McGee nodded. "So you said in your letter to "Selle Laronde. What makes you think so?"

Eingardt appeared to be trying to say eight different things all at the same time. Finally he said, "Surely it"s obvious?"

"Not to me. Or Gabrielle."

"Well-look," said Eingardt in obvious frustration, "artifacts are not found outside of a cultural support matrix. At the simplest level, you don"t find metal artifacts without also finding some evidence of fire and smelting, you see? You don"t find sewn cloth without finding, at the least, bone needles. That sphere is the product of an advanced civilization, and it"svery old. Thirty-five thousand years ago there was no civilization on Earth. Ithas to be an alien artifact; no human civilization of the period was remotely capable of producing this sort of artifact. This sphere was buried during the final years of the Middle Paleolithic period. Blade tools were state of the art; weapons and tools made fromflint, Mister McGee. h.o.m.o sapiens Neanderthal hadn"t grown extinct yet. It was along time ago."

McGee nodded. "I think that"s Mademoiselle Laronde"s point. Thomas Jefferson once said he found it easier to believe that a couple of Yankee astronomers could he than to believe that rocks fell from the sky."

Doctor Eingardt said softly, "Rocksdo fall from the sky, Mister McGee."

The old man grinned at Eingardt; it had a distinctly evil tinge. "So they do. A team from O.T.A. will be by next week to pick this up from you." He spoke as Eingardt opened his mouth to protest. "Whatever else happens, you won"t see me again. Thank you for your time."

- 2 -.

Friday, February 27, 2072: "It"s avery slowtime field."

"Drink up," McGee urged the physicist cheerfully. "Tell me all about it."

Kevin Holtzmann was a stooped, lanky young British physicist. In the near two weeks since Holtzmann had taken over the investigation of the Val d"Entremont artifact, McGee had developed a genuine fondness for the man. Holtzmann had three earrings in his right ear and five in his left and his makeup tended toward the garish; it was often said that he did not look much like what he was, the finest non-AI physicist of his generation. Within his narrow areas of specialty the young man exhibited a penetrating intelligence McGee occasionally found discomfiting.

Fortunately Holtzmann drank. Socially and otherwise.

McGee and Holtzmann sat together in a quiet, dimly lit, red-leather-lined booth at a bistro on the outskirts of Paris. That the leather had come out of a genegineer"s tank rather than off the backs of animals did not disturb McGee particularly even when he allowed himself to think about it; his own liver, his right leg from the knee down, both of his eyes and all of his skin from head to toe, had also come out of the genegineer"s vats.

Holtzmann eyed the liquid left sitting in the bottom of his gla.s.s and knocked it back. "Well. I shouldn"t be telling you this, McGee-"

"I know. And I appreciate it."

"-and I don"t know why a Ministry Special Tasks agent would be interested anyway-"

McGee said mildly, "I"m a businessman, Kevin. I run a hotel. A restaurant."

Holtzmann nodded. "Of course. So what this means is, it"s not a hoax. It can"t be. What we have in this sphere is so remarkable I am-" Holtzmann paused, said precisely "-at something of a loss to explain it to you."

"Try," McGee suggested.

"Okay." Holtzmann waved at the waitbot hovering near the table, said, "Two more. Of the same," and turned back to McGee. "First, there"s no external power source. The slowtime fields we can make today, they run off external power sources. Say you place the power source inside the field; then when you turn the field on, the power source feeding the field immediately slows down as well. Follow? The slower the field you try to generate, the slower the power inside operates, and the less power it generates. Pretty d.a.m.n soon the slowtime field fails. Top sustained time to date is a bit over sixteen hours. McGee, we"ve known twenty, thirty years there should be a break-even point, where the field starts to look self-sustaining. To do this you needa fast power source and an incredibly slow slowtime field. Batteries won"t work. Fusion comes close, and MAM would be ideal; matter-antimatter annilation-annihilation,"

he said carefully, "puts out so much power that even a small power source, maybe the size of a football, could keep the slowtime sphere running for hundred of thousands of years before failing."

The waitbot placed a scotch before Holtzmann, a Simpatico beer in a smoky black bottle before McGee. It was one of the reasons McGee liked this bistro; it was the only place in Paris he knew where they would not try to serve him his beer in a bulb. Beads of condensation ran down the sides of the bottle; McGee ignored the gla.s.s placed before him and drank directly from the bottle. "Are you going to be able to open it?"

