“The object …” he waited, expecting them to see what he was talking about, then continued, “it’s kind of big and it’s heading our way. Well, I think it is, at least the system thinks it could be, and I thought it best to get more data.”

“I have the object record now, sir. At this range this would require more bandwidth from the array than is assigned to your program.”

“Are you using it for something else?”

“You do not have clearance for that information, sir.”

Neal sighed: the joys of working with the military. “Well, when will it be available?”

“Details of the availability of the array are classified, sir.”

“Can I use the system when it becomes available … please?”

“I can neither confirm nor deny that the system is currently unavailable, sir.”

“Wait, let me get this … you know … clear: you cannot tell me whether the system is in use, so it sounds like you are telling me that whether it is or not, you wouldn’t let me use it, in case me using it somehow informed me as to its being previously … unused … because you think that info would be useful to me in some way. My friend, I think this conversation is actually making me stupider.”

The slight delay on the line was the strongest display of emotion from control that he would get.

“Your request is being reviewed by the site commander, sir. Would you like to stay on the line, or have us contact you when there is a confirm … putting the commander online, sir, hold the line, please …” a new voice came on the line, older, stronger, “Hey, Neal is it? This is Colonel Milton. I see from your file that you’ve been here for six years, huh?”

Neal frowned at this new turn in the conversation. “What, on this call?”

The colonel’s skin was proverbially thin from years of having his ass unsubtly kissed by his subordinates, but also because of that his awareness of when he was being mocked was accordingly poor and the swipe passed over his head. “Yes, well, you’ve been given P5 clearance so I have the authority to decide whether you should see this.”

“And …” Neal said, expectantly.

“Yes, Mr. Danielson, we’ve run the full collision potential analysis you asked for, I’m sending you the data now.”

With that, the Collision Analysis box populated with a string of data: number of objects in cluster, estimated trajectory, estimated entry time/point/angle of insertion. To get this much data this far out would take most of the array’s huge number of individual antennae focusing on the object.

“So you don’t have bandwidth to analyze the incident, huh?” said Neal.

“I wanted to see the results before releasing them to a civilian,” replied the colonel.

“To get this much detail must have taken pretty much all the nine thousand antennae in the array, I guess you had some availability.”