“…”

With eyes as clear as glass wind chimes ringing in the night air, Nagato gazed at Asahina from behind. She didn’t look out of the ordinary, her slightly bored demeanor no different than usual. Her stillness was no different than when she was reading a book.

Maybe this meant I didn’t have to worry.

I had no intention of saying there was something here at this precise point where Asahina was employing her chanting. But instead of looking for something occult right at this point, there might be something scientific affecting the area. However, if that were the case, there’s no way Nagato wouldn’t have noticed, and there’s no way I wouldn’t have noticed her noticing. By which I mean, she would have told me. Just like she had back during the cave-cricket incident.

Perhaps becoming aware of my looking at her, Nagato first moved her eyes, then her head to look at me, then made a short comment as though having read my mind.

“There is nothing.”

No bombs or hibernating bears or atomic radiation sources or ancient coins—?

“No.”

Not even a trace?

“Nothing within my capabilities to sense,” said Nagato, as though she were reciting her times tables. “I detect no anomalous remnants.”

So why did Rousseau and the other dogs refuse to come near this area? If there wasn’t anything here, there was no reason for that.

“…”

Nagato moved her face like a wind chime stirred in a gentle breeze, looking diagonally past me.

I couldn’t help following her gaze.

“Wha?”

A tall man in sportswear was jogging up from the river’s downstream direction. I would’ve ignored him as a random jogger, but what drew my eye was the leash he held in one hand, the other end of which was attached to a collared dog. Not that a Shiba Inu was a particularly rare sight. It was a perfectly ordinary Shiba Inu.

But why was a dog here? Hadn’t this area become a temporarily dog-free zone?

“Huh?” Haruhi seemed to have noticed. Asahina, too, lifted her eyes from the text and looked up, following our gazes and falling silent at their object.

Mucha muku… toku… Wha?”

“Oh ho.” Koizumi squinted at the dog running alongside the man.

The dog we were looking at had no trace of Sakanaka’s West Highland White Terrier’s reluctant conduct. It ran happily alongside its owner, panting steadily in its four-legged stride.

The young college-aged man and his dog regarded our far-more-suspicious group as he went to pass behind us, but then—

“Hey! Wait!” Haruhi jumped out and blocked his path. “We need to ask you something.” She eyed the dog with her palpably keen, laser-like glare. “Can we have a minute of your time? Why can that dog run around here like normal? Ah, hmm, this might take a bit of time to explain,” she said, then grabbed me by the tie and dragged me over. There, as the man looked on like he was wondering what our problem was, his dog’s tongue lolling out as it watched us, Haruhi whispered into my ear. “C’mon, Kyon, you explain this.”

Why did I have to do it?

Just as I was about to pass the baton to Koizumi, I found myself shoved by Haruhi in front of the dog and its master. Oh, well. I first apologized for disturbing his walk, then launched into the explanation. I told him that about a week ago, dogs had begun to refuse to enter this area. I explained that a friend of ours had asked us about it, and we’d thought it was suspicious enough to look into. That same dog had just minutes earlier refused to come near here. Just as we’d been sure we were close to finding something, he and his dog had come along, I told him. The clever-looking dog seemed perfectly happy, I said, but we didn’t understand why.

“Oh, that,” said the man of about twenty. He looked curiously at Asahina and her staff as he continued. “It’s true that about a week ago, this guy,” he said, pointing at the Shiba Inu, “started wanting to avoid our usual jogging course. When I’d try to get him up on the riverbank, he’d stop moving. I couldn’t figure out why.” The dog’s athletic-looking master looked slowly between Asahina and Haruhi. “But this is the best road to walk him on, so I wondered if I could make him do it somehow. So the day before yesterday—or was it three days ago? Anyway, he really resisted at first, but as you can see, he’s now happily running on his old course. He seems fine now.”

I was no vet, but as far as I could tell, the well-mannered dog sitting at his master’s feet was perfectly happy and the picture of health. He didn’t seem worried about anything at all.

“I’ll bet if your friend forced her dog a little bit, he’d be back to his old self. I don’t know what the original cause was; maybe there was a bear or something, and its scent was lingering,” said the man, echoing Koizumi’s comment. “Will that be all?”

“Thank you very much. It really helped!” Haruhi honestly thanked him.

The young man looked at Asahina’s outfit, seeming for a moment like he wanted to say something, but perhaps he wasn’t the nosy type. We were lucky he was so nice. “ ’Bye,” he said, and jogged on upriver.

Left behind were five dunderheads: me, Haruhi holding the sutra, Asahina looking like she’d gotten lost on the way to the local shrine, Nagato watching the river flow by, and Koizumi stroking his chin thoughtfully.

“So what does this mean?”

It meant just what we’d seen and heard, I said.

“What about the ghost? I was really looking forward to that.”

Shouldn’t she be admitting there wasn’t one all along?

So what was happening?

Heck if I knew.

“… You seem weirdly happy. It bugs me.”

That wasn’t fair. I always tried to keep a straight face. It wasn’t as though I was deeply relieved that her expectations hadn’t been fulfilled, and that whatever was here was now long gone, I said.

“Liar.”

Haruhi turned on her heel and walked away from me, her strides long and quick.

We put the tree-lined riverside path behind us and headed to rendezvous with Sakanaka at her house. We’d left our bags there, and we needed to deliver our report to the client.

“But, um…” Diagonally behind me walked Asahina, who spoke in a hesitant voice. “But I really wonder what was going on. Even today, Rousseau didn’t want to walk that way.”

