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[Assistant] Yes, the Alliance must have been running those bombs for weeks. Fam knew and laughed shortly. Heh. If I were shipping with the Alliance fleet, I'd be a bit nervous now.


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[Assistant] I bet every pilot out of Sandra Kay is dead set on revenge. The emotion faded. Hmm.


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[Assistant] There's no way they could kill all the Alliance ships, or all the blights. Much less all of both. It would be pointless to... His gaze abruptly focused on her. So, if we leave things as they are...


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[Assistant] This Yandere K fleet will eventually match position with the Alliance and try to blow them out of existence. Ravna just nodded. In 12 hours or so they say. And...


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[Assistant] But if we could talk your people into fighting the right enemies, it was Ravna's nightmare scheme. All that was left of Saundra Kay dying to save the OOB, trying to save them.


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[Assistant] It was a little chance the Seondra K fleet could destroy all blighter ships. But they're here to fight. Why not a vengeance that means something? That was the Nightmare's message. Now somehow it fit the Godshatter's plans. There are problems.


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[Assistant] They don't know what we're doing or the purpose of the third fleet. Anything we shout back to them will be overheard.


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[Assistant] Ultra wave was directional, but most of their pursuers were closely mingled. Fam nodded. Somehow we have to talk to them. And them alone. Somehow we have to persuade them to fight. Faint smile. And I think we may have just the equipment to do all that.


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[Assistant] Blue shell. Remember that night on the high docks you told us about your rotted cargo from Sion Dracay? Indeed, sir fam. We carried one third of a cipher generated by SJK commercial security for the razor jaws. It's still in the ship safe, though worthless without the other two thirds.


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[Assistant] Gram for gram crypto materials were about the most valuable thing shipped between the stars and once compromised, about the most valueless.


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[Assistant] Somewhere in Out of Bands Cargo Files, there was an SJK one-time communications pad. Part of a pad. Worthless? Maybe not.


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[Assistant] Even one third would provide us with secure communications.


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[Assistant] Blue shell dithered. I must not mislead you. No competent customer would accept such. Certainly it provides secure communication, but the other side has no verification that you are who you claim. Fam's glance slid sideways toward Ravna. There was that smile again. If they'll listen, I think we can convince them. The hard part is I only want one of them to hear us. Fam explained what he had in mind.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The writers rustled faintly behind his words. After all their time together, Ravner could almost get some sense of their talk. Or maybe she just understood their personalities. As usual, Blue Shell was worrying about how impossible the idea was, and Greenstock was urging him to listen.


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[Assistant] But when FAM finished, the large rider did not launch into objections.


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[Assistant] Across 70 light years, ultra-wave calm between ships is practical. We could even have live video. But you are right, the beam spread would include all the ships in the central cluster of fleets.


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[Assistant] If we could reliably identify an outlying vessel as belonging to Seondra K, then what you are asking might be done.


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[Assistant] That ship could use internal fleet codes to relay to the others. But, in honesty, I must warn you. Continued Blue Shell, brushing back Greenstalk's gentle remonstrance.


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[Assistant] Professional communications folk would not honor your request for talk. Would probably not even recognize it as such. Silly.


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[Assistant] Greenstock finally spoke, her voter voice gentle but clear.


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[Assistant] You always say things like that, except when we are talking to paying customers. Brep, yes. Desperate times, desperate measures. I want to try it, but I fear.


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[Assistant] I want there to be no accusation of rider treachery, Sir Fab. I want you to handle this." Fab knew and smiled back. My thought exactly.


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[Assistant] That's what some of the crews of commercial security were calling themselves. Adyara was the ship of an old human myth, older than Nijora. Perhaps going back to the Tuvon-Norsk cooperatives in the asteroids of Earth's solar system.


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[Assistant] In the story, Amiaro was a large ship launched into interstellar depths, just before the death of its parent civilization.


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[Assistant] The crew watched the death agonies of the home system and then over the following years, as their ship fell out and out into the endless dark, died themselves, their life support systems slowly failing. The image was a haunting one, which is probably the reason it was known across millennia.


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[Assistant] With the destruction of Sandra Kay and the escape of commercial security, the story seemed suddenly come true. But we will not play it to the end.


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[Assistant] Group Captain Kent Svensson-Dot stared into the tracking display. This time the death of civilization had been a murder.


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[Assistant] And the murderers were almost within vengeance's reach.


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[Assistant] For days, Fleet HQ had been maneuvering them to close with the Alliance.


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[Assistant] The display showed that success was very, very near.


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[Assistant] The majority of Alliance and Seondra K ships were bound in a glowing ball of drive traces, which also included the third silent fleet.


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[Assistant] From that display you might think that battle was already possible. In fact, opposing ships were passing through almost the same space, sometimes less than a billion kilometers apart, but still separated by milliseconds of time.


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[Assistant] All the vessels were on ultra drive, jumping perhaps a dozen times a second.


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[Assistant] And even here at the bottom of the beyond, that came to a measurable fraction of a light year on each jump.


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[Assistant] To fight an uncooperative enemy meant matching their jumps perfectly and flooding the common space with weapon drones.


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[Assistant] Group Captain Svensson Dot changed the display to show ships that had exactly matched their pace with the Alliance.


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[Assistant] Almost a third of the fleet was in sync now. Another few hours and... Damnation!


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[Assistant] He slapped his display board, sending it spinning across the deck.


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[Assistant] His first officer retrieved the display, said it's sailing back. Is this a new damnation or the usual? Tirol asked. It was the usual, sorry.


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[Assistant] And he really was. Tyrol and Glimmfrall had their own problems. No doubt there were still pockets of humanity in the beyond, hidden from the Alliance. But of the Dyrokimes, there might be no more than those on commercial securities fleet. Except for adventurous souls like Tyrol and Glimmfrall.


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[Assistant] All that was left of their kind had been in the dream terrains at Seondra K.


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[Assistant] Kyat Svendsendad had been with commercial security for 25 years, back when the company had been just a small fleet of rent-a-cops.


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[Assistant] He had spent thousands of hours learning to be the very best combat pilot in the organization. Only twice had he ever been in a shootout. Some might have regretted that.


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[Assistant] Svensson Dodd and his superiors took it as the reward for being the best.


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[Assistant] His competence had won him the best fighting equipment in commercial securities fleet, culminating with the ship he commanded now, the old Vera, was purchased with part of the enormous premium that Sandra Kay paid out when the Alliance first started making threatening noises.


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[Assistant] Olvera was not a rebuilt freighter, but a fighting machine from the keel out. The ship was equipped with the smartest processors and the smartest ultra drive that could operate at Seandra K's altitude in the beyond.


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[Assistant] It needed only a three person crew, and combat could be managed by the pilot alone with his AI associates.


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[Assistant] Its holds contained more than 10,000 seeker bombs, each smarter than the average freighter's entire drive unit.


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[Assistant] Quite a reward for 25 years of solid performance. They even let Svenson.name his new ship. And now?


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[Assistant] Well, the true Olvera was surely dead, along with billions of others they had been hired to protect. She had been at Herta, in the inner system. Glowbombs leave no survivors.


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[Assistant] And his beautiful ship with the same name, it had been a half light year out system, seeking enemies that weren't there.


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[Assistant] In any honest battle, Kyet Svensandat and this Olvera could have done very well. Instead, they were chasing down into the bottom of the beyond. Every light year took them further from the regions Olvera was built for. Every light year, the processors worked a bit more slowly, or not at all.


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[Assistant] Down here the converted freighters were almost an optimum design. Clumsy and stupid with crews of dozens, but they kept on working.


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[Assistant] Already Olvera was lagging five light years behind them.


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[Assistant] It was the freighters that would make the attack on the Alliance fleet. And once again, Kyat would stand powerless while his friends died.


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[Assistant] For the hundredth time, Svenson Dodd glared at the trace display and contemplated mutiny.


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[Assistant] There were reliant stragglers too. High performance vehicles left behind the central pack.


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[Assistant] But his orders were to maintain position, to be a tactical coordinator for the fleet's swifter combatants. Well...


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[Assistant] He would do as he was hired, this one last time.


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[Assistant] But when the battle was done, when the fleet was dead, along with as many of the Alliance as they could take with them, then he would think of his own revenge. Some of that depended on Tyrol and Glimfrell.


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[Assistant] Could he persuade them to leave the remnants of the Alliance fleet and ascend to the middle beyond, up where the Olvera was the best of her kind?


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[Assistant] There was solid evidence about which star systems were behind the alliance for the defense.


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[Assistant] The murderers were boasting to the news. Apparently they thought that would bring them new support. It might also bring them visitors like Olvera.


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[Assistant] The bombs in her belly could destroy worlds, though not as swiftly sure as what had been used on Seondra K.


