"Yeah. Go on."

"Well, once we were alone, the kid let it all spill out. It seems that during the missile attack, he shouted out a warning in Russian and Alex didn't understand until too late; and that's why they were hit."

"Oh, no! It must be terrible to have to live with that."

Bob shrugged. "He's young. He'll get over it. That's the wonderful thing about being young. The point is, the kid--"

She never learned what Bob's point was. Chuck Umber burst into the room waving a folded-up newspaper in the air. "Angels down!" he announced and flipped the lights on. "A scoopship went down on the Ice yesterday!" He shut off the VCR player.

"Hey!" someone shouted. "Turn the Phantom back on."

"No, wait! Look at this." Chuck opened the paper to the front page and held it up. AIR THIEVES CRASH ON ICE, screamed the headline. He had a bundle of newspapers under his arm and began passing them out.

A storm of voices greeted him. "What? Where?" "How'd it happen?" "Are the Angels okay?" "How come we're just hearing about it?" "Turn the Phantom back on."

Bob leaned into her ear. "That tears it," he whispered. "How long before someone figures things out?" Sherrine grabbed a copy of the paper from Chuck as he went by and flipped it open. She and Bob huddled over it. She scanned the story quickly, as much to learn what hadn't been said as to learn what had. It wouldn't do to show too much familiarity with the story.

The newspaper report was reasonably straightforward, a bit long on loaded adjectives and short on detail, but not much worse than the usual news. There was no mention of what had happened to the Angels. A sidebar, entitled DEATH RAYS FROM OUTER SPACE, told of "beams of deadly microwaves aimed at the search parties" and cautioned the reader that "microwaves are a form of radiation, which causes cancer."

Sherrine pointed. "Nice placement on the comma."

Bob just shook his head. "You'd think they'd know the difference between ionizing and non-ionizing radiation. They can't tell one type of asbestos from the other, either."

"Why do you think they don't know the difference?"

He looked at her for a moment. Then he grunted, "You're a worse pessimist than I am," and turned back to the reading. "The 'danes really think the microwaves were aimed at the search parties," he said. "They don't see it as a decoy maneuver."

A shadow fell across the paper. "What makes you think the microwaves were decoys?"

Sherrine looked up and saw Chuck Umber. Bob opened his mouth to speak and thought better of it. Sherrine said, "Just listen, Chuck." She shook the paper and folded it. " 'As is so often the case when people rely on computers, none of the death rays actually struck the search parties.' " She gave Chuck a twisted smile. "Chuck, they tell the public that computers are unreliable--"

"Trust the Farce, Luke," Bob interjected.

"--but do you swallow that? If the Angels didn't hit anyone, it means they weren't aiming at anyone. Can you think of any other reason why they'd divert part of the power beam from Winnipeg?"

Chuck pursed his lips and presently nodded. "If the targeting system snafued… No, you're probably right. The microwaves were meant to hide the scoopship's IR footprint. Damnation!" He ground one fist into his palm. "I wish some of us had been there. We'd've gotten the Angels off the Ice before the Government grabbed 'em."

It was a moment before Sherrine found her voice. "Yeah, Chuck. Too bad." She ducked back behind the newspaper.

More people were pouring into the lounge. Dick Wolfson ejected the video cartridge and turned on the all-news channel. "C'mon," someone cried, "it was just getting to the good part, where Beef gets electrocuted." Sherrine thought it must be Dennis, the comics artist who had created The Niki Birds. It was said that you could play a contraband copy of The Phantom of the Paradise anywhere in the country and Dennis would be there in time for the ending.

"Settle down, everyone!" roared a bull voice. "Let's hear what the 'danes have to say."

The lounge quieted as the fans concentrated on the tube. The impeccably groomed newsreader recited several items of war news. Swedish marines had forced a landing on the Pomeranian coast; but their Russo-Lithuanian allies had suffered a stunning defeat at Ukranian hands. No one had used nukes, yet; but the world was holding its breath.

Must be near the beginning of the headline cycle, Sherrine thought. She felt mildly offended that the Angels were not the top story. Let's get to the Angels. When the next story turned out to be a presidential photo opportunity, she almost screamed.

Finally, the screen displayed a shot of Piranha embedded in the ice. "This update on the forced landing of the air scooper from the space habitats. Scoopships are built to steal air from the Earth and take it to the space stations. Many experts blame the cold weather we are having on the loss of this air. Air Defense forced the latest scoopship to land in North Dakota."

The scene moved past the anchorman to a long shot of the glacier looking down the landing path toward the ship. "Experts now believe that the spacemen escaped from the glacier using inappropriate technology."

Bob snorted. "Inappropriate? It worked!"

"Hush, and listen," said Sherrine.

"… the efforts of the space stations to stop the search with death rays. Meanwhile, the public should be on the lookout for possibly two illegal aliens believed to be on the loose."

Sherrine blinked at the artist's conception of spacemen. The spectrally thin creatures in the sketch looked like famine victims who had been stretched upon a rack. Someone in the room snickered. Others applauded.

"The aliens are believed to be very tall because of the unnatural environment they live in. But, because they live in zero gravity--"

"Free fall, damn it; not zero gravity!" That sounded like Wade Curtis.

"--must be extremely strong, as well…" Onscreen, stock footage from the construction of SUNSAT showed an astronaut handling an enormous solar collector panel. "… so citizens are advised to be cautious."

Sherrine did not know who was advising the government searchers, but they could not have helped the Angels more if they had tried. The exaggerated height and leanness, the misinterpretation of the effect of free fall on body strength…

The ruling coalition of proxmires, rifkins, falwells and maclaines scorned "the materialist science story." As if there were another kind of science; as if it were some thing invented, like myth, to be discarded when a better 'story' came along. It was hardly surprising that the government had not sought out scientific opinion.

Or had they? Hah! What if they'd asked a closet fan? For that matter the scientists themselves, the pariahs of academe, might not volunteer to educate the very people who shunned them. Sometimes you want an opponent to go on sounding like a fool.

S-s-sooo… She grinned and hugged Bob, who seemed surprised and not unpleased. Why, the Angels were nearly home free! If people were looking for emaciated supermen, they wouldn't look twice at Gabe and Rafe.

Harry and Jenny began a song.

"In a tower of flame in Capsule Twelve,

I was there.

I know not where they laid my bones,

it could be anywhere,

but when fire and smoke had faded,

the darkness left my sight,

I found my soul in a spaceship's soul

riding home on a trail of light.

"For my wings are made of tungsten,

and my flesh is glass and steel,

I am the joy of Terra for the power that I wield.

Once upon a lifetime, I died a pioneer,

Now I sing within a spaceship's heart,

Does anybody hear?"

"Anyone having knowledge of the whereabouts of the air pirates should call the police. Do not approach them, they are armed and dangerous."