Koizumi jumped on this. “According to the fellow we just talked to, it was three days ago that he solved the problem. We know that there was definitely something alarming dogs until that point. But now it seems there is not. The fact that according to Sakanaka, other neighborhood dogs won’t approach the area—it is probably because their memories are still making them sense danger. If that Shiba Inu’s master hadn’t forced him back onto the path, he probably wouldn’t have come near it.”

Weren’t there two kinds of dogs? Those who excelled at remembering difficult events and those who didn’t? Upon reflection, Rousseau was on the smart side of things, and that Shiba Inu had a pretty good brain too.

“…”

I felt better seeing Nagato remaining silent. If she said there wasn’t anything here, then there definitely wasn’t anything here. At the moment, I didn’t care that someone had tossed his vote in favor of the theory of a hibernating bear having left the area and returned to the mountain three days ago.

It was still the time of year when the air becomes chilly at dusk, and Haruhi’s pace brought us quickly to the Sakanaka mansion. Perhaps it wounded our brigade chief’s pride to have to tell a rare client that we hadn’t been able to figure anything out, since she was rather irritable, but knowing her personality, she’d soon recover. It was Haruhi Suzumiya’s habit not to spend time worrying about things that don’t work out, instead moving on to the next adventure.

As expected, Haruhi’s mood immediately improved upon arriving at the Sakanaka residence, where we were invited into the living room and served handmade choux à la crème pastries.

“Whoa. Yum. These are tasty. You could open a shop with these!”

The living room’s furnishings were chic and tasteful, and the sofa I sat on was so fluffy that if Shamisen got on it, he’d probably sleep for twelve hours straight. The beautiful Mrs. Sakanaka’s dog was even high-class—everything from the appearance to the aura of a wealthy person’s home was just different. I wondered if Haruhi’s personality would’ve been closer to Sakanaka’s if she’d been raised in this kind of environment.

While we were partaking of choux à la crème and Earl Grey tea, Koizumi related the details of our investigation. Sakanaka held Rousseau and stroked his head while nodding in response to the report. However, when the explanation was over, she seemed to still find something puzzling.

“I understand that it seems safe now,” she said, looking at Rousseau’s alert ears, “but seeing how scared Rousseau got earlier, I don’t think I’ll make him walk that path until he and the other neighborhood dogs don’t mind it anymore. I’d feel bad for him otherwise.”

That was certainly her decision to make as the dog owner. Rousseau was lucky to have such a considerate caretaker, although it seemed to me she spoiled him a little too much.

Delighted at Haruhi’s and Nagato’s devouring of her choux à la crème, Mrs. Sakanaka was busily making more, and for a while the topic was dominated by Sakanaka’s tales of her dog. Rousseau himself was lying on his belly beside Sakanaka, ears initially pricked and alert, but eventually his eyes began to look sleepy. Asahina adoringly watched him, a wistful sigh escaping her lips.

“You’re so lucky to have a dog…”

I wondered if pets were banned in the future, but to be perfectly honest, I’d take Asahina in my house over a pet any day. Having a maid to see me off in the morning and welcome me home—was that not the proper job of a maid? It certainly suited her better than brewing tea in a dingy clubroom.

Oh, well. I’d just leave that one in the world of my thoughts.

The day ended with us having all gone to Sakanaka’s house, playing with her dog, going on a walk, having Asahina dressed as a shrine maiden and chanting the Heart Sutra, taking choux à la crème and tea, then going home—just a normal day having fun with a classmate.

And what I expected would happen was that the mystery would go unsolved, disappearing from my memory as well as Haruhi’s…

But a few days later, something unexpected happened.

It was Friday. The school-wide sports tournament as well as final exams had come to an end, so the last thing the first-year high school students had to do was wait for spring break to start while worrying about what their class assignments would be for the next year. The graduation ceremony had happened at the end of February, and with a third of the student body gone, the school buildings were somehow quiet, although come next month they’d be filled again with fresh-faced new students, just as we ourselves had once done.

Was I now going to be called “senpai”? It was hard to imagine the SOS Brigade getting any new members, but what were Haruhi’s plans?

Sitting in the second seat from the back in the row against the windows, I yawned widely and stretched in the rays of spring sunshine that shone through.

“Kyon.” Someone sitting in the seat behind me, the last one in the row, poked me in the back with a mechanical pencil.

“What?” If she wanted me to try and persuade incoming freshmen to join, she could forget about it, I said.

“That’s not it. That’s my job, anyway. But whatever.” Haruhi gestured to the rest of the classroom with the point of her pencil. “Did you notice that Sakanaka was absent today?”

“No… Was she?”

“She was. She’s been gone since this morning.”

That was surprising. Aside from pointing out how stupid Taniguchi was, the only time Haruhi’d ever said anything about one of our classmates was during the Asakura incident, I pointed out.

“Well, we had her as a client, so I was going to ask whether her dog-walking route had returned to normal. Don’t you care? Plus, the dog was cute and those cream puffs were delicious. I’m not that forgetful, you know.”

Normally I would’ve been delighted to hear that Haruhi had finally become good enough friends with a girl in the class that she cared about where she was, but now that she mentioned it, it did bother me. After all, it was undeniably true that there was an area near Sakanaka’s house where her dog would refuse to go, and that being the case, we’d left the matter unresolved. But now she was absent from school. It wasn’t inconceivable that there was a connection, but—

“Well, the seasons are changing. Maybe she caught a cold. And it is the end of the semester, after all. If she’s ditching, it’s not that big of a deal.”

