Fletcher shook his head. "No, ma'am. To be frank, he's a kid who looks at a monitor and matches photos. He doesn't know much about anything. He's scientifically incompetent, personally irresponsible, and only got the job because his family is enormously rich-his father's given Caltech a couple of buildings, and we'd like to get a couple more. The kid's got a degree in art or something, and spends most of his time surfing and playing guitars. He wouldn't have anything to contribute."

Crow stirred, as if about to say something, but then he didn't.

"But not so incompetent that he couldn't recognize a starship when he saw it," Santeros said. "And not so irresponsible that he didn't know enough to bring it to you, am I right?"

"The computer did most of that," Fletcher said. "What he did was, he walked down the hall with a piece of paper in his hand."

Santeros: "Okay, so what is it doing right now? This starship?"

"We don't know. Not in detail. The best we can determine, it's settled into orbit within Saturn's rings. We think it may have rendezvoused with something. There's a moonlet about there, embedded in one of the rings. Whatever that is, it's too small for us to make out any details. We see a few flickers in the images, just pixels in size, which make us think that maybe there's some activity going on there."

"What about the moon it rendezvoused with?"

"We don't know much about that, either," Fletcher said. "The Saturn ring system is lousy with these little moonlets. There are hundreds of them, maybe thousands. Most of them we've never looked at in detail. This is a pretty typical one, dim and not perturbing the ring system too much, so it's pretty small and low mass, not something particularly interesting that we'd be paying attention to."

"Either that, or it's something big, hollow, and painted black," Emery mused.

"And that's what you got?" A wrinkle appeared in Santeros's forehead, which was not usually a good thing for people speaking with her.

Lossness spoke up. "Madam President, we're looking across more than a billion kilometers of space and we just can't see details that small. This thing is huge by human engineering standards, but on the astronomical scale of things it's almost insignificant. If we hadn't accidentally caught it in a calibration run, we'd never have even noticed it."

Santeros nodded: "Which means that nobody else knows about it?"

"Very likely not," said Lossness. "We know how big and how good the best telescopes in the world are, and what they can see. We still put more money into astronomical research than anybody else, we have the best instruments, and we got very, very lucky. There's always a chance somebody else got lucky, but the odds are a thousand to one against."

Santeros turned to Crow and asked, "What's our security status?"

Crow said, "We're off to a decent start. Dr. Fletcher told his working group that if any of them spoke a word of this to anyone, including husbands, wives, significant others, or any one-night stands they were trying to impress, he'd run them out of the astrophysics community," Crow said. "He apparently succeeded in shutting them down until I got there. I rounded up the same bunch, told them we'd given this the highest military and civilian classifications, and if they talked about it, they would be charged with treason and executed. I was not funny about it."

"Were they impressed by the threat?" Santeros asked Fletcher. "Shutting up academics is like trying to herd cats."

"They were . . . quite impressed," said Fletcher. "Mr. Crow scared the shit out of them."

"Good. That's one of the reasons he works here," the President said.

Crow said, "I have to tell you, ma'am-it's gonna leak. It's too big. There are lots of Chinese working at Caltech and they are patriots. Chinese patriots. They are far beyond smart. Sooner or later, one of them'll get a whiff of this and it'll wind up in Beijing. We've got some time, but not an unlimited amount."

"Give me an estimate," Santeros said.

Crow looked down at his hands for a moment, calculating, then said, "Anything between tomorrow and a year from now. Unless something unusual happens, I don't believe it'll be close to either end of that line. If we put our smartest security people on it-guys who won't go out there waving their guns around trying to shut everybody down and drawing a lot of attention because of that-I'd give you either side of a bet on seven months. Assuming that the aliens don't call us up."

"Huh. That . . . uh . . ." The President turned to Emery, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He was a mild-looking man wearing old-fashioned glasses, with short, sandy hair. He looked more like a college professor than a man who'd directed the early glory days of the Argentine Incursion. "Richard, what's the military's assessment?"

"Gene and I ran this past a couple guys at the think tanks, and, amazingly, people have already considered scenarios like this and looked into their implications."

"Which are?"

"They're pretty scary, ma'am."

- "Ray guns?"

"No. Bad movies notwithstanding, they wouldn't need them. The geniuses aren't scared by ray guns, they're scared by the ship itself."

