Petrovitch got down on his hands and knees, and took one last look at the inert black sphere chased with silver lines. In a moment, it would be transformed, and with it, the world. No longer a thing of beauty, it would become just another tool.

“Hugo?” He was aware of McNeil crouched beside him. She was holding her breath, just like he was.

Dominguez flicked the on switch and slowly turned the dial. The digital figures on the multimeter started to flicker.

Then, without fuss, without sound, the sphere leaped off the book and into the air. It fell back a little, rose, fell, rose, fell, each subsequent oscillation smaller than the previous one, until it was still again. Only it was resting at shin height with no visible means of support.

Someone started clapping. Another joined in, and another, until the sound of applause echoed off the walls, magnified.

His heart was racing again, the tiny turbine in his chest having tasted the amount of adrenaline flooding into his blood. He felt dizzy, euphoric, ecstatic even: science elevated to a religious experience. Dominguez was transfixed, motionless like him. It was McNeil who was the first of the three to move. She reached forward and tapped the floating sphere with her fingernail. It slipped sideways, pulling the cables with it until it lost momentum and stopped. She waved her hand under it, over it.

She turned to Petrovitch and grinned. He staggered to his feet and faced the crowd. “Da! Da! Da!” He punched the air each time, and found he couldn’t stop. Soon he had all of them, young and old, men and women, fists in the air, chanting “Da!” at the tops of their voices.

He reached over and hauled Dominguez up. He held his other hand out to McNeil, who crawled up it and clung onto him in a desperate embrace. Thus encumbered, he turned to the camera phone and extended his middle finger—not his exactly, but he was at least its current owner. “Yob materi vashi, Stanford.”

BY SIMON MORDEN

Samuil Petrovitch Novels

Equations of Life

Theories of Flight

Degrees of Freedom