Even now, two centuries later, man's understanding of the sphere's origins was sharply limited, Dallen reminded himself. It was a study which had yielded little in the way of concrete fact, much in the way of speculation — a field which offered less to pragmatic researchers than to poets and mystics…

How does one account for a seamless globe of ultra-material with a circumference of a billion kilometres? There can be only one source for such an inconceivable quantity of shell material, and that is in the sun itself. Matter is energy, and energy is matter. Every active star hurls the equivalent of millions of tonnes a day of its own substance into space in the form of light and other radiations. But in the case of the Orbitsville sun — once known as Pengelly's Star — the Maker had set up a boundary, turning that energy back on itself, manipulating and modifying it, translating it into matter. With precise control over the most elemental forces of the universe, the maker created an impervious shell of exactly the sort of material He wanted — harder than diamond, immutable, eternal. When the sphere was complete, grown to the required thickness, He again dipped His hands into the font of energy and wrought fresh miracles, coating the interior of the sphere with soil and water and air. Organic acids, even complete cells and seeds, had been constructed in the same way, because at the ultimate level of reality there is no difference between a blade of grass and one of steel…

"Quite a spectacle, isn't it?" The speaker was a young woman who, unnoticed by Dallen had positioned herself beside him at the curving rail of the observation gallery. "It seems to pull your eyes."

"I know what you mean," he said, glancing down at her. The illumination was subdued, most of it from the extravagant blazing of star clouds, but he could see that she had Oriental features and was attractive in a forthright physical manner. He would have guessed she was an athlete or in some way connected with the performing arts.