A Deepness in the Sky

Brughel grinned back smug superiority. "Of course we were seen, Mr. Xin. The trick is to let them see—and then corrupt how they interpret the information." He opened the comm channel to theHand' s ziphead deck. "Mr. Phuong! Have you cloaked our arrival?"

Bil Phuong's voice came back from theHand' s ziphead hold. The place had been a madhouse the last time Jau looked, but Phuong sounded cool: "We're on top of the situation, Podmaster. I've got three teams synthesizing satellite reports. L1 tells me they look good." That would be Rita's team talking to Bil. She should be going off duty any moment now, for what Nau would probably claim was a rest break before the heavy work. Jau had known for a day that that "lull" was when the killing would begin.

Phuong continued, "I must warn you, sir. Eventually the Spiders will sort things out. Our disguise won't last for more than a hundred Ksec, less if someone down there is clever."

"Thank you, Mr. Phuong. That should be more than enough." Brughel smiled blandly at Jau.

Part of their horizon-spanning view disappeared, replaced by Tomas Nau back on L1. The senior Podmaster was sitting with Ezr Vinh and Pham Trinli in the lodge in Lake Park. Sunlight sparkled on the water behind them. This would be a public two-way conversation, visible to all the Followers and Qeng Ho. Nau looked out across theHand' s bridge and his gaze seemed to find Ritser Brughel.

"Congratulations, Ritser. You are well placed. Rita tells me you have already achieved a close synch with the ground nets. We have some good news of our own. The Accord Intelligence chief is visiting Southmost. Her opposite number in the Kindred is already there. Short of accidents, things should be peaceful for a while more."

Nau sounded so sincere and well-meaning. The amazing thing was that Ritser Brughel was almost as smooth: "Yes, sir. I'm setting up for the announcement and network takeover in—" He paused, as if checking his schedule. "—in fifty-one Ksec."

Of course, Nau didn't reply immediately. The signal from theHand had to be bounced out of radio shadow to a relay and then across five light-seconds of space to L1. Any reply would take at least another five seconds coming the other way.

Sharp on ten seconds, Nau smiled. "Excellent. We'll set the pacing here so everybody will be fresh when the workload spikes. Good luck to all of you down there, Ritser. We're depending on you."

There were a couple more rounds in their dance of deception; then Nau was gone. Brughel confirmed that all comm was local. "The go codes should come down any time, Mr. Phuong." Brughel grinned. "Another twenty Ksec, and we fry some Spiders."

Shepry Tripper gaped at the radar display. "It's—it's just like you said. Eighty-eight minutes, and there it is coming out of the north again!"

Shepry knew plenty of math and had worked for Nethering almost a year. He certainly understood the principles of satellite flight. But like most people, he still boggled at the notion of "a rock that gets thrown up and never comes down." The cobblie would chortle delight when some comsat came trucking over the horizon at the time and azimuth that the math had predicted.

What Nethering had done tonight was a prediction of a different order, and he was just as awed as his assistant—and a whole lot more frightened. They had had only two or three clear radar bearings on the narrow end of the aurora. The thing had been decelerating even though it was well outside of the atmosphere. The Air Defense site at Princeton had not been impressed by his report. Nethering had a long-term relationship with those people, but tonight they treated him like a stranger, their autoresponse thanking him for his information and assuring that the matter was being taken care of. The world network was full of rumors of a high-altitude nuke. But this had been no bomb. Departing southward, it had appeared to be in low orbit...and now it was coming back from the north, right on schedule.

"Do you think we'll be able to see it this time, sir? It's gonna pass almost right over us."

"I don't know. We don't have any scope that can slew fast enough to track it overhead." He started back toward the stairs. "Maybe we could use the ten-inch."

"Yeah!" Shepry raced around him—

"Button your breather! Watch the power cords!"

—and was out of sight, banging up the stairs.

But the little cobblie was right! There were fewer than two minutes until the object was directly overhead, then a couple more before it was gone again. Huh. Maybe not even time for the scope. Nethering paused, grabbed a widefield 4-ocular from his desk. Then he was running up the stairs after Tripper.

Topside, there was a faint breeze, a cold that bit like tarant fangs, even through his electric leggings. The sun would rise in about seventy minutes; dim though its light was, the best part of his observing time would be gone. For once it just didn't matter. Serendipity was up from the good cold earth this night.