That. He folded the paper twice again, creasing it with his thumbnail. Amelia, Blaze, I'm not sure you know how much he loves you, depends on you.

Of course I do. The feeling's mutual.

Well, I've never been inside your head. From Julian's point of view, there's some imbalance, asymmetry.

Amelia sat back in the couch. So what does he want of me? she said stiffly. He knows I only have so much time. Only have one life.

He knows you're married to your work. That what you do is more important than what you are.

That's harsh enough. They both flinched when someone in another room dropped a tray of instruments. But it's true of most of the people we know. The world's full of proles and slacks. If Julian were one of them, I would never have even met him.

That's not quite it. I'm in your cla.s.s, too, obviously. Sitting around consuming would drive us crazy. He looked at the wall, reaching for words. I guess I'm asking that you take a part-time job, as therapist, in addition to being a full-time physicist. Until he's better.

She stared at him in a way she sometimes stared at a student. Thank you for not pointing out that he's done the same thing for me. She stood up suddenly and crossed over to the coffee machine. Want a cup?

No, thank you.

When she came back she hooked a chair around so that the table was between them. A week ago I would have dropped everything to be his therapist. I love him more than you, or he, seem to think, and of course I owe him, too.

She paused and leaned forward. But the world has gotten a lot more complicated in the last few days. Did you know he went to Washington?

No. Government business?

Not exactly. But that's where I was, working. He came to me with what I see now was obviously a cry for help.

About killing the boy?

And all the other death, the tramplings. I was properly horrified, even before I saw the news. But I... I... She started to take a drink of coffee but put it down and sobbed, a startling, racking sound. She knuckled away sudden tears.

It's all right.

It's not all right. But it's bigger than him or me. Bigger than whether we even live or die.

What, wait. Slow down. Your work?

I've said too much. But yes.

What is it, some sort of defense application?

You could say that. Yes.

He sat back and pressed on his beard, as if it were pasted on. Defense. Blaze, Dr. Harding ... I spend all day watching people lie to me. I'm not an expert in much, but I'm an expert in that.

So?

So nothing. Your business is your business, and my interest in it begins and ends with how it affects my patient. I don't care if your job is saving the country, saving the world. All I ask is that when you're not working with that, you're working with him.

I'll do that, of course.

You do owe him.

Dr. Jefferson. I have one Jewish mother already. I don't need one with a beard and a suit.

Point well taken. I didn't mean to be insulting. He stood up. I'm misdirecting my own sense of responsibility onto you. I should not have let him go after we jacked. If I'd admitted him, put him under observation, this wouldn't have happened.

Amelia took his offered hand. Okay. You beat yourself up over this, and I'll beat myself up over it, and our patient will have to improve, by osmosis.

He smiled. Take care. Take care of yourself. This kind of thing is a terrible strain.

This kind of thing! She watched him leave and heard the outer door close. She felt her face redden and fought the pressure of tears behind her eyes, then let it win.

WHEN I'D STARTED TO die it felt like I was drifting through a corridor of white light. Then I wound up in a big room with Amelia and my parents and a dozen or so friends and relations. My father was the way I remember him from grade school, slim and beardless. Nan Li, the first girl I was ever serious about, was standing next to me with her hand in my pocket, stroking. Amelia had an absurd grin, watching us.

n.o.body said anything. We just looked at each other. Then everything faded out and I woke up in the hospital with an oxygen mask over my face and the smell of vomit deep inside my nose. My jaw hurt, as if someone had punched me.

My arm felt like it belonged to someone else, but I managed to drag my hand up and pull the mask down. There was someone in the room, out of focus, and I asked for a Kleenex and she handed it to me. I tried to blow my nose but it triggered retching, and she held me up and put a metal bowl under my chin while I coughed and drooled most attractively. Then she handed me a gla.s.s of water and said to rinse, and I realized it was Amelia, not a nurse. I said something romantic like oh, s.h.i.t, and started to black out again, and she eased me back to the pillow and worked the mask over my face.

I heard her calling for a nurse and then I pa.s.sed out.

It's strange how much detail you recall from some parts of an experience like this, and how little of others. They told me later that I slept a solid fifteen hours after the little puking ceremony. It felt more like fifteen seconds. I woke up as if from a slap, with Dr. Jefferson drawing a hypo gun away from my arm.

