"Seven minutes to dock," said Saber.

"Roger." He locked onto the short-range beacons and manuevered into the designated guide path while Saber talked to the flight controllers and started providing minute-by-minute course adjustments.

Then a new voice came on the circuit. "Tony."

"Go ahead, L1."

"Update. FYI, Tony, we just got word we're evacuating the station."

Tony thought he meant Moonbase. "Say again, please."

"They're looking for major trouble when the comet hits. We're clearing out L1."

Evacuating L1? "By Saturday?"

"Roger. You're instructed to unload your passengers and start back posthaste."

The terminator arced across the lunar surface, dividing it sharply between dark and light. Tony glanced over at Saber.

"We're a long way from the Moon," she said. "How much damage can Tomiko do?"

6.

Skyport. 4:04 P.M.

The two planes making the early flight were from Berlin and Copenhagen. The pilots had left their flight attendants home. George had allowed his to come on the Arlington, with the understanding that they would make the first flight, to L1, but not the lunar mission.

The fourth spacecraft, they were informed, would be coming from Rome.

The three flight crews spent an hour with operational personnel in a ready room talking over details, setting up emergency communication protocols, trying to foresee what might go wrong, discussing the handling problems they could expect. The SSTOs weren't designed to fly to the Moon, and if anyone had foreseen the eventuality, there was no evidence of it in operational contingency plans. They would drag a lot of mass in the form of airframe, atmospheric engines, and landing gear, making them sluggish. If they really were going to have to dodge flying rock, they would have their hands full.

They would go into their assigned orbits, and moonbuses would come to them. The lunies also had two trucks available. The trucks had no in-flight docking capabilities, but would have to employ extravehicular activity (EVA) to transfer passengers. These would, of course, be operational personnel. And there'd only be one or two at a time. Carrying capacity for passengers was small.

"Nonexistent is more like it," said Nora Ehrlich, the British-born pilot of Copenhagen. "How tight is this operation?"

"You got it," said the briefer. "We have no room for screwups."

Shortly after he'd arrived, George had learned that other planes had been brought in to evacuate Skyport. Only operations people would remain to service the planes and take care of their passengers, and a few others deemed necessary to keep the station running. This was purely a precaution, management was saying.

After the conference, George and his crew went to Mo's Restaurant for dinner. At six he called Operations. They were still taking care of the details, they told him. But he should be ready to leave by eight P.M.

One of the details consisted of writing the navigational programming. The assignment was given to an overworked and underpaid technician whose job was to communicate with one of the astronavigators, and translate his instructions into code for the onboard computers on the three spacecraft. This technician was Kay Wilmont, who was in her second tour on board Skyport, and who had just put in for a supervisor's job.

The original plan had been to refuel the tanks to about half capacity, the level necessary to make the round-trip to either lunar orbit or L1. (There was no real difference.) But late planners had informed Operations that the SSTOs might have to do some maneuvering on the way home. Better be safe than sorry.

This was another breakdown. The only planes that might be forced to do violent maneuvering would be the two that would return Saturday. But no matter: The decision was taken to fill all tanks to capacity.

However, no one told Kay, or the people on her watch, of the change in plans. Consequently, the programs assumed a fuel weight that was fifty percent less than the amount actually carried. This was an error that, once caught, would require a series of midcourse corrections. In and of itself, it would involve no danger to the mission. Transglobal Executive Suite, Manhattan. 4:47 P.M.

Twenty-seven years ago Bruce Kendrick had been the weatherman on the Channel 11 news out of Topeka. He'd been noticed by Captain Raymond L. McConnell when a Kansas City blizzard forced McConnell's plane to divert and he'd had to spend the night at the local Sheraton. McConnell had liked the way the kid handled low-pressure fronts, had offered him a job with the network, and the rest, as they say, was history.

Transglobal was filled with stories like that. Most of the top brass, and virtually all of the top performers (which was what TV journalists had evolved into), had been handpicked by the Captain. He owned the network, he had an unerring talent for turning huge profits out of news and features, and he was arguably the most powerful person in the United States. Quite possibly in the world.

The Captain did not owe his title to a naval heritage. According to Transglobal lore, it had begun as a joke, a designation suggested by his autocratic manner. McConnell nevertheless liked the title. He encouraged its use, and it consequently became the accepted form of address by all. He was fond of telling public gatherings that it had derived from subordinates who wished to impress him. And he always got a laugh by adding that he would have preferred "Judge," or better yet, "Excellency," but that his staff had drawn the line.

Everyone who knew the Captain was aware there was no line.

Bruce Kendrick was no stranger to the eleventh floor of the Transglobal Building. McConnell customarily had him in on Thursday afternoons, along with his immediate boss, news director Chuck Parmentier. The purpose of the meetings was to allow the Captain to keep involved with the news operation. Let's take a look at where we've been this week, what we're emphasizing, what the slant has looked like, what's coming up. And perhaps most important, what we want to achieve and how best to go about it.

If McConnell was a dictator, he nevertheless knew enough to ask questions and listen to the answers. He withheld his own views until the very last, and as far as Kendrick could judge, kept an open mind until the time for decision arrived. He was even willing to entertain objections after a decision had been made, and had been known to reverse himself in the face of a compelling argument. It was a quality, Parmentier maintained, utterly unique in the executive suites of the giant news-gathering corporations.

But this was Wednesday, a day early. Kendrick went first to the news chief's office. "It has to be the comet," Parmentier said.

The Captain was not a physically imposing man. He was an inch or two under average height, his hair still black despite his seventy years. He was a lawyer by training, although he'd never practiced. He was standing by a window as they were shown into his suite, looking down at Central Park. The office was immense, decorated with original artwork, including a Remington and a Jardin. "Gentlemen," he said unceremoniously, "we have work to do." A steward wheeled in a tray of donuts and danish, and poured coffee all around.

The Captain circled his desk and sat down. His brows were heavy, his eyes scarcely visible. "Take a look at this," he said. He punched a button and the four o'clock news roundup began to roll.

The daytime anchor's girl-next-door features smiled out from the screen. "This is Janet Martin at the news desk," she said. "There's more fallout from the Comet Tomiko story this afternoon. People along both coasts and near large bodies of water around the world have begun to flee their homes. As Tomiko zeroes in on the Moon, scientists are warning of the possibility that debris might fall into the oceans, generating enormous waves." (Cut to pictures of jammed highways, traffic moving at a crawl.) "How serious is it? Dan Molinari is at the Beaver Meadow Observatory in New York with one of the people who are trying to find out. Dan, how's it look?"