Equipment converted, recalibrated for Earthside observation. Equipment checked. Emergency reflectors out (power drain still damned heavy) and radar full out; close-down scanners on, recording equipment humming, ready.... Coast coming up in—oh-nine minutes, three-seven seconds. Tapes ready at play-back, UHF set.
Now wait.
You can watch while you wait....
His eyes hurt, their sockets hurt as he pressed them too hard into the binocular eye-piece.
Damn the fogging! Damn the blue fogging—blue?
No!
It filled the object-lens; it swirled, it calmed, it coalesced, it thinned, and there was a second's sight through it, and then Josh Thorn was swinging the refractor in near-abandon on its panhead ... there! Clear! Clear, you could see—at the edges! Coming in again, drifting, drifting slowly, drifting ... blind.
His fingertips slipped, grabbed again, swung the telescope too violently, steadied.
Blue fog, moving slowly, deliberately, and yet so fast, so unbelievably fast, why, they said if it ever happened it would take weeks, months, maybe years, but they could've been wrong, so many things they couldn't have known....
Blue.