Mara, less patient with mystique, tried to pry into the device. She opened its case and found, not a circuit board, but a tightly packed quilt of translucent strips — like film, but with fibers that hummed when touched. Embedded in the film were specks that glowed faintly, like stars trapped under glass. When she held one to light, it cast a tiny scene: a boy under a tree, eating an apple. She blinked and the scene changed to a different boy, different tree.