convenience, so that Steve would not have to keep looking at his screen, he displayed a copy of his monitor on the hall's main monitor. In the centre of the hall, the orbital telescope showed as a man-sized symbol. It slowly turned round its axis, turning the lens towards Saturn.
How much time it took to turn! Steve couldn't stand watching this snail-like pace. Clive apparently felt the same way. They both, as if responding to an order, looked away from the screen. Steve wiped his forehead, Clive impatiently wiped his hands.
"Have you thought about what it might be?" asked Clive suddenly.
Silence reigned for a few seconds.
"To be honest, no. I found out about the object during my last shift, but then it was just behaving a little strangely. I only learned of the recent events half an hour before you did, there wasn't time to check various theories, you know how it is."
"And now, off the cuff, what do you think?"
"When did you start taking an interest in what I think, off the cuff? And what are the possibilities?"
"I don't know, that's why I'm asking you," said Clive, persisting with his questions.
"Let's take a look at Saturn's atmosphere anyway, after that it might be a bit clearer," snapped Steve. He didn't like this conversation. Putting forward unsubstantiated theories was all very well over a glass of something foaming, but it was not very fruitful to fantasise in actual science. Both Steve and Clive were sufficiently experienced in astronomical observations to know this.
"Look, the telescope has finished turning," said Steve, changing the subject.
Clive threw a quick glance at the main screen and quickly turned back to the console. The auxiliary monitor was schematically drawing the trajectory of the object through Saturn's atmosphere.
Clive made some manipulations on the console and looked back at the main screen in the centre of the hall. No track or trace of the object was visible in either of the spectra.
"We ought to take a shot of the atmosphere from the other side, so that the Sun illuminates it. Perhaps then the spectral analysis will show something," proposed Steve. "Taking its speed into account, the shock must have been of colossal force; if it lost any material we should be able to see something at the point of impact. Frankly, I don't understand how the object didn't break up from such a shock, it should have exploded!"
"That's a riddle to me too," said Clive. "However that may be, after entering the more or less dense layers of the atmosphere, the surface of the object must have been heated to very high temperatures. Possibly it created a plasma cloud round itself, which acted as a cushion and reduced the atmospheric resistance?"
Steve thought over what Clive had said for a few moments, then sceptically shook his head.
"But are you sure that a plasma cushion would act in just that way? I somehow don't think a turbulent plasma cloud can screen the pressure of the oncoming flow of gas. We'd have to ask the engineers."
"I know that it's possible to move through an atmosphere very quickly, I read something about it in a scientific journal. The resistance of a gaseous medium grows in proportion to speed in the fourth degree. But the energy required to create a plasma cloud of the required density does not grow that fast."
"Clive, you're just wriggling. I'm sure that the plasma cloud there is not simply turbulent, it is ordered in some way. And that, you must agree, radically changes the effect of a plasma cushion."
Clive nodded in agreement. Steve was obviously right.
"I've just had a thought," said Clive suddenly. "Why in fact did we decide that the object did not disintegrate? It's quite possible that it broke up under the shock, part of it burned up on Saturn and the rest is now flying round Jupiter."
"So, you're inclining towards the comet theory. In your opinion, the rough external shell was swept off by the atmospheric impact, and the core flew on? But what about the comet tail? As I understand it, we haven't seen it."
"Don't forget that the object was first noticed at a vast distance from the Sun, where the intensity of the solar wind and radiation is not so great," Steve continued. "I simply make this comment in passing, I did not mean that the object is a comet. The object must be something like an asteroid, consisting entirely of solid material, but must have, let us say, some irregular shape. As it intersected the atmosphere, part of it broke off and the rest flew on. Fine particles burned up on Saturn, but a large fragment managed to retain enough energy to continue its flight, and was then caught by Jupiter's gravitational field. This, by the way, would not be particularly unusual. Jupiter picks up all sorts of things."
Clive nodded in agreement. "Let's say the body behaved as you said and broke up in the atmosphere of Saturn. True, I don't know how it succeeded in doing that without being noticed, considering its speed, but let us assume that it did. But what about the acceleration?"
Steve spread his arms.
"I don't know, Clive. I honestly don't know. Have we ever seen anything like it in astronomical practice?"
"No."
"Then why ask about it, if we have no data? We have never come across such a thing before. No such phenomena are predicted in any theory I know. I have no guesses and no explanations. Not for now, at least. We'll get the data, look at it, whatever, it will become clear. Only I fear the object may fall onto Jupiter and never be seen again. Which would be a great shame."
"Stop being such a prophet of doom. If that happens, I'll go out of my mind. To catch something like that and lose it without having explained how this object performed its pirouettes, I couldn't stand it."
There was nothing left for them to do now except wait for the shots from the Jupiter telescopes.
The second hand of the wall clock circled round the white dial agonisingly slowly. Steve silently gazed at the main monitor, Clive leaned back in his chair and looked at the ceiling.
"It's fifteen minutes since they promised to send the shots, could they have forgotten?" Steve couldn't help saying eventually.
