It was his job to simply watch and listen; if everything was green and functional and there were no anomalies like weather or a flock of birds, Whit would click the icon and be presented with two additional options: AUTO or MANUAL. If he selected AUTO, things were out of his hands. The Ring’s moved-up Fire Light would proceed.

If he selected MANUAL, he could HOLD the count or RETURN TO AUTO or UPDATE, then RETURN TO AUTO.

It sounded as though he’d been given the keys to a car, but he knew he was not truly in control. There were, he knew, at least eight Aggregate formations in the top level of the Ring Light command structure. Representatives of each formation sat to his right, left, and rear.

But they all had separate functions in the operations of the Ring and its aiming, and especially the planned transportation of all those invasion units through the cone of the Ring. They had to agree on every command decision, and all but one of them had no place for human input.

None but the final one.

“They expect to resume the count within the next twenty minutes.” That was Counselor Kate, promoted to voice link at the same time Whit Murray had become the lead “operator.” She sounded tired and tense, words that would have described Whit’s state, too. Everyone seemed tense; in his hourly breaks from the console, Whit found Aggregates buzzing up and down the hallways outside the center. Those inside—and their human counterparts—seemed jittery, constantly on the move, in contrast to the tomblike stillness of the awful First Light.

Nervous or not, the ultimate go/no-go for the final triggering lay right here with him, Whit Murray, the lucky result of the Aggregates’ realization that one human individual might notice something all their other systems would miss.

That, and having a friend on the inside.

Accepting the position was one thing. Enjoying it was something else. He had accepted Carbon-143’s offer while in a state of rage and mourning for Dehm; more sober reflection shortly thereafter made him wonder just what he’d gotten himself into.

But it was too late to back out.

Whit had been on the console for seven hours, since late Sunday night. At that time, Fire Light was four hours off.

It still was.

He didn’t see the need for the big hurry. What was a few hours, days, months, or even years when you were invading a planet?

And, given that the invasion would leave Earth wrecked, there was even less need for hurry.

But the Aggregates had decided to move everything forward. They would have put Whit at his console Saturday evening, except they were, according to Counselor Kate, waiting for some major replacement parts.

To be delivered or manufactured, Whit wasn’t sure. The integration of these parts had consumed the entire night and now most of the morning.

He could only imagine the discomfort human soldiers would be feeling if they were stuck inside the various tanks, weapons carriers, and other vehicles. But who knew with Aggregates? How was that any different from their standard physical location?

The moment he thought terrible things about the Aggregates, he felt bad; there was at least one that was different.

How Carbon-143 broke free from her conditioning, or more to the point, why, Whit would have loved to know.

He hoped he would live long enough to ask his Aggregate “friend.”

She had not been in contact since offering him this job and giving him a few key instructions:

“When the final command comes, take control of the Ring and disrupt its operations.”

“They’ll kill me.”

“Disrupting the operations will probably kill us all.”

“Oh.” He thought. “Disrupt how, exactly?”

“Your research will have shown you that the Ring must create a specifically shaped field at just the right moment and with a certain orientation. Change one of those and it will fail. There are also several humans present who will require assistance as they escape this facility. They are visitors from Keanu.”

Whit had seen some mention of them on the news. “Why are they here?”

“They are helping with operation of the Ring.”

“Then why should I help them?”

For just a moment, Whit thought he detected what, for a human, would have been exasperation. “Because it is necessary.”

He had trusted Carbon-143 to this point—there was no reason to stop.

He really wished he could talk to her now, though. He felt isolated, sent out on a mission with instructions that were sure to be difficult or impossible to carry out.

And with little chance of success.

At that moment, Counselor Kate said, “They’re resuming!”

And the serene countdown voice noted, “Four hours to Fire Light.”

In the control center, all motion ceased. Humans and Aggregates slipped back to their stations so smoothly that Whit hardly registered any motion.

And his heart rate must have doubled. Oh my God, oh my God, he thought. This is really happening! He was at the heart of the opening of a door to another solar system . . . enabling an alien invasion! Less than two weeks ago he had been a lowly worker bee on a metro stop in Las Vegas!

He thought about his father . . . and Randall Dehm.

He thought about . . . well, everybody in America and the other Free Nations, and how many of them would be alive after today.

He thought about the rest of the planet . . . the same thing for them. Would they be better off with the Aggregates largely gone, or weakened?

Or, their big mission in ruins, assuming that Whit could ruin it—would they be more vulnerable to attack? Or would they be ruthless in taking revenge?

He thought about this target world who-knew-how-many-light-years distant and how his actions might spare them the Aggregate invasion.

As he thought, he followed the progress of the count. He noted imagery from the staging areas as the tanks and tankers and other vehicles lined up in arrow-shaped formations . . . ready for the Ring cone to turn toward them.

He noted the insane amount of traffic on his screen, a constant flow of words, numbers, images . . . as if every component of the Ring facility larger than a cell phone were reporting in. Which was probably what it meant.

Through it all, he kept returning to the purple rectangle on the corner . . . the icon inert, not yet enabled, ready to go live in the last half hour.

The one he would have to click to authorize the final automatic actions of the Ring.

As he stared, a new window appeared next to it, a news camera image of what appeared to be a meteor streaking across the sky.

It was coming from Counselor Kate’s station. “What am I seeing?” he asked her, on their private link.

“Apparently Keanu has launched an object toward Earth. The NEO has moved, too, and is coming closer.”

“Are we under attack?” He wasn’t at all surprised that the humans on Keanu might know about the Ring or be trying to attack it, even if it meant that they would be attacking Whit Murray, too.

“No one seems to know.”

“Where is this information coming from?”

“What do you mean?”

“Is this on the Aggregate networks?”

“No,” she said. “It’s just a Free Nation news feed—”

“Block it,” he said.

“But—”

“Goddammit, didn’t you just tell me we were entering the terminal phase? We have forty-some minutes to go! Nobody needs any distractions!”

The window vanished from his screen.

“Thank you.”

Counselor Kate said nothing.

Whit considered his next steps. The OVERRIDE icon would go live in moments, at which point he would click MANUAL, and if there was a God, or Aggregate Carbon-143 had done her job, select UPDATE and RETURN TO AUTO.