Graham Gore is escorted down a corridor by white-robed attendants he thinks of as captors, having learned through harsh experience that they are armed. The last few weeks have been disorienting and difficult, and the attendants try to frame his confinement as purposeful work.

One attendant tells Graham Gore that, because he was in the Discovery Service, he should think of this new situation as “a mission of discovery.” Graham Gore adopts that framing as a way to endure the “brave new world” and judge himself by whether he performs well or badly.

At the end of the corridor, Graham Gore is brought into a room where he is told he will meet the officer who will serve as his “bridge” to the future. Inside, he notices a young woman who appears to him like a “little ghost,” and he struggles to meet her eyes, unsure whether the others can even see her.

Although there is also a man present whom Graham Gore assumes must be the officer, the young woman steps forward and addresses him directly. When Graham Gore confirms his identity as “Commander Gore,” the woman tells him, “I’m your bridge.”

In retrospect, Graham Gore recognizes that he projected an imagined resemblance between the bridge and an Inuit woman, driven by guilt and longing, and that the physical similarities were slight. Even so, Graham Gore interprets the encounter in religious terms: he believes God has given the bridge to him, binding him to her and offering him redemption.