I wasn't wearing the oxygen mask anymore. Don't try to sit up, Jefferson said. Get your bearings.

Okay. I was just able to focus on him. First bearing, I'm not dead, right? I didn't take enough pills.

Amelia found you and saved you.

I'll have to thank her.

By that, you mean you're going to try again?

How many people don't?

Plenty. He held out a gla.s.s of water with a plastic straw. People attempt suicide for various reasons.

I drank a cold sip. You don't think I was actually serious about it.

I do. You're pretty competent at everything you do. You'd be dead if Amelia hadn't come home.

I'll thank her, I repeated.

She's sleeping now. She stayed with you for as long as she could keep her eyes open.

Then you came.

She called me. She didn't want you to wake up alone. He weighed the hypodermic gun in his hand. I decided to help you along with a mild stimulant.

I nodded and sat up a little. It feels pretty good, actually. Did it counteract the drug? The poison.

No, you've already been treated for that. Do you want to talk about it?

No. I reached for the water and he helped me. Not with you.

With Amelia?

Not now. I drank and was able to replace the gla.s.s by myself. I guess first I want to jack with my platoon. They'd understand.

There was a long silence. You're not going to be able to do that.

I didn't understand. Of course I can. It's automatic.

You're out, Julian. You can't be a mechanic anymore.

Hold it. Do you think any of my platoon would be surprised by this? Do you think they're that dumb?

That's not the point. It's just that they can't be made to live through it! I'm trained for it, and I can't say I look forward to jacking with you. Do you want to kill your friends?

Kill them.

Yes! Exactly. Don't you think it's possible you might push one of them into doing the same? Candi, for instance. She's close to clinical depression most of the time, anyhow.

I could see the sense in that, actually. But after I'm cured?

No. You'll never be a mechanic again. You'll be rea.s.signed to some- A shoe? I'll be a shoe?

They wouldn't want you in the infantry. They'll take advantage of your education, and put you in a technical post somewhere.

Portobello?

Probably not. You'd jack socially with members of your platoon, your ex-platoon. He shook his head slowly. Can't you see? That wouldn't be good for you or for them.

Oh, I see; I see. From your point of view, anyhow.

I am the expert, he said carefully. I don't want you to be hurt and I don't want to be court-martialed for negligence-which is what would happen if I let you go back to your platoon and some of them couldn't handle sharing your memories.

We've shared the feelings of people while they died, sometimes in great pain.

But they didn't come back from the dead. Come back and discuss how desirable it might be.

I may be cured of that. Even as I said it, I knew how false it sounded.

One day, I'm sure you will be. That didn't sound too convincing, either.

JULIAN ENDURED ONE MORE day of bed rest and then was transferred to an observation unit, which was like a hotel room, except that it only locked from the outside, and was always locked. Dr. Jefferson came in every other day for a week, and a kindly young civilian therapist, Mona Pierce, talked to him daily. After a week (by then, Julian was convinced he was going to go insane) Jefferson jacked with him, and the next day, he was released.

The apartment was too neat. Julian went from room to room trying to figure out what was wrong, and then it hit him-Amelia must have hired someone to come in and clean. Neither of them had any instinct or talent in that direction. She must have found out when he was going to be released and squandered a few bucks on it. The bed was made with military precision-a dead giveaway-and on it was a note with today's date inside a heart.

He made a pot of coffee (spilling both water and grounds but scrupulously cleaning them up) and sat down to the console. There was a lot of mail stacked up for him, most of it awkward. A letter from the army giving him one month's leave at reduced pay, followed by a posting right on campus, not a mile from where he lived. The t.i.tle was senior research a.s.sistant ; it was TOY, so he could live at home, hours to be arranged.

If he was reading between the lines correctly, the army was pretty well through with him, but on principle wouldn't just discharge him. It would be a bad example, being able to get out of the army just by killing yourself.

Mona Pierce had been a good listener who asked the right questions. She didn't condemn Julian for what he did-was angry at the military for not seeing it and discharging him before the inevitable happened-and didn't really disapprove of suicide in an absolute way, giving Julian tacit permission to do it again. But not over the boy. A lot of factors caused the boy's death, but Julian had been present against his will, and his part in it had been reflexive and appropriate.