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[Assistant] And even now, Svenson Dodd's mind shrank from that sort of revenge. No.


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[Assistant] They would choose their targets carefully. Ships coming to form new alliance fleets. Under protected convoys. Oveiro might last a long time, if he always struck from ambush and never left survivors.


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[Assistant] He stared and stared at the display and ignored the wetness that floated at the corners of his eyes. All his life he had lived by the law. Often his job had been to stop acts of revenge.


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[Assistant] And now revenge was all that life had left for him. I'm getting something peculiar, kid.


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[Assistant] Glymfrel was monitoring signals this watch. It was the sort of thing that should have been totally automated and had been in Olvera's natural environment. But which was now a boring and exhausting enterprise. What, more net lies? Said Tyrol. No, this is on the bearing of that bottom lugger everyone is chasing. It can't be anyone else.


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[Assistant] Svensson dot's eyebrows rose. He turned on the mystery with enormous, scarcely realized pleasure. Characteristics?


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[Assistant] Sheep's signal processor says it's probably a narrow beam. We are its only likely target. The signal is strong and the bandwidth is at least enough to support flat video. If our star-fling digital signal processor was working right, I'd know. Frouse sang a little song that was impatient humming among his kind.


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[Assistant] LEA, it's encrypted, but at a high layer. This stuff is Syntax 45 video. In fact, it claims to be using one third of a cipher the company made a year back.


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[Assistant] Just sloppy language, boss. I read this out of the frame format.


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[Assistant] Something flashed on his display. Okay, here's the story on the cipher. The company made it and its peers to cover shipping security.


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[Assistant] Back before the alliance, that had been the highest crypto level in the organization. This is the third that never got delivered. The whole was assumed compromised, but miracle of miracles, we still have a copy.


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[Assistant] Both Frel and Raul were looking at Svenson not expectantly, their eyes large and dark.


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[Assistant] Standard policy, standard orders, were that transmissions on compromised keys were to be ignored. If the company signals people had been doing a proper job, the rotted cipher wouldn't even have been aboard, and the policy would have enforced itself. Decrypt the thing, Spencer Dodd said shortly.


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[Assistant] The last weeks had demonstrated that his company was a dismal failure when it came to military intelligence and signals. They might as well get some benefit from that incompetence. Yes sir!


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[Assistant] Glymphral tapped a single key. Somewhere inside Olvera's signal processor, a long segment of random noise was broken into frames and laid precisely down on the random noise in the data frames incoming.


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[Assistant] There was a perceptible pause, damn the bottom, and then the com window lit with a flat video picture. Fourth repetition of this message.


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[Assistant] The words were Samnorsk and a dialect of pure Herta and Siandra. The speaker was


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[Assistant] For a heart-stopping instant he was seeing Olvera again, alive. He exhaled slowly, trying to relax.


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[Assistant] Black-haired, slim, violet-eyed, just like Olvera, and just like a million other women of Seondra K.


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[Assistant] The resemblance was there, but so vague he would never have been taken by it before. For an instant.


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[Assistant] We'll repeat three more times. If by then you have still not responded, we will attempt a different target.


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[Assistant] She pushed back from the camera pickup, giving them a view of the room behind her. It was low ceilings, deep.


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[Assistant] An ultra-drive trace display dominated the background, but Svenson dot paid it little attention. There were two scrote riders in the background. One wore stripes on its scrote that meant a trade history with Sjandra K.


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[Assistant] Probably, but of no Nigerian heritage. In another time, his appearance would have been big news across all human civilizations and the beyond.


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[Assistant] Now, the point only registered on Svensson Dot's mind as another cause for suspicion.


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[Assistant] Please reply using the tail of the pad that is decrypting this message.


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[Assistant] The picture jigged and the woman's face was back in the foreground.


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[Assistant] This is the fifth repetition of this message, she said. We'll repeat two more, Glymfral cut the audio.


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[Assistant] If she means it, we have about 100 seconds. What next, Captain?


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[Assistant] Suddenly the Olvera was not an irrelevant straggler. We talk, said Svensson dot.


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[Assistant] Response and counter-response took a matter of seconds. After that, five minutes of conversation with Ravna Bergensdott was enough to convince Kyat that what she had to say must be heard by Fleet Central.


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[Assistant] His ship would be a mere relay, but at least he had something very important to pass on.


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[Assistant] Looking at it carefully, one realized the thing was a poor evocation. Kyat recognized owner Lemendy and Jan Skritz, her chief of staff. But they looked several years out of style. Old video matched with the transmitted animation cues. The actual communication channel was less than 4,000 bits per second. Central was taking no chances.


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[Assistant] And I'm telling you, they are both your enemies. Sure, Alliance for the Defense destroyed Xandra Kay, but the Blight is responsible for the situation that made that possible.


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[Assistant] The stranger's face darkened. He sensed something loud and angry, in a language that was totally unlike anything from Nijora.


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[Assistant] The tones jumped up and down almost like Dierokheim twittering. He calmed himself with a visible effort, but when he continued, his Sam Norrisque was even more heavily accented than before.


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[Assistant] The flagship's command deck extended a dozen meters behind LeMendy. Under-officers moved quietly about, some watching the conversation. The picture was crisp and clear, but when the figures moved, it was with cartoon-like awkwardness, and some of the faces belonged to people Kyat knew had been transferred before the fall of Seondra K.


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[Assistant] The processors here on the Olvera were taking the narrowband signal from Fleet Central, flashing it out with detailed and out-of-date background, and evoking the image shown.


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[Assistant] No more vacations after this. Svensson don't promise himself. At least while we're down here. Owner Lamenti looked back at the camera.


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[Assistant] Forgive a paranoid old cop, but I think it's possible that you might be of the blight.


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[Assistant] Lumindi raised her hand as if to ward off interruptions, but the redhead just gaped in surprise. If we believe you, then we must accept that there is something useful and dangerous on the star system we're all heading towards.


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[Assistant] If we fight them as you ask, there will likely be few of us alive afterwards. You alone will have the prize. We fear what you might turn out to be. For a long moment, Fam knew and was silent. The wildness slowly left his face. You have a point, owner Lemendy, and a dilemma. Is there any way out?


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[Assistant] Skritz and I have been discussing it. No matter what we do, both we and you must take big chances. It's only the alternatives that are more terrible. We are willing to accept your guidance in battle if you will first maneuver your ship back toward us and allow us to board. Give up the lead in this chase, you mean? Lemendy nodded.


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[Assistant] Pham's mouth opened and closed, but no words emerged. He seemed to be having trouble breathing. Ravna said,


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[Assistant] Then, if you don't succeed, everything is lost. At least now we have a 60 hour lead. That might be enough to get word out about this artifact, even if the blighter fleet survives.


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[Assistant] Skritz's face twisted, a cartoonish smile. You can't have it both ways. You want us to risk everything on your assurances. We are willing to die for this, but not to be pawns in a game of monsters.


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[Assistant] The last words had a strange tone, the angry delivery shading away.


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[Assistant] And now there was no motion in the picture from Fleet Central except for ill-synced lip movement.


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[Assistant] Glimm Frall caught Svensson Dot's eye, and pointed at the failure lights on his com panel.


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[Assistant] We're losing the link with Fleet Central. Our effective bandwidth is down to 20 bits per second and dropping. Skritz's last transmission was scarcely a hundred bits.


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[Assistant] Patted out to apparent legibility by the Olvera software.


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[Assistant] He had waved angrily at the screen. Cut the damn thing off!


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[Assistant] At least he wouldn't have to put up with the evocation any further, and he didn't want to hear what he guessed was Jan Skritz's last order.


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[Assistant] Svenson.ignored them, and looked at the remaining comm window.


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[Assistant] The channel to Fam and Ravna was wideband video with scarcely any interpretation. There would be no perverse subtleties if it went down.


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[Assistant] Sorry about that, the last few days we've had a lot of problems with com. Apparently this zone storm is the worst in centuries.


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[Assistant] In fact, it was getting still worse. Half the Ultra Trace displays were showing random garbage. You've-


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[Assistant] Lost contact with your command, asked Ravna. For the moment, he glanced at Fam. The redhead's eyes were still a bit glassy. Look, I'm even more sorry about how things have turned out, but Lemendy and Skritz are bright people. You can see their point of view. Strange, interrupted Fam. The pictures were strange.


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[Assistant] His tone was drifty. You mean our relay from Fleet Central?


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[Assistant] Svansentot explained about the narrow bandwidth and the crummy performance of his ship's processors down here at the bottom. And so their picture of us must have been equally bad. I wonder what they thought I was. Uh, good question.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Consider Fam Nguyen. Bristly red hair, smoke grey skin, sing song voice.


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[Assistant] If queues such as those were sent, like is not the display at Fleet Central would show something quite different from the human kitesaw.


