The big building stood out at night, even among the other towering
spires of Manhattan. The bright, glowing symbol on its roof attracted
the attention of anyone who looked up at the night sky of New York; and
from the coast of Connecticut, across Long Island Sound, the huge ball
was easily visible as a shining dot of light.
The symbol--as a symbol--resembled the well-known symbol of an
atom. It consisted of a central globe surrounded by a swarm of
swiftly-moving points of light that circled the glowing sphere
endlessly. It represented the Earth itself and the robot-operated
artificial satellites that whirled around it. It was the trademark of
Circum-Global Communications.
But it was more than just a symbol; it was also the antenna for the
powerful transmitters that kept constant contact with the satellite
relay stations which, in turn, re-broadcast the TV impulses to all
parts of the globe.
Inside the CGC Building, completely filling the upper twenty floors,
were the sections of the vast electronic brain that computed and
integrated the orbits of the small artificial moons and kept the
communication beams linked to them. And below the brain, occupying
another four floors, were the control and monitoring rooms, in which
the TV communications of a world were selected and programmed.
In Johannesburg, South Africa, the newly-elected President spoke in
front of a TV camera. His dark, handsome face was coldly implacable
as he said: "They wanted _apartheid_ when they were in power; we
see no reason to believe they have changed their minds. They wanted
_apartheid_--very well, they shall continue to have _apartheid_!"
His image and his voice, picked up by the camera and mike, were
transmitted by cable to the beam broadcaster in the old capital of
Pretoria. From there, it was broadcast generally all over South Africa;
at the same time, it was relayed by tight beam to Satellite Nine,
which happened to be in the sky over that part of the Earth at that
time.
Satellite Nine, in turn, relayed it to all the other satellites in line
of sight. Satellite Two, over the eastern seaboard of North America,
picked it up and automatically relayed it to the big antenna on top of
New York's Circum-Global Communications Building.
There it was de-hashed and cleaned up. The static noise which it had
picked up in its double flight through the ionosphere was removed; the
periods of fading were strengthened, and the whole communication was
smoothed out and patched up.
From the CGC Building, it was re-broadcast over the United States.
A man in Bismarck, North Dakota, looked at the three-dimensional,
full-color image of the President of South Africa, listened to his
clear, carefully-modulated words, and said: "Serves 'em right, by
George!"
* * * * *
Besides the world-wide television news and entertainment networks, CGC
also handled person-to-person communication through its subsidiary,
Intercontinental Visiphone. If the man in Bismarck had wanted to call
the President of the Union of South Africa, his visiphone message would
have gone out in almost exactly the same way, and the two men could
have talked person-to-person, face to face. (Whether the President of
South Africa would have accepted the call or not is another matter.)
From all over the world, programs and communications were picked up by
the satellites and relayed to the CGC Building, where they were sorted
and sent out again.
The man in charge of the technical end of the whole operation was a
short, stocky, graying man named MacIlheny.
James Fitzpatrick MacIlheny, Operational Vice-President of
Circum-Global Communications, was one of those dynamic men who can
allow their subordinates to call them by a nickname and still retain
their respect. His wife called him "Jim"; his personal friends called
him "Fitz"; and his subordinates called him "Mac." He knew his own job,
and the job of every man under him; if one of the men slipped up, he
heard about it in short order, but, on the other hand, if the work was
well done, he heard about that in short order, too. MacIlheny was as
free with his pats on the back as he was with the boot a little lower
down. As a result, his men respected him and he respected them.
MacIlheny liked his work, so he was quite often found in his office or
in the monitoring rooms long after his prescribed quitting time. On
the evening of 25 March 1978, he had stayed overtime nearly four hours
to watch the installation of a new computer unit. As a matter of cold
fact, since the day was Saturday, he needn't have been in the office at
all, but--well, a new computer isn't put in every day, and MacIlheny
liked computer work.
It was exactly 1903 hours when the PA system clicked on and an
operator's voice said: "Is Mr. MacIlheny still in the building, please?
Mr. MacIlheny, please call Satellite Beam Control."
MacIlheny stood up from the squatting position he had been in, handed a
flashlight to one of the technicians standing nearby, and said: "Hold
this, Harry; I'll be back in a minute."
The installation crew went on with their work while MacIlheny went over
to a wall phone. He picked it up and punched the code number for Beam
Control.
"This is MacIlheny," he said when the recog signal came.
"Mac? This is Blake. Can you come down right away? We've lost Number
Four!"
"What happened?"
"Don't know. She was nearly overhead, going along fine, when we lost
contact all of a sudden. One minute she was there, the next minute she
was gone. We've lost the beam, and--just a second!" There was a pause
at the other end, then Blake said: "We just got a report from some
of the ground stations within range. Satellite Number Four has quit
broadcasting altogether--there's no signal from her at all!"
