Or at least that had been the original plan. In practice, its sweep was limited to the Blue part of the ring that began at Dhaka and ran westward about two-thirds of the way around the ring to the fringe of the Julian segment. At both of those locations, barriers—literal turnpikes, consisting of long splinters of nickel-iron laid directly across the ring—had been constructed by Red to physically block movement of the Eye into "their" segment. So instead of sweeping around like the hand of a clock, it bounced back and forth between the turnpikes, confining itself to Blue habitats. During the ensuing century and a half, Red had been at work on something huge that appeared to be an anti-Eye in the making, and that would presumably sweep back and forth, in like manner, over their segment. But it had never budged from its geostationary orbit above the Makassar Strait, and no one in Blue really knew how soon it might become operational.