Jacob Dreyfus was an inspector with the French National Police. His friend and colleague Jean Darlan was investigating the death of Jacques Carpentier, the third cosmologist to die while using the time-viewer to look before the Big Bang. When Darlan himself died under similar circumstances as Carpentier, Dreyfus became the lead investigator on the case. Dreyfus, a descendant of Alfred Dreyfus and a Jew, spent some time investigating the circumstances of the deaths, before finally concluding that he too must look back at the time before the beginning. While not a particularly observant Jew, Dreyfus had a vague notion that his faith might make the difference.