Toward what? We still haven’t figured out what to do with the damned thing. Push until its growing orbit takes it out of the Earth, I suppose. But then what? Let a decaying singularity, blazing at a million degrees, keep whizzing round and round, entering and leaving, entering and leaving till it dissipates at last in a huge burst of gamma rays?

Teresa shrugged. As if by then the choice will still be in our hands. That was one reason the mood at the table was somber.

Another cause was visible on the outermost shell of the planetary model… a pattern of lights signifying where gazer beams had emerged at land or sea.

Actually, most of the beams pulsed at modes and wavelengths interacting not at all with surface objects. Often, the only effect was a local wind shift or eddies in an ocean current. Still, from a quarter of the sites came rumors of strange colors or thunderclaps in a clear blue sky. Hearsay about water spouts or disappearing clouds. Accounts of dams destroyed, of circular swirls cut in wheat fields, of aircraft vanishing without a trace.

Teresa glanced over at Alex Lustig. He had already told of his efforts to avoid population centers, and she didn’t doubt his sincerity. Still, something had changed in the man since she had seen him last. By now, in all honesty, she had expected to find him a wreck. Tossed by guilt as he had been when they first met, Teresa figured him due for a nervous breakdown when the toll of innocent victims began to rise.

Oddly, he now seemed at peace listening patiently to each speaker as the meeting progressed, exhibiting none of the nervous gestures she recalled. His expression appeared almost serene.

Maybe it isn’t so odd at that, Teresa thought. Beyond the pool of light cast by the display, she saw June Morgan move over behind Lustig and start massaging his shoulders. Teresa’s nostrils flared. They deserve each other, she , thought, and then frowned, wondering what she meant by that.

“We’ve tried to avoid predictable patterns,” George Hutton was saying. “So it would be hard to track down our resonators’ locations. No doubt several major nations and alliances and multinationals already suspect the disturbances are of human origin. In fact, we’re counting on a suspicious reaction. So long as they’re blaming each other, they’ll not go looking for a private group.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?” Teresa asked. “What if someone panics? Especially one of the deterrence powers? It doesn’t take much effort to break the treaty seals on a squadron of cruise missiles, you know. Just hammers and some simple software.”

Pedro Manella leaned into the light. “That’s under control, Captain. First, the seismic occurrences are taking place impartially, worldwide. The only organized pattern anyone will notice is that the disturbances statistically avoid major population centers.

“Second — I’ve taken care to deposit sequestered announcements with a secret registration service, triggered for net release the instant any power goes to yellow alert.”

Alex shook his head. “I thought we weren’t going to trust any of the services.”

Manella shrugged. “After your own unpleasant experience, Lustig, I don’t blame you for feeling that way. But there’s no chance of premature release this time. Anyway, the announcement only gives enough hints to get some trigger-happy crisis team to slow down and consult their geologists.”

George Hutton touched a control, dimming the globe display and bringing up the room lights. Alex squeezed June Morgan’s hand and she returned to her seat. Teresa looked away, feeling at once voyeuristic and resentful. She’s a collector, Teresa thought. How can a woman who^once wanted Jason also be attracted to a man like Lustig?

She suppressed an urge to turn around and look at him again, this time in frank curiosity.

“Besides,” George Hutton added. “There’s a limit to how long we can keep this secret anyway. Sooner or later someone’s going to track us down.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Pedro countered. “Our weakest link is the Net, but I have some very bright people working for me in Washington. By keeping traffic to a minimum and using tricks like your Maori mountain-iwi dialect, we could mask our short blips for as long as six months, even a year.”

“Hmph.” George sounded doubtful and Teresa agreed. Manella’s optimism seemed farfetched. There were too many bored hackers out there with free time and kilobit parallel correlators, looking for any excuse to stir up a sensation. Frankly, she wasn’t at all sure whether she’d be greeted by her tame NASA flunkies when she got back to Houston or by a pack of security boys, wearing total-record goggles and slapping her with inquiry warrants.

Even so, she looked forward to the trip, riding a stratoliner again under her own name. I’ve had it with zeps and aliases for a while.

“Don’t you think the secret will come out when Beta finally emerges through the surface?” George asked. “We won’t be hiding from just ferrets then. The whole pack of hounds will be baying for blood.”

“Conceded. But by then we’ll have our report ready to present to the World Court, won’t we, Alex?”

Lustig looked up, as if his thoughts had been far away. “Um. Sorry, Pedro?”

Manella leaned toward him. “We’ve been after you about this for months! Second only to getting rid of Beta is our need to find out who made the cursed thing. It’s not just revenge — though making an example of the bastards will be nice. I’m talking about saving our own skins!”

Teresa blinked. “What do you mean?”

Manella groaned as if he were the only one in the room able to see the obvious. “I mean that, after all the havoc we’ve set off, and are going to set off in the future, do you think people will simply take our word we just found the awful thing down there?

“Hell no! Here we are, led by the one man ever caught building an illegal black hole on Earth. Who do you think they’ll blame for Beta? Especially if the real villains are powerful men, eager to divert responsibility.”

Teresa swallowed. “Oh.”

All the illegal things they had done — including maintaining secrets and harming innocents — all those she was willing to stand to bar for. The salvation of Earth was powerful justification, after all. But it hadn’t occurred to her that that very defense might be denied them… that their group might actually be blamed for causing Beta in the first place!

“Shit,” she said, in a low voice. Now she understood how Alex Lustig must have felt when he seemed so bitter, last time. Which made it even harder to comprehend the man’s tranquil expression right now.

“I hadn’t thought of that either,” June Morgan said, looking at her as if she’d read her mind. Teresa found herself recalling their friendship, back before things started getting so damned messy. The flux of contrary emotions made her quickly turn away to avoid June’s eyes.

Manella concluded. “Beyond all thought of revenge, we need the real culprits to hand over to the mob in our stead. So I ask again, Lustig. Who are they?”

On the tabletop Alex’s hands lay folded. “We’ve learned a lot lately,” he said in a low voice. “Though I do wish Stan Goldman were here to help. Yes, surely he’s needed in Greenland. But what I’m trying to say is, despite many handicaps, I think we’ve made progress.

“For instance, with June’s assistance, we’ve now got a much better idea how matters must have been when the singularity first fell through the most intense regions of magnetism, which must have trapped the thing for some time before chaotic interactions finally let its apo-axis decay.”

“Chaos? You mean you can’t ever tell… ?”

“Forgive me. I was imprecise. The word ‘chaos’ in this sense doesn’t mean randomness. The solution isn’t perfect, but it can be worked out.”