Fletcher started, and muttered to himself, "Oh my, yes." Vintner nodded and, surprisingly, so did Crow.

Santeros glanced around the room, settled her gaze on her science adviser, and asked, "Jacob, what's making all of you twitch?"

"Ma'am, what I said earlier about how big this thing was and how fast it could go . . . If it ran into something, it would pack a monstrous wallop. You remember about that asteroid that hit the earth sixty-five million years ago, down by the Yucatan, and wiped out all the dinosaurs? If that starship were to hit us at the speed we know it's capable of, intentionally or accidentally, it would be like that. Worse than that."

Santeros's eyebrows went up: "You're serious. That thing could wipe out all life on Earth? Just by running into us?"

"Well, no, it probably wouldn't wipe out all life on Earth. Just the majority of all living organisms, and about 99.9 percent of all individual land animals. Most land species would go entirely extinct. We might be one of them. The best we could hope for is that we'd only be bombed back into the Bronze Age. That's all assuming that the mass is what we think it is. If the mass is radically different-if it turns out to be a big hollow shell-then the impact would be much different. But we don't think it's a big hollow shell."

"We couldn't deflect it or blow it up?"

"We might be able to figure something out if we had a lot of time . . . but we probably wouldn't have a lot of time, if it was aimed at us deliberately. We can barely see this thing at Saturn. If we got lucky enough to detect it right at that range . . . and that would be saying something . . . we'd have a little less than four days to figure out what it was doing, and to get ready for it. That's if it never went faster than what we've seen. But we don't really know how fast it can go-we've only seen it decelerating. So, if it could go, say, four percent of c, we'd only have a day to get ready. If it can reach twenty percent of c, we'd only have a few hours."

They all thought about that for a moment, then Santeros said, "So, to sum up, the simple existence of a starship constitutes an essentially unstoppable threat to human survival. We don't know how real or how likely that threat is. Is that correct?"

Everybody nodded.

"We need to find out," she said.

White, the chairwoman, interjected, "Let's not forget for a moment that whoever these aliens are, they've got some tech that we don't."

Lossness, the head of DARPA, said, "We don't have it, but we can see it from here. A hundred years out, we could build that ship if we had the funding."

Emery said, "That's fine, Gene, but we don't have it now, and that's the trouble." He turned to the President. "The problem isn't with the aliens. The big problem is, if the Chinese get there first, they may wind up in possession of hard technology that's a hundred years ahead of ours. In terms of soft tech, biology, chemistry, who knows? They could be a thousand years ahead or ten thousand years. That would not be good. You get advanced-enough technology, and there's always a way to turn that to a strategic advantage. Always. Imagine the situation if the Chinese had our current computers, and we were stuck with a bunch of old Microsoft Inquirers."

Santeros: "So now we've got two reasons to get out there. To get our hands on next century's technology before the Chinese do, and to find out if the aliens plan to ram us." She turned to Vintner, her science adviser: "Is that even possible, Jacob? For us to get out there?"

"I've been talking to Janetta Jojohowitz, and Gene's been talking to his people. They've pulled in their smartest guys, made it entirely clear this is at the absolute highest level of classification, fed them a cock-and-bull story about wanting to one-up China's Mars mission, and then asked them if they had any ideas for getting a mission to Saturn really fast. What they've brainstormed at the moment are broad concepts, half-baked ideas. But, yeah, they say it's doable . . . given the highest priority and a year or so to prepare."

Fletcher jumped in. "Ma'am, I'm no intelligence operative, but are we sure that the Chinese ship is going to Mars? Is there any possibility that they spotted one of these aliens five years ago, and are on their way to Saturn? I mean, are we really, really sure it's going to Mars?"

White said, "Yes. We've seen their specs and their engines and we're watching the work in great detail. This is all . . . secret . . . so keep your mouths shut, but yeah: it's going to Mars. In fact, the mission's purpose is to establish a permanent colony there. Which is the reason they are being so secretive about it."

Fletcher leaned back: "And they don't know about this, this thing out at Saturn?"

Emery: "Apparently not."

Crow reminded them, "Not yet. They will."

- Santeros turned back to White. "So, from our perspective the immediate problem is the Chinese, not the aliens."

