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had slammed a sledgehammer against the hull, and Kolya could see
exhaust products jetting away from the little nozzles, fountains of
crystals flying off in geometrically perfect straight lines. Earth and
Station wheeled around him in a slow ballet. But Kolya had little
time to admire the view; he and Sable, sitting by the windows, pho-
tographed the station manually, as a backup to the automated pods
mounted on the Soyuz s exterior. It was an awkward job as each of
them wore heavy spacesuit gloves.
Each thruster maneuver took the Soyuz a little further from the
Station. At last the line-of-sight radio contact began to break down,
and as a farewell the Station crew played them some music. As the
Strauss waltz swirled tinnily under the hiss and pop of static, Kolya
indulged in a little more nostalgic sadness. Kolya had grown to love
the Station. He had learned to sense the great ark s subtle rotations,
and the vibrations when its big solar arrays realigned, and the rat-
tles and bangs of the complicated ventilation system. After so long
aboard, he had more deeply embedded feelings about the Station
than any home he d lived in. After all, what other home actually
keeps you alive, minute by minute?
The music cut off.
Musa was frowning. Stereo one, I am Stereo one. Ground, I
am Stereo one. Come in, I am Stereo one . . .
Sable said, Hey, Kol. Can you see Station? It should have come
back into view on my side by now.
No, said Kolya, looking through his window. There was no
sign of the Station.
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T I M E S E Y E " 3 9
Maybe it went into shadow, Sable said.
I don t think so. The Soyuz had actually been leading the
Station into Earth s shadow. And anyhow, we would see its
lights. He felt oddly uneasy.
Musa snapped, Will you two be quiet? We lost the uplink from
the ground. He pressed the control pads before him. I ve run diag-
nostic checks, and have tried the backups. Stereo One, Stereo
One . . .
Sable closed her eyes. Tell me you potato farmers haven t
fouled up again.
Shut up, Musa said menacingly. And he continued to call,
over and over, while Sable and Kolya listened in silence.
The ship s slow rotation was now giving Kolya a direct view of
Earth s immense face. They were flying over India, he saw, and
toward a sunset; the shadows from the creases of mountain ranges
to the north of the subcontinent were long. But there seemed to be
changes on the surface of Earth, dapples, like the play of sunlight
on the floor of a turbulent lake.
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6: Encounter
Josh and Ruddy reached the downed machine with the first group
of soldiers. The privates had rifles, and they warily circled the
machine, mouths open, eyes wide. None of the party had seen any-
thing like it before.
Inside a big blown-glass cabin there were three people: two
men in seats in the front, and a woman in the back. They watched,
hands held high, as the armed soldiers circled them. They cau-
tiously removed their bright blue helmets. The woman and one of
the men appeared to be Indian, and the other man was white. Josh
could see how the latter grimaced in pain.
Considering how hard it had landed and that it was light
enough to have flown in the air in the first place the machine
seemed remarkably intact. The big glass shell that dominated the
front end was pocked here and there but was unbroken, and the
blades were still attached to a rotary hub, not folded or snapped off.
But the tail section, an affair of open pipe work and tubing, had
been reduced to a stump. There was a hissing noise, as if some gas-
ket had broken, and a pungent oil leaked onto the stony ground. It
was evident that this mechanical bird would fly no more.
Josh hissed to Ruddy, I don t recognize those blue helmets.
What army is this? Russian?
Perhaps. But see that the injured one has a Stars and Stripes
stenciled on his helmet!
Suddenly a trigger was cocked.
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T I M E S E Y E " 4 1
Don t shoot! Don t shoot . . . It was the woman. She leaned
forward from her perch in the back of the sphere to try to shield the
wounded pilot.
A soldier Josh recognized him as Batson, a Newcastle lad,
one of the more levelheaded of the privates was pointing his rifle
at the woman s head. He called, You speak English?
I am English.
Batson s eyebrows raised. But he said carefully, Then tell your
chum to put his hands where I can see them. Jildi!
The woman urged, Do it, Casey. That gun might be an
antique, but it s a loaded antique.
The pilot, Casey, reluctantly complied. His left hand came up
from under a panel of instruments holding some sort of gadget.
Batson advanced. Is that a weapon? Give it to me now.
Casey shifted in his seat, winced, and evidently decided he
wasn t going anywhere. He held out his weapon to Batson, butt
first. Have you rubes ever seen one of these? It s what we call a
skinny-popper. An MP-93, a nine-millimeter submachine gun.
German make . . .
Germans, hissed Ruddy. I knew it.
Be careful, or you ll stitch your own damn head off. Casey s
accent was undoubtedly American, but it sounded coarse to Josh,
like a New York City slum dweller s, while the woman sounded
British, but with a flat, unfamiliar intonation to her voice.
From her seat the woman bent over Casey. I think your tibia is
broken, she said. Crushed under the seat . . . I d sue the manufac-
turer if I were you.
Up your ass, your majesty, Casey said through gritted teeth.
The woman said now, Can I get out of here?
Batson nodded. He set the submachine gun on the ground,
where it gleamed, fascinating, baffling, and stood back, beckoning
her. Batson was doing a good job, Josh thought; he kept the three
intruders covered with his own weapon, and continually checked
the troops around him to make sure all angles were monitored.
The woman had a tough time clambering out of the couch
behind the two front seats, but at last she stood on the rocky
ground. The second pilot, the Indian, climbed out too. He had the
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4 2 " C L A R K E & B A X T E R
complexion of a sepoy but pale blue eyes and startling blond hair.
All the machine s crew wore clothing so bulky it masked their
forms, making them seem inhuman, and wiry gadgets clung to
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