If his birthworld of Teufel had been Fire, then Opal was surely Water.

And Quake, the other half of the Dobelle planetary doublet?

Hell, from what he had heard of it. Nothing that Rebka had read or had been told in his briefings had had one good word to say about Quake. Events on Opal at Summertide were said to be spectacular and hair-raising — but survivable. On Quake they were deadly.

He looked up at the sky again and was startled to see that it was light. Opal and Quake were tidally locked to each other, and they spun around their common center of mass at a furious rate. One day in the Dobelle system was only eight standard hours. His morning musings had taken him well past dawn. He would just have time for a quick breakfast; then an aircar would carry him around the planet to Quakeside — and to the most stupid and least productive job of his life.

Rebka swore, cursing the name of Max Perry, and walked across to the door. He had not yet met the man, but he was ready to dislike him.

ARTIFACT: PARADOX

UAC#: 35

Galactic Coordinates: 27,312.443/15,917.902/+135.66

Name: Paradox Star/planet association: Darien/Kleindienst

Bose Access Node: 139 Estimated age: 9.112 ± 0.11 Megayears

Exploration History: It is not known how many times Paradox was discovered, and all knowledge of it then lost. What is known is that in E. 1379 Ruttledge, Kaminski, Parzen, and Lu-lan organized a two-ship expedition to investigate the light-refraction anomaly now known as Paradox.

Arriving first, Ruttledge and Kaminski recorded on their ship’s main computer the intention of entering the Paradox sphere using the exploration pinnace, while the main ship remained well clear.