"As we see it," said the chairwoman. "But really, it's all guesswork. We assume that any race that could build a ship like this, is at least rational. You'd almost have to be, to do the work involved in building the ship. What isn't guesswork is that we have this competition going with the Chinese. Japan, Russia, and Brazil are on the fence . . . and boy, it'd sure be nice that if somebody gets a hundred years of new tech, it'd be us. At least, you know, until we transit into the post-conflict world."

Lossness nodded. "As Crow said, it's gonna leak. The Chinese are just over a year away from launching their Mars mission. Their ship could be rerouted to Saturn without much work. Basically, they were already planning a long-duration mission to Mars, what with all the equipment and personnel needed to establish a permanent facility there, so they've got the supplies and the crew. If they rerouted, well, they'd be nearly ready to go. Offload a bunch of colony equipment, throw in a bunch more mission-relevant supplies, that'd be most of it."

"That'd be a hell of a long mission," Fletcher said. "Mars is a fifty-million-kilometer run. Saturn is a billion and a half. Two, three months to Mars'd become, ummm, five years or so to Saturn."

Santeros said, "That would give us some time, right, Gene?"

- Lossness said, "Well, my guys were tossing around trip durations of under a year. The thing is, if the Chinese find out what's happening before they launch, they can soup up their ship. They'd need a longer initial burn, so they'd need a lot more reaction mass. But they'd be offloading weight by not taking the colony along. Strapping on additional mass-tanks in space isn't as big a job as it is here on Earth."

Fletcher said, "We're a little unlucky about the launch window here, if Mr. Crow is correct. If we could keep this secret until the Chinese launch for Mars, then it would be too late for them to recover. We could take our time building a ship, and there's nothing they could do about it."

"Except shoot it down," Emery said.

Santeros said, "Based on Mr. Crow's best guess, we can't assume they won't find out. And we can't afford a gamble. We have to win this one. Jacob? Those half-baked ideas? I want them fully baked by this evening's meeting. I don't care what kind of carrots or sticks you have to wave to get the answers, I want to know exactly what we can do and how fast we can do it. Clear?"

Nobody said anything for a long moment, then Santeros looked over at the politicians, Sweet and Cline, who'd been listening carefully, but carefully not making notes. "If we build a ship on a crash basis, can we get the funding through on the black budget?"

Sweet said, "Yes," and Cline nodded.

Sweet said, "Francie and I had a word before the meeting started. You can have as much as you want. We should talk to McCord over at the Treasury and Henry at the Fed. It may be possible to do it completely off-budget, though we might have to do a little . . . creative bookkeeping."

"The security circle's getting pretty large," Crow said.

Santeros: "You see any way to avoid that?"

Crow thought a moment. "No. I'm just sayin.' I need to create a security group, right now. I need the authority to pull anybody I need out of the security establishment. I think I know enough smart guys to do this-at least, I know enough smart guys who know enough smart guys. But I need a budget and I need a letter from you. I need the authority to kick whatever ass needs it, and I mean up to Cabinet secretary, four-star rank."

The President tapped out a note on her pad: "I'll get the letter to you within the hour. We'll want to launch your group no later than tomorrow."

Crow nodded: "Yes, ma'am. No later than."

Santeros stared down at a briefing paper on the desk in front of her, then said, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is the biggest thing since the atomic bomb, in terms of turning the world around. We need to stay all over this, all the time. This becomes the number one national priority, and you eight are my working group. We'll bring in more people as we need them. I'm going to ask Jacob to act as the chief of staff for the group, at least for now. Everything should go to him, and he'll talk to me. I'm going to clear my schedule for tonight, and I need all of you to come up with outlines of what you can contribute to this project, and I need to be briefed again, then. That includes exactly how we're going to get to Saturn before the Chinese. We need that settled. Not tomorrow. Tonight.

"As I see it, Dr. Fletcher, you'll be in charge of monitoring the Saturn site with your telescopes. You military people will build the ship: work out your system. Paula and Richard, work with Gene on this. Senator Sweet and Representative Cline will take care of the money. Crow will handle security. Is everybody good?"

Fletcher lifted a hand and she nodded at him.

"There is one tiny problem with my group. The intern who spotted this . . . object. He could be a security issue."

"The incompetent one."

"Scientifically incompetent," Fletcher said. "Unfortunately, he's not simply dim. He seems to be quite knowledgeable about the media and he's somewhat irresponsible, in my view. I don't think he was as impressed with Mr. Crow as the others were."

