It astounded him that it had been just a point of light seen from Orbitech 1.Karen’s voice came over the radio. “Ramis, the Doppler has pegged you five hundred yards from the Kibalchich. You’ll feel some tension in the weavewire as we help slow you down.”Ramis mumbled an acknowledgment but continued to stare at the giant construction.The Soviet station looked like a huge doughnut with four thick spokes radiating away from a small central sphere—the command center, most likely, which would be at zero gravity. Thinner support struts extended between the thick spokes.Above the center of the torus, connected by a long, cylindrical shaft, floated an aluminized mirror, nearly invisible except where it reflected a smear of sunlight down into a central network of angled mirrors that, in turn, directed light into the station. The central shaft seemed able to swivel and point the mirror in different directions, perhaps to focus incoming energy toward different spots on the Kibalchich. In the zero-G environment it puzzled Ramis that the Soviets would expend so much unnecessary mass and reinforcement on a structure that would hang in place by itself.The central shaft extended through the hub and out the bottom in a long, antenna-like prong.
