• IONOSPHERE

The moon shone on the horizon, setting in an unusual direction. Almost due south.

Of course at that moment all land headings were approximately southward. Such was the trickery of crossing over the north pole. Or near it.

Drifting alongside the tiny model-three shuttle Intrepid, Mark Randall turned from the moon to look down upon the estuary of the arctic River Ob, artery of the new Soviet grainlands. The steppe stretched across a flat expanse below him, an infinity of dun and green. Mark spoke a single word of command.

“Magnify.”

In response, a portion of his faceplate instantly displayed an amplified image. The Ob delta leaped toward him in fine, amplified detail.

“Prepare record sheet six,” he continued, as a reticle scale overlaid the ribbon of muddy blue, weaving across a vast, thawing tundra plain. Sensors tracked every movement of his pupils, so Mark could roll the scene as fast as he could look. “Zero in on position twelve point two by three point seven … expand eightfold.”

Smoothly, the main telescope in Intrepid’s observation bay turned microscopically on magnetic gimbals, focusing on the specified coordinates. Or at least the inertial tracker said they were the right coordinates. But Mark’s experience working with Teresa Tikhana had rubbed off, especially after the Erehwon disaster, so he double-checked by satellite references and two distinct landmarks—the Scharansky Power Station and the Cargil Corporation grain silos, bracketing the river from opposite shores. “Commence recording,” he said.

Between those two landmarks, the waters showed severe agitation—surface ripples and stirred-up bottom mud—each symptom detected in another optical or infrared or polarization band. A flotilla of vessels nosed about the disturbed area. Mark wondered what had churned the River Ob so. It must be important for Intrepid’s orders to be changed so abruptly, extending this simple peeper run far beyond normal.

I’m going to talk to the guild about this, Mark thought. Polar assignments pile up too many rads. They shouldn’t be prolonged without extra shielding, or bonus pay. Or at least a damn good reason …

It got especially inconvenient when a model-three shuttle was involved. The HOTOL technology was a pilot’s dream during takeoff and landing, but a bizarre, unexpected, and uncorrectable vibration mode meant the crew had to step “outside” during high-resolution camera work, in order not to ruin the pictures with their slightest movements. The flaw would be fixed in the next generation of vehicles … in maybe twenty years or so.

He spoke again, commanding the telescope to zero in even closer on the activity below. Now he clearly made out machinery on the dredges, and men standing at the gunwales of squat barges, peering into the river. Mark even saw black figures in the water. Probably divers, since as yet the burgeoning Ob was still too chilly to support other life forms so large. Lab-enhanced photos would, of course, make out even manufacturers’ labels on the divers’ masks.

Green telltales showed the recording was going well. This kind of precision wasn’t possible with surveillance satellites, and manned space stations didn’t operate this high in latitude, so Intrepid was the only platform available. Mark hoped it was worth it.

Anyway, so much for the rewards of fame and good works. After Erehwon and his tour for NASA on the lecture circuit, it had been good to be promoted to left seat on a shuttle. Still, of late he’d begun wondering if maybe Teresa weren’t right to be so suspicious, after all. Something smelled funny about the way he’d been glad-handed and diverted from asking questions about what Spivey and his crew had learned about the disaster.

Apparently that was who he was working for now, anyway … Glenn Spivey. The peeper had a large and growing group under him. Quite a few of Mark’s friends had been swept into the colonel’s growing web of subordinates and investigative teams. But what were they investigating? When Mark asked, old comrades looked away embarrassed, muttering phrases like national security or even—it’s secret.

“Bloody hell,” Mark muttered. Fortunately, his suit computer was narrow minded, and didn’t try to interpret it as an instruction. After hard experience, the astronaut corps went for literal-minded equipment that was difficult to confuse, if less “imaginative” than what civilians used.

Something moved at the corner of Mark’s field of view. He shut down the helmet projection and turned. The spacesuited figure approaching wasn’t hard to identify, since his copilot was the only other person within at least a hundred kilometers. Drifting alongside, Ben Brigham touched two fingers of his gloved right hand to a point along the inside of his left sleeve. This was followed by two quick chopping motions, a hand turn, and an elbow flick.