"Not at all likely," answered Clive in a calm voice. "They'll send them, just be patient."
Suddenly there was an announcement on the screen.
"Data transfer from Jupiter-Alpha, downloading."
Their sleepiness vanished instantly. Steve and Clive eagerly followed the progress of the data transfer - twenty per cent, thirty, forty... Two minutes left, one minute (time seemed to be standing still), thirty seconds, twenty...
"Message received, open message?"
"Yes," commanded Steve.
"Message contains visual three-dimensional information, visualise it?"
"Yes!" This time Clive got in first.
Jupiter appeared on the huge monitor. The computer always began visualisation against a general background, selecting a scale at which all objects would be visible at once. The object was too small against the great gas giant, its position was only marked by a symbol. The computer assigned it the name 'delta-two'.
"Object delta-two, maximum magnification," commanded Steve.
The object could be seen in all its beauty. There were not many details, but enough to see that this was no asteroid. The object was a dark metallic colour and had the regular shape of a droplet just about to fall from a tap. Other details could not be distinguished, they simply weren't there. Steve grimaced somewhat disappointedly. The euphoria of expectation evaporated. Further observations would probably not bring any more clarity. The only thing left to do was to send an automatic module to the object to feel it out, take samples, probe its internal structure...
"The message also includes video, did you notice?" asked Steve.
Clive silently started the video. Sanchez's face appeared on the main monitor.
"Lads, we're colleagues, you needn't have kidded me about it being an asteroid. It gives you a strange feeling when an asteroid winks at you with a laser! OK, enjoy the pictures, goodbye till next time."
Steve looked questioningly at Clive.
"What was he talking about?" asked Steve.
"I don't know,"
Clive replied.
"Repeat the video."
Clive ordered the computer to show the clip again. After looking at it once more, Clive scratched the back of his neck.
"What laser?" he asked, after briefly thinking about it.
"You heard the same as I did, how should I know? Was it the object he was talking about? Only I don't understand what lasers have to do with it," answered Clive.
"Sanchez said that the object was winking with a laser."
"That's how I understood it, but that's absurd! Could he have meant something else?"
"OK, let's call him again, what's the point in guessing?" proposed Steve, with some irritation.
Clive gave the command to repeat the call. A second or two later, Sanchez's face appeared on the central monitor.
"Miguel, it's us again. Excuse me asking, but what lasers were you talking about?" asked Clive.
Sanchez grimaced, but his tone remained friendly.
"Clive, is this a practical joke? When I turned our lenses onto your 'asteroid' and took a bearing on it with a laser distance gauge, it winked at me in reply."
"What do you mean, winked? Who winked, the asteroid?"
"Who else?"
Clive exchanged glances with Steve.
"All right, Miguel, thanks."
Sanchez grimaced again and hung up.
"Maybe he's making fun of us?" asked Steve after a short pause.
"I don't know him well enough for him to be playing jokes on me."
Steve stroked his chin. He didn't want to propose crazy theories. Clive apparently thought the same. Each of them simply waited to see what the other would propose.
"We have a transport route tracker a few light seconds from Jupiter, let's get it to light up the object with a laser. That will give us its precise orbit at the same time," suggested Steve.
Clive turned to the console and gave a request to determine the trajectory of the object.
"Ready."
A little less than an hour and a half later, the main screen came alive and showed columns of figures, defining precisely the parameters of the object's trajectory. Steve opened the tracker log from his console.
In taking the bearing of a transport, trackers always tried to identify the spacecraft by sending the appropriate interrogation. By protocol, the identification number was requested via a laser link. The laser had the advantage of being directional, so by comparison with radio waves, it did not clutter up the ether with noise unwanted by other spacecraft.
Steve rapidly looked down to the end of the recording, containing the craft identification data.
"Identification status: no result. Reason: unknown protocol."
Steve turned to Clive.
"Look at the end of the recording, where it reports on the identification. You see what it says about the unknown protocol?"
"I see it. I'm just trying to understand what it can mean," replied Clive.
"Damn, it could have said a bit more about it."
"Too true."
"So, the object could not be identified," said Steve, thinking aloud. "That was to be expected. The tracker asked for its number through the laser link and the object did not reply. But what does 'unknown protocol' mean? Did the tracker receive a reply after all?"
"Perhaps the object is simply reflecting the signal?" suggested Clive.
"But trackers ought to be able to distinguish such cases," answered Steve.
"Ought to, ought not to... You mustn't forget that they are not meant for tracking random objects, but spacecraft, and a craft's plating does not reflect a laser beam like a mirror. The tracker knows this and can distinguish a laser reflection from a response pulse. But our object consists of some other material. There it is." Clive pointed to the large screen "In the photo, it's almost mirror-like. Possibly the intensity of the reflection is so strong that the tracker mistakenly takes it for a response. As a result, it sees its own interrogation, and since an interrogation protocol differs from a response protocol, it can't identify it. Therefore, naturally, it issues the error