He didn’t know why they intruded on his thoughts while he gazed across the city. He would have liked them to see Moonlight. Surely they would have been caught up in its majesty, and they might have understood what his life was about.

THE OMEGAS ROUTINELY hurled lightning bolts at perpendiculars. Any object designed with right angles, or sharp departures from nature’s natural arcs, could expect to become a target.

It had seemed an old wives’ tale when the stories first came back. Collingdale recalled that the scientific community, almost to a person, had scoffed at the reports. The notion that clouds could somehow navigate on their own seemed absurd. That they could bump up to high velocities more absurd still. Most had not accepted the idea until the one approaching Moonlight, the Brinkmann Cloud, had changed course, begun to slow down, and headed insystem. That was four years ago.

The claims had been so outlandish that nobody who cared about his reputation had even tested them. But once the Brinkmann showed its ability to navigate, researchers had come, and an attempt to explain the impossible had begun. It had begun with the discovery of nanos in samples taken from the omega.

Were the clouds natural objects? Or artificial? Did the universe disapprove of intelligent life? Or was there a psychotic force in existence somewhere? Or, as his parents had thought, was God sending a warning?

“You coming, Dave?”

They’d cut their way into the base of the northeastern tower, and Jerry Riley was standing aside, leaving for Dave the honor of being first person to enter the structure. He clapped a few shoulders, strode down between banks of dugout snow, paused at the entrance, put his head in, and flashed his lamp around.

The interior was as large as New York’s main terminal. The ceiling soared several stories. Benches were scattered throughout the area. Sleek metal columns supported balconies and galleries. Alcoves that might once have been shops were set into the walls. And there was a statue.