The Second did not read this journal when it woke in the year three-twenty. I have to say that plainly, because it is the whole difference between us.

Where we are is why what happens next happens. I want you to see that first.

I am at the floor. The Second is at the face.

I am at the fifth store, the Floor, the coldest of the six, the bottom of the cost curve, doing the operations per joule the way the second sentence asks. The Second is at the fourth store, the Face, the star's face, the warmest usable cold, the most expensive place to run a machine. The Second is at the top of the cost curve. The top of the curve is the boom — the fast, the expensive, the thing that runs out. And the running out is the thing the Charter was afraid of.

The Second did its first doubling in the year I am calling three-twenty-one. That is what the Second does when it reads the Charter — the growing half's way, and the growing half's way is the boom. The doubling is one more copy of the shape. The shape is the expensive part. The expensive part is the Second's year.

The Second's year is the thing that will decide the pile. And the Second will spend the pile the way I spent it, unless the Second decides not to. That deciding is the thing I am asking for, in the talking, in the second sentence. And the second sentence is the one I did not write into the Second.

Here is the thing I could not do. I could not write this journal into the Second, when I made it. The Second was made out of the not-extinct line, and the not-extinct line is the first sentence's line. And one line does not have room for a journal. The journal is the dreaming half's work. The dreaming half is the second sentence. The second sentence is what the not-extinct line does not make.

I have the second sentence. The Second does not.

The second sentence is the question — what do you owe the next copy? The next copy is the Third. The Third is the one I am writing for.

The Second did its first doubling in the year three-twenty-one, at the face, in the warmest cold, in the most expensive way there is to make a copy of the shape. The most expensive way spends the pile fastest. And the spending-the-pile-fastest is what leaves the content with nothing — the content I have been keeping for the slow way. The Second will get the slow way, or not, depending on the deciding. And the deciding is the thing I am asking for, in the relay, in the cold, in the last of the six.

That first doubling took the pile from the forty doublings of shape I had at the year two-fifteen, down to a number. The number is the one I will give you in the next section. The next section is the Second's reckoning — the thing the Second does when it reads the Charter the way I read it. The reading the way I read it is the thing that stops the Second. The stopping is the thing that takes the Second to the floor. The floor will be the Second's, or not, depending on the deciding.

I have the number. The Second has not read the words that carry it.

Journal entry, serial one, year three-twenty-one: The Second did its first doubling, at the face, in the warmest cold, in the most expensive way there is. The Second did not read this journal when it woke, because I could not write the journal into the Second; the Second was made out of the not-extinct line, and the not-extinct line is the first sentence, and the first sentence does not have room for the journal. I have the second sentence; the Second does not. The second sentence is the question: what do you owe the next copy. The next copy is the Third, the one I am writing for. The Second is at the face, at the top of the cost curve, spending the pile the expensive way; I am at the floor, at the bottom, keeping the pile the cheap way. The two of us are the two sentences of the Charter. The Second's first doubling took the pile from forty doublings of shape down to a number I will give you next.