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burned out its bearings. And in this case John knew exactly where his brain would run until it blew: on the subject that he was trying to keep out of his mind, the awful deaths.
    He had to find something to do.
    He transmitted to Cusp Station. "Will? It's been an hour and I've not heard a word from you. What's going on?"
    It was a few seconds before he heard a reply. The delay wasn't travel time; that was negligible over such a short distance. He must be interrupting something.
    "We've been solving problems, what do you think?" Will Davis's voice held a touch of surprise and perhaps reproach. "Not like some people. We're done with what we were working on when you left, it's on the way to your office for you to approve. Lauren's down and out; she crashed a few minutes ago. What's wrong, John? Feeling lonely?"
    "Not lonely. Insane would be better. I had to give myself that second boost, otherwise I'd be sleeping when I get to Headquarters. But now I'm going crazy out here with only the stars for company. I need something to do. Link me in for your visuals, will you?"
    "I could, but you won't get much from seeing me and the others just sitting here. I can give you something a lot better to chew on. It's what we're stewing on ourselves, when we'd all be better off sleeping. Yesterday the deep space network received a new Sniffer profile, and nobody likes the looks of it. The flux profile for uncharged particles from Alpha Centauri has changed. Increased."
    "Bad news." John didn't need to say more. The electromagnetic field created by the finished shield would change the trajectory of charged particles. They would be diverted, passing around Earth and leaving it untouched. But neutral, uncharged particles were not affected by the field. They would get through and smash into the shield. Too much of that, and the fragile barrier would be destroyed. Then everything would get through, charged and uncharged, to hit an unprotected Earth.
    "Also, we just received a new simulation," Will went on. "It came in from the analysis team back on Earth after you left. We assume that they incorporated the new Sniffer data, though it's hard to see how they could have done it so fast. Either way, they've worked out what will happen from now to the time of maximum particle flux if we don't make changes to the construction schedule. Remember the protocol for changing display time rates?"
    "I do."
    "Then here goes. Standard color codes."
    John's personal suit switched to remote visual mode. The real external world remained visible as a faint superimposed star field. Fatalities early in the construction of Sky City had led to a decision that the immediate environment must never be completely excluded in favor of remote image data.
    The simulation employed a standard vantage point for shield display, a position in space a million kilometers from Earth and fixed in the plane of the ecliptic. The planet sat at the middle of the field of view, a blue sphere almost twice the size of the full Moon as seen from Earth. The space shield formed a long, narrow cone, slightly flared at the end like a trumpet. Invisible to human eyes, it had been stylized in the simulation to show as a web of light blue against a black background. The cone was widest closest to Earth, with the central axis pointed directly away from the planet at about forty-five degrees to the ecliptic. In that direction lay Alpha Centauri, impossibly remote yet dictating every human priority.
    The effectiveness of the shield at a given time depended on the balance of two factors: the shield's stage of completion, and the energy and composition of incident particle flux. "Hot spots," locations where the shield was inadequate to redirect the charged particles, were delineated in vivid hot pink. Trouble locations where the situation was improving sat as green islands within the hot spots. Places where things were getting worse showed as stigmata of flaring orange.
    The default time rate for the