"It'll be ready in half an hour," Loch promised as he cut off.
MacIlheny began punching the code numbers for Washington, but the phone rang before he was through.
Pure luck, MacIlheny thought to himself as the President's face came onto the screen.
"Evening, Fitz," said the President of the United States.
"Good evening, Mr. President."
"Fitz, I understand you're having a little trouble with one of your satellites. The Naval Observatory tells me it's in a collision orbit of some kind. Where will it come down?"
MacIlheny shrugged. "I don't know, sir. It'll depend on how much resistance it offers to the atmosphere at that altitude, and that will depend on how badly it was torn up by the meteor."
"I see. What do you propose to do?"
"I'm going to try to get one of Commercial's RJ-37's up there to put her back on course. I don't want to lose a twelve-million-dollar space station."
"I can understand that, but—" The President looked off his screen suddenly as though someone had attracted his attention. "Hold the line a minute, Fitz," he said. And the screen went blank. MacIlheny waited. When the President came back, he wore a frown on his face. "The French government has been informed of what has happened. They want to know what we intend to do."