“You have so few words left.” The voice did not come from the image’s mouth but from its whole, ringing like bells as the ice crystals vibrated and rubbed against one another. “Do not waste them. Return to the machine. You must bear witness.”

Alison didn’t want to do anything on Charen’s say-so—but if the woman’s goal was a dead Alison Matchell, there was nothing Alison could do to stop her. “Return to what, though?” she asked.

“Everything.” Charen’s otherworldly voice sounded like frozen grief, and the woman radiated a dignity and grace she’d never possessed in person. “The end of everything, again. Come, see, while there are sands still in the glass. See, and then carry word of it to the others.”

“I thought you were on Rove’s side?”

For a moment the spectral image of Volkovska shattered apart into a million sparkling motes of chaos, a very human temper tantrum. The temperature dropped another five degrees and she reformed—visibly fighting to remain coherent.

“I am on the side of everything,” she said, garbled and distant. “Come to the edge of the ice, Alison. You must see.”

With profound misgivings, Alison reached out for her interface and let the cold in.

Instantly a complex architecture opened to her, a trove of buried information she hadn’t even suspected…Or was this even here before? Is this new? She couldn’t make anything of it, other than seeing that a colossal amount of information had somehow been compressed to fit here. Then Charen, impatient, did something that changed the way it was manifesting. Alison’s mind conjured up a filing system, a library, showed her books she could draw out and open, videos to be watched, experiences to be relived.

She was abruptly on the couch with Julian, without any sense of transition. They had ice cream, probably the source of her splitting headache, and they were flicking between trailers for TV shows. Charen Volkovska was standing behind the couch, staring at the screen as particles of ice drifted down from her hair. This seemed normal as Alison just watched the shows, which were all variations on the same theme. A bunch of people were stuck in a weird living ship trying to save the universe. They were failing over and over. One of the people was her.

In one episode, Rove’s thuggish minion murdered him. That was a good one, she thought. Then there was “The One Where Alison and Julian Get It Together.” That was acutely embarrassing but also thrilling, because she’d always wanted to know how that would pan out. Then there was…and then there was…and then…and…