"Charlotte," said the Receiver thoughtfully. "Now, that I wouldn't have guessed. Even if I'd thought of the possibility that it might be another Speaker the next time, Charlotte certainly wouldn't have been my choice."

"Exactly," said the Chief Elder. "One can see how Raymond might be vulnerable; he has that little weakness of irresponsibility, that slight tendency to put his own feelings before those of others. But Charlotte… she's so sensible, so well-behaved, so polite and hard-working…" She shook her head. "I don't understand it."

The Receiver nodded. "Yes, it's true," he said. "Charlotte is as admirable a resident of this Community as anyone could ask for. Perhaps that's why it happened to her: to show that nobody is beyond the reach of this new kind of reminder."

A small groan escaped the Chief Elder. "Receiver, what are we going to do?" she said. "We can't post an Elder in every Speaker's station in the Community; there wouldn't be enough left to do anything else. And, even if we could, what could they do to prevent it when it happens again?"

The Receiver noted, wryly, that she hadn't said if; also, that Tomas hadn't been posted to prevent the second reminder, but merely to observe it. Rather than mention either of these things, however, he said, "More than that, Marilee: what could they do to prevent it happening to one of them rather than to a Speaker?"

The Chief Elder's eyes widened in horror; that thought, it was plain, had never crossed her mind. "Do you think it could?" she whispered.

"It happened to Charlotte," the Receiver pointed out.

All the strength seemed to go out of the Chief Elder at that gentle observation; she slumped back against the door of the Annex, and pressed a hand to her temple. "Yes," she said, her voice heavy with guilt and weariness. "Yes, it did."

The Receiver said nothing, but merely gazed at her with sympathetic pity.

"And do you know the most horrid part of it all?" said the Chief Elder. "She didn't mind. She was no more upset about it than Raymond was. We questioned her far more closely than we did him; we made it clear that we didn't blame her in any way, and all but invited her to share her fear and distress with us. And what do you think she said? 'Yes, I was afraid of it the first time, but it's all different now. I don't see how anyone who'd been inside music could fear it.'"

The Receiver raised his head sharply. "Charlotte said that?"

The Chief Elder nodded heavily, not seeming to notice the Receiver's sudden interest. "I suppose 'being inside music' is her phrase for having been forced to give the reminder," she said. "Naturally, she would need to think of it in some way that made it seem less of a violation – in her own mind, at least. With Tomas and me there to help, though, I expected her to have the courage to face it squarely."

The Receiver, who had fallen momentarily into a brown study, roused himself at the mention of the other Elder. "Ah, Tomas was there, was he?" he said.

"Certainly he was," said the Chief Elder, and a faint smile appeared on her face for the first time since she had entered the Annex. "He wouldn't hear of anyone else going with me; I think he would have even kept me away, if he could have. Ever since he returned from Raymond's office, he seems to regard the solution of this reminder problem as his own special mission."

"Passionate, is he?" the Receiver murmured.

"Very," said the Chief Elder.

The smile slipped off her face again, to be replaced by a look of sober reflection, as she continued, "Almost too much so, in a way. He's so distressed by what happened this morning, I think he'd be willing to do anything to stop it, whatever the cost to the Community. I'm grateful for his concern, but I do wonder about the damage such zeal might do to his judgment."

The Receiver nodded thoughtfully. "So, then," he said, "the same reminder that dispels fear for Charlotte awakens it to fury in Tomas. Strange, isn't it? So many generations spent cultivating Sameness, and yet the residents of our Community still prove so different."

While the Chief Elder was hesitating over her reply to this, the Receiver added, mildly, "And who would you say is more representative of the Community? Is the general level of alarm about the reminders greater or less now than it was on the fifteenth?"

The Chief Elder considered. "It's hard to say," she said. "The impression I got, on the way to and from the Speaker's office, was that things were much the same as they had been two weeks ago, except…" She hesitated.

"Yes?" said the Receiver.

"Well, you know how it is," said the Chief Elder, with an attempt at glibness. "Nothing's ever the same when it happens a second time, is it? Your Instructor of Nines picks you out to help him organize the class for a science experiment, and you're almost too excited to think straight; then the same thing happens when you're a Ten, and all you think is, 'Oh, yes, I've done that before.'"

As the simile fell from her lips, she blushed hotly; it had been years since she'd thought of that particular childhood triumph, and decades since she'd told anyone of the delight it had brought her. She discreetly checked the Receiver's face for some sign of censoriousness – or, worse, of amusement – but the old man's countenance was quite impassive. "Yes, I see," he said. "You mean that there isn't the same element of shock the second time; the thing is no longer unimaginable, the way it was before."

"Exactly," said the Chief Elder, with a feeling of relief. "People were still alarmed by the reminder, of course, but I didn't feel that sense of silent panic that the first one caused; it was more… well, dismay, I suppose. Like when a previous offender comes before the Committee again, and your heart sinks to think that you didn't help him enough the first time – you know."

"Of course," said the Receiver. "And that was how most of the Community seemed to feel?"