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[Assistant] Wait a minute. That's not how evocations work. I'm sure they got a pretty clear view of you. See, a few high resolution pics would get sent at the beginning of the session, then those would be used as the base for the animation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Fam stared back lumpishly, almost as though he didn't buy it, and was daring yet to think things through.


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[Assistant] Well dammit, the explanation was correct. There was no doubt that Lemendy and Skritz had seen the redhead as a human. Yet there was something here that bothered Kiat.


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[Assistant] The Mindy and Skritz had both looked out of date.


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[Assistant] Glimphrel, check the raw stream we got from Central. Did they send us any sync pictures?


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[Assistant] It took Glymfrel only seconds. He whistled a sharp tone of surprise.


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[Assistant] No, boss. And since it was all properly encrypted, Auron just made do with old ad animation. He said something to Tyrol and the two twittered rapidly. Nothing seems to work down here. Maybe this is just another bug. But Glimfral didn't sound very confident of his assertion.


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[Assistant] Spencer Dodd turned back to the picture from the out of band.


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[Assistant] Look, the channel to Fleet Central was fully encrypted using one-time schemes I trust more than what we're talking with now. I can't believe it was a masquerade. But nausea was creeping up Kett's guts.


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[Assistant] This was like the first minutes of the battle for Seondra K, when he guessed how thoroughly they had been outmaneuvered, when he realized that everyone he was trying to protect would be murdered.


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[Assistant] Hey, we'll contact other vessels. We'll verify Central's location. Fam knew and raised an eyebrow. Maybe it wasn't a masquerade.


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[Assistant] Before he could say more, one of the writers, the one with the graders, scrowed, was shouting at them. It rolled across the room's apparent ceiling, pushing the humans aside to get close to the camera. I have a question! The voter's speech was blurred, nearly unintelligible.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The creatures tendrils rattled dryly against each other, as distressed as Kiet Svensson dotted ever heard. My question, are there scrowed riders aboard your fleet's command vessel? Why do you answer the question? How should I know? Kiet tried to think. Tyrol, you have friends on Scrit's staff? Are there any riders aboard? Tyrol stuttered a few bars.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Thank you, it said softly. It rolled back and out of camera range. Fam knew and disappeared from view.


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[Assistant] Ravna looked wildly around. Wait, please! She said to the camera, and Kyat was looking at the abandoned command deck of the out of band. At the limit of the pick-up's hearing came sounds of mumbled conversation, voter and human. Then she was back.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Captain Svensson, dot, it looks to me like your fleet is no longer run by the people you think. Maybe. Probably. It's something I've gotta think about. She nodded. For a moment they looked at each other, unspeaking. So strange. So far from home, and after all the heartbreak, to see someone so familiar. You were truly at Relay? The question sounded stupid in his ears. Yet, in a way, she was a bridge.


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[Assistant] And yet, it was not enough, Group Captain. The Blight destroyed it all. That part of the news is no lie.


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[Assistant] Tyrol pushed back from his nav station. Then how can anything you do down here hurt the Blight?


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[Assistant] The words were blunt, but Raul's eyes were wide and serious. In fact, he was pleading for some sense behind all the death.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Dyrachymes had not been the greatest part of the Seondra K civilization, but they had been by far its oldest member race. A million years ago, they had burst out of the slow zone, colonizing the three systems that humans one day would call Seondra K.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Long before the humans arrived, there were a race of inward dreamers,


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[Assistant] They protected their star systems with ancient automation and friendly younger races.


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[Assistant] Another half million years and their race might be gone from the beyond, extinct or evolved into something else.


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[Assistant] It was a common pattern, something like death and old age, but gentler.


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[Assistant] There is a common misconception about such senescent races that their members are senescent too. In any large population there will be variation. There will always be those who want to see the outside world and play there for a while.


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[Assistant] Roll spoke at last in Samnorsk, his voice as close to awe as Kyat had ever heard.


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[Assistant] You know, we Dyrokhimes have been in the Beyond for a long time. We've sent many colonies into the Transcend. Some became powers, and once, something came back.


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[Assistant] It wasn't a power, of course. In fact, it was more like a mind-crippled dirachime.


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[Assistant] But it knew things and did things that made great changes for us. Fentroller?


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[Assistant] He had asked wonderingly, suddenly recognizing the story.


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[Assistant] It had happened 100,000 years before humankind arrived at Sandra Cay, yet it was a central contradiction of the Dirichime terrains.


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[Assistant] Yes, Troll said, even now people don't agree if Fentroller was a, a gift or a curse, but he founded the dream habitats and the old religion. Ravna nodded.


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[Assistant] That's the case most familiar to us of Seondra K.


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[Assistant] Maybe it's not a happy example considering all its effects.


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[Assistant] And she told them about the fall of Relay, what had happened to Old One, and what had become of Fam Nguyen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Direkheim side chat dwindled to zero, and they were very still. Finally, Kyat said,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So what does New... He stumbled over the name. As strange as everything else about this fellow. Newen, know about the thing he seeks at the bottom. What can he do with it? I...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know, group captain. Fam Nguyen himself doesn't know. A little bit at a time, the insight comes.


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[Assistant] I believe because I was there for some of it, but I don't know how to make you believe.


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[Assistant] I've got a number of friends in the commercial security fleet. I can check on the suspicions you've raised and say it. It's possible we can give you support in spite of my HQ. Thank you sir. Thank you. Glymfrel broke the silence.


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[Assistant] We're getting a poor signal on the Out of Bands channel now.


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[Assistant] Kiat's eyes swept the windows. All the Ultra Tray's displays looked like random noise. Whatever this storm was, it was bad.


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[Assistant] Looks like we won't be talking much longer, Ravna Bergensdot. Yes, we're losing signal.


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[Assistant] Group Captain, if none of this works, if you can't fight for us, your people are all that's left of Seondra K.


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[Assistant] It's been good to see you in the Dyrachymes. After so long,


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[Assistant] To see familiar faces. People I really understand. I-


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[Assistant] As she spoke, her image square blurred into low frequency components.


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[Assistant] Said Glimmfrall. Bandwidth just dropped through the floor!


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[Assistant] There was nothing sophisticated about their link to the out of band.


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[Assistant] Hello? Out of band? We've got problems on this channel now. Suggest we sign off. The window turned grey, and printed Samnorsk flickered across it. Yes, it is more than a communication. Glimmfrel diddled his com panel. Zip. Zero, he said. No detectable signal.


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[Assistant] Tyrol looked up from his navigation tank. This is a lot more than a communications problem. Our computers haven't been able to commit on an ultra-drive jump in more than 20 seconds.


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[Assistant] They had been doing five jumps a second and just over a light year per hour. Now, Glimfrao leaned back from his panel. Hey, so, so welcome to the slow zone.


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[Assistant] Ravnir Bergenstad looked across the deck of the Out of Band 2.


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[Assistant] Somewhere in the back of her mind she had always had a vision of the slowness as a stifling darkness lit at best by torches, the domain of cretins and mechanical calculators. In fact, things didn't look much different from before.


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[Assistant] The ceilings and walls glowed just as before. The stars still shone through the windows. Only now it might be a very long time before any of them moved.


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[Assistant] It was on the OOB's other displays that the change was most obvious. The Ultra Trace tank blinked monotonously, a red legend displaying elapsed time since the last update.


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[Assistant] Navigation windows were filled with output from the diagnostics exercising the drive processors.


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[Assistant] An audible message in Trisculine was repeating over and over.


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[Assistant] Some bottom lugger this is. We run right into the slow zone and all it can do is spout warnings after the fact.


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[Assistant] Green stock drifted closer, tiptoeing off the ceiling with her tendrils. Even bottom luggers can't avoid things like this, my lady Ravna.


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[Assistant] Fam said something at the ship and most of the displays cleared.


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[Assistant] Blue shell. Even a huge zone storm doesn't normally extend more than a few light years. We were two hundred light years above the zone boundary. What hit us must be a monster surge, the sort of thing you only read about in archives. Small consolation. We knew something like this could happen, Fam said. Things have been getting awfully rough the last few weeks. For a change, he didn't seem too upset.


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[Assistant] Yes, she said, we expected a slowing maybe, but not the slowness. We are trapped. Where's the nearest habitable system? Ten light years? Fifty?


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[Assistant] The vision of darkness had a new reality, and the starscape beyond the ship's walls was no longer a friendly, steadying thing.


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[Assistant] They were surrounded by unending nothingness, moving at some vanishing fraction of the speed of light, entombed. All the courage of Keats Vensendot and his fleet, for nothing. Jeffrey Olsendot, forever unrescued. Fam's hand touched her shoulder the first touch in... days? We can still make it to the tines world.


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[Assistant] This is a bottom lugger, remember? We are not trapped.


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[Assistant] Hell, the ram scoop on this buggy is better than anything I ever had in the Chang Ho.


