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"That close to the surface, could be a topo mirage too." He didn't think it
was, but they were rapidly running out of rational options. 'Trouble is, the
computer confirms what we're seeing."
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"Then there's something wrong with the computer." She wiped at her face.
Normally she'd be between the sheets by now, sound asleep. "It's been moving
around a little."
"What do you mean, 'a little'?"
"It varies its altitude. We've tracked it straight up to a thousand meters
and as low as a hundred." She nodded at the holo. "Seems to favor three
hundred. I've also recorded it shifting north and south, but it always returns
to its point of origination. Has to be a malfunction."
"Uh-huh." He yelled across to the deadranger. "Hey, Phil, you got this mother
on two-di?"
"I got a lot of stuff on two-di." The tech scanned his flatscreen. "But if
you mean a certain big, fat anomaly, yeah,
I
I got it. Hundred sixty-two k's northwest, altitude three hundred meters."
"Confirms," Mary murmured unnecessarily. "I've been through those numbers ten
times already this morning."
"I wasn't second-guessing you. I just wanted to hear it for myself." He
leaned toward the duty spacer. "Suzanne, goose the topo plotter and see if you
can get us any detail."
"At this range?" She looked skeptical.
"Try. It sizes better as a surface object."
She nodded, fingering her instrumentation. The oblong shape enlarged. Neutral
in color, it revealed bumps and spires and considerable additional detail. It
did not look like an aircraft or a shuttle. It also did not look like a
surface feature. It did not look like anything the controller had ever seen
before.
What it did look like was a serious problem.
"It's up in the air," she concluded finally.
"Impossible." Mary sipped coffee, trying to stay awake. "It's bigger than
Manhattan."
A voice in back of Operations spoke up. "Maybe somebody ought to check and
see if Manhattan's still there." No one laughed.
"If there's something there," the controller murmured, "we ought to be able
to get visual confirmation."
"Sure," agreed his assistant, "but I was damned if I was going to solicit it
onmy authority."
He nodded gloomily as he addressed the communications tech. "Get Civil
Control at the airport and tell 'em to send someone up there for a personal
look-see. Fire, police, medical: it doesn't matter as long as they're sober.
And line up Baltimore Command. I may have to talk to them too." A wide-eyed
young man nodded as he moved to comply. "Meanwhile let's keep all traffic away
from that area."
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"Shouldn't be difficult." Mary stared at the holo. 'That's not flyover
country anyway."
The communications tech looked up from his console. "Baltimore on-line, sir."
"Tell 'em to hold for a couple of minutes."
"No, sir, you don't understand.They've calledus . They've got the same
anomaly on their holo and they want us to confirm. They also want to know what
the hell is going on up here."
The chief controller considered. "Tell 'em yes, and we're trying to find
out." Airspace Operations was filling up as clerical and other personnel who'd
gotten the word drifted in. Neither controller took notice of the swelling
audience. They couldn't spare the time.
The communications tech again. "Civil scrambled a hovermed, sir."
The controller nodded absently. Meteorology wouldn't have a new satellite
image for another hour yet.
As if repeating a hopeful mantra, Mary reiterated, "I'm sure it's just a
malfunction, Stephan. It has to be. We never picked it up coming in. It just
appeared. Like it popped right out of the ground." She grinned at the
self-evident absurdity of it.
"That's right," confirmed the duty spacer. "Damnedest thing."
"Besides," Mary added, "nobody's built a ship that big."
"Nobody'simagined a ship that big," the controller muttered.
A lot of tea and coffee passed through multiple human systems before the
hastily dispatched hovermed arrived on the scene. Its operators activated
their recorders. The images they relayed back to base weren't the best, but
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