“It doesn’t seem to,” Wick said. “But it is—disorienting, to say the least. Like being trapped in one of those paintings with the Escher stairs, the ones that twist in impossible ways. At one point Boone wandered off, said he thought he saw somebody running out in front of him. But he was following a reflection of himself—no, Holt said he was actually following himself. Space folded back on itself in such a way that he was going in an endless loop, chasing his own body, just ahead.”

Park put a hand to her temple. “This is giving me a headache.”

Wick smiled slightly. “I know the feeling. Long story short, dimensions are merged together and refolded into different shapes in the Fold. It’s something we’ve never seen before. And if we can understand it—master it—there’s no telling what it could mean. We could utilize it for instantaneous travel—collapsing the distance between two points—or communication. We could use it to terraform new planets. We might even be able to use it to shape space itself, refolding it as we like. Who knows? Maybe we could even restore Earth to what it was like before the Comeback.”

That gave Park a start. She took a long moment to process it. Restore Earth? That was momentous. No wonder the ISF was so eager to keep it a secret, until they could study the anomaly further. She said, “Would it be possible for humans to live permanently in such a place?”

Wick shook his head, rueful. “It’s too soon to say. The air here is partially breathable, and there’s an Earth-like atmosphere in terms of pressure. If your helmet sprang a leak, you wouldn’t die instantly—which is better than most planets. But we know almost nothing about the Fold. It seems contained to that single area now, but what if that changed? And we don’t know what’s causing the folds in the first place. Until we can understand that, we can’t know if it’s safe enough to settle here.”

And let’s not forget the radiation storms, Park thought. Or the nightmares. “So what’s in the utility rooms? Equipment to study the Fold? A lab?”

“Yes,” Wick said heavily. “Which is supposed to be classified, kept secret. Boone was stationed to guard it, when we didn’t know where Holt was; it’s why he was down there this morning, to prevent anyone from jeopardizing the data. He’s supposed to keep away non-ISF personnel.”

“We’re all ISF personnel,” she pointed out, a little stubbornly.

He frowned. “You know what I mean, Park.”