"That's only a bit of it, McGee. The rest is that other Boards would have paid more for my work, for the privilege of placing my name on the masthead. In a year or so I'd have brought in twice again the amount of the prize Credit."

"Surely you're not hurting?"

Devane shook his head. "No. But who knows what the future will bring? It never hurts to have some put away as hard Credit."

McGee grinned. "Your point is well taken. Over the course of my own ridiculously prolonged life, I've been broke more times than I like to think." McGee paused, said abruptly, "Just out of curiosity, how old are you?"

Devane did not even blink. "Forty-seven."

McGee shook his head. "No, you're not. I mentioned Bob and Ray to you once, and you knew who they were. n.o.body who wasn't listening when they were on the air remembers Bob and Ray any longer."

Devane lied easily. "McGee, you've the fine suspicious mind of a newsdancer. I did some background research once on a comedy Board in Texas; Bob and Ray were prominently mentioned in that Board's history of live comedy duos."

"You've slipped up on other points as well; you remember too d.a.m.n many of the same things I remember, things that no one who isnot my age should recall." McGee shrugged. "So don't tell me. I've had one or two experimental treatments myself; you don't live as long as the both of us have without them. I was just curious; your skin, in particular. No looseness to speak of, and I don't see much in the way of joint degeneration in your hands. Whoever did your work, it impresses me."

"Indeed." Devane paused, changed the subject. "I did appreciate the background material on the Ministry's decision to start sterilizing Public Labor clients again. It helped my story."

"Yeah." McGee nodded, accepting Devane's change of subject. When he spoke, his voice was grim. "It was astupid decision, William. We are d.a.m.n near the point where the PKF are going to have to stop calling them riots and start admitting that they're insurrections; we are only a year away from the Tri-Centennial itself, and the Ministry brings back the single most unpopular population control measure Occupied America has ever seen. One of my waiters had a sister in Public Labor; I didn't know about it, or I would have paid her debt and gotten her out. By the time he came to me it was too late; they'd sterilized her already. And I don't care what the Ministry says, that d.a.m.n copy-protection transform virus they usekills people."

William Devane nodded. "I must tell you, I am not looking forward to next summer. It isnot going to be a good time to be on Earth, and particularly North America."

McGee rose from behind his desk, moved restlessly to stand at the window. He held a single beer bulb in one hand; Devane thought McGee had forgotten it, had not seen McGee drink from it since opening the bulb. "I lose Credit on this restaurant, on the hotel; you know that."

"Yes."

"People think I'm wealthy." McGee snorted. "The Fringe needs them, so I've kept them going. The hotel gives the Gypsy Macoute and the Temple Dragons a place to negotiate treaties, neutral territory they can't find anywhere else. The restaurant is just a safe place for people to come and not be bothered. G.o.d knows there are few enough of them in the Fringe."

Devane said nothing.

"Trent the Uncatchable used to come here, you know. Before he got out of the Fringe and got famous."

Devane looked interested. "You've never mentioned that before. You knew him?"

"A bit. He was a punk."

"Is there a story in it?"

"Probably not. That's not why I bring it up. It is just-William, I've started turning down Ministry work. I can't stomach it any longer. It used to be that when Special Tasks or the Office of Technology a.s.sessment had a job for me it was because some genie had gone wild, and they needed the genie found and stopped. They didn't try to hire me to kill genies, and when one of them died during a chase-rarely-they weren't pleased.

"I doubt they will try to hire me again. Last week I turned down a job offer that-" McGee stopped in midsentence, turned to face Devane. "The details don't matter. A political job, and an unpleasant one.

I've never turned down a job on. political grounds before, and it's left them-unhappy with me. It wouldn't surprise me if the unhappiness found expression." McGee looked straight at Devane. "I have kept notes about every piece of work I've ever done for the Ministry. It is all covered under the Official Secrets Acts of 2048 and 2054."

William Devane said quietly, "You're talking about treason, McGee."

"It is for sale."

"Ah."

"I need the Credit."

"How much?"

"CU:ten thousand."

"There's a story in this material?"

"At least one. The rest is great background, though. Things you won't learn elsewhere."

William Devane looked straight at McGee and said simply, "Sold. What's the story?"