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[Assistant] Decades of travel time, mostly in cold sleep.


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[Assistant] Such had been the world of the Chang Ho, the world of Fam's memories.


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[Assistant] Okay, I think I can make rational conversation.


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[Assistant] So the zone has surged. Something that normally takes a thousand years, even in a storm, to move a single light year, has suddenly shifted two hundred. Huh.


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[Assistant] There'll be people a million years from now reading about this in the archives. I'm not sure I want the honor.


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[Assistant] We knew there was a storm, but I never expected to be drowned. Buried beneath the sea like years deep.


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[Assistant] The scroll rider was still on the far side of the deck where he had retreated after questioning the Siondra K captain.


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[Assistant] He still looked upset, though he was back to sounding precise and picky.


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[Assistant] Blue shell was studying a nav display, evidently a recording from right before the surge.


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[Assistant] He dumped the picture to a display flat and rolled slowly across the ceiling toward them.


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[Assistant] Greenstalk's fronds brushed him gently as he passed. He sailed the display flat into Ravenna's hands and continued in a lecturing tone.


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[Assistant] Even in a sea storm, the water's surface is never as roiled as in a big interface disturbance. The most recent news reports showed it as a fractal surface with dimension close to three, like foam and spray.


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[Assistant] The plane of the display is determined by the positions of the supposed Seondra K command vessel, the outflying craft that we contacted directly and ourselves.


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[Assistant] The three formed a narrow triangle. The Lamenti and Svensson dot vertices close together.


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[Assistant] I've marked the times that contact was lost with the others. Notice, the link to commercial security HQ went down 150 seconds before we were hit.


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[Assistant] From the incoming signal and its requests for protocol changes, I believe that both we and the outflyer were enveloped at about the same time. Fam nodded. Yeaah. The most distant sites losing contact last. That must mean the surge moved in from the side. Exactly!


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[Assistant] From his perch on the ceiling, Blue Shell reached to tap the display.


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[Assistant] The three ships were like probes in the standard zone mapping technique.


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[Assistant] Ravno looked at the plot. The long point of the triangle, tipped by the OOB, pointed almost directly toward the heart of the galaxy.


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[Assistant] It must have been a huge cliff-like thing, perpendicular to the rest of the surface.


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[Assistant] A monster wave sweeping sideways, said Greenstalk. And that's also why it won't last long.


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[Assistant] Yes, it's the radial changes that are most often long term.


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[Assistant] This thing must have a trailing edge. We should pass through it in a few hours. And back into the beyond. So there was still a race to be won. Or lost.


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[Assistant] A few hours had been Blue Shell's estimate of when they would be back in the beyond.


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[Assistant] They hung around the bridge alternately watching the clock and stewing about the strange conversations just completed. Fam was building himself back to trigger tension. Any time now they would be back in the beyond. What to do then? If only a few ships were perverted, perhaps Svensson Dot could still coordinate an attack. Would that do any good?


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[Assistant] There was scarcely any reason to do much about resetting equipment that would need another initialization right away. But after eight hours, it really could be longer. Even a day.


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[Assistant] They have been scrounging around in some of the historical literature. Maybe we should do a little housekeeping.


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[Assistant] The Out of Bad 2 had been designed for both the Beyond and the Slowness.


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[Assistant] But that second environment was regarded as an unlikely emergency one.


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[Assistant] There were special purpose processors for the slow zone, but they hadn't come up automatically.


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[Assistant] With Blue Shell's advice, FAM took the high performance automation offline.


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[Assistant] That wasn't too difficult except for a couple of voice-actuated independents that were no longer bright enough to understand the quitting commands.


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[Assistant] Using the new automation gave Ravna a chill that in a subtle way was almost as frightening as the original loss of the ultra drive. Her image of the slowness as darkness and torchlight, that was just nightmare fantasy.


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[Assistant] On the other hand, the slowness has the domain of cretins and mechanical calculators. There was something to that.


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[Assistant] The OOB's performance had degraded steadily during their voyage to the bottom, but now, gone were the voice-driven graphics generators.


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[Assistant] They were just a bit too complex to be supported by the new OOB. At least in full interpretive mode.


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[Assistant] Gone were the intelligent context analyzers that made the ship's library almost as accessible as one's own memories.


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[Assistant] Eventually, Rauna even turned off the art and music units.


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[Assistant] Without mood and context response, they seemed so wooden. Constant reminders that there were no brains behind them. Even the simplest things were corrupted.


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[Assistant] Take voice and gesture controls. They no longer responded consistently to sarcasm and casual slang. It took a certain discipline to use them effectively.


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[Assistant] Fan actually seemed to like this. It reminded him of the Chang Ho. Twenty hours. Fifty.


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[Assistant] Everyone was still telling each other there was nothing to worry about. But now, Blue Shell said that talk of hours had been unrealistic.


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[Assistant] Considering the height of the tsunami, at least 200 light years, it would likely be several hundred light years across, that in keeping with the scaling laws of historical precedent.


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[Assistant] There was only one trouble with this reasoning. They were beyond all precedent.


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[Assistant] For the most part, zone boundaries followed galactic mean density. There was virtually no change from year to year. Just the eons long shrinkage that might someday, after the death of all but the smallest stars, expose the galactic core to the beyond.


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[Assistant] Perhaps once in a hundred thousand years in the whole galaxy, there would be a storm where the boundary became seriously distorted, and where surges might move at a high multiple of light speed.


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[Assistant] These were the transverse searches that Fam and Blue Shell made their scale estimates from.


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[Assistant] The fastest moved at about a light year per second across a distance of less than three lights. The largest were 30 light years high and moved at scarcely a light year per day.


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[Assistant] So what was known of monsters like the thing that had engulfed them? Not much.


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[Assistant] Third hand stories in the ship's library told of surges perhaps as big as theirs, but the quoted dimensions and propagation rates were not clear.


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[Assistant] Stories more than a hundred million years old are hard to trust. There's scarcely any intermediate languages.


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[Assistant] And even if there were, it wouldn't have helped. The new dumb version of the OOB absolutely could not do mechanical translation of natural languages. Dredging the library was pointless. When Ravna complained about this to Fam, he said, Things could be worse. What was the ur-partition, really? Five billion years ago. No one's sure. Fam jerked a thumb at his library display.


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[Assistant] Some people think it was a super, super surge, you know.


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[Assistant] Something so big it swallowed the races that might have recorded it. Sometimes the biggest disasters aren't noticed at all. No one's around to write horror stories. Great. I'm sorry, Ravna.


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[Assistant] Honestly, if we're in anything like most past disasters, we'll come out of it in another day or two. The best thing is to plan for things that way. This is like a time out in the battle. Take advantage of it to have a little peace.


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[Assistant] Figure out how to get the un-perverted parts of commercial security to help us. Yeah.


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[Assistant] Depending on the shape of the surge's trailing edge, the OOB might have lost a good part of its lead.


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[Assistant] Such opportunists would likely run for safety as soon as they're back in the beyond.


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[Assistant] The advice kept her busy for another 20 hours, fighting with the half-witted things that claimed to be strategy planners on the new version of the OOB.


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[Assistant] Even if the surge passed right this instant, it might be too late.


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[Assistant] There were players in this game for whom the Surge was not a timeout. Jeffrey Olsendott and his Tainish allies.


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[Assistant] It had been 70 hours now since their last contact. Ravna had missed three comm sessions with them.


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[Assistant] If she were panicked, what must it be like for Jeffrey? Even if Steel could hold off his enemies, Time and Trust would be running out at Time's World.


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[Assistant] 100 hours into the surge, Ravna noticed that Blue Shell and FAM were doing power tests on the OOB's ram scoop drive. Some timeouts last forever.


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[Assistant] May I first congratulate you on the scholarly manner in which you prepared your repeat? Thank you, sir. You realize, of course, what would happen to you if you tried to wear these notions in a Nazi coat.


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[Assistant] One moment folks, Arin's gonna go turn off the air, but I'll chat with you in the meantime.


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[Assistant] We were working on these new voices, uh, before the episode started. It's sort of a Humphrey Bogart thing. I got shash in the ash. It's kinda like Mr. Wilson, actually. You son of a bitch. Get outta here. Hey, Aaron.


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[Assistant] Okay, uhm, time to, let's, let's go, let's do this. Let's see, this might be our last episode of this, so let's, uh, let's really make it a time to remember.


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[Assistant] Fucking blue. Yeah, and the- the- I like the booby hand, uh, bikini top. Mmm, booby hand. Yeah, yeah. Wait, what? Did- did you not see her? No. Take a look at her top. I was paying attention to her hair. I kind of missed her hair, actually. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr


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[Assistant] I'll give it to you later. I'll reject it. Go. Go then.


