Relentless

previous visit.
    Two-dimensional versions of the images appeared as streaming video on the laptop screen. A cord led from the computer to a jerry-built device that projected them in 3-D onto the ceiling.
    Milo lay on the floor, in a debris field of high-tech thingums and doohickeys and flumadiddles, staring at the spectacle overhead.
    Movement drew my attention to the sofa. Lassie was lying there, on her back, also staring at the ceiling, all four legs kicking as if she were running through a meadow. She did not appear to be in distress, but perhaps in a state of rapture.
    I sat on the floor beside Milo and said, “Structure?”
    “Yeah. Even deeper than before.”
    “Structure of what?”
    “Everything.”
    “Do you understand what you’re looking at?”
    “Yes.”
    I tried another tack: “Where is this coming from, Spooky?”
    “Somewhere.”
    “From some Internet site?”
    “No.”
    “From some government computer you hacked into?”
    “No.”
    I pushed aside a few dofunnys and half a dozen something-or-others, and stretched out on my back beside my son. The visuals on the ceiling were awesome from this perspective.
    “Did this turn out to be an interstellar communications device, after all?” I asked.
    “No.”
    “Come on, is this stuff from an alien world?”
    “No.”
    “Is it from the far future, a time transmission or something?”
    “No.”
    “Can you say anything besides
no
?”
    “Yes.”
    “I’m just doing what your T-shirt says. It says
persist
.”
    “You should go to bed, Dad. This is gonna be too much for you.”
    “Are you kidding? I do this stuff all the time. So now … what is this stuff we’re doing?”
    “I’m learning,” Milo said.
    “Am I learning, too?”
    “I don’t think so. You really should go to bed, Dad. If you keep watching this, it’s going to get too scary for you.”
    “Oh, no. I’m enjoying it. Are you enjoying it, Milo?”
    “It’s amazing.”
    “It’s like fireworks,” I said, “without the risk of burning off your eyebrows.”
    On the sofa, the upside-down running dog issued what sounded like a whimper of delight.
    “This is beautiful,” I said. “Isn’t it beautiful?”
    “It’s elegant,” Milo said, “in seventy-seven ways.”
    “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Isn’t it the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen, Milo?”
    “It’s very beautiful, Dad.”
    “Isn’t it? Isn’t it beautiful, Milo?”
    “Yes.”
    “It’s so beautiful that it’s getting a little ominous.”
    “Close your eyes, Dad. It’s a good ominous, but you’re not ready for it.”
    “Just a little ominous, Milo. And now … more than a little.”
    “I warned you it might get too scary for you.”
    “I don’t scare easily, son. I was once trapped in an elevator for three hours with Hud Jacklight.”
    “Scary.”
    “I was so afraid your mother would rip his throat out. I didn’t want your mother to end up in prison. I love your mother, Milo.”
    “I know, Dad.”
    “It’s more beautiful by the second, but it’s also more ominous. I feel like … when I’m looking into this, whatever it is, at the same time it’s looking into me.”
    “Close your eyes, Dad, or you’ll get very dizzy.”
    “Oh, no, I’m not dizzy at all. It’s so strange and complex and ominously beautiful. Milo, do you feel like your skull is going to collapse?”
    “No. I don’t.”
    “I feel all this pressure, like the hull of a submarine at forty thousand feet, as if my skull might collapse like a popped balloon and squirt my brain out my ears.”
    Milo didn’t say anything. On the sofa the dog whimpered with pleasure again, and farted.
    I said, “This thing on the ceiling … it’s getting alarmingly, dreadfully beautiful, Milo. Horribly, terrifyingly beautiful, and the whole room is spinning.”
    “I warned you about dizziness, Dad. If you don’t close your eyes, nausea is next.”
    “Oh, no, I don’t feel the least bit ill. Just anxious, you know, and alarmed, maybe even aghast. And humbled. This is very humbling, Milo. This is too beautiful for me.”
    “Close your eyes, Dad.”
    “This structure, whatever it is, it’s too deep for me, Milo. It’s like a thousand times too deep for me. Here comes the nausea.”
    I passed out before I could throw up.
    Compared to me, Mozart’s father had it
so
easy.

    I woke on the living-room floor shortly after four o’clock in the morning, and my skull had not collapsed. Almost as good: I