Chapter 16Newin found himself hovering on the fringes of the anxious and noisy crowd of Council Members that had squeezed into the long-range monitoring room.
Ersand and Taithur were studying the control panel, Ersand speaking quietly on IFT to the Duty Officer in the main control room. Abruptly an elaborate display appeared in the frame above the panel and all eyes turned to this from the still flickering warning light.
Ersand peered into it intently. “More magnification,” he said, and the display started to expand outwards as if it were about to burst out of the limits of its frame. Dots and symbols and lines grew and vanished from the display with increasing rapidity and for a moment Newin felt as though he were falling into a great pit. He turned his face slightly, so that he could s
