He had written that once in an unpublished article on third-world development. The developed nations could serve their interests best by fostering the growth and development of less privileged, weaker nations . . .

And perhaps that was what was happening here.

But many experts on strategy had read his article and criticized it severely, citing many historical examples to prove him wrong. "Whose interests does the Soviet Union serve?" one reader had asked him. The Soviet Union, he had acknowledged, was stronger than ever— apparently—but faced enormous problems coordinating the nations and peoples it had absorbed, problems that others thought might prove fatal in the long run. "But not yet—and how many nations last for more than centuries?" the critic had responded.

Now apply the theory of necessary altruism to groups of intelligent beings that have survived tens of thousands of years. If only one of them launches planet-eating, civilization-destroying probes, and none of them respond by launching probe-killers—

Who wins?

Probe-killers, then, were definitely launched in self-interest. But why attempt to preserve possibly competing civilizations? Why not just destroy the planet-eaters and be done with it?

The network was not available to him; all he had were implanted memories, information he was not always able to access without the help of the network.

He often spurred thought by letting his fingers speak. Now he opened a file and began to type. The first few sentences came out as gibberish and he erased them. There is an answer here, inside me. I know it.

But try as he would, he could not bring it all together.

I don't know why they're trying to preserve us.

When he was outside of the soothing and persuasive direction of the network, that lack of an answer worried him.

Harry Feinman could not make a connection with his past. That time, when he had been mobile and free of pain, was fiction, something concocted by his imagination. He could not conceive of ever having made love or of having eaten a full meal. In the few moments of lucidity left to him each day, he searched his body for any sign of that past and found nothing. All was failing. He was a different person; Harry Feinman had already died.

Most of the time he spent sleeping or nearly asleep, heavily doped. He thought or dreamed vaguely of life after death and decided the question didn't really matter; anything, even complete oblivion, was better than this half-and-half existence.

Ithaca drifted in and out of the room like a cloud. When he was in pain, between medications, she sat by him sharp as a razor, saying nothing as he lay rigid, teeth clamped.

You pays your money coming in, going out. Ticket price for this ride: pain.

The difference between day and night was not clear to him anymore. Sometimes the lights were down when he was awake, sometimes not.