“This is good,” said Jayjay in a satisfied tone. “I noticed this spot this morning. Nobody else can get down here anytime soon. We’ve got time to steal and arm an atomic bomb. It won’t have to be all that big of a one. It’s just a matter of reaching a high enough temperature to ionize all the matter in the nant farm.”

“If there’s time, can we set off the bomb somewhere besides here?” said Thuy. “I’d hate to hurt Easter Island.”

“Um—sure,” said Jayjay. “It’ll just mean an extra hop. Let’s take a minute and poke around in the orphidnet. I’ll look for a bomb, and you look for a place to light it off.”

But all of a sudden the orphidnet access to the outer world closed down. Virtual pink surfaces surrounded them on every side. The Big Pig!

“Open the Ark,” said her voice, rich and energized.

“No,” said Jayjay.

“It’s going to happen sooner or later,” said the Big Pig. “I’ve got you trapped.”

“You don’t really want to ruin Earth, do you?” said Thuy, trying not to lose her focus. She was already feeling slow and dumb from the loss of orphidnet mind amplification. “Just for a memory upgrade?”

“I like enhancing my mind as much as you do,” said the Big Pig petulantly. “I can tell that you miss your orphidnet agents. Well, I’m the same. I want a bigger mind. And, listen, Virtual Earth will be just as good as this one. I didn’t used to think that, but I now I do.”

“What about Ond?” said Thuy, playing for time. “Wait until I fetch Ond to spill what he knows about the orphids.”

“I already know a lot about the orphids,” said the Big Pig. “And once I spend a few minutes with the nants, I’ll know a lot about them, too. I’ll be using some little shoons to beam laser probes in at them. But sure, Thuy, that’s fine if you jump to the Hibrane and look for Ond. As I told you this morning, I plan to be optimizing the nants until midnight. Give me the nants and then go ahead and jump. And if you bring back some new information in time, then I’ll take it into account.”

“Um—I’m not quite ready to jump,” said Thuy, feeling like such the loser.