"Okay," McGee said slowly. "Okay. Did you ever hear about a slowtime bubble that was found up in the Swiss Alps, back in '72? About the fellow they found inside it?"

The semiballistic to Ireland took not quite an hour.

In the semiballistic's darkened pa.s.senger compartment, William Devane audited McGee's notes. It was fascinating material, true enough; it covered forty years of McGee's work in the Ministry's Department of Special Tasks. Devane did not for an instant believe that it was a complete account of McGee's work; but he did believe that the sections McGee had edited-and there were obvious edits, McGee's way of acknowledging the point-were personal matters.

The "story" was ridiculous.

The entire thing-the bubble, the man found inside, the Secretary General's involvement, and the way the PKF had bundled the fellow off to some unknown destination-smacked of aSystem Enquirer article. Devane was pragmatic; he could not, off the top of his head, think of anything about which he would have beenless likely to write. His reputation would be destroyed if such an article ever saw the light of day with his byline attached.

a.s.suming the story was fabricated, and McGee had been somehow suckered, which Devane did a.s.sume. In the unlikely event there was any truth to the story-well, in that instance publishing the material was even more foolish. Devane had learned many hundreds of years prior that it did not pay to cause the powerful any great degree of trouble. And Charles Eddore impressed Devane as few politicians had since Almundsen and Moreau. Of the politicians Devane would have been willing to inconvenience with such an article, Eddore was low on the list.

About half an hour into the flight Devane turned his handheld off and leaned back in his seat, closing his eyes.

He had not finished all of McGee's notes, but unless there was some unexpected gem in the background material, it had been a bad purchase.

It did not bother him that he had overpaid for the material; such purchases were always a gamble, and McGee was an honest man.

Devane put the story out of his mind and prepared to take a nap.

The story stayed with him.

He had been unable to get an SB to Dublin; the SB came down in Belfast instead; most of Ireland away from where Devane needed to go. At the s.p.a.ceport's downlot he chartered a taxi, gave the taxi his home address, and tried to get to sleep. The semiballistic had taken him from New York to Ireland in not quite an hour; the taxi would take over twice as long to reach his home, three hundred kilometers south of Belfast, and inland fifty klicks from the coast.

The story would not, d.a.m.n it, leave him be.

Devane kept his eyes closed and tried to sleep.

About ten minutes into the cab ride home, William Devane sighed irritably, opened his eyes, and turned on his handheld. Indecision touched him then-where to start?

Staring into his handheld's steadily glowing field, Devane brought the traceset up to his temple, and after a moment's consideration gave the command, access in summary-and a pause then, and Devane was not certain why this was the subject that came to him-Access in summary, slowtime fields. He was still auditing data, lost to the world, when the car landed in the heart of County Cork.

The house rose up out of the side of a hill, overlooking a small, stream. Its walls were stone and the windows were small slits, and it was far larger than its stony exterior suggested.

It faced, across the length of the valley, the old stone keep at Kilgard, where, Devane had reason to believe, he had once lived.

A road of broken black cement, well over a hundred years old, led up to the house, a holdover from the days when cars had traveled on wheels. The cab set down on the surface of the cracked asphalt, fans gentling as the car touched ground. Devane touched his handheld to the cab's payment strip, stepped out and stood at the foot of the path leading up to the house. His eyesight was excellent; after a moment a tiny light, set in a small stone at the base of the house, blinked once in infrared. It was the sign that the house security had recognized him; he moved forward up the path, touched his palm to the locklarm, and waited while the door unbolted itself.

The door was another sign of his house's age; it did not slide away, it did not curl open; it was solid oak, reinforced with interior stainless steel rods, and itswung open on hinges.

Devane had installed it himself, in 1922.

He had built the house, laid it stone by stone into the side of the hill, over four hundred years prior.

Inside the house the lights came up automatically. The living room was lit by a pair of standing lamps that looked like the flood lamps which had once been used in motion picture production; Devane had purchased them in Hollywood in 1958.

He took the stairs to his bedroom, near the top of the small hill. A smaller stairway inside the bedroom led up to a small gra.s.sy place on the surface of the hill, overlooking every approach to Devane's home.

