Davis opened the hatch to the wheelhouse and the Captain slipped in, closing it tight behind him. It was pitch black and it took his eyes a few moments to adjust to it. When they had, he could make out the shadowed forms of the OD, the first class quartermaster at the wheel, and the radarman hunched over the repeater, the scope a phosphorescent blur in the darkness. The ports were open in violation of GQ--it was a hot summer night--and the slight breeze that blew off the swelling sea smelled clean and cool. It was the only kind of air for a man to breathe, the Captain mused abstractly. He glanced sharply through the ports. There was nothing that bulked on the dark horizon, and so far as he could tell, all the stars were fixed--there were none of the tell-tale flashes of jet exhausts. He walked over to where the OD stood by the radar scope, seemingly fascinated by the picture on it. McCandless had the watch, a young lieutenant of not more than twenty-five but one with good sense and sound judgment nonetheless. A man who wasn't prone to panic, the Captain thought. "What's the situation, Lieutenant?" McCandless' voice was nervous. "I'm not exactly sure, sir. Not ... yet." A brief regret at an interrupted dream of Ohio flickered in the back of the Captain's mind. "What do you mean, you're not sure?" His voice was a little sharper than he intended, a little more querulous than he had meant it to be. It was, he thought, the voice of an old man, annoyed at having his sleep disturbed. [Illustration] The younger man wasn't disturbed by the sharpness and the Captain's estimation of McCandless went up another notch. "Ten minutes ago CIC reported an object approaching us from the south at an altitude of fifty miles." Approaching from the south, the Captain thought. So it couldn't have been from the _Josef_. And fifty ... miles ... up. That was two hundred and fifty thousand feet. A guided missile, perhaps? But whose? There were only friendly countries to the south. "It's passed directly overhead," McCandless continued, consciously trying to make his voice sound factual, "and continued in the direction of _Josef_. It settled towards sea level, then stopped a mile up." "Stopped, Lieutenant?" "Yes, sir. It's hovering over the _Josef_ now." McCandless paused. When he started again, his voice was shaking. It was funny he hadn't noticed it before, the Captain thought. You could almost smell the fear in the wheelhouse. "CIC estimated its speed overhead as being in excess of a thousand miles an hour and its size about that of the _Josef_ itself."