This time it is easier. There are different levels, I find, and if I am careful I can avoid the more frightening parts. I try and understand this thing... and slowly I learn why it feels familiar to me.

It is a thing like me.

The discovery that there is something else like me without being me should frighten me. But it does not. Perhaps—somehow—I have known all along that such things existed. I do not understand how I could know and yet not know, but it seems right.

I sense my limited attention to my work is slipping still further, but I hardly notice. I wish to study this thing as best I can. My work is important, but I will do it later.

—

Kincaid closed the conference room door and pointed Forester toward a chair. "Sit down."

Forester did so. Kincaid pulled up a second chair, but instead of sitting in it put one foot onto the seat. Leaning over slightly, he rested his forearms on his knee and regarded his operations chief coolly. "Forester, let's let our hair down, shall we? I've been watching you the last couple of months, and ever since the problems started with Twenty-Seven you've seemed less and less enthusiastic about the Project. What's the story?"

Forester shook his head. "I don't know. I'm just starting to wonder if what we're doing is right."

"One's highest duty is to serve one's fellow man and to benefit humanity, right? Well, that's exactly what we're doing. Do you have any idea how many tons of radioactive waste are produced in this country every year? That's not even mentioning the cubic miles of pesticides and industrial time-bomb chemicals—all of which, please note, the Spoonbenders could handle with equal ease. Once the genetics people figure out how to tailor a memory RNA for the process, ripping apart a PCB molecule won't be any harder for them than yanking neutrons out of strontium 90. We need Project Recovery, Ted; America's choking on its own waste,