Frank Marquard studied the photo with a professionally appraising glance. When he said, “He’s right,” Irv knew that any chance to overturn Bragg’s decision was gone.

So did his wife. “All fight, Emmett,” Sarah said. “But if they don’t trust us once we’re all down on Minerva, they’ll have reason now.”

“They don’t trust us now,” Bragg answered. “And you know what? I don’t trust them, either. That’s all right. The best way to deal with ‘em is to keep one hand on your wallet. That way you never lose track of where it is.”

Sarah snorted. The Marquards went back to the labs in the rear section of Athena to return to whatever they had been doing. And when Tolmasov called from the Tsiolkovsky, nobody said anything about code groups.

When she and her husband were in the almost privacy of their cubicle, though, Sarah Levitt said, “I still don’t like it, Irv. Not just that we didn’t tell the Russians, but that word about the changed coordinates came through today the way it did. It just seems too pat somehow.”

“I know what you mean,” he said. “That bothers me, too. It’s almost as if Houston’s known all along that the coordinates they gave out to everybody weren’t the right ones, and just decided now to let us in on it.”

He had meant the words as a joke, but once out they had an appalling ring of probability to them. He felt Sarah’s slim frame stiffen. “I wish you hadn’t said that,” she told him. “I don’t- want to believe it.”

“Likely it isn’t true,” he said, though he doubted that himself.

“Give me one good reason why not.” Sarah’s tone said she did not believe he could come up with one.

But he did. “When was the last time the United States was able to hang on to a secret for thirteen years?”