The vast spacious abode of the Parents had never been so vivid to him before in his memories, those many chambers lined with walls that lived and breathed with living visuals of Earth, and the great lofty enclosures in which the Parents would ascend to the topmost branches of the great trees. The chamber walls had been monitors with the resolution of today’s motion-picture screens. Had they received images from everywhere on Earth or only the great wild lands around Atalantaya?

“You are equipped,” said the Parent of the luminous round eyes who spoke to them with such gentleness, “with all you need to know to fulfill this mission, and this gentle one, this sweet and gentle Derek, will alert you to danger, as he is the one most attuned to the emotions of the inhabitants, so mark when he is agitated; mark when he weeps; mark what arouses his fear. Observe what is happening around you. And do what you can to comfort him because he suffers as you do not.”

Oh, what a bitter thought—that they’d deliberately endowed him to suffer. And if so, why had they been so surprised when he wept at the idea that they would all die? He could not stop thinking of that moment. “But I don’t want to die.”

Oh, but it was still fragmentary, this remembering. He couldn’t put the pieces together. He could feel the gaps. He had a sense of great time spent with the Parents now lost. Welf and Kapetria had merely watched as Derek wept. It was Kapetria who had ventured the question: why had the Parents made them such complex and powerful units if their mission was to terminate in their own death?

“It’s simple for us,” said the greatest of the Parents, “to make creatures such as you. And you will need the power and resilience with which you’re gifted to survive in the savage lands, and to safely gain access to Atalantaya, without arousing the suspicions of Amel. We will be watching you always. Your bodies contain the means by which we can track you and see you and hear you. That is, until you enter Atalantaya, where the dome will make it impossible to monitor you or give you aid.” There was so much more.

Ah, would Kapetria be angry with him when she discovered that he had managed to birth a duplicate of himself through the severing of his arm? Kapetria lived, she lived and breathed, and he must stop thinking of her anger. When had Kapetria ever been anything but loving to him? And surely she would understand he didn’t know what was happening, and he couldn’t have prevented it. And then what if Kapetria did not know…?