Night of Time

ROBERT REED

Robert Reed (info site: www.booksnbytes.com/authors/ reed_robert.html) lives in Nebraska and has been one of the most prolific short story writers of high quality in the SF field for the past twelve years. His work is notable for its variety and for his steady production. His first story collection, The Dragons of Springplace (1999), fine as it is, skims only a bit of the cream from his body of work. He writes a novel every year or two, as well. His recent novel, Marrow (2000), a distant future large-scale story that is hard SF, seems to be a breakthrough in his career. The New York Times called it “an exhilarating ride, in the hands of an author whose aspiration literally knows no bounds.” A sequel, The Sword of Creation, is forthcoming in 2004.

“Night of Time” is another story from Silver Gryphon, the fine anniversary anthology of Golden Gryphon Press and another of the best anthologies of the year. It is set in the distant future world of Marrow, and is a story about a man whose profession is to restore missing memories. He is sought out by an alien creature with an immensely rich historical memory but who has forgotten one small thing. He is accompanied by a loyal assistant, Shadow, who is not what he seems.

Ash drank a bitter tea while sitting in the shade outside his shop, comfortable on a little seat that he had carved for himself in the trunk of a massive, immortal bristle-cone pine. The wind was tireless, dense and dry and pleasantly warm. The sun was a convincing illusion—a K-class star perpetually locked at an early-morning angle, the false sky narrow and pink, a haze of artful dust pretending to have been blown from some faraway hell. At his feet lay a narrow and phenomenally deep canyon, glass roads anchored to the granite walls, with hundreds of narrow glass bridges stretched from one side to the other, making the air below him glisten and glitter. Busier shops and markets were set beside the important roads, and scattered between them were the hivelike mansions and mating halls, and elaborate fractal statues, and the vertical groves of cling-trees that lifted water from the distant river: The basics of life for the local species, the 31-3s.

For Ash, business was presently slow, and it had been for some years. But he was a patient man and a pragmatist, and when you had a narrow skill and a well-earned reputation, it was only a matter of time before the desperate or those with too much money came searching for you.

“This will be the year,” he said with a practiced, confident tone. “And maybe, this will be the day.”

Any coincidence was minimal. It was his little habit to say those words and then lean forward in his seat, looking ahead and to his right, watching the only road that happened to lead past his shop. If someone were coming, Ash would see him now. And as it happened, he spotted two figures ascending the long glass ribbon, one leading the other, both fighting the steep grade as well as the thick and endless wind.

The leader was large and simply shaped—a cylindrical body, black and smooth, held off the ground by six jointed limbs. Ash instantly recognized the species. While the other entity was human, he decided—a creature like himself, and at this distance, entirely familiar.

They weren’t going to be his clients, of course. Most likely, they were sightseers. Perhaps they didn’t even know one another. They were just two entities that happened to be marching in the same direction. But as always, Ash allowed himself a seductive premonition. He finished his tea, and listened, and after a little while, despite the heavy wind, he heard the quick dense voice of the alien—an endless blur of words and old stories and lofty abstract concepts born from one of the galaxy’s great natural intellects.

When the speaker was close, Ash called out, “Wisdom passes!”

A Vozzen couldn’t resist such a compliment.

The road had finally flattened out. Jointed legs turned the long body, allowing every eye to focus on the tall, rust-colored human sitting inside the craggy tree. The Vozzen continued walking sideways, but with a fatigued slowness. His only garment was a fabric tube, black like his carapace and with the same slick texture. “Wisdom shall not pass,” a thin, somewhat shrill voice called out. Then the alien’s translator made adjustments, and the voice softened. “If you are a man named Ash,” said the Vozzