"Well, they'd have to be quite small sailboats," Weaver pointed out. "Otherwise they'd sort of . . . crash."

"Freighters," the Homeland Security director said. "Cruise ships! We need to get a hazard warning out for mariners!"

"That . . . would be advisable," the physicist said.

"We need to get that . . . anomaly turned off," the NSA said. "Soon. How many of these gates can the Titcher access?"

"Unknown," Weaver admitted. "We only have one emergence so far. If we have a couple more it will give me some data. In the meantime I'm as in the dark as you are."

"How do we turn the anomaly off?" she asked.

"Errr . . ." Weaver shook his head. "You remember how I mentioned the great big steel ball?"

"That will turn it off?" the NSA asked. "A billion dollars will be pocket change compared to this stuff."

"I also remember how he mentioned ten years," the Homeland Security director said, sourly.

"And it won't turn it off," the physicist pointed out. "What Imight be able to do is steer the bosons somewhere controllable. Maybe. Nyarowlll admitted thattheir gate openings, the controlled openings, are on small islands with heavy guard facilities. Maybe steer them all to atolls or, I don't know, Area 51 seems appropriate."

"I'll pass that on to the President," the NSA said, dryly. "In the meantime, try to figure out how to turn off the anomaly and shut at least some of these gates."

"I'll put some of my people on the job of monitoring them once they're found and we're going to need awhole bunch of people suitable for surveying the far sides," the Homeland Security director said, sighing.

"I'll put FEMA in charge of finding those people. They know every environmental specialty company in the U.S. This is going to start costing real money pretty soon."

"Look on the bright side," Weaver said.

"There's a bright side?" the Homeland Security director said with a grim laugh.

"Sure, besides the advances that this is going to make in science, we're looking at multipleworlds that are available for colonization. Sure, so far there haven't been many that have been worth much and the U.S. isn't really interested in getting rid of surplus population. But if we can figure out how to steer some of these things to India and China . . ."

"That's a point," the NSA said. "One bright point."

"So far we've encountered two civilizations," Weaver said. "One of them hostile and one friendly. That, I think, is pretty good odds."

"Three," the NSA pointed out. "If you add the Boca Raton anomaly. And I don't know if it's hostile or just so impossible to understand it will always be an anomaly."

"But the point is that we're encountering friendly ones," Weaver said. "It's not all doom and gloom. It's just very odd. But the U.S. is a master of handling oddities. We take cellular phones and the internet for granted. In time I bet that we absorb gates just as we've absorbed every other change. And, for that matter, make money off of them," he added with a chuckle.

"Okay," the NSA said, smiling. "I'll point that out to the President, too. Just as soon as he wakes up. I'm sure we'll be talking again, Doctor."

"Yes, ma'am," the physicist said as the transmission terminated.

He got up and stretched his back, then undogged the door to the communications center and stepped into the other room of the trailer. Miller was sitting at a short-range radio with his feet up on the ledge in front of it, his eyes closed.

"I thought that SEALs never needed to sleep?" Weaver said.

"I was just resting my eyes," Miller answered instantly and opened them. "I was talking to the director of security for the parks. I'm much more impressed with this outfit than I was just dealing with their rent-a-cops. They've got better environment suits than FEMA, a bigger environmental response team than most major cities and a 'county' SWAT team that is dedicated for the park and looks pretty damned sharp. The security director, who's an ex-Green Beanie, and I took a little stroll on the other side. Not exactly a garden spot, but you know Disney. He'd already talked to the director of parks and they're planning on turning it into an 'interplanetary adventure' at very high rates. Suit people up in environment suits and take them for a stroll on 'the primordial Earth.'"

