Sarah was unmoved. “You’re wrong. There is no Keystone . We’ve won: we’ve left the last question unanswered.” She smiled at me suddenly, radiantly, lost in some private apotheosis. “It doesn’t matter how small the loophole is, the residue of uncertainty; in the future, we’ll know how to enlarge it. And we’ll never be brute machines, we’ll never be mere physical beings … so long as there’s still that hope of transcendence .”

I kept my expression deadpan. The music swelled. The two tall Polynesian women – militia members? – creeping in behind her raised their truncheons and struck together; she went down cold.

One of them dropped to her knees to inspect Sarah; the other eyed me curiously. “So what was her problem?”

“She was high on something.” Akili climbed to vis feet beside me.

I said, “She came in here ranting, stole vis notepad. We couldn’t get any sense out of her.”

“Is that true?”

Akili nodded meekly. The militia members looked suspicious. They took possession of the gun, with obvious distaste – but handed Akili the notepad. “Okay. We’ll take her to the first aid tent. Some people just don’t know how to enjoy themselves.”

#

“We should restart Mosala’s dispatch procedure. Scatter the TOE over the net.” Akili sat beside me, tense with urgency, the notepad in one hand.

I struggled to focus my thoughts. The situation eclipsed everything which had happened between us – but I still couldn’t look ver in the eye. Akili’s knowledge miner had already counted more than a hundred new cases of Distress in five minutes – via media reports of people dropping in the streets.

I said, “We can’t scatter it. Not until we know if that would make things better, or worse. All your models, all your predictions, have failed. Maybe Kaspar proves that the mixing is real – but everything else is still guesswork. Do you want to send every TOE theorist on the planet insane?”

Akili turned on me angrily. “It won’t do that! This is the cure – as well as the cause. It just needs one last step. It just needs a human interpretation.” But ve did not sound convinced. Maybe the whole truth was even worse than the distorted glimpse which led to Distress. Maybe there was nothing ahead but madness. “Do you want me to prove that? Do you want me to read it first?”

Ve raised the notepad; I grabbed vis arm. “Don’t be stupid! There are too few people who even half understand what’s going on, to risk losing one of you.”

We sat there, frozen. I stared at my hand where it held ver; I could see where I’d broken the skin, striking vis face.

I said, “You think Kaspar ’s view is too much for most people to swallow? You think someone has to step in and interpret it? To bridge the difference in perspectives?