were working on here?"
I shook my head in irritation. "This is where the metaphor breaks down. You're like an architect designing a skyscraper large enough to reach the moon by simply adding more floors. That's not nearly enough. Everything—foundations, materials, design—must be fundamentally reassessed. That's why, after almost a million civilized years, we're still struggling to connect the dots."
"But you've worked it out, I gather. You know what the answer is."
"I am the answer, Emlee. My very existence is proof that humanity can make the next step—from drawing a sketch to lifting the pencil right off the page and becoming the mind that makes the sketch unfold."
"Is this where God fits in?" she asked, frowning.
"God is the face humanity sees reflected in the void."
"Its own face or something else?"
"Its own face."
"And what does it look like, Jasper?"
"It's beautiful." Rapture filled me. "Abandon the old ways, Emlee Copas, and adopt the new, for what once was, and is, and will be are one."
I was standing with my face almost touching the plastic pane, as close to her as I could possibly come. If I could convince her, she would convince Bergamasc, and my real work would begin.
"I don't think that's going to happen any time soon," she said, her posture relaxed and unimpressed. "But give it your best shot, by all means. Or was that it? Are you done now? Can we move on to more important things?"
She was utterly unmoved. Naturally, I thought, Bergamasc wouldn't send someone easily converted to be my first interrogator.
"My work is far from finished," I said, stepping back from the plastic barrier. "And there is nothing more important on Earth than that work. You'll come to realize it, in your own time. I know it."
"You won't find us as easy to convince as a bunch of lost frags, believe me."
"I wouldn't have it any other way."
She left, and I spent the next four days in the cell alone.
Memory consumes me. I am unused to reviving my personal past so determinedly, for so long. There's rarely any necessity, thanks to the way the tangle of time unspools around me. I find the two difficult to separate on occasion, and distracting to an extreme.
While hiking among a landscape of reds and oranges, I unexpectedly experience another moment of genuine disorientation, one in which I do not know where or when I am. My limbs feel heavy. My mind is fogged. I'm lying on my side, curled into a ball, on a hard surface that is vibrating rapidly against my skin. I can't move my hands or feet. There appears to be bag over my head. I smell ozone and sweat.
"He's awake," someone says.
The bag is pulled away. Light strikes my sensitive eyes, and for a full second I don't recognize Bergamasc leaning over me.
"Hello, Jasper. Are you feeling okay?"
"Where am I?"
"You tell me. What's the last thing you remember?"
"Climbing in the Kimberleys." I struggle to focus. "Before the war."
"Really?" Bergamasc glances at someone out of my sight. "You don't remember what we were talking about last night?"
"No. What day was that?"
He looks unsatisfied by my responses, but not resigned. "We gassed you, Jasper, so you'd sleep through the transition. If you hadn't noticed it passing, I thought we might find you out." He shrugs. "No matter. That's not the only card in the deck."
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"No. I suppose not. It's not as if we've done this with your consent." Bergamasc smiles a fleeting challenge. "We've been studying you, while you've been our guest. You undergo a pronounced mood swing once a day, without any measurable physiological change. You display a kind of selective amnesia too, although that's not a consistent symptom. We've analyzed the transition from every possible angle in an attempt to figure it out. We've even moved you without you knowing, to see if that would change the timing of it. It didn't. We're as much in the dark as we were before. But we didn't waste our time completely. There
I shook my head in irritation. "This is where the metaphor breaks down. You're like an architect designing a skyscraper large enough to reach the moon by simply adding more floors. That's not nearly enough. Everything—foundations, materials, design—must be fundamentally reassessed. That's why, after almost a million civilized years, we're still struggling to connect the dots."
"But you've worked it out, I gather. You know what the answer is."
"I am the answer, Emlee. My very existence is proof that humanity can make the next step—from drawing a sketch to lifting the pencil right off the page and becoming the mind that makes the sketch unfold."
"Is this where God fits in?" she asked, frowning.
"God is the face humanity sees reflected in the void."
"Its own face or something else?"
"Its own face."
"And what does it look like, Jasper?"
"It's beautiful." Rapture filled me. "Abandon the old ways, Emlee Copas, and adopt the new, for what once was, and is, and will be are one."
I was standing with my face almost touching the plastic pane, as close to her as I could possibly come. If I could convince her, she would convince Bergamasc, and my real work would begin.
"I don't think that's going to happen any time soon," she said, her posture relaxed and unimpressed. "But give it your best shot, by all means. Or was that it? Are you done now? Can we move on to more important things?"
She was utterly unmoved. Naturally, I thought, Bergamasc wouldn't send someone easily converted to be my first interrogator.
"My work is far from finished," I said, stepping back from the plastic barrier. "And there is nothing more important on Earth than that work. You'll come to realize it, in your own time. I know it."
"You won't find us as easy to convince as a bunch of lost frags, believe me."
"I wouldn't have it any other way."
She left, and I spent the next four days in the cell alone.
Memory consumes me. I am unused to reviving my personal past so determinedly, for so long. There's rarely any necessity, thanks to the way the tangle of time unspools around me. I find the two difficult to separate on occasion, and distracting to an extreme.
While hiking among a landscape of reds and oranges, I unexpectedly experience another moment of genuine disorientation, one in which I do not know where or when I am. My limbs feel heavy. My mind is fogged. I'm lying on my side, curled into a ball, on a hard surface that is vibrating rapidly against my skin. I can't move my hands or feet. There appears to be bag over my head. I smell ozone and sweat.
"He's awake," someone says.
The bag is pulled away. Light strikes my sensitive eyes, and for a full second I don't recognize Bergamasc leaning over me.
"Hello, Jasper. Are you feeling okay?"
"Where am I?"
"You tell me. What's the last thing you remember?"
"Climbing in the Kimberleys." I struggle to focus. "Before the war."
"Really?" Bergamasc glances at someone out of my sight. "You don't remember what we were talking about last night?"
"No. What day was that?"
He looks unsatisfied by my responses, but not resigned. "We gassed you, Jasper, so you'd sleep through the transition. If you hadn't noticed it passing, I thought we might find you out." He shrugs. "No matter. That's not the only card in the deck."
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"No. I suppose not. It's not as if we've done this with your consent." Bergamasc smiles a fleeting challenge. "We've been studying you, while you've been our guest. You undergo a pronounced mood swing once a day, without any measurable physiological change. You display a kind of selective amnesia too, although that's not a consistent symptom. We've analyzed the transition from every possible angle in an attempt to figure it out. We've even moved you without you knowing, to see if that would change the timing of it. It didn't. We're as much in the dark as we were before. But we didn't waste our time completely. There
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