just a few seconds it collapsed, the stone falling away and revealing a ten-foot-square passage into the night air. Once the dust had cleared, I could see, outside this gaping hole, what appeared to be a metallic wall about three feet from the violated stone edifice of the visitors' building; and over the insistent humming I began to make out the sound of gunshots coming from the prison yard below.
'It's all right, Dr. Wolfe!' I became conscious of Kuperman saying through the amplified intercom. 'Don't worry! But try to get under one of those tables, will you?'
Once again my prompt observance of Kuperman's order saved me from being severely injured, this time by flying fragments of the transparent partition that had divided us. When I emerged from under the table and returned to Kuperman, I found him waving an arm and urging me to climb over the remains of the partition and join him. I did so, only to find myself faced by Kuperman's guard as well as a second officer. Both had their guns drawn, prompting Kuperman to turn to his man and cry out earnestly:
'Mr. Sweeney! Please! You don't really think that's going to do any good, do you? If you and Mr. Farkas leave now, I promise no harm will—'
Before Kuperman could finish we were presented with yet another extraordinary sight: the sudden delineation, by a series of small green lights, of a doorway in the metal surface outside the hole in the building's wall. Then, with a decompressing hiss, the door opened rapidly; in fact, it seemed to my eyes to almost disappear. Beyond the vanished portal was a dimly lit corridor in which stood a group of figures: four male, one quite distinctly female. The men wore coveralls; the woman was sheathed in a gray bodysuit that clung to her with what I might, under other circumstances, have called enticing tenacity.
With marvelous agility the young woman leapt through the three feet of open air and into the prison, the light of the room making two extraordinary things immediately apparent: first, the straight, chin-length hair that framed her delicate features was a strange silver color; and second, she held in her hands a device — presumably a weapon — that was obviously more complex and sophisticated than any handgun I'd ever seen.
The woman trained the device first on one officer and then on the other. Kuperman's man, Sweeney, had the good sense to drop his gun and head for the still intact doorway out of the room. But the second guard, Farkas, was foolish enough to let off a round from his pistol, even though his apparent fear made an accurate shot impossible. The bullet struck the wall above the woman, and she ducked for an instant; then she fixed her dark eyes on the guard with what seemed as much amusement as anger. Leveling the device in her hands at the man, she appeared on the verge of firing; but then she suddenly turned and trained the weapon on a desk that sat near the room's exit. She pulled what looked like a trigger, and then, without much of a sound, the desk was bombarded by a series of high-speed projectiles, reducing it to mere bits.
Had it been the guard's body she'd targeted, it would have completely disintegrated — just as John Price's had done.
Sensibly accepting this warning, the guard Farkas dropped his automatic and raced for the exit. Once he was gone, the woman pointed her weapon in the air, shifted her shapely weight to one side, and smiled at Kuperman and me.
'Doctors,' she said with a nod. Then she touched the high collar of her bodysuit. 'It's all right,' she said, looking at the ceiling. 'I've got them.' Turning to us again, she nodded toward the hole in the wall. 'I hate to rush you, Eli, but—'
'Rush me all you want, Larissa!' Kuperman shouted, bolting for the broken wall and then leaping through it and into the metal doorway beyond. 'Hurry, Dr. Wolfe!' he called once he was safely aboard what I now realized must be some sort of vehicle or vessel.
'Yes, do hurry, Dr. Wolfe,' the woman said, approaching me coyly. 'My brother's been anxious to meet you — and so have I.' She studied my face and smiled in a puzzled, slightly amused way. 'You're not quite as attractive in person as in your author's photo, are you?'
Still stunned, I could only say, 'Who is?' which prompted the woman to laugh delightedly and seize my hand.
'Can you make the jump?' she said. 'Or do you want us to maneuver closer?'
I shook my head, finally getting a grip on myself. 'I can make it,' I answered. 'But what—?'
'The jump first,' she answered, pulling me at a run toward the hole in the wall. 'After that, everything will make a
And with her delicate but strong hand holding mine, I leapt out over the narrow corridor of open air beyond the prison wall, leaving the world and reality as I had always known them behind me forever.
CHAPTER 7
It was cold inside the vessel, a chill made all the more cutting by its contrast to the muggy Florida night and the stale closeness of the visitors' room in the prison. Even before I'd straightened up after landing on the gently heaving deck of the ship, I began shivering; and just as I became aware that I was, the same hand that had guided me through the jump began to rub my back.
'Bit of a shock, isn't it?' said the young woman Eli Kuperman had called Larissa. I stood and looked into her enormous black eyes, which formed such a distinct contrast to the oddly beautiful silver of the hair above and around them; already a bit smitten, I could only nod agreement to her assessment. Unspoken curiosity must, however, have been all over my face — why, I was thinking, would anyone capable of building such a vessel choose to exist in such an uncomfortable atmosphere? — because the woman quickly went on to explain: 'My brother's gotten closer than anyone to creating superconductors that can operate at living temperatures — but we still have to keep most of the ship below forty-five Fahrenheit.' She tucked her remarkable weapon into a holster that was slung on her left side, gave me that bewitching smirk, then looped an arm through one of mine. 'You
Before I could find the words to ask just where we were, Eli Kuperman stuck his engaging, bespectacled face between us, grinning wide and then tugging at one of the men in coveralls who'd been waiting in the hatchway during our escape. The second man's face was nearly identical to Kuperman's, although he wore steel-, rather than tortoiseshell-, rimmed spectacles: this, apparently, was the archaeologist twin brother of whom Max's Internet search had failed to produce any mention.
'Dr. Wolfe,' Eli Kuperman said happily. 'I see you've met Larissa already. And this is my brother, Jonah —'
Jonah Kuperman extended a hand, his manner every bit as engaging at his brother's. 'Dr. Wolfe, it's a pleasure. We've been looking forward to your coming. Your book's been all the talk aboard ship for the last few weeks—'
'And back there,' Eli said, indicating the two men farther along the corridor, 'are Dr. Leon Tarbell, the documents expert' — I shook the hand of a small, wiry man in his middle years, whose red eyes glowed hot even when he smiled—'and Professor Julien Fouche, the molecular biologist.' At that a well-built, gray-bearded man of sixty or so stepped forward, causing my heart to skip one or two beats: an understandable reaction on meeting a man who not only was one of the seminal minds of our era but was supposed to have been killed in a plane crash four years earlier.
'It can't be,' I whispered, shaking his big, very vital hand. 'You — you're dead!'
'Not so dead as all that,' Fouche answered with a gruff laugh. 'A necessary ruse to explain my sudden disappearance. My work with Malcolm and Larissa was becoming quite exclusive, and uncomfortable questions were being asked—'
'All right, gentlemen,' Larissa said. 'You'll have time for mutual admiration later. Right now we'd better be on our collective toes.' The others nodded and began to move purposefully away. 'Prep the turret, Eli!' Larissa called after them. 'I'll be right up! Leon — we'll want full power for combat maneuvers!'
Leon Tarbell's head reappeared for an instant. ' 'Combat,' Larissa?' he asked with a knowing look. 'Don't you mean
Larissa smiled deviously, and then Tarbell dashed off, looking for all the world like one of Satan's merrier minions.
As the men moved to attend to their tasks, each of them began shouting orders and answers, the whole