"I'll be right down," MacIlheny snapped. He hung up the phone and
headed for the elevator.
* * * * *
It wasn't good. Number Four, like the other satellites, was in a nearly
circular orbit high above the atmosphere of Earth. She should follow a
mathematically predictable course, subject only to slight variations
from the pull of the other satellites and the pull of the moon, plus
the small perturbations caused by the changing terrain of the Earth
beneath her. She'd have to be badly off course to be out of range of
Beam Control.
The elevator dropped MacIlheny down from the computer level to the
monitor and control level. The men at the monitor screens didn't look
up from their work as MacIlheny passed, but there was a feeling of
tension in the air. The monitors knew what had happened.
To the man in Bismarck, North Dakota, or the housewife in Tampa,
Florida, the disappearance of the satellite meant nothing more than a
slight irritation. If the program they were watching happened to be
one that was shunted through Number Four, their screen had simply gone
dark for a moment. Then, with apologies for "technical difficulties
beyond our control," another program had been switched into the channel.
For the businessman in San Francisco and the government official in New
York, the situation was worse. Important intercontinental conferences
were cut off in mid-sentence, and vital orders were left hanging in the
air.
For seven transcontinental stratoliners, the situation was almost
tragic. The superfast, rocket-driven, robot-controlled ships, speeding
their way through the lower ozonosphere, fifteen miles above the
surface of the Earth, were suddenly without the homing beams they
depended upon to guide them safely to their destinations. Their
beam-detection instruments went into a search pattern while alarm
bells shattered the quiet within. Passengers in the lounges and in the
cocktail rooms looked suddenly wide-eyed.
On one of the ships, there was a near panic when one fool screamed:
"We're going to crash! Get parachutes!"
Not until the flight captain caught the hysterical passenger on the
chin with a hard right uppercut and explained that everything was
in good order did the passengers quiet down. He didn't worry them by
explaining that there were no parachutes aboard; at eighty thousand
feet of altitude and a velocity of over forty miles per minute, a
parachute would be worse than useless.
Each of the stratoliners had to be taken over by the flight captain and
eased down manually.
MacIlheny had a pretty good idea of what was going on all over the
United States, and he didn't like it. He pushed open the door of the
Beam Control Section and strode in. Blake met him halfway across the
room.
"Nothing yet, as far as contact goes," he said. "We've heard from the
spotter station in Topeka; they missed it at the same time we did--1702
hours, two seconds."
MacIlheny glanced at the chronometer on the wall. The satellite had
been missing for nearly four minutes now.
"Get the Long Island Observatory; tell 'em to keep an eye peeled for
Number Four. It ought to be out of Earth's shadow," MacIlheny ordered.
"And start a sweep search with the radar. Cover the whole area. Get
a prediction from the Orbit Division; find the cone of greatest
probability and search it carefully. Unless the damned thing just blew
up, it's got to be up there somewhere!"
"I've already called Orbits," Blake said. "I'll get Long Island on the
line." He headed for the phone.
MacIlheny went over to one of the control boards and looked over the
instruments. He swept his eyes across them, reading them as a group, in
the same way an ordinary man reads a sentence. Satellite Number Four
had vanished, as far as the Beam Controls were concerned. Data from the
electronic brain indicated that the acceleration of the satellite had
been something terrific, but whether it had slowed down or speeded up
was something the brain couldn't tell yet.
A thin, sandy-haired man at a nearby board said: "What do you think,
Mac?"
"There's only one thing could have done it, Jackson," MacIlheny said.
"A meteor."
"That's what we figured. It must have been a doozie!"
"Yeah. But which direction did it hit from? If it hit from the side,
Number Four will be twisted around; its new orbit will be at an
angle to the old one. If it overtook the satellite from behind, the
additional velocity will lift it into a newer, higher orbit. If it
was hit from the front, it'll be slowed down, and it may hit the
atmosphere."
"Not much chance of its being overtaken," Jackson said. "A meteor would
have to be hitting it up at a pretty good clip to shove Four ahead
_that_ fast!"
"Right," MacIlheny agreed. "And meteors just don't travel that fast in
that direction."
"No--no, they don't."
MacIlheny felt a sense of frustration. The satellite was gone, vanished
he knew not whither. It had disappeared into some limbo which, at the
moment, was beyond his reach. Until it was located, either visually or
by radar, it might as well not exist.
There was actually nothing further he could do until it was found; he
couldn't find it himself.
"What's our next contact?" he asked.
"Satellite Number Eight. It'll be coming over the horizon in--" Jackson
glanced at the chronometer. "--in eight minutes, twenty-seven seconds.
We'll just have to hold on till then, I suppose."
MacIlheny thought about the stratoplanes he knew were up there. "Yeah,"
he said tightly. "Yeah. Just wait."