"Coward," said Cainen.

Wilson bowed. "At your service."

"And now," Cainen said, bringing his attention back to Jared. "I trust you have some idea of why you're here."

Jared recalled the awkward and not especially forthcoming conversation with Colonel Robbins the day before. "Colonel Rob-bins told me that I had been born for the purpose of transferring this Charles Boutin's consciousness into my brain, but that it didn't take. He told me that Boutin had been a scientist here but that he'd turned traitor. And he told me that these new memories that I'm sensing are actually Boutin's old memories, and that no one knows why they are coming out now instead of earlier."

"How much detail did he give you about Boutin's life or research?" Wilson asked.

"None, really," Jared said. "He said if I learned too much from him or from their files, it might interfere with my memory coming back naturally. Will it?"

Wilson shrugged. Cainen said, "Since you're the first human to whom this has happened, there's no history to go on as to what we should do next. The closest thing to this are certain types of amnesia. Yesterday, you were able to find this lab and recall the name of Boutin's daughter, but you don't know how you knew it. That's similar to source amnesia. What makes it entirely different is that the problem isn't your own memory, it's someone else's."

"So you don't know how to get any more memories out of me, either," Jared said.

"We have theories," Wilson said.

"Theories," Jared said.

"Hypotheses, more accurately," Cainen said. "I remember many months ago telling Lieutenant Sagan that the reason I thought Boutin's consciousness didn't take in you was that his was a mature consciousness, and when it was put into an immature brain that hadn't had enough experiences, it couldn't find a grip. But now you have those experiences, don't you? Seven months at war will season any mind. And perhaps something you experienced acted as a bridge to Boutin's memories."

Jared thought back. "My last mission," he said. "Someone very important to me died. And Boutin's daughter is dead as well." Jared didn't mention the assassination of Vyut Ser to Cainen, and his breakdown as he held the knife that would kill her, but it was in his mind as well.

Cainen nodded his head, showing his understanding of human language included nonverbal signals. "That could have been the moment, indeed."

"But why didn't the memories come back then?" Jared asked. "It happened when I was back on Phoenix Station, eating black jellybeans."

"Remembrance of Things Past," Wilson said.

Jared looked at Wilson. "What?"

"Actually, In Search of Lost Time is a better translation of the original title," Wilson said. "It's a novel by Marcel Proust. The book begins with the main character experiencing a flood of memories from his childhood, brought on by eating some cake he dipped in his tea. Memories and senses are closely tied in humans. Eating those jellybeans could easily have triggered those memories, especially if the jellybeans were significant in some way."

"I remember saying that they were Zoe's favorites," Jared said. "Boutin's daughter. Her name was Zoe."

"That might have been enough," Cainen agreed.

"Maybe you should have some more jellybeans," Wilson joked.

"I did," Jared said, seriously. He had asked Colonel Robbins to get him a new bag; he was too embarrassed from his earlier vomiting to ask for one himself. Jared had sat in his new quarters, bag in hand, slowly eating black jellybeans for an hour.

"And?" Wilson asked. Jared just shook his head.

"Let me show you something, Private," Cainen said, and pressed a button on his keyboard. In the display area of his desk, three small light shows appeared. Cainen pointed to one. "This is a representation of Charles Boutin's consciousness, a copy of which, thanks to his technological industriousness, we have on file. This next one is a representation of your own consciousness, taken from during your training period." Jared looked surprised. "Yes, Private, they've been keeping tabs on you; you've been their science experiment since you were born. But this is just a representation. Unlike Boutin's consciousness, they don't have yours on file.

"This third image is your consciousness right now," Cainen said. "You're not trained to read these representations, but even to an uninformed eye it is clearly different than either of the other two representations. This is—we think—the first incident of your brain trying to meld what it's received of Boutin's consciousness with your own. Yesterday's incident changed you, probably permanently. Can you feel it?"

Jared thought about it. "I don't feel any different," he said, finally. "I have new memories, but I don't think I'm acting any differently than I usually do."

"Except for punching out generals," Wilson pointed out.

"It was an accident," Jared said.

"No, it wasn't," Cainen said, suddenly animated. "This is my point to you, Private. You were born to be one person. You became another. And now, you're becoming a third—a combination of the first two. If we continue on, if we're successful, more of who Boutin was will come through. You will change. Your personality could change, perhaps dramatically. Who you will become will be something different from what you are now. I want to make sure you understand this, because I want you to make a choice about whether you want this to happen."

"A choice?" Jared asked.

"Yes, Private, a choice," Cainen said. "Which is something you rarely make." He pointed to Wilson. "Lieutenant Wilson here chose this life: He signed up for the Colonial Defense Forces of his own accord. You, and all your Special Forces kind, were not given that choice. Do you realize, Private, that Special Forces soldiers are slaves? You have no say in whether you fight. You are not allowed to refuse. You're not even allowed to know that refusal is possible."

Jared was uncomfortable with this line of reasoning. "We don't see it that way. We're proud to serve."

"Of course you are," Cainen said. "That's how they've conditioned you since you were born, when your brain was turned on and your BrainPal thought for you and chose particular branches on the decision tree instead of others. By the time your brain was able to think on its own, the pathways that turn against choice were already laid down."

"I make choices all the time," Jared countered.

"Not big ones," Cainen said. "Through conditioning and a military life, choices were made for you all your short life, Private. Someone else chose to create you—no different than anyone else, that. But then they chose to imprint someone else's consciousness on your brain. They chose to make you a warrior. They chose the battles you would face. They chose to hand you over to us when it was convenient for them. And they would choose to have you become someone else by cracking your brain like an egg and letting Charles Boutin's consciousness run out all over yours. But I am choosing to have you choose."

"Why?" Jared asked.

"Because I can," Cainen said. "And because you should. And because apparently no one else will let you. This is your life, Private. If you choose to proceed, we'll suggest to you the ways we think will unlock more of Boutin's memories and personality."

"And if I don't?" Jared said. "What happens then?"

"Then we tell Military Research that we refuse to do anything to you," Wilson said.

"They could find someone else to do it," Jared said.

"They almost certainly will," Cainen said. "But you'll have made your choice, and we'll have made ours too."

Jared realized that Cainen had a point: In his life, all of the major choices that affected him had been decided by others. His decision-making had been limited to inconsequential things or to military situations where not choosing something would have meant he was dead. He didn't consider himself a slave, but he was forced to admit that he'd never considered not being in Special Forces. Gabriel Brahe had told his training squad that after their ten-year term of service they could colonize, and no one ever questioned why they were made to serve the ten years at all. All the Special Forces training and development subsumed individual choice to the needs of the squad or platoon; even integration— the Special Forces' great military advantage—smeared the sense of self outside of the individual and toward the group.