UpLink's pilotless vehicle was in another class. While far from a scientific wizard, Ricci was a quick study, and his understanding based upon Nimec's apprisal was that its outer shell was called a "smart skin," a composite alloy imbedded with microelectromechanical systems--MEMS was the acronym Pete had used--which included sensors tiny enough to be carried by ants, and which gave it the ability to pick up infrared heat concentrations, plus near-real-time video, and most significantly under present meteorological conditions, synthetic aperture radar images that could penetrate the cloud cover hindering his surveillance efforts. Pitch black like a Stealth bomber, it had a circumference of thirty-five, maybe forty feet, making it difficult to eyeball from the ground at night. Also, something about its saucer shape, he wasn't quite sure what, would allow it to slip past ground-to-air radar arrays even more easily than aircraft with Stealth design.

The technical operators that had brought the SkyManta from Kaliningrad had launched it about an hour back, and Ricci was leaving it to them to keep tabs on its transmissions. If anything of interest turned up, they'd give him a shout. But what he'd needed this evening was a few hours of solitude, a chance to simply think.

Ricci looked at the map, running his fingertip over the topographical features of the Cosmodrome's surrounding terrain. Everywhere he looked, there were tucks and folds in the hills where an assault force with a basic knowledge of cover and concealment techniques could have been assembling for days or even weeks. And whereas they could choose the time and place to hit--and hit they would, said his own low-tech internal sensors--he was shackled by Petrov's hairy-chested exercise in self-assertion.

Shaking his head again, leaving the map on the table as he rose to brew some coffee, Ricci wished himself the best of luck trying to stop them if that hit came soon.