"In orbit?" My God, he thought. Daedalus didn't go down; she went up. With the protocol aboard.
How did they manage to get her hypersonic? Androv was wounded. He couldn't possibly have handled the G-forces. Which meant—
Vance.
"Tell NHK if they broadcast one word of this libelous, unsubstantiated hoax, they should be prepared to face legal action." His face had become a stone mask as a sepulchral hush settled over Flight Control.
"I will inform them," the man bowed again. He hadn't had the courage to tell the oyabun the rest of what NHK was now receiving . . . along with half of the citizens of Japan via their new direct-broadcast satellite dishes.
Kenji Nogami thought the picture was a little indistinct at first, the hues slightly off. But then somebody in BBC's technical section corrected the color balance, making the tape's blues and greens and reds all blue and green and red.
Yes, now he could make it out. A cosmonaut was drifting across the camera's view, suspended. It made him ponder briefly the phenomenon of weightlessness. Curious, really, that it was all a matter of where you were.
One wall of the cockpit was lined with video terminals, and at the end was a massive screen currently displaying the Daedalus Corporation logo, a double ax. Nice advertising, he thought. Coca-Cola probably feels envious. Overall it was a classy job, no two ways about it. The oyabun didn't do things by halves.