“Bill,” she said, “take direction from David.”

“Confirmed.”

“Bill,” said David, “start the program.”

The AI, looking about twenty-two, dashing and handsome, appeared near the viewport. He looked out and smiled. “ Program is initiated,” he said.

Midway between the Hawksbill and the shuttle, a giant hedgehog blinked into existence. It looked real. It looked like a piece of intricately carved rock. Gray hard spines rose out of it, and it turned slowly on its axis.

Beautiful.

“How big is it?” Kellie asked.

“Five hundred thirty kilometers diameter.”

“A little bit bigger than the original.”

“Oh, yes. We wanted to be sure the bastard didn’t miss it.”

It glittered in the sunlight, gray and cold. She’d never seen a hologram anywhere close to these dimensions before.

Collingdale smiled at the cloud. “Okay, you son of a bitch,” he said. “Come get it.”

More lightning off to port. They’d wandered too close to a jet. It was a flood, a gusher of mist and dust, streaming past. “At the rate the cloud’s coming apart,” she said, “maybe there won’t be anything left by the time it gets to Lookout.”

“Don’t count on it,” said Collingdale.

Another bolt rippled past. A big one. They both ducked. So did Bill. His image vanished.

Maybe they were drawing the dragon’s attention. “I think we should get started,” she said.

Collingdale nodded. “Yes. I was just savoring the moment.”

Right. She was glad somebody was enjoying it.

“Bill,” Collingdale said, “let’s go left three degrees.”

Bill complied. The Hawksbill, the shuttle, and the virtual hedgehog all turned to port. Images of the cloud played across four screens.

The bridge fell silent, save for the muffled chatter of electronics. Collingdale sat quietly, watching the monitors, calm, almost serene.

Off to starboard, the hedgehog sparkled in sunlight. From somewhere, lightning flickered, touched the image, passed through it.

“It’ll probably take a while,” said Collingdale, “for it to react. To start to turn away.”

She’d become aware of her heartbeat. “Probably.”

The shuttle was an RY2, lots of curves, no sharply drawn lines, nothing to attract the lightning. Only the oversize Hawksbill needed to worry about that. Target of the day. Maybe they should have ridden in the shuttle. Suddenly it struck her that they should have thought things out better. Of course they should be in the shuttle.

Collingdale’s gray eyes drifted toward the overhead.

Digger would have thought of it in a minute. Never ride in the target vehicle, he’d have said.

“Bill?” said Collingdale.

“Nothing yet.”

“Maybe we need to wiggle a little bit,” he said. “Do something to get its attention.”

“Maybe.” Why don’t you lean out the airlock and wave? “Bill,” she said, “down angle three degrees.”

“Complying,” said Bill.

The face of the cloud was torn by fissures and ridges. One dark slice ran jagged like a gaping wound across the length of the thing. Gradually, the cloud was retreating from the center of the screens as the Hawksbill continued to pull away from it.

THEY WAITED SIX hours. The Hawksbill and its shuttle and the virtual hedgehog drew steadily away from the cloud, which continued on course for Lookout. Collingdale’s mood had darkened. He sat smoldering in his seat. When he spoke at all, it was to the omega, calling its attention to the hedgehog. “Don’t you see it, you dumb son of a bitch?”

“Hey, you’re going the wrong way.”

“We’re here. Over here.”

For the most part, though, he watched in stricken silence. Finally, he literally threw himself out of the chair, a dangerous move in the low gravity of a superluminal. “Hell with this,” he said. He brought the AI up onscreen. “Bill, go to the next one.”

The hedgehog vanished. A city appeared in its place. It was on the same order of magnitude.

This was a city unlike any she’d seen, an unearthly place of crystal towers and globes and chess piece symmetry.

“It’s Moonlight,” said Collingdale. “We know the thing’ll go after this one.” He gazed at the omega’s image on the overhead.

But if the omega cared, or even noticed, there was no indication. Collingdale paced the bridge for hours, eyes blazing, his jaw clamped tight. He was talking to the cloud, cajoling it, challenging it, cursing it. And then apologizing to Kellie. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s goddam frustrating.” Somewhere he’d picked up a wrench and he stalked about with it gripped in one fist, as if he’d use it on the omega.

Kellie watched.

“Nobody’s afraid of you, you bastard.”

THEY WERE GETTING too far away from the cloud, so she cut the image, took the shuttle back on board, swung around behind the omega, and repeated her earlier maneuver, easing the Hawksbill down directly in its path again.

She also suggested they board the shuttle, and run the operation from there.

“No,” he said. “You go if you want. But the shuttle’s too small. Too much lightning out there. It gets hit once, and it’s over.”

