"Very much. It would be better to do nothing."

"No. I will not sit by and do nothing. Give me an option."

"Actually," the scientist said, "I do have a suggestion. We can try to lift the Possum into a higher orbit. A more stable orbit, where we can deal with it at our leisure."

"How do we that? With bombs?"

"You have to stop thinking weapons, Mr. President. Get outside the box. Use the space planes."

Charlie tried to visualize it. What would they do? Get under and lift? "In what way?"

"The world currently has a fleet of ten SSTOs. If my math is right, seven of them, working in unison, should be adequate to accelerate the Possum and move it past the collision point before the Earth gets there."

"We can really do that?"

"We can do it. If the planes can be deployed in time, if they are properly distributed, and if we coordinate the operation properly."

Charlie began to breathe a little more easily. "Great," he said. "Thank God." It seemed too good to be true. "Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm not sure, Mr. President. At this point, very little's certain. There are too many intangibles. For one thing, we don't know enough about the Possum. For another, I'm not certain how much fuel your planes will have left when they reach the Possum. But I'm reasonably confident."

"Okay. I'll run it by our people."

"Time is of the essence, Mr. President. This is not one of those issues you can allow to get caught up in bureaucratic wrangling. If you're going to do it, I think you have to simply make the decision now and get started."

Charlie needed a minute to think. He wasn't accustomed to making major decisions without staff work. "All right," he said. "I'll put Orly Carpenter in touch with you. He can get things started. Anything else?"

"Yes. We need more information about the Possum. Somebody needs to go out forthwith and take a closer look. Take pictures. Land on it. Punch holes in it. We need to determine its mass and mass distribution very precisely. We need to locate places on the surface where we can anchor the planes. We need whatever data we can get.

"I suggest you use every available SSTO," continued Feinberg. "All ten, if you can get them. The more you have, the better our chances. But no less than seven, under any circumstances. We'll need a minimum of seventeen minutes' burn at full throttle by at least seven vehicles. Provided everything's in place on the POSIM by no later than four A.M."

"Okay, Wesley. Tell Orly Carpenter what you told me." He paused, thinking about options, deciding this was really all he had.

"Is something wrong, Mr. President?" asked Feinberg.

"I don't see an easy way to get a look at the Possum."

"That's simple. You're already out there."

• • • Downtown Indianapolis. 4:27 P.M.

Harold K. Stratemeyer settled into the back of his limousine and let his head drift onto the cushions, wondering whether everything he'd struggled to build over the last few years was going to come crashing down. He was commissioner of the Lunar Transport Authority and a few days before he had seen no major obstacles whatever to a brilliant corporate future. Now, literally overnight, Moonbase International and Hampton were out of business, and he suspected the LTA and Stratemeyer were close behind.

Private enterprise was not quite ready to take over manned space flight without substantial government assistance. Enormous potential was lying out there, but they were still several years from being able to exploit it. Meantime, capital expenditures were astronomical. (He no longer grinned at his old joke.) And so was the need for confidence that the program would be seen to its conclusion. If governments withdrew their support now, there'd be a meltdown. LTA, Moonbase International, and several hundred other, smaller, corporations, were developing ever more sophisticated technology.

Stratemeyer had spent a long, gloomy day in hastily arranged conferences, trying to devise a strategy to keep the industry alive. But the consensus was that space travel was dead for the foreseeable future. The client governments could be expected to go into a survival mode and the industry could not hope to shoulder the burden alone. And what would be the condition of the world economy in another week? Some had argued that the products of the space age, even if they could be delivered, would no longer find a market.

His cell phone trilled. He looked at the display: incoming from Camp David. "Stratemeyer," he said.

A woman's voice on the other end: "Please stand by for the president of the United States." Stratemeyer felt his heart speed up a little. Despite all his years dealing with the men and women who controlled the direction and momentum of Western civilization, he'd actually spoken with a sitting president only once before. That had been Culpepper, when Stratemeyer had joined a group of other executives to push for White House support in space technology. He'd been younger then, more impressionable. It irritated him that he once again felt a rush of blood.

He heard a series of clicks and a change in tone. Then another voice: "You're connected, Mr. President."

"Mr. Stratemeyer?" He recognized Haskell's rolling tone, somewhat distant, relayed presumably from the Percival Lowell.

"Good afternoon, Mr. President. I'm happy to see you've been rescued."

"Thanks. We seem to be in good shape now." He paused. "Harold-it's okay if I call you 'Harold'?-You know the Possum's on its way back."

"I know, Mr. President." The whole world knows. "What's going to happen?"

"That's why I called. Harold, we need the space planes."

"The fleet? All of them?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"We're going to try to steer, to lift, the Possum into a higher orbit."

The limousine swung north onto Arlington Avenue. Stratemeyer looked out at the broad manicured lawns of the Naval Avionics Center. Traffic was light; downtown had been deserted. Unusual for a Sunday afternoon. Indianapolis seemed somehow ghostly, as if its reality were slipping away. As if it were becoming part of the past.

"With my planes?" he asked.

"Harold, you're all that stands between the world and a major catastrophe."

"Mr. President, I think we've already had the catastrophe." He looked out at the empty streets. "Why don't you describe precisely what you intend to do?" He listened while Haskell explained the plan. They wanted to fly all the planes to Atlanta tonight, where they'd be fitted with devices that would allow them to anchor themselves to the Possum. Then they'd launch to Skyport, where they'd be refueled. By Tuesday morning they'd be in position to move the rock.

"It's a big rock," said Stratemeyer.

"I know."

"What kind of guarantee do I have that I'll get my planes and crews back?"

"Harold, we're sending ferries out to bring the crews back. We don't anticipate we'll be able to recover the planes immediately. They'll probably expend their fuel during the operation."

Which meant, reading between the lines, he'd lose the planes. Insurance would never pay for them. Not under these circumstances. "Mr. President, I'd really like to help, but I have shareholders to consider. As I'm sure you know, a substantial portion of the LTA's assets are tied up in the fleet. I can't just allow you to fly off with it."

"I understand, Harold. But the government will underwrite any losses."

Hell, the government was already broke. Where would the Treasury get the money to make good the losses he'd take? Who said the Possum was that big a deal, anyway? A lot of rocks had come down during the last eighteen hours and the planet was still here. Moreover, it was Charlie Haskell making the promise; and Haskell was just one more politician. Stratemeyer knew better than to trust him. Not with the fleet. Hell, the way things were going, the president would be damned lucky to get reelected.