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leisurely puff, whirls of blue smoke curling upwards. Webb felt suddenly nauseous.
    “So we split the effort. Item One. Our masters want to know what will happen if the asteroid hits. Which one of you eggheads wants to take that one?” Noordhof looked round the table.
    “I guess I’ll look into that,” said Sacheverell. “Sounds like a big computing job and we have the hardware at the Sorel.”
    “Agreed?” Noordhof asked Webb, who nodded. The issue had already been raked over by experts; Sacheverell couldn’t do much harm channelled into that one.
    “Item Two. Say we detect the asteroid on the way in. What can we do about it?”
    “That’s a solved problem,” said McNally. “NASA looked into this on instructions from Congress some years back, when it was all a theoretical exercise. Anything we do will involve getting up there and zapping it.”
    “Now hold on, zap it how?” Shafer asked sharply.
    “With nukes, of course.” McNally looked bewildered.
    “I’ve seen that stuff, and the Livermore Planet Defense Workshop, and the Air Force 2025 study. Theoretical’s the word. What do you think you’ll be zapping, Dr. McNally, shaving foam or a giant nickel-iron crystal? Hit it with nukes and you might wipe us out with a spray of boulders. We have to divert the thing without busting it up. How do you propose to do that without knowing its internal constitution?”
    “It was only a suggestion,” McNally complained.
    “Willy, Jim, liaise on the problem of how to handle theasteroid if we do find it. I’ll fix access to classified Lawrence Livermore reports as well as the public domain one. That leaves Item Three: where is this thing? Opinions, anyone?”
    “I can draw up a list of candidates,” Webb said, still feeling queasy, “and get them checked out. We’ll need to use wide-angle telescopes.”
    “Like the UK Schmidt?” suggested Sacheverell.
    “They’ve mothballed it. We need Spaceguard and supernova patrol telescopes, say fast Hewitt cameras with CCDs. The Australians have one at Coona.”
    “Colonel, this is an example of the security you can expect from these guys,” said Sacheverell. “Time on these machines is more precious than gold. You can’t just break into established observing programmes, not without people shouting like hell.”
    “Ever heard of service time?”
    “Cool it, gentlemen,” said Noordhof. “Wait until you see what we’ve laid on.”
    Sacheverell said, “Whatever you’ve laid on, Colonel, our chances of identifying this rock in five days are practically zero. Especially with Webb guiding the search.”
    “Jesus frigging Christ, don’t say things like that.” Noordhof stubbed out his cigar agitatedly.
    Webb said, “What especially worries me is that these things are invisible most of the time. It could come at us from sunwards, in which case the first we’ll know about it is when it hits.”
    Noordhof poured water from a carafe into a tumbler and took a sip, wetting his dry lips. Tense little wrinkles lined his face as he assimilated Webb’s information. He said, “Let’s name this beast.”
    “I suggest Nemesis,” Sacheverell said. “After the Greek Goddess of Destruction.” There were nods of assent.
    Noordhof said, “Nemesis. Good name. I have to tell you there is no chance of identifying it by conventional intelligence-gathering techniques. It’s down to us.”
    “Many orbits will be unreachable by the Russian Federation even with their Energia boosters,” said Leclerc. “Perhaps Doctor Webb and I can co-operate.”
    “I have programmes at Oxford which might help,” Webb said.
    Noordhof nodded curtly. “You’ll have facilities to FTP them over. Now, gentlemen, we’re heading for Arizona. We have a Gulfstream waiting for us at LaGuardia. And from now on you free spirits are firmly corralled. No wandering the streets, no phone calls, no e-mails to colleagues. Lest you think this is paranoid, consider this. If the Russian leadership learn