"I just told the NSA that somebody would find a way to make money off of these things," Weaver said, sitting down. "You know, she wants me to either shut down the anomaly or figure out a way to move the gates. It occurs to me that the people to put on that would be Disney's Imagineers. They're some of the best engineers in the world, certainly the highest paid." "We'll talk to them later," Miller said, standing up and taking the physicist by the arm. "We're headed back to base. Then you're going to bed. And you're going to sleep even if I have to hit you over the head with a blackjack. And I'm going to sleep, too. And I'm not getting up until tomorrow. By then there will be more news, more gates, more data and more emergencies. Butuntil then, we're getting some sleep.

Understood?"

"Understood," Weaver said, grinning. "If anything comes up, I'll tell them you're on another emergency somewhere."

"Yeah," Miller said. "In fact, I think I'm just going to check into a hotel. Maybe the powers that be won't find me there."

What they ended up doing was talking to the security director who, whether he was appreciative of them responding so fast to a potential threat on Disney property or happy that the SEAL hadn't killed his guard, arranged for rooms in the Grand Floridian. It was broad daylight when they made it up to their rooms but neither of the two cared. Weaver undressed, took out his cell phone, turned it off, plugged it into the charger he was carrying and hit the bed with his whole body. He never even pulled the covers down, he just fell asleep.

Shane Gries was sitting on the back of his M-2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle eating a hamburger from Burger King when he heard the distinctiveWHAM-WHAM-WHAM of a 25mm chain gun. He dropped the hamburger just as the driver that was manning his own vehicle's gun opened fire and the first Abrams fired with an enormous slam of sound. He had his vehicle helmet on in seconds and plugged in to the intervehicular communications system before he popped his head out of the commander's hatch. What met his eyes was nightmare.

Something like a giant green worm was extruding through the gate, filling it from side to side. As he watched a ball of lightning jumped out from a horn on the side of one segment and impacted on an Abrams, which exploded in a ball of fire. He saw 25mm rounds bouncing off the armor on the thing and just as he wondered about Abrams rounds a "silver bullet" went downrange with a sound like ripping cloth, impacted on the armor of the thing and then, incredibly, bounced off, the depleted uranium arrow breaking into pieces and sparking fire.

"Holy shit," he muttered, keying the Forward Air Control frequency.

"Alpha Seven this is Romeo Two-Eight!"

"Romeo Two-Eight, this is Alpha Seven. Before you ask I've already called for JDAMs. Impact in forty-five seconds. Danger very God damned close!"

Shane switched frequency to the company net and shouted: "JDAM! JDAM! JDAM!"

A B-52 or B-1 bomber had been on continuous loiter since an hour after his company arrived, their Joint Directed Attack Munitions programmed to the location of the gate. Because of the danger of the gate the weapons they were carrying were M-82 two-thousand-pound bombs. In the event of their use the only thing the infantry could do was hunker down and hope like hell that the bomb hit the target and didn't hit them. If it came anywhere near the line it would probably kill half the company.

Artillery rounds were already starting to land but they had no more effect on the creature than the Abrams rounds. And, as he watched in horror, more bolts of lightning were jumping skywards. Helooked up and winced at the first titanic explosion overhead. Then there was a tremendous roar in the sky and the contrail that had indicated the presence of the B-52 on station was abruptly terminated in a gigantic cloud of fire and smoke.

There were three segments through the gate, now, all of them belching chain lightning. The artillery started to dwindle as some of the lightning intercepted it overhead, the explosions raining shrapnel down on the beleaguered infantry company. But he noticed that the front segment had taken damage. It seemed to be crippled, being pushed ahead by the trailing segments, and was no longer firing. It could be hurt.

"All units," he called. "Try to aim for repeated hits on the same spot. Try to bust through this thing's armor."

The gunner had slid into his seat, replacing the driver who started the vehicle.

"Switch to TOW," Shane said to the driver, switching back to the company frequency. "All Brads, go TOW!" The Tank-killing, Optically-tracked, Wire-guided missile was the Bradley's premier antiarmor system. It was capable of taking out a main battle tank at four thousand meters. On the other hand, it was pretty inaccurate at less than a thousand meters, which was the current engagement range. Shane cursed, again, the directive that ordered him to "remain close to the gate." He was well inside his maximum engagement range, with no room to maneuver against this hell-spawned thing.

