. “I've lost an asteroid,” said Juliet Musgrove, her voice tired and embarrassed. “It's not where it's supposed to be. It's just vanished!”

She knew that Jafar Kareem, her mentor, would relish the opportunity for a bit of playful banter and she wasn't disappointed. “How careless of you,” he said, an amused gleam in his eye. He was reading the Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics on his tablet and he put it down to look up at her. “Where did you have it last?”

Juliet was in no mood for humour, though. She'd had a raging argument with her boyfriend the night before and then her personal tablet had somehow picked up a virus and had been shut off from the Net to stop it infecting anything else. Curing it would take a large chunk out of that month’s allowance, money she needed for food and rent and, being an intern working for her Masters thesis, she didn't have a lot to begin with. She was already in a foul mood, therefore, and having minor planets misbehaving and being mocked by her mentor was not helping. She just ignored the jibe, therefore, and ploughed on, shoving the observatory tablet under his nose to show him.

The tablet showed a starfield, an image taken by one of the telescopes of the SDN network, constantly scanning the sky for objects that might threaten the earth. Several of the stars had their IAU designations beside them and some were asteroids, members of the main belt between Mars and Jupiter, each of them also labelled. Their designations were considerably longer; a list of numbers and letters which imparted quite a lot of information to those who knew how to read them. In the centre of the screen was a set of crosshairs, in the middle of which was nothing but blackness.

The elderly astronomer frowned, his humour forgotten. “Those are the correct coordinates?” he asked.

“Yes. I put them in twice.” She touched the screen to being up a virtual keyboard and entered the coordinates again. The screen flickered, then showed the same image as before. Then she touched another button to show the image from the week before. A tiny point of light appeared in the centre of the crosshairs. “See? There it is. Right where it’s supposed to be.” She touched another control and the dot moved across the screen in tiny little jerks. “That's it moving across the sky over the past two months. A nice, normal orbit. We know exactly where it should be right now, but in the last image it's not there. Shit, this is really going to screw up my thesis!”

“Peace be upon you, child. Asteroids don't just vanish. The asteroid occupies just one pixel of the image, the CCD is probably damaged. A stray cosmic ray came in and fried one of the elements. If you look at the same pixel in the previous images...” He highlighted the pixel where the asteroid should have been, then called up a number of images taken by the same telescope until he found one that showed something other than space blackness in that pixel. A planetary nebula, a glorious rainbow of reds and greens. The highlighted pixel showed colour, just as it was supposed to. “Hmmm,” said Jafar, stroking his luxuriant white beard thoughtfully. “This image is five months old. The damage may have happened since then...”

He returned to the original image and studied it thoughtfully while Juliet watched doubtfully. She didn't know much about charge coupled devices, the retinas of modern cameras, but she knew they were considered very reliable these days, even in the harsh environment of space. She’d never heard of anyone else having this problem. She wondered whether her thesis would still be admissible if one of the images showing the asteroid’s orbit was corrupted. It was only one of fifteen asteroids she was studying, after all. Trying to prove they were all derived from one larger asteroid that had been shattered by a giant impact twenty million years ago. Even if the data from this one asteroid were to be excluded because of this glitch, whatever it was, she would still have fourteen others. More than enough to make a convincing case, she was sure. Maybe she could simply disregard this asteroid and move on.

Jafar was frowning at the image, though. He touched the screen with two fingers and reverse pinched it to magnify the image, then scrolled across to bring one of the stars into the centre. He magnified it more until it filled half the screen. The image became great squares of colour, each one a single image pixel. Juliet watched curiously over his shoulder. What was he looking at?

The elder astronomer then called up an earlier image of the same star, magnified it, put the two images side by side on the screen. Juliet gasped in amazement. They were slightly different. The first star was slightly larger and just the slightest bit lopsided.

“There is your asteroid,” said Jafar. “Hiding in the glare of Sagittarius 212.”

