Carl’s voice seemed squeezed, diminished. “You… love him that much?”

This was no time to care about anything except results. Carl’s face was reddening, his breathing getting faster. If he saw how unsteady she was, how much nerve it took to do this— “Of course. You’ve known that all along.”

Somehow this simple declaration blunted Carl’s building anger. “You… want to spend the same time in the slots?”

“We belong together.”

Carl shrugged again. “Damned nasty, shutting down the mechs this way.”

“I had to show I mean it. I don’t intend to live without Saul. Particularly since nobody really knows how much longer things will hold together here anyway.”

“We’ve got the diseases licked, Saul says.”

“Yes, for now. But what about long-term effects? We’ve got to be sure we have able bodies for service decades from now. People who can come out of the slots in good condition, ready to work. Saul and I fit that description. You know we can survive.”

She played out the arguments just as she had rehearsed them. There were holes in them, of course, but she saw now that Carl in his disoriented state was vulnerable to her, unable to muster a coherent objection. Perhaps he would, in fact, be glad to be rid of both her and Saul; their love was a continual irritant to him, she guessed.

Carl asked, “Keoki, could you get some more KleinTex solution from stock?” The tech nodded and left.

Carl seemed pensive, almost dazed.

“Carl… I know this is a hard time…”

He blinked, obviously struggling with inner conflicts. “You know, I never pay attention to the people around me… never know what they’re thinking… feeling.”

“No, that’s not true, you.”

“Lani, I never saw her,” he said bitterly. “I was so wrapped up in dreams about you. To see her going into the slots, that damned disease eating her up… I could’ve had some time with.”

“If you’d been a superman, yes,” she said patiently. “We’ve all been run ragged, Carl. You can’t blame yourself for not being all things to all people.”

He didn’t reply, just picked absently at the weave of nutrient tubes and sensor wires that covered Saul. Virginia watched his expression settle into one of sad reflection. He sighed, then looked into Saul’s relaxed face and asked, “You can understand?”

A nod.

“She’s coming with you.”

A slow smile. The lined skin around his eyes crinkled with unmistakable happiness.

She asked Carl, “His speech centers?”

“I can reconnect them if you want. Or call Matsudo, if you don’t trust my fumbling.”

She covered Carl’s hand tenderly, sorry that it had come to this. “No…don’t. I think we understand without speaking.”

Saul nodded.

Carl’s face was blank, numb. He looked from one to the other. Virginia felt pity for him, a man thrust too quickly into the center of events. She was sorry that she had been forced to do things this way. But there was no turning back.

“We’ll slot you within a few weeks,” Carl said evenly, clearly summoning up strength from some reservoir. “First we thaw your replacement, so you can brief her. We’ll have to square it with the sleep-slot committee, argue over whether the replacement should be a Percell or an Ortho—the usual. Should take less than a month. We’ll start as soon as you get JonVon and the mechs in shape.”

She didn’t take her eyes away from Saul. “I’ll assign my personal mech, Wendy, to give JonVon permanent manual function.”

“The details don’t matter. You’ve won. That’s what counts.”

She nodded, unable to speak.

He stood silently in the curling moist fog and cold for a long time. “The people I most cared about, they’re all slipping away…” Then he shrugged. “Y’know… I’m going to miss you two.”

The world came back slowly, and not too pleasantly. It tingled, deep down at the roots of his nerves, and then everything began to itch.

He could not scratch.

Later, as the tickling finally began to fade, there came his first real sensation of deep cold.

It was a fevery chill, this slow returning to awareness. Like a sickness—a bad one in which the mind is disabled, scattered, and yet some core part of a man knows that it wants to think—to figure out what is wrong and how to fix it.

It was also like a nightmare, with blurred images, fragments of voices murmuring and fading, beyond recall or meaning. Only he dreamer knew that this time there would be no quick, relieved awakening.

There was one way out of this dream—a long, slow ride to the end.

The first time Saul felt certain that he wasn’t imagining things came as a blank whiteness overhead slowly swam into focus. His eyelids fluttered with hesitant feedback—actually responding to his will.

Shut, he commanded. The light closed off to a muted, rosy hue.

Open! he ordered desperately, afraid the world had gone away again. But nerves flashed and muscles fired on cue. A torrent of light poured in again.

It’s cold… Cold as the High Priest’s heart.

And Saul remembered a dry, freezing morning in the Judean hills, the scent of century-old cedars and the chill of a hope dying.

Flames licked the sky in the direction of Gan Illana. There was more burning on Mount Herzl. But in Jerusalem the Armies of The Lord advanced in song, led on one side by a swarm of golden crosses, on another by the Mahdi and all of the Salawite mullahs. And in the center, chanting Hebrew psalms and carrying the Rebuilt Ark, the Kahanim priests of the new Sanhedrin. The faithful surged around the ruins of smashed buses, chanting in joy and carrying bricks and mortar.

Unable to move anything but his eyelids, Saul seemed to see it all again, played out against the pale white ceiling. It was a memory of smoke, and the acrid odor of superstition.

U.N. “peacekeepers” stood watch as the Architects planted the flags of three faiths on the Temple Mount and proclaimed the land holy in three tongues. The hover tanks had not moved to stop the riots. The world press hardly covered the slaughter of those resisting the new theocracy.

To the world it was a great day. “Peace” had come at last to the broiling navel of the world. Billions looked on it as a miracle as representatives of three great religions joined together in a holy cause.

To build a Temple to the Ultimate.

To fulfill prophecy.

To erect a place to speak to God.

Even after the fires had dimmed, after the Levites, Salawites, and Tribulationists had sealed the land, smoke still rose up to Mount Zion where he had watched. The pungent, sweet smell of roasting, sacrificial lambs.

The scent of Leviticus climbed once more into Heaven, curling under the nostrils of the Lord.

Saul closed his eyes again, and slept.

When next he awoke there was motion. A figure moved into view. He blinked, trying to focus.

It was an older face. Sterner. But he recognized it.

Saul felt his lips being moistened. He worked his mouth and managed to whisper one syllable.

“C… Carl?”

The visage overhead nodded. “Yes, Saul. It’s me. How are you feeling?”