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only passing time with you.” “Clear, please!” Pirov yelled from above, his voice raspy.
    Tomiko held on to the carbon pillar. An electrical burst surged along the circuit line, glowing like heat lightning. After the shimmers flooded past, she crawled to the end of the impurity and went back to work extracting the black stump, though it wasn't the primary problem. She just hated to leave a job unfinished.
    “I have additional readings now,” Pirov said over the suit radio. “There is some kind of discontinuity up ahead. A major defect. We must fix that in order to accomplish our objective.”
    Tomiko used the laser's intense, microfine light on the carbon trunk until the second bundle broke away. The black cylinder rolled against the wall, bounced on random air currents, then slid to the substrate. “For aesthetic reasons,” she said to Wilcox.
    The two scrambled up rappelling ropes to the top. The Russian doctor checked his mission chronometer. “Twenty-three minutes remaining.”
    “Then let's not wait around.” Wilcox jetted off, and Tomiko shot after him. The three team members traveled toward a shimmering change of color and light reflectance in the distance.
    When they crossed a boundary between different metal tracks laid down in opposing film layers, Tomiko saw the reason the prototype ULSI chip had failed.
    She stared. “Now that's what I'd call a big problem.”
    Chapter 4
    Thursday, 10:06 a.m.
    During the three-hour drive across California's flat Central Valley, Devlin kept his mysterious silence even in the face of Arnold Freeth's obsessive enthusiasm. Curiosity was eating the UFO expert alive.
    “Where did this alien come from, Major Devlin? What condition is it in? What… exactly is my role in this?”
    Devlin didn't want to let details slip about the Project. Not yet. “It's a sealed package, Mr. Freeth, straight from a crashed flying saucer. We don't even know if the alien's alive.”
    Freeth looked alarmed. “You don't want me to perform an autopsy, do you? I—uh, just hosted that video, you know. How are we going to study the specimen?”
    Devlin flashed a secretive smile. “No autopsies. We have a much more innovative technique for investigation.” He refused to say more.
    Before leaving, while Devlin stood waiting on the sunny sidewalk, the UFO expert had bustled around in his “suite,” packing a smart-looking briefcase and a snappy garment bag. He had dressed in a stylish tweed sport jacket with suede patches on the elbows, cinched on a tie, added socks and soft black loafers.
    “No need to dress up, Mr. Freeth. The project will provide you with an appropriate uniform.” Devlin thought of how much more comfortable it would be to get back into a Proteus jumpsuit again. This tie was strangling him.
    “It's a question of image, Major Devlin.” Freeth slung his briefcase and garment bag into the back seat. “In my line of work, I always run the risk of being branded a kook, and I have faced the worst that hecklers can dish out. Thus, I make a concerted effort to look as respectable as possible.”
    Across the street, the old man continued to water his oleanders. The housewife ushered her yapping dog into the garage. Everyone watched as Devlin and Freeth drove off.
    Bursting with enthusiasm, Freeth was content to hold up both ends of a conversation as they left San Francisco behind. He launched into his beloved topic, as if intent on earning his consulting fee from the moment he stepped into the car.
    “I assume you know about the exploded spacecraft over Siberia in 1908? Some people call it the Tunguska meteor, but evidence clearly shows it was an alien ship that suffered some sort of accident. Trees were flattened in a distinctive radial pattern for miles around, and no debris was ever found.”
    Devlin watched the farmland flash by as he accelerated, driving with one hand on the steering wheel. “We don't have any debris either. Just some sort of protective pod.” He'd flown