Second Contact

“Good,” Atvar said, in lieu of something harsher. The Security chief vanished from his computer screen.

Before Atvar could get any useful work done, Pshing rushed in, exclaiming, “Exalted Fleetlord!”

That always meant trouble. “What has managed to go wrong now?” Atvar asked his adjutant.

“Exalted Fleetlord, one of our reco

Lieutenant Colonel Glen Johnson felt like whistling with glee as he eyed the Peregrine ’s radar screen. Things couldn’t have been better if he’d scripted them himself. Since he wasn’t over the United States, he called down to a relay ship: “Requesting permission to visually evaluate Lizard satellite 2247, and to make orbital changes required for prolonged visual inspection.”

“Have to check with Kitty Hawk on that one, Peregrine, ” the radio operator answered. “Monitor this frequency. Somebody will get back to you.”

“Roger,” Johnson said, and then, under his breath, “What the hell else would I do but monitor this frequency?”

Kitty Hawk might remember he’d been too nosy about the American space station and refuse him permission to eyeball the Lizard satellite. Somehow, though, he didn’t think that would happen. Satellite 2247 and several others with similar orbits had been launched so the Lizards could keep an eye-or an eye turret-on the space station themselves. They were curious about it, too. He knew that from intelligence intercepts, from his conversations with their radio operators, and from his conversations with Major Sam Yeager.

But were satellite 2247 and the others like it just designed to keep an eye on the space station, or could they also harm it? The Lizards said no. Johnson wouldn’t have wanted to take their unsupported word on anything that important. He didn’t think the people in charge of the space station would, either.

After about five minutes, the word came back: “Peregrine, you are clear to change your orbit to inspect 2247. Burn parameters follow…”

Johnson listened carefully, read the parameters back, and smiled to himself. They were very close to the ones he’d calculated for himself. They would put him up near 2247 when the Lizards’ satellite was close to the space station. He was glad he was flying Peregrine and not a Russian tin can. In one of those, he wouldn’t have been able to make such a large orbital change or to do so much of his own calculating. The Lizards might look down their snouts at Peregrine, but he thought he was flying a pretty fine bird.

He made the burn on schedule, kicking himself up into a more elliptical orbit that would let him pass within a mile or so of satellite 2247’s path and within about ten miles of the space station. He actually was curious about the reco

“U.S. spacecraft! Attention, U.S. spacecraft!” That wasn’t an American relay ship. It was a Lizard, using his own language. “You are not to damage the satellite with which you are closing. Damage to this satellite will be taken as a hostile act. You have been warned. Acknowledge immediately!”

“Acknowledged,” Johnson answered in the same language, thinking, You arrogant bastard. “No damage intended-inspection only.”

“See that action matches intent,” the Lizard said coldly. “Out.”

As he drew near the satellite, Johnson photographed it with a long lens and studied it through binoculars. It didn’t look as if it could launch a missile; he saw no rocket motors. But that didn’t necessarily signify. The Lizards were as good at camouflage as any humans around. The satellite wasn’t very big. But that didn’t necessarily signify, either. These days, nuclear bombs didn’t have to be very big, not even human-made ones. If the Lizards couldn’t build them smaller still, Johnson would have been surprised.

Still, 2247 had the look of a reco

But Johnson didn’t aim to do anything nasty to it. He took a couple of rolls of photographs as Peregrine reached its nearest approach to 2247. That done, he set down the camera and took out a screwdriver. He used it to undo a piece of sheet aluminum not far below his instrument panel. That done, he reached in and detached a length of wiring. The wire with which he replaced it was almost identical, but had bad insulation. Whistling, he plucked the panel out of the air and screwed it back into place. One of the screws had drifted farther away than he’d expected, which gave him an anxious moment, but he found it.

He waited till it was time to make the burn that would take him back into his lower orbit. When he flicked the switch, nothing happened. “Oh, damn,” he said archly, and turned his radio to the frequency the space station used. “Station, this is Peregrine. Repeat: station, this is Peregrine. I have had a main motor malfunction. My attempted burn just failed. I have to tell you, I’m glad you’re in the neighborhood.”

“This isn’t a gas station, Peregrine,” the space-station radio operator said, his voice friendly as vacuum.

“Christ!” Johnson hadn’t expected to be welcomed with open arms, but this went above and beyond, or maybe below and beneath. “What the hell do you want me to do, get out and walk?”

The silence that followed suggested the radioman would have liked nothing better. But Johnson wasn’t the only one listening out there. The fellow couldn’t very well tell his own countryman to get lost, not unless he wanted to create an enormous stink and raise enormous suspicions. And so, slower than he should have, he asked, “Can you make it here on your maneuvering jets, Peregrine?”

“I think so,” answered Johnson, who was sure he could: he’d done a lot of calculations before he requested permission to change orbit.

“All right,” the operator in the space station said. “You have permission to approach and suit up and come aboard. Do not- repeat, do not-approach by way of the unit on the end of the long boom there.”

“Why not?” Johnson asked. He wanted to find out what was on the end of that boom.

“Because you’ll regret it for the rest of your days if you do,” the radioman answered. “You want to be a damn fool, go ahead. No skin off my nose, but it will be off yours.” He had a very unpleasant laugh.

Johnson thought it over. He didn’t much care for the sound of it. “Roger,” he said, and picked a course that took him over toward the space station’s enormous, untidy main structure, giving the smaller, newer section on the end of the boom a wide berth.

“Smart fellow,” the radio operator said: he had to be tracking Peregrine ’s slow, cautious approach either by radar or by eyeball. Did he sound disappointed that Johnson had listened to him, or was that just the ti

He didn’t have much of a chance to worry about it, anyhow. He was busy making sure his pressure suit-a distant, a very distant, descendant of the suits high-altitude pilots had started wearing around the time the Lizards came-was tight. If it failed, he had nobody to blame but himself… and he wouldn’t be blaming himself for long.