The Gasp [first edition]

Marc Mathieu is a brilliant creator -- a scientist whose experiments have led him to the very essence of man's life-energy. Leading a team of top French physicists, Mathieu develops a method to capture and harness this incredible life-force as it escapes from a man's body at the moment of death. The result is the gasp: a pulsating sphere of energy that looks as harmless as a ping-pong ball but contains a power source that makes the atom obsolete.