"You still there?" Her voice, worried, in his earphones.

"Yeah." He had to struggle to get the response out, and it occurred to him that he had the only suit. If he got in trouble out here, there was no way anyone could come after him.

"More coming in, Tony," Saber said. "We have to get clear."

"Okay. I'm fine."

Something splashed across his visor.

Liquid. He tried to wipe it away. But nothing happened, and in the strange light his arm didn't look right.

The liquid was coming out of his sleeve and he couldn't see his left hand.

Couldn't feel his left hand.

Darkness welled up around the edges of his vision. There was pressure in the sleeve. The suit was sealing.

But the light was slipping away. Micro Passenger Cabin. 2:31 A.M.

Charlie was well along on his second oxygen tank. There were only a couple more available, which meant, unless they restored life support, they would begin to have problems around four o'clock.

It was impossible to see what was happening from the windows of the passenger cabin. Tony had gone down below the curve of the hull, and they'd heard the banging while he worked on the hatch. Charlie wanted to ask Saber how the operation was going, but he was reluctant to distract her. He'd learned the hard way that ordinary people can ask questions or make complaints and nobody thinks much of it. But a person with political standing becomes a jerk very quickly. So he waited, trading anxious glances with Evelyn, who was also trying to stay out of the way.

Morley sat gloomily, his hands pressed against his oxygen mask. He looked defeated, a sharp contrast to his positive and energetic on-air personality. The chaplain had been trying to adopt a fatalistic attitude to insulate himself against emotional rushes. "Not much we can do except ride it out," he'd say, or, "We're in the hands of the Lord."

They certainly were.

Charlie had been surprised when Saber warned them that more turbulence was coming. Turbulence was a funny name for the rocks he watched whistle past his window. When she'd started the engine and rolled to one side, he'd concluded that Tony must have gotten inside.

But now the engine was quiet again. There was no sound belowdecks, and the Micro rode through an ominous silence.

Evelyn tried to radiate confidence. "It's okay," she said. "They know what they're doing."

Might not make any difference, Charlie thought.

The PA system clicked on, but no one spoke. Evelyn glanced at him again. The delay drew out until Charlie knew it could only be bad news.

The chaplain was peering through his window. "Houston, Houston," said Morley softly, "we have a problem."

The chaplain caught his breath. "Outside," he whispered.

They were dragging Tony at the end of his line. He looked deflated. Inanimate. He was spinning slowly, hands over feet.

As the angle changed, and the illumination from the ship's outboard lamps crept over him, Charlie saw that Tony's left hand was missing. At first he thought it was a trick of the light. But it wasn't.

Charlie Haskell wasn't yet old enough to have confronted, before this week, the imminent possibility of personal death. He assumed there'd always be a tomorrow. Now he looked out at Tony Casaway, he thought about Bigfoot in his airless compartment, and he shivered. Casaway had come back for them. Bigfoot had stayed behind to give them a chance.

Charlie was not a believer. He did not expect to be called to account and assigned a score for what he had done or left undone. His parents had believed in a mechanical world, a place of evolving hardware and software, no deities need apply. We just haven't figured it all out yet, his father was fond of saying. Things get more complex and we don't know why. But that doesn't mean we have to ascribe it to divine providence.

Charlie had endured a brief flirtation with Lutherans, as a result of joining a church basketball team. He'd been glad to escape. Later, when he entered politics, he'd been advised to pick a church. Any church. And just show up once in a while. He'd taken the advice and picked several. He could never take them seriously, but he discovered that they became more significant to his success as he moved higher in public office.

In Charlie's view, the bottom line was that if he died out here, it was all over. He envied Mark Pinnacle, who could face the worst dangers with relative equanimity because he believed that Paradise waited beyond the gate. He had only to explain to himself why Jesus had sent the comet. No big deal for a Christian.

For a realist like himself, life was a more complex game, in which one occasionally got run down by the software. Nothing personal.

"I have to tell you," Saber's voice said, breaking through his reverie, "that Captain Casaway is dead. I monitor no life signs from his suit." Her voice trembled.

The chaplain unbuckled and would have gone to her assistance, but Evelyn touched his arm and went up the ladder.

Nobody said much while she was gone. Charlie, Mark Pinnacle, and Morley ostentatiously avoided looking out the window. They heard low, intense conversation on the flight deck.

Morley's gaze touched Charlie's. "He never got to C deck," he said.

Charlie nodded. "I know."

"He didn't get to the air lines."

"I know."

"What are we going to do?"

It was a good question.

• • • Skyport Orbital Lab. 2:33 A.M.

Windy, at the far end of the ops center, murmured an obscenity.

"What?" Tory asked.

"Big one." He pointed, enhanced the image, and brought up its numbers. It was sliced away on one side, as if someone had taken a hot knife to it, cut it the way you might cut a pineapple. It might have been a severed piece of fruit, flat along the bottom, somewhat longish, tumbling end over end and simultaneously rotating on its long axis, which measured-

- One and a half kilometers.

"My God," she said.

They relayed the data to their consumers.

It became POSIM-38. And quickly, the Possum.

Cliff Beaumont reporting from Miami Beach:

"For God's sake, if you're within the sound of my voice, get under cover." (Camera reveals a churning sea illuminated by lightning strikes. An enormous black funnel flickers in and out of the picture.) "This thing will hit Miami Beach in a few minutes. If you have a storm cellar, get to it. If not, look for an interior room. We're several miles away, but we're getting some of the wash and we're going to have to set down. In any case, get out of the open." AstroLab. 3:11 A.M.

As soon as the data from Skyport firmed up, Wes Feinberg was on the phone to the White House. They'd given him a code so he could talk directly with Mercedes Juarez. That wasn't his preference. Mercedes was too much a respecter of persons and authority. What Feinberg needed was someone who wasn't averse to crashing bureaucratic blockades and going right into the Oval Office. He'd wanted a line to the president ("Impossible!") or at least to Al Kerr ("Mr. Kerr is an extremely busy man."). The world might come to an end, but Mr. Kerr would be too busy to notice.

"Can you put me through to the president?" he asked Juarez.

"I would if I could, Professor Feinberg. He's been in the situation room all night."

"Yes. Well, you might tell him he has a situation."

"What precisely is wrong?"

"This would work better if I could speak to him directly. He may have a worst-case scenario."

"You're probably talking about the report that NASA sent over a few minutes ago."

"I don't know. What did the report say?"