Then, he suddenly leapt to his feet, ran down the hall, skidded into his office and punched keys to clear the images from his own monitor. He had aborted one file and called up another before he had even toed over his chair to sit down. His fingers scurried over the keyboard, desperately typing in data, calling up formulas, trying one speculative model after another and then running simulated tests. No; impossible; never work; no; maybe … maybe …

When he finally looked up from his screen, haggard and ferocious, dawn was coloring the windows of his office with a furtive spring gold. He had been here the entire night. Within two hours, the others would arrive.

He could not possibly face them. He could not tell any of them—Melina, Varella, Pakt—what he knew. None of it might be true. He felt lunatic and hallucinatory. Perhaps he had created this fantastic despair in his own disordered mind.

But what if it was real? What if it was true? What was he to do?

Shakily, he pushed himself to his feet and tried to straighten his crumpled shirt and trousers. In the men’s necessary room, he scrubbed his face as if to soap away the whiskers and the proof of a disastrous night. In the mirror, he was astonished to see that his face looked ordinary as ever—blue, mild, unalarming. He looked tired, but hardly horrific. It was hard to believe.

He left a note for Pakt, explaining that he would be gone for a day or two, then took the back stairwell down. At street level was the corporate pharmacy where the biologists took all their experimental prescriptions. As he had hoped, the head pharmacist was already on duty.

“Have a little project for you,” Nolan said in a casual voice. “Do you have time? I’d like the test pills generated by this afternoon. Two different sets.”

“Let’s see the scrips,” the pharmacist said, and Nolan handed over his notes. “Sure, I think we can put these together. How many of each?”

“Hundred, I guess. I haven’t narrowed down my subject field. I’m not sure exactly how many I’ll need.”

“Hundred. You got it. Be done by two.”

“Thanks. I’ll be back.”

Nolan stepped out into the weak sunlight and stood stupidly on the sidewalk, trying to think. Sleep. He needed sleep. He needed fresh clothes. He needed a meal. He needed … he needed to turn the clock back a day and unknow what he had learned. But that took more magic than he could muster. Sleep first. Then he would figure it all out.