Asher nodded.

Crane swallowed. He had no idea where this was headed.

"You were told the same story that all workers in the unclassified levels of Deep Storm were-that during a routine mining operation, drillers on the Storm King platform found evidence of an ancient civilization beneath the ocean floor. And that story is true-as far as it goes."

Asher plucked a handkerchief from his pocket, mopped his brow. "But there's more to it than that. You see, they didn't find artifacts or ancient buildings, anything like that. What they detected was a signal."

"A signal? You mean like radio waves?"

"The exact nature of the signal is problematic. More of a seismic ping, almost a kind of sonar. But of an unknown nature. All we can say for sure is that it's not naturally occurring. And before I leave this room, I'll prove it to you."

Crane opened his mouth to speak. Then he stopped. Disbelief, shock, perplexity, all rose within him.

Seeing the look on Crane's face, Asher smiled again: an almost wistful smile this time. "Yes, Peter. Now comes the difficult part. Because, you see, that signal came from beneath the Moho. Beneath the earth's crust."

"Beneath?" Crane murmured in disbelief.

Asher nodded.

"But that would mean-"

"Exactly. Whatever it is that's transmitting the signal-we didn't put it there. Someone else did."

20

For a moment, the stateroom was quiet. Crane sat motionless, struggling to absorb what he had just heard, as the meaning of Asher's words worked its way through him.

"Take a minute, Peter," Asher said kindly. "I know it's a hard thing to get your mind around."

"I'm not sure I believe it," Crane replied at last. "You sure there's no mistake?"

"No mistake. Mankind has no technology capable of inserting a mechanical device beneath the earth's crust-let alone a device that can emit such a signal. Because of the natural phase change that occurs at the Moho, listening devices on the earth's surface are neither sensitive nor technologically advanced enough to pick up certain kinds of waves from below the crust. But because of the mid-Atlantic ridge, the Moho is unusually shallow here. That-along with the depth of the Storm King well holes-led to the accidental discovery of the signal."

Crane shifted in his seat. "Go on."

"Of course, the government's immediate goal became to excavate to the source of the signal, determine what it was. It took quite some time to get the project ramped up, the necessary equipment in place. The depth we're operating at makes things extremely difficult-this Facility was built for other purposes and was not meant to operate anywhere near this deep. Hence the surrounding dome."

"How long did the preparations take, exactly?"

"Twenty months."

"That's it?" Crane felt stunned. "General Motors can't even design a car prototype in twenty months."

"That shows you just how seriously the government is taking this project. In any case, the excavation has been online for almost two months now, and the pace is frantic. Significant progress has been made. A vertical shaft has been dug beneath the Facility. We're excavating toward the source of the signal."

"How is that possible? Isn't the rock molten at that depth?"

"The crust is relatively thin, the geothermic values are low, and radiogenic heat production is far less than it would be in the continental crust. P-wave and S-wave readings indicate the lithosphere is only about three kilometers beneath us-'only' being a relative term, of course."

Crane shook his head. "There must be some logical, some terrestrial, explanation. Some Russian device, or maybe Chinese. Or some naturally occurring phenomenon. If I learned anything from that marine geology course, it's that we know precious little about the composition of our own planet, save for the thinnest outer layer."

"It's not Russian or Chinese. And I'm afraid there are too many things that don't add up for it to be naturally occurring. The geology of the impact, for example. Normally, for something to be embedded so deep in the earth, you'd expect to find a serious geologic disturbance-the undersea equivalent of Meteor Crater. But in this case, the layers of sedimentation above the anomaly are in almost perfect synch with the surrounding matrix. Think of a child digging a hole on the beach, dropping a shell into it, and putting the sand back in place. There's no earthly phenomenon to explain that."

"But there has to be," said Crane.

"No. I'm afraid the true explanation lies beyond. You see, certain…artifacts have been retrieved." And at this, Asher nodded to the silent man in the lab coat. The man walked toward a far wall, knelt, and opened a plastic locker that sat there. He withdrew something, rose, and handed it to Asher.

Crane looked on curiously. It was a cube-shaped object, encased in some kind of metal shielding. Asher glanced toward him, met his eyes.

"Remember what I told you, Peter," he said. "About the threshold." And then, gently, he pulled away the shielding and offered the cube to Crane.

It was hollow, made of transparent Plexiglas. Every edge was carefully sealed. Something was inside. Crane took it from Asher's hands, drew it close-then gasped aloud in surprise.

Floating in the dead center of the cube was a small object, no larger than a domino. It emitted a laserlike beam of light, pencil thin and intensely white, toward the ceiling. Impossibly, the object itself was of no single, definable color, but rather a coruscation, shimmering and rainbow hued: gold and violet and indigo and cinnamon and other colors Crane had never imagined, all in a constant state of change. The colors seemed to come from deep within the object, rising outward from some central core, as if the little object burned with some strange inner fire.

He turned the Plexiglas cube over and over, staring at the thing within it. No matter how he turned it, the object inside stayed dead center. He peered at the makeup of the cube itself, searching for hidden wires or magnets. But it was a simple cube of clear plastic-there were no tricks.

He shook the cube, first gently, then with severity. The glowing, pulsing thing at its center bobbled ever so slightly up and down at this treatment, always coming to rest in the exact center, where it continued to float serenely, its thin beam of white light pointing straight upward.

He brought the cube up close, staring at the object with openmouthed curiosity. He noticed the edges of the domino-sized thing were not, in fact, exactly defined. Rather, the object seemed to pulsate faintly: edges grew sharp, then softened again. It was almost as if the object's mass and form were in continuous flux.

He looked up from the cube. Asher was standing there, smiling, hand outstretched. After the briefest hesitation, Crane reluctantly handed him the cube. The chief scientist replaced it inside the shielding and gave it to his assistant, who returned it to the storage locker.

Crane sat back, blinking. "What the hell is it?" he asked after a moment.

"We don't know its purpose is, exactly."

"What's it made of?"

"Unknown."

"Is it dangerous? Could it be the source of the problems here?"

"I wondered the same thing, of course. We all did. But, no: it's harmless."

"You're sure about that?"

"The very first tests we did were to see if it was throwing off any radiation other than light. But it's not. It's completely inert-all subsequent tests have confirmed that. The reason I placed it inside that Plexiglas cube is because it's a little hard to deal with otherwise-it always finds the precise center of a room in which to hover."

"Where'd you get it?"