Holtzmann nodded slowly, fingering the nearly full tumbler. "I think so. Maybe. The d.a.m.n thing-McGee, it"sslow. We shot the f.u.c.ker with neutrinos. They bounced at eight nines, ninety-nine point nine nine nine nine nine nine percent reflection. We measured how many got through and calculated from that." The lanky physicist hesitated, said quietly, "They dated that sphere at about thirty-five thousand years of age when they dug it out of the Val d"Entremont. McGee, in those thirty-five thousand years, about three minutes has pa.s.sed inside that sphere."

McGee said slowly, "Oh." He paused. "That"s-interesting."

Holtzmann nodded. "It is. Were all wondering what we"re. going to find inside the d.a.m.n thing."

McGee sat up straighter. "You know how to open it?"

"We think so. Pop it inside another slowtime field.We can"t make a slowtime field that runs inside another slowtime field. It"s not theoretically impossible, but we cant begin to do it. Some of the equations get-silly. Probably whoever made this one couldn"t do it either. We"re arranging to use the Tytan Labs slowtime field, the one in Switzerland. It"s a private lab but it"s partially funded by the Unification. Marc Packard-you know him?"

"No."

"Chairman of Tytan Industries, parent company of Tytan Labs. And Tytan Manufacturing, and half a dozen other Tytan subsidiaries. We need his permission to clear all his people out of Complex B, where their field is located. It"s the biggest slowtime field in the System, McGee. Not the slowest one, not by a bit-there"s a tiny field out in the Belt that"s almost as slow as the sphere we found up in the mountains-but it"s the only one that"s near big enough to enclose the sphere. We"re going to take a Peaceforcer Elite, put him in a pressure suit, and put him and the sphere together inside the Tytan field.

The pressure suit"s in case there are viruses, poisonous air, anything of that sort, inside the sphere."

Holtzmann smiled a bit shakily. "Do you understand slowtime physics at all?"

McGee snorted.

"Right. Well." Holtzmann was silent for a long time, drinking steadily. Finally he looked up at McGee.

"We think we can give the Elite forty-five seconds inside the sphere, over the s.p.a.ce of a week external time. a.s.suming Packard comes through, a.s.suming we know s.h.i.t-all about what the G.o.dd.a.m.n sphere is in the first place and we"re not dealing with something else entirely-a.s.suming all that," he said, gulping back the tumbler"s remnants, "we"re going to open it on Thursday."

- 3 -

The alien slowtime sphere squatted, cold and aloof, in the center of Tytan Industries Experimental Complex B, the long, poorly lit, converted hangar that enclosed the largest slowtime field on Earth.

Wearing a black and silver official issue PKF pressure unit, PKF Elite Sergeant Samuel De Nostri sat alone on a bench at one end of Complex B. The p-suit"s helmet sat on the bench next to him.

Other Peaceforcers stood duty throughout the Complex, a pair at every entrance and a squad with Excalibur multi-frequency rifles guarding the alien slowtime sphere. But the guards were under orders of silence toward one another, and particularly toward De Nostri himself.

Despite the poor quality of the light, De Nostri, like the other PKF Elite present, saw well. His eyes were not the eyes he had been born with twenty-seven years ago; they were, in almost every respect, far superior. In his cyborg eyes, the sphere, mirrored to begin with, glowed as though with an internal flame.

He tried not to look at the row of medbots waiting off to his right. The implication of their presence disturbed him.

He tried just as hard not to look at the half dozen Unification officials-PKF, Ministry, and both a webdancer and Hand from the Secretary General"s office-on the observation platform off to his left. He knew a couple of them; McGee was a Ministry of Population Control agent, Special Tasks, and the Hand was Alexander Moreau, grandson of Jules Moreau, and an intimate of Secretary General Eddore.

He tried very hard indeed not to look at Elite Commissionaire Mohammed Vance, watching him from up on the platform. De Nostri had not known, had not been told by Vance when they requested that he volunteer, just what he was volunteering for. It was understood that the offer was an honor, extended to him because of his record and his family-his uncle was the late Jean-Louis de Nostri, the most famous French genegineer of the century-and Samuel had not hesitated in accepting.

