And yet, moments like this came so seldom in science. Mostly, a researcher’s work was a daily grind no less than the toil of a baker or grocer. Now and then though, something glorious happened — a paradigm shift, or theoretical revolution. Jen and the others were caught in the momentum of creative breakthrough. No one knew how long the burst of synthesis would last, but for now the whole was far greater than the sum of its parts.

… PRECONSCIOUS CULLING OF SEMI-RANDOM MEMORY ASSOCIATIONS cannot be too strict, Li Xieng commented in a line of bright letters to her upper left, after all, what would CONSCIOUSNESS BE WITHOUT THOSE SUDDEN LITTLE MEMORIES AND IMPULSES, APPARENTLY SO RANDOM, BUT…

Li’s comment wasn’t particularly important in itself. But the software bundle accompanying them was. A quick simulation test showed it wouldn’t hurt the big model, and just might add to its overall flexibility. So she spliced it to the growing whole and moved on.

A contribution from one of the Bell Labs arrived, bearing Pauline Cockerel’s chop of approval. Jen was about to evaluate it for herself when a sudden swirl of garish color drew her attention to the screen on the far left.

It was that bloody tiger again! Jen couldn’t figure out what the thing represented or why it persisted so. Or why it looked more battle worn each time she saw it. A while ago she had assigned the symbol to serve as an icon for her protection-sieve program, guarding this computer nexus from any outsiders trying to interfere without permission. But by now her data domain was so much larger, it seemed in retrospect a trivial precaution.

The tiger really was looking rather the worse for wear. It’s fur even smoked along one flank, as if seared by some terrible flame. Bleeding wounds seemed to trace the recent work of raking talons. And yet it rumbled defiantly, turning now and then to glare at something lurking just off screen.

The metaphorical meaning struck Jen even in her distracted state. Somewhere, out in the pseudoreality of the Net, something or someone was trying to get in, and it wasn’t one of her colleagues.

Who, then? Or what?

As if answering her query, the tiger raised a paw. Impaled on one claw shimmered what looked like a glistening lizard’s scale…

Jen shook her head. She hadn’t time for trivialities. Her model kept growing, building impetus. It took all her attention now just to ride along, guiding here, adjusting there…

“ — have to ask you to return the memory and processors you’ve borrowed, Dr. Wolling. Do you read me? This is a crisis! We’ve heard from Alex that—”

The new voice was Kenda, yammering by intercom. Irritably, she wiped the circuit. Of all times for that bloody man to interrupt! Jen had far too little computer memory as it was! She’d even taken advantage of the Ndebele and appropriated space in Kuwenezi Canton’s city computers. Thank heavens it was nighttime outside. By morning it might all be finished, before she had to deal with swarms of irate administrators.

Somewhere in the real world, she vaguely heard Kenda and his crew shouting at each other, struggling to bring their big resonator on line with abrupt speed. But Jen was barely of the real world anymore. Through her subvocal and with delicate finger controls, she created hungry little programs — surrogates designed on the spur of the moment to go forth and get more memory, wherever it could be found, commandeering it on any pretext and hang the ultimate expense! Any storage and computing charges would be recouped a million times over if this worked!

This was no job for mere ferrets or hounds. She needed something tenacious that wouldn’t take no for an answer. So the new surrogates she pictured as tiny versions of herself, and laughed at the image her computer drew from memory — an old book-jacket photo depicting her in an earth-colored sari at some Gaian ritual, wearing a smile of maternally patient, absolute determination.

The self-icons were intimidating, all right. A crowd of unstoppable old ladies gathered in the central holo near the main cluster, ready to go forth and find more room for the growing model.

Then, just as she was about to unleash them, the bottom fell out.

If there really had been such a thing as direct mind-to-machine linkage, Jen might have died at that moment. Even connected by mere holo screens and subvocal, she felt it as a physical blow. In the span of three heartbeats, everything in her console was sucked out and sent streaming along high-rate data lines toward… heaven only knew where!

Her breath caught as she watched in utter dismay. Her surrogates, her subroutines, her colleagues’ comments — the whole damned model poured away like bath water down a thirsty drain! The intricate, interlaced patterns that only moments ago had surrounded her now whirled and vanished into an awful hole.

Nearly last to go was her tiger. Yowling in complaint, it dug in its claws, laying phosphor trails across one screen after another as it was dragged toward the abyss.

From the far left, another simulated creature entered into view as the tiger left — this one larger and even more stunningly formidable. In an instant’s numb understanding Jen knew this to be the software entity her cat had been fighting — a thing that had gotten in at last, only to be swept along with everything else into the void. The fearsome dragon hissed and roared at her, waving a glittering scorpion’s tail as that bizarre suction hauled it, too, into oblivion.

Jen blinked. In a half moment it was over. She punched reset keys, and instantly her displays came alight again, but not a shred of her own work remained. Instead there shone great glowing swathes of the Earth’s interior — the cutaway view used by the resonator team.

So this was no power failure. It hadn’t struck the Tangoparu group’s programs, only hers!

“Kenda!” she screamed. “What have you done!”

Memory. She vaguely recalled Kenda demanding back the computer caches she’d borrowed. Why, the awful man must have taken it on himself to seize it, sending her model straight to Hades in the process!

“You bastard, Kenda. When I get my hands on you…”

For the first time in hours she drew her eyes away from the screens and peered around the console toward where the others kept watch over mere magma and mantle, crust and core. The big resonator glistened, suspended in its friction-less bearings. Lights shone at all the other stations.

But there was no one in sight. No living human being.

“Kenda?… Jimmy?… Anybody?” She swept off the subvocal and was suddenly immersed in real sound again. Foremost came a loud whoop-whoop she recalled hearing once before, back when she and the Kiwis had first set up in these abandoned mines, when Kenda had insisted on running all those bloody drills.

The evacuation alarm.

She found it hard to think, having been ripped so untimely out of a deep and glorious meditative state. Jen mourned her beautiful model. So it was only with passing seconds that she managed to concentrate on more immedi-ate concerns… like why Kenda and the others had departed so abruptly.

Everything looked peaceful enough. She smelled no smoke…

Jen’s gaze roved the empty chamber, stopping at last on the holo in front of her — now depicting Earth’s innards rife with glowing traceries and arcane symbols. In another moment she understood why the others had run away.

A gazer pulse packet… heading this way. Seconds ticked down inevitability with four nines’ probability.

Even in her distracted state, Jen had had enough experience watching Kenda’s operation to perceive how three previously unknown resonators had banded together, taking the Kiwis by surprise, overcoming their belated resistance. It didn’t take many blowups to see where the gargantuan output would strike once whoever-it-was found just the right resonance.