“Ampersand,” she said, trying to shake him and failing. It was like trying to shake a boulder. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Sending electromagnetic waves through space folds is a technology we have had for generations, but sending matter through the fold, that has never been accomplished in volumes greater than a few atoms. To send matter that large through a space fold, theoretically possible but far too dangerous to ever test. It would require far too much energy. He ceased to exist. I felt it, I felt him die. You felt it, too.”

“I did,” she said, now understanding her experience that was not quite a nightmare but something like it. His last still-living symphyle had ceased to exist when he folded space. It had felt like his death to Ampersand, and that feeling had been so intense, it crashed through his walls and went straight into her. But then they reappeared on the other side of the fold, once again made whole. Once again still alive.

“That’s never been done before?” she breathed. “Ever, in the history of your civilization?”

“To my knowledge, no.”

“He’s here.”

“Yes.”

“For you?”

“I don’t know.”

* * *

Cora was the last to enter the all-hands meeting. The flat-screen was turned to CNN, on which a visibly shaken talking head was speculating on the bright light that had glowed for a few seconds and then stopped around 3:20 A.M. PST.

Luciana, who had one of the longer commutes all the way from Anaheim, was not in yet, but Sol was there, as were Dr. Sev, Stevie, several people who she assumed were CIA, and Brigadier General Porter. He was the only one who didn’t look at her when she entered.

“Where is he?” asked Sol, muting the flat-screen.

“He isn’t coming,” she said.

“Why not?”

“Because you put him in a room with Brako and Esperas without warning him. You can talk to him through me, but he isn’t coming out here.”

“For how long?” asked Sol.

“Does it matter?”

“Yes, it matters.”

“Indefinitely, then.”

Sol’s shoulders heaved in a full-body sigh, and she caught the two other CIA guys giving him hard looks.

“What was it?” asked Porter, directing the question to Sol, not Cora. Sol, for his part, looked at her, raising his eyebrows in request of a response.

“It was an energy burst,” said Cora, “caused by a hole being ripped in space.”

“An energy burst,” Porter repeated.

“Effectively, we witnessed a miniature supernova. But, and I’m guessing human scientists can confirm this, the energy was pulled back into the . . . let’s say ‘hole’ from whence it came.”

“Are we in any danger?” asked Sol.

“From the energy burst, no, I don’t think so. We would have if it had kept expanding, but something pulled it back. Some incredibly intense force, like a black hole.”

“Was it alien?” asked Porter, finally deigning to look at her. She was beginning to see that it was Porter, not Sol and certainly not Dr. Sev, who was in charge here.