liked his work, so he was quite often found in his office or in the monitoring rooms long after his prescribed quitting time. On the evening of 25 March 1978, he had stayed overtime nearly four hours to watch the installation of a new computer unit. As a matter of cold fact, since the day was Saturday, he needn't have been in the office at all, but—well, a new computer isn't put in every day, and MacIlheny liked computer work.

It was exactly 1903 hours when the PA system clicked on and an operator's voice said: "Is Mr. MacIlheny still in the building, please? Mr. MacIlheny, please call Satellite Beam Control."

MacIlheny stood up from the squatting position he had been in, handed a flashlight to one of the technicians standing nearby, and said: "Hold this, Harry; I'll be back in a minute."

The installation crew went on with their work while MacIlheny went over to a wall phone. He picked it up and punched the code number for Beam Control.

"This is MacIlheny," he said when the recog signal came.

"Mac? This is Blake. Can you come down right away? We've lost Number Four!"

"What happened?"

"Don't know. She was nearly overhead, going along fine, when we lost contact all of a sudden. One minute she was there, the next minute she was gone. We've lost the beam, and—just a second!" There was a pause at the other end, then Blake said: "We just got a report from some of the ground stations within range. Satellite Number Four has quit broadcasting altogether—there's no signal from her at all!"

"I'll be right down," MacIlheny snapped. He hung up the phone and headed for the elevator.

It wasn't good. Number Four, like the other satellites, was in a nearly circular orbit high above the atmosphere of Earth. She should follow a mathematically predictable course, subject only to slight variations from the pull of the other satellites and the pull of the moon, plus the small perturbations caused by the changing terrain of the Earth beneath her. She'd have to be badly off course to be out of range of Beam Control.

The elevator dropped MacIlheny down from the computer level to the monitor and control level. The men at the monitor screens didn't look up from their work as MacIlheny passed, but there was a feeling of tension in the air. The monitors knew what had happened.

To the man in 

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