STARK TOOK THE BELT from Camar and found the hidden spring. The rounded top of the boss came free. Inside it was something wrapped in a scrap of silk.
"I had to leave Kushat," Camar whispered. "I could never go back. But it was enough - to have taken that."
He watched, shaken between awe and pride and remorse, as Stark unwrapped the bit of silk.
Stark had discounted most of Camar's talk as superstition, but even so he had expected something more spectacular than the object he held in his palm.
It was a lens, some four inches across - man-made, and made with great skill, but still only a bit of crystal. Turning it about, Stark saw that it was not a simple lens, but an intricate interlocking of many facets. Incredibly complicated, hypnotic if one looked at it too long.
"What is its use?