Now that hedid know he did not like it at all.

There could be anything inside the d.a.m.ned alien field, anything at all. The night prior Samuel had awoken from sleep with the memory of a story he had been told as a child, the tale of the jinn in the bottle.

He was a creature of great power, the jinn, and after a thousand years in the bottle he had decided to grant three great wishes to whoever unstopped the bottle and let him out.

After two thousand years he had decided to serve forever whoever unstopped the bottle and let him out.

After three thousand years, the jinn had decided to spend the rest of all time torturing the luckless b.a.s.t.a.r.d who let him out of the bottle.

Samuel De Nostri had spent most of the morning trying to shake the memory of that story.

Kevin Holtzmann said, "Up on the platform, stand on the mark."

Samuel De Nostri took three steps up and two steps forward. It brought him past the line where the black pylons would generate the enclosing field. The mark Holtzmann referred to was simply a piece of tape hastily placed on the platform"s gleaming clean surface.

It left him staring at the mirrored surface of the alien slowtime field from a distance of only thirty centimeters. His bloated, deformed features loomed back at him like something out of a funhouse mirror.

"Helmet on."

De Nostri locked his helmet in place with the ease of long practice. It was one of the reasons he had been asked to volunteer for this duty; he had spent a three-year tour of duty at Halfway and the habits of a pressure suit were second nature to him. The sounds of the outer world ceased; De Nostri felt a faint vibration as the airplant kicked in. His peripheral vision vanished, to be replaced by the helmet"s indicators. With the loss of his peripheral vision the sphere became the only thing in his world, the only object visible to him.

On the indicator at the far right of his field of vision, a red7 appeared. The top six channels were standard pressure suit frequencies. Channels seven and eight were reserved for use by the PKF, and only PKF pressure suits even had them; nine through twelve were private s.p.a.ce Force channels.

De Nostri said,"Command, on seven." The deep rumble of PKF Elite Commissionaire Mohammed Vance"s voice reached De Nostri"s ears a moment later.

"Samuel."

"Sir."

"Remember that you are representing the interests and the reputation of the Peace Keeping Force. Keep your head and do nothing foolish."

"Yes, sir."

"I trust my choice of you for this task will not be proven a mistake. "Sieur Holtzmann is waiting to speak to you on channel three."

De Nostri frowned. "Yes, sir.Command, on three."

The chief scientist"s voice, harsh and grating, invaded De Nostri"s helmet. In English. "Ready to rock?"

De Nostri"s English was poor, and there was no translator software buffering the radio link between himself and Holtzmann; it took him a few seconds to translate the foreign words. "If I understand you, yes. I think so. You-do you speak French, "Sieur Holtzmann?"

"Of course."

"Please do."

There was a moment of complete silence before the sound of Holtzmann"s dry chuckle came. He spoke in unaccented French. "As you wish. We are at a minute and thirty seconds. I will count down by fives starting at thirty seconds. Once the enclosing slowtime field establishes, the slowtime sphere should fail almost instantaneously. Remember that the most important thing for you to do is turn off the sphere"s field generator if you recognize it and can figure out how. Donot damage it; the generator probably runs off a MAM reaction, and the last thing in the world I want to do is turn off the field a week from now and find out some kind of nuke has gone off inside."

"It would be the last thing you would do," De Nostri observed.

Standing five meters away in front of the slowtime control console, Holtzmann blinked in surprise-PKF Elite were not known for their sense of humor-and then grinned a bit wearily. "Yeah. If you don"t get the generator turned off, make sure you"re as far away from it as possible at the end of forty-five. When our field goes off, the sphere will come back on. Okay, counting down to field activation at... thirty seconds... twenty-five..."

De Nostri found the incredibly strong transform-virus-enhanced muscles in his stomach tightening uncontrollably, painfully.

"... twenty..."

Deep breaths. The nanocomputer at the base of De Nostri"s skull noticed the surge of adrenaline and activated the programed combat routines; De Nostri was forced to override it when the nanocomputer tried to turn on the lasers buried in the tips of his index fingers. He imagined, and forced back the" image, of having to explain to Commissionaire Vance why he had blasted a hole in his own pressure suit.

"... ten..."

