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Just a pull of the trigger, one tiny motion, and his brains would splatter all over the cabin. Steve stayed oh-so-still, lest a s.h.i.+ver or a twitch make Bo Pan’s finger squeeze.

“Yes, I understand.”

The pressure against his temple went away, leaving the cool spot in its wake.

“Good,” Bo Pan said. “And your other machine, the snake, it can destroy an American ROV?”

The snake had been in the second crate. It hitched a ride on the Platypus the way a remora hitches a ride on a shark. It was made up of nine metal-sh.e.l.led sections connected together by rubber seals. Each section had a battery-powered motor inside. The nine motors worked in synchronicity to create a waving motion: the three-foot-long robot could slither across land like a snake, or swim through water like an eel.

Each metal-sh.e.l.led section also held twenty grams of C-4. If the snake swam near a threatening object, it could detonate all nine charges at once.

“Steve, I asked you a question. If it needs to, can the snake destroy an American ROV?”

Steve’s body vibrated with fear.

“Yes, of course,” he said. He wasn’t sure if it could or it couldn’t, but he wasn’t about to say that to an angry old man holding a gun. “If the snake can wrap around one of the navy’s ROVs, it can detonate and crush the thing like a tin can. But if you’re thinking of using it on the locker that holds the alien object, Bo Pan, I can’t guarantee it won’t destroy everything inside.”

Bo Pan shrugged. “The Americans will try to retrieve the container. When they do, they will open the locker for us. That is when your machine will take it. I will tell you what I want it to do. I talk, you program, understand?”

Steve turned to his computer, suddenly relieved to dive into his work, to give his brain something to think of other than Bo Pan’s gun.

THE BARRIER

Clarence sat in the observation module. He watched a monitor, trying to make sense of the video Tim and Margaret were so excited to share with him. It was time-lapse footage, two side-by-side bits of Charlie Petrovsky’s rotting flesh. Five hours compressed into fifteen seconds let Clarence immediately see a significant difference.

He looked over the console, down into the a.n.a.lysis Module where Tim and Margaret stared up at him, waiting.

“Okay, I watched it,” Clarence said. “The one on the left is rotting faster than the one on the right. What’s it mean?”

Tim turned to Margaret, half bowed, lowered his arm in a sweeping gesture: after you, madame. Margaret mocked a curtsy, which looked ridiculous in her bulky suit.