“Maybe.” Happily, Haruhi agreed. “I guess if I didn’t have the SOS Brigade, I wouldn’t see any use in coming to school now. But Sakanaka seems too serious to just up and turn a normal weekday into a holiday on her calendar.”

Given that Haruhi was constantly taking holidays and making them into SOS Brigade activities, I wouldn’t have expected her to be so particular about sticking to the calendar.

“Mmm.” Haruhi held her pencil between her nose and upper lip. “Maybe we should go investigate again. I’ll have Mikuru wear a nurse outfit this time.”

Having her wear a nurse outfit without having any actual credentials was only going to cause trouble, I pointed out. And wasn’t she just after more choux à la crème?

“Idiot. I want to see J.J. Don’t you wonder what would happen if you sheared that wool-like fur off of him?”

Bored, Haruhi began spinning her pencil around her fingertips, as the bell signaling the beginning of third period rang.

After school, things started moving all at once.

I was in the clubroom playing shogi against Koizumi, Nagato was reading, and Asahina was busy making tea, wearing the maid outfit that suited her much better than the shrine-maiden one did.

Then—Haruhi barged in the room, having been delayed by classroom cleaning duties.

“Kyon, I knew it!”

Normally when she made these sorts of pronouncements, Haruhi was smiling, but that day she seemed vaguely melancholy. I had a premonition that strange things were happening.

“I figured out why Sakanaka is absent. She’s fine, but it’s Rousseau—he’s been taken to an animal hospital. But even the vet doesn’t know what’s wrong with him, so she’s really depressed. She was so upset she couldn’t come to school! I talked to her on the phone, and she sounded like she was about to cry. Her stomach’s been hurting so badly she hasn’t eaten anything, but since Rousseau isn’t eating either, it just makes her feel worse—”

“Hang on, calm down,” was all I could think of to say, but interrupting Haruhi in the middle of her sentence only got me a harsh glare—not angry, exactly, but as though I was a heartless bastard who’d abandoned a drowning child.

“What’s your problem? You’re just sitting there drinking tea while Rousseau’s in agony! J.J.’s so weak he can’t even drink water!”

If drinking tea were now a crime, then Koizumi and Asahina were my accomplices, but in any case, I wanted her to tell me just how she’d already known the circumstances in the Sakanaka household by the time she’d come barging into the room.

“I called Sakanaka’s cell phone while I was cleaning. I was just really worried about her. And then—”

That was the second surprise of the day. Since when had Haruhi been good enough friends with Sakanaka to trade cell phone numbers?

“—I knew it wasn’t any time to mess around with cleaning!” Haruhi brandished her cell phone. “There was something in that area. What I think is that whatever’s there is the cause of the sickness. I mean, Sakanaka said it herself. Other dogs in the area have been affected too.”

I’d heard that part too; I remembered it as soon as Haruhi mentioned it.

“If the symptoms are the same, then maybe…”

“The symptoms are the same,” said Haruhi flatly. “I asked her about it. She said when she went to the animal hospital, the vet said they’d gotten a similar case in a few days earlier. When she asked about it, it turned out it was Higuchi’s dog.”

Who was this Higuchi?

“Geez, Kyon, you’re so stupid! Sakanaka told us about her before. Higuchi, who has a bunch of dogs! She lives close to the Sakanaka house. Didn’t you hear that one of them wasn’t feeling well?”

Yeah, I’d just now remembered, I told her. I bet she’d forgotten all about it too until she called; it wasn’t fair that she was attacking me for it. But anyway—Rousseau was sick? He’d been so healthy.

“What’s he sick with?” I asked.

“They don’t know, she said.” Haruhi just stood there, as though she’d forgotten to sit at her brigade chief’s desk. “Apparently it’s got the vet totally stumped. There’s nothing wrong with his body, his health is just failing, and Higuchi’s Mike is the same way. They’ve just lost their appetites and collapsed. He’s not barking or sniffing and Sakanaka’s getting more and more worried.”

Haruhi glared as me as though it were my fault, then looked over the other occupants of the clubroom.

Asahina clasped her serving tray, looking stricken from worry about Rousseau. Nagato looked up from her book to Haruhi. Koizumi put the shogi piece in his hand back from where he had picked it up and spoke.

“It seems we’ll need to reinvestigate the area,” he said with a smile like a veterinarian encouraging a worried pet owner. “This is, after all, a case brought to us by Sakanaka. We cannot shut our eyes to this. You could say it’s our duty to see it through to the end.”

“Th-that’s right. We should go visit them at the hospital.” Asahina nodded her agreement with Koizumi’s stance.

“…”

Nagato closed her book and silently stood.

The entire brigade seemed to be united in its worry about Rousseau. The dog had frightening charisma to have inspired such concern in all of them over only a day’s worth of activity.

“What about you?” Haruhi glared at me, accusation in her eyes. “What’s it gonna be?”

Naturally I felt badly about the fluffy little guy being in bad shape. Unlike, say, Shamisen, he was a purebred terrier from Scotland, raised in a comfortable home his whole life—he probably wasn’t that tough.

And that aside, I was worried about the unknown cause of this affliction. I looked away from Haruhi to avoid her glare, my eyes fixing upon another person.

“…”

Yuki Nagato, who’d promised that there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary at that location, was in the middle of picking up her book bag.

After a bit of time spent waiting for Asahina to change clothes, we headed out of school, walking as fast as we could down the hill and catching a train that was literally on the verge of departing toward Sakanaka’s house. Having commenced her action, Haruhi’s mobility and command were greater than any commander in the Mongolian horde.

