I went on—seeing it as I was saying it. “It is so much simpler this way! My brain doesn’t have to support this hugely detailed, accurate, configurable, quantum-superposition-supporting model of the cosmos any more! All it needs to do is to perceive—to reflect—the cosmos that it’s really in, as it really is.”

“The variations—the myriad possible alternative scenarios—have been moved out of your brain,” Orolo said, rapping on his skull with his knuckles, “and out into the polycosm, which is where they all exist anyway!” He opened his hand and extended it to the sky, as if releasing a bird. “All you have to do is perceive them.”

“But each variant of me doesn’t exist in perfect isolation from the others,” I said, “or else it wouldn’t work.”

Orolo nodded. “Quantum interference—the crosstalk among similar quantum states—knits the different versions of your brain together.”

“You’re saying that my consciousness extends across multiple cosmi,” I said. “That’s a pretty wild statement.”

“I’m saying all things do,” Orolo said. “That comes with the polycosmic interpretation. The only thing exceptional about the brain is that it has found a way to use this.”

Neither of us said a word as we picked our way down the path for the next quarter of an hour, and the sky receded to a deep violet. I had the illusion that, as it got darker, it moved away from us, expanding like a bubble, rushing away from Arbre at a million light-years an hour, and as it whooshed past stars, we began to see them.

One of the stars was moving. So discreetly, at first, that I had to stop, find my balance, and observe it closely to be sure. It was no illusion. The ancient animal part of my brain, so attuned to subtle, suspicious movement, had picked out this one star among the millions. It was in the western sky, not far above the horizon, hence diluted, at first, in twilight. But it rose slowly and steadily into the black. As it did, it changed its color and its size. Early on, it was a pinprick of white light, just like any other star, but as it rose toward the zenith it reddened. Then it broadened to a dot of orange, then flared yellow and threw out a comet-tail. Until that point my eyes had been playing any number of tricks on me and I’d misconceived its distance, its altitude, and its velocity. But the comet-tail shocked me into the right view: the thing was not high above us in space but descending into the atmosphere, dumping its energy into shredded, glowing air. Its rise had slowed as it neared the zenith, and it was clear it would lose all forward speed before it passed over our heads. The meteor’s bearing had never changed: it was headed right at us, and the brighter and fatter it grew, the more it seemed to hang motionless in the sky, like a thrown ball that is coming straight at your head. For a minute it was a little sun, fixed in the sky and stabbing rays of incandescent air in all directions. Then it shrank and faded back through orange to a dull red, and became difficult to make out.

I realized I had tilted my head as far back as it would go, and was gazing vertically upwards.

At the risk of losing my fix on it, I dropped my chin and had a look around.

Orolo was a hundred feet downhill of me and running as fast as he could.

I gave up trying to track the thing in the sky and took off after him. By the time I caught up, we were almost at the edge of the pit.

“They deciphered my analemma!” he exclaimed between gasps.

We stopped at a rope that had been stretched at waist level from stake to stake around the edge of the pit, to prevent sleepy or drunk avout from falling into it. I looked up and cried out in shock as I saw something absolutely enormous, just above us, like a low cloud. But it was perfectly circular. I understood that it was a gigantic parachute. Its shroud lines converged on a glowing red load that hung far below it.

The lines went all quavery and the chute blurred, then began to drift sideways on a barely perceptible breeze. It had been cut loose. The hot red thing fell like a stone but then thrust out legs of blue fire and, a few seconds later, began to hiss, shockingly loud. It was aiming for the floor of the pit. Orolo and I followed the rope around to the top of the ramp. A crowd of fraas and suurs was building there, more fascinated than afraid. Orolo began pushing through them, headed for the ramp, shouting above the hiss of the rocket: “Fraa Landasher, open the gate! Yul, go out with your cousin and get your vehicles. Find the parachute and bring it back! Sammann, do you have your jeejah? Cord! Get all of your things and meet me at the bottom!” And he launched himself down the ramp, rushing alone into the dark to meet the Geometers.

I ran after him. My usual role in life. I’d lost sight of the probe—the ship—whatever it was—during all of this, but now it was suddenly there, dead level with me and only a few hundred feet away, dropping at a measured pace toward the Temple of Orithena. I was so stunned by its immediacy, its heat and noise, that I recoiled, lost my balance, and stumbled to my knees. In that posture I watched it descend the last hundred feet or so. Its attitude, its velocity were perfectly steady, but only by dint of a thousand minute twitches and wiggles of its rocket nozzles: something very sophisticated was controlling the thing, making a myriad decisions every second. It was headed for the Decagon. In the final half-second, a hell-storm of shattering tiles was kicked up by the plumes of hypersonic gas shooting from those engines. Crouching, insect-like legs took up the last of its velocity and the engines went dark. But they continued to hiss for a couple of seconds as some kind of gas was run through the engines, purging the lines, shrouding the probe in a cool bluish cloud.

Then Orithena was silent.

I picked myself up and began hurrying down the ramp as best I could while keeping my head turned sideways, the better to stare at the Geometers’ probe. Its bottom was broad and saucer-shaped and still glowing a dull red-brown from the heat of re-entry. Above that it had a simple shape, like an inverted bucket, with a slightly domed top. Five tall narrow hatches had opened in its sides, revealing slots from which the bug-legs had unfolded. Atop its dome was some clutter I could not quite make out: presumably the mechanism for deploying and cutting free the parachute, maybe some antennas and sensors. I saw all sides of it as I chased Orolo down the spiral ramp, and never saw anything that looked like a window.

I caught up with him at the edge of the Decagon. He was sniffing the air. “Doesn’t seem to be venting anything noxious,” he said. “From the color of the exhaust, I’m guessing hydrogen/oxygen. Clean as a whistle.”

Landasher came down alone. It seemed he had ordered the others to remain above. He had his mouth open to say something. He looked half-deranged, a man in over his head. Orolo cut him off: “Is the gate open?” Landasher didn’t know. But above, we could now hear vehicles roaring around. I recognized them by their sounds: they were the ones we had brought over the pole. A light appeared at the top of the ramp.

“Someone opened them,” Orolo said. “But they must be closed and bolted again, as soon as the vehicles and parachute are inside. You should prepare for an invasion.”

“You think the Geometers are launching an—”

“No. I mean an invasion of the Panjandrums. This event will have been picked up on sensors. There is no telling how quickly the Sæcular Power may respond. Possibly within an hour.”

“We cannot possibly keep the Sæcular Power out, if they wish to come in,” Landasher said.

“As much time as possible. That is all I ask for,” Orolo said.

The three-wheeler was coming down the ramp. As it drew closer I saw Cord at the controls, Sammann standing on the back, gripping Cord’s shoulders to maintain his balance.