Then he looked up. He had come to the end of the buildings. And standing there in his way was a wall of silent people — thousands of them packed shoulder to shoulder and blocking his way.

He stumbled and went down on one knee. The Book's agent puffed up behind him, cursing, but Doran ignored her. He was staring at the crowd.

His initial impression had been that they were there to block bis escape. But they weren't looking at him; hell, they weren't looking at anything at all. They simply stood there, uniformly sightless and silent — no, not silent. Doran could hear a faint sighing sound that he'd at first thought was the wind. But the air wasn't moving. It was breathing he heard — a million, two million inhalations. And though the crowd was still ten meters away, it was palpably warmer here.

"Hell of my fathers," he whispered. "What have you done to them?"

Thirty-three forty's agent clapped her hand on his shoulder and dragged him to his feet. "We've done nothing," she said. "Not yet. But these people are why you are here."

Doran thought of turning and running from this vast multitude. He might have, even though 3340's people would catch him again — but stopped as he thought about the sheer helplessness of these men and women. They were no danger to him; he was probably more danger to them.

He forced himself to examine the scene clinically. If he looked closely he could see faint geometric outlines — virtual matter — drifting over the crowd. Knowing what was possible even within the narratives, these things were probably feeding, watering, and cleaning up after the silent people.

"Is this what the Book does to its slaves?" he asked after a while. "Paralyzes them to make them more efficient? I assume these people's minds are off in inscape somewhere, playing out its little role-games."

The woman took his arm and started walking forward. The crowd parted miraculously as she approached. "It's not paralysis," she said. "And they're not slaves — they're elite users. Volunteers. They're the best at using the Book from all over Teven, and they're true believers in its goodness. They're very busy right now, assembling a new processing kernel for 3340."

Any one person in Teven had more character in their face than any ten Archipelagics. But the faces they passed, each so unique, were all equally blank. "A new kerneir

"They're building a bounded version of 3340 that can operate in isolation from the rest of the network."

Belatedly, Doran realized that the crowd was sealing itself behind them as they proceeded. He'd lost his last chance to cut and run. He instinctively edged closer to the woman, feeling, under the weight of all those empty gazes, as if he were five years old again. "You're going to make a new book?"

"Of course not," she snapped. "Version 3340 is perfect." She looked over at him. "I was told that you knew what we're going to do."

Now, belatedly, he understood.

About a kilometer ahead of them, some of the strange nets and cables that hung above the city drooped down almost to ground level. Where they converged, Doran glimpsed the gleaming blue curve of the eschatus machine, nestled like a spider at the heart of its web.

Yes, he knew what 3340 was about to do. He'd just refused to accept what he was seeing.

"But why do you need the people?" he asked weakly. When the eschatus machine went off, this whole park would be within its blast radius. "Surely a machine could work the processes of the Book a trillion times faster than this crowd ... "

"Nonusers often ask us that," said his escort. They were making steady progress through the sea of people. "But it's a mistake to think of the Book's roles as being separable from the people who perform them. The Book relies on human perception and intelligence to make sense of those roles. Thirty-three forty's program can't just be transferred into sims or animas and run that way. It can only emerge from embodied minds — minds for whom the roles have an experiential meaning."

"So these people are going to be ... "

"Incorporated into a new, unified body for 3340. Then-consciousness will exist in a virtual world that is infinitely adaptable. This world will be a paradise, and their minds will experience it thousands of times faster than you or I can think. They will never die as long as the new body survives. If it lasts a thousand years, they will experience a million years in heaven. That is why they have come here."

Doran felt sick. "But they'll never be allowed to stop using the Book, will they?"

She looked puzzled. "Why would they want to?"

"So why aren't you standing here too with your mouth hanging open?" he snapped. "If you think it's going to be so great?"

She blew out a heavy sigh. "I'd like to be. I really would. But the Book hasn't assigned me a role in the new body. I suppose I'm just not as good a user as I should be."

"But ... " Doran's brain seemed to have stopped working. He tried to speak several more times, and finally just said, "Why?"

"Why does 3340 need a new body?"

He nodded dumbly at her. She shrugged. 'To directly oppose the armies, 3340 needs to be able to think at least as fast as they do. You see, that's its one vulnerability right now: its processor runs at the speed of human interactions — "

"You actually think 3340 will save us from the annies?"

"The solar system is controlled by the most powerful players," she said. "It's ecological. Humans aren't the top predator any more. We tried creating AIs that would be our servants; I know, I grew up under the Government and the annies just like you did. But how can you deliberately create something that exceeds you in all ways, and still control it? It's impossible."

Doran looked away. He didn't want her to see how that point had hit home. He agreed with this assessment; it was why he'd built the eschatus machine for himself. "But it's not a solvable problem," he argued.

Now her eyes held the fire of true missionary zeal. "Unless you could build a system that exceeded humanity in all the right ways, while still being made up of humanity. A system in which ordinary humans were so integral that it couldn't exist without them. Where human aspirations were channeled into creating a being, an entity, powerful and wise enough to take on the annies ... "

They were approaching a rope ladder that led up to where the eschatus machine sat in its nest of cables. Someone was standing on the strands, waiting. Doran couldn't quite make the figure out, but he knew it must be Filament.

"Your argument's perfect, except for one thing," he said bitterly. She raised an elegant eyebrow, indulging the question. "Once he's got this body you're building for him, 3340 doesn't need you anymore. He doesn't need an embodied humanity at all."

She didn't answer. Filament waved to him and Doran climbed the ladder, emerging onto the gently swaying meshwork surface where she stood.

As always, Filament looked relaxed and happy. Doran debated whether to punch her in the chin. But she didn't need angels, not being human. She probably wouldn't even feel it.

"You now have two choices," she said to Doran. "Surrender the pass phrase for the eschatus machine, and you can walk away before we set it off. Or, I will comb through your brain synapse by synapse and locate the information that way. It'll be painless, you'll still be you at the end of the process; but I'll leave you here to be incorporated into 3340 along with the rest of these people. You might want to stay anyway, you know — it'll mean immortality, in a heaven of your own design."

He crossed his arms, looking around for some hint of a means to escape. It was hopeless; he could leap off the meshwork, but the fall might kill him; and he'd probably kill whoever he landed on as well.

His moment of freedom when he ran from his guide now seemed like a childish indulgence. Doran was ashamed of himself — but I didn't know what was really at stake, he tried to tell himself. I thought it was just my life ...