It was January 18, 1951, three years ago, and the jagged line of the Australian coast stretched like a small-scale map to the black curve of the horizon.

From the converted bomber that was his flying lab, Forster could see the other American observation plane cruising on a parallel course, about half a mile away, and beyond it downwind the fringe of the billowing cloud dome of the super-secret British thermonuclear shot.

Then suddenly Bentley's voice from the other plane was crackling over the earphones, sharp and urgent:

"Our Geigers and scintillometers are going crazy! We're getting out of here! There's something coming inside ... a light...."

Silence. Forster had watched in helpless horror as the other ship dipped a silver wing, then nosed down ever so slowly, it seemed ... down ... down ... in a dive that seemed to take hours as Forster's plane tracked it, ending in a tiny splash like a pebble being thrown into a pond; then the grimly beautiful iridescence of oil and gasoline spreading across the glassy waters of the Timor Sea.

No parachutes had opened on the long journey down. An Australian air sea rescue launch and helicopter were at the scene of the crash in minutes, but neither bodies nor survivors had been found, then or later....

"Everything okay, Doctor Forster?"

"Yes," he said hoarsely. "Yes ... everything's okay ... just routine."

Forster focussed his eyes on the writing again. There was no doubt at all that it was Bentley's. They had roomed and studied together for four years at MIT, and then there had been a couple of years' post-graduate work after that. During all that time they had used each other's notes constantly.

But Bentley was dead.

Forster read on, stunned:

First, you'll want to know what happened over the Timor Sea after the shot. Put very simply, I, the rest of the technicians, and the crew of the B-29 were transhipped to another vehicle—without any damage to ourselves. How, I'm not allowed to explain at this stage. Actually, they only wanted me, but it wasn't feasible to collect me and leave the rest behind, so they're all here, safe and well.

Who are "they," and where am I? The second question I can't answer—not allowed to. "They," roughly translated, 

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