‘He’s there, I tell you.’ The General tapped forcefully on the Plexiglas shield. ‘Can’t you see his outline coming through? Over there?’

Everyone turned their attention to the few pieces of electrical equipment that had been used to jump-start the bluestone’s residual energy. The red and green lights of a computer terminal were just visible through the sizzling blue glare.

Hal still couldn’t see anything, but Catherine Manning had become animated. ‘Yes — I see him! He’s made it!’

‘Let’s not get too excited yet,’ Kirkham cautioned, his face set. Of all of them, he was the one who most understood the risks. Hal recalled Kirkham’s briefing when Glenning had been selected. They had laughingly dubbed Glenning ‘the Psychonaut’, a name that had since buckled under the weight of its own accumulated mythology.

‘The chances are you may not be coming back,’ Kirkham had warned Glenning as they stood before the lecture hall whiteboard covered with Kirkham’s convoluted diagrams. ‘The knowledge encoded in all the old stories makes it quite clear what will happen to mortals who venture where they shouldn’t.’

Hal was jolted from his memory by a shimmer of blue light in the shape of a man near the spot the General had indicated.

‘Yes!’ Catherine said, her fists bunched in triumph.

‘Phasing in,’ Kirkham muttered to himself. He checked the set of monitors on the desk next to him. ‘Ozone level high. Ultrasound. EMF spiking. This is it.’

‘So you don’t have to be at one of the nodes after all,’ Reid mused. ‘As long as you can manipulate that energy, you can do it anywhere. Think of the implications.’