The chief engineer poured the coffee himself, drawing the strong black liquid from a large urn into ceramic cups. He passed them around as everyone took seats at the table, but did not offer cream or sugar. He placed a platter piled high with pastries in the center of the table. He swept piles of documents to one side, then plopped into the chair next to the switchboard.
“Well, then, General Eisenach. You are here for a progress report?”
Though that was not the primary purpose of his visit, Eisenach said, “Please, Hans.”
Diederman pressed two buttons on his control panel and one of the TV screens came to life, showing a view from above of a drilling compartment. A swarm of men moved over the floor and along the ribs of the rig, dismantling steel beams and lowering them to the deck with an overhead crane.
“That is Platform Twenty. The well has been completed successfully, now, and we are disassembling the heavy drilling rig. It will be moved to Platform Twenty-Two.”
“How long until the well-head assembly is emplaced?” Eisenach asked.
“Oh, give us another six, seven days. I will have the well on-line within ten days, General. That will give us twenty-one wells in the network.”
“Very good, Hans. How about Platform Eleven?”
It had been decided by the High Command that centralizing the control and distribution on Bahnsteig Eine might be foolhardy. Bahnsteig Elf, therefore, was undergoing renovations that would allow it to perform as an alternate control station.
“Right now, I estimate another five or six weeks, General,” Diederman said. He waved an expansive hand toward the control center outside his windows. “The electronics are in short supply, and we have had to wait upon the manufacturer for several weeks. The consoles, especially, are dedicated to our particular purpose.”
“Would you like additional pressure brought to bear on the manufacturer?”
Diederman shook his big head. “It would not do us much good. We are still fishing for cable and pipeline on the seabed, now. It is going to take us a while to bring it to the surface and complete the junctions.”
“Very well,” the general said.
The second television screen came to life with a picture of another drilling compartment.
“Now, then. Platform Twenty-Three is down to three thousand meters. We broke a rotary bit and spent three days pulling pipe so we could fish for it. Right now, they’re going back down in the hole with a new bit. If the geology holds up, we ought to complete in another couple of weeks. Then we’ll move that rig to Twenty-Four. Hell, General, overall, we are ninety-one days ahead of schedule.”
“And I, and the Fatherland, are extremely grateful for your expertise, Hans.”
Diederman shrugged. “Now, perhaps you will tell me of the real purpose of your journey, General.”
“Real purpose?”
The engineer grinned hugely at Weismann. “Old Albert does not come out here very often. I think he is uncomfortable at sea.”
Weismann nodded. The wing commander was fifty-two years old and had been flying for thirty-four of those years. His eyes were pale and clear, and his blond hair was cropped short. At one time, his skin had also been pale and clear, but he suffered now from some epidermal rash that reddened the backs of his hands and the skin of his forehead and cheeks. He was a tall man, very lean in his tailored uniform.
“Go ahead, Colonel,” Eisenach said.
“How many external cameras do you have on each well, Hans?” Weismann asked.
“There are three. Two overlook the helicopter pad, and one is located at the top of the dome. All are remote-controlled.” Diederman played with his switchboard and yet another television screen revealed a view of the sea, slowly panning by. “We keep the upper camera on full rotation, watching for intruders.”
“But watching the sea?”
“Of course.”
“It can be aimed upward?”
“Certainly.”
With several keystrokes, Diederman changed the angle of the camera. A blank, pale blue sky appeared.
“It is a boring view,” Diederman said.
“It may not be for long,” the commander of the 20.S.A.G. said.
“Oh?”
“Yesterday, one of my pilots chased off a Greenpeace ship. Near Platform Six?”
“I recall the incident. It was reported to me.”
“During the encounter, the pilot believes that he saw another aircraft in the area. A fleeting glimpse of an aircraft that revealed no radar or infrared signature.”
Diederman looked to the general then back to Weismann. “There is such an aircraft, of course. Properly, an aerospace craft.”
“Yes,” Weismann said. “The American MakoShark. We have never seen it before.”
“Nor have many,” Eisenach said. “Hans, our concern is that the Americans may have taken an interest in your wells.”
Diederman grinned. “They are mine, now? I will put them up for sale and retire a very rich man.”
“It is possible,” Eisenach said, ignoring the levity, “that the craft, if it was actually seen by the pilot, and if it was a MakoShark, was interested solely in the encounter with the Greenpeace ship. On the other hand, however, we do not wish to take chances.”
“So, now. You wish to utilize my dome cameras? Since the MakoShark is visible to the eye?”
“Exactly,” Weismann said. “Each of the dome cameras is to begin scanning the skies. I will work with your technicians to formulate a computer program to guide them — changing the scanning angle and magnification ranges. I will also set up a communications link between the monitors you must… ”
“That costs me man-hours, Albert.”
“I apologize, Hans, but it must be done. We will need three shifts of men to monitor the screens. And I will arrange a communications network between them and my wing.”
“Now, General, do you really believe these aerospace craft are spying on us?” Diederman asked.
“With what we have to protect, Hans, we cannot afford to believe otherwise.”
It was the first time in a long time that the entire complement of the 1st Aerospace Squadron had flown together.
The three MakoSharks backed away from their bays at six o’clock in Themis’s evening, midnight in Bonn’s. They took some time doing it, losing speed relative to the satellite, and spreading themselves sixty miles apart. McKenna wanted lots of room for error. Flying formation through blackout was not done.
It was not evening for Themis in real time. Her nights were erratic and short-lived, dependent upon when the orbit happened to place the earth between the station and the sun. An eclipse of the space station which might last for up to twenty minutes.
The direct sun glinted off the white plastic-clad skin of the station, making it appear much larger than it was. Up close, when approaching Themis, she was magnificently gigantic, seeming to loom over a minute MakoShark. In the early days, when she was just a hub and a couple of spokes, McKenna used to practice space-batics around her, zipping in close, backing off, rolling across the top of the hub to the solar array on the back side. Ease up to the Command Center’s porthole and stare directly into Overton’s eyes from fifteen feet away.
Overton had finally ordered a cease-and-desist on those activities, which was within his rights. He was in charge of the space station, while McKenna was responsible only for the squadron. Overton’s concern had not been with McKenna’s ability. Rather, he was afraid the newer pilots in the squadron, just joining it at that time, would slip and run a MakoShark right through his viewing window.