"Two hundred fifty thousand kilos fully fueled," the pilot offered, like a father bragging about his newborn. "Runs on slush hydrogen. The shell’s a titanium matrix with silicon carbide fibers. She packs a 20:1 thrust/weight ratio; most jets run at 7:1. The director must be in one helluva a hurry to see you. He doesn’t usually send the big boy."

"This thing flies?" Langdon said.

The pilot smiled. "Oh yeah." He led Langdon across the tarmac toward the plane. "Looks kind of startling, I know, but you better get used to it. In five years, all you’ll see are these babies—HSCT’s—High Speed Civil Transports. Our lab’s one of the first to own one."

Must be one hell of a lab, Langdon thought.

"This one’s a prototype of the Boeing X-33," the pilot continued, "but there are dozens of others—the National Aero Space Plane, the Russians have Scramjet, the Brits have HOTOL. The future’s here, it’s just taking some time to get to the public sector. You can kiss conventional jets good-bye."

Langdon looked up warily at the craft. "I think I’d prefer a conventional jet."

The pilot motioned up the gangplank. "This way, please, Mr. Langdon. Watch your step."

Minutes later, Langdon was seated inside the empty cabin. The pilot buckled him into the front row and disappeared toward the front of the aircraft.

The cabin itself looked surprisingly like a wide-body commercial airliner. The only exception was that it had no windows, which made Langdon uneasy. He had been haunted his whole life by a mild case of claustrophobia—the vestige of a childhood incident he had never quite overcome.