The sun was behind Mark, shining into Ben’s face, turning his helmet screen opaque and shiny. But Mark didn’t need to see Ben’s expression to read his meaning.

Big chiefs hope to catch coyote in the act, his partner had said in sign talk, descended not from the speech of the deaf, but from the ancient Indian trade language of the American plains.

Mark laughed. He left the comm channel turned off and used his own hands to reply. Chiefs will be disappointed … Lightning never strikes twice in same place …

Although space sign talk formally excluded any gesture that might be hidden by a vacuum suit, Ben answered with a simple shrug. Clearly they’d been sent to observe the latest site of the “disturbances” … weird phenomena that were growing ever creepier since Erehwon was blown to kingdom come.

Still, are we really needed here? Mark wondered. By treaty, NATO and U.N. and USAF officers were probably already prowling the disaster site below in person, even cruising by in observation zeps. The only way Intrepid’s orbital examination would add appreciably to what on-site inspectors learned would be for the shuttle’s instruments to catch a gremlin in the very act. So far routine satellite scans had captured a few bizarre events on film, at extreme angle, but never yet with a full battery of peeper gear.…

Mark’s thoughts arrested as he blinked. He shook his head and then cursed.

“Oh, shit. Intercom on. Ben, do you feel—”

“Right, Mark. Tingling in my toes. Speckles around the edge of my visual field. Is it like when you and Rip, on Pleiades—?”

“Affirmative.” He shook his head again, vigorously, though he knew that wouldn’t knock away the gathering cobwebs. “It’s different in some ways, but basically … oh hell.” Mark couldn’t explain, and besides, there wasn’t time for chatter. He spoke another code word to start their suits transmitting full physiological data to ship recorders. “Full view, main scope,” he ordered then. “Secondary cameras—independent targeting of transient phenomena.”

The picture of the river loomed forth again. Now, though, the scene was no longer efficient and businesslike. Men scurried about the barges like angry ants, some of them diving off craft that bobbed and shook in the suddenly choppy water.

Tiny windows appeared on Mark’s faceplate, surrounding the main scene as Intrepid’s secondary telescopes began zooming in under independent control. Half the scenes were too blurry to make out as Mark’s eyesight grew steadily worse. Bright pinpoints swarmed inward like irritating insects.

“What do we do?” Ben’s voice sounded scared. Mark, who had been through this before, didn’t blame him.

“Make sure of your tether,” he told his copilot. “And memorize the way back to the cabin. We may have to return blind. Otherwise …” He swallowed. “There’s nothing we can do but ride it out.”

At least the ship is probably safe. There aren’t other structures around, like Teresa had to deal with. And a model-three shuttle is too small to worry about tides.

Mark had himself convinced, almost.

The outer half of his visual field was gone, though it kept fluctuating moment by moment. Through the remaining tunnel, Mark watched a drama unfold far below, where the Ob jounced and writhed as if someone were poking it with invisible rods. Flow deformed the hills and depressions nearly as quickly as they formed. Still, the undulations seemed to take clear geometric patterns.

Then, within a circular area, the Ob simply disappeared!

It was only pure luck none of the study vessels were inside the radius when it happened. As it was, the boats had a rugged ride as the columnar hole rapidly filled in.

“Where … where’d the water go?” Ben asked.

Joining the growing ringing in Mark’s ears came the blare of a camera alert. One of the secondary pictures suddenly ballooned outward, rimmed in red. For a moment Mark couldn’t make out what had the computer so excited. It looked like another view of the river valley, but at much lower magnification, or from higher altitude.

But this image appeared warped somehow. Then he realized it wasn’t un­­­focused. He was looking down at the Ob through a lens. The lens was a glob of water, which had suddenly manifested in midair at an altitude of … he squinted to read the lidar numbers … twenty-six kilometers!

Mark breathed the sweaty incense of his own dread. Something tiny and black squiggled inside the murky liquid blob that paused, suspended high above the planet. But before he could order the telescope to magnify, the entire watery mass was gone again! In its wake lay only a rainbow fringe of vapor, melting into the speckles at his eyes’ periphery.

