"The problem is not technical, Mino-sama," Taro Ikeda, the project director, continued, his tone ripe with deference. "It is the Soviet pilot. Perhaps he should be replaced." He looked down, searching for the right words. "I'm concerned. I think he has discovered the stealth capabilities of the vehicle. Probably accidentally, but all the same, I'm convinced he is now aware of them. Two nights ago he engaged in certain unauthorized maneuvers I believe were intended to verify those capabilities."
"So deshoo." Tanzan Mino's eyes narrowed. "But he has said nothing?"
"No. Not a word. At least to me."
"Then perhaps he was merely behaving erratically. It would not be the first time."
"The maneuvers. They were too explicit," Ikeda continued. "As I said, two nights ago, on the last test fight, he switched off the transponder, then performed a snap roll and took the vehicle into a power dive, all the way to the deck. It was intended to be a radar-evasive action." The project director allowed himself a faint, ironic smile. "At least we now know that the technology works. The vehicle's radar signature immediately disappeared off the tracking monitors at Katsura."
"It met the specifications?"
Ikeda nodded. "Yesterday I ordered a computer analysis of the data tapes. The preliminary report suggests it may even have exceeded them."
Tanzan Mino listened in silence. He was sitting at his desk in the command sector wing of the North Quadrant at the Hokkaido facility. Although the sector was underground, like the rest of the facility, behind his desk was a twenty-foot-long "window" with periscope double mirrors that showed the churning breakers of La Perouse Strait.
His jet had touched down on the facility's runway at 6:48 A.M. and been promptly towed into the hangar. Tanzan Mino intended to be in personal command when Daedalus I went hypersonic, in just nineteen hours. The video monitors in his office were hard-wired directly to the main console in Flight Control, replicating its data displays, and all decisions passed across his desk.
"Leave the pilot to me," he said without emotion, revolving to gaze out the wide window, which displayed the mid-afternoon sun catching the crests of whitecaps far at sea. "What he knows or doesn't know will not disrupt the schedule."