We arrived shortly at the expensive neighborhood, and when we got to the house, I watched Haruhi’s finger as she pressed the doorbell button.

“Coming…”

When Sakanaka emerged, it was obvious by looking at her that she was totally dispirited. Her face was weary, and her eyes were moist from recently crying.

“Come in. Suzumiya, everybody… thank you so much for…” Her words trailed off as she beckoned us in, toward the living room we’d been in before. There on the fine couch, probably in Sakanaka’s own personal spot, was Rousseau, his legs drawn in beneath him as he lay there. His white fur seemed to have lost its luster, and he rested his head on the sofa’s cushion, evidently too exhausted even to look up at the large group of people that had just entered the room. His ears didn’t so much as twitch.

“Rousseau…” Asahina immediately approached him, kneeling down and stroking his nose. His little black eyes moved, looking sadly up at Asahina, then shifted slowly away. Asahina laid the palm of her hand on Rousseau, but all he did was reflexively move his ears slightly. Whatever his affliction, it was definitely serious.

“How long has he been like this?” Haruhi asked.

Sakanaka’s voice was strained. “Probably since yesterday evening. I thought he was just sleepy, so I didn’t worry about it at the time, but when I woke up in the morning, he was still the same way. He won’t move from this spot, and he won’t eat. He couldn’t do his morning walk either. I got worried so I took him to the animal hospital, but…”

So everything Haruhi had been shouting about in the clubroom was true—that the cause was unknown, and that there was another dog with a similar problem, I said.

“Yes. Higuchi’s dog Mike. He’s a miniature dachshund and good friends with Rousseau.”

Asahina stroked Rousseau’s head sympathetically, with the special kindness of someone who believes that small animals must be treasured. Her sadness at Rousseau’s condition was obvious even to me, and as I tried to prevail over the sudden tightness in my chest—

“May I ask something?” said Koizumi. “If that’s the case, then Higuchi’s Mike should have been affected five days ago. What is Mike’s condition now?”

“I called around noon today. He said Mike’s been bad for days and still is. Since he won’t eat, he was put on an IV to get some nutrients into his body. I don’t know what I’m going to do if they have to do that to Rousseau…”

If things kept up this way, he’d just keep getting weaker. I thought about the difference between the images of the healthy, happy dog I’d seen just a few days before and the one I saw now. He suddenly reminded me of the way Shamisen would lie lethargically on the heater, but this was a dog, so his circumstances were different. I was starting to get genuinely worried.

“One more thing,” said Koizumi. “Is it just Mike and Rousseau who’ve been affected? I believe you said there are many dogs that Rousseau goes on walks with.”

“I haven’t heard if anyone else is like this. When Mike got sick, there were a lot of rumors about it, so if other dogs are sick, I’m sure I would have heard about it.”

“And this Mike, is the owner’s residence nearby?”

“Yes. It’s across the street, just three doors down. What about it?”

“Oh, nothing.” Koizumi ended his questioning.

Wilting, Sakanaka said, “I wonder if it really is a ghost. I mean, the vet at the animal hospital couldn’t figure it out…”

Haruhi furrowed her brow, her voice small and desperate. “Maybe… It is strange, isn’t it? Whether or not it’s a ghost, it’s sure no laughing matter.”

Her expression made it seem like she was regretting jumping so quickly on the idea of a ghost, dressing Asahina up as a shrine maiden and making her chant sutras. It seemed like she was thinking ruefully that a real vengeful spirit was going to take more than a costume to beat. For Haruhi, it was a serious regret.

“Hey, Yuki, can’t you do something?”

It was strange that she’d suddenly ask Nagato, but in response, the quiet girl naturally took action. She set down her book bag and moved toward Rousseau, kneeling down in the space beside the worried Asahina and looking directly into the dog’s eyes.

I held my breath and looked on.

“…”

Nagato slipped her finger beneath Rousseau’s chin and lifted up his head, looking steadily into Rousseau’s black eyes. Her eyes were even and serious, like lasers reading data directly from the surface of a DVD. Their noses were so close they were almost touching as Nagato gazed into Rousseau’s eyes, which she did for about thirty seconds.

“…”

She stood up slowly, seeming almost more ghostly than an actual ghost, and we all watched as she walked back to her original place in the room, and slowly, minutely cocked her head.

Haruhi sighed.

“You don’t know either, Yuki? I guess that’s natural. Hmm…”

I don’t know what I expected from Nagato, but evidently treating this problem was beyond the scope of Nagato’s considerable power. I supposed even aliens weren’t gods, and I slumped in discouragement—when from behind me I felt a strong presence.

I looked back. Nagato was staring at me, and after a brief moment, she nodded so imperceptibly, I doubted it was detectable on the micrometer scale. She then looked away.

Nobody should’ve noticed. Haruhi, Asahina, Sakanaka, and even Nagato were all focused on the exhausted Rousseau. But one sharp-eyed person had noticed Nagato’s actions.

“I believe we should retreat for the moment,” whispered Koizumi into my ear. “There’s nothing we can do by remaining here. Not you and not me.” Koizumi smiled quietly, then spoke again. I didn’t like him breathing on me. It felt weird. “There’s no hurry, but we mustn’t waste time. If nothing else, there’s Suzumiya’s state to consider. We need to deal with this before she takes some kind of disastrous action. And the only person who can do that is—”

I wanted to play dumb and ask him what the hell he was getting at, but for some reason, I knew exactly what he was talking about. Maybe I’m naturally smart. I didn’t know why it was so easy for me to read Nagato’s and Koizumi’s every tiny expression and still be so hopeless at exams, but this was no time to be worrying about that. And this wasn’t for Koizumi’s sake; this was for Rousseau.

