Soleri examined the card with interest. He made a rough sketch of it on paper, plotting the points of the series of tests and joining them with a free-hand curve. He was so intent on the task that he failed to notice that the office door had opened the width of a man’s hand. Talbot wouldn’t have noticed either, had he not turned at that precise instant to get a better view of the sketch and seen the hand in the crack. The hand threw a small dark object on the floor, then whipped back quickly. The door closed. Talbot’s reactions were good but not good enough. He jogged Soleri’s elbow. “What’s that?” he said uneasily, indicating the object. It was round and dark, hard to distinguish on the floor. It took Soleri a second to see it--a second too long. “Get down,” he shouted, shoving Talbot behind the desk. The action threw Soleri offbalance and he fell the wrong way. He scrambled frantically for the protection of the desk but only his hand with the wallet still in it reached the merciful shadow. A chaotic sound echoed somewhere near Talbot. He’d never heard anything like it. He didn’t have time to wonder where it came from because it was followed by another louder sound. Instinctively he closed his eyes as an incandescent sheet of flame whipped across the room. It was accompanied by a vast thermal concussion which blotted out all sound. Take a tiny piece of the interior of the Sun--not the center, but somewhere between that and the visible outer portion--and wrap it with unimaginable insulation. Transport it to an office and strip away the covering in a microsecond. Within a limited area the explosion was even more frightful than that. At first the desk shielded Talbot. In the intolerable light paint and pictures were burned from the wall. Chairs disappeared and the fireproof floor bubbled and vaporized. By the time the thick steel and thermoplastic desk collapsed in ashes around Talbot’s body the tiny speck of matter had dissipated most of its energy and there was only fire to fear. Clouds of steam came from the ceiling as the sprinkler system went into action. It didn’t function well because most of it had been melted away in the first blast. Nevertheless water gushed out and turned to steam. Talbot struggled to get out. But he was badly burned. Steam and smoke were searing his lungs, and a section of the ceiling had peeled off and fallen on his legs, pinning him to the floor. He saw a hand, all that was left of Soleri, clutching the wallet. And then he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see or feel anything at all. III A dim, slender figure swirled dizzily in front of him. He hoped she was a nurse, but he could only see the flowing whiteness of her as she moved to the door. “You can come in, Miss Farrell,” she said. Miss Farrell came in. She was better known to Talbot as Randy, and close up she was even more breathtaking than when he had first seen her. His vision was steadying a little now.