"How many ships do you see?" Jesse said to me.

"I don't know," I said. "Dozens. There could be hundreds, for all I know. I didn't even know this many starships existed."

"If any of us were still thinking Earth was the center of the human universe," Harry said, "now would be an excellent time to revise that theory," Harry said.

We all stood and looked at the new world out the window.

My PDA chimed me awake at 0545, which was notable in that I had set it to wake me at 0600. The screen was flashing; there was a message labeled URGENT on it. I tapped the message.

At my age, you don't have to tell me twice to pee; I padded down to the rest room to take care of business and hoped that my appointment was sooner rather than later, as I didn't want to have to get permission to relieve myself.

My appointment was neither sooner nor later; at 0900 my PDA alerted me, and at 0915 there was a sharp rap at my door and a man's voice calling my name. I opened the door to find two Colonials on the other side. I received permission from them to make a quick rest-room stop, and then followed them from my deck, back to the waiting room of Dr. Russell. I waited briefly before I was allowed entrance into his examination room.

"Mr. Perry, good to see you again," he said, extending his hand. The Colonials who accompanied me left through the far door. "Please step up to the crèche."

"The last time I did, you jackhammered several thousand bits of metal into my head," I said. "Forgive me if I'm not entirely enthusiastic about climbing in again."

"I understand," Dr. Russell said. "However, today is going to be pain-free. And we are under something of a time constraint, so, if you please." He motioned to the crèche.

I reluctantly stepped in. "If I feel so much as a twinge, I'm going to hit you," I warned.

"Fair enough," Dr. Russell said as he closed the crèche door. I noted that unlike the last time, Dr. Russell bolted down the door to the crèche; maybe he was taking the threat seriously. I didn't mind. "Tell me, Mr. Perry," he said as he bolted the door, "what do you think of the last couple of days?"

"They were confusing and irritating," I said. "If I knew I was going to be treated like a preschooler, I probably wouldn't have signed up."

"That's pretty much what everyone says," Dr. Russell said. "So let me explain a little bit about what we've been trying to do. We put in the sensor array for two reasons. First, as you may have guessed, we're monitoring your brain activity while you perform various basic functions and experience certain primal emotions. Every human's brain processes information and experience in more or less the same way, but at the same time each person uses certain pathways and processes unique to them. It's a little like how every human hand has five fingers, but each human being has his own set of fingerprints. What we've been trying to do is isolate your mental 'fingerprint.' Make sense?"

I nodded.

"Good. So now you know why we had you doing ridiculous and stupid things for two days."

"Like talking to a naked woman about my seventh birthday party," I said.

"We get a lot of really useful information from that one," Dr. Russell said.

"I don't see how," I said.

"It's technical," Dr. Russell assured me. "In any event, the last couple days give us a good idea of how your brain uses neural pathways and processes all sorts of stimuli, and that's information we can use as a template."

Before I could ask, A template for what, Dr. Russell continued. "Second, the sensor array does more than record what your brain is doing. It can also transmit a real-time representation of the activity in your brain. Or to put it another way, it can broadcast your consciousness. This is important, because unlike specific mental processes, consciousness can't be recorded. It has to be live if it's going to make the transfer."

"The transfer," I said.

"That's right," Dr. Russell said.

"Do you mind if I ask you what the hell you're talking about?" I said.

Dr. Russell smiled. "Mr. Perry, when you signed up to join the army, you thought we'd make you young again, right?"

"Yes," I said. "Everybody does. You can't fight a war with old people, yet you recruit them. You have to have some way to make them young again."

"How do you think we do it?" Dr. Russell asked.

"I don't know," I said. "Gene therapy. Cloned replacement parts. You'd swap out old parts somehow and put in new ones."

"You're half right," Dr. Russell said. "We do use gene therapy and cloned replacements. But we don't 'swap out' anything, except you."

"I don't understand," I said. I felt very cold, like reality was being tugged out from under my feet.

"Your body is old, Mr. Perry. It's old and it won't work for much longer. There's no point in trying to save it or upgrade it. It's not something that gains value when it ages or has replaceable parts that keep it running like new. All a human body does when it gets older is get old. So we're going to get rid of it. We're getting rid of it all. The only part of you that we're going to save is the only part of you that hasn't decayed—your mind, your consciousness, your sense of self."

Dr. Russell walked over to the far door, where the Colonials had exited, and rapped on it. Then he turned back to me. "Take a good look at your body, Mr. Perry," he said. "Because you're about to say good-bye to it. You're going somewhere else."

"Where am I going, Dr. Russell?" I asked. I could barely make enough spit to talk.

"You're going here," he said, and opened the door.

From the other side, the Colonials came back in. One of them was pushing a wheelchair with someone in it. I craned my head to take a look. And I began to shake.

It was me.

Fifty years ago.

"Now, I want you to relax," Dr. Russell said to me.

The Colonials had wheeled the younger me to the other crèche and were in the process of placing the body into it. It or he or I or whatever offered no resistance; they might as well have been moving someone in a coma. Or a corpse. I was fascinated. And horrified. A small little voice in my brain told me it was good I had gone to the bathroom before I came in, or otherwise I'd be peeing down my leg.

"How—" I began, and I choked. My mouth was too dry to talk. Dr. Russell spoke to one of the Colonials, who left and returned with a small cup of water. Dr. Russell held the cup as he gave the water to me, which was good, because I don't think I could have managed to grip it. He spoke to me as I drank.

"'How' is usually attached to one of two questions," he said. "The first is, How did you make a younger version of me? The answer to that is that ten years ago we took a genetic sample and used that to make your new body." He took the cup away.

"A clone," I said, finally.