It was time to get things done.

Having left Sakanaka’s house, Haruhi and Asahina were listless and absent, as though they’d left their souls back with the poor sick dog, and they remained silent on the train. Even when we got off at our station, it was like Sakanaka had been contagious and they’d caught her sadness.

As far as that went, I understood it perfectly well. It was hard seeing someone who’d once been healthy losing that health. I, too, wanted to see them running around the school, not lost in melancholy. Whether it was a person or an animal.

But it was Koizumi’s cold conclusion that as far as the dog went, there was currently nothing we laypeople could do for it.

“All we can do is watch and wait. But the animal hospital is not powerless. I expect even now they’re working on a treatment.”

I just hoped it was a sickness that could be researched and understood. But what if it wasn’t? I didn’t want to have to go to Rousseau’s funeral, I said.

“Fortunately, I know some veterinarians. I’ll do some asking around; they may have some leads.”

In spite of Koizumi’s forced attempt to cheer them up, Haruhi and Asahina had lukewarm reactions. All he got from them were murmured yeahs and okays.

We couldn’t very well sit around stewing in our own sadness forever, so eventually we decided to call it a day. Or should I say, we had to. If we hadn’t, who knows for how long we would’ve wound up staring dejectedly into space.

Haruhi and Asahina walked side-by-side down the road that paralleled the train tracks. By rights, Koizumi and I would’ve taken the same route, since it was the quickest way for us to get home, but Haruhi didn’t seem to notice our absence, and the two of them were soon out of sight.

I hate to say it, but they were in the way. It would’ve been nice if Asahina could have stayed, but the current situation was not her specialty.

Along with Koizumi and me, Nagato watched the two girls head home, then turned to return to her own apartment.

“Nagato.”

The small, short-haired girl looked back mechanically, smoothly, as though she’d expected me to call her name.

I saw her face and had a hunch. I knew it. Nagato did understand. I didn’t have to hesitate to ask her.

“What is it that Rousseau’s gotten?”

I wondered if she was going to think about it for a moment, but then Nagato spoke.

“A data life-form element.”

To that statement, I said:

“…”

Perhaps recognizing my silence as noncomprehension, Nagato amended her explanation. “A silicon-based, symbiotic data life-form element.”

“…”

In response to my continuing silence, Nagato opened her mouth to explain further, but then seemed to realize she had no other words of explanation, and so closed it.

While the two of us fell silent, Koizumi spoke.

“In other words, Rousseau has been infected by an invisible extraterrestrial life-form,” he offered.

Nagato seemed to pause for a moment, as though waiting for permission from someone. Then: “Yes.” She nodded.

“I see. So this data life-form element—may we consider it not as being invisible to the human eye, but rather having no physical form at all, instead being comprised of pure data?”

“You may.”

“Is it similar to the Data Overmind in that regard? Like the network infection that spread to the computer club president?”

“The Data Overmind is on a completely different level from this subspecies. It is far more primitive.”

“Are there any comparisons at all? If you compare the Data Overmind to a human, then what would be analogous to this silicon-based, symbiotic data life-form element?”

I was shocked he’d been able to remember that term, having only heard it once. In response to Koizumi’s question barrage, Nagato answered the same way she always did: simply.

“A virus.”

“Is that it, then? Is the reason the first dog’s body… no, its mind was infected, before the infection was passed on to Rousseau, because the data life-form elements are reproducing and spreading, like a virus?” Koizumi brushed a lock of hair back with his finger. “And what are these strange data life-forms doing on Earth? And what attracted them to the dogs?”

“It is possible,” said Nagato in a thin voice, “to surmise that the silicate bodies that act as hosts were drawn into Earth’s gravity well. Those silicate bodies were vaporized by the heat from atmospheric friction, but data life-forms can continue to exist when the physical matter that houses them is destroyed. The data remains. The data life-form elements made contact with the Earth’s surface.”

“Right where the dogs are being walked. That’s the area where they fell, is it not? And they happened to infect a dog that passed by.”

“It is possible that there are similarities between the networks of silicon-based life-forms and canine neural circuitry.”

“But they’re not the same. Which means the result is that the dogs begin to weaken.”

Nagato had been answering Koizumi’s questions rapidly, but she closed her mouth for a moment to consider.

“It is not a contagion. A unified data element is planning to expand its cognitive memory.”

What was she talking about—

Whatever it was, Koizumi seemed to understand. “So a single dog doesn’t contain sufficient resources. But I can’t imagine it will stop, having spread to two dogs. How many dogs would it take for this silicon-based life-form to rebuild its network?”

“Based on the minimum estimate derived from silicon life-forms already known to my database… infecting every dog on the planet would be insufficient—”

“Now wait just a second,” I interrupted, deeply disturbed. “I understand that Rousseau and one other dog have gotten some kind of space virus. And I kind of get that it got here on a meteorite. But what—in space, there are these… uh, how did you put it, Nagato, ‘organic life-forms,’ but also other life-forms, ones not made out of organic matter?”

Nagato considered her answer for a moment. “The answer to that question depends on how you define the concept of life.” She looked at me with eyes so clear I thought I might fall into them. “If you are referring to entities whose consciousnesses are contained within silicate constructions, such entities exist.”

She said it like it was no big deal, but hearing something so intense at this particular moment put me in a bad place. She should’ve told the Project Cyclops extraterrestrial investigators when they were putting together SETI; they would’ve done a happy dance and run off to get funding, I bet.

