The Statue moved further into the building, the interesting end of the zap gun unwavering. We stood along the axis of the structure. The Statue said patiently, "But even with this awareness you are scarcely at an advantage."

I shrugged.

"You are still isolated and without resources." The Statue seemed confused. "All I have to do is wait five days, when you will die in undignified circumstances and I will retrieve the artifact."

"Ah," I said mysteriously. "A lot can happen in five days." In fact, maybe in three -- I kept that to myself.

The stomach monster thrashed.

I walked around the pillar and sat down, taking care not to squash my catheter. "So we wait." I settled the hoop more comfortably around my neck.

Giant wings of gas flapped slowly beyond the translucent ceiling, and the hours passed.

Time stretches like a lazy leopard when it wants to.

I spent a day staring out a statue and not thinking about my catheter -- or Tim.

I snapped out, "You've no idea what you're stealing from me here."

The Statue hesitated. "I believe I do. This is clearly a Xeelee monitoring station. Presumably one of a network spread through the Galaxy."

Instantly I wished I hadn't spoken. If it had thought through as far as that... to distract it, I said, "So you watched my experiments?"

"Yes. What we see must be a test rig for the instantaneous communication device."

"How do you suppose it works?" Stick to details; keep it off the Xeelee--

A longer pause. Through the ceiling skin I watched a cathedral of buttressed smoke. The Statue said, "I fear the translator box cannot provide the concepts... At one time these two hoops were part of a single object. And an elementary particle, an electron perhaps, would be able to move at random between any two points of that object, without a time lapse."

"Yeah. This is quantum physics. The electron we perceive is an 'average' of an underlying 'real' electron. The real electron jumps about over great distances within a quantum system, quite randomly and instantaneously. But the average has to follow the physical laws of our everyday experience, including the speed of light limit."

"The point," it said, "is that the real electron will travel at infinite speed between all parts of an object -- even when that object has been broken up and its parts separated by large distances, even light years."

"We call that quantum inseparability. But we thought you could use it only to send random data, no information-bearing messages."

"Evidently the Xeelee do not agree," the Statue said dryly. "It took many generations before my species could be persuaded that the elusive 'real' electron is a physical fact, and not a mathematical invention."

I smiled. "Mine, too. Maybe our species have got more in common than they realize."

"Yes."