He looked to either side and saw that he had lost two of his precious Abrams, both of them billowing fire into the sky. They were mostly intact, ammunition magazine ports blown out but their turrets still in place, but from the looks of them the crews were gone. Whatever that thing was firing seemed to pierce the armor of the Abrams as if it was insubstantial as paper.

"Keep up fire," he commanded. "Keep hitting it on the same spots if possible. Do not retreat. Say again, stay in place, do not let this thing . . ."

It was his last transmission as a ball of plasma blew his Bradley sky-high.

Weaver rolled over and groaned at the pounding on the door. He sat up and stumbled over, cursing.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm up," he said, unlocking and unbolting it. Command Master Chief Miller was the one doing the knocking and at the look on his face Weaver woke up fully. "What happened?"

"The company in Eustis just got clobbered, again," Miller said, walking into the room. "It's all over the news."

"Let me take a shower at least," Weaver grumped. He turned on his cell phone, first, and shrugged at the multiple message icon. It could wait until he had a shower.

A science fiction writer he knew always carried a black backpack that he called his "alien abduction pack." "Everything I need to survive for twenty-four hours in eighty percent of terrestrial environments." It was really a "I crashed in somebody else's hotel room at a con" or "the airline lost my bags" pack.

Weaver had started carrying one as well and he was glad for it now. He could shave with his own razor and brush his teeth with his own toothbrush. He'd used up the bottle of water the day before but that was easily remedied.

As soon as he was done with his shower, hair brushed, wearing new underwear thanks to the "alienabduction pack" again, he was ready to face the day.

Or, afternoon as it turned out.

As they walked out of the front of the hotel, Weaver hoping that the nice security director would make sure the bill or whatever was paid, he started listening to his messages. The national security advisor wanted him to call. A secretary at Columbia pointed out that he had missed a scheduled meeting with a client that morning. His girlfriend in Huntsville wanted to know when his plane was getting in and reminded him that they were supposed to go to a party that evening. It was still on, despite the news, but Buddy was retheming it an "Alien Invasion" party and what was he going to wear? His cell phone company reminded him that he was overdue on his bill and if the balance of three hundred dollars wasn't paid in two days his cell phone would be temporarily disconnected.

That reminded him that he didn't know how any of this was being billed. He supposed he was working for Columbia but, come to think of it, nobody had signed a contract. He was basically working on the word of the secretary of defense. On the other hand, that ought to be good enough. But he hadn't talked to his boss at Columbia for that matter.

He keyed in the number and got a secretary, the same one that had called him about the missed meeting.

He put her off and got ahold of Dan Heistand, vice-president for Advanced Development at Columbia.

"Hey, Dan," Weaver said as the chief pulled onto Highway 192.

"Weaver, where the hell have you been?" Heistand asked. He was normally a pretty mild fellow, so Bill was taken aback.

"I've been working on the UCF anomaly," Bill replied. "Didn't anybody tell you?"

"No," Heistand said, calming down. "Who brought you in?"

"The SECDEF. I had a meeting with the War Cabinet on Saturday morning."

"You're joking."

"No, he sent a couple of MPs to my hotel room. Speaking of which, I never checked out of that one, either."

"Where are you, now?"

"Disney World."

"Disney? What the hell is happening at Disney? Who's paying for this? How many hours have you billed?

What's the contract number?"

"I don'thave a contract number," Bill sighed. "Look, when the secretary of defense, the national security advisor and thePresident tell you to go to Orlando and send you down in an F-15 doing Mach Three, you don't say 'Oh, excuse me, Mr. President, would you mind signing this contract from Columbia Defense Systems so the billing will be straight?' Okay? As to how many hours I've been billing, except for four hours' sleep this afternoon and about three and a half unconscious yesterday . . . all the rest.

