I turned my attention to the table. Several rectangular black boxes from twenty centimeters to a meter in height occupied one end. At the other end, a shining white box sat alone, linked to the others by thick optical cables. The white box was obviously a thinker, but it did not bear any marks of origin or affiliation.

Leander motioned for Royce and Kwang to bring us chairs. We sat and Ti Sandra leaned back with a deep sigh.

“I don’t think I’m going to like this,” she said.

“On the contrary,” said Leander, sitting on the edge of the table. “We’re about to present you with the most extraordinary opportunity… perhaps in all history.”

Ti Sandra shook her head firmly. “Sounds dangerous,” she said dubiously. “ Opportunity being the flip side of disaster.” She pinched her lips and said, “It’s more than communications, if I’m not mistaken.”

Leander nodded and turned to me. “Charles says Miz Majumdar might have some idea what we’ve discovered.”

“Not really,” I said. ‘Tweaks, I presume.“

Charles smiled, eyes level on me. Over the years, he had acquired something I would never have thought possible for him: not just poise, not just self-assurance, but charisma.

“Charles once said — ” I began, and stopped, feeling heat rise in my face.

Leander faced Charles.

“I once told the Vice President that I hoped to break the long status quo and discover the secrets of the universe,” Charles explained.

Leander laughed. “Not so far wrong,” he said. “The status quo is certainly shattered. There hasn’t been anything this revolutionary since nanotech — and that will pale by comparison. Charles is our pivotal theorist, and he seems to have a knack for explaining things simply. Would you like to inform the heads of our new Republic what we’re offering?“

With an uncharacteristic scowl, Ti Sandra conspicuously turned her large body toward Charles.

“We’ve discovered how to access the Bell Continuum, how to adjust the nature of the components of energy and matter,” he began. “Together, we’ve developed a theory of matter and energy that is comprehensive. A dataflow theory. We know how to reach into the descriptive core of a particle, and change it.”

“Descriptive core?” Ti Sandra asked.

“Every particle exists in an information matrix. It carries descriptors of all its relevant characteristics. In fact, the total description is the particle. It passes information on its character and states with other particles through exchange of bosons — photons, for example — or through the Bell Continuum. The Bell Continuum is a kind of bookkeeping system that balances certain qualities in the universe.”

“What kind of matrix?” Ti Sandra asked.

“A dataflow matrix,” Charles said. “Otherwise undefined.”

“Like computer memory?”

“That’s an occasionally useful metaphor,” Leander said.

“We do not define the matrix,” Charles persisted.

“God’s computer?” Ti Sandra said, her frown deepening.

Charles smiled apologetically. “No gods necessary.”

“Pity,” Ti Sandra said. “Please go on.”

“Most particles that make up matter have a description of two hundred and thirty-one bits of information — including mass, charge, spin, quantum state, components of kinetic and potential energy, their position in space and moment in time relative to other particles.”

“Their portfolios,” Leander said.

“Credit ratings,” Royce offered. The humor fell flat.

“Very good,” Ti Sandra said. “Very interesting. But why not send me a paper on your results?”

Leander sobered. “This is just background. Much of this theory is accepted in high-level physics now — ”

“It’s controversial in some circles,” Charles said, rubbing his hands together.

“Idiots,” Royce said, shaking his head in pity.

“But we’re the only ones who have been able to manipulate particle data by accessing the Bell Continuum,” Charles said. “We can convert particles into their own anti-particles — ”

“As long as we conserve charge,” Royce added.

“Right. We can produce antimatter or mirror matter directly from ordinary matter.”

He let that sink in. Ti Sandra looked at the Olympians critically, still dubious. “Would that be an energy source?” she asked.

“Tremendous amounts of energy,” Leander said. “We haven’t yet built a large-scale reactor, but there are no theoretical limits to the energy we can release. Harness.”

“Lead into gold?” Winkleman asked.

“We can’t create mass,” Charles said. “Not yet.”

Ti Sandra seemed genuinely stunned now. “Not yet?” she repeated. “Perhaps someday soon?”

“We don’t know,” Charles said. “It’s not impossible, I think. But a few folks disagree.”

Royce and Kwang raised their hands. “We keep the others humble,” Royce said.

“I’m open to the possibility,” Leander said.

“Just as significant, we can do the conversion at a distance,” Charles said. “That is, we can aim at a specific region and convert matter to mirror matter within that region, at distances up to nine or ten billion kilometers. Effectively, anywhere within the Solar System.”

The group fell silent for a moment. The Olympians looked at us, and each other, uncomfortably, like youngsters accused of some misdemeanor.

I stared at Charles with a mix of horror and awe.

“Does Earth know you’ve made this… discovery, this breakthrough?” I asked.

The Olympians shook their heads. “They might suspect,” Charles said, “but we’ve kept it very quiet. Only the nine of us, and Ira, have understood how far we’ve come. And these recent developments… the most significant developments… they’re no more than six months old.”

“Cailetet?” I asked.

“They’ve been led to believe we’ve made a minor communications breakthrough, after we left them,” Charles said “Nothing more.”

“How minor?” I asked.

“We’ve told them we can access descriptors to correlate broadcast communications with states at origin. That is, we can clean hash off radiated signals.”

“Can you?” I asked.

“Of course,” Charles said. He made me uncomfortable, focusing intently on me with his curious, detached expression. “But actually we can do much better than that. We can transit signals across the Solar System instantaneously.”

“Have you?” I asked.

“No. Only across Mars,” he replied. “Of course, we need two devices. None exist on Earth or anywhere else in the Solar System.”

“What do you expect us to do?” Ti Sandra asked.

Leander and Charles spoke together, and Charles deferred to Leander. It was becoming apparent to me that Charles led the group, but that he had chosen Leander as a more mature-looking speaker. That did not stop Charles from interrupting.

“Madam President, you’re at the head of the first effective government in Martian history,” Leander said. “We’ve been worried for years now that our work would bear fruit in an improper political climate, and would be misused, or that Earth would benefit, and not Mars. In a few more years, perhaps sooner, researchers on Earth will know what we know, and that could be dangerous.”

“It’s dangerous for just Mars to know,” I said. “If Earth believes we have this power…”

“I agree,” Charles said. “But we can’t just sit on what we know.”

Ti Sandra rubbed her large shoulders with crossed hands. “Ours is an interim government,” she said. “We only serve for a few months.”

Leander said, “We didn’t think we could afford to wait any longer.”

Charles leaned his head to one side and shook it slowly, then stared at me again. “I apologize for the short notice, with no preparation,” he said. “Casseia, I do not know how to tell you… the importance of this. I’m no egotist — you know that.”

“Well,” Royce said, smiling, but Leander put his hand on the young man’s shoulder.

“When you were on Earth, you asked me a question I could not answer. I apologize for that. Maybe now you understand why.”