"He's a loose cannon," Santeros said. "Mr. Crow specializes in loose cannons."

"With all due respect, ma'am, Sanders Heacock Darlington-"

"Are you shitting me?" Santeros said, showing surprise for the first time. "Barron Darlington's kid?"

"I'm afraid so," Fletcher said. "He's got an ocean of money, he's about to inherit a lot more, and nobody has ever taught him that he has to be responsible about anything. You can't scare him, because he's apparently never encountered anything that he needs to be scared of. And his father, as you know, is heavily wired into Washington."

The President asked, "What does he want? The kid?"

"I don't know," Fletcher said. "Fame? Notoriety? I mean, he used to shoot vid for a news-and-porn blog."

"Which one?"

"Naked Nancy . . ."

"Goddamnit," Santeros said. "Last time I looked, she had an eight share worldwide."

"I wouldn't know about that," Fletcher said. "But she's big. Can you imagine what the revelation of an alien ship would mean in terms of ratings?"

Crow cleared his throat and said, "I need to say something here. Dr. Fletcher's view of Mr. Darlington is not entirely correct. I've been trying to herd these particular cats and I've put together some dossiers. Dr. Fletcher, I saw on a note from you that Darlington worked for Federal Mail?"

"Yes. Not very successfully, either. I understand he was fired for lack of performance."

"He never worked for Federal Mail," Crow said. "He was actually a first lieutenant with an army organization called the Strategic Studies Group in the Tri-Border area."

Emery, the vice chairman, looked up and said, "Well, that's a horse of an extremely different color. The only messages they delivered were thirty-caliber or larger."

"He left there with a price on his head," Crow said. "The Guapos were offering ten million for it and they didn't care if a body was attached. The whole Federal Mail business is part of a cover story. Mr. Darlington's . . . attitude . . . if that's what you might call it . . . is also referred to by the Veterans Administration as post-traumatic stress syndrome."

Fletcher was astonished. "Darlington? Was in the military?"

"If what Crow is saying is accurate, he wasn't just in the military," Emery said. "The SSG was way out there. They didn't have a lot of survivors."

Crow looked at the President: "The point being, behind the surfer-boy attitude that seems to disturb Dr. Fletcher so much, there's not only a lot of money, but an extremely hard nose. From a review of his records, I would go so far as to say one of the hardest noses in the Western Hemisphere."

"I don't see it as much of a problem," Santeros said.

"It's not?" Crow asked, but with a smile. He didn't know what was coming, but he knew Santeros.

"Read the small print in the Universal Service Law sometime," Santeros said. "I've done that. If the former Lieutenant Darlington gives us any trouble, I'll draft his ass right back into the army."

Fletcher said, "Draft him? Into the military? Even with Darlington, that seems kind of . . . immoral."

Everybody looked at him for a moment, and then the group dissolved in laughter; except for Fletcher, who flushed, and Crow, who only grinned.

Santeros tapped her computer again. "I've got to go. Dr. Fletcher, thanks for your time, but now you should be heading back to California to make sure your group stays in line, at least until Crow's people can get out there. I'll see all the rest of you tonight. We won't be having a little tea party like this. Tonight, we get serious."

As the group rose to leave, Santeros said, "Mr. Crow, would you stay behind for a moment?"

When they were alone, the President asked him, "Is Darlington going to be a problem? I really could draft him . . . but we're talking about one of the biggest buttloads of money in America. If either he or his old man went off the rails, the whole thing could go up in smoke."

"I don't believe that will happen," Crow said. "Two things about Darlington: for all the surfer-boy bullshit, he started out as what you'd call . . . a patriot. I know it's unfashionable, but that's the only word that fits. He enlisted right after the Houston Flash, and was in the thick of things down at the Tri-Border. I think that fundamental impulse is still alive. The other thing is, I looked at his VA psych files, and I suspect Darlington does want something. Desperately. And we can give it to him."

"What's that?"

"He wants something to do," Crow said. "Something serious."

A thousand kilometers above the Washington machinations, Captain Naomi Fang-Castro wrapped up the last meeting of the day, a report on the ongoing repairs to backup electrical storage units. The repair work was fine, but there was a shortage of critical parts, caused by a continuing army inspector general's examination of the Earth-bound support bases.