EXCERPT 65 million BC. The K/T-missile, pregnant with the Entity, slants in. 16 clicks per second. Professor Barker recalls this moment catching the trajectory. He coaxes it across the Cataplex-map, through intricate cartographic dances, snakings, twistings. Scars and vectors slot together. It sticks. Iridium stink of the Entity so strong it hisses. Tick iterations. Ticks, scratches, chitterings silt across the Outside. Barker senses its passage stroke him, nerve-tense as the distant twin, weaving through tatters of cored-out schizophrenia, in the habitation blister.…