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[Assistant] Just gonna relax. Your mind is going a thousand miles an hour trying to get with this girl. There she is. Okay, can I please get a shot now? Yes, go ahead. Okay, here I go. Give some shots. Okay. She's got a nice- Woah, dude!


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[Assistant] Yeah, you know, fuck guys, fuck guys, let's just, let's just, let's just dance. Yeah, exactly, let's just dance. Play beach flags. Let's play beach flags, and I'll let her win. Yeah, let her win by a mile. Like, don't even get off the starting gun. Cool. Like, don't even move.


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[Assistant] Woah. Jesus. Jeez man, it's really not that subtle. I just liked her more than I do now. Alright, do-do-do lose to her in another game.


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[Assistant] Okay. Wait, the sushi that she gave you? No, it's a different sushi. Will she think you're giving- Oh, she said something different! Yeah, this is nicer. Come on, come on, come on, come on.


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[Assistant] Gifts alone aren't enough to make me happy. I have to beat the shit out of you at stuff.


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[Assistant] How about a dumbbell? Give her some random shit. Dumbbell, a crab, and a yellow RC plane. Done. Done.


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[Assistant] Dude, whatever. I don't care. I'll do whatever it takes to get the love of my life. Please, let this girl bathe.


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[Assistant] Okay. Dude, she gave me a peacock pen. Yeah, and you like it.


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[Assistant] Yeah, this has been fun. Uhm. I had a good time. Apparently I'm just never gonna win with NyoTengu, so fuck it. Just fuck it. I don't care. Maybe at some point we'll come back to this and finish the remaining three days of the- of the storyline. Sure. Wow, you are dejected right now.


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[Assistant] She was my babe, man. She was. I mean, she wasn't. That was kind of the problem. I smelled her when she wasn't looking. Yeah, that- that was- I saw that.


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[Assistant] I thought they said capture the hair and not capture the flag. That's why your hair is mine.


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[Assistant] So it was- I liked when- I liked when you were smelling her shoes and she's like, what are you doing? And you're like-


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[Assistant] As I recall, at the British Museum, you wanted to gut us with a knife. That would have been simpler, Zia sighed.


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[Assistant] Unfortunately, my superiors think you might be innocent. So for now, I can't kill you.


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[Assistant] But I also can't allow you to fall into the hands of the Red Lord. And so, you can trust me.


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[Assistant] Well I'm convinced, I said. I feel all warm and fuzzy inside.


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[Assistant] Zia reached in her bag and took out four little statues, animal-headed men, each about five centimeters tall. She handed them to me.


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[Assistant] Put the sons of Horus around us at the cardinal points. Excuse me? North, south, east, west. She spoke slowly, as if I were an idiot. I know compass directions, but that's north. Zia pointed out the wall of glass. Figure out the rest.


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[Assistant] I did what she asked, though I didn't see how the little men would help.


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[Assistant] Meanwhile, Zia gave Carter a piece of chalk and told him to draw a circle around us connecting the statues. Magic protection, Carter said, like what Dad did at the British Museum. Yes, I grumbled, and we saw how well that worked.


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[Assistant] Carter ignored me. What else is new? He was so eager to please Zia that he jumped right to the task of drawing his sidewalk art. Then Zia took something else from her bag.


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[Assistant] A plain wooden rod like the one our dad had used in London.


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[Assistant] She spoke a word under her breath, and the rod expanded into a two meter long black star topped with a carved lion's head.


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[Assistant] She twirled it around single-handedly like a baton, just showing off, I was sure, while holding the wand in her other hand.


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[Assistant] Carter finished the chalk circle as the first scorpions appeared at the gallery's entrance.


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[Assistant] How much longer on that gate? I asked hoping I didn't sound as terrified as I felt.


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[Assistant] She touched her wand to the chalk circle, spoke another word, and the circle began to glow dark red.


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[Assistant] Hundreds of scorpions swarmed towards the temple, turning the floor into a living mass of claws and stingers.


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[Assistant] Then the woman in brown, Circuit, entered the gallery. She smiled at us coldly.


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[Assistant] Zia held up her staff and the carved lion's head burst into flames, a small red fireball so bright it lit the entire room. I am a scribe in the house of life, Sadie Kane.


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[Assistant] 12. A jump through the hourglass. Well that was all very impressive I suppose.


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[Assistant] You should've seen Carter's face, he looked like an excited puppy. Oh, stop shoving me, you did!


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[Assistant] But I felt much less sure of Miss Zia. I'm so magical, Rashid, when the army of scorpions scuttled towards us.


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[Assistant] The glowing circle round us seemed like insignificant protection against the millions of arachnids crawling over one another, many layers deep, and the woman in brown, who was even more horrible. From a distance, she looked alright.


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[Assistant] But as she got closer, I saw that Circuit's pale skin glistened like an insect shell. Her eyes were beady black. Her long dark hair was unnaturally thick.


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[Assistant] As if made from a million bristling bug antennae. And when she opened her mouth...


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[Assistant] Sideways mandibles snapped and retracted outside her regular human teeth.


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[Assistant] The goddess stopped about 20 meters away, studying us, her hateful black eyes fixed on Zia.


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[Assistant] Her voice was harsh and raspy, as if she hadn't spoken in centuries. Zia crossed her staff and warned, I am mistress of the elements, scribe of the first gnome. Leave or be destroyed!


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[Assistant] Circuit clicked her mandibles in a gruesome foamy grin.


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[Assistant] Some of her scorpions advanced, but when the first one touched the glowing lines of her protective circle, it sizzled and turned to ashes.


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[Assistant] Mark my words, nothing smells worse than burned scorpion.


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[Assistant] The rest of the horrible things retreated swirling round the goddess and crawling up her legs.


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[Assistant] With a shudder, I realized they were wriggling into her robes.


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[Assistant] After a few seconds all the scorpions had disappeared into the brown folds of her clothes. The air seemed to darken behind Circuit as if she were casting an enormous shadow.


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[Assistant] Then the darkness rose up and took the form of a massive scorpion tail arching over Circuit's head. It lashed down at us at blazing speed, but Zia raised her wand and the sting glanced off the ivory tip with a hissing sound. Steam rolled off Zia's wand, smelling of sulfur.


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[Assistant] Xeer pointed her staff towards the goddess, engulfing her body in fire.


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[Assistant] Circuit screamed and staggered backwards, but the fire died almost instantly.


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[Assistant] It left circuit's robes seared and smoking, but the goddess looked more enraged than hurt.


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[Assistant] Zia threw her wand like a boomerang. It smashed into the shadowy scorpion tail and exploded in a blinding flash of light. Circuit lurched back and averted her eyes, and as she did, Zia reached into her sleeve and brought out something small, something closed inside her fist.


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[Assistant] Then Zia did something reckless. She leaped out of the magic circle, the very thing she'd warned us not to do. Zia, Carter called, the gate!


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[Assistant] The space between the two columns at the temple's entrance was now a vertical tunnel of sand, as if I were looking into the funnel of an enormous sideways hourglass.


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[Assistant] I could feel it tugging at me, pulling me towards it with magical gravity. I'm not going in there, I insisted, but another flash of light brought my attention back to Zia.


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[Assistant] She and the goddess were involved in a dangerous dance. Zia twirled and spun with her fiery staff, and everywhere she passed she left a trail of flames burning in the air. I had to admit it, Zia was almost as graceful and impressive as Bast. I had the oddest desire to help.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I wanted very badly, in fact, to step outside the circle and engage in combat. It was a completely mad urge, of course. What could I possibly have done? But still, I felt I shouldn't, or couldn't, jump through the gate without helping Zia.


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[Assistant] But I stared at Zia and mumbled in a sort of trance. She's going to use ribbons. They won't work.


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[Assistant] What? Carter demanded. Come on, we've got to go through the gate! Just then, Zia-


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[Assistant] As I gained a little more strength, the man would be standing in the doorway, smiling and nodding as I would pass with one or more members of my family.


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[Assistant] On the fourth week, I was allowed to solo up the corridor. As I passed his room, there was my faithful friend in the doorway.


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[Assistant] I stopped a minute to chat.


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[Assistant] He and his wife had brought their teenage son to this hospital of hope from Iran. They were still hoping, but things were not going well.


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[Assistant] He told me of how I had encouraged him on that first Dreadful Nights walking tour and how he was rooting for me.


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[Assistant] For three more weeks, we continued our conversations.


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[Assistant] Each giving the other the gift of caring and friendship.


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[Assistant] He told me of how he enjoyed seeing my family as they reeled around me, and I was saddened by the loneliness of that small family so far from home. Miraculously, there did come a day when the doctor told me I would be discharged the following morning. That night, I told my friend. The next morning, he came to my room.


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[Assistant] I had been up and dressed since dawn. My bright yellow dress gave me hope and I almost looked human. We talked a bit. I told him I would pray for his son.


