But fringe scientists had long posed that same theory, hadn’t they? That consciousness—awareness, thought—was its own invisible force, unobservable, unprovable, but present all the same? Weren’t there molecules that only responded and changed when observed by a living creature; vibrations of waves and particles that manifested only when beheld by a human observer? And morphogenetic fields, morphic resonances—those ideas had been around for centuries. They posited that awareness and consciousness could be shared, could exist everywhere and connect everything and were not just confined to the human body. Like time and space. People somehow knew when they were being watched by hidden observers, sensed when someone unseen had ill intentions toward them, when it should have been impossible to know. Water molecules changed their structure around people feeling anger; plants grew better when coaxed with positive reinforcement. Twins separated by thousands of miles felt a physical sensation when their counterparts died.

“You mean to say our consciousnesses are being merged together,” Park said. Her voice sounded very faint to her own ears. “Like space. They’re being refolded—every time the unity rain happens?”

“Yes.”

“But what does that mean?” But even as she said it, she knew; she sat back sharply in her seat, as if winded. The nightmares. That’s how they’re spreading. If everyone is sharing consciousnesses, then they’re sharing dreams. That’s how it’s being transmitted from person to person.

“Shit,” she said aloud.

Taban gave her a curious look, but Park’s thoughts were whirring fast now, a film reel spinning almost too quickly for her to comprehend. She had to speak aloud or lose the thread of the thing entirely.

“Holt had his nightmare the day we landed,” she said. “It must have spread outward from him. But—he’s been frozen. Whatever he’s experiencing or dreaming shouldn’t be affecting anyone else by now, since he’s no longer—conscious. Why is it still able to spread? Is it some kind of unstoppable echo effect? A chain reaction?” Or do the frozen people still dream?

But Taban was shaking its head. “You’re thinking of it wrong,” it answered. “As if there was one causal point that seeded the nightmare, and everything thereafter toppled like dominoes. But it isn’t a linear effect with one origin point. It’s an ongoing environmental effect.”

“Then what in the environment is causing it?” Park demanded. “One of the crewmembers must be doing it to everyone else, if our consciousnesses are being shared—”

“But you’re only thinking of human consciousness,” Taban interrupted again. “Machine consciousness exists, too. Artificial intelligence is still intelligence.”

The world lurched. Park felt as if she were on a seaward ship, felt as if the floor was swaying beneath her; she put a hand on Keller’s desk to steady herself. What the hell is he talking about? was her first thought.

But even as she thought it, she remembered then the uncanny sensations she’d felt, fleeing down the corridors: the acute feeling of being watched by a million invisible eyes. An alien intelligence regarding her. Digesting her. ARGUS. METIS. No. Could it be? Had her awareness—her consciousness, her mind—actually melded together with the ship’s at some point?