“No, that’s not possible!” cried Juliet, though. “How can it be there? How can it just jump like that?” She stared at her mentor, who simply stared back. “We know exactly where it should be!” She returned to the original image, then highlighted the star. It was visibly to one side of the asteroid’s path. “To be there, it would have had to change direction dramatically. If it was a spaceship, it would have had to make a long engine burn, consume a ton of fuel, but it's not a spaceship. It's an asteroid. Just a great lump of rock. It can’t be there!”

“To simply disregard data because it does not conform to your expectations is not scientific.”

“That can't be the asteroid!” she insisted. “It's a glitchy element of the CCD, like you said. And that star, you can't possibly draw any meaningful conclusions from such a poor image. The asteroid is right where it should be. The telescope just missed it because of a glitchy CCD.”

“Well, let’s find out,” said Jafar. He took his phone from his pocket and chose a number from the quickdial. He waited a few moments for his call to be answered. “Hermann! How are you? Good, good. Listen, I wonder if you can help me resolve a puzzling issue. Could you please verify the position of asteroid open parenthesis 10103427 close parenthesis 2037QH22? No, QH.” There was a short pause. “Well, it’s just possible that it's gone astray. A collision perhaps. More likely a glitch in the data.” Another pause. “Yes. I understand. That will be fine. Thank you, Hermann. And you.”

He touched the phone’s screen to cut the connection. “It'll be a couple of days before he can get time on the telescope,” he said. “If that is the asteroid, hiding in the star's glare, it will have moved on by then. He should be able to get a good image of it.”

“If it is the asteroid, what could cause it to move like that?”

“An encounter with a massive object, perhaps. An impact or a near miss.” He looked at the image again. “There is nothing visible here, though. An object large enough to have done this, it should show up in the image.”

“Isn’t that the direction the Scattercloud came from?” asked Juliet, her eyes widening with fear.

The older astronomer laughed. “You think there's another Scattercloud coming? Following the same path as the first? No, child, I very much doubt it. Probably just a glitch in the data, like we said. A faulty element in the CCD. No need to imagine exotic possibilities when the truth is probably much more mundane.” A thoughtful look came over his face, though. “Why don't you look through the images. Check the positions of all the other asteroids in that part of the sky. See if any others have gone astray.”

“And what do we do if they have?”

“They probably have not. I fully expect that they will all be right where they're supposed to be. We just want to cover all the possibilities, that’s all.”

Juliet nodded, a frown of worry on her face. Then she took the tablet back to her own workspace.

☆☆☆

Eddie was surprised by how fast the feeling of awful self consciousness wore off. He was standing on the beach, as naked as the day he was born, surrounded by hundreds of strangers as naked as he was, the only exception being Jessica’s baby who was wearing a nappy. When the other members of Ben's party had begun stripping off, casually and with complete ease and confidence, he'd had the choice of either joining in or being the only person in sight wearing a swimming costume, something that would have attracted attention from everyone and made him feel even more awkward and uncomfortable. Taking a deep breath, therefore, he'd untied the cord of his swimming trunks and allowed them to drop to his ankles.

He was the only one with tan lines, he saw. Everyone else, even the children, had smooth, even tans across their entire bodies, telling him that they did this regularly, if their behaviour hadn't already told him this. Alice and Desmond were erecting a volleyball net while their children chased each other across the sand, laughing and squealing, and James Buckley had parked his wheelchair beside the nearest drinks stall, its large, wire mesh wheels coping easily with the sand. He had raised the seat until his head was level with the other patrons gathered around the bar, allowing him to chat with them. Jasmine watched him warily and frowned at the cocktail he'd already ordered. He took it and drained it in one swallow before ordering another.

Eddie took a can of sun spray from his shoulder bag and applied it to those parts of his body that were feeling the sun for the first time, watching the other holiday makers warily. He would much rather have done this is private. He saw Ben watching him, a broad grin on his face. His reputation for having a wicked sense of humour was well earned, it seems. If he'd had warning, he could have gotten a spray tan before leaving the hotel, but now Ben, and anyone else, would just have to endure the sight of his shining white bottom.

