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Dan seemed surprised. “Didn’t you get the reports on your way in?”

Margaret shook her head. “No, radio silence the whole way. Why? What’s with the daughter’s corpse?”

“She’s not a corpse, she’s alive,” Dan said. “She’s in the containment chamber.”

ARE YOU THERE, G.o.d? IT’S ME CHELSEA

A conversation was taking place.

One half of this conversation hovered forty miles above the Earth, straight up from the diseased oak tree in Chuy Rodriguez’s backyard.

The other half sat on the floor of Chelsea’s bedroom. On her left rested a pile of Barbies, Bratz and other dolls. On her right sat a similar but smaller pile. As she talked, she would pick up a doll from the pile on the left, take off all its clothes, hold the doll in her lap, then draw on it with a blue Sharpie.

She drew little triangles.

They were very pretty.

She finished with a doll, put it on the pile on the right, then grabbed another with her left hand.

“Chauncey, do you like ice cream Crunch bars?”

I have never had one. I could not eat them.

“Oh,” Chelsea said. “Then what do you eat?”

The Orbital directed some processing power to answering this. Being inanimate, it had endless patience for her questions, which was fortunate, because the questions indeed seemed endless. Most often it simply didn’t know the answer. It had acc.u.mulated a good bit of knowledge from the triangles’ interfacing with dozens of human hosts, but it still took time to make a.s.sociations between language and fact.

I eat gravity.

“Oh,” Chelsea said. “Is it good?”

The Orbital worked to a.s.sociate her use of the word good. Good meant many things to humans. It could mean a self-profession of capability. It could mean the socially acceptable course of action. It could mean a field goal. The Orbital searched to compare it with food consumption. Many stored host images came up, things like barbecued chicken, chocolate, cake, mashed potatoes. That is what she meant. Without the gravity processors, the Orbital would plummet to the Earth, so it applied the correct definition and answered.

Yes, it is very good.

“Oh,” Chelsea said. “Chauncey, who is your favorite Detroit Piston?”

I do not know.

“Oh,” Chelsea said. “Chauncey, are you G.o.d?”

The Orbital accessed images. An elderly human with a big white beard. A younger human with long hair and a short brown beard. Glowing heads. Love. Hatred. Divine intervention into human lives. Punishment. Wrath. Destruction. The Orbital cross-referenced these images against cataloged emotional responses, and determined that this was something it could potentially use to motivate hosts.

Why do you think I am G.o.d?

“You know, because you can talk in my head and stuff. People can’t do that, mostly.”

What do you think of G.o.d, Chelsea?

Chelsea sang. “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. We go to church most Sundays, except during football season sometimes we don’t. I love G.o.d because G.o.d loves me.”

The Orbital called up more images. He examined the signals coming from Chelsea’s brain as she talked of G.o.d and Jesus. Yes, this was a powerful motivator.

Chelsea, if G.o.d told you to do something bad, would you do it?

Chelsea stopped drawing on her Barbie. She looked at the wall, just kind of staring out, tilting her head to the right as she thought.

“Daddy says sometimes G.o.d tests us, but G.o.d loves us and he wouldn’t ask us to do anything bad. So if G.o.d asked me to do something, then it couldn’t be bad, so I would do it.”