To Stan Goldman it was a revelation, watching Alex Lustig hurry from work site to work site under the vaulted, rocky ceiling. You never can tell about some-one till you see him in a crisis, he mused. Take Alex’s familiar gangling stoop. It no longer appeared lazy or lethargic down here, half a kilometer underground. Rather, the lad seemed to lean forward for leverage as he moved, pushing a slow-moving tractor here, a recalcitrant drill bit there, or simply urging the workers on. Air resistance might have been the only thing slowing him down.

Stan wasn’t the only one watching his former student, now transformed into a lanky, brown-haired storm of catalysis. Sometimes the other men and women laboring in this deep gallery glanced after him, eyes drawn by such intensity. One group had trouble connecting data lines for the big analyzer. Lustig was there instantly, kneeling on the caked, ancient guano floor, improvising a solution. Another team, delayed by a burned-out power supply, got a new part from Alex in minutes — he simply ripped it out of the elevator.

“I guess Mr. Hutton will notice when no one comes up for dinner,” Stan overheard one tech say with a shrug. “Maybe he’ll use a rope to lower us a replacement part.”

“Naw,” another replied. “George will lower dinner itself. Unless Dr. Lustig plugs us all with intravenous drips so we don’t even have to stop to eat.”

The remarks were made in good humor. They can tell this isn’t just another rush job, but something truly urgent. Still, Stan was glad necessity forced him to stay by his computer. Or else — age and former status notwithstanding — Alex would have drafted him by now to help string cables across the limestone walls.

Moment by moment, a laboratory was taking shape below the mountainous spine of New Zealand’s North Island.

It was still only the three of them — Stan, George, and Alex — who knew about the lost singularity, the Iquitos black hole that might now be devouring the planet’s interior.