Norman gave his ivory-handled screwdriver a final twist and secured the last screw into the side panel of the slim brass cylinder. Unclamping it from his vice, he lifted it lovingly by its shining axle, and held it towards the dust-smeared glass of the kitchenette window. It was a work of wonder and that was for certain. A mere ten inches in diameter and another one in thickness, the dim light painted a rainbow corona about its varnished circumference.　Norman carried it carefully across to his cluttered kitchen table and, elbowing aside a confusion of soiled crockery, placed it upon the twin bracket mountings which had been bolted through both tablecloth and table. The axle dropped into it　

- Anonymous notation found inked inthe margin of a manuscript history(believed to date to the time of ArturHawkwing) of the last days of theTovan ConclavesOn the heights, all paths are paved with daggers.- Old Seanchan sayingPROLOGUE(Serpent and Wheel)Deceptive AppearancesEthenielle had seen mountains lower than these misnamed Black Hills, great lopsided heaps of half-buried boulders, webbed with steep twisting passes. A number of those passes would have given a goat pause. You could travel three days through drought-withered forests and brown-grassed meadows without seeing a single sign of human habitation, then suddenly find yourself within half a day of seven or eight tiny villages, all 　

An Empty RoadThe Wheel of Time turns, and Ages e and pass, leaving memories that bee legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth es again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to e, an Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.Born below the ever cloud-capped peaks that gave the mountains their name, the wind blew east, out across the Sand Hills, once the shore of a great ocean, before the Breaking of the World. Down it flailed into the Two Rivers, into the tangled forest called the W　

　 FOREWORD　　 This book recounts the five-day history of a major American scientific crisis.　　 As in most crises, the events surrounding the Andromeda Strain were a pound of foresight and foolishness, innocence and ignorance. Nearly everyone involved had moments of great brilliance, and moments of unaccountable stupidity. It is therefore impossible to write about the events without offending some of the participants.　　 However, I think it is important that the story be told. This country supports the largest scientific establishment in the history of mankind. New discoveries are constantly being made, and many of these discoveries have important political or social overtones. In the near　

　　"Reptiles are abhorrent because of their cold body, pale color, cartilaginous skeleton, filthy skin, fierce aspect, calculating eye, offensive smell, harsh voice, squalid habitation, and terrible venom; wherefore their Creator has not exerted his powers to make many of them."　　LINNAEUS, 1797　　"You cannot recall a new form of life."　　ERWIN CHARGAFF, 1972　　Introduction　"The InGen Incident"The late twentieth century has witnessed a scientific gold rush of astonishing proportions: the headlong and furious haste to mercialize genetic engineering. This enterprise has proceeded so rapidly-with so little outside mentary-that its dimensions and implications are hardly understood at all....　

　This is what happened. On the night that the worst heat wave in northern New England history finally broke-the night of July 19-the entire western Maine region was lashed with the most vicious thunderstorms I have ever seen.　We lived on Long Lake, and we saw the first of the storms beating its way across the water toward us just before dark. For an hour before, the air had been utterly still. The American flag that my father put up on our boathouse in 1936 lay limp against its pole. Not even its hem fluttered. The heat was like a solid thing, and it seemed as deep as sullen quarry-water. That afternoon the three of us had gone swimming, but the water was no relief unless you went out deep.　

　The gate was packed with weary travelers, most of them standing and huddled along the walls because the meager allotment of plastic chairs had long since been taken. Every plane that came and went held at least eighty passengers, yet the gate had seats for only a few dozen.　There seemed to be a thousand waiting for the 7 P.M. flight to Miami. They were bundled up and heavily laden, and after fighting the traffic and the check-in and the mobs along the concourse they were subdued, as a whole. It was the Sunday after Thanksgiving, one of the busiest days of the year for air travel, and as they jostled and got pushed farther into the gate many asked themselves, not for the first time, why, ex　

IBill never realized that sex was the cause of it all. If the sun that morning had not been burning so warmly in the brassy sky of Phigerinadon II, and if he had not glimpsed the sugar-white and wine-barrel-wide backside of Inga-Maria Calyphigia, while she bathed in the stream, he might have paid more attention to his plowing than to the burning pressures of heterosexuality and would have driven his furrow to the far side of the hill before the seductive music sounded along the road. He might never have heard it, and his life would have been very, very different. But he did hear it and dropped the handles of the plow that was plugged into the robomule, turned, and gaped.It was indeed a fabu　

　　ODESSA, RUSSIA, 1918　　THE DENSE FOG rolled into the harbor late in the afternoon, nudged by a sudden change in wind direction. The damp gray billows washed over the stone quays, swirled up the Odessa Steps and brought an early nightfall to the busy Black Sea port. Passenger ferries and freighters canceled their runs, idling dozens of sailors. As Captain Anatoly Tovrov groped his way through the bone-chilling mists that enveloped the waterfront, he could hear bursts of drunken laughter from the crowded dives and brothels. He walked past the main concentration of bars, turned down an alley and opened an unmarked door. Warm air, heavy with the smell of cigarette smoke and vodka, invaded his 　

　　I stood there on the beach and said, "Good-by, Butterfly," and the ship slowly turned, then headed out toward deep water. It would make it back into port at the lighthouse of Cabra, I knew, for that place lay near to Shadow.　Turning away, I regarded the black line of trees near at hand, knowing that a long walk lay ahead of me. I moved in that direction, making the necessary adjustments as I advanced. A pre-dawn chill lay upon the silent forest, and this was good.　I was perhaps fifty pounds underweight and still occasionally experienced double vision, but I was improving. I had escaped the dungeons of Amber and recuperated somewhat, with the assistance of mad Dworkin and drunken Jopin, in　

　　　　THE BOOK OF BLOOD　　　　THE MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN　　　　THE YATTERING AND JACK　　　　PIG BLOOD AND STARSHINE　　　　IN THE HILLS, THE CITIES　　　　THE BOOK OF BLOOD　　　　　　THE DEAD HAVE highways.　　They run, unerring lines of ghost-trains, of dream-carriages, across the wasteland behind our lives, bearing an endless traffic of departed souls. Their thrum and throb can be heard in the broken places of the world, through cracks made by acts of cruelty, violence and depravity. Their freight, the wandering dead, can be glimpsed when the heart is close to bursting, and sights that should be hidden e plainly into view.　　They have sign-posts, these highways, and bridges and lay-bys. They have turnpikes and interse　

THE MARK OF DEATH　　THE MOUNTAIN LIMITED was clicking slowly over the rails that trail through the highest and wildest land in America-the western slope of the Rockies.　　Speed was cut down as the big special labored toward the highest point on its line-nearly seven thousand feet above sea level.　　Midnight had struck.　　Outside, the gloomy mountains hung over the track; seemed about to close in on it, and wipe out the train and all its passengers.　　Within the club car of the train, only a handful of men remained in the fortable chairs.　　All of these were dozing away, with the exception of one who sat at the end of the car, puffing furiously at a pipe that was no longer alight. His lips twit