Okay?" "Unconscious?"

"I got blown up by one of those rhinoceros tanks," Bill said. "That was after the standoff in the house.

Hey, did you know that an H&K USP .45 caliber pistol will kill one of those dog-demons if you hit it just right?"

"Bill," Dan said, then paused. "Forget everything I said."

"Already forgotten," Weaver replied. "Hey, if you want to be a help, find whoever has to sign the contracts, and I can imagine what howling they're going to make when they see my hourly rates, and get the whole team down to the anomaly site. I've got a national guardsman who used to be a physics student doing all my monitoring and half the analysis. He's been helpful and I'd like to keep him but I could use some help."

"Will do."

"And see if you can find a guy named Gonzales or Gonzalves or something in England, Reading, I think.

Pure math guy. Ray Chen used to go to him for Higgs-Boson math he couldn't get. And send me some clothes. And get somebody to pay my cell phone bill."

"Okay," Heistand said, chuckling. "In retrospect, the meeting this morning wasn't all that important, despite the fact that there was about two million dollars in billing riding on it and you were the star of the show."

"Hell, Dan, I've probably billed a quarter of that just this weekend," Bill said. "Okay, we're pulling into a McDonald's to get some breakfast. As soon as I can slow down enough to do anything like a report I'll get it to you."

"Bye, Bill," Heistand said. "And, oh,try not to get blown up again, okay? You're my star biller."

"Will do," Weaver said, chuckling. Then he thought of something apropos of the order and frowned.

"Oh, one more thing, Dan," he added. "Send the Wyverns."

"That's a classified program, Bill," the vice-president said. "I can't just open up that compartment on your say-so."

"I've got the access I need to get it opened," Weaver replied. "But do you really want me to go that route? Call the DOD rep, explain the situation, get the compartment kicked open. But in the meantime, put them in their shipping containers and get them down to Orlando. I'm tired of nearly getting my butt blown off. Send the Wyverns. And their full suite of accessories."

"I had to call my boss, too," Chief Miller said. "What do you want?"

"Number one, Diet Coke," the physicist replied.

The SEAL gave the order and pulled around in the Humvee, the Mk-19 just clearing the overhead. The employees manning the windows were visibly bemused to be serving a Humvee with a grenade launcher being driven by a heavily armed SEAL.

"The Team didn't know where I was; they thought I'd bought it at Eustis," the chief said. "Even sent adamned counseling team over to my house: chaplain, a captain, the works. My wife couldn't decide if she was happy as hell that I was still alive or pissed that I hadn't called earlier when I called and told her they were wrong. They didn't even know that Sanson was in the hospital. Most of the casualties at Eustis were 'missing presumed dead' including the Old Man."

"I'm sorry about that," Weaver said. "Glasser was a good man." He looked over at the chief who was driving the Humvee with one hand and eating a Quarter Pounder with the other. "I didn't even know you were married."

"Three happy years," the chief replied around a mouthful of burger. "And twelve that weren't so bad either. Hell, every time I go out the door she figures I'm not coming home. The kids hardly know who I am. But she doesn't bitch about it. Well, not much. Somewhat more when I return from the grave."

"And kids," Weaver said, shaking his head. "It just doesn't fit the image of the world-traveler SEAL.

How many?"

"Three," Miller replied. "Being a SEAL's just like any other job after a while. At first it's all 'oooh! I'm a SEAL!' and getting into fights in Bangkok. Then there's the 'okay, I'm a SEAL, that's my job and it's sooo coool' phase after you've been on the Teams for a while. Then there's the 'honey, I'm off to work'

phase, which is basically me."

Weaver laughed at that.

"And one from my marriage to She Who Must Not Be Named," Miller added. "He's in the Army.

Studyingcomputers of all things. The rest are high-school and one in elementary school. Sixteen, fifteen and nine. Boy, boy, girl."

"And she's the apple of daddy's eye?" Weaver grinned.