by Timothy Zahn
And suddenly, he saw it.
He dived for the controls, freezing the image. "Oh, my God," he breathed.
For a long moment neither of them spoke. Then, beside him, he felt Isis stir. "The big picture," she murmured. "We've thought about it, talked about it, even argued about it. We've just never bothered to look at it."
"No," Harking said, thinking of all the photos he'd taken over the past few months as he gazed at the monitor. All those close-in, tight-range photos ... "But then, neither have the Sjonntae," he added. "While we've been staring down, looking for mirrors and signal flags, they've been flying low over the farms and villages, looking for the same thing."
"Yes," Isis said. "And Abe Ferrier fooled us all."
Harking nodded, gazing at the monitor. The varying colors of the fields, planted apparently randomly with their different crops, formed a subtle pattern, with no sharp or obvious lines for a passing Skyhawk to note with interest or suspicion.
But from Defender Fifty-five, and the ability to take in a hundred thousand square kilometers at a glance, the human eye had no difficulty filling in the disguising gaps and reading the message Abe and the Minkter farmers had so painstakingly prepared for them:
204° 55'52" W
38° 40'42"
"You know where that is?" Isis asked quietly.
"About thirty kilometers north of the fortress," Harking said. "Rocky area. Even if we'd been able to get instruments close enough through all the Shadow, we'd have had a hard time spotting it."
Taking a deep breath, he keyed the intercom. "Commander Chakhaza, this is Harking in Number One Photo," he said. "You need to get up here right away."
He smiled tightly at Isis. "And," he added, "you might want to wake up the missile crews."
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Document ID: 512daf26-6c25-1014-b44f-a66b0042be0c
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 12.06.2008
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