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When the Sky Falls
Chapter 4: Effects
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After Superman left her apartment, Lois just sat there for nearly half an hour. Her mind was spinning with ideas and images of Superman. What did he mean? What was he going to tell her when he returned? Was it that he loved her? After that kiss, what else could it be? But what did he mean by that bit where he said that no one wearing his uniform could have a relationship?
It was the sound of her phone ringing that snapped her out of the endless loop of musing. She was so sure this would be her partner following up on Superman’s visit, that she answered the phone with, “Clark?”
“No Lois, it’s Perry.”
“Oh. Sorry Perry, I got distracted by… Well, after Superman left.”
“I can imagine. I’m watching the announcement now. How much more did he tell you?”
Despite everything, Lois almost laughed at that. Superman told her a lot, but most of it was none of Perry’s business. “I know about Nightfall and I know he’s going to fly an intercept mission to the asteroid.”
“Darlin’, the whole world knows that now. The EPRAD news conference is still in progress. I knew you were meeting Superman, but once the announcement started and I saw that he was in Philadelphia, I took a chance on you still being in your apartment. Have you seen Kent? Did he give you any information beyond what is in the official announcement?”
Lois was growing more irritated by the second. Not at Perry, but at herself. She had let Superman’s visit distract her so much that she had completely forgotten about covering the story. She was tempted to turn on her television but wanted to get into the office as quickly as possible. “No, Perry. Isn’t Clark at the press conference?”
“No. This was handled like an emergency announcement. There are video feeds coming out of EPRAD and Philadelphia. Everyone in the press is scrambling to get coverage on-site. The ship that Superman is going to fly into Nightfall is coming from the Philadelphia mothball fleet but some of the key experts are here in Metropolis. Anyway, since you said Superman was going to meet you at your apartment, I thought Clark might have been there with you.”
“Perry, I haven’t seen Clark since early today. If he’s not at the office, I don’t know where he might be.”
“Nobody has seen him since this morning. Lois, I need you in here. As far as we know, you’re the only person outside of EPRAD who has talked to Superman today. A moment ago he said a few words from the shipyard, but it was just a short statement about doing his best to help. He’s about to leave on the Nightfall intercept mission and we’ll need to have the story for tomorrow morning. According to the EPRAD spokesman, Superman will be leaving from there carrying the ship to use as a projectile. The idea is to smash the ship into Nightfall at a thousand miles per second and try to deflect it. They think that a ten thousand ton impact at that speed will deflect Nightfall enough to miss the Earth. Weren’t you watching the announcement?”
“No. I got…distracted. How much time until it happens?”
“They estimated that it would only take about twenty minutes once he leaves. He’ll be leaving within the hour and will be in contact by radio the whole time.”
“I’m on my way in now. Are you sure that no one knows where Clark is?”
“Lois, you were my best hope. You told me that he was researching the secret Superman project. He hasn’t even said that much to anyone else and, like I said, he’s gone missing.”
This reminded Lois of why she had always preferred to work alone. “I’m on my way in. I’m sure he’ll show up as soon as he’s finished with his cheese-of-the-month or whatever he’s off doing.”
She didn’t even wait for Perry to answer before she hung up the phone. In less than a minute, she was locking the door to her apartment.
When Lois arrived at the office, she found a strange mix of nervous anticipation and frantic activity. The bullpen television was on and turned up loud. The television press had gotten organized and was now broadcasting from the EPRAD press center. There were talking heads discussing Nightfall and the intercept mission. Superman had left less than a minute before Lois walked into the office. The newscast kept cutting to a tracking graphic that showed his progress. Finally, whenever Superman talked with EPRAD control, the radio communication between Superman and EPRAD control was included in the broadcast.
She’d been there for less than a minute when Jimmy came in carrying a stack of papers. As soon as he caught sight of her he changed course and hurried over.
“Lois, where have you been? I thought that you or CK would have been in the middle of all this.”
