The driver of the van, and another man who’d been riding in its back, stepped up on the truck’s rear bumper, reached in, and (to judge from sounds) undid some latches. Then they slid the big thing back until it was perched on the container’s threshold. Not a word had been spoken yet but Laks got the gist of what they were trying to do. He helped them lift the thing up, pull it free of the container, and set it down in the stretch of open ground behind the semi and in front of the van. It was awkward but not that heavy. Laks couldn’t make sense of it until the men began swinging parts of it around, unfolding it like a pocketknife. He then understood that the first end of it to emerge from the container had been a sort of hub, and the rest consisted of spokes that had been folded back for storage and shipment. When those were all rotated and snapped into position, the thing was revealed to be a six-rotor drone several meters across. Its central hub appeared to have ample space for batteries and other gear, but the largest part of it was a human-sized vacancy equipped with a seat and a safety harness. Resting on the seat was a beach-ball-sized mass of bubble wrap, strapped down with tape. Once this was unwrapped it proved to be a pair of goggles of a size to cover the whole upper half of his face. One of the guys handed this to Laks and looked at him expectantly. Maybe even a little bit impatiently. Laks, now beginning to struggle with his emotional state, but not wanting to ruin what showed every indication of being an extraordinarily expensive set of plans and preparations, tried to put it on, but had a bit of trouble getting the head strap to fit over his turban.