In the bas.e.m.e.nt the entrances to three tunnels were hidden. One of the tunnels reached out no farther than the base of the hill; the other two reached out in opposite directions, some four hundred meters apiece. Each one had taken him decades to dig.

The house had running water and electricity; thirty years prior Devane had installed a portable fusion generator in the bas.e.m.e.nt, and over the years had slowly taken himself off Ireland's power grid. He did not pay electric bills, did not shop locally. His InfoNet access was through a small microwave dish set into the side of the hill. As far as the Tax Boards were concerned, he had no existence as a private individual; he was the sole Irish employee of a small import-export company based in Occupied America.

To the extent possible, he left no records of his existence; but maintaining a reasonable degree of anonymity was difficult nonetheless, and grew more so with each pa.s.sing century.

Devane's bedroom might have pa.s.sed for the cabin of some English sea captain of the 1800s. In it Devane had installed most modern conveniences short of a houseboat. He undressed himself and hung his clothes; he placed his weapons-a hideaway maser and a knife for close-in work-on the dresser next to his bed.

Even in his own bed, warm and secure as any man might reasonably expect to be, he found himself unable to sleep. Half an hour after going to bed he got back up, displeased with the world and himself, pulled on a robe and sat down to read McGee's account again.

Spring: 2072

A Blast from the Past

- 1 -.

Sat.u.r.day, February 13, 2072: The old man stood on the black marble floor in the lobby of, the Inst.i.tute of Advanced Archaeological Studies in Lyons, France, hands tucked into the pockets of his overcoat; ancient, pale gray eyes scanning the lobby restlessly. He radiated age, not so much in his appearance as in his mannerisms, the economy of gesture and movement that n.o.body under the age of a hundred or so would have had time yet to learn.

The skin at his neck and on the backs of his hands was slightly loose; aside from that, simply from appearance, he might have been any age above sixty or so.

He had been born in 1929 and he was 142 years old.

After a few minutes the increasingly nervous receptionist asked him if he would care to sit. Though his French was excellent he did not respond, and she did not ask again.

He had been kept waiting for over an hour when Doctor Sven Eingardt finally arrived. The old man was in no hurry; he stood before the double gla.s.s doors, watching the fog creep through the streets, ignoring Eingardt's approach. He found it preferable to watching the cheap wallholo-a none-too-subtle series of advertis.e.m.e.nts for the Inst.i.tute itself. The pitch for funds, the wallholo informed him in large printed French, could be heard on earphone channel four.Yet another argument against the d.a.m.ned earphones, the old man thought with a certain cynical pleasure.

The thought marked his age as clearly as all else; earphones had been a fact of life for over fifty years.

Eingardt spoke English with very little accent. " 'Sieur McGee. How pleasant to see you. Please accept my sincere apologies for being late. The maglev was shut down while they swept the rail into Lyon. A bomb threat by the Claw, apparently."

McGee did not respond for perhaps fifteen seconds after Doctor Eingardt's greeting. At length he turned away from the vista of the fog, turned to look at Doctor Eingardt standing nervously in the midst of his gleaming lobby, hand outstretched to shake McGee's. Doctor Eingardt was a tall, thin man who had, at the moment, a nervous tic in one cheek. McGee nodded and kept his hands in the pockets of his overcoat."Mister McGee, if you please. I'll see your toy now."

In the maglev on the way down to the bas.e.m.e.nt Eingardt made the mistake of attempting conversation.

"They say you run a restaurant in New York's Fringe."

"Yes."

"And a hotel in the Fringe as well. Interesting hobby for an employee of the Ministry of Population Control."

McGee glanced down at Eingardt, a flick of the pale gray eyes. "I don't work for the babychasers. I work for the Bureau of Special Tasks, a department within the Ministry, and I only do that when I d.a.m.n well feel like it. My restaurant and hotel are my business." The old man was silent, brooding. "Hunting rogue genies for the MPC-occasional silliness likethis, for the Office of Technology a.s.sessment-are hobbies."

The Inst.i.tute's bas.e.m.e.nt was as cold as the streets outside; McGee was glad he'd kept his coat on. This early on a Sat.u.r.day most of the Inst.i.tute's employees were not present, and McGee was distantly pleased by that as well.

The bubble sat in the middle of the bas.e.m.e.nt, surrounded by twenty meters of empty s.p.a.ce on all sides.