She may have been willing to confess an embarrassing lapse to Perry, but Jimmy was going to get a slightly different spin on where she’d been. “I had an exclusive interview with Superman just before he went to EPRAD. I need to work up my notes.”
Jimmy’s face burst into a smile. “I knew you would have the inside track on this. I haven’t seen CK all day. Is he working on this too?”
“Clark was working with Superman earlier today. He said he had some inside information but Superman had sworn him to secrecy until after the announcement. I’m surprised he’s not here yet, but I’m sure we’ll see him before too long.”
Jimmy seemed to suddenly remember that he was carrying papers. “I need to get these to Perry. I’ll let him know you’re here.”
Jimmy hurried off toward Perry’s office. The zone-out after Superman’s visit had cost her precious time. But she did have an interview—okay, more of a talk. Was there some way to use that conversation without betraying the personal nature of the visit? She certainly wasn’t going to share any of the more intimate details of what he had said. She considered building the story around the fact that he was obviously nervous about the mission. With that thought, she sat down to see what she could do.
A few minutes later she sensed someone standing near her desk. She looked up expecting to see Clark and was mildly surprised to see Perry instead.
As soon as she made eye contact Perry asked, “What do you have for me?”
This was embarrassing. She had the only exclusive interview with Superman, but she couldn’t publish any of it. It was clear that Superman intended that to be a private meeting. There was no way she was about to share anything he said. “Perry, I hardly know how to say this, but Superman didn’t tell me anything that wasn’t covered more thoroughly in the official news release.”
Perry was staring at her as if she had two heads. “Lois, this isn’t like you.” His tone was that of an all-business and unhappy editor. “I mean, I know this is Superman, but you’re the best there is. Don’t you have anything you can use?”
She reviewed their conversation for a minute. “About the best I have is that he seemed confident that the mission would succeed. He talked about…” The only thing she could come close to sharing was that he clearly expected to come back after the mission to…talk. Unfortunately she realized that there was nothing she could say without saying too much. “I just don’t have anything. I guess the best I can do is to combine the press release with my interview of the West Coast astronomer. I’m sorry Perry, I was expecting more information from Superman and I thought we’d have Clark’s information to use.”
Perry was clearly unhappy by this development but he could tell that Lois was already trying to give him everything she had. “Fine,” he said gruffly. “Go with what you have and send it to me as soon as you can.”
Despite his obvious irritation, Lois detected a tone of worry in that last phrase. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I’m trying to figure out what happened to Clark.”
“What do you mean?”
“No one has seen or heard from him since this morning. Did he give you any idea of what he was up to?” Now the concern in his voice was obvious.
“It’s like I told you on the phone. He had the inside track on the Nightfall story. I was sure that once the announcement was made and he was free of the promise to keep the story secret, he would be in here with all kinds of background information.”
“Is there anyone you can call to ask about Clark?” Perry asked.
“I can try, chief.” She looked at the clock and realized that it was fairly late. “Has anyone called MPD to see if they have anything?”
“No. I kept thinking that he was going to walk in at any moment. It wasn’t until Superman left and we still hadn’t heard from him that I started getting worried. There was no answer on his home phone so I figured it was time to take some steps. Lois, this isn’t really your problem. If you’d rather focus on the story, I can have someone else try to find out what happened.”
This was all she needed. Between a killer rock threatening to kill everyone and Superman getting her all confused with what he did and said in her apartment, she’d managed to forget that Clark had been acting strangely. This morning, when Clark had said that it was important that she meet Superman at her apartment, his tone had caused her to ask if it was important to him or Superman. His reply of ‘both’ was surprising enough and the emotion in his voice when he said it had left her thoroughly confused. In light of the real reason that Superman had visited, that enigmatic ‘both’ took on even more meaning. Perry wasn’t the only person that was worried about Clark. These past months they had grown closer than she generally liked to admit. “No, Perry. I’d like to see what I can find out. I’ll set my Nightfall piece aside for a few minutes and see what I can turn up on Clark.”