“And by the way,” I said, even though it was a little late to ask, “what’s this ‘silicon’ you keep talking about?”

Unfortunately I’d never been overly fond of either chemistry class or its teacher.

“It’s the chemical element, silicon,” said Koizumi. “It’s an excellent semiconductor.” He directed an interested smile at Nagato. “What Nagato is talking about is essentially a machine consciousness. It’s a level of technology we humans have not yet achieved. She’s saying that elsewhere in the universe, there are inorganic, machine entities that have gained consciousness on their own. Or perhaps in all of space, such entities are the norm, and we humans are the exception.”

Nagato ignored Koizumi and kept looking at me. As though she were entrusting me with the answer to everything.

I thought back—back to the first book I’d borrowed from Nagato. Guided by a note left on a bookmark in it, I’d gone to her house for the first time, where she’d told me something.

—Because it was previously assumed that organic life-forms, which possess absolute limits on their data accumulation and transmission capabilities, could never develop intelligence—

Koizumi unconsciously stroked his chin.

“Is it possible that these silicon compositions are merely raw matter, and only gained consciousness upon being inhabited by the data elements?”

Nagato looked up, seeming again as though she were asking someone for permission, then looked back down.

“Intelligence,” she said after a short pause, “is determined by an entity’s ability to collect data, then independently process that stored data.”

Nagato was very talkative—no, more talkative than she’d been since the conversation in which she’d revealed her true nature to me. Maybe the fact that our problem was in her area of expertise made her chattier.

“The data life-form element parasitizes the silicon life-forms, augmenting their cognitive abilities. Originally the data life-form was no more than an isolated clump of information. In order to harvest and process more data, it required physical network circuitry. Each entity benefits the other.”

But what were these silicon-based life-forms? Were they so astoundingly lazy and disconnected that they’d just let themselves fall into Earth’s gravity well and burned up in the atmosphere? I asked.

“Their activities as life-forms are limited to cognition,” said Nagato. “They do nothing other than cogitate. Space is vast. The probability that they would fall into a gravity well is near zero. Thus they have no will to live nor self-preservation concepts.”

What did they think about, just floating around in space? I asked.

“It is impossible to explain their cognitive framework to an organic life-form. Their logical foundations are too different.”

So communication was impossible, huh. I guess we didn’t have to alert NASA then. Making first contact would only end in frustration.

“Geez.”

We’d gone from Sakanaka talking about ghosts to the far reaches of the universe—a leap too far, if you asked me. And given that I could barely understand any of Nagato’s hard SF novels, all this talk of intelligence and cognitive capability was totally beyond me.

It was hard to know whether it fell in the purview of chemistry, philosophy, or religion. Invisible data life-forms and the intelligent balls of silicon that housed them… it would’ve been a lot more understandable to just call them ghosts and be done with it.

“Wait—,” I said, as something weird occurred to me. That’s right—Sakanaka had come to us talking about ghosts. And a ghost was just a soul, right? “So, do souls exist?”

This formless data life-element, or whatever it was, was the source of extraterrestrial intelligence. Its former physical body had been destroyed, and its incorporeal part had fallen to Earth—didn’t that make it basically a ghost?

“What about humans? We have brains that think, which means there’s a consciousness in there somewhere. Are you saying even if our body is destroyed, the spirit remains?”

This was a fairly important question—no, there was no “fairly” about it. Depending on the answer, it could completely change the path of a human life.

Nagato did not answer, a queer look passing across her face. I mean, her standard lack of expression was the same as ever, but something about her aura was different, I could tell. Even if nobody else noticed, I could tell. I would soon have known her for an entire year. That was plenty of time to develop a certain amount of insight, and there’d been several incidents where it would’ve been impossible not to learn something about her. Trust me, I’d know.

Nagato, she—

“…”

She was silent, she was blank, and yet I felt that there was some kind of a look to her. And so long as my perception wasn’t indicating “zero”—

“…”

It was like she was trying to avoid smiling at her own joke.

Then, finally, Nagato’s answer came. It was short and sweet.

“That is classified.”

There was a loud, exaggerated sigh. I was its source. Classified, huh? Someday I wanted to be able to use that word when somebody had asked me a question I didn’t want to answer. Maybe I’d try it in class the next time a teacher put me on the spot.

I was struck by the deep question of whether Nagato had just cracked the first joke she’d ever made in her entire life, but that wasn’t important. Right now, Rousseau was the top priority. The problem was what to do about that space-virus thing.

“We’ll have to do something. Nagato, is it possible?”

“It is possible,” said Nagato. You could always count on her. “We must gain control of the relevant data life-form elements and compress them into an archive, halting its activity. However, we will need a biological network to contain the archived data.”

I didn’t really understand, but it sounded like a pain. Couldn’t we just wipe it out? I asked.

“Deletion is not possible.”

Why not?

“Permission has not been given.”

From her boss?

“Yes.”

Had they been designated an endangered species in this galaxy or something?

“It is a beneficial being.”

I supposed they were something like lactobacilli or E. coli to us humans, then.

I’d let Koizumi take over. He seemed amused at something. “Can’t we stick this thing in some silicon and send it back to space in a rocket or something? Couldn’t your Agency handle something like that?”

Koizumi shrugged lightly. “I could get as many ingots as you want from Silicon Valley, and it wouldn’t be impossible to manipulate political and economic conditions to get access to a hydrogen rocket, but it doesn’t seem likely that we’ll be able to prepare silicon-based life-forms.”

No good, huh? No… wait.

