where the scope is, not the other way round.”
“Mmmm . . . I suppose the same thing applies to the other thought
that occurred to me-some kind of crash teach-in for IDCC people.”
“Right-same thing goes.”
“Mmmm. . .” When Gray spoke again, they had covered another six
miles. “How about a takeover? The whole scope thing is big-Felix
wants it handled stateside.”
Hunt reflected on the proposition. “Not for my money. He’s got too
much respect for Francis, to pull a stunt like that. He knows
Francis can handle it okay. Besides, that’s not his way of doing
things-too underhanded.” Hunt paused to exhale a cloud of smoke.
“Anyhow, I think there’s a lot more to it than meets the eye. From
what I saw, even Felix didn’t seem too sure what it’s all about.”
“Mmmm . . .” Gray thought for a while longer before abandoning
further excursions into the realms of deductive logic. He
contemplated the growing tide of humanity flowing in the general
direction of C-deck bar. “My guts are a bit churned up, too,” he
confessed. “Feels like a crate of Guinness on top of a vindaloo
curry. Come on-let’s go get a coffee.”
In the star-strewn black velvet one thousand miles farther up, the
Sirius Fourteen communications-link satellite followed, with cold
and omniscient electronic eyes, the progress of the skyliner
streaking across the mottled sphere below. Among the ceaseless
stream of binary data that flowed through its antennae, it
identified a call from the Boeing’s Gamma Nine master computer,
requesting details of the latest weather forecast for northern
California. Sirius Fourteen flashed the message to Sirius Twelve,
hanging high over the Canadian Rockies, and Twelve in turn beamed
it down to the tracking station at Edmonton. From here the message
was relayed by optical cable to Vancouver Control and from there by
microwave repeaters to the Weather Bureau station at Seattle. A few
thousandths of a second later, the answers poured back up the chain
in the opposite direction. Gamma Nine digested the information,
made one or two minor alterations to its course and ifight plan,
and sent a record of the dialogue down to Ground Control,
Prestwick.
chapter two
It had rained for over two days.
The Engineering Materials Research Department of the Ministry of
Space Sciences huddled wetly in a fold of the Ural Mountains, an
occasional ray of sunlight glinting from a laboratory window or
from one of the aluminum domes of the reactor building. Seated in
her office in the analysis section, Valereya Petrokhov turned to
the pile of reports left on her desk for routine approval. The
first two dealt with run-of-the-mill high-temperature corrosion
tests. She flicked casually through the pages, glanced at the
appended graphs and tables, scrawled her initials on the line
provided, and tossed them across into the tray marked “Out.”
Automatically she began scanning down the first page of number
three. Suddenly she stopped, a puzzled frown forming on her face.
Leaning forward in her chair, she began again, this time reading
carefully and studying every sentence. She finally went back to the
beginning once more and worked methodically through the whole
document, stopping in places to verify the calculations by means of
the keyboard display standing on one side of the desk.
“This is unheard of!” she exclaimed.
For a long time she remained motionless, her eyes absorbed by the
raindrops slipping down the window but her mind so focused
elsewhere that the sight failed to register. At last she shook
herself into movement and, turning again to the keyboard, rapidly
tapped in a code. The strings of tensor equations vanished, to be
replaced by a profile view of her assistant, hunched over a console
in the control room downstairs. The profile transformed itself into
a full face as he turned.
“Ready to run in about twenty minutes,” he said, anticipating the
question. “The plasma’s stabilizing now.”
“No-this has nothing to do with that,” she replied, speaking a
little more quickly than usual. “It’s about your report 2906. I’ve
just been through my copy.”
“Oh . . . yes?” His change in expression betrayed mild
apprehension.
“So-a niobium-zirconium alloy,” she went on, stating the fact