"That he doesn't know what he is doing," Kingsley finished. He instantly reprimanded himself for this childish outburst, but Arno's face already congested with red anger.

"You are not to take this any further-"

"Sorry, but I have to say this is stupid."

"If it can't hear our media, it won't know as much."

"Yes, but hasn't a moment's inspection of its many transmissions told us that it likes listening in?"

"Intelligence has established that leaks onto cable TV led it to deduce that the launches were ours."

"This thing is not an idiot. It knows quite well the state of international politics. Little children in the street guessed the truth-why shouldn't the Eater?"

Arno subsided slightly, long enough for Benjamin to say, "I don't think it's a good idea, either."

"Who cares cares?" Arno flared again. "You guys don't get any say. The White House just wondered what you thought it would do when the President's-and the U.N.'s-shutdown starts." the U.N.'s-shutdown starts."

"When will it be?" Kingsley asked with what he hoped was a calm, interested expression. Hard to attain these days, though Hard to attain these days, though.

Arno glanced at his watch. "Two hours."

"Expect something bad," Benjamin said, then went back to looking at his shoes.

"I agree," Kingsley said.

"Why? The whole planet ceases all transmissions, including satellite cable traffic, telephones, radio, TV. So what?"

"It will not like any sign that we're breaking off contact," Benjamin said, a lackl.u.s.ter sentence that he tossed off as though he was thinking of something else. Which he probably was. Since leaving the comm apparatus where he had spent several hours with the Channing-craft, he had been distracted. No surprise, but Kingsley needed help and in this climate old allies were the best. At least with Benjamin, he did not have to watch his back.

"I don't see why that has to be," Arno said, "It's been sending lots of chatty stuff, never mentions the D.C. thing or the missiles."

"Aliens are alien," Kingsley said, trying not to sound as though he were talking to a child. "Do not misread-which is to say, do not ascribe easy motives to its statements."

"Look, the Security Council thinks this is the best way to show it that we aren't giving away any secrets, not anymore."

"How jolly."

"Look, it even sent a commentary on Marcus Aurelius to one of the cultural semiotics people. Philosophy-and it seemed to agree with this guy." Arno mugged a bit and folded his arms, leaning back against his desk in a way that Kingsley had come to know signaled what Arno thought was a put-away shot.

Kingsley disliked obvious displays of erudition, but here was a useful place for it. "Aurelius was a stoic, resigned to the evil of the world, wishing to detach himself from it. Also happened to be an Emperor of Rome, which curiously enough made detachment an easier prospect. Before organized press conferences, as I recall. Not the sort of att.i.tude I would wish of a thing that could incinerate the planet."

Arno looked wounded, an about-face from his flash of belligerence only moments before. Everyone seemed to be running on fast-forward now. He said gravely, "It's getting more refined, if that's the right word."

"Is it progress if a cannibal uses a knife and fork?" Kingsley asked, crossing his legs wearily.

Benjamin laughed, just the wrong thing to do. Sarcasm was useful only if played deadpan straight. Arno did not take Benjamin's chuckling well, reddening up in the nose and cheeks again.

"I mean that you cannot mistake a change of style for change of purpose." Kingsley hoped that stating the obvious would get them back on track. People under strain sometimes had such a reset ability, and perhaps it could get him out of this sc.r.a.pe.

"I understand," Arno said, "but the President wants an a.s.sessment of what to expect when when"-heavy emphasis here, with eyebrows-"the shutdown starts."

"Retribution, I should say," Kingsley said.

Benjamin managed a wan smile, still regarding his shoes with intense interest. "You're slipping into human thought modes yourself, ol' King boy. Alien, it might do anything."

Arno said hotly, "That's no d.a.m.n good, tell the White House the sonuvab.i.t.c.h could do any d.a.m.n thing-"

"Though it has the utility of being true," Kingsley said.

"I bet it will do both." Benjamin looked up then and smiled, as if at a joke he alone knew. "Something nasty, and something weird."

"Good point," Kingsley said. "No reason it must do only one thing."

"You guys are no d.a.m.n use at all."

"You bet," Benjamin said with something that resembled happiness. Kingsley studied him, but could make nothing of the expression on his old friend's face.

4.

Benjamin wondered when the gray curtains would go away. They hung everywhere, deadening, m.u.f.fling. Even this latest bad news took place behind the veils. He registered the dispatches, but his pulse did not quicken and the world remained its flat, pallid tone.

"What the h.e.l.l is is it?" Arno asked the a.s.sembled mix. it?" Arno asked the a.s.sembled mix.

Amy said in a voice obviously kept clear and deliberate, after the panic of the last ten minutes, "A magnetic loop. It's tight, small, and moving at very high velocity."

"Headed where?" Arno asked a man in a gray suit whom Benjamin had never seen before.

"Intersecting the Pacific region in about twenty minutes."

"It's that fast? The Eater's a long way out now, nearly geosynchronous." Arno looked around the room for help.

"The hole ejected it half an hour ago," Amy said. "We caught it all across the spectrum."

"What'll we do?" Arno glanced at his watch, at his U Agency advisers, back to the astronomers.

"No time for a warning," Benjamin said, just to be saying something.

"Where'll it hit?" Arno licked his lips.

"Looks like mid-Pacific," the gray-suited man said.

"Why in h.e.l.l shoot at that?"

"We are in the mid-Pacific," Kingsley said quietly.

"At us? It's shooting at us?"

"A testable hypothesis," Kingsley said. "I imagine this is intended to establish some principle. Were the Eater human, I would suppose this would be in retaliation for some injury."

A voice across the room said irritably, "We haven't done anything."

