On the hundred and forty-eighth day, Rael's fracture data produced a calculation that changed the shape of everything he was working toward.
She had been tracking the signal's acceleration for twenty days. On the hundred and forty-eighth day, she ran the rate of change forward and found a convergence point.
She brought the calculation to him. She showed him the fracture network's pattern, the signal's acceleration, the convergence.
"How confident are you in the rate," he said.
"The rate is observable," she said. "I'm tracking it directly. The uncertainty is whether the rate is constant or accelerating further." She paused. "If it's constant: convergence in approximately fourteen months. If it's accelerating: sooner."
He sat with fourteen months.
He thought about the pre-Strata records and the original sealing. He thought about the Conduit configuration. He thought about the cost.
"You understand what convergence means," he said.
"The pattern below the fracture network reaches a critical density," she said. "The fractures begin failing simultaneously rather than individually. The geological structure fails." She looked at him. "The Strata."
"Yes."
"And without the Strata —"
"What's below it isn't contained," he said. "Yes."
Rael was quiet. "You knew this was coming."
"I knew something was coming," he said. "The records indicated it. I didn't have the timeline."
"Now you have the timeline."
"Now I have the timeline."
★ ★ ★
He sat in his room that night and thought about fourteen months.
He thought about what he was. He thought about the Conduit configuration and the original sealing and the cost. He thought about what it would mean to be the thing the pre-Strata records described, and what it would mean to perform the function they described, and what he would be on the other side of the full-expression contribution.
The records were consistent: the Conduit did not survive the sealing. The dissolution was the cost. The civilization had known this and had chosen it.
He thought: I am a person who has spent a hundred and forty-eight days learning what it means to be a person. And the thing I am learning what I am for requires me to stop being one.
He did not allow this thought to be large. He allowed it to be real.
He thought: I have fourteen months. I have the Veil's resources and six people and the pre-Strata records and a configuration that the records describe as the most capable Conduit configuration that has ever been documented.
He thought: I am not ready to accept that the dissolution is inevitable. I am going to find out if there is another way.
He thought: and if there isn't, I am going to have been worth something. The world that needs a sealing is also the world where Tessaly opened a window and Preet found something he wanted and Rael discovered she could read what the fractures were saying.
He looked at the city going dark outside his window.
He thought: I am going to use the fourteen months