He started the TruSite viewing beyond what they had seen before.

"I dreamed that they watched me three times," Putukam was saying, "and the woman seemed to know that I could see her."

Hassan slammed his hand onto the Pause button. "There is no God but God," he muttered in Arabic, "and Muhammad is his prophet."

Tagiri knew that sometimes when a Muslim says this, it is because he has too much respect to curse the way a Christian might.

"Probability of coincidence?" she murmured. "I was just thinking that it seemed as though she could see us."

"If I go back and we watch the scene again," said Hassan, "then it will be four times, not three."

"But it had been three times when we first heard her say how many. That will never change."

"The TruSite has no effect on the past," said Hassan. "It can't possibly be detected there."

"And how do we know that?" asked Tagiri.

"Because it's impossible."

"In theory."

"And because it never has."

"Until now."

"You want to believe that she really saw us in her nicotine dream?"

Tagiri shrugged, feigning a nonchalance she didn't feel. "If she saw us, Hassan, then let's go on and see what it means to her."

Hassan slowly, almost timidly, released the TruSite to continue exploring the scene.

"This is prophecy, then," Baiku was saying. "Who knows what wonders the gods will bring in forty generations?"

"I always thought that time moved in great circles, as if all of us had been woven into the same great basket of life, each generation another ring around the rim," said Putukam. "But when in the great circles of time was there ever such horror as these white monsters from the sea? So the basket is torn, and time is broken, and all the world spills out of the basket into the dirt."