Mirsky’s warnings were virtually forgotten. Hadn’t the so-called avatar vanished without trace? If his strength had been so enormous, why hadn’t he put a stop to the vote and forced the Hexamon to do things his way? Even Korzenowski gave Mirsky little consideration. There was too much to do, too many compulsions exterior and interior; and the interior compulsions grew stronger with each day.

The Engineer tracted from one end of the bore hole to the other, wrapped in his closed-end, baggy red robe like an overgrown infant.

The long, slender shapes of three flawships—transported from Axis Thoreau two days before, threaded through the Thistledown bore holes—hung suspended in softly glowing traction cradles, huge dark spindles along his accustomed path.

These were fully armed vessels, brought in as precaution. They could also be used to explore the Way.

Korzenowski looked down on the wide, cylindrical valley of the sixth chamber and felt a yearning he could neither analyze nor repress. The foundation on which all of his assembled partials had been integrated now colored him through and through. He did not protest; something was wrong within him, but it did not stop his work; if anything, it made him more brilliant.

For Olmy, dreaming had never been the same with implants, and it had changed even more radically since the Jart had taken over.

Sleep was not necessary for an implant-aided homorph. The processing of experiences and memories—and the relaxation and play of an overworked subconscious mind—took place during Olmy’s waking hours; these activities were assigned to surrogate mentalities within the implants. Essentially, Olmy’s concentrated conscious effort could continue at all hours while a parallel mentality “slept” and dreamed. The mentality could then refine and filter Olmy’s subconscious mental contents.

The process had been perfected across centuries.

Olmy’s dreams were intense, as real as waking experiences, like living in another universe with different (and changing) rules; but he did not access them unless he wanted to. They had accomplished their purpose without his necessarily being aware. Eventually, after five or six years, dream contents were purged or compressed in his personal implant, and either downloaded to external personal memory or deleted. Olmy tended to delete such contents. He was not fond of experiencing his own dreams, and seldom did so unless he felt they might hold the resolution to a pressing personal difficulty.

Now, however, the Jart mentality occupied all of Olmy’s available implant space, including his personal implant. Olmy, even when he had been in control, had had to reassign subconscious processing to its natural center—his primary mentality.

He had had the choice of either sleeping and dreaming naturally, or filtering out waking dream experiences. Before the Jart’s conquest, he had chosen the latter. Dreaming while awake posed few problems; he was mentally disciplined enough to not be distracted.