Credit: Tristan Schane

He's wrong. She's in there. I know now. "Want to hear a question from one of the personality profiling tests they gave us, Bob?"

Bob sits back down on the chair's arm. "Yeah, OK, shoot."

The dog opens its eyes and yawns. A woman materialises behind me and puts her hands on my shoulders. "I'd like to hear the question too if I may."

I cannot place her. Back in high school she was probably a mouse, a wallflower, an invisible person like me. I wonder how long she has been eavesdropping.

"Don't be afraid," she says. "I'm both a registered massage therapist and an osteopath. I know my bodies." She begins to work the muscles of my back, kneading, stretching and probing. She is strong, but gentle. "Right now I'm under government contract to maintain and prevent atrophy in the bodies of a team of people on a deep space tangle."

My body lies supine. "Fascinating," I say. "I've never given much thought to that side of the equation."

"Actually, you are one of them."

Confusion swirls in me like the Milky Way. My eyelids are growing heavy. Her manipulations are making me sleepy.

"So let's hear the question," says Bob from far away.

"Yes," says the woman. "Give us the poems."

"How did you know?" I wonder. "How did you know the question was poetic?"

She leans into the muscles of my chest. "Everyone dreams," she says. "You talk in your sleep."

I shake my head. But the room continues to fade.

She is thumping on my sternum. "Talk to me. Breathe. Recite." It blends in with the beating of my heart.

"Listen to the following two poems," I say. "Tell me which you prefer. Here is the first:

'Day wrests its pallor from the night,
though darkness must contain it still,
and evening's shadows soon alight,
bend it to this greater will.'"

It is Carolyn who answers. "I like that one," she says. "I find it … I find it restful." When did she awaken?

Everything is blurry, as if I am underwater. "OK, here is the second:

'Night snuffs the waning flame of day,
though light must still enforce its law,
and morning's sunrise verdicts say,
yield now to this higher call.'"

"Oh, I like that one too. It's … it's so hopeful. I don't think I can decide. They seem to be part of the same thing. To favour one would only diminish it."

"That's exactly how I answered," I say. Then everything goes dark. I am weightless, floating.

"So what happens when one of these guys, like, croaks on the job?" It is Bob's voice again.

"Please exercise some respect," says the woman pressing on my heart.

"Look at the monitor for crying out loud. He's toast, gonzo, nada, history. I was just wondering what's going to happen to his robotic host, you know, like with him dead and all."

A motor hums. Rubber squeaks against ceramic.

"Well, most go autistic. They function, but in a repetitive and
rote manner. Others seem to go catatonic, plunge inward and stop working altogether."

"Yeah, that's what I kind of figured."

The sound of a sheet billowing.

"But, there are a few who, especially after a long tangle, seem to retain the gift."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I don't think it is possible for us to understand."

Ganymede swings around its giant planet like a ball on a million kilometres of string, once for every seven rotations of the Earth. On this narrow golden band between reflected sunlight below and the relative darkness of space above, where even from such a great distance the crescent of Jupiter fills the horizon, painting with the swirling borealis of its ionising pull retinas attuned to the full electromagnetic spectrum, in colours for which there are no human terms, sunrise is indeed spectacular.

Sunsets too, every seven days — spectacular. We are watching one together, she and I. Her compound, carbon alloy tentacles and fibres intertwine with mine and I am suffused with joy.

She nudges my attention towards a set of spatial coordinates where hangs a small blue ball, its protective ecosphere all but chewed away, soaked in man-made toxins. But still, it is beautiful. We watch it roll around the sun. It will never be forgotten.

But it is not needed now. The ice is broken.

And Carolyn begins to sing.