The sphere was more precisely a hypersphere, because it had attained a shape of uniform radius through all dimensions of Space: it was therefore circular, or spherical, in all directions ... not merely in the three most obvious ones. The hypersphere's radius was dwindling slowly, as the immense mass of the plasma cloud forced its contents into a state of supercompression. As each nanosecond elapsed, the sphere became slightly smaller.

Smedley Faversham, intrepid time-traveler, knew that he had indeed arrived at the correct destination in space-time. The plasma sphere directly in front of him contained approximately 99.99995% of all the physical matter in the entire universe: effectively, this glowing sphere was 99.99995% of the entire universe. And since Time is a coefficient of the unified force which functions as both gravity and electromagnetism, it stood to reason that this glowing sphere also contained 99.99995% of all the time in the universe as well: all the time that ever had existed and ever would exist. Since this single ball of plasma gas, now slightly less than five feet in diameter (it had condensed somewhat during the past few nanoseconds) contained nearly all of the Space and Time in the entire universe, then--as Smedley had already observed--this surely had to be the place. Because there was nowhere else--and nowhen else--for him to be.

"Any second now," Smedley Faversham chuckled, "all the matter and antimatter in all the infinite dimensions of the universe ... except for myself, of course ... will be, if I may employ a technical term, smunched up into a non-dimensional singularity of Space-Time. One nanosecond later, it will burst forth to create the Big Bang. And that will be the moment," Smedley chuckled again, "when I shall put my fiendish plan into action."

Smedley watched, greedily, as a few straggling photons and baryons came rushing to converge upon the dwindling sphere, adding themselves to its mass. According to Smedley's calculations, there were only 217 subatomic particles of matter or antimatter (not including his own constituent molecules, and the molecules of his clothing and equipment) still remaining in the entire universe beyond the hypersphere. When those last few particles had entered the hypersphere's inexorable gravity well, Smedley's task would begin.