He put down his cup and wiped his hands down his sides; it was nearly time. On the computer screen nearby, a single line of ten glowing circles were all green except for one – and then this too changed to green, indicating a positive all systems go sequence. Shihab started the image recording of the laboratory floor and commenced the data transfer program to distribute the information back to their sister facility. The second site was a few months behind Jamshid I, so if anything went catastrophically wrong with this test they would learn from those mistakes. Please, oh merciful Allah, don’t let there be any mistakes, Shihab prayed.

He keyed in a few commands and the overhead lights in the laboratory dimmed. The technicians and scientists pulled protective visors over their eyes and the observation window darkened to deflect any laser scattering. Shihab pressed the microphone switch down and his voice echoed over the floor of the chamber. ‘Is everyone ready?’

He scanned the floor for any dissent, and licked dry, nervous lips. Hoeckler turned and smiled. Shihab felt a bead of perspiration run down beside his left ear. He drew in a deep breath, feeling his heart thump sickeningly in his chest.

‘Allahu Akbar,’ he whispered as he entered the final codes and made a single stroke on the keyboard.

An infernal shriek tore through the laboratory and permeated the thickened glass as if it were paper. In the centre of the laboratory, where the sphere had stood, there was now a blackness darker than night. At its core was a pinprick of nothingness that hurt Shihab’s eyes. He felt as if he were caught in a thick mucus that trapped his limbs. Time slowed, or perhaps stretched, and a cold darkness spread out into the laboratory. It was the only thing moving; everyone else seemed frozen in time too. As Shihab watched, he realised to his horror that the growing mass of darkness was absorbing everything in its path. He watched helplessly as the bodies of his colleagues elongated and then began to tear as they were pulled towards that dark curtain of space.

His eyes met those of Herr Hoeckler for a second – or perhaps it was for an eternity – before the large man was engulfed, his body stretched into a plume of flesh-coloured streamers.

We all died when I pressed that final key, he thought, and now we are in hell.

From the corner of his frozen vision, Mahmud Shihab saw his friend, Hakim, become a long white streak as he was dragged mercilessly into the void. And then his sanity left him as he saw his own tongue and the lining of his throat distend from his body and rush towards hellish oblivion.

TWO

Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska – US Military Space Command