Benjamin said, "We cut off all radio and TV. When did that start?"

Arno bit his lip. "About an hour ago."

"Long enough for the planet to rotate a bit," Kingsley added. "Enough time to establish that the silence did not arise from a power outage or accident."

"Why this, then?" a voice called.

Amy said, "It wants electromagnetic transmissions resumed. It launches a magnetic loop, using electromagnetic acceleration. Maybe that's the connection."

Arno glowered. "Sounds pretty far-fetched."

Amy gave him a long, level look and her voice was steady. "It anchors its magnetic fields in the accretion disk and on the hole itself. It managed to disconnect one of its field lines and tie the ends together, then propel it out through the overall magnetic structure. We've never seen anything like it, not even in the magnetic arches that grow on the sun, structures thousands of kilometers across."

"So?" Arno was weighing all this, but saw no way to go.

Kingsley said diplomatically, "I believe Amy's point is that the Eater knows magnetics the way your tongue knows your teeth."

Arno grimaced at this as the big screen filled behind him. A view from one of the few surviving satellites, Benjamin saw, looking at a tangent to the Pacific. Sunset was behind the satellite and the image was in the near-infrared. The ocean shimmered dimly and some stars stood out as yellow.

These false colors threw off Benjamin's judgment for a moment as he studied the vectors of the problem. Against the black sky a luminous blue hoop moved. Its trajectory was simple to estimate. Measured by eye, its distance from the curve of the Earth was closing.

"How big?" Arno's mouth drew into an alarmed thin line.

"It started out a few kilometers across," Amy said. "Elementary electrodynamics-once a loop is free, it expands. Or should."

"What can it do?" Arno pressed.

"Let's go outside and see." Benjamin made for the door.

"Huh?" Arno held up a hand. "What's the deal?"

It proved to be easily visible. The slanted angle cast the perfect circle into an ellipse. It had hit the upper atmosphere and glowed a cherry red. "We're seeing some molecular line, must be," a voice commented in the darkness. Benjamin realized that word had spread and now hundreds stood nearby on an open, gra.s.sy hill immediately behind the Center. A soft tropical breeze warmed the thick air.

Amy said, "It's headed this way."

The crowd rustled anxiously. "They have every reason to worry," Benjamin said to Kingsley and Amy.

"You think it's aimed at us?" someone nearby whispered.

"What else that's relevant to the Eater is in the Pacific?" Benjamin whispered back.

"What can it do?" Arno suddenly asked. Benjamin jumped at the rough, distressed voice just over his shoulder. "I mean, this isn't like that jet."

"It's magnetic energy, efficiently stored," Benjamin answered. "Right now it's banking to the left-see?" The hoop had slid slightly to the side. "Probably hobn.o.bbing with the Earth's field, though I guess it's much bigger than ours."

"Right," Amy said. "Imagine, throwing off a loop and aiming it accurately through our dipolar field structure. Got to admire its ability."

"Best not to stress that particular angle," Kingsley advised. "Though I concur."

"What can it do do?" Arno insisted.

n.o.body spoke, so Benjamin guessed, "The energy density is pretty high, if it had around ten kiloGauss fields where it started, back in the accretion disk. I'd estimate-" He multiplied the energy density, which scaled as the square of the field strength, by a reasonable volume. This he judged by eye as the glowing thing crawled across the blackness. Getting larger, spreading. "Around a hundred kilotons of available energy, if it can annihilate all the field."

"Everybody inside!" Arno shouted suddenly.

"Why?" someone called.

"Security!" Arno bellowed. "Get them inside-now!"

Benjamin avoided the herd stampeding for the buildings by walking quickly into a stand of eucalyptus nearby. When he turned to watch the sky, he saw figures following him and realized he was an amateur at this, they certainly would use infrared goggles or something to round people up.

"Good idea," Kingsley whispered. Amy was with him. "I rather figure the buildings are more dangerous, not less."

"Why?" Benjamin asked.

"I doubt your calculation applies here. No simple way to get more than a small fraction of the field energy to annihilate. How would the hoop twist around to get the fields counteraligned, then rub them together?"

Amy whispered, "I see-so instead, it'll just produce an electromagnetic sizzle."

"Seems reasonable." Kingsley moved deeper in among the heavily scented eucalyptus.

Benjamin jibed, "Reasonable? Violating the remember-it's-alien rule, aren't you?"

"Ah, but you see, it's not stupid. Surely it's playing by the same physics rule book as ourselves."

Amy said, "It made a remark about exactly that a few days ago, I saw. Something about our having the basics down, but missing the larger point. Irked the h.e.l.l out of the physics guys when it wouldn't tell them anything more, aside from some math n.o.body could recognize."

"I wonder if it has a cruel streak," Benjamin murmured.

"They begged it for details. It wouldn't even answer."

"It prefers rather different modes of reply, I'll wager," Kingsley whispered.

The tall eucalyptus trees rattled their branches in the sea breeze. The contrast of their moist aroma and the coolly descending luminosity above was striking. Benjamin moved to see the sky better. Kingsley called, "Stay well back. They're searching."

But now the numerous Security men were craning up at the sky. The loop was inflating, filling the black bowl, dimming the stars. Its glow had shifted to an eerie, bile green. They could see elaborate structure now. Soundlessly the green strands coiled and flexed like strange, swelling snakes.

Now one edge of the loop alone striped across their view. At its edges, a thin line of orange flared. "Shock boundary, I bet," Amy mused.

Filmy green filaments twisted above them, closing fast. There seemed to Benjamin no place to flee-and no reason to run, anyway. It would come and the whole matter was out of his hands. Beyond intellectual curiosity, none of this had moved him.