“The whole three-thousand-foot pyramid?” Sam asked, trying to imagine the event.

“Yes. There are a lot of electromagnetic phenomena. There’s smoke. Everyone has been evacuated.” Richard took an unsteady step forward.

“It must be on the evening news,” Sam said, looking around for the remote control.

“No! Listen—we don’t have time. It’s the bulerite—it’s unstable. When our two ore haulers were destroyed in space…we found the same kind of ash in Jack’s yacht and around his disintegrated coffin. When they refloated what was left of the yacht, the bulerite statuettes of Prometheus were gone, together with all the bulerite on the vessel.”

Sam saw fear in Richard’s tired eyes, as if something of Jack had taken possession of him.

Jack killed himself, Sam thought, feeling a guilty satisfaction.