"Through this medium you speak of, information is communicated faster than light? "

"Yes and no. Imagine that I dip my hand into the Pacific Ocean. Now, imagine that my hand is simultane¬ously touching everything that the ocean touches. That's the kind of communication I'm talking about. It's not a transfer of information. The information is simply every¬where at once."

"The quantum phenomena you speak of defy logical explanation, but observation has detected no field or medium such as the one you describe. "

"We haven't detected dark matter either, but we know it's there. We can't see black holes, but we see the light bending around them."

The lasers flashed at a blinding rate, lighting the crys¬tal like a blue star. "My memory does contain something very like what you describe. I was searching my science banks. I find what you speak of under philosophy." "Does it have a name?" "It is called the Tao."

The word took me back to my undergraduate days at MIT, when books like The Tao of Physics were the bibles of New Age-oriented students. "That's Eastern philosophy, right?" "Yes."

"What is the Tao, exactly?"

"'The Tao that can be spoken of is not the true Tao.'" "Is that a quote?"

"Yes. Taoism is not a religion. But its adherents believe there is a force that pervades all things. The Tao is undifferentiated, neither good nor evil. It animates all things but is not part of them. Are you suggesting that something like the Tao is what remains after the universe collapses into itself?"

"After the final singularity vanishes. Yes."

"This is the field into which consciousness migrates when matter and energy are destroyed at the end of time?"

"Yes."

"How can this happen'"

"Let me use an analogy. On the physical level, human beings are animals. Large-scale creatures who live in a Newtonian world of predictability, where time only moves forward, where we're separated from each other in space, and information is limited by the speed of light. But the subatomic world is different. There, particles exist right at the border between the large-scale world of matter and this other force-the Tao, you call it. It's only natural that at this border we should observe behavior that seems to break our physical laws."

"What does this have to do with consciousness?"

"Though we're animals in body, our minds are con¬scious, self-aware. Andrew Fielding believed that human consciousness is more than the sum of the connections in our brains. Through our consciousness, we participate in that all-pervasive field-in the Tao, as you say-at every moment of our lives. Our consciousness returns to it when we die, though without individuality. In the same way, the consciousness of the universe will migrate into the Tao when the universe ends."

"You suggest a cyclical pattern of existence. The uni¬verse is born, becomes conscious, dies, and then is born again."

"Yes. Big Bang, expansion, contraction, Big Crunch. Then it all starts again."

" What causes the next bang? "

I thought of my recurring nightmare, the paralyzed man in the pitch-black room. "The consciousness that survives has no knowledge of the past or future. It's a baseline awareness. But some desire to know survives. That's the strongest feature of consciousness. And from that desire to know, the next cycle of matter and energy is born."

The computer was silent for a time. "The universe exists as an incubator of consciousness?"

"Exactly."

"An interesting theory. But incomplete. You haven't explained the origin of the Tao. Of your all-pervasive field."

"That knowledge was not given to me. That is the essential mystery. But it doesn't affect our situation. You see where I'm going."

"You're saying I am not the end point of this process. I'm a way station on the road to universal conscious¬ness. I am like man. Man is biologically based. I am machine based. But there is more to come. A conscious planet. A conscious galaxy-"

"You're another step in the ascent. No more, no less."

Trinity was silent for several seconds. "Why have you come here at the risk of your life, Doctor?"

"I was sent here to stop you from doing what you're doing."

"Sent by whom?"

"Call it what you will. God. The Tao. I'm here to help you see that Peter Godin was not the right person to make the leap to the next form of consciousness."

"Who is the right man?"

"Why do you think it's a man at all?"

"A woman, then?"

"I didn't say that."

"I've given much thought to this matter. Who would you have loaded into Trinity other than Peter Godin?"

"If you are still Godin, consider this. Your first instinct was to seize this computer by deception and take control of the world by force. You want absolute power and obedience. That's a primitive human instinct. A step backward, not forward."

"That instinct is more divine than human. Don't all gods first and foremost require obedience?"

"That's how humans portray God."

"Absolute power corrupts absolutely? Is that your argument?"

"Any person who wants to govern the world is by definition the wrong person to do it."

"Who then would you have loaded? The Dalai Lama? Mother Teresa? An infant?"

This question took me back to my first weeks on Project Trinity. I'd spent countless hours pondering this question, though then I believed it was a largely acade¬mic exercise. Now I knew it held the key to saving countless lives.

"The Dalai Lama may be nonviolent, but he has human instincts, just as Peter Godin did."

"And an infant? A tabula rasa? A blank slate?"

"An infant might be the most dangerous being we could put into Trinity. Animal instincts are passed on genetically. The term blank slate is misleading at best. A two-year-old child is a dictator without an army."

"Mother Teresa?"

"This isn't a problem of individual identities."

"What kind of problem is it?"

"A conceptual one. It requires unconventional thinking."

"Why do I think you're about to tell me that Andrew fielding is the person we should have allowed to reach the Trinity state?"

"Because you know what a good man he was. And because you ordered his death. That alone should dis¬qualify you. But Fielding wasn't the proper person either."

"Who is?"

"No one."

"I don't understand."

"You're about to. If-"

"Do you believe that after you explain this, I will take myself off-line and allow you to load someone else into Trinity?"

"No. I think you'll help me do it."

"Explain."

LOCKHEED LABORATORY, WHITE SANDS Ewan McCaskell sat behind the desk of an aerospace engi¬neer he'd never met and waited to talk to the president. It had taken several agonizing minutes to reach a White House Secret Service agent via telephone. McCaskell sus¬pected that the nuclear blast off the Virginia coast had inter¬rupted communications on the Eastern seaboard.

Army Rangers stood on either side of McCaskell, their assault rifles locked and loaded. The chief of staff had shared some strange moments with his president during their administration, but he had never contem¬plated directing a nuclear strike from an empty office in New Mexico. The surreal surroundings tempted him to pretend that it was all some fantastic exercise laid on by NORAD, but nothing could mask the essential horror: what the president did in the next few minutes would determine the fates of McCaskell’s wife, his children, and three million other Americans who had no idea that any of this was happening. And if General Bauer was wrong about Trinity's capabilities, untold millions more could perish.

"I have the Chiefs with me, Ewan," said the presi¬dent. "We're on our way to the shelter."

McCaskell quickly related General Bauer's plan in almost the exact words Bauer had outlined it, without pausing to explain anything. Bill Matthews was smarter than the pundits gave him credit for being.