SPIN

"I mean look at their technology. These guys have been doing high-end biotech for something like a thousand years. If they wanted to populate the galaxy with nanobots they could have done it a long time ago. So why didn't they? Ruling out explanations that depend on their better nature, why? Obviously, because they're afraid of a reprisal."

"Reprisal from the Hypotheticals? They don't know anything about the Hypotheticals we don't know."

"So they claim. Doesn't mean they're not afraid of them. As for us—we're the assholes who launched a nuclear strike on the polar artifacts not that long ago. Yeah, we'll take the responsibility, why not? Jesus, look at it, Tyler. It's a classic setup. It could hardly be more slick."

"Or maybe you're paranoid."

"Am I? Who defines paranoia this far into the Spin? We're all paranoid. We all know there are malevolent, powerful forces controlling our lives, which is pretty much the definition of paranoia."

"I'm just a GP," I said. "But intelligent people tell me—"

"You're talking about Jason, of course. Jason tells you it'll all be okay."

"Not just Jason. The whole Lomax administration. Most of Congress "

"But they depend on the wonks for advice. And the wonks are as hypnotized by all this as Jason is. You want to know what motivates your friend Jason? Fear. He's afraid of dying ignorant. The situation we're in, if he dies ignorant, it means the human race dies ignorant. And that scares the living shit out of him, the idea that a whole arguably intelligent species can be erased from the universe without ever understanding why or what for. Maybe instead of diagnosing my paranoia you ought to think about Jason's delusions of grandeur. He's made it his mission to figure out the Spin before he dies. Wun shows up and hands him a tool he can use to that end and of course he buys it: it's like handing a matchbook to a pyromaniac."

"Do you really want me to tell him this?"

"I don't—" E.D. looked suddenly morose, or maybe it was just his blood alcohol peaking. "I thought, because he listens to you—"

"You know better than that."

He closed his eyes. "Maybe I do. I don't know. But I have to try. Do you see that? For the sake of my conscience." I was startled that he had confessed to having one. "Let me be frank with you. I feel like I'm watching a train wreck in slow motion. The wheels are off the track and the driver hasn't noticed. So what do I do? Is it too late to pull the alarm? Too late to yell 'duck'? Probably so. But he's my son, Tyler. The man driving the train is my son."

"He's in no more danger than the rest of us."

"I think that's wrong. Even if this thing succeeds, all we stand to get out of it is abstract information. That's good enough for Jason. But it's not good enough for the rest of the world. You don't know Preston Lomax. I do. Lomax would be more than happy to tag Jason with a failure and hang him for it. A lot of people in his administration want Perihelion closed down or turned over to the military. And those are best-case outcomes. Worst case, the Hypotheticals get a

"You're worried Lomax will shut down Perihelion?"

"I built Perihelion. Yes, I care about it. But that's not why I'm here."

"I can tell Jason what you said, but you think he'll change his mind?"

"I—" Now E.D. inspected the tabletop. His eyes went a little vague and watery. "No. Obviously not. But if he wants to talk… I want him to know he can reach me. If he wants to talk. I wouldn't make it an ordeal for him. Honestly. I mean, if he wants that."

It was as if he had opened a door and his essential loneliness had come spilling out.

Jason assumed E.D. had come to Florida as part of some Machiavellian plan. The old E.D. might have. But the new E.D. struck me as an aging, remorseful, newly powerless man who found his strategies at the bottom of a glass and who had drifted into town on a guilty whim.

I said, more gently, "Have you tried talking to Diane?"

"Diane?" He waved his hand dismissively. "Diane changed her number. I can't get through to her. Anyway, she's involved with that fucking end-of-the-world cult."

"It's not a cult, E.D. Just a little church with some odd ideas. Simon's more involved with it than she is."

"She's Spin-paralyzed. Just like the rest of your fucking generation. She took a nosedive into this religious bullshit when she was barely out of puberty. I remember that. She was so depressed by the Spin. Then suddenly she was quoting Thomas Aquinas at the di

They had never mentioned this to me. But I could imagine with what dismay they had approached E.D.'s educational assignment.

"I wanted her to know how gullible she was. She did her best. I think she wanted to impress me. She repeated back what Jason had been saying to her, basically. But Jason—" His pride was obvious. His eyes shone and some of the color crept back into his face. "Jason was absolutely brilliant. Just stu

I stared.

He registered my expression and winced. "Go to hell with your moral superiority. I was trying to teach her a lesson. I wanted her to be a realist, not one of these fucking Spin-driven navel gazers. Your whole fucking generation—"

"Do you care whether she's alive?"

"Of course I do."

"No one's heard from her lately. It's not just you, E.D. She's out of touch. I thought I might try to track her down. Do you think that's a good idea?"

But the waitress had come with another drink and E.D. was rapidly losing interest in the subject, in me, in the world around him. "Yeah, I'd like to know if she's all right." He took off his glasses and cleaned them with a cocktail napkin. "Yeah, you do that, Tyler."

Which is how I decided to accompany Wun Ngo Wen to the state of Arizona.

* * * * *

Traveling with Wun Ngo Wen was like traveling with a pop star or a head of state—heavy on security and light on spontaneity, but briskly efficient. A neatly timed succession of airport corridors, chartered planes, and highway convoys eventually deposited us at the head of Bright Angel trail, three weeks before the scheduled replicator launches, on a July day hot as fireworks and clear as creek water.

Wun stood where the guardrail followed the canyon's rim. The Park Service had closed the trail and visitor center to tourists, and three of their best and most photogenic rangers were poised to conduct Wun (and a contingent of federal security guys with shoulder holsters under their hiking whites) on an expedition to the canyon floor, where they would camp overnight.

Wun had been promised privacy once the hike began, but right now it was a circus. Media vans filled the parking area; journalists and paparazzi leaned into the cordon ropes like eager supplicants; a helicopter swooped along the canyon rim shooting video. Nevertheless Wun was happy. He gri