to a narrow slit. On the one side of the aperture was a blue sky with white clouds. On the other side was the dark aperture of the lensed telescope. A star was centered in this dark aperture. The star was a faint dot of light. The star was whitehot iron. The star was a killer. Dr. Laing did not look up from his notes. He was a man of medium height, dressed in a white laboratory coat. His hair was thin and gray, and his face was lined with years of work. He was a scientist, and he was working on a problem that had stumped the best minds in the world. His equation covered the blackboard behind him, a mass of symbols and notations that only he could understand. He had been working on it for weeks, and he was still no closer to a solution. He wished he could look away, but he knew he couldn't. He had to keep looking until the end, even if it meant his death.