Nectar. Okay. I find the Chime, they get the Bloom of God, I get more tube food – er, nectar. Saliva poured into my mouth. “Easy,” I blustered, heart pounding. “Put me in.”

Eyes opened the dredge. Inside, the floor was set at a decline toward the head portion. They made an expectant gesture and I climbed in and sat down. “So, how do I work this thing?” I dodged the lid as it closed over me.

I hadn’t been wrong in thinking of the dredge as a coffin. It was snug to my shoulders and legs, making it difficult to shift. Naecia had been inside Aptat’s dredge for less than an hour. I could do that. I wondered if she was still alive, what she was up to right now. I also thought about nectar and how I wanted more of it shoved up my tube.

The lid sparkled with light. First in glowing orange, then green and blue, almost like a vintage computer showing off its handful of colors while booting up.

A shape appeared. A simple, two-dimensional rectangle, outlined in blue. It disappeared. Then new shapes appeared. They had the illusion of being projected onto the lid, though there was no source. Maybe they weren’t actually on the lid at all, but in my mind. I shut my eyes. Yep. Still there – just less vibrant. Ugh. Maybe they were in both places.

The shapes flashed randomly, one after another. Simple circles, squares, and triangles soon gave way to intricate and asymmetrical polygons. They appeared by themselves and also in sets, yet there was no discernable relationship for those that were paired. No rhythm or cycle to the order in which they came and went.

Sometimes an image reappeared soon after it had faded. Curiously, new images often flashed in a position that seemed to “fit” with the previous image, only to dissolve away a second later. Other times a new puzzle piece would appear directly over where the previous shape had just been. It was all too confusing, and all too fast. Briefly, I wondered if it would induce a seizure.82

“Slow it down,” I said, not knowing if Eyes was still in the room. “I can’t even look at these. I don’t understand.” I was huffing air like I’d run sprints.83

There was no answer from Eyes, just more lights. Patterns and lineations strobed one after another – just as I’d seen with Naecia. I tried to make sense of it. A migraine pierced my skull. Tears streamed into my ear holes. What was I supposed to do? I played games with my vision, latching onto a figure and tracing its outline before it went away, or following a shape as it scrolled across the lid, whether back and forth or up and down, or diagonal or randomly about.