He can, says the frown that so gently plays at pulling his eyebrows together, the way one in deep sleep might seem to perceive some echo of the voice that tries to wake him. A reflex, brief, quickly smoothed away.

He can, less distantly than it appears. How tempting it is to sit still until it seems like he's deserted his body, while really waiting in ambush for the right moment to open his eyes into glittering black slits of judgement. But Ralston is likely to know the difference—he can sense these things. And the Singularity's call—that is very real. And so, grazing the cusp of departure, he decides he will slip away, but stand in the Horizon only long enough to count to ten. That seems to him a sufficient compromise. And so he does.