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[Assistant] We knew we would never see each other again in this world.


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[Assistant] This man in his sorrow was so happy for me. I felt his love. He took my hand and said, You are my sister. I answered back and said, You are my brother. He turned and left the room.


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[Assistant] Today's show ends here. Thank you for listening.


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[Assistant] Well, a lot of people don't agree with you, and a lot of people feel it wasn't a proper certificate.


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[Assistant] The American people have the right to think what they want to think.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I'm trying to, you know, utilize every medium out there. Uhm, I've been doing things sort of out of the normal. Uhm, I mean I've hired a few publicists.


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[Assistant] Chapter 16 Too Much Information Alert


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[Assistant] I'd gotten just a little bit of uneasy sleep leaning against the side of the sofa. Edward woke me when Bella's face was flushed, and he took my spot to cool her back down. I stretched and decided I was rested enough to get some work done. Thank you, Edward said quietly, seeing my plans. If the route is clear, they'll go today. I'll let you know. It felt good to get back to my animal self. I was stiff from sitting still for so long.


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[Assistant] I extended my stride, working out the kinks. Morning, Jacob, Leah greeted me. Good, you're up. How long Seth been out? Not out yet, Seth thought sleepily. Almost there, what do you need? You think he got another hour in you? Sure thing, no problem. Seth got to his feet right away, shaking out his fur. Let's make the deep run, I told Leah. Seth, take the perimeter.


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[Assistant] Gotcha, Seth broke into an easy jog. Off on another vampire errand, Leah grumbled. You got a problem with that? Of course not, I just love to coddle those darling leeches. Good, let's see how fast we can run. Okay, I'm definitely up for that. Leah was on the far western rim of the perimeter. Rather than cut close to the Cullen's house, she stuck to the circle as she raced around to meet me.


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[Assistant] I sprinted off straight east, knowing that even with the head start, she'd be passing me soon if I took it easy for even a second. Nose to the ground, Leah. This isn't a race, it's a reconnaissance mission. I can do both and still kick your butt. I gave her that one. I know. She laughed. We took a winding path through the eastern mountains. It was a familiar route. We'd run these mountains when the vampires had left a year ago.


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[Assistant] The question today was how thin he was willing to spread his force. Was he looking for stray Collins to poach on their land or not? Had Jared spoken the truth or taken advantage of the silence between us?


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[Assistant] We got deeper and deeper into the mountains without finding any trace of the pack. Fading vampire trails were everywhere, but the scents were familiar now. I was breathing them in all day long.


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[Assistant] I found a heavy, somewhat recent concentration on one particular trail. All of them coming and going here except for Edward.


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[Assistant] Some reason for gathering that must have been forgotten when Edward brought his dying pregnant wife home. I gritted my teeth. Whatever it was, it had nothing to do with me. Leah didn't push herself past me, though she could have now.


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[Assistant] I was paying more attention to each new scent than I was to the speed contest. She kept to my right side, running with me rather than racing against me. We're getting pretty far out here, she commented.


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[Assistant] Makes more sense right now for him to bunker down in the push, Leah thought.


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[Assistant] He knows we're giving the bloodsuckers three extra sets of eyes and legs. He's not going to be able to surprise them. This was just a precaution really.


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[Assistant] Wouldn't want our precious parasites taking unnecessary chances. Nope, I agreed, ignoring the sarcasm. You've changed so much, Jacob. Talk about 180s.


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[Assistant] You're not exactly the same Leah I've always known and loved either. True. Am I less annoying than Paul now? Amazingly, yes. Ah, sweet success. Congrats. We ran in silence again then. It was probably time to turn around, but neither of us wanted to. It felt nice to run like this.


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[Assistant] We'd been staring at the same small circle of a trail for too long.


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[Assistant] She led the third match. And an even more wonderful thing happened.


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[Assistant] Glittering with tinsel and colored balls. Oh, how lovely! exclaimed the little match seller holding up the match.


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[Assistant] Then the match burned her finger and flickered out. Scarcely aware of what she was doing, the little match seller lit another match. This time she saw her grandmother. Granny, stay with me. She pleaded as she lit one match after the other so that her grandmother would not disappear like all the other visions.


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[Assistant] However, Granny did not vanish, but gazed smiley at her.


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[Assistant] Then she opened her arms and the little girl hugged her, crying, Granny, take me away with you. A cold day dawned.


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[Assistant] And a pale sun shone on the fountain and the icy road.


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[Assistant] Close by lay the lifeless body of a little girl surrounded by spent matches. Poor little thing, exclaimed the pastor spy. She was trying to keep warm. But by that time the little match seller was far away, where there is neither cold, nor hunger, nor pain.


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[Assistant] Today's show ends here. Thank you for listening.


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[Assistant] The moment of impact. A Japan Airlines plane with more than 370 passengers onboard.


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[Assistant] Skids down the tarmac at Tokyo's busiest airport.


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[Assistant] And in the terrifying moments that follow, the plane finally comes to a stop.


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[Assistant] Get me out, she screams as passengers panic. Within moments and as the cabin fills with fumes, inflatable slides are released, allowing hundreds of passengers and crew to scramble to safety, miraculously unharmed.


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[Assistant] A huge fire quickly takes hold and overwhelms the passenger aircraft. And then, this.


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[Assistant] Those on board the second plane were not as fortunate. Five of the six people aboard died, although the pilot escaped.


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[Assistant] The aircraft was traveling to Ishikawa near the epicenter of a 7.6 magnitude earthquake.


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[Assistant] That struck Japan just over 24 hours earlier.


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[Assistant] It was carrying food and the crew were preparing to help with the rescue effort.


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[Assistant] Authorities here at Haneda airport deployed around a hundred fire trucks.


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[Assistant] to try and control the blaze and it took more than six hours. Experts are saying that it's because of Japan's strong safety record and its training of its staff that the crew were able to respond so effectively in time.


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[Assistant] Investigators will be desperately looking for answers as to how two planes were on the runway at the same time.


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[Assistant] Japan finds itself facing two tragedies in as many days. Suranjana Thawari, BBC News, Tokyo.


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[Assistant] Look, September 11th, Parkson was here until 10 5 p.m.


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[Assistant] We've accounted for everyone. There isn't anything about anyone in this bank we don't know.


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[Assistant] No one else has one, why? Why is it only on his desk?


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[Assistant] Thoughts of suicide to stop it all now while I'm still in control and aware of the world around me. But then, I think of Charlie waiting at the window.


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[Assistant] As long as I can I've got to keep putting down my thoughts and feelings. These progress reports are Charlie Gordon's contribution to mankind. I've become edgy and irritable.


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[Assistant] Having fights with people in the building about playing the hi-fi set late at night. I've been doing that a lot since I've stopped playing the piano.


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[Assistant] It isn't right to keep it going all hours, but I do it to keep myself awake.


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[Assistant] I know I should sleep, but I begrudge every second of waking time. It's not just because of the nightmares. It's because I'm afraid of letting go. I tell myself there'll be time enough to sleep later when it's dark. Mr. Verner in the apartment below never used to complain, but now he's always banging on the pipes or on the ceiling of his apartment so that I hear the pounding beneath my feet.


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[Assistant] I ignored it at first but last night he came up in his bathrobe. We quarreled and I slammed the door in his face.


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[Assistant] An hour later he was back with a policeman who told me I couldn't play records that loudly at 4am.


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[Assistant] The smile on Werner's face so enraged me that it was all I could do to keep from hitting him. When they left, I smashed all the records and the machine. I've been kidding myself anyway. I don't really like that kind of music anymore.


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[Assistant] October 4th. Strangest therapy session I ever had. Strauss was upset. It was something he hadn't expected either. What happened, I don't dare call it a memory, was a psychic experience or a hallucination.


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[Assistant] I won't attempt to explain it or interpret it, but will only record what happened.


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[Assistant] I was touchy when I came into his office, but he pretended not to notice.


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[Assistant] I lay down on the couch immediately and he as usual took his seat to one side and a little behind me, just out of sight.


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[Assistant] And somehow he reminded me of Matt sitting on his barber's chair waiting for customers.


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[Assistant] I told Strauss of the association and he nodded and waited. Are you waiting for customers? I asked. You wanna have this couch designed like a barber's chair?


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[Assistant] And when the 50 minutes are up, you can tilt the chair forward again and hand him a mirror.


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[Assistant] So we can see what he looks like on the outside after you've shaved his ego. He said nothing. And while I felt ashamed at the way I was abusing him, I couldn't stop.


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[Assistant] Then your patient could come in at each session and say, a little off the top of my anxiety please, or don't trim this superego too close if you don't mind. Or you might even come in for an egg shampoo. I mean-


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[Assistant] Ego shampoo, aha! Did you notice that slip of the tongue, doctor? Make a note of it.