"I should think so," said the Chief Elder. "Everyone I spoke to certainly gave that impression." Then she frowned, and corrected herself. "Or, no, not everyone. You know Katharine? The little Seven girl, with the…" She caught herself abruptly before she could specify the pale eyes of the girl in question; bad enough to distinguish someone by a physical peculiarity, but even worse when it was a peculiarity shared by the person one was addressing. "Well, anyway, you know her?"

The Receiver's reaction to this question was less pronounced than that which he had given before; this time, however, the Chief Elder was watching him, and so she noticed, and wondered at, the sudden flicker of interest that came into his eyes. "Oh, yes," he said. "I know Katharine."

"Well, I ran into her on my way here," said the Chief Elder. Then she laughed. "Literally ran into her, actually: I saw her coming down the path, and kept expecting her to turn aside, and when I realized that she was too caught up in her own thoughts to notice me, it was too late, so…" She made a colliding gesture with her hands. "Anyway, she looked up, and was very startled and apologetic when she recognized me, so I felt I ought to assure her that it was all right, and explain what I was doing on that path at that hour. Not that it wasn't fairly obvious, but, as I say, her mind was elsewhere."

"Yes, I daresay it was," the Receiver agreed enigmatically. "So you told her… what, exactly?"

"Oh, just that I was coming to speak with you about the new reminder," said the Chief Elder, "and that you would use your wisdom to tell us what to do about it. And then she startled me by actually giggling, and making some quaint little comment… how did it go? Something about how she hoped that you wouldn't change me into a white bird, since the Community needed me here and not on the foam of the sea." She laughed, and shook her head. "Silly enough, of course, but quite clever for a child of that age – to say nothing of the strength of character it showed, that she could joke about the thing so soon after it had happened. I think the Committee ought to pay particular attention to her when the Eights get their volunteer hours next year."

The Receiver murmured something to himself that she couldn't quite catch, and then abruptly raised his head and sat up straight in his chair. "Well," he said, "in the meantime, let's consider the situation as we now have it. We now know that we're dealing with reminders in the plural; we also know that they can come, at the least, from any Speaker. But we still don't know why they're coming, or how – unless perhaps Charlotte was able to tell you that?"

The Chief Elder shook her head. "I did ask her," she said, "but all she could tell me was that it was like suddenly finding herself in a dream. A good dream, she emphasized: not the frightening or sickening kind, but the kind – how did she put it – that makes you happy to be alive even if you don't know why."

The Receiver stroked his beard meditatively. "The kind of dream, in other words," he said, "that can never really be told."

The Chief Elder glanced at him, startled. "Yes, that's right," she said. "That's exactly what Charlotte said. She kept trying to explain why she thought it was wrong to fear the reminder, and Tomas kept pressing at her and finding flaws in her argument, and at last she just laughed and said, 'It's no use; I never could tell this kind of dream properly.'"

The Receiver nodded. "All right, then," he said. "Let's suppose that these reminders are similar to dreams. It would be likely, then, that they come from the same source that dreams come from – isn't that right?"

"I suppose so, yes," said the Chief Elder.

But then her mind evolved the implications of this, and she added, more hesitantly, "Except that it can't be, can it? A dream comes from the dreamer's own mind, and this business of white birds and flaming meteors can't have come from Charlotte's mind – not unless she's completely the opposite of what we believe her to be."

"No, it couldn't have come from Charlotte," the Receiver agreed. Then his lips curled upward, and he added, "No more than most of the memories in my own head could have come from me."

After waiting a moment for him to continue, the Chief Elder realized that he expected her to understand – and, with a sickening feeling, she realized that perhaps she did. "You're thinking of December," she said. "When the memories failed to return after… after Jonas went Elsewhere." (She hesitated over the former Receiver-in-training's name; the Committee had decided against designating it Not-to-Be-Spoken, but it had been a near thing, and her own sympathies had lain with the minority.) "You think that something interfered with them, and turned them into these reminders instead?"

The Receiver's smile became at once broader and softer. "You always were a quick thinker, Marilee," he said. "Much quicker than I'll ever be. No, I didn't mean that, exactly; I was just thinking of the possibility that these reminders might be to dreams as my own… resources… are to memories. But, of course," he added, in an incongruously reassuring tone, "it might well be as you suggest. It's quite an interesting idea, in fact."

The Chief Elder thanked him politely, but was in truth all too glad to have an excuse to abandon her notion, even for the vaguer one that the Receiver had offered. "Dreams like memories," she said thoughtfully. "Memory-dreams. It's a charming thought, almost – or would be, if it weren't… the way it is. But, then, whatever's causing it would have to be the same sort of thing as…"

Her eyes suddenly narrowed, and focused themselves sightlessly on a random book on the Receiver's shelf (the same one, ironically, that he had consulted when the first reminder had been proclaimed). The look was a familiar one to anyone who knew her; it had been that look, and the power of mind and will that made it possible to her, that had done more than anything else to win her her office.

She held it for perhaps a minute, and then abruptly straightened herself and glanced down at the old man sitting bemusedly in front of her. "Please excuse me, Receiver of Memory," she said. "I believe I have some urgent business to attend to. On behalf of the Community, I thank you for your wisdom."

And, without waiting for him to accept her thanks, she turned and strode determinedly from the Annex.