The jangling phone jerked Kemp out of a sound sleep. Narang, nuzzled against his arm and shoulder, muttered and turned over.

Grumbling, he reached for the phone. It was a text from Captain Jennings. With several seconds’ round-trip delay, texts would be the only reasonable way of holding a conversation.

20 ships have left Lag 4 base. Prob assault force. Looks like they didn’t take advice.

Dammit!

Kemp nudged Narang. “Maddie. Wake up.”

Narang growled at him, but opened one eye. “This better be good.”

“The Navy has sent an assault force. Looks like they didn’t take your suggestion.”

“Aw, hell.” Narang grabbed the covers and threw them off, then staggered to the powder room. As she closed the door, she grumbled, “Five minutes.”

Kemp nodded, although she’d already closed the sliding door, and headed for the main washroom. On the way, he texted the captain. Meet us at Olympus Station.

When Kemp came out of the washroom, the phone had another text waiting.

Turn on the news.

Kemp’s eyebrows went up, and he picked up the remote. It took only moments to find what the captain was referencing—all the news channels, and several non-news channels, were reporting the same thing.

“Maddie!”

“Busy!”

“Don’t care. You have to come out and see this!”

Narang was out within seconds, wiping her face. She gave Kemp a quizzical look, then turned to the Vid. Her jaw dropped, and she sat on the bed without turning her head.

Once again, the top story today…

Several hundred residents of the Mercury North Polar Station are dead, as abrupt and unexplained planet-quakes destroyed or damaged Vulcan’s Forge. All surviving personnel have been successfully evacuated. ISI, the Interplanetary Science Institute, reports that the quakes seem to be strongest at both poles. Scientists have no explanation for this effect. However, it is almost certainly related to the enigmatic structures that seem to be growing out of the very planet, at the poles and at the equator.

In addition, the Venus Orbital Platform reports the sighting of six gigantic objects at the top of Venus’s cloud layer. Scientists speculate that they are the visible tops of structures stretching up from the surface, as they have no orbital motion and no visible propulsion holding them in place. Asked about the objects, Professor Keeting of the ISI explained, “The visible top of the cloud layer is at around seventy-five kilometers, give or take. So those structures would have to be at the top of a seventy-five-kilometer-tall tower.”

This statement has been challenged by Professor Tomlinson of UCLA, who suggests that floating, tethered structures would explain the observations as well. A sufficiently large structure would achieve stability in the same way as floating drilling rigs…

“That’s got to be Ivan,” Kemp said. Narang shushed him.