“Yes, there’s that,” said Robert Nolan with a sigh, finally speaking up. “But for now, deployment of the probes will take place successfully. We’ll have to check for the leak, and I initiated a careful search as soon as we received news of the attack.”
Richard turned back toward the screen. “Computer,” he said. “Give me a tie-in to the master control aboard the Tempest.” The screen showed a scene in space.
“There is a delay, of course, but the feed is continuous. Deployment of the probes is taking place about now, but we won’t see the results for about ten minutes.” Time passed.
“Coming up on the time now,” announced Richard a little later, breaking into the light conversation that was going on around the table. All heads turned toward the screen.
“This is a map of the expanse of the site of the deployment. This is not the actual scene, of course; it is a computer enhancement, programmed to show us what is actually happening.”
From twelve sites at once, scattered about evenly throughout the area, small points began to glow. The points marked the locations of the SE freighters that had carried the real probes. Simultaneously from every point emerged a starburst of lines, each one a fine, golden strand of light.
“Dr. Hoshino’s design propels each probe at about one-twentieth the speed of light. Complete deployment should take about an hour and a half.”
The men waited nervously. Some browsed Richard’s books and others peered through his small telescope at the moonscape. Occasionally two or three would come together for quiet discussion.
On the screen, the golden lines gradually lengthened. From time to time one would burst into a flower of lines like summer fireworks, and then later each of those lines extended and burst again.
When deployment was complete, the entire screen was filled with a complex pattern of golden points, like dawn-illuminated mist hanging in a huge spider’s web.