He threw the side door of the office open and heard the mad action going on outside as men were beaming down the full power of their radio signals, giving the true nature and path of the meteorite, trying to override the frantic chaos already filling the atmosphere.
Then the light winked out. A voice that was weak and shaken came from all the speakers. "Attention. This is official! The object that fell from space has been determined to be a natural meteorite. No attack has been initiated. There is no cause for alarm...."
Blane cut off his speakers and went back into his cabin, shaking with reaction.
This time, there had been no holocaust. This time the alert had never gone red, and sane minds had somehow prevailed. But how long would sanity hold sway in a world where every unnatural accident was a potential trigger for a rain of bombs, a storm that might destroy most of the life on Earth and would certainly end man's adventure into space. It wouldn't really matter whether the stations managed to get off without retaliatory missiles from Earth; once the ships and supply bases were gone, there would be no possibility of continuing life here. The men who fired the missiles from these floating arsenals would be committing a long and horrible suicide. Yet he might have to order it—might reach a stage where he would even want to order it!
Peal was waiting for him with the report on the temperature of the casings when he came into the office the next day. There had been an increase of nearly two degrees, and it began to look as if the rise were an asymptotic one, that might get out of hand so quickly that there would be little warning.
"It's not much of a secret, either," the scientist stated. "I don't think Manners said anything, and I've kept it as tight as I could. But there are indirect ways of noting things going on, and the temperature gages in the hull show signs already. The men who service the bomb bay aren't all fools, either. They can guess there's trouble when they're sent in for only minutes at a time. So rumors are spreading."
Blane nodded. If the rumors got out of hand, things would go to pot in ways that might make it impossible for them to meet an emergency later. He threw the master switch for general summons again, and began speaking slowly, choosing his words with care. He wasn't going to lie, but he couldn't give them full information. He was already violating security to an extent that could bring full official wrath on him.
He told them that there was evidence that radioactivity was leaking from the warheads, though not in any measure to endanger the station at present. He said simply that there had been some related increase in temperature noted, and that the situation was being studied and reported to Earth, where fuller analysis was possible. It was all true, so far as it went—and the impression was as false as he could make it.