The call to Bill Henderson at MPD didn’t reveal much except for the fact that they were staffed for an emergency. The Nightfall announcement seemed to have stirred people up but, all things considered, the citizens of Metropolis were remaining generally well-behaved. Lois was unsurprised to find Henderson in his office. He said that he was planning to stay all night. The Police Chief had ordered all senior officers to be available. Knowing that she could trust him to take the request seriously, she asked Bill to keep a look out for Clark.
Lois made a few more calls to some of her contacts that knew Clark. They were able to provide a sense of how the city was reacting to the crisis, but they were a complete bust as far as finding out anything on Clark. Their regular contacts hadn’t seen him for even longer than she had. Except for those few meetings in the office this morning, it seemed like Clark had disappeared off the face of the Earth. She debated calling his parents but decided against it. She figured that would be better left until tomorrow. If Clark didn’t turn up by noon she would give them a call.
By the time she gave up on the “great Clark hunt” it was only a few minutes until Superman was due to reach Nightfall. Lois joined the crowd around the television as the final minutes ticked by. At about two minutes before impact, Superman encountered some debris. There was an edge in his voice. Lois couldn’t help but wonder if anyone else could hear his nervousness. Probably not. No one else had seen him the way she had tonight and so they wouldn’t be looking for it. After all, Superman didn’t get nervous.
The countdown timer had just passed two minutes and the bullpen went deathly quiet. The only sound was coming from the television and that was nothing but the exchanges between Superman and EPRAD. The delay in their conversation was distracting at first but it was easy to get used to. Mission control would say something and then nearly ten seconds later Superman would reply. Under other circumstances it would be a great lesson on the effects of time delay on very long distance communication. Tonight it was just annoying.
Lois noticed that Superman’s voice had gone almost mechanical. “Yes EPRAD. I have blue guidance rings. I need to concentrate now so I won’t be talking much.”
Then there was the voice of that too-calm EPRAD controller. “Very good Superman, you have 85 seconds until impact. Do you see the countdown timer on the screen?”
“Yes EPRAD, I now see 74 seconds.” He didn’t sound so nervous now. That was the confident voice she knew so well.
“Good luck, Superman. We’ll continue to monitor.”
There were a few seconds of almost eerie quiet. The silence was broken by a clanging sound on the radio.
“Superman, what was that?”
Twelve more seconds crawled by. “Superman, please reply!” Now the EPRAD voice didn’t sound so calm. Lois decided that she liked the calm mechanical voice better.
“Superman, you are veering off course. Your path is shifting toward the center of Nightfall. If you can’t correct your course, then you should abort. I repeat. Do not hit Nightfall head on!”
The countdown timer was at fifteen and counting.
Now she could hear a variety of voices in the background from EPRAD. They were trying to verify whether or not Superman’s radio link had gone dead. Then the main mission-control voice came back. “The intercept ship is on course for a near-head-on impact with Nightfall. Forward velocity has dropped below one thousand miles per second. Impact in five seconds. Four. Three. Two. One.”
After a brief pause the voice returned once more. “Ground telemetry has confirmed that the ship has hit Nightfall at nearly its exact center at a velocity of 982 miles per second. We are monitoring Nightfall and will report as soon as any changes are detected.”
Lois looked around and found that Jimmy was right next to her. “Jimmy, what was the big deal about hitting Nightfall in the center. The ship hit it. That’s good, right?”
Jimmy looked surprised. “Didn’t you hear the briefing? The one thing the scientists were most afraid of was a dead center impact. They were worried that if the impact was in the center, because of the energy in the collision, Nightfall would shatter and instead of one giant impact we could have thousands of small to middle-sized boulders heading our way. The danger from that could be as great as what Nightfall might have done if we had just let it hit.”
At that moment the EPRAD voice returned. Now it was more mechanical than ever. “It has been confirmed that Nightfall has shattered. At this time we are unable to determine if any deflection has taken place. Preliminary projections place the arrival of the Nightfall fragments at approximately 48 hours from now.”
TBC
Bob
