The Prologue briefly establishes that the following story is “classified top secret” (8). Anyone who views the files without the required security clearance could be imprisoned and fined.

Lieutenant Roger Shawn stands by the side of the road near Piedmont, Arizona, on a winter night. He peers through the binoculars at the quiet town and the empty countryside around it. Spotting nothing, he returns to his van. The vehicle is filled with scientific instruments and a technician named Lewis Crane. They discuss the measurements as they search for a Project Scoop satellite. The Project Scoop satellites are mysterious devices containing secret capsules “intended to analyze the upper atmosphere” and then return to Earth (12). Shawn and Crane track down the satellites that return. Their most recent search has brought them to Piedmont, and their instruments suggest the satellite may be in the town. Birds circle strangely over the town buildings. The men joke nervously about the situation.

Three hundred miles away, in the Project Scoop headquarters, Lieutenant Edgar Comroe works the night shift but does not like his dull job. He monitors the progress of the men in Piedmont while reading medical journals to keep up with his professional interest in the effects of high-G accelerations on the human body.