He wondered what Ben would have said if he'd been too shy and timid to strip off in public. He was the repressed Englishman, after all, in an age when almost all other Europeans were quite happy to let it all hang out. Were there any other Englishman on the beach? he wondered. Looking around, searching the crowd, he finally saw a small group of people wearing swimming costumes about a hundred metres away, on the other side of a small cluster of palm trees that were growing in the water, inundated by the rising sea level. They were dark skinned, though, so perhaps they were Arabs, whose women still possessed too much modesty to go completely unclothed even in this modern age.

Frank and Jasmine were laying a blanket out on the sand, and when they had it flat they lay down on it, wriggling their bottoms to form comfortable depressions under them. Jasmine had brought a book, he saw, but she had laid it down beside her to search the beach, shading her eyes with a slender, long fingered hand. ‘”Where’s Matt gone off to?” she asked.

“He won't have gone far,” said Frank. “Ah, there he is.”

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He pointed, and they looked to see him standing by the shore, the waves lapping around his ankles. He was staring at a pair of teenage girls, barely older than he was, and didn't seem to have learned the importance of keeping your eyes on a naked woman's face. They didn't seem to mind where his eyes were going, though. Indeed, they were checking him out just as openly and giggling to each other. He wandered closer to them, trying to make it appear as though he just happened to be going in that direction, and Eddie wondered what kind of lock his parents would be putting on his bedroom door that night. “Matt!” his mother called out, and the boy headed reluctantly back towards her.

Jessica handed the baby to Alice, who cooed over her grandchild adoringly. Jessica, Stuart and Frank then joined Alice and Desmond by the volleyball net. “Hey, Eddie!” called out Stuart. “We need a sixth man for the game!”

Eddie walked over to join them and Desmond threw him a ball. “I thought it was two teams of two,” he said, bouncing it on his hand before throwing it back.

“Rules are for the guidance of the wise and the obedience of fools,” the north African replied, catching the ball, spinning it on the tip of his index finger and throwing it back again. “One girl on each team? You want to be on Team Levine, Eddie?”

“Sure, why not?”

Frank and the Kerrs trotted over to the other side of the net. The two married couples took their places close to the net, while Frank and Eddie stood further back to catch long balls. Ben, Karen and Jasmine sat on the blanket to watch, shepherding the younger children into a small group in front of them while Matthew, temporarily forgotten by the others, drifted away to find some more young women to stare at. At the drinks stall, James ordered another cocktail and stared out across the sea, to where a huge ship was just visible in the misty haze of the horizon.

For the first couple of games, Edie was distracted by the various body parts bouncing all over the place, both his own and those of the others, but he soon forgot their nakedness and, after one particularly satisfying victory in which he came right up to the net and slammed the ball hard into the sand at Jessica’s feet, he realised that it had been some time since he'd last given any thought to the bareness of their bodies. Wearing nothing felt natural and unremarkable and it astonished him that he'd ever been anxious about it. He was able to give his full attention to the game, therefore, and as a result they won the next two games easily. Suspiciously easily, he thought. We’re they letting his team win to make him feel good and make him more likely to join their research project?

The next game, though, it was obvious that the Kerrs were playing to the very best of their ability in an attempt to draw even. They were grunting and straining with effort and sweat sheened their pale, nordic bodies causing sand to stick to them all the way up to their thighs. They won the next game, therefore, and danced with triumph, the three of them coming together in a victory hug with kisses and the pounding of backs.

The tournament was interrupted by the arrival of an autoporter, trundling across the sand accompanied by a pair of casually dressed men. On its cargo deck was a large box made of starch plastic. “Ah!” cried Frank, running over to meet it. “It's here!”

“What's here?” asked Desmond, following behind him.

“Something we brought with us from Wilson's. Something to tempt Eddie with. I’m afraid only company employees can see what it is. The rest of you...” He shrugged apologetically.

“We understand,” said Jasmine. “Right, Des?”

The african nodded reluctantly. Alice took his hand and gave it a squeeze, then kissed him on the cheek. Desmond then went to the blanket to take charge of the children with Jasmine while Stuart went over go fetch James, who tossed town his drink. Frank then took the autoporter across to where an outcrop of rock reached out towards the water followed by Eddie, the project members and the two casually dressed men.

