“No,” explained Edmund. “If you wish to participate, we will begin by me giving you both basic health scans.”

“You mean,” asked Alex, “like what you talked about before we came here?”

“An overall assessment of your health, which is what this is, would cover that,” confirmed Edmund, “as well as a few other things.”

“But you said you wouldn’t insist,” protested Alex.

“That was when we were discussing bringing you here,” clarified Edmund. “The mission we are considering requires that you both have a certain level of health – or everything could be in jeopardy. You, for example, have an unknown anomaly in your nervous system. How do I know that it isn’t something that will put you in danger – or everyone else for that matter?”

“Put others in danger?” questioned Alex.

“Indeed,” affirmed Edmund. “I have no idea what the anomaly I detected is – partly because the scan I gave you on the surface is specifically designed to be no more intrusive than its purpose requires. It can confirm that merely bringing you here does not pose any special risk – but I have no idea how it affects your fitness for a mission of this sort.”

“I see,” said Alex.

“Of course,” noted Edmund, “you are still free to refuse to be scanned – as is Cliff for that matter. But I absolutely must stress that anyone who refuses, by doing so, opts out of any further participation in this mission.”

“Okay,” said Alex, clearly nervous. “Let’s get this over with.”

“Come with me,” said Edmund, as he got up and headed toward another circular door at the far side of the room from the one through which Cliff and Alex had arrived not too long before. “Not you, Cliff. Just Alexander for now. You will be next.”

Dreading it as though he were headed for the gallows, Alex followed Edmund to the door. As it spiraled open, another room was revealed. Alex followed the cat through the hole, and then the door spiraled shut again. Feeling as though he were about to explode from apprehension, he looked around. This room was somewhat smaller than the one he had just left. On one side, to the right from the entrance door’s vantage point, was a cat-sized desk, complete with a computer terminal. On the far side of the room from the desk, to the left from the entrance’s point-of-view, the wall was covered by a white screen with a special white floor in front of it. The wall opposite the entrance was covered with all sorts of equipment that Alex didn’t recognize or understand – as well as one more of these circular doors. Alex was too preoccupied to even wonder what this door led to.

Edmund sat down at the desk and entered some commands into the terminal. From the floor in front of the white screen, a white bed rose and morphed into existence – its pillow end just two feet from the screen.

“Please lie down,” invited Edmund.

Alex walked toward the bed – his heart pounding intensely in his throat. Just as his nerves were about to give way, he lay down.

“Just relax,” said Edmund. “It will be over in a few minutes.”

Unable to deal with the tension much longer, Alex made a conscious effort to pass out. He didn’t fall asleep in the usual sense – but he closed his eyes and entered an altered state in which he wasn’t tuned into his surroundings, and in which time had no meaning.

“Okay,” said Edmund after what could have been a minute or an hour. “You can get up now.”

Still nervous, but with the metabolic reaction to his anxiety a bit more under control, Alex rose and sat up on the ad-hoc bed.

Edmund approached and walked up a set of stairs to a pedestal that placed him closer to Alex’s eye level. The pedestal and the stairs both seemed to have been morphed from the white flooring the same way that the bed had. Surely Edmund could have leaped directly on to the pedestal without the stairs – or at very least he could have done so with just one intermediate platform. However, apparently, he could not do this while walking on just two legs – and he was carrying what looked like a small tablet. This tablet would be as good a reason as any to prefer using the stairs rather than getting down on all fours just so that he could get on the pedestal without the stairs.

“So,” said Edmund, looking at whatever the tablet displayed, “you wish to participate in this operation.”

“Yes,” Alex confirmed.

Edmund focused intently on the tablet. It was obvious to Alex that whatever news the cat was about to deliver wasn’t good news. “I must ask this,” Edmund finally continued, “is your desire to do this by any chance motivated by a – by a death wish?”