“What the…?”

“It’s back!” Ben cried. “Fifty-two klicks high! Here …” and he rattled off some code. Another scene, from another instrument, popped into view.

Now the ground looked twice as far below. The Ob was a thin ribbon. And the portion of stolen river had reappeared at double the altitude. Mark had time to blink in astonishment. The black object within looked like …

The spherule vanished again. “Mark,” Ben gasped. “I just calculated the doubling rate. It’s next appearance could be—Jesus!”

Mark felt his copilot’s hand grab the fabric of his suit and shake it. “There!” Ben’s voice crackled over the intruding roar of static. An outstretched arm and hand entered Mark’s narrow field of view and he followed the trembling gesture out to black space.

There, in the direction of Scorpio, an object had appeared. He didn’t have to command amplification. Even as telescopes slewed to aim at the interloper Mark cleared all displays with one whispered word and stared in direct light at the oblate spheroid that had paused nearby, shimmering in the undiminished sunlight.

What strange force might have hurled a portion of the Ob out here—momentarily, magically co-orbital with Intrepid—Mark couldn’t begin to imagine. It violated every law he knew. Small flickerings told of bits being thrown free of the central mass. But in its center there floated a large object—

—a woman. A diver, wearing a black wetsuit and scuba gear, with twin tanks that Mark bemusedly figured ought to last her another couple of hours, depending on how much she’d already used.

Mark had left only a narrow tunnel of vision, but it was enough. Through the diver’s face mask he caught the woman’s strange expression—one of rapt fulfillment mixed with abject terror. She began to make a sign with her hands.

“We’ve got to help her!” he heard Ben shout over the roar of static, preparing to launch himself toward the castaway.

Realization came instantly, but too late. “No, Ben!” Mark cried out. “Grab something. Anything!” Mark fumbled and found a stanchion by the cargo bay door. This he now gripped for all his life.

“Hold tight!” he screamed.

At that moment his helmet seemed to fill with a terrible song, and the world exploded with colors he had never known.

When it was all over, quivering from sore muscles and wrenched joints, Mark gingerly reeled in his copilot’s frayed, torn tether. He searched for Ben everywhere. Radar, lidar, telemetry … but no instrument could find a trace. Of the hapless Russian diver, also, there was no sign.

Perhaps they have each other for company, wherever they’re going, he thought at one point. It was a strange solace.

He did detect other things nearby … objects that command insisted he pick up for study. These were bits of flotsam … a mud-filled vodka bottle … a piece of weed … a fish or two.

Then, preparing to head home, he went through the retro protocols several times, double-checking until Command accused him of stalling.

“Can it!” he told them sharply. “I’m just making sure I know exactly where I am and where I’m going.”

As the pyrotechnics of reentry erupted around the cockpit windows, Mark later realized he’d spoken exactly as Teresa Tikhana would have. To the mission controllers, he must have sounded just like her.

“Hell, Rip,” he muttered, apologizing to her in absentia. “I never knew how you felt about that, till now. I promise, I won’t ever make fun of you again.”

Even much later, when he was once more on the steady ground, Mark walked toward the crowd of anxious, waiting officials with a cautious gait, as if the tarmac weren’t quite as certain a platform as the others believed. And even when he began answering their fevered questions, Mark kept glancing at the horizon, at the sun and sky, as if to check and check again his bearings.

Although claiming they have now completely resolved the technical errors that led to the tragedy of 2029, the governments of Korea and Japan nevertheless today delayed reopening the Fukuoka-Pusan Tunnel. No explanation was given, although it’s known a recent spate of unusual seismic activity has caused concern. The temblors do not fit the commission’s Computer models, and no opening will take place until these discrepancies are explained.

In regional social news, 26-year-old Yukiko Saito, heiress to the Taira family fortune, announced her betrothal to Clive Blenheim, Earl of Hampshire, whose noble, if impoverished line stretches back to well before the Norman Conquest.

The most recent planetological survey indicates that the islands of Japan contain approximately ten percent of all the world’s volcanoes.