"That's it. Now you know as much as I do—except that since you left England we've received instructions from UNSA to start shipping the prototype to a place near Houston—a biological institute. The bits should start arriving day after tomorrow; the installation crew is already on its way over to begin work preparing the site."

"Houston . . . Does that mean we're going there?" Gray asked.

"That's right, Rob." Borlan paused and scratched the side of his nose. His face screwed itself into a crooked frown. "I, ah—I was wondering . . . The installation crew will need a bit of time, so you two won't be able to do very much there for a while. Maybe you could spend a few days here first, huh? Like, ah . . . meet some of our technical people and clue them in a little on how the scope works—sorta like a teach-in. What d'you say—huh?"

Hunt laughed silently inside. Borlan had been complaining to Forsyth-Scott for months that while the largest potential markets for the scope lay in the USA, practically all of the know-how was confined to Metadyne; the American side of the organization needed more in the way of backup and information than it had been getting.

"You never miss a trick, Felix," he conceded. "Okay, you bum, I'll buy it."

Borlan's face split into a wide grin.

"This UNSA character you were talking about," Gray said, switching the subject back again. "What were the examples?"

"Examples?"

"You said he gave some examples of the kind of thing he was interested in knowing if the scope could do."

"Oh, yeah. Well, lemme see, now . . . He seemed interested in looking at the insides of bodies—bones, tissues, arteries—stuff like that. Maybe he wanted to do an autopsy or something. He also wanted to know if you could get images of what's on the pages of a book, but without the book being opened."

This was too much. Hunt looked from Borlan to Gray and back again, mystified.

"You don't need anything like a scope to perform an autopsy," he said, his voice strained with disbelief.

"Why can't he open a book if he wants to know what's inside?" Gray demanded in a similar tone.

Borlan showed his empty palms. "Yeah. I know. Search me—sounds screwy!"

"And UNSA is paying thousands for this?"

"Hundreds of thousands."

Hunt covered his brow and shook his head in exasperation. "Pour me another scotch, Felix," he sighed.

Chapter Four