In fifty-jive seconds,thought Samuel De Nostri,a week will have pa.s.sed.

"...four... three... two... one..."

At the last instant De Nostri remembered to turn his headlights on.

"Now."

The clock at the left of De Nostri"s helmet flickered once and then said45 in sharp red letters.

The world vanished in a brilliant white blaze.

He found himself trapped in a small shining place.

The cubical Tytan Labs slowtime field barely enclosed the alien sphere. De Nostri stood with the Tytan Labs field at his back, over his head, and beneath his feet. The Tytan field enclosed the platform he had been standing on; the platform, cut free from Complex B"s floor, felt suddenly unsteady, as though it floated free. The only light came from his headlamps, but between the mirrored interior of the Tytan slowtime field and the mirrored exterior of the alien sphere it was so bright that his helmet"s faceplate, after a second, darkened to compensate.

The clock said43.

Nothing happened. De Nostri reached out a gloved hand, ran his fingers over the slick surface of the sphere.38 now, and the sphere sat on its supporting ring, motionless, unchanged. Was nothinggoing to happen?

De Nostri drew his hand back from the surface of the sphere and blinked in surprise when a foot kicked him in the face.

The sphere was gone. Suddenly there was lots of free s.p.a.ce and De Nostri"s combat routines used it without waiting to see what De Nostri thought about it; his body pushed backward with one foot, twisted and bounced off the interior upper surface of the Tytan slowtime field and came down crouched, balancing on the tips of its fingers, as far away from the thrashing form of the-person-as it was able to get.

It took De Nostri a startled moment to realize he had not been attacked. About a meter away from him a man having a seizure thrashed against the platforms spotless surface. De Nostri could hear the man"s screaming even through the p-suit he wore. Tiny details crowded in on De Nostri all at once, impossibly vivid.29. The man was vaguely Latin in appearance, with olive-colored skin. Blood ran from his nose and there was foam on his lips. He was dressed all over in furs that reminded De Nostri, absurdly, of a mountain man of the old American West.

There was no machinery, nothing like the generator De Nostri had been told to look for.

Something gleamed in the man"s right hand. At22 seconds De Nostri lunged forward, grabbed the man"s right wrist with both hands and planted his right foot in the pit of the man"s arm. With fingers made clumsy by pressure-suit gloves De Nostri attempted to pry the device, whatever it was, from the death grip with which the man held it. De Nostri felt bones snapping in the man"s wrist, fingers breaking as his incredibly strong cyborg hands pulled the device free.

With the gadget in hand his combat programing would not allow him to stay near a source of possible danger; one leap took him back to the edge of the Tytan slowtime field, as far from the convulsing, fur-wearing person as he could get.

The clock at the right side of De Nostri"s helmet said 5.

De Nostri looked at the device blankly. It was remarkably heavy given its size, about twenty kilograms; a significant weight even for his transform-virus-enhanced muscles. A long oval thing with a pair of smooth, oval indentations at one end; presumably touching one indentation turned the device on, and touching another turned it off. But which one?

He was still wondering when the clock said 0. The Tytan slowtime field broke apart and for an impossibly short moment De Nostri saw several dozen pressure-suited figures watching him as he stood there up on the platform.

And then the alien slowtime sphere reformed.

Around him.

During the week De Nostri spent inside the Tytan slowtime field, a three-layer decontamination tent grew around the gleaming, mirror-surfaced cube of the field. The decontamination procedures Kevin Holtzmann had requested, and received, were the same precautions used in dealing with nanotechnology and genegeneering, two sciences where small mistakes might have very far-reaching consequences. A series of three airlocks, with decontamination required between each airlock, separated the slowtime field from the hangar in which it had been generated. The scientists inside the tent all wore sterilized pressure suits.

To the extent that it was possible, every eventuality had been prepared for. Four medbots waited at the edge of the platform; if De Nostri came out of the field harmed in any way, the finest medical technology in the System would be waiting to heal him.

The decontamination tent reached up to within a few meters of the hangar"s ceiling, outward to within a few meters of the observation platform. Despite his curiosity, and Holtzmann"s invitation to join the working scientists inside the tent, McGee had opted for a position on the observation platform with the other government observers. Which was, after all, what he was-even if he didn"t feel like one.