Leighton's finger hovered over the Program Stop button, but he said cheerily, «That's it. Now lean back slightly. Perfect!»

The three men waited.

The clock flickered. It was into the low numbers now. Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. On the count of six, without warning, the heavy curved door of the case swung shut with a thump. Five. Four. J became aware of a low hum. Three. Two. One. Zero.

There was no sound to mark Richard's departure, but J was almost blinded by that mysterious golden blaze of light he'd seen so many times before, a light that seemed not to come from the case, but from everywhere and nowhere, as if a giant rip had opened in the very fabric of space, letting some unknown sun shine for an instant into the underground room.

The case swung open, and J saw, with eyes that had not yet adjusted back to the normal intensity of light, that Richard Blade was gone.

He turned to Lord Leighton and commanded, «Start the sequence to bring him back.»

«No, no. I can do nothing. KALI will bring him back. It's all in the programming,» said Leighton. J noticed that Leighton's mottled face was pale. «Sit down. Try to be comfortable. This goddess, as you call her, is on our side. She can count out ten minutes far more precisely than either you or me.»

In a daze J pulled out the folding spectator seat, installed for his benefit on one wall, and sat down. The digital clock, he noted, was counting down again.

J and Lord Leighton carried on a trivial, absent-minded conversation punctuated by long silences during which J often pulled his pocketwatch from his waistcoat pocket and compared it with the digital clock on the instrument panel, as if the upstart electronic timepiece might require correction from an older, more reliable source.

As the flickering green numbers began counting the final thirty seconds, even this conversation ceased. Both men turned an expectant gaze toward the open case.