for something big, but they didn't know what as yet.
Case hurried Karin to his own hangar, bustled her into the small speeder.
"The fishing cabin on the Columbia, honey. Stay there! And don't worry if you don't hear from me."
He didn't even wait to see her take off. Karin would be safe enough. The cabin was a hundred miles from any possible military objective. All he had to do was sit tight until things were straightened out. New York blasted! That could have been an accident. It must have been an accident. The only alternative would be war. And there were no more wars. Somebody at Supreme Council must have lost his head to issue the E.M.E. order.
Sure, that was it. Leave it to the politicos to get excited and jump out of their skins. Below him the glistening towers of Kansas City flashed and faded and were replaced minutes later by the towers of St. Louis. Chicago was batting out a "clear the sky order."
All three of those cities would have been gone by now if there were really a war, Case told himself. But Cranly was no politician. And he wasn't the kind that scared easily.
It was Cranly who met him at Washington skyport. Cranly was scared, all right. He was more frightened than he'd been the time their ship had started to tear loose from their mooring on that moon of Jupiter. His face was gray.
"I'll fill you in as we go," he said. The official car jerked into high speed and Cranly talked. "It was no accident. Get that straight. New York was hit from the outside."
"But how? By what? Under the Unified Council there's no one who'd have anything to gain by war. There isn't even anyone on Earth with the power to make war."