Exhaustion threatened to weigh him down, but he was at the same time buoyed by a sense of growing excitement. The computer, like most things German, was a marvel of precision engineering. He had spent his allotted time digging through the guts of the device, trying to ferret out what might be going wrong. But every few minutes he could not help but turn his eyes to the great ring that hung in the chamber as if it were the object of an amazing parlor trick, levitating there on its own, gleaming with reflected light. Could it be? He wondered for the hundredth time. Could the ring truly be a portal through space and time? Had von Falkenstein actually done what he claimed? Lost in thought, he stumbled as he exited the elevator, earning a quick look from one of the guards. “Damn knee,” Peter muttered as he hurried down the main corridor toward his room. He looked at his watch. He had precisely four minutes to make himself presentable and get to the dining room. Grasping the polished brass doorknob to his room, he turned it and pushed the door open.
