I looked out the window at the distant mountains. This work--this would be something which would satisfy both halves of myself. The irresistible force, the immovable object--and no ghosts wandering in my brain. "I"ll do it," I told Regis. And then, deliberately, I turned my back on him and went up to the quarters, now deserted, which we had readied for the trailmen. With my new doubled--or complete--memories, another ghost had roused up in my brain, and I remembered a woman who had appeared vaguely in Jay Allison"s...o...b..t, unnoticed, working with the trailmen, tolerated because she could speak their language. I opened the door, searched briefly through the rooms, and shouted, "Kyla!" and she came. Running.
Disheveled. Mine.
At the last moment, she drew back a little from my arms and whispered, "You"re Jason--but you"re something more. Different ..."
"I don"t know who I am," I said quietly, "but I"m me. Maybe for the first time. Want to help me find out just who that is?"
I put my arm around her, trying to find a path between memory and tomorrow. All my life, I had walked a strange road toward an unknown horizon. Now, reaching my horizon, I found it marked only the rim of an unknown country.
Kyla and I would explore it together.
THE END