It was also slightly over a hundred light-years away from Earth. It would be interesting to know how Service headquarters on Earth could have known in advance that boy would meet girl at a certain spot on Randolph, precisely at 14:58:03.
Or how Service headquarters could have ambushed with micrometric precision a major interstellar fleet, with no more preparation than a few days’ buildup in the newspapers and video could evidence.
The press was free, on Randolph as everywhere. It reported the news it got. Any emergency concentration of Service ships in the Black Horse area, or anywhere else, would have been noticed and reported on. The Service did not forbid such reports for “security” reasons or for any other reasons.
Yet there had been nothing to report but that (a) an armada of staggering size had erupted with no real warning from the Black Horse Nebula, and that (b) the Service had been ready.
By now, it was a commonplace that the Service was always ready. It had not had a defect or a failure in well over two centuries. It had not even had a fiasco, the alarming-sounding technical word by which it referred to the possibility that a boy-meets-girl assignment might not come off.
Jo hailed a hopper. Once inside he stripped himself of the mustache, the bald spot, the forehead creasesall the make-up which had given him his mask of friendly innocuousness.
The hoppy watched the whole process in the rear-view mirror. Jo glanced up and met his eyes.
“Pardon me, mister, but I figured you didn’t care if I saw you. You must be a Service man.”