In my mind appeared an image of a beautifully patterned metal rod. It was a Genroku-era relic that had been excavated from Tsuruya’s mountain, which the family had then put in storage. Had it been prepared for the eventuality we now faced? Was this out-of-place artifact a gift from the past?

“No, it’s not.”

According to what Tsuruya had said, the metal rod in the picture was composed of a titanium-cesium alloy. If news of it reached the academic world, they’d have something crazier to debate than the location of the Yamatai Kingdom, but it was unrelated to some bone-dry, fossilized silicon life-form. It was part of some other machine, or was something that had to be sealed away for eternity, or had been left by some traveler from the future. I never wanted to see it again, if I could avoid it, even if I had been the reason it had been discovered.

I was lost in my own musing when Koizumi’s voice brought me back around.

“Fortunately, it does not seem as though haste is necessary. There were several days between the first dog’s health failing and Rousseau being affected. If we can do something about it today or tomorrow, we should be able to avoid having any other victims.”

There was a huge difference in the time scales here on Earth, compared with the cosmos. I supposed I should be grateful that this virus thing seemed to have stayed on cosmic time.

“We’ll visit Sakanaka again tomorrow. There’s no school. But we should think hard about the reason for our visit. It may not be strange to check in on the dog’s health two days running, but we’re actually going to treat it. And we’ll need to do the same thing with Higuchi’s dog too.”

I was only half listening to Koizumi. I didn’t care if he couldn’t think of a pretext. Nagato was going to be the one doing the actual treatment.

“Tomorrow, then. Sorry, Nagato—we’re gonna be counting on you.”

Not unlike the way Haruhi and Asahina had left their hearts at Sakanaka’s house, I couldn’t stop my own heart from flying out into the cosmos. I was totally spaced out, and as I went to leave, something slowed my exiting body. What the?

I looked behind me. Nagato had grabbed my belt and stopped me. I didn’t really mind, but she should’ve raised her voice, or at least tugged on my sleeve or something. Come to think of it, I would’ve preferred the latter.

Her face blank, Nagato moved her lips and spoke. “There is something we need.”

“What?”

“A cat.”

I was totally taken aback; Nagato spoke as if choosing her words carefully.

“The cat at your house would be ideal.”

A little while after Koizumi, Nagato, and I had finished strategizing, I made a phone call as I walked home.

“Haruhi? Yeah, it’s me. I want to talk about Rousseau. She was talking about this on the way back, but it turns out that Nagato once read a book that had a dog with a sickness a lot like Rousseau’s… Yeah, the treatment was in there too. I can’t say for sure it’ll go well, but… yeah, I know. It’s worth trying, right? Nagato knows how to do it. So tomorrow we’re going to go back to Sakanaka’s place and… what, now? Can’t do it. There’s stuff to get ready, so we’ll meet up tomorrow. Don’t rush things. According to Koizum—I mean, Nagato—it’s not something that’s going to suddenly get worse… Yeah, why don’t you go ahead and tell Sakanaka. Oh, and there was another dog, right? Higuchi’s dog Mike or whatever. They’ll need to bring him over to Sakanaka’s place too. I’ll tell Asahina. Okay, see you tomorrow…. Yeah, nine o’clock. Okay? At the usual station.”

The next day, at the station that would any day now turn into a famous sightseeing destination, I arrived twenty minutes early only to discover the rest of the brigade waiting for me.

However, only Koizumi and Nagato looked anything like their usual selves; Asahina stood there, unease on her face, while Haruhi looked like someone who’d put all her money into the lottery and was waiting for the numbers to be announced.

“You’re late.” She glared at me with a complicated expression.

That day, for once, I wasn’t made to treat the rest of the brigade at the café as a tardiness punishment. Haruhi just grabbed my arm and started walking toward the ticket machines.

“I heard more about it from Koizumi,” she said as she bought tickets for all of us. “That Nagato’s going to try some kind of folk remedy? For something called ‘suncat’?”

Suncat? What was that supposed to be? It sounded like a new kind of fairy from Polynesia or something.

“It’s the illness we believe Rousseau has contracted.” Having gotten his ticket, Koizumi reached out to the automatic turnstile. He quickly continued, perhaps to stop me from contradicting the story he’d come up with. “When an otherwise active dog suddenly loses all of his energy and acts like a cat sleeping in a sunbeam, it indicates a case of this disease. It’s an extremely rare affliction and is not in any veterinary manuals. There’s a possibility it’s a sort of neurosis,” he said, winking at me, “or so Nagato has explained it to me. Evidently she learned about it in some old book. Isn’t that right?”

Nagato, the only one of us still wearing her school uniform, nodded plainly enough for everyone to see. The nod was so awkward that it was painfully obvious they’d discussed this ahead of time.

She looked at the paper supermarket bag that Koizumi held, then regarded the pet carrier I was holding.

Meow,” said Shamisen, as if to greet Nagato, scratching at the holes in the box he was in.

Haruhi thwacked the cat carrier. “It’s so weird to need a cat to treat a disease. Yuki, are you sure this is okay? Can we trust that book?”

It was a lot closer to an exorcism than a treatment, but we couldn’t very well tell that to Haruhi. I was glad for Nagato’s policy of silence.

She nodded, then, turning her head to regard me, held out both hands. Just when I was wondering what she wanted, since all I had was this cat in a plastic box, she spoke.

“The cat,” said Nagato, her voice flat. “Give it to me.”

Thus I became empty-handed, and while the carrier box containing the cat was on the train, it rested on Nagato’s lap. Maybe because we were on a train, I couldn’t tell if the silent girl was trying to give me some kind of a sign, but Shamisen behaved himself.

