The date is March 5, 2008, and I am sitting in a grove of sequoia redwoods in central California, sheltered by a fire scar that functions like a natural wood tent at the base of one of these living behemoths. This is one of several “field trips” taken at Nikola’s request and at the American military’s grudging expense. We are surrounded by chaperones, but this is the closest we ever come to being alone. I request these “field trips” on Nikola’s behalf under the pretense of his own curiosity about our natural world, a goodwill gesture on behalf of the American government to keep him from going on any more joyrides in major cities, but the main reason for these field trips is that we might speak in confidence.

As a student of science and a fan of biology, he can’t help but be intrigued by the giant trees. He’s seen living things this size before, he tells me, bigger in fact, but they were more in the vein of fungi—porous things with short life spans, not these massive, fibrous pillars that live for thousands of years. He is so distracted by the trees it actually takes him a little while to focus on those discussions that we don’t want our government chaperones to eavesdrop on: the subject of his future, and of ours as a civilization.

It is at this point that Nikola sits down next to me inside the carbonized fire scar of the tree, which is big enough to fit both of us. Amygdalines have a rather prim and proper way of relaxing, and Nikola is no exception; he reminds me of a black swan. He’s not two feet away from me, and confides, despite the serious nature of the conversation we’re about to have, that he enjoys the opportunity to be here with me at all. He finds me “deeply intriguing.” He likes it when I touch his “skin,” not because he particularly enjoys the sensation of touch in the way a human might, but because he sees it as a gesture of trust on my part. Which, I suppose, it is.