When I told Fielding that I'd brought Lu Li with me from North Carolina, and that she was waiting outside, he asked that he be given a few minutes to collect him¬self before she was brought before the camera. His ques¬tion stunned me, but I realized then how "human" a computer could be. Talking to Peter Godin's neuromodel had been like talking to a machine; but then talking to Godin the man had been much the same. Andrew Fielding, on the other hand, had been an eccentric char¬acter renowned for his wit and passion. Even in the synthesized voice of his neuromodel, I heard the spark of the man who had saved a poster from the Newcastle club where he'd seen Jimi Hendrix play in 1967.

While Fielding collected himself, we caught up on the fates of the people we'd worked with at Trinity. Zach Levin had been stabbed by Geli at the door of the Containment building, but he'd recovered. He has now resumed his position as chief of R amp;D for Godin Supercomputing. John Skow was fired by the NSA, but he is rumored to be writing a novel based on his experiences at the ultrasecret intelligence agency. Like Skow, Geli Bauer knew too much about national security matters to face a public trial for Fielding's murder. After extensive debriefing by the NSA and the Secret Service, she quietly disappeared. I'd like to think that justice caught up with Geli somewhere, but I suspect she's working in the secu¬rity division of some multinational corporation, scaring the hell out of superiors and subordinates alike.

When Fielding finally told me he was ready to see Lu Li, I said a fond farewell, then turned and started toward the door.

"David? " said the synthesized voice behind me.

I stopped and looked back at the sphere. "Yes?"

"Are you still troubled by your visions?"

"I don't have them anymore."

"And the narcolepsy? "

"Gone."

"That's good. Tell me… do you still wonder if your dreams were real or not?"

I thought about it. "They were real to me. That's all I know."

"Is that all you want to know?"

This was vintage Fielding. "Can you tell me more?"

"Yes."

"All right. Tell me."

"Remember your first recurring dream? The para¬lyzed man in the pitch-dark room?"

"Of course."

"You told me that he saw the birth of the universe: the Big Bang, a huge explosion like a hydrogen bomb, expanding at a fantastic rate, displacing God. "

"Yes." I took a couple of steps back toward the flash¬ing sphere.

"You said it felt like a memory to you. As if you had really seen that. Seen it as God had seen it. "

"Right."

"But you didn't."

"What do you mean?"

"You didn't see that event as it really happened. "

"How do you know?"

"Because for the first two hundred million years after the Big Bang, there was no light in the universe. "

I felt a chill on my skin. "What?"

"The image of a massive fireball is a common mis¬conception, even among physicists. But in the beginning, the universe was mostly hydrogen atoms, which gobble up all available light. It took two hundred million years for the first stars to ignite, due to the compression of hydrogen by gravity. So the Big Bang was quite a bit dif¬ferent than you 'remember' it. It was a huge explosion… but nobody saw anything. Certainly not a nuclear fireball."

I stared at the slowly flashing lasers in the sphere, a strange numbness in my extremities. "Are you saying everything I dreamed was created by my mind?"

"No. A lot of what you dreamed about the universe is true. And the rest of it could be true. I'm merely point¬ing out a fact. A small discrepancy. A man's dreams are his own business. I'm a great believer in dreams. They took me quite a long way in the real world. As they did you. They saved your life. Probably millions of other lives as well. So don't worry too much about it."

I didn't know what to say.

"I'm sure I did the right thing by telling you this. I don't want you going through life with a Jesus complex. Go back to being a doctor. Prophecy is a lonely busi¬ness. "

Levin and his team had not yet learned to synthesize realistic laughter, but if they had, I was certain I would have heard a chuckle as I left.

Beyond the door, Lu Li stood waiting, dressed in her best clothes and wearing a nervous smile. Her eyes watched mine for the slightest clue to what she should expect.

"Is he ready for me, David?"

I nodded, then smiled. Her English had come a long way in three months.

"Is he… you know. All right?" Her eyes were wet.

"He misses you."

"Good. I have something to tell him." Her smile broadened. "Something that will make him very happy."

"What's that?"

Lu Li shook her head. "I must tell him first. Then you."

She slid past me, into the Containment building.

I walked out into the desert light and looked toward the Administration hangar. Rachel was sitting on the hood of our rented Ford, wearing blue jeans and a white blouse and looking much as she had on the day she'd called me in a panic from her ransacked office. She slipped off the hood and walked toward me, a cautious smile on her face.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

I nodded, my mind still on Fielding's last words. If my dreams really were hallucinations, as Rachel had always claimed, I had a lot of questions about how I had come to know certain facts. But one thing was certain: I could work that out in my own good time.

"You sure?" Rachel said, slipping an arm around my waist. She was always careful to avoid the wounded shoulder. "What did Fielding say?"

"He told me to go back to practicing medicine."

She laughed, her dark eyes flashing in the sun. "I'm with him." Her other arm slipped around my waist, and she pulled me close. "Whatever you need to do. I mean that."

I looked back at the Containment building, then kissed her on the forehead. "You're what I need."

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My deepest gratitude goes to Ray Kurzweil, a pioneering inventor whose insights into artificial intelligence did much to inspire this novel. I still remember the first time I played the grand piano sound on a Kurzweil synthesizer and realized what was possible in the field of electronic music. Kurzweil is a gifted futurist, and his book The Age of Spiritual Machines, should be read by all.

All my novels are enriched by the expertise and insight of many people. I owe them all an expression of thanks.

For his trip to Israel during difficult times: Keith Benoist.

For medical expertise: Salil Tiwari, M.D., Louis Jacobs, D.O., Michael Bourland, M.D., Jerry lies, M.D., Edward Daly, M.D., Fred Emrick, M.D., Simmons lies, R.N.

For military expertise: Major General Chuck Thomas, U.S. Army (retired). Chuck was of great help on very short notice, and he is not responsible for authorial invention as to military capabilities. Thanks also to Cole Cordray, and to S.B. for covert assistance.

For long nights discussing philosophy and religion: Robert Hensley, Michael Taylor, and Win Ward.

For contributions too numerous to name, the usual suspects: Geoff lies, Michael Henry, Ed Stackler. Courtney Aldridge, Jane Hargrove.

For sticking with it: Susan Moldow, Louise Burkt and Susanne Kirk.

Thanks also to the ladies at the Oak Ridge Chamber or Commerce.

As usual, all mistakes are mine.

Finally, to my readers. Writing about science and phi¬losophy in a commercial novel is problematic. Write about them at their natural level and you leave the masses behind. Simplify too much, and you offend peo¬ple conversant in those subjects. I trust you will enter this book as an exercise of the mind, and not judge too harshly either way. If we have learned anything in the past ten thousand years, it is that nothing is certain.