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[Assistant] I said I wanted an egg shampoo instead of an ego shampoo. Egg, ego, close, aren't they? Does that mean I want to be washed clean of my sins, reborn?


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[Assistant] What's the sense of therapy anymore? You know as well as I do what's going to happen. But I think you don't want to stop, he said. You want to go on with it, don't you? It's stupid. A waste of my time and yours. I lay there in the dim light and stared at the pattern of squares on the ceiling.


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[Assistant] Noise absorbing tiles, with thousands of tiny holes, soaking up every word.


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[Assistant] I always had a great deal of material to bring out and talk about. Dreams, memories, associations, problems. But now, I felt isolated and empty.


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[Assistant] Only stolid Strauss breathing behind me. I feel strange, I said. You wanna talk about it? Oh, how brilliant, how subtle he was.


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[Assistant] Without seeing him I could tell he was nodding to himself. It's hard to explain, I said. A feeling I've had once or twice before, just before I fainted. A lightheadedness, everything intense, but my body feels cold and numb.


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[Assistant] Whatever it is, fill me with the light and absorb me into itself. What do you see, Charlie? What's the matter?


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[Assistant] Upward. Moving like a leaf in an up current of warm air.


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[Assistant] Beating the atoms of my body hurtling away from each other. I grow lighter, less dense, and larger. Larger exploding outward into the sun.


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[Assistant] Light and unfeeling, drifting and expanding through time and space, and then


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[Assistant] As I know, I am about to pierce the crust of existence like a flying fish leaping out of the sea. I feel the pull from below. It annoys me. I want to shake it off.


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[Assistant] And that ever so slight tug holds me to the finite and mortal world below.


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[Assistant] My expanding spirit shrinks back into earthly dimensions, not voluntarily because I would prefer to lose myself, but I'm pulled from below, back to myself, into myself, so that for just one moment I am on the couch again.


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[Assistant] And I know I can move this finger or wink that eye if I want to. But I don't want to move. I will not move. I wait.


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[Assistant] And leave myself open, passive to whatever this experience means.


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[Assistant] Charlie doesn't want me to pierce the upper curtain of the mind.


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[Assistant] Charlie doesn't want to know what lies beyond. Does he fear seeing God? Or seeing nothing? As I lie here, waiting.


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[Assistant] And again, I lose all feeling of body or sensation. Charlie is drawing me down into myself.


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[Assistant] I stare inward in the center of my unseeing eye at the red spot that transforms itself into a multi-petaled flower.


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[Assistant] As the atoms of myself merge into microcosm, there will be great heat and unbearable light, the hell within hell. But I don't look at the light, only at the flower.


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[Assistant] Unmultiplying, undividing itself back from the many toward one and for an instant


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[Assistant] I am back in the cave where everything is quiet and dark and I swim the wet labyrinth searching for one to receive me, embrace me, absorb me into itself. That I may begin. In the core I see the light again.


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[Assistant] And as I start through the opening, I feel the pressure around me propelling me in violent, wave-like motions toward the mouth of the cave. It's too small! I can't get through!


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[Assistant] I came out of it at the insistence of a hand shaking me roughly. Dr. Strauss. Thank God, he said when I looked into his eyes. You had me worried. I shook my head. I'm all right. I think maybe that's all for today. I got up and swayed as I regained my perspective. The room seemed very small. Not only for today, I said.


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[Assistant] The men of the cave would say of him that up he went, and down he came without his eyes.


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[Assistant] I've told myself I won't have dinner until I sit down and write something, anything. Professor Nehmer sent for me again this morning. He wanted me at the lab for some tests, the kind I used to do.


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[Assistant] At first I figured it was only right because they're still paying me, and it's important to have the record complete. But when I got down to Beekman and went through it all with Burt, I knew it'd be too much for me. First, it was the paper and pencil maze.


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[Assistant] I could tell it was taking me a lot longer to solve the maze now.


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[Assistant] Bert had his hand out to take the paper, but I tore it up instead and threw the pieces into the wastebasket. No more. I'm through running the maze. I'm in a blind alley now, and that's all there is to it. He was afraid I'd run out, so he calmed me down. That's all right, Charlie. Just take it easy. What do you mean, take it easy? You don't know what it's like. No. But I can imagine. We all feel pretty sick about it. Keep your sympathy. Just leave me alone.


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[Assistant] He was embarrassed and then I realized it wasn't his fault and I was being lousy toward him. Sorry I blew up, I said. How's everything going? Got your thesis finished yet? He nodded. Having it retyped now. I'll get my PhD in February. Good boy. I slapped him on the shoulder to show him I wasn't angry with him. Keep plugging. Nothing like an education. Look, forget what I said before. I'll do anything you want.


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[Assistant] Just no more mazes, that's all. Well, Nehmer wants a Rorschach check. To see what's happening down deep, what does he expect to find? I must have looked upset because he started to back off. We don't have to, you're here voluntarily. If you don't want to, that's alright, go ahead. Deal out the cards, but don't tell me what you find out. He didn't have to.


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[Assistant] I knew enough about the Rorschach to know that it wasn't what you saw in the cards that counted, but how you reacted to them. As holes or parts, with movement or just motionless figures, with special attention to the color spots or ignoring them,


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[Assistant] I know the kind of responses I'm supposed to have to create a certain picture of what my mind is like. All I've got to do is-


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[Assistant] He looked up at me, waiting. All I've got to do is...


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[Assistant] But then it hit me like a fist against the side of my head that I didn't remember what I had to do.


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[Assistant] I went through the cards in a panic so fast that I was choking on my words.


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[Assistant] I wanted to tear the inkblots apart to make them reveal themselves. Somewhere in those inkblots there were answers I had known just a little while ago.


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[Assistant] Not really in the inkblots, but in the part of my mind that would give form and meaning to them and project my imprint on them. And I couldn't do it. I couldn't remember what I had to say. All missing.


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[Assistant] Alright Charlie, we'll stop for today. Not just for today, I'm not coming back here anymore.


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[Assistant] I don't blame you, you've got your job to do and your PhD to get and oh yes, don't tell me, I know you're in this largely out of love of humanity but still, you've got your life to live and we don't happen to belong on the same level.


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[Assistant] I passed your floor on the way up and now I'm passing it on the way down and I don't think I'll be taking this elevator again. So let's just say goodbye here and now.


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[Assistant] Don't you think you should talk to doctor- Say goodbye to everyone for me, will you? I don't feel like facing any of them again.


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[Assistant] Before he could say anymore or try to stop me, I was out of the lab and I caught the elevator down and out of Beekman for the last time.


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[Assistant] Strauss tried to see me again this morning, but I wouldn't open the door. I wanna be left to myself now.


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[Assistant] I could only remember it was about Adam and Eve and the tree of knowledge, but now I couldn't make sense of it. I stood up and closed my eyes and saw Charlie, myself.


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[Assistant] No, not C, Jack, C. It's Run, Jack, Run. Pointing with a rough scrubbed finger. C, Jack. C, Jack, Run. Run, Jack, C. No. You're not trying. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Leave the boy alone. You've got him terrified. He's gotta learn. He's too lazy to concentrate. Run, Jack, Run.


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[Assistant] Run, Jack, run. Run, Jack, run. Run, Jack, run. He's slower than the other children. Give him time. He's normal. There's nothing wrong with him. Just lazy. I'll beat it into him until he learns. Run, Jack, run. Run, Jack, run. Run, Jack, run. Run, Jack, run.


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[Assistant] And then looking up from the table, it seems to me I saw myself through Charlie's eyes, holding paradise lost.


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[Assistant] And I realized I was breaking the binding with the pressure of both hands as if I wanted to tear the book in half.


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[Assistant] And its torn white tongues were laughing because I couldn't understand what they were saying.


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[Assistant] I've got to try to hold on to some of the things I've learned. Please, God, don't take it all away.


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[Assistant] I have the strange feeling that this has all happened to me before a long time ago.


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[Assistant] I don't wanna write it down, but I keep reminding myself that I'm the only one in the world who can describe what happens when it goes this way. Instead of walking, I was floating through space.


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[Assistant] Not clear and sharp but with a grey film over everything. I know what's happening to me but there's nothing I can do about it.


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[Assistant] I walk or just stand on the sidewalk and watch people go by.


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[Assistant] Some of them look at me and some of them don't, but nobody says anything to me. Except one night a man came up and asked if I wanted a girl. He took me to a place.


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[Assistant] He wanted ten dollars first and I gave it to him, but he never came back. And then I remembered what a fool I was.


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[Assistant] When I came into my apartment this morning, I found Alice there asleep on the couch.


