Artemis raised his V-gloved hands, and holographic snow rained upon them.

“Snow,” he said, the blizzard swirling around him. “No one would be surprised by snow.”

Foaly was on his feet. “Magnify,” he ordered. “Magnify and enhance.”

Artemis tapped a holographic flake, freezing it in midair. With a couple of pinches he enlarged the ersatz flake until its irregularity became clear. It was irregularly regular, a perfect circle.

“A nano-wafer,” said Foaly, forgetting for once to hide how impressed he was. “An honest-to-gods nano-wafer. Smart?”

“Extremely,” confirmed Artemis. “Smart enough to know which way is up when it hits the surface and configure itself to insulate the ice and reflect the sun.”

“So we impregnate the cloud province?”

“Exactly, to its capacity.”

Foaly clopped into the holographic weather. “Then when it ruptures, we have coverage.”

“Incremental, true, but effective nonetheless.”

“Mud Boy, I salute you.”

Artemis smiled, his old self for a moment. “Well, it’s about time.”

Vinyáya interrupted the science lovefest. “Let me see if I’ve got this straight: you shoot these wafers into the clouds and then they come down with the snow?”

“Precisely. We could shoot them directly on to the surface in dire cases, but I think for security it would be best to have the seeders hovering and shielded above the cloud cover.”

“And you can do this?”

“We can do it. The Council would have to approve an entire fleet of modified shuttles, not to mention a monitoring station.”

Holly thought of something. “These wafers don’t look much like snowflakes. Sooner or later some human with a microscope is going to notice the difference.”

“Good point, Holly. Perhaps I shouldn’t lump you in with the rest of the LEP as regards intellect.”

“Thanks, I think.”