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that I can't leave here until my mission is completed?
    I ignore the mosquito. An hour before the deadline, it burrows a little deeper and finds a nerve. This it tickles rather painfully before delivering another message packet saying exactly the same thing. Perhaps it thought I slept through the first one.
    Still I ignore it, and wonder as I do what its makers are thinking. Am I dead or grievously harmed? Am I collaborating with the enemy and don't want to be rescued? Am I insane?
    Our timetables are different, that's all. When the two hours are up and the mosquito dissolves into a slurry of unrecognizable molecules, I feel nothing but relief.
    Soon after, Bergamasc comes to visit. "I have a treat for you," he tells me, without preamble. "Don't get up. I'm coming inside."
    I wonder if he knows about my visitor and the aborted rescue attempt. Is this "treat" some new form of torture he and his cronies have devised?
    Nevertheless, I do as he bids, remaining seated on my bunk as the plastic pane slides back and he walks into my space.
    "Now, we could've done this without you noticing," he tells me, placing a hand over my forehead, "but that wouldn't have been respectful." His skin is cool and creates a tingling sensation against mine. "This won't take a second to set up. Yes, here it comes. Hold on to your hat!"
    Barely has he uttered the archaic expression when the cell vanishes around me. The disorientation is profound—not because I am unused to such sudden changes, but because the time is not right. Has Bergamasc found a way to interfere with the ancient minds of Earth's grand design?
    That fear is soon assuaged. Bergamasc reappears beside me, dressed in a somber gray suit. We are standing on an observation deck of a geosynchronous satellite. The earth—blue and magical—floats far below.
    "The VR thing is kinda crude, I know," he says, "but it's easier than the alternative. I've prepared a little tour for you. Pay attention. This is important."
    Before I can respond, we are moving. Stars streak by, blurred into motion by our inconceivable acceleration.
    He emits a small laugh. "Absurd, isn't it? I stole it from an old movie, just to get us in the mood."
    We slam to a halt in a system far from Sol, one with no planets and girdled instead by vast artificial islands fashioned from comets and asteroids, strung together in a loose ring. Some of the habitats are almost as old as those around Earth, and their elements may well have been created in the same cosmic furnace, billions of years ago. This vast crown of thorns vanishes to a one-dimensional line as it stretches around the plump red dwarf at the heart of the system.
    "Do you know where we are?" Bergamasc asks.
    "Somewhere in the Round," I guess. "The constellations haven't changed much." There are two hundred and forty systems within ten parsecs of Sol, most of them red dwarfs. I don't have the information at hand to tell which one this is.
    "You're looking at Vanguard—continuously occupied since the third millennium and home now to a hundred million people. More, if you count the components of gestalts and singletons as separate. Staunch proponents of the Containment and Quarantine policy, they've been quite a thorn in my side these recent years. You wouldn't know it to look at the system, though, would you? There hasn't been a single shot fired here. All our sparring is done with words."
    "How very civilized," I say.
    "I like to think so." He gestures and we are moving again, rocketing past more systems in the Round, then out into the vast complex of gaseous bubbles that dominates the region surrounding Sol. Billions of years of star-formation and supernovae have created an intricate, three-dimensional structure that evolves as it rotates around the heart of the galaxy. Stars are scattered like tiny jewels everywhere I look.
    We stop a second time in system dominated by a bright blue giant with a single, yellow companion. Civilization lurks in the relative shadow of