16

The stark conviction in the mystic's words makes even Dr. Kattan hesitate. Speaking so quickly you cannot share your thoughts with Alexius, Dr. Sabbatine says, "Stralchus and I, with a small group, previously took the Specular back to the beginning, if only for a moment." She gestures to the mirrored-steel circular viewing platform. "We, um, took photographs."

The lights dim again and a magic lantern projects an image against one wall: a flat, featureless plain marked only by a single tree, and in the moonless night sky…things. Abstract geometric shapes surrounded by halo-like motion blurs.

Such images could easily be faked. But what would be the point? Who would be fool enough to invite the world's leading scientists and then deceive them with photographic tricks?

The magic lantern cycles from one photograph to the next. Most suffer from extensive motion blur or bad composition, but the polyhedral shapes recur again and again.

"I intend a second journey," the doctor says. "Immediately."

Dr. Sabbatine checks her pocket watch, permitting a few minutes of frantic negotiation and argument.

"It's real," Cyril whispers to you. "It's the beginning of the world."

"Correct." That calm and polished voice comes from the woman in the red jacket, to whom you have still not been properly introduced. Wasn't she just on stage?

Alexius, standing beside Cyril and examining the photographs on the wall, shakes his head. "Smoke and mirrors. Literally, I think. Anyone can fake a photo. And now I'm worried she's going to dose us all on opiates, stick us on that Specular thing, and make us hallucinate."

"But we have to find out, don't we?" Cyril asks. "People need to know!"