It was what McGee had been told to expect, no more and no less. A mirrored sphere some four meters in diameter, perfectly reflective. It sat on a tripod-based ring of some dull metal, lifted high enough up off the ferrocrete floor that a person could crawl under it. McGee ran the tips of his fingers over the bubble's surface. It was so slick it felt wet. He placed one hand against the surface and pushed lightly. The bubble shifted just a bit on its supporting ring.

Eingardt spoke in a nervous rush. "A German climber, Candace Groening, found it. Two weeks ago.

She was up in a rocky area in the Val d'Entremont in Switzerland, around twenty-three hundred meters above sea level.Command, picture one." A holofield appeared hanging in midair next to the bubble, a flat photo centered midway in: a rocky pa.s.s high in the Swiss Alps, white and grayish blue. "This is near the Great St. Bernard pa.s.s, a bit north of the Italian border.Command next." A second shot showed an expanse of rock with a gleam of reflective silver buried in the midst of the gray. "A recent rock slide had uncovered this partial surface of the sphere. Greening cleared away as much of the surface of the sphere as she could, shot it from several angles, and came back down. A colleague in Hamburg-that's in north Germany-to whom she showed her photographs, he forwarded them to me because we're so much closer to the site."

"I know where Hamburg is."

Doctor Eingardt smiled uncertainly. "Sorry. You Americans tend to be shaky on European geography."

McGee stared at Eingardt and the smile died. "Not all of you," Eingardt said after a moment.

"Go on, Doctor."

Eingardt did so quickly. "We went up to the site last weekend, myself and two of my a.s.sistants. Picks and lasers, no blasting; we were very careful for fear of damaging the site." The holo flickered, became a shot from a wavering handheld holocam. The quality was sufficiently poor that McGee guessed the holo had not been doctored. An observation he had made many years prior was that false doc.u.ments, holos, recordings, all tended to a certain minimal level of professionalism in their presentation.

The image was of the sphere that stood next to the holo, as Eingardt and his a.s.sistants excavated around it. "We took samples-you can see it here-of rock from the vicinity of the sphere. Here we were fortunate; in a rock layer four centimeters above the surface of the sphere we found this fossilized material. A shrub for which we have good radiocarbon-dating comparisons. I place its age at thirty-two thousand six hundred years old, with a margin of error of perhaps four hundred years in either direction.

My best guess at this point-and it is a guess, though I've some evidence to go on-is that the sphere was buried somewhat earlier than that, perhaps thirty-five to forty thousand years ago. We know that it was covered by sheets of ice during the tail end of the Wurm glacial period; there are glacial striation marks on the deepest levels of the rock. The sphere was found in an area located above the tree line both then and now; we found nothing really suitable for radiocarbon dating except the shrubbery I mentioned, which was separated by a rock layer four centimeters in width. At any rate, when the ice sheet retreated from this ridge about twenty thousand years ago, at the end of the last Ice Age, it left behind a-here, at the sides of the ridge-what is called a lateral moraine. Essentially a collection of boulders, rubble that was ground together by the motion of the glacier-covering the entrance to the cave. At a guess the earthquake back in '66 uncovered the sphere, and it's been sitting there ever since, waiting for somebody to come along and discover it."

Eingardt was silent after that, as though waiting for McGee to reply. When it became clear that McGee had no intention of saying anything, Eingardt sighed and called the glowpaint up.

" Sieur McGee, may I ask why you were sent here? This is one of the most exciting archaeological discoveries of this century, perhaps ever, and I can't get anybody at the office of Technology a.s.sessment tolisten to me. Selle Laronde slapped an interdict order on publication, n.o.body returns my calls, I can't-"

"She thinks it's a fake."

The comment stopped Eingardt dead. "I'm sorry?"

" Selle Laronde thinks your sphere is a hoax."

"But, but-" Eingardt sputtered to a halt and then exploded,"Why?"

"The implications are-interesting." McGee examined the fingertips with which he had touched the surface of the sphere, looked up at Eingardt, and said mildly, "You seem to be saying that you've found an artifact-an artifact of some technological sophistication if I'm any judge-that's more than thirty-five thousand years old."

"Yes! I think it's probably an abandoned piece of alien technology. It-"