THE WATCHER

The crew standing near the Watcher’s entrance hole stopped speaking, forever. A millisecond-stepped scan of the video readback showed only a blue-white fog, and then—next frame—the beginnings of an orange explosion. In two more frames the boiling orange had reached the video lens itself and transmission stopped. The orange moved like a liquid, licking the surface of the satellite clean in seven milliseconds. A tongue of it projected eighteen klicks toward the orbiting mission team for twenty-two milliseconds. Then two-thirds of the crew—all that were on the satellite—were dead.

ACCLAIM FOR GREGORY BENFORD’S CLASSIC NOVELS OF THE GALACTIC CENTER