I entered the lab. It was dark. A storm must be coming up for it to get dark so soon and so suddenly.
I switched on the lights and unconsciously glanced at my watch to make sure of the time, and froze in surprise. It was nine-thirty.
I reviewed my movements. My assistants had said goodnight about five minutes ago. I had glanced at my watch then, and it was five-thirty. Now it was nine-thirty. After they had gone I had placed the rubber covers over the wires, then started to put the aluminum shields on—and changed my mind.
Only I hadn't! I had placed the aluminum shields on number six computer and severed my contact with Mintner. He had probably gone out to eat then, and not returned until a few minutes ago. The instant he removed the shields I was in contact again, with no sense of the intervening time. Maybe a faint sense of discontinuity that I paid no attention to. Mintner's hands were in about the same position, holding the shields. I thought he had paused in putting them on, when in reality he had just taken them off.
That was the explanation.
I turned toward the storeroom door with a mixture of emotions. Suddenly I ran to the door and flung it open. I went down the aisle and looked at the computer, at the dialectric mix in the case deep in its heart.
It was I. In that small space, that non-living mass, was the spark that was I. For a long moment I caressed its every atom with my eyes. Then, carefully, I put back the cover.
It was a strange, almost a Holy moment. I recalled my first moment of awareness. It seemed now an eternity ago that I had seen Orville's wife standing there.
From that moment to this I had groped, sometimes utterly confused, sometimes with purposeful strides, toward the answer to the riddle of my existence.