She thought about ordering him to comply. She was, after all, the vessel’s captain. But they were running an operation, and that was his responsibility. His testosterone was involved, and she knew he’d resist, refuse, defy her. The last thing she needed at the moment was a confrontation. She relaunched and repositioned the vehicle, making a great show of it.

“I think it’s a mistake,” she said.

He shook his head. “Let’s just get the job done.”

“Have it your way. We’re ready to go.”

Collingdale stared hard at the navigation screen, on which an image of the shuttle floated. “Bill,” he said, “let’s have the cube.”

A box appeared. It was silver, and someone had added the legend BITE ME on one side. Its dimensions were similar to those of the hedgehog and the city.

But it didn’t matter.

Kellie put down a sandwich and some coffee while they waited. Collingdale wasn’t hungry, thanks. He hadn’t eaten all day.

He ran the cube in a fixed position, and he ran it tumbling. They were pulling away from the cloud again, and Kellie watched while Collingdale changed the colors on the visual, from orange, to blue, to pink.

“I guess,” he said finally, “it knows we’re just showing it pictures.”

“I guess.”

“Okay,” he said, “let’s recall the shuttle. We’ll try the kite.”

“Tomorrow,” she said. “We don’t do anything else until we’ve both had some sleep.”

ARCHIVE

We’ll try again in a few hours, Mary. We have to swing around and get back in position. And it’s the middle of the night, so we’re going to shut down for a while. Stupid damned thing. But we’ll get it yet. If Hutchins is right and it really chases the hedgehogs, it’ll chase the kite.

— David Collingdale to Mary Clank

Friday, December 5

BLACK CAT REPORT

Thanks, Ron. This is Rose Beetem, onboard the Calvin Clyde, now about one week from Lookout. Our latest information is that the omega is still on course to attack the Goompahs in nine days. When it does, the Black Cat will be there, and so will everybody in our audience. We’re hoping the Academy team can do something to distract this monster, but we’ll just have to wait to see.

Back to you, Ron—

On the surface near Savakol.

Friday, December 5.

JULIE SAT IN the lander, which was perched on a sea-bound rock too small to describe as an island, and watched the transmissions coming in from the Hawksbill. She followed the flight across the top of the omega, felt a thrill when the hedgehog came to life directly in front of it, held her breath when the ship and the shuttle began their turn to port. She kept Digger and Whit informed, talked with Marge on the Jenkins, and shared her disappointment when the omega failed to take the bait. She had expected the projections to work; had not in fact been able to see any chance they would fail. But there it was.

The next phase of the operation, deploying the kite, would not start for several hours, and Julie was going to be up all night helping Marge. So she kicked her seat back and closed her eyes. Once she woke to see sails passing in the distance, but she knew that if anyone got close, Bill would alert her.

Gulls wheeled overhead. In the background she could hear Bill talking, sometimes with Whit, sometimes with Digger. At Digger’s insistence, he was using his own voice.

Savakol was one of the smaller cities, and there was consequently less walking around to be done. They expected to be finished by midafternoon.

This was Julie’s first mission of consequence. She’d talked to some of the older Academy people before coming to Lookout, and most of them had never done anything that was close to being this significant. Her father had led the mission that first discovered the omegas; and she enjoyed being part of the first effort to rescue someone from them.

Ordinarily, the Lookout flight would have been offered to a senior captain first, but apparently either no one was available or, more likely, nobody was interested in a two-year operation. She’d applied and, to her surprise, gotten the assignment. She’d had mixed feelings when it came through, second thoughts about whether she really wanted to do it. But she was committed and saw no easy way out. Especially when her folks had called and tried to dissuade her. In the end they’d said okay, have your own way, but be careful, stay clear of the cloud.

That seemed a long time ago, and if her social life had fallen off a bit, she was nevertheless feeling good about what she was doing. She’d have preferred staying with the Hawksbill and going after the omega with Collingdale. It would have been nice to go home and tell her father she’d helped shoo the thing off. But this was okay. She was close to the action, and that was really sufficient.

Half asleep, she watched Whit record a boating regatta at a lakefront. He was putting everything he could find into his notebook, capturing ball games, debates in the park, haggling over prices at the merchants’ stalls. The regatta featured half-dressed Goompah females paddling boats while a crowd cheered them on. They all wore green and white, which seemed to have some special significance because green and white banners were on display everywhere.

Digger explained that the seminudity was traditional with these events. He didn’t know why, and no one seemed unduly excited by it. The females did wear wide-brimmed white hats, however, which—to the delight of the crowd—were forever flying off.