“How was this not known before,” Control said. “How was this not clear before.” As if some elemental force of repetition might bring about a swift justice against those who had obstructed his access to the truth. Instead, repetition just underscored their ignorance.

“Corrupted data,” Grace said. “Skewed samples. Incomplete information.”

“I don’t know how—”

“She means,” Ghost Bird said, “that so many expeditions came back disoriented, damaged, or not at all, that the SR had no reliable samples.” She meant that the time dilation must be more severe when Area X shifted or underwent a change, and otherwise must be almost unmeasurable.

“She’s right,” Grace said. “We never had anyone who lived long enough in Area X or saw so clearly and managed to write down their observations.” Conflicting data, conflicting purposes. An opponent that didn’t make it easy.

“But do we believe the biologist?” Control asked. Because the theories of the biologist’s copy might be suspect? Because he wasn’t built for this and Ghost Bird was.

“Do you believe me?” Grace said. “I’ve seen strange stars in the sky at night, too. I have seen the rifts in the sky. I have lived here three years.”

“Then tell me—how can the sun shine, the stars, the moon? If we are not on Earth?”

“That’s not the critical question,” Ghost Bird said. “Not for organisms that are so masterful at camouflage.”

“Then what is?” Control frustrated, trying to take in the enormity of the idea, and Ghost Bird found it painful to watch.

“The critical question,” Grace said, “is what is the purpose of this organism or organisms. And how do we survive.”

“We know its purpose,” Control said. “Which is to kill us, to transform us, to get rid of us. Isn’t that what we try to avoid thinking about? What the director, you”—pointing at Grace—“and Cheney and all the rest had to keep suppressing? The thought that it just wants to kill us all.”

“You think we didn’t have these conversations a thousand times?” Grace said. “You think we didn’t go around and around trying to get out of our circles?”

“People make patterns all the time without realizing it,” Ghost Bird said. “An organism can have a purpose and yet also make patterns that have little to do with that purpose.”

“So fucking what,” Control snarled, a trapped animal. “So fucking what?”

Ghost Bird exchanged a stare with Grace, who looked away. Control wasn’t prepared to receive this knowledge. It was eating him from the inside out. Maybe something specific would distract him.

“There’s a lot of energy being generated and discharged,” she said. “If the border is a kind of membrane, it could be a case of dumping it somewhere else—think of how things disappear when they come into contact with the border.”

“But they don’t disappear, do they?” Grace said.

“I don’t think so. I think they get sent somewhere.”

“Where?” Control asked.

Ghost Bird shrugged, thinking about the journey into Area X, and the devastation and destruction she had seen. The ruined cities. Was that real? Something that gave them a clue? Or just a delusion?