I climbed out of the tank, frustrated and mentally exhausted. Ed handed me a towel and offered me a sympathetic sigh, but the other two weren’t quite as compassionate.

“I don’t know why we’re even bothering—he’s never going to get it,” said Edd. “You can’t teach a mule to fly.”

“I’m sure there are universes in which they do,” Ed said.

But Eddy, who was all about the numbers on the QuIRT, put down his game controller, also ready to accept defeat. “Maybe we should just let this run its course and get out before the correction.”

“I agree,” said Edd. “It’ll be no great loss.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. “What do you mean by ‘correction’?”

“It’s nothing for you to worry about,” said Edd. But clearly it was, so I turned to Ed, who was always more forthcoming, and I demanded an explanation.

Reluctantly, Ed told me this:

“Sometimes when a sub-loc shoots reality past a critical transdimensional event horizon, the universe will initiate a course correction.”

“English, please!” I told him. “For us one-dimensional human beings.”

To which Eddy said, “Human beings only seem one-dimensional at times. Technically you’re three-dimensional.”

I ignored him and waited for Ed to respond.

“The universe,” said Ed, “will occasionally protect itself by neutralizing the sub-loc, and everything that the sub-loc has affected.”

“What do you mean ‘neutralize’? What do you mean ‘everything’?”

Ed sighed. “Planetary extinction. A complete wipeout—usually by comet or spontaneous black hole.”

“A black hole is cleaner,” said Eddy, “because it sucks in the entire star system, leaving no trace. Universally motivated comet strikes are messy.”

“You’ve seen this?”

“Nobody sees a black hole,” said Edd. “It’s when you don’t see something that you should worry.”

“So it’s happened before?” I asked. And all three of them became universally defensive.

“Let’s not dwell on the past.”

“It wasn’t our fault.”

“We did everything we could.”

“But arthropods will be arthropods.”

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, deeply sorry I had asked. I thought about the ravens’ dismal proclamation, hoping it wasn’t prophetic.

“I’ll try it again,” I told them with renewed determination. I threw my towel at Edd hard enough to knock him off balance, then slipped back into the tank.

I told them not to guide me through it, but to just leave me alone with my thoughts. I knew what I had to do. Breathe, relax, remember. Breathe, relax, remember. Push out all the other things cluttering my mind. Breathe . . . relax . . . remember.