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[Assistant] But then I saw she hadn't touched the smashed records or the torn books or the sheet music in the corner of the room. The floor creaked and she woke up and looked at me. Hi. She laughed. Some night owl. Not an owl, more of a dodo. A dumb dodo. How'd you get in here? To the fire escape. Faye's place. I called her to find out about you and she said she was worried. She says you've been acting strangely, causing disturbances.


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[Assistant] So I decided it was time for me to put in an appearance. I straightened up a bit. I didn't think you'd mind. I do mind. Very much. I don't want anybody coming around feeling sorry for me. She went to the mirror to comb her hair. I'm not here because I feel sorry for you. It's because I feel sorry for me. What's that supposed to mean? It doesn't mean, she shrugged. It just is. Like a poem.


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[Assistant] I wanted to see you. What's wrong with the zoo? Oh, come off it, Charlie. Don't fence with me. I waited long enough for you to come and get me. I decided to come to you. Why? Because there's still time and I want to spend it with you. Is that a song? Charlie, don't laugh at me.


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[Assistant] I'm not laughing, but I can't afford to spend my time with anyone. There's only enough left for myself. I can't believe you want to be completely alone. I do.


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[Assistant] We had a little time together before we got out of touch. We had things to talk about and things to do together. It didn't last very long, but it was something. Look, we've known this might happen. It was no secret. I didn't go away, Charlie. I've just been waiting. You're about at my level again, aren't you?


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[Assistant] Weeks, days, who the hell knows? I'll go back to Warren, you can't follow me there. No, she admitted, and I probably won't even visit you there. Once you're in Warren, I'll do my best to forget you. I'm not gonna pretend otherwise. But until you go, there's no reason for either of us to be alone.


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[Assistant] But perhaps now Charlie would understand that she wasn't his mother or his sister. With the relief of knowing I had passed through a crisis, I sighed because there was nothing to hold me back.


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[Assistant] It was no time for fear or pretense because it could never be this way with anyone else. All the barriers were gone.


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[Assistant] I had unwound the string she had given me and found my way out of the labyrinth to where she was waiting. I loved her with more than my body.


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[Assistant] I was lifted out of the dark cell of my own mind to become part of someone else, just as I had experienced it that day on the couch in therapy.


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[Assistant] Expanding and bursting outward and contracting and forming inward. It was the rhythm of being, of breathing, of heartbeat, of day and night.


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[Assistant] The grey murk lifted from my mind and through it the light pierced into my brain. How strange that light should blind


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[Assistant] My body shuddered with giving and her body shuddered its acceptance. This was the way we loved until the night became a silent day. And as I lay there with her, I could see how important physical love was.


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[Assistant] Each through his own pathway toward the goal box of solitary death. But this was the counterweight, the act of binding and holding.


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[Assistant] So our bodies fused a link in the human chain that kept us from being swept into nothing. And in the moment before I fell off into sleep, I remembered the way it had been between Faye and myself, and I smiled. No wonder that had been easy. It had been only physical. This, with Alice, was a mystery. I leaned over and kissed her eyes. Alice knows everything about me now.


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[Assistant] And accepts the fact that we can be together for only a short while. She has agreed to go away when I tell her to go. It's painful to think about that, but what we have, I suspect, is more than most people find in a lifetime.


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[Assistant] The only bad thing about having Alice here with me is that now I feel I should fight this thing.


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[Assistant] I want to stop time, freeze myself at this level, and never let go of her.


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[Assistant] Then it all comes back and I recognize her and remember what's happening. Fugues of amnesia, symptoms of second childhood, what do they call it, senility. I can watch it coming on.


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[Assistant] Also cruelly logical. The result of speeding up all the processes of the mind.


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[Assistant] Little Charlie Gordon staring at me through the window, waiting. Please, not that again.


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[Assistant] October 18th. I'm forgetting things I learned recently


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[Assistant] Reread my paper on the Algernon Gordon effect, and even though I know I wrote it, I keep feeling it was written by someone else. Most of it I don't even understand.


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[Assistant] But why am I so irritable? Especially when Alice is so good to me.


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[Assistant] But she shouldn't have picked up the broken records and the music and the books and put them all neatly into a box. That made me furious. I don't want anyone to touch any of those things.


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[Assistant] I guess I got sore because I knew she thought it was silly to keep those things, and she didn't tell me she thought it was silly. She just pretended it was perfectly normal. She's humoring me.


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[Assistant] And when I saw that box, I remembered the boy at Warren and the lousy lamp he made and the way we were all humoring him, pretending he had done something wonderful when he hadn't. That was what she was doing to me and I couldn't stand it. When she went to the bedroom and cried, I felt bad about it. And I told her it was all my fault. I don't deserve someone as good as her.


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[Assistant] Why can't I control myself just enough to keep on loving her? Just enough.


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[Assistant] October 19th. Motor activity impaired. I keep tripping and dropping things. At first I didn't think it was me. I thought she was changing things around.


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[Assistant] The wastebasket was in my way and so were the chairs and I thought she had moved them. Now I realize my coordination is bad. I have to move slowly to get things right and it's increasingly difficult to type. Why do I keep blaming Alice?


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[Assistant] The old movies, the soap operas, and even the kiddie shows and cartoons. And I can't bring myself to turn it off. Late at night, there are the old movies, the horror pictures.


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[Assistant] And finally the channel test pattern that stares back at me through the little square window with its unclosing eye. Why am I always looking at life through a window? And after it's all over I'm sick with myself.


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[Assistant] And because I should know better than to drug my mind with this dishonest stuff that's aimed at the child in me. Especially me. Because the child in me is reclaiming my mind.


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[Assistant] To see if it would help me understand the paper I wrote and what I had done in it. First I thought there was something wrong with my eyes. Then I realized I could no longer read German. Tested myself in other languages. All gone.


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[Assistant] It started when she said we couldn't live like this with the torn books and papers and records all over the floor and the place in such a mess. Leave everything the way it is, I warned her. Why do you want to live this way? I want everything where I put it. I want to see it all out here. You don't know what it's like to have something happening inside you.


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[Assistant] You didn't pollute your own mind by sitting in front of the TV set all day and night. You didn't snarl and snap at people. There was something about you that made us respect you, yes, even as you were.


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[Assistant] You had something I had never seen in a retarded person before. I don't regret the experiment. Neither do I. But you've lost something you had before. You had a smile. An empty, stupid smile. No. A warm, real smile because you wanted people to like you. And they played tricks on me and laughed at me. Yes.


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[Assistant] But even though you didn't understand why they were laughing, you sensed that if they could laugh at you, they would like you and you wanted them to like you.


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[Assistant] You acted like a child and you even laughed at yourself along with them. I don't feel like laughing at myself right now if you don't mind. She was trying to keep from crying. I think I wanted to make her cry.


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[Assistant] Maybe that's why it was so important for me to learn. I thought it would make people like me. I thought I would have friends. That's something to laugh at, isn't it? There's more to it than just having a high IQ. That made me angry.


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[Assistant] She talked around them and expected me to know what she was thinking. And I listened, pretending I understood, but inside


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[Assistant] You keep pretending I can do things and understand things that are far beyond me now. You're pushing me just like my mother. That's not true.


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[Assistant] I'm not myself, I'm falling apart and I don't want you here.


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[Assistant] That made her cry This afternoon she packed her bags and left.


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[Assistant] October 25th. Deterioration progressing. I've given up using the typewriter. Coordination is too bad. From now on I'll have to write out these reports in longhand. I thought a lot about the things Alice said and then it hit me that


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[Assistant] If I kept on reading and learning new things even while I was forgetting the old ones, I would be able to keep some of my intelligence. I was on a down escalator now.


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[Assistant] If I stood still I'd go all the way to the bottom, but if I started to run up, maybe I could at least stay in the same place.


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[Assistant] As long as I keep reading, I'll learn new things and I won't forget how to read. That's the most important thing. If I keep reading, maybe I can hold my own.


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[Assistant] Dr. Strauss came around the day after Alice left, so I guess she told him about me.


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[Assistant] He pretended all he wanted was the progress reports, but I told him I would send them. I don't want him coming around here.


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[Assistant] I told him he doesn't have to be worried about me because when I think I won't be able to take care of myself anymore, I'll get on a train and go to Warren. I told him I'd rather just go by myself when the time comes. I tried to talk to Faye, but I can see she's afraid of me. I guess she figures I've gone out of my mind. Last night she came home with somebody. He looked very young.


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[Assistant] This morning the landlady Mrs. Mooney came up with a bowl of hot chicken soup and some chicken.


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[Assistant] I told her I had lots of food to eat but she left it anyway and it was good.


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[Assistant] She pretended she was doing it on her own, but I'm not that stupid yet.


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[Assistant] Alice or Strauss must have told her to look in on me and make sure I was alright. Well that's okay. She's a nice old lady with an Irish accent, and she likes to talk all about the people in the building.