charge of the base’s imaging section.
“And this is the best image that was on the tape?”
“Ah, yes sir,” said the colonel. “None of them are any better and they
all, um, show the same thing.”
The major general looked over at the black man in the flight suit with no
insignia and the brother looked back at the general. Not a muscle in
either man’s face moved.
“Well then,” the general said briskly. “We’ll have to use this one.” He
peered at the screen again. “Although it is a little out of focus.”
It’s a dragon, you fucking moron! Willie Sherman thought. But in the Air
Force there are times when you protest and there are times when you keep
your mouth shut. In her climb to master sergeant she had learned which was
which and this was definitely a time to shut up and soldier.
“Let’s check it against known aircraft first,” the head of the image
processing section said.
Try checking it against Saturday morning cartoons, Willie thought. But she
entered the command anyway.
Quickly the machine ran through the profiles of Soviet and NATO aircraft.
“No match, sir,” Willie reported without taking her eyes off the screen.
Even smiling would be bad form and she wasn’t sure she could keep a
straight face if she met someone’s eyes.
The major general nodded. “A new type then.”
“That’s what we suspected all along,” the man with no insignia said.
“Let’s see if we can get some more detail,” the imaging colonel said. “Try
stretching the contrast.”
Without comment Willie used the mouse to indicate the new contrast range.
Instantly the dragon and rider seemed to fuzz and smooth out as every
shade of color broke down into sixteen closely related shades.
“Look there along the trailing edge of the wing,” said one of the other
colonels. “That’s obviously some different kind of material.”
“Radar absorbing,” said the spook. “If you look at the way the trailing
edge is scalloped you’ll see that it has some resemblance to the trailing
edge of the B-2.”
“Might also be radiators to dump infra red,” one of the other colonels
said.
The brigadier general rubbed his chin. “Plausible. Okay, assume they’re
radiators. They’d be flat black, wouldn’t they?”
The imaging colonel nodded. “That gives us a color reference. Make them
flat black.”
I can’t believe you people are taking this seriously! Willie thought. But
what she said was, “Yes, sir.”
Making the rear of the wings flat black changed the colors on the rest of
the image, muting them and fuzzing the details even further.
“Okay,” the two-star general said. “Now, where are the tail surfaces?”
“If you look closely at the tail boom you’ll see it’s somewhat flattened,”
the imaging colonel told him. “The entire thing is apparently an
empennage.”
“Enhance that, will you?” the brigadier asked. “Let’s see if we can bring
out the detail along the boom.”
“Try compressing the tones there,” suggested the imaging colonel.
Willie marked out the tail with her mouse and compressed the colors. Now
four or five shades on the tail were rendered as one. The thing on the
screen didn’t look like a dragon anymore, but it didn’t look like much of
anything else either.
Slowly and gradually, one change at a time, the gaggle of officers used a
million-dollar workstation to enhance a clear picture of a dragon into
something they could accept.
By the time they broke for dinner they were arguing over the serial
numbers on the tail.
Twenty-nine: HUNTING PARTY
It was still cool and gray when Mick awoke, but Karin was already
stirring. She had taken the quiver from the pile of harness and slung it
over her shoulder.
“What are you doing?” he asked, throwing back the blanket.
“I must hunt to feed my mount,” the dragon rider said, holding her bow
horizontally and sighting down the string.
Mick Gilligan compared the monster before him to his dog at home and then
computed the amount of dog food it would take to make a meal for a
fifty-foot-long golden retriever.
“An elephant a day?”
“Not so much,” Karin shook her head and then brushed a wisp of golden hair