“Sanity, or lack of it, is not my worry.” Kallik slowed her pace further, to put more space between her and J’merlia. “Master Nenda, my species served the Zardalu for countless generations before the Great Rising. Although my race memory carries no specific data, there is instinctive knowledge of Zardalu behavior ingrained deep within me. You experienced one element of that behavior when we were on Serenity: the Zardalu love to take hostages. They use them as bargaining chips, or they kill them as stern examples to others.”

Rebka had fallen behind, too, listening to the Hymenopt. “Don’t worry, Kallik. Even if the Zardalu get us, Julian Graves and the others won’t trade for us. For one good reason: I won’t let them.”

“That is not my concern.” Kallik sounded as though the idea that anyone would consider her worth trading for was ridiculous. “J’merlia’s behavior is so strange, I wonder if he was already captured by the Zardalu. And if he is now, after conditioning by them, simply carrying out their orders.”

Chapter Fourteen

According to Alliance physicians, Julian Graves could not exist. He was a statistical fluke, a one-in-a-billion accidental variation on a well-proved medical technique. In other words, there was nothing anyone could do to help him.

It had begun as a simple storage problem. Every councilor needed to know the history, biology, and psychology of each intelligent and potentially intelligent species in the spiral arm. But that data volume exceeded the capacity of any human memory, so when he was elected to the council, Julius Graves, as he had been called then, had been given a choice: he could accept an inorganic high-density memory implant, cumbersome and heavy enough that his head and neck would need a permanent brace, or he could allow the physicians to develop within him an interior mnemonic twin, a second pair of cerebral hemispheres grown from his own brain tissue and used solely for memory storage and recall. They would fit inside his skull, posterior to the cerebral cortex, with minimal cranial expansion. The first option was the preference of many Council members, especially those with exoskeletons. Julius Graves chose the second.

The procedure was standardized and not uncommon, though Julius Graves was warned that the initial interface with his interior mnemonic twin through an added corpus callosum was a delicate matter. He must avoid physical stimulants, and he would have to endure the difficult period of time when the interface was being developed. He had readily agreed to that.

What he had not expected — what no one had dreamed might happen — was that the interior mnemonic twin would then develop consciousness and self-awareness.

But it had happened. For fourteen months, Julius Graves had felt his sanity teetering on the brink, as the personality of Steven Graves developed and supplied its own thoughts to Julius in the form of memories — recollections by Julius of events that had never happened to him.

It had been touch and go, but at last the interface had steadied. The synthesis was complete. Both personalities had made their accommodation, until finally neither knew nor cared where a thought originated. Julius Graves and Steven Graves had fused, to become the single entity of Julian Graves.

Now it was hard even to remember those old problems. There had been no recent clash or confusion to suggest that in the bald and bulging skull there once resided two different people…

…until the Erebus entered the twisted geometry of the Torvil Anfract and flew on to orbit the shimmer of nested singularities that guarded the lost world of Genizee; and then the old problem had reemerged to shiver the mind of Julian Graves.

Conflicting thoughts warred within him. For every idea, there seemed to be another running in parallel.

Make Hans Rebka leader of the group who would enter the singularities, because he was a first-rate pilot and had a reputation as a troubleshooter. No. Make the chief of the party Louis Nenda, because with his augment he could communicate with humans, Cecropians, Lo’tfians, and Hymenopts, whereas Rebka could talk to Atvar H’sial only through an interpreter of pheromonal speech.

Send the seedship through the singularities — it was the most agile and versatile. No. Send the Indulgence, which was less nimble but far better armed.

Use Dulcimer as pilot — he was much better even than Hans Rebka. No. He had to stay on the Erebus to guarantee a passage out of the bewildering geometry of the Anfract. No. The whole point of the expedition was to locate Genizee and search for living Zardalu. No. If the expedition did not return to report their findings, there was no point to finding anything.

They were not sequential thoughts. That would have been tolerable. They were simultaneous thoughts, screaming for attention, fighting for dominance.

After a few hours of internal conflict, Julius/Steven/Julian Graves could only agree on one thing: while the condition persisted, he was worse than useless — he was positively dangerous. He might make a decision, then a moment later do something to undermine or change it.

And yet he was the organizer and nominal leader of the whole expedition. He could not add to everyone’s problems by making them focus on worries that should be his alone.

Let the others explore the singularities, then, and look for Genizee and the Zardalu. All his internal thoughtstreams agreed on one thing: that he could best serve the party by staying out of the way. If he remained on the Erebus and did not touch the controls, it was difficult to see how he could do much damage. And perhaps in a few hours or days his personal reintegration would occur and he could be useful again.

He watched Darya Lang and the second party leave with a feeling of vast relief.

And learned, within a few hours, that he had no reason for satisfaction. Without others to distract him and to channel his thoughts to particular subjects, the split in his personality became more noticeable. He was incapable of holding any thought without another — several others — riding along beside it. It was worse than it had been during the first days of interface, because there were more than two thoughts jousting for dominance. His mind darted and veered and fluttered from place to random place like a startled bird, unable to find a stable resting place. And when the monitors sounded to indicate that some object was seeking rendezvous with the Erebus, any worry that the main ship might be vulnerable to attacking Zardalu was swamped by the knowledge that he would no longer be alone. The presence of another being — any other being — would help to focus his mind.

The control system of the Erebus indicated that the new arrival had docked at one of the medium-sized external holds. Graves set off through the ship’s interior. In the final narrow corridor that led to the hold, a crouching shape rose suddenly before him.

He gasped, with surprise and then with relief. “J’merlia! Are the others with you? Did you meet Professor Lang?”

The two questions had risen in his mind in the same fraction of a second. But when the Lo’tfian shook his thin head and said, “I am alone,” Graves’s divided mind managed to agree on one emotion: disappointment. Of all the beings in the party, J’merlia showed the least independence of thought. He was likely to mirror Graves’s own mental patterns, however confused and fragmented they might be.

“I did not meet Professor Lang,” J’merlia continued. “Did she leave the Erebus?”

“She, and also Dulcimer and E.C. Tally. They went to seek your group. They went to learn why there was damage to the returned drone, and mud on it.”