If the personal mail had been awkward to write, it was doubly awkward to answer. He wound up with two basic replies: One was a simple Thanks for your concern; I'm okay now brush-off, and the other was a more detailed explanation, for those who deserved it and wouldn't be too bothered by it. He was still working on that when Amelia came in, carrying a suitcase.

She hadn't been able to see him during the week he was incarcerated in the observation unit. He'd called as soon as he was released, but she wasn't at home. The office said she was out of town.

They embraced and said the obvious things. He poured her a cup of coffee without asking. I've never seen you look so tired. Still going back and forth to Washington?

She nodded and took the cup. And Geneva and Tokyo. I had to talk with some people at CERN and Kyoto. She looked at her watch. Midnight flight to Washington.

Jesus. What is it that's worth killing yourself over? She looked at him for a moment and they both laughed, an embarra.s.sed giggle.

She pushed the coffee away. Let's go set the alarm for ten-thirty and get some rest. You feel up to going to Washington?

Meet the mysterious Peter?

And do some math. I'm going to need all the help I can get, convincing Macro.

Of what? What's so d.a.m.ned ...

She slipped out of her dress and stood up. First bed. Then sleep. Then explanations.

WHILE AMELIA AND I sleepily dressed and threw together some clothes for the trip, she gave me a rough outline of what to expect in Washington. I didn't stay sleepy long.

If Amelia's conclusions about Peter Blankenship's theory proved correct, the Jupiter Project had to be shut down. It could literally destroy everything: the Earth, the solar system; the universe itself, eventually. It would recreate the Diaspora, the big bang that started everything.

Jupiter and its satellites would be consumed in a fraction of a second; Earth and the Sun would have a few dozen minutes. Then the expanding bubble of particles and energy would muscle its way out to consume every star in the Galaxy, and then go on to the main course: the rest of everything.

One aspect of cosmology that the Jupiter Project had been designed to test was the accelerated universe theory. It was almost a century old, and had survived in spite of inelegance and a prevailing skepticism over its ad hoc -ness, because in model after model, the theory seemed to be necessary in order to account for what happened the tiniest fraction of a second after creation- 10.35 of a second.

Simply stated, during that tiny period, you either had to temporarily increase the speed of light or make time elastic. For various reasons, the elasticity of time had always been the more likely explanation.

All of this took place when the universe was very tiny, growing from the size of a BB to the size of a small pea.

In the cab to the airport and during the flight, Amelia slept while I skimmed the field equations and tried to attack her method, using pseudo-operator theory. Pseudo-operator theory was so new I'd never applied it to a practical problem; Amelia had only heard of it. I needed to talk to some people about applying it, and to do it right required a lot more computing power than my notebook could muster.

(But suppose I did demonstrate they were wrong, and the Jupiter Project went ahead, but it turned out to be me and my new technique that were in error. A guy who couldn't live with killing one person would wind up destroying all life, everywhere.) The danger was that the Jupiter Project would focus furious energies into a volume much smaller than a BB. Peter and Amelia thought that this would re-create, in reverse, the environment that characterized the universe when it was that small, and, an infinitesimal fraction of a second later, precipitate a tiny accelerated universe, and then a new Diaspora. It was bizarre to realize that something that happened in an area the size of a para-mecium could trigger the end of the world. Of the universe.

Of course the only way of really checking it would be to do the experiment. Sort of like loading a gun and testing it by putting the muzzle in your mouth and pulling the trigger.

I thought of that metaphor while I was setting up operator conditions, typing on the plane, but didn't pa.s.s it on to Amelia. It occurred to me that a man who had recently tried to kill himself might not be the ideal companion for this particular venture.

Because of course the universe does end when you die. From whatever cause.

Amelia was still asleep, her head against the window, when we landed in Washington, and the change in vibration didn't wake her. I touched her awake and took down both our bags. She let me carry hers without protest, evidence of how tired she was.

I bought a pack of speedies at the airport newsstand while she called to make sure Peter was up. As she suspected, he was up and speeding, so we put the patches behind our ears and were wide awake by the time we got to the tube. Great stuff if you don't overdo it. I asked, and she confirmed that Peter was living on it.