Mar Kellen shrugged, his pictor casting a stray, context-free blue symbol on the ceiling. “Unless it’s not real. Maybe it’s a failed simulation….” He tapped the console. “But I suspect it’s real. Our simulations weren’t worth much. Though we never encountered Jarts face to face. Nobody ever has, we were told, and returned to tell the tale. But this…was kept secret from us all. Whatever, it must be worth something, Ser Olmy.”

The old soldier pointed out a white plate to one side of the block. “There are other ways of examining it. I tried them after Beni—my mate—after she died. I wouldn’t touch the direct feed for months. But this is less dangerous. Puts the damned thing on display, an analog of its mental activity. I suppose experts could read the signs back then. I can’t.”

Olmy watched the plate. A luminous cylinder formed above the plate. Like a geometric flower, it blossomed and extruded a haze of spinning lines. The lines danced hypnotically. The lower portion of the cylinder splayed out and assumed a tessellated variety of colors; black against gray, blood red against green, white against green, red against black, and so on, fixed and unmoving.

“Tame so far, hm?” the old soldier asked.

Olmy glanced at him, then back at the display. He could not begin to riddle what was being shown. “This is a diagram of the being’s mind?”

“It’s a Jart,” Mar Kellen said, agitated. “It must be. This shows the Jart’s mind and its memories. I’ve spent hours here, watching it. Sometimes, I’ve said to myself, ‘This is what killed Beni…’ Then I’ve had to leave or risk going mad.”

Olmy contemplated the pattern, fascinated. He had touched the very edge of the being’s personality; not enough to determined whether it was whole or a partial, damaged or intact, or even to guess whether it had been in active memory or inactive. But here was an unparalleled opportunity—and an impenetrable mystery.

Olmy felt his body stabilize a hormonal surge.

“Gives one a chill, doesn’t it?” Mar Kellen asked. “Too many mysteries.”

“Indeed.” He approached the preserved body, letting his own mind and implant processors mull over the problem. “You’ve shown this to nobody else?”

Mar Kellen shook his head. “I’ve been out of touch. Beni was…” His eyes met Olmy’s, half-lidded, face wrinkling in pain. “Healing me. Bringing me back.”

Olmy turned away from the old soldier’s anguish.