eyes hurt, their sockets hurt as he pressed them too hard into the binocular eye-piece.

Damn the fogging! Damn the blue fogging—blue?

No!

It filled the object-lens; it swirled, it calmed, it coalesced, it thinned, and there was a second's sight through it, and then Josh Thorn was swinging the refractor in near-abandon on its panhead ... there! Clear! Clear, you could see—at the edges! Coming in again, drifting, drifting slowly, drifting ... blind.

His fingertips slipped, grabbed again, swung the telescope too violently, steadied.

Blue fog, moving slowly, deliberately, and yet so fast, so unbelievably fast, why, they said if it ever happened it would take weeks, months, maybe years, but they could've been wrong, so many things they couldn't have known....

Blue.

Cobalt blue.

With some force of sheer power of reason, Joshua Thorn forced himself from the refractor; forced himself past the blue-faced scanners (maybe it was only an Enemy trick; an Enemy screen, the biggest blue smoke-screen ever made!) to the UHF. Maybe. Sure. He was overdue. Minutes overdue; they were waiting for him down there, waiting for his call, wondering if perhaps the screen had really fooled him, or if it were really effective in blocking his sight, or if....

They were right down there, right underneath him, waiting under the blue smoke-screen.

"Home Plate Home Plate this is Mrs. Grundy over...."

Crackling.

"Home Plate Home Plate this is Mrs. Grundy. Home Plate Home Plate what's the matter can't you read? Home Plate Home Plate this is Mrs. Grundy, over.... Over!"

Crackling.

The meters.... All right—on the nose, right. What were they, asleep down there? Maybe the smoke-screen reflected even UHF. He could try a bounce and see. Narrow beam. Tight. Watch the screen....

Pip. Pip. Pip.

Getting through. Lousy smoke, just couldn't see through it....

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