I shall begin this written record by reporting the substance of our last conversation — which was not only the last conversation I had with Horak but the last I had with anyone or ever expect to have. Perhaps the last conversation that any two humans will have, if he and I can be said to both qualify as human. There is apparently some debate on that score. Or would be if he had not abandoned me. Was some debate, I should say.

I did not know how to make the machine function properly, and did not know either how to shut it off — it was not me who suspended him within the machine in the first place. The instructions for the operation of the machine were to be found in a sector that proved to be decayed, the data irretrievable. Nor did I know the sequence or the code, and my slow muddlings got me nowhere. In the end, seeing my own time ticking away with nothing resolved, I decided drastic measures were justified.

How long has it been since a person left the warren and how long did he survive? I had asked the monitor earlier, before all this. I knew the answer to this question: the last of us to leave the warren had left one hundred and forty days ago — I wanted to see if the monitor knew this fact or if this portion of the data was also corrupted. The last of us to leave was named Wollem, a name chosen for him by the pair who had come before him, Vigus and Vagus. When they neared the end of their lives, they had themselves imprinted within the monitor and then set about constructing Wollem. They had hoped to make a pair, as had always been done before, but there was so little material that out of prudence they opted to make only one, so that he in turn could make another one, so there might be at least a little more time given to us before a final end. One hundred and forty days ago, Wollem left in search of more material, knowing he would die in the process. But, with luck, he would die only after returning with sufficient material for others to be formed and for us to persist a while longer.

He did not return.

To my question, the monitor responded: Query: what do you mean by person?

I thought about this a long time and then asked, "What do you mean by person?"

It responded, Bipedal, an individual thought process enmeshed in a body, procreated through the fertilization of an ovum by a sperm and its subsequent development in a womb.

"Only the first criterion is relevant."

With this definitional clarification, it said, this sort of "person" left one hundred and forty days ago. He did not return. It is not known how long he survived. This is not a question for which there is sufficient data to provide an answer.

"Is it likely he survived?"

It is not likely.

"And if all three criteria are considered relevant?" I asked.

By these criteria, it has been seventy-one years, eleven months, six days, and twenty-one hours since a person left the warren. He still survives and has been carefully preserved.

But I intended to start differently. I allowed myself to get distracted. Since I learned most things in a way that I have come to feel would not be considered normal for those who might read this record, my sense of balance and order is sometimes far from perfect. At times, I become confused about the order in which things should be told. Parts of me know things that other parts do not, and sometimes I both know a thing and do not know it, or part of me knows something is true and another part knows it is not true, and there is nothing to allow me to negotiate between the two. The monitor can help if I ask the right questions, but in many circumstances it just adds another layer of confusion so that whatever is being choked or stifled is even more so.

"He still survives?" I asked.

Yes, said the monitor.

"Does he have a name?"

Yes. Horak.

"He has been preserved?" I asked. "On an impression?"

Not on an impression. Being preserved on an impression is not the same thing as being alive. His body has been physically stored and his mind along with it.

"Show me where."

It showed me a schematic. Horak was, in fact, quite close. Perhaps through some of the tunnels of the warren that had been filled, he could be reached, I thought at first, but then another self within me stirred, opened its pale eye, and said, No, on the surface.

"Is he outside?" I asked myself.

He is in a facility. Don't you remember?

"No," I said.

I do, it said. I said.

"Is the facility at" — eye after eye opened within me as I groped for a word, finally found it — "ground level?"

Yes.

"And he's still alive?" I asked, amazed.

Some of the sectors pertaining to the proper use of a suit had been corrupted, but not all of them. As a result, I had some information and some noise, and needed only to determine what was information and what was noise, and then determine which parts of me I should ignore and which I should listen to. Could I survive at ground level? Yes, it was clear, but not for long. Longer if I was wearing a suit, but even then not long. How long was not long? The answer to this question was unclear, and querying the monitor did little good. No sensors currently accessible at ground level, it indicated, and then seemed to consider the matter closed.

After Wollem had formed me and made it possible for me to communicate, and then imbued me with the further quickening that made me a receptacle for the selves that had come before me, he told me: My purpose is complete. Now I go in search of help. I am almost certain that I remember him saying this. And that after saying it, he drew a suit up around his body, sealed it, and left the warren.

After he departed, I lay there on my tablature, for how long I do not know. I was trying to translate the vast amount of damaged and partial information that had been poured into my mind into some sort of rational order, into something useful. I could see, in vivid detail, the means by which a finger could be made to flex and move — I understood the electrical impulse that would best bring this about but seemed unable to manifest it. I do not know how long I lay spread on the tablature, trying to move a single finger. And then, suddenly, I did manage a pulse of electricity and the finger moved. But when I examined what I had in my head again, I saw the simple movement of a finger had burnt a line there, a minuscule thread, hardly noticeable unless you happened to be looking for it, unless you happened to be looking very closely because you needed something very specific and saw the way that the line split that thing in two and even obliterated the slightest portion of it. And then I understood that everything I said, everything I did, would do damage to whatever was already contained within me, that there was hardly enough space in my head for all the various selves, let alone their memories, let alone my own.

What did I do? For a long time I did not move, waiting to see if what I held within my head would congeal in some way, become resistant or formalized or ... I don't know. I could see how the information that was there was part of different strata, that what I had thought upon waking was just one being was in fact many layered one atop the other, that I was the partial record of all those who had come before me. These I...