Because much of the work was done from the air, Angela was usually alone in the cockpit. There, she watched the visuals coming in from Ashley, pictures of the oncoming object. Of the cloud, tiny and purple and utterly impossible.
Sometimes she had to draw back, remind herself where she was, remember to keep her mind on the mission, on the people who were hanging out the cargo door. But My God, this was a magnificent time.
The only downside was that she was not on board Ashley.
On the other end, Drafts was by turns ecstatic and depressed. The sensors still gave them only superficial readings. "What I'd like to do," he told Angela, "is put our money where our mouth is and lay Ashley right in front of it. Let it run over us, and see what happens." That got her attention, even though she didn't believe he meant it. But she stabbed the Transmit key anyhow and told him to forget anything like that, that she would have his career if he even so much as raised the suggestion again. But he added, long before her threats could have reached him, "Of course I won't. I don't think the probes will do much good, but we'll try to insert one."
Later, when they were back on the ground, Carson came forward for lunch. Hutch remained in back because the cockpit was too crowded for all three. He was munching on a sandwich, and Angela was planning the next day's flight, when, between mouthfuls, he said, "What's that?"
He was looking at the overhead display.
The object had developed fingers.
And despite all her training, the intellectual habits of a lifetime, the unshakable conviction that the universe is ultimately rational and knowable, Angela suffered an uneasy twinge. "Don't know," she said, almost angry, as if it were somehow Carson's doing.
Extensions. Not really fingers, but protrusions. Prominences.
"Seven," said Angela. "I count seven."
"One of them's dividing," said Carson.
They grew long and narrow. Hutch thought they looked like the fingers of the wizard in The Sorcerer's Apprentice.
"Have we got measurements?" asked Carson.
Angela checked the status board. "The longest is twenty thousand kilometers, plus or minus six percent. We don't have a reading yet on the expansion rate."
"They're contrails," said Hutch.
Yes. They were. Angela felt relieved, and then foolish, as if she had not known all along it would be something prosaic. "Yes," she said.
The contrails began to lose their definition. They drifted apart, overlapped, bled together. The illusion dissipated. It might have been a wispy comet with a multitude of tails. Or an airship that had exploded.
Got to be enormous disruptions to throw all that off. "I think it's coming apart," Angela said.
The chime sounded, and Drafts's image blinked on. "Take a look at the target," he said.
Carson held up a hand. "We see it." Drafts did not react, of course. His image was delayed by several minutes.
Angela was caught up in a swirl of emotions. "Lovely," she said. Nothing in her life, which had been reasonably full, had prepared her for what she was feeling now. Unable to restrain herself, she let go a cheer, and jabbed a fist skyward. "Good stuff," she said. "But what is that thing?"
It looked as if it were unraveling.
Long smoky comets rolled glacially away from the object.
"What the hell's going on?" Drafts's voice again.
The process continued, almost too slowly for the eye to follow. Bursts of conversation passed between the pod and the ship. Drafts thought the object was disintegrating, dissolving as it should have done earlier amid the fierce tides of the gravitational fields.
"But why wow?" demanded Angela. "Why not yesterday? Why not last week? It's not as if local gravity has changed in any significant way."
"The other one got through," said Hutch. "Why would this one explode?"
"I don't think it's really exploding," Angela said without taking her eyes from the screen. "It's hard to see clearly, but I think all that's happening is that some of the outer cloud cover is peeling off."
"What would cause that?"
"I don't know," she said. "This thing doesn't seem to obey physical law."
She took to replaying the entire sequence at fast forward. The object opened slowly and gracefully, a blood-red flower with blooming petals offering itself to the sun.
The ground team continued with their efforts at block carving. They wielded the 1600 and shaped and molded the ice, and took pleasure in their growing skills. And they watched the numbers coming in on the dragon.
Toward the end of the day's operations, Angela called Carson's attention to the screens. But Carson was riding the saddle. "Neither of us is in a position to look right now," he said. "What is it?"
The object might have been a comet whose head had exploded. "It's turning" she said. "I'll be damned. It's changing course. That's what all the earlier activity was about. It's been pitching material off into space."
"Isn't that impossible?" Hutch asked. "I mean, natural objects don't throw turns, do they?"
"Not without help." Outside, the land looked empty and cold and inhuman. Soaked in ruby light, where anything could happen.
"Where is it going?" Carson asked.
"Don't know. We won't be able to tell until it completes the maneuver. But it has turned inside Ashley's projected course. Toward us, actually." She tried to keep the sense of melodrama out of her voice, but it was difficult not to scream the words.
"You sure?" That was Hutch.
"I'm sure that it's turning in our general direction."
Nobody said anything for a long time.
Hutch's face appeared on one of the screens. That was good. They needed to be able to see each other now.
"Son of a bitch," said Hutch. "Is it possible the thing knows we're here?"
"What the hell," said Carson, "is that thing?"
"That's the question," said Angela, "we keep asking, isn't it?"
"You'd better let Ashley know," said Hutch.
"I've got a call in."
They stared at one another for a long moment. "Maybe we ought to think about getting out of here," said Hutch.
Carson put a hand on her shoulder but said nothing.
Angela had the same thought. But they needed to avoid jumping to conclusions. Celestial bodies do not chase people. "I don't know whether you two are aware of it," she said, "but we've got the daddy of all anomalies here. We are all going down in the history books."
"Just so we don't all go down," said Hutch.
"Angela." It was Drafts, looking confused. "I don't know where it's going, but it sure as hell isn't going to the same place we are. It's swinging inside us, and we can't brake quickly enough to adjust to its new course. Whatever that turns out to be. We'll have to loop around and try again. This is going to become a marathon. We'll need several extra days now to make a rendezvous. Can't really be specific until the thing settles down." He shook his head. "This can't be happening. I'll get back to you as soon as we know what's going on."
Angela was a study in frustration. "That can't be right," she said. "They had just enough time to get out to it before. Now he thinks he can take a couple of days to turn around, and catch up to it?"
"He just hasn't thought it out yet," said Carson.
"Maybe. But he might know something we don't."
"If he did, wouldn't he mention it?"
"Sure. Unless he assumed we all had the same information."
"Ask him."
"Maybe there's no need." Angela looked at the numbers again and started her subroutines. Meantime, she noted that her power cells had dropped inside safety margins. "That's it, kids," she said. "Saddle up. We're going home."
Nobody talked much on the way back, but once they got inside the shelter she told them what Drafts had known: "It's decelerating. It's thrown on the brakes."