The rocket was too small to be seen visually, even in the best telescopic magnification. Instead, the various satellite sensors were being overlapped to give an optical view of the 473
Earth background and a combined radar-infrared image of the rocket—which looked on the display screen like a reddish blob, slightly longer than it was wide. Suddenly it blossomed into a white glare. Got it! The fireball was much too small for a nuclear explosion but bright enough to see optically. It quickly dissipated.
"Well done," Kinsman grunted. "Now let me get some sleep. Call me only if something critical happens."
The comm tech reappeared on the screen. "Sir," she asked worriedly, "who's to decide what's critical?"
"The Officer of the Day, honey. He's the man on the spot."
But Kinsman could not sleep anymore. He tossed in the bunk for what seemed like a week, got up and padded around the darkened compartment, bumping into the dresser that was built into the bulkhead beside the bunk. Finally, when the glowing digits of the clock said 0700 he put in a call to Diane. The phone screen stayed blank as Selene's computer tracked her down. She was not in her quarters or at the communications center. Finally her face appeared on the small screen. Kinsman recognized the background instantly; she was in his own office.
"You're up early," he said.
"You too. Is everything all right?"
"I was going to ask you that."
Completely serious, she said, "Everything's running smoothly here. No trouble from Colt or any of the other dissidents."
"Good."
Diane frowned slightly as she said, "We got the word that everything went well, at first. But then there were reports about fighting. Nobody seemed to know what was happening for a while. Finally word came through that you had taken control of all three stations, and that Leonov had taken the Russians' stations. There was quite a celebration, the Rus- sians and us."
"Sorry I missed it."
"When will you be back?"
"I'm hoping I can leave today. Be back, urn, Thursday sometime. We'll work out an exact ETA later."
"All right."
Christ! he thought, we might as well be talking about the weather! How can she just . . .
"We saw the Chinese rocket intercept," Diane said. "It happened in the middle of the party. Everybody was in the main plaza. And when the Orca missiles were fired ..."
"Orca?"
She brushed a strand of dark hair back from her eyes. Kinsman began to realize that she probably had not slept all night. "Yes. We watched the whole thing on the big screens in the plaza. Everybody cheered when they were shot down."
