“About two hundred microseconds. It’s the two-way signal travel time through thirty kilometers of cable. Can you handle it?”

“I will become accustomed to it.” Tally reached up again, and closed the suit helmet. “There. I am airtight. Does that complete our rehearsal?”

“Almost. I’m happy with all the moves that involve you, but I want to check my own suit and then take us to vacuum and back. I’ll do it once you’re unwired. Hold still while I switch you, then in a few minutes we’ll try the whole thing for real.”

Rebka opened Tally’s helmet and performed the operation in reverse. He hinged the skull forward and pulled the neural connector out of the body’s hindbrain. He freed Tally’s brain from the other end of the fiber optic cable and plugged it once more into its hindbrain socket. Finally he clicked the cranium back to its original position.

“Here we are again.” E.C. Tally lifted one suited hand, then the other. “No anomalies. What next?”

“Close your helmet. I’m going to take us to vacuum.”

Rebka waited until his own suit was on and they both had their helmets locked in position. He cycled the air pressure down to zero, then slid open the hatch. They could see Paradox through the opening. It sat only a few tens of meters away, a shimmering bubble seemingly close enough to touch.

“Do you mind if I examine the artifact from outside the ship?” E.C. Tally was floating toward the hatch.

“Go ahead. Check the E/M field intensities while you’re there, but make sure you don’t get into trouble with the Lotus field. And remember the cable’s attached to your helmet, if not to your head, so don’t get tangled up.”

Tally nodded. He picked up a portable field recorder and drifted out, cable unreeling behind him. Hans did not move. They were ready to start, but there was no hurry. He had survived in the past by being ultra-cautious. He wanted to review everything mentally one last time.

The steps seemed clear and simple:

 Remove Tally’s brain, which would stay here with him.

 Connect brain and body through the neural cable.

 Allow Tally’s body to enter and explore Paradox, remotely controlled through the cable.

They knew from a previous experience that this would work in a Lotus field, although it had been tried only over short distances. This time E.C. could in principle go all the way to the center of Paradox. Rebka wasn’t sure he was that ambitious. If Tally could bring something — anything — back from the Paradox interior, they would be breaking new ground.

And if something went wrong? Rebka couldn’t think what it might be. At worst, they would lose one spacesuit, plus E.C. Tally’s current body. That would be unfortunate, but Tally’s brain had been re-embodied once before. If necessary, it could be returned to Miranda and embodied again.

Rebka took a deep breath. Time to begin. Where was Tally? He had been outside for a long time.

As though he had been summoned, Tally in his spacesuit came floating in through the hatch, cable reeling in ahead of him. He watched as Rebka brought the cabin back to normal air pressure. Both of them opened their helmets and Rebka began to strip off his suit.

“Before you remove your suit completely,” E.C. Tally raised a gloved hand, “I want to be sure that I understand the reason for the procedure that you propose to follow.”

Hans couldn’t believe his ears. They had just reviewed the whole thing. In detail.

Was it possible — he had a sudden awful suspicion — was it possible that E.C. Tally had done what he had just been repeatedly warned not to do, and entered the Lotus field?

“Did you go into Paradox while you were outside?”

“A little way, yes.”

“Against my strict instructions!”

“No.” Tally was unabashed.

“Yes it was. You dummy, I told you not to go into Paradox.”

“No. You told me not to get into trouble with the Lotus field. And I did not.” Tally came floating forward, and hovered in front of Rebka. “I want to understand the reason for the procedure that we will follow, because it may be irrelevant. Perhaps you and I have had a basic misunderstanding. Are you sure that the artifact waiting outside the hatch is indeed the one known as Paradox?”

“Of course it’s Paradox. You watched me fly us here. Have you gone crazy?”

“I am not sure.” Tally put down the recorder that he was holding. “Maybe we both have. But I am quite sure of one thing. The object alongside which this ship is floating, whatever it is, does not possess a Lotus field at its surface.”

They went outside in their suits. Hans Rebka was hair-trigger nervous, ready to accuse Tally of every kind of irresponsible behavior, until the embodied computer explained.

“The electromagnetic field readings of the recorder appeared too low. And they decreased, as I came closer to the surface of Paradox.” He was holding the little recorder in one gloved hand. “I wondered if the decrease would continue, beyond the surface of Paradox. It would be easy enough to check. All I had to do was use my suit’s extensor to place the recorder within the visible surface. So.”

Tally attached the recorder to the extensible grip in the suit’s forearm, and began to reach out toward the shimmering wall of Paradox.

“Wait!” Rebka grabbed at the extensor. “The recorder has its own computer and internal programs. The Lotus field will wipe everything — you’ll ruin the recorder.”

“I realized that, when the idea first came to me. However, I decided that I would easily be able to restore the recorder memory; use of the recorder as a probe could tell us exactly how far within Paradox the Lotus field began. I therefore continued with the experiment.” The extensible arm carried the recorder forward, until it met the chromatic swirl of Paradox’s surface. It vanished beyond. “I tried this several times, increasing the degree of extension and then bringing the recorder back to examine it, until the arm was at its maximum stretch of fifteen meters. As it is now.”

Tally floated with the gloved hand of his suit just half a meter away from the rainbow wall of shifting soap-bubble colors.

“And I brought it back.”

The little motor in the extensor unit hummed, and the recorder re-emerged from beyond the shining boundary. E.C. Tally turned, so that Hans Rebka could see the face of the recorder. Numbers glowed on its display.

“Ambient field values.” Tally touched another key. “Exactly consistent with the values obtained before the recorder went inside Paradox. The recorder programs should have been erased beyond the Paradox surface. But it appears to be working perfectly.”

“So the Lotus field does not take effect within fifteen meters of the surface. It’s deeper.”

That was not consistent with the earlier data that Hans had memorized. Also, E.C. Tally was shaking his head. “I had that thought. I therefore considered another test. The recorder results suggested that I could proceed up to fifteen meters into Paradox, without encountering a Lotus field. Even if such a field proved to be present, I could detect the onset of loss of data within myself and return safely. I therefore moved twelve meters inside Paradox—”

“Crazy!”

“ — and found myself enveloped by rainbow colors. At that point I again used the extensor to advance the recorder another fifteen meters. And since it was not affected there by any sign of a Lotus field, I moved another dozen meters. Then another. Then another. Then another.”

“Tally. Get to the point. How far did you get?”

“Not far, in terms of the whole distance to the center of Paradox. I explored only a hundred and twenty-eight meters beyond the surface. However, there was no sign of a Lotus field. Also, I was able to do what I believe no other explorer of Paradox has ever done and returned to tell of it. I went beyond the rainbow wall. I could see all the way to the center of Paradox.”