“Private security guards,” said Ben to Eddie in a low voice. “Out of uniform so as not to attract attention. Can't take the risk of someone running off with our treasure, not that there's really much danger of that in this age of the ubiquitous camera. There is a slight danger that a corporation might have gotten wind of what we’re doing, though, so a few precautions are prudent.”

Frank stopped the machine a couple of hundred metres away and the security guards moved to a discrete distance, waiting for when they'd be called upon to escort the autoporter back to the hotel. “Are we far enough away?” asked Eddie. “The others can still see us.”

“Doesn’t matter. All they'll see is us weighing ourselves on a pair of scales.”

He grinned, and Eddie looked across at Ben, who also grinned. Dammit, thought Eddie. Andrew was right. They are going to play some kind of trick on me! He made up his mind not to allow himself to be fooled by some elaborate sleight of hand. Take everything with a pinch of salt, he warned himself. Maybe pretend to be fooled, to go along with the joke, but remember that that’s probably what it is. A joke. A prank. He smiled back at the other two men as Frank opened the box and took out a pair of scales.

He placed it on the flat, level surface of a boulder almost completely buried in the sand and stood on it. “Almost accurate,” he said. “It says I'm a couple of kilos heavier than I really am.”

“Yes, I’m sure it's the scales that are at fault,” said Jessica with a pitying smile.

Frank gave her a smile of pure innocence as he stepped off. “Come on, Eddie. Your turn.”

Eddie stared around at the others, then shrugged and stepped onto the small device. “Seventy five kilos,” he said. “That's about right.” He stepped off again and stared at the others expectantly. Now what?

Ben and Frank went over to the box and peered in. After a moment, Eddie followed. None of the others made a move to stop him. Inside the box was a mid sized fuel cell of the kind that most cars used. Frank was plugging a thick power cable into it. Next to the fuel cell was another box. Ben opened it, and inside was a gadget that seemed to have been cobbled together from bits and pieces of other devices. Eddie saw several micro circuitry crystals from phone and tablets connected together by wires to form some kind of networked device along with blocks and slabs of a grey material held together by elements from a child's construction set. In the centre of it all was a tupperware food container in which holes had been drilled to allow electrical cables to enter. It also had a socket into which Frank plugged the other end of the power cable. “All set,” he said.

“Okay,’ said Ben. “Take it over to the rock.”

Frank nodded and drove the autoporter over to where the scales still sat. “That close enough?” he asked.

“Should be,” the other man said. “Turn it on.”

Eddie noticed that everyone else was backing away from the device, which was a little worrying. He found himself backing away too, while cursing himself for being taken in by the theatrics. Frank reached in, and a loud hum began to come from the box. “There we go,” he said. “We've got about half an hour before the cell’s empty.”

“That cell'll drive a car from Land’s End to John O’Groats!” exclaimed Eddie.

“The device takes a lot of power,” replied Frank.

“Anything that uses that much power would melt the box.”

“Most of the power goes... Elsewhere,” said Ben. To Eddie's surprise, he wasn't smiling. Instead, there was a serious, almost worried look on his face. He stared at the box as if it might explode at any moment.

“Where?” asked Eddie.

“We're not quite sure. Would you like to weigh yourself again?”

Eddie stared in astonishment. It was obvious that they expected the scales to show a different weight. “You've tampered with the scales,” he accused.

“We haven't. We can repeat the demonstration another time with any piece of weighing equipment you like. Even a weight balance if you like. One end inside the area of effect, the other end outside. We can do it as many times as you like, in a location of your choosing, in case you think we’ve buried something under the boulder. What's important is that you believe that the effect is real.”

Frank gestured towards the scales. “Go ahead,” he said. “Weigh yourself.”

Eddie stared around at the others. They were all staring soberly back at him. Oh well, he thought. Let's get it over with. He took a couple of steps towards the scales...

He froze as a strange feeling came over him. “What's that?” he cried in alarm, jumping back. The feeling stopped.

