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Secret-Eyes Only” of which only a few people in the federal government were even aware. If Popeye had overheard the transmission, he could have spread word around Olympus Station that something called Big Ear was being tested.
    “So big deal,” Dave said, pulling himself hand over hand back to his chair. “Everyone knows about the Ear. You can pick up a newspaper down there and read all about it.”
    “You know what I mean,” Bob replied, glaring at him from his seat beside the communications console. “It isn’t just the Ear.”
    “Yeah, uh-huh. I know what you mean. But, y’know, if we were to let the cat out of the bag…”
    “Five years in Leavenworth, like that.” Bob snapped his fingers. “Unauthorized disclosure of security-sensitive information. Don’t even think about it, Jarrett.”
    “No, I mean if someone were to release that, uh, info… y’know, if that happened, and someone were to take a poll and ask everyone how they felt about it, I’d bet that most people would say this was the right thing to do.”
    John blew out his cheeks derisively. “Yeah, I bet. You know what kind of shit would hit the fan if this got out? What Congress would say? The ACLU? The UN? Come back to reality, pal….”
    “Besides, if it got out, it’d just render the system useless,” Bob added, nodding his head. “Something like this has to be kept secret for it to work.”
    He paused, staring up at a CRT screen over his head displaying a graphic representation of low-orbital space above Earth. “Okay, birds One and Two are coming into position. We should be hearing from Meade any minute now.” He pulled his headset up from around his neck and fitted it over his cranium, pulling the microphone into place in front of his mouth.
    “Anyway, so I feel sorry for the guy,” Dave continued, gently lowering himself into his own chair and strapping his torso into place. “I think he’s really getting nutty for going back home.”
    “So who isn’t?” John said. He adjusted his own headset and touched glowing buttons on his console, which changed its liquid crystal display. “Man, I’ve been up here nine months now and my wife and kids still think I’m in Ecuador.”
    Dave said nothing. He gazed through the big port in front of him at Earth spiraling below them. He spotted a wink of reflected light moving across the planet, just above the Caribbean. That would be the Freedom space station, orbiting three hundred miles above the equator.
    “Hey, when are they going to switch command and control over to Freedom?” he asked.
    “When all the tests are done,” John replied, working at his console. His fingers wandered across the pressure-sensitive LCD keyboard. “I think they’re talking three or four months from now, whenever Skycorp gets done building the module.”
    Bob looked at them both sourly. “That’s classified, Knox,” he said to “John.” “I don’t want to hear either one of you chitchatting about it, understand?”
    Dave turned away to keep Bob from seeing the expression on his face. Christ, working with Piers Pauley—whom everyone aboard Skycan knew as Bob—was a major pain in the butt. The man was career NSA through and through; the Agency was his first priority at all times. Dave suspected that Pauley had taken this post as a steppingstone to advancement in the Agency, that he had ambitions of becoming a senior administrator in NSA’s space-based intelligence operations. Dave himself only wanted to stay on as long as it took to amass enough savings in the bank; then he would retire from the Agency and move back to his native New Hampshire, perhaps open up a restaurant in North Conway. The hell with cloak-and-dagger, and the hell especially with the Big Ear.
    “Incoming transmission from Meade,” Bob said. He touched buttons on his console. “You’re patched in, Knox. Scrambler working.”
    “Big Dog, this is Olympus Weatherman,” John intoned. “We’re green for Ear Test. Do you