She recognized a mirror image of sorts in Feinberg except that he was lonely, although he'd never admit it. She, on the other hand, had felt alone only during those hours she was forced to spend in domestic harness, away from the telescopes.

Cynthia had been drinking coffee and watching the Possum after it struggled out of the atmosphere. Its velocity had diminished considerably, and of course it had emerged with a new heading. It had lost about five percent of its mass during passage.

Her display extended Possum's trajectory out over a long narrow arc, and then brought it back.

It was still too early to be sure. But her instincts told her that Feinberg was going to be right. Again.

She finished her coffee, sighed, and reached for the phone. AstroLab. 3:36 P.M.

Feinberg sat in his white Fleetwood under some trees (a contractor was pouring blacktop in the parking lot), looking up at the AstroLab. The building was a flat swirl of steel and glass, two encircling wings emanating from a crosspiece. At night, when the light was favorable, it resembled an SBa, a barred spiral galaxy. Now, in the middle of the afternoon, this afternoon, it looked vaguely like an oversized bat hiding from the daylight. He did not want to go inside. He'd hoped the Possum would just go away, had hoped the run through the atmosphere would not slow it down excessively, would give it a decent trajectory. So he'd pushed it away from his thoughts, much as he'd have liked to push it away from the planet, and gone home to sleep. To hide from it, knowing that if things did go as he expected, Cynthia would call.

And Cynthia had called.

The jangle of the phone had been enough. He'd looked at his watch and known before he picked it up, before Cynthia had simply breathed his name. It was all she'd said.

"Apogee?" he'd asked.

"Two hundred thirty-seven thousand k."

No surprise there.

"Perigee?"

"Close."

How close?

"Looks like a bell-ringer."

Two hundred thirty-seven thousand kilometers. That sounded like Tuesday. They weren't going to get much of a breather.

He climbed out of the car and started walking toward the lab.

It was a brilliant April afternoon, lazy and cool, the wind whispering in the trees, the Sun high and bright. The acrid smell of blacktop brought back memories of his boyhood in south Boston, where the streets were eternally being repaved. And where the future stretched on forever.

He trudged up the long, curving gravel walkway, mounted the wide stone steps, and pushed in through the glass doors. The security guard in the lobby looked up and smiled. "Good morning, Professor Feinberg," she said. She was about twenty-five, pretty in the way all women of that age are pretty. Her eyes lingered on him a moment too long, almost flirtatious but not quite. Her name was Amy, and she was, he had heard, recently engaged.

She looked at him, frowning. "Are you okay, Professor?" she asked.

Her pleasant air-conditioned world, with its automatic dishwashers and its video call-ups and its relative security, was crashing in on her. He wondered whether she understood that. "Yes," he said. "Everything's fine."

Cynthia was waiting for him. "I'm sorry, Wes," she said.

"Well, we knew it was going to happen, didn't we?" He pulled off his sweater and threw it across the back of a chair. Half a dozen of their associates were already there, gathered around the displays, talking in low voices.

He took time to go over the numbers, hoping to find a mistake somewhere. When he didn't, he sat back and massaged his forehead. Four fifty-six A.M. Tuesday. "We'd better let the president know," he said.

• • •

9.

Micro Passenger Cabin. 3:47 P.M.

CNN was covering a press conference conducted by the senior senator from Idaho. She was the mouthpiece for Tom Clay, the majority leader and Charlie's probable opponent in November. Even Clay, he thought, should be willing to get behind the White House now.

But that wasn't the way it was going. "… should step down," she was saying, looking directly out of the screen. "Don't misunderstand me. I have no wish to attack Charlie Haskell. I saw some electronic bumper stickers already this morning saying that Haskell's a rascal, and I don't much like that kind of mindless mudslinging. But I can understand why people are outraged. We all know the president would like to dissociate himself from the policies of Henry Kolladner. But he can't. The country no longer trusts his party, it no longer trusts him, and we just can't go on this way. The life of the nation's at stake. We need to move forward and to move forward fast. Consequently, it would be in everybody's best interest-"

Charlie killed the sound and stared at the woman. Pompous, arrogant old bitch, willing to take a chance with national survival to accrue immediate political advantage. Evelyn had been watching from her seat.

"I wonder how these people ever manage to get elected," he said.

She looked at him oddly.

"What?" he asked. "What's so amusing?"

"Your friend Rick Hailey specialized in getting people like that elected."

"Including me?" he demanded.

Her eyes narrowed as she appraised him. Charlie had been in the arena too long to be concerned by blatant political attacks, but Evelyn's opinion seemed unduly important.

"No, Charlie, not including you. You were something of an anomaly in his career. You must explain it to me sometime."

Charlie was getting reports of isolated uprisings in the heartland. The crazies, spurred by the national crisis, were swarming out of their nests and proclaiming independent sovereignties, threatening local law enforcement officials, and in some cases committing murder and taking hostages. Several towns in Montana and Idaho had been seized and were broadcasting claims they had seceded from the United States.

He wished there were a way to get some privacy other than by retreating to the washroom. He found himself phrasing his remarks to Al Kerr, and to the others with whom he spoke, with an eye to their effect on the other passengers. When, for example, he advised the governor of Idaho to act against the rebels, to be assured of full presidential support, he found himself toning down the message. We don't have time or resources for sieges, he'd wanted to say. Send in the Guard and shoot their asses off if they don't cave. Instead, he'd delivered some mealy-mouthed comments urging appropriate state action and promising it would have the full support of the government.

Saber's voice came over the PA: "You folks might want to look out to port."

"Which way's port?" asked the chaplain.

A set of lights was moving among the stars. The cavalry had arrived.

They shook hands all around and congratulated one another. Morley went live, captured the celebratory mood, and noted for his audience that there was only a two-hour air supply left. It struck Charlie that the journalist would have been happier had it been more of a close thing, with people passing out as the Lowell drew alongside for a last-minute rescue. Well, Transglobal couldn't have everything.

He made a final trip up to the flight deck, where Saber greeted him with a broad smile. "Thanks," Charlie said. "For everything."

She shrugged, suggesting it had all been in a day's work. "Glad to help, Mr. President."

It had been, to say the least, a harrowing flight. Charlie Haskell, in a way, had been no more than one among equals. He'd grown accustomed to traveling with aides at his side, like Rick, or foreign dignitaries, or journalists. And security people. He was always the vice president, and never Charlie Haskell. Haskell had gotten lost somewhere, but during the last seventeen hours he'd come back.