Thomas Hoover: Project Daedalus

"Okay," Eva said. "Let's start with the data channels belonging to world-wide newsprint organizations- Reuters, the Associated Press, all the rest-and send a copy of the protocol. It'll just appear on every green screen in the world. Then we can pick off frequencies used by television news organizations and broadcast a picture postcard from here in the cockpit."

"Sounds good." Androv turned to look at the screen. Quickly he began selecting numbers from the banned list, moving them to a new file that would be used to specify parameters for the broadcasts.

Vance watched, shifting his glance occasionally to the view from the nose camera. Below them clusters of light from central Europe's largest cities beamed up, twinkling lightly through the haze of atmosphere. He reached over and flipped the camera to infrared and sat watching the back-radiation of the North African deserts, now blots of deep red on the southern horizon; then back to visible again, noticing two parallel ribbons of light that signified habitations along the length of the Nile. The world, he was thinking, really is a Global Village. She was right. There's no longer any place you can hide from the truth.

"Eva, when you feed the protocol to the wire services, note that there'll be a transmission of some live video at-" he glanced up at the digital readouts on the screens, "how about at 0800 hours, GMT?"

"That's in twenty minutes."

"Should be enough time, don't you think?"

"Sounds good to me. And to show you I'm brave, I won't even fix my hair."

"You never looked more beautiful, even that night out at the palace. Don't change a thing." He turned to Androv. "How about doing the talking? First in Russian and then in English? We'll write the English part for you."

"It will be my pleasure, Comrade. My fucking pleasure."

"Daedalus," Vance said, mostly to himself. "He found a way to escape the maze of Mino. We did too. It's easy. You just use your wings and fly." Friday 8:47 A.M.

Kenji Nogami settled the telephone back into its cradle and reached for the television's remote selector. The set was currently scrolling a special text being distributed over the Reuters financial-service channel. Very interesting.

He shoved aside the pile of new Mino Industries Eurobond debentures, to make room for his feet on the teakwood surface of his desk. BBC had just informed him they'd taped an accompanying video segment and were planning to broadcast it in thirteen minutes, at nine o'clock. At least that's what Sir Cecil Ashton, director general, had just warned. As the London banker for Mino Industries, he had told Sir Cecil he officially had no comment.

No comment was required.

He reached into a drawer and drew out a box of Montecristo Habana No. 2s, noting sadly there were only three left. With a frown he picked up his pocket Dictaphone and made a note to his secretary to stop off at the tobacconists on Threadneedle, just down from the Bank of England, and get another box.

A hypersonic aircraft. So that was what it had been about all along. And now some Russian test pilot had stolen it, taken it to orbit, and was planning to land it at Heathrow in three hours, there to turn it over to Westminster Union Bank, the London financial representative of Mino Industries Group.

Perfect timing. The thought immediately occurred to him that this would be ideal collateral for the billions in phony Eurodollar debentures he was being forced to issue for Tanzan Mino. Finally, finally he had the man by the bollocks. Who, he wondered, did he have to thank for this godsend?

Yes, it was shaping up to be quite a morning. Perhaps a trifle early for a cigar, but…

He flicked the TV off the Reuters text and onto BBC-1.

"… would appear to be further evidence of the growing technological supremacy of Japanese industry. As this commentator has had occasion to note in times past, the lines between civilian and military technology are rapidly vanishing. That Japan's so-called civilian research sector could create the high-temperature ceramics required for such a vehicle, even as European and American military research has failed to do so, speaks eloquently of the emerging shift in world…"

He rolled down the sound a bit. The commentator went on to mention that all Mino Industries representatives- both here in London and in Tokyo-named in the announcement from orbit had refused either to confirm or deny the story.

He noted the time on his Omega, then smiled, leaned back, and snipped the end off his cigar. Friday 11:00 A.M.

"Mino-sama." The man bowed low. "NHK just telephoned your office in Tokyo, asking for comment."

"Comment about what?"

"They have received some text off a satellite."

"What? What did they receive?"

"It was purportedly the English translation of a secret protocol, an agreement between Mino Industries and the Soviets. Naturally we denied it in the strongest possible terms."

"It has to be some preposterous fabrication. I can't imagine how anything so absurd could have-"

"That's actually the problem, Mino-sama. NHK says they received it from a manned space station, but they've checked with NASDA and have been assured there are currently no astronauts in orbit by any nation."

"In orbit?" My God, he thought. Daedalus didn't go down; she went up. With the protocol aboard.

How did they manage to get her hypersonic? Androv was wounded. He couldn't possibly have handled the G-forces. Which meant-

Vance.

"Tell NHK if they broadcast one word of this libelous, unsubstantiated hoax, they should be prepared to face legal action." His face had become a stone mask as a sepulchral hush settled over Flight Control.

"I will inform them," the man bowed again. He hadn't had the courage to tell the oyabun the rest of what NHK was now receiving… along with half of the citizens of Japan via their new direct-broadcast satellite dishes. Friday 9:00 A.M.

Kenji Nogami thought the picture was a little indistinct at first, the hues slightly off. But then somebody in BBC's technical section corrected the color balance, making the tape's blues and greens and reds all blue and green and red.

Yes, now he could make it out. A cosmonaut was drifting across the camera's view, suspended. It made him ponder briefly the phenomenon of weightlessness. Curious, really, that it was all a matter of where you were.

One wall of the cockpit was lined with video terminals, and at the end was a massive screen currently displaying the Daedalus Corporation logo, a double ax. Nice advertising, he thought. Coca-Cola probably feels envious. Overall it was a classy job, no two ways about it. The oyabun didn't do things by halves.

Well, this was one marvel Her Majesty's government would be happy to get their hands on. For his own part, not a bad piece of collateral. Must have cost billions in start-up investment.

Then he got a better look at the figure and realized something was wrong. One side of his white environment suit was stained red. And he seemed to be nursing a bandaged arm as he drifted up toward the camera.

"Stradstyve," he began, "Ya Yuri Andreevich Androv…"

The cosmonaut then proceeded to deliver a long-winded speech in Russian that Nogami could not follow and the BBC had not yet translated. He seemed to be growing angrier and angrier, and at one point he gave a long disquisition about someone named Andrei Petrovich Androv. He was obviously a Soviet test pilot. Who else could fly that creation? Given the looks of the cockpit, it was a quantum advance in high technology.

Nogami leaned back, his match poised. The good part, the part in English, was coming up. That's what Sir Cecil had said. The Russian segment had been for broadcast in the Soviet Union, had the local spin. The English part was for the world. And for Tanzan Mino.