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Project."
    Don halted, staggering slightly. "I'm not going anywhere until I know where we're going."
    The man turned an impassive face to him. "Sir, we would very much like it if you cooperated. If you do not cooperate we are authorized to use force, and I'm sure none of us will like that very much. You agreed to participation in the Hermes Project. I can assure you that everything will be all right. All will be explained at your destination."
    The other man stepped up close behind Batson, his manner calmly threatening.
    "How long will we be gone?"
    "I don't know, sir. A day at least."
    "All right. I'll go along for the time being. Let's take Ms. Porter home first. We can drop her at my place while I get some stuff."
    The man swung the truck door open. "We've already been by your house and have packed for you."
    "How'd you get in?" Don protested.
    The man looked slightly surprised, as if it were a stupid question. "We went in the door, Professor. Now please get in the truck. We have a plane waiting at the airport. Ms. Porter can take your car home. We have already notified the university that you will be on a leave of absence.
    Don turned to Linda. "I'll give you a call as soon as I find out what is going on."
    "Don't bother," she spat, grabbing the keys and walking over to his car.
     
     
    LEVY London, England
    19 DECEMBER 1995, 0900 LOCAL
    19 DECEMBER 1995, 0900 ZULU
     
    The lecture hall was filled to capacity and people were even standing along the back wall. Debra Levy let the curtain slip back into place with a twitch of nervousness.
    "I didn't know there would be so many!"
    The coordinator from Oxford made clucking noises, presumably to soothe her. "Your reputation is unmatched. Your work is at the very cutting edge." He smiled. "In fact, you are beyond the cutting edge, as far as I am concerned. I am not sure I understood your last paper on the quantum theory of gravitation and the physics of the cosmos. Most especially the section on..."
    Debra grasped her notes tighter in damp hands and pushed her glasses up on her nose, tuning out his words. That all these people should be here to listen to a twenty-three year old Jewish girl from Brooklyn! It was all so strange to her. Having lived her life, she didn't understand that others found her amazing. After graduating from high school at nine, she'd completed her doctorate in physics at MIT at fifteen. Since then she'd added several other degrees, but still kept her concentration in the world of physics.
    It never seemed to occur to those around her that as much as they didn't quite comprehend her, she didn't quite comprehend everyone outside of herself. To her it was quite natural to have progressed the way she did and unnatural that people her own age were still struggling in the graduate program she'd completed almost a decade ago. The egocentrism of the average human mind never ceased to confound her.
    "Two minutes," the coordinator whispered to her, his body unnecessarily close.
    He irritated her. She knew she was far from pretty but she also knew she wasn't ugly. Five and a half feet tall, the one hundred and ten pounds sparingly applied to her frame gave her an acceptable body, as far as present societal standards went, where it was always better to be on the lesser side of the weight scale than the greater. Debra couldn't have cared less, but her brain acknowledged that it sometimes mattered to others, most particularly men. Her face, devoid of makeup, was very pale and smooth. Her eyes were hidden behind functional thick glasses that were hopelessly out of style. Her dark hair was drawn back severely in a bun with a small ribbon and had never known the graces of a stylist's scissors.
    "One minute."
    Two figures appeared near the door to the stage wing, one of the professors trying to stop their entry. They pushed past him as if he didn't exist. The taller of the two men walked up to Debra.
    "Miss Debra Levy?"
    She nodded as the coordinator and several others