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his expression change again.
    Bye-bye, Ice Man. I don't know what this is, but it's something that sure frightens or upsets Jon Perry. He's excited by physical danger, and it doesn't worry him—but he's sure worried now.
    "What is it? Is the message for me?"
    Jon Perry was shaking his head. "It's for me. I'm sorry, Miss Cotter, but we have to head for the surface at top speed. The undersecretary's office called, and they say there's a major problem."
    "With our descent? I hope it hasn't caused trouble."
    "It has nothing to do with today's descent. There's a problem with my project to explore the life forms around the hydrothermal vents—the thing I've spent the past six years working on."
    "What sort of problem?"
    "That's what has me worried. They say to return at once , it's most urgent. But they don't say why ."

2 The Fight at the Edge of the Universe
    All it took was one touch of the finger.
    Camille Hamilton depressed the right-hand key. A prerecorded instruction sequence was initiated. The main computer at DOS Center set up individual commands, and sixty thousand lasers rifled them out across the solar system.
    Now there was nothing to do but wait. It would require almost an hour for the light-speed commands to reach the most distant of the individual waiting telescopes, and another hour before confirming data could be received at DOS Center that those instruments were swinging into precise alignment with the target. Three more hours before the whole network of telescopes, cross-talking continuously to each other about attitudes and orbits, would settle into a final and stable configuration.
    Camille reflected, for the thousandth time, that "observing" with the Distributed Observation System didn't offer the real-time pleasures of olden-day astronomy. Galileo and Herschel and Lord Rosse had enjoyed the results of their efforts at once—assuming you agreed that "enjoyment" could include perching on an exposed platform twenty feet or more above the ground in subfreezing temperatures, peering through soupy skies at an object that might become obscured by cloud at the crucial moment.
    The first confirming message was arriving, showing that the closest telescope of the DOS had already received and was obeying its target command. Camille hardly glanced at it. All of the finicky components of the system were orbiting on the other side of the sun, more than a billion kilometers away. She would not learn their status for another hour and a half. Meanwhile, she pulled the previous display onto the main screen for another look.
    "Playing God, I see. As usual." The voice from behind came at the same moment as the physical contact. David Lammerman had drifted silently into the room and was right behind Camille. He was hovering over her, massaging her shoulders and the trapezius muscles running in toward her neck.
    Or pretending to.
    Camille was sure that what he was really doing was testing—and disapproving of—the thinness of the fat layer between bone and skin. If she ever followed his diet advice, she'd be as zaftig as a Rubens' model.
    David sniffed disapproval, stopped his prodding and leaned to peer over her shoulder at the full-screen image of the Andromeda galaxy. "Hey, that's not a simulation. It's a real shot. Pretty damned good."
    "Good? Bit picky, aren't we? I'd say it's more like perfect ." Camille had been waiting for that important second opinion before she allowed herself to feel the full glow of satisfaction. "Every test shows that we're spot-on in focus, and we're close to diffraction-limited resolution. The last group of telescopes came on-line about five hours ago. It turns out that the mirrors weren't damaged at all—it was just the predictive algorithms in the local computers that needed a wash and brush-up. Watch now. I'm going to do a high-res zoom."
    David dutifully watched, dazzled as usual by the speed and precision of her system control. The field shifted, closing in on one of Andromeda's spiral