Haruhi and Asahina sat on either side of Nagato, and in contrast to their interest in the cat-filled box, I was much more interested in the contents of Koizumi’s bag.

“Don’t worry; I’ve prepared suitable tools.”

The two of us boys were leaning against the door of the train car, so there was no concern that Haruhi would overhear our conversation. Koizumi moved the bag slightly.

“It took a bit of effort getting it ready in a single night, but I managed. The rest is up to Nagato.”

I had no doubts about Nagato’s abilities. She would save Rousseau. What was giving me a headache was thinking about cleaning up afterward.

“That’ll be my job. This is just my intuition, but I don’t think this will be too troublesome. You’ll see if you watch Suzumiya. Her highest priority right now is to cure Rousseau. So long as we can accomplish that, we’ll have fulfilled our duties.”

I hoped he was right.

I took my eyes off the unconcernedly smiling Koizumi and grabbed a handhold as the train began to decelerate. There were only two more stations to Sakanaka’s neighborhood. There wasn’t much time left to think.

This made it the third day we’d visited Sakanaka’s house. I would never have imagined we’d be coming here three times in a single week.

Sakanaka met us at the door, looking much the same as she had the previous day, though her eyes were colored by what might have been a sliver of hope.

“Suzumiya…” She seemed on the verge of tears and at a loss for words; Haruhi simply nodded and looked back. She was searching for the best and brightest member of the SOS Brigade—the slender, school-uniformed Nagato.

“Leave it to us, Sakanaka. You might not think it, but Yuki’s super dependable, and she can do practically anything. J.J. will be better before you know it.”

We were led shortly into the Sakanakas’ living room, where there was Mrs. Sakanaka along with another woman. Something about her said “ladies’ college student” to me, and no sooner did I look at her face than I understood she was Higuchi, owner of the other afflicted dog. Which meant that the exhausted miniature dachshund she held in her arms had to be Mike.

Rousseau was much the same as he had been the previous day, lying on the couch, motionless. His eyes were open, but he didn’t seem to be looking at anything, and Mike was exactly of a kind.

This was it. I exchanged looks with Nagato and Koizumi.

I began taking brief instructions from Nagato, acting as her assistant, just as the three of us had decided at our last meeting. Koizumi had brought the appropriate tools. I didn’t know where he’d gotten them, but I had to admit, the guy was pretty useful in times like this. It was a lot easier than trying to get our hands on a silicon-based life-form.

First we closed the curtains to block off the sunlight. None of the lights were on, of course, so once the room was dim, I produced a fat, colorful candle from the bag Koizumi had brought, placing it on an antique candle stand and lighting it with a match. I then put some incense in a small bowl and lit it as well. Once I’d confirmed that the fragrant and strangely colored smoke was wafting around the room, I gave Nagato the sign.

Shamisen hated to be held that way, but somehow the usually grouchy cat offered no resistance as Nagato picked him up.

I coughed. “Can I ask you to put your dog next to Rousseau?”

Suspicion at what seemed like our preparations for a magic spell colored the face of the young, refined Higuchi, but she did as I asked. There were now two dogs on the sofa, each of them listless and inattentive, as though lacking in spirit.

Holding the cat, Nagato knelt down in front of the sofa.

That was the last step. I hit the switch on a digital recorder, and a haunting refrain of theremin and sitar filled the room with its eerie melody. To be honest, I thought this was overdoing it, but Koizumi’s specialty was seeing his gimmicks through to the end.

The candlelight flickered uncertainly, the sweet smell of incense filled the air, and exotic music played as Nagato began what could only be thought of as a strange ritual.

“…”

In the dim room, her pale face seemed freeze-dried in its lack of affect. Her hands, just as pale as her face, moved. She placed one hand on Rousseau’s head, petting him, then put that same hand to Shamisen’s head. Despite being in an unfamiliar house and directly facing two strange dogs, Shamisen sat impressively still and let her do it.

Nagato brought Shamisen face-to-face with Rousseau, their noses almost touching. Rousseau’s black eyes moved sluggishly to meet the eyes of the calico cat opposite him. Nagato moved her hands back and forth as if transferring something from Rousseau to Shamisen, then performed the same process with Mike. Nagato’s lips were moving slightly, forming words I couldn’t quite make out, but only Koizumi and I seemed to notice this.

Finally, Nagato touched Shamisen’s small forehead to each dog’s nose, then stood. Saying nothing, she put Shamisen back in the carrier, then brought it over to me and looked up.

“It is finished.”

Naturally, everyone was dumbfounded. I certainly was, standing there holding the carrier, but Haruhi and Asahina, and especially Sakanaka and Higuchi, were all the more stunned.

Haruhi’s mouth hung open. “What do you mean, ‘It is finished’? That’s all? I mean… what was that?”

“…”

Nagato merely tilted her head and directed her gaze to the two dogs, as if to say, that’s what you should be looking at.

And there—

There were two dogs, unsteady but clear-eyed as they adorably looked about for their owners.

“Rousseau!”

“Mike!”

Sakanaka and Higuchi ran over, arms outstretched. The dogs whined weakly but wagged their tails as they licked their owners’ cheeks.

A few minutes after the moving scene, which had caused Asahina to start crying out of sheer sympathy, the dingy spell-casting space had been returned to its natural living-room state. Rousseau and Mike were in the kitchen getting a meal from Mrs. Sakanaka, while the five of us, along with Sakanaka and Higuchi, sat on a sofa that encircled an expensive-looking table.