A few minutes later the hole itself disappeared.

“Forty-six standard minutes,” Varnett said. “Exactly. And I’ll bet at the same time gap tomorrow it opens again.”

“But where did the suit go? Why didn’t it drop?” Jainet asked.

“Remember the power of this thing,” Skander told her. “If you were to get to it, you wouldn’t descend forty-plus kilometers. You’d simply be transported to the place.”

“Exactly,” Varnett agreed. “It would simply alter the equation and you would be there instead of here.”

“But where is there?” Jainet asked.

“We believe at the control center of the Markovian brain,” Skander told her. “There would be one—the same way there are two bridges on a spaceship. The other is for emergencies.” Or male and female members on your planet, Skander had almost said.

“We’d best go back and run this all through our own data banks,” Varnett suggested. “After all, it’s been a long day for us anyway. The hole opens and closes regularly. So we can do the same things tomorrow as we can do today.”

They all muttered assent at this proposal, and several suddenly realized how tired they were.

“Someone should stay here,” Skander suggested, “if only to time the thing and keep the camera running.”

“I’ll do it,” Varnett volunteered. “I can sleep here on this flyer and you all can go back in the other two. If anything comes up I’ll let you know. Then someone can spell me tomorrow.”

They all agreed to this, so after a short while everyone but Varnett headed back to base camp.

Almost all went to sleep immediately, only Skander and Dunna taking the extra time to feed their records into the data bank. Then both went off to their own quarters.

Skander sat on the edge of his bunk, too excited to feel tired. Curiously, he felt exhilarated instead, adrenalin pumping through him.