“It was all the organs in your body suddenly weighing less,” said Ben. “That's what the device does, it reduces mass. We call it a mass dampener.”

“That's not possible!” The others just stared silently back at him. “It’s not! There's not even a theoretical basis for such a thing!”

“Stand on the scales,” repeated Frank.

Eddie took a deep breath, then stepped forward again. The strange feeling returned. “This isn't doing something nasty to my body, is it? Giving me cancer or something.”

“None of the lab animals were affected. It seems to be perfectly harmless.”

“Seems? Well that’s reassuring.” The others just continued to stare at him, so he continued to walk forward. He reached the rock and stepped onto the scales. Numbers flashed across the display, rising and falling. When they settled down they read seventeen point nine kilos.

He stepped off the scales, then stepped onto them again. Same result, and the same when he did it a third time. He stared at the others, they stared back. He looked around and saw a small rock lying half buried in the sand a short distance away. He ran over to it, the sand hot under his bare feet, and picked it up. It was heavy, too heavy to hold in one hand. Perfect. He trotted back to the edge of the machine's area of effect, where he stopped. Then, feeling the weight of the rock in his hands, he stepped forward.

He almost dropped the rock in astonishment. It was dramatically less heavy! He could hold it in one hand easily! He stepped backwards and the rock's full weight returned. He had to hurriedly add his other hand to the rock to avoid dropping it. He forced his face to show no expression.

The important thing to remember, he told himself, is that it's a trick. He remembered seeing stage magicians on television doing things that seemed impossible, and they admitted that it was all a trick. The rules of the Magic Circle were that no technology could be used. No magnetic fields to create levitation. No sonic vibrations. No exotic materials. Everything had to be done with sleight of hand and optical illusion, and even with those limitations they did things that seemed to defy explanation. How much more amazing would their tricks be if they did allow themselves to use any technology they liked?

But he could feel that the rock was lighter! That was no trick. It really did feel lighter. No, he insisted to himself. It's a trick. The rock has a core of iron inside, and there are huge magnets hidden under the sand. They prepared the area before he came. They left the rock there and somehow manipulated him into taking it, the way a magician can manipulate someone into choosing a particular card from a deck.

Okay, he thought. Let's try something that can't possibly have a core of iron inside it. He dropped the rock and walked over to Alice, the smallest of the three women present. “With your permission?” he said, holding out his arms in a picking up gesture.

She grinned in delight. “Of course!” she said, walking forward into his arms.

He put an arm under her legs and picked her up. Her brown skin felt delightful against his own and he suddenly found himself wondering whether Desmond was watching. What would he be thinking if he could see them now? I’m only holding her, he told himself. It's not as if we’re kissing or something. Even so, he suddenly found himself wanting to put her down again as soon as possible, and so he hurriedly carried her over to the device.

Like the rock, she felt lighter the moment he entered its area of effect. He turned his head and found her grinning at him. “We call it the Wetherby diet,” she said.

Like the rock, he carried her into and out of the area of effect a couple of times, feeling her weigh more, then less, then put her down again. That had to be the clincher, didn't it? How could that possibly be faked? He walked back to the device and stared down at it in awe. The others came over to gather around them, close enough for him to feel the warmth of their bodies even in the hot Caribbean sun. The device was smoking, he saw, and Frank disconnected it hurriedly. “We've still got a bit of work to do on it,” he admitted with a grin. He was beaming with pleasure and pride, like a father whose child had just won an Olympic gold medal.

“You invented this?” said Eddie, his whole body trembling with shock and awe.

“We reverse engineered it,” said Ben.

Eddie's stomach dropped like a ton of bricks. He felt a shock of shame and anger and felt his face growing red with embarrassment. The knowledge of his nakedness came back to him with a strength that almost made him run back to where he’d left his swimming trunks, to dress himself before they all laughed at him. He'd been so close to believing them! He felt such a fool! Such an amazing idiot!

“Let me guess,” he said, and he could hear the tremble in his voice. “The Tadcaster UFO. Right?”

“That's precisely correct,” said Ben.