Isaacs dropped his head onto his hand, replaying in his thoughts a fortnight of increasing agony. He had never met the man, but followed the progress, through messages such as these, as his hair fell out and the pain turned his guts to liquid fire.

Isaacs finally looked up at Kathleen and nodded to her. She gave his shoulder a brief, hesitant pat, and then left.

Isaacs finally cleared his throat and raised his voice above the hubbub of muted conversations.

'Excuse me!' He waited until he had their attention. 'I just got a note from Walter Reed Hospital. Major Edward Jupp died an hour ago from radiation poisoning.'

Everyone in the room lowered their eyes from Isaacs and did little things with whatever objects lay immediately in front of them.

'It's late Sunday. None of us have seen our families in a while. We've accomplished a lot in the last few days, and this rocket's not going anywhere,' he gestured at the photograph of Curly before him. 'Let's break and get a good night's rest. We'll hit it again tomorrow.'

A riffle of shuffling and glances passed around the table. Despite the fatigue, putting down such an all-consuming task was not easy. Finally Martinelli spoke.

'Damn good idea. I came just that close to ordering up a new photo of the grounds in my coffee cup.' He turned to his aide. 'Let's just leave these in the piles as we have them,' he pointed at the stacks of sorted photographs. 'Lord knows there'll be a fresh batch tomorrow.' He got up and stretched.

Slowly the other groups around the table began to arrange their material so that they could pick up again in the morning. They filed out one at a time, disoriented by the need to cease the intense effort and think of home and rest. Isaacs sat staring at the top of Curly's head. He finally realized that everyone had left but Danielson. She moved over and sat down next to him.

'I'm sorry about Jupp,' she said, her voice throaty. Isaacs nodded and looked at her, not quite seeing. Finally she spoke again. 'Do you have enough energy to give me some advice?'

Isaacs rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands and worked his shoulders. 'I can try.' He gave her a wan smile. 'I have this vague feeling I'm not at the peak of efficiency.'

Her voice was apologetic. 'I'm sorry to trouble you, but I have a conflict. Maybe you can help me resolve it. I've been spending a fair bit of time on that seismic signal you asked me to investigate. I had to drop that when this rush came up, of course. The problem is the people I've been working with at the Cambridge Research Lab. They know I've got an emergency down here, but they don't know what or how severe. They've assembled seismic data from a lot of universities and apparently feel there is significant new information in it, more thorough coverage. They've been pressuring me to go back up and work on it, as I originally promised. I don't quite know what to tell them. Should I tell them to put the whole flung on indefinite hold? Should I try to get up there for a little while if we can see a break here? I'm not sure how I should respond, but I don't think I should just keep putting them off.'

Isaacs thought for a moment. His pleasant days in Florida seemed another era, another world. 'We're going to be at this until the launch, a month, six weeks, several months if they get hung up somehow. Then a different show once it's in orbit. On the other hand, we're over a hump here in terms of sorting the procedures at the launch site.' He looked at her intently. 'Saris has been particularly pleased with your work, by the way, thinks you have a real flair for isolating important ingredients in the photos.'

Danielson smiled in pleasure.

'That means you're especially valuable to us on this project, but we can't keep going with the intensity we have the last four days, and shouldn't have to. If you took a break to do something else, you might come back fresher. How would you feel about that?'

'I understand how crucial this effort is, but I'm just one member of the team and I'm still fascinated by this seismic thing.' She looked at him, searching his eyes. 'I'd hate to see it dropped.'

He pushed back in his chair. 'Let me talk to Saris. See if he thinks he can spare you. We'll have a better feeling of developments by midweek. Maybe we can work in a break for you.'

'Thank you. I'd like that. I'll hold the Lab at bay and check with you later in the week.'

She rose and left the room at a surprisingly fresh pace. Isaacs picked up the picture of Curly between his index and middle finger and sailed it gently to the middle of the conference table, a thousand dollar frisbee, one of several hundred stacked around the room. He checked that the door was locked on his way out, bid good evening to the security guard posted outside, and headed for his office, picturing a tall drink and cool, soothing sheets.

Sometime after lunch in the middle of May, Pat Danielson paced down the long central corridor which carried her through the multi-numbered interconnected buildings of MIT. She barely recalled catching the ride from the lab in Lexington into Cambridge. With little sleep in the last three days, she felt the hollow tension of deep fatigue. Atop that fundamental, like frosting on a cake, rode the giddy feeling of accomplishment that accompanies an intellectual breakthrough. That feeling provided the motive force that directed her numb legs to maintain a reasonable pace.

She crossed the main lobby decked with illustrations of ongoing student projects and pushed out the door. Pausing at the top of the steps, she blinked in the hazy sunlight. After gazing a moment at the busy traffic on Massachusetts Avenue , she leaned back against one of the tall fluted pillars and closed her eyes. Her head buzzed with the lack of sleep.

A brazen honk snapped her eyes open. She stood for a moment trying to sense if she had actually fallen asleep on her feet. Then she focused on the cab parked on the far side of the street. She gave a quick salute to the driver and proceeded down the steps where she stopped to push the walk/wait button. As the flash of red and yellow lights signalled a halt to the flow of traffic, she crossed to the taxi and climbed in the rear from the driver's side.

The driver cocked an ear and Danielson mumbled, 'Airport — Eastern shuttle.'

On the plane she tried to practise what she would say to Isaacs. Every time she began to assemble her excited thoughts into coherent English sentences, the words would drift and dissolve as her brain fought to sleep. Back in her office in the Langley headquarters she dropped her briefcase on her desk and, still standing, punched the phone for Isaacs's office.

'Yes, Miss Kate?' Isaacs fingered the intercom in answer to the buzz.

'Pat Danielson, sir. On the phone.'

'Put her on the line,' Isaacs said, reaching for his telephone. 'Hello, Pat? Isaacs, here.'

'We've completed the analysis on the periodic seismic signal,' Danielson reported. 'We've got something big, but I don't know what.' She sounded excited, only an occasional slurred word indicated fatigue.

Isaacs looked at his watch. 'It's four-thirty now, do you want to talk this afternoon, or wait until tomorrow?'

'Well, I thought you might not be free until tomorrow, but I'd rather get it off my chest. That might help me get some rest tonight. I've lived with the computer here and at the Cambridge Research Lab the last week and haven't had much sleep. I could at least give you the bottom line, then we could go into detail tomorrow sometime, after I've had a good night's sleep.'

'Okay, come on up.' Isaacs buzzed Kathleen to show Danielson in on her arrival and cleaned his desk of the latest summaries concerning the new Russian laser being readied for launch at Tyuratam.

Danielson arrived two minutes later. She looked haggard, but an intensity burned in her eyes. She dropped into the proffered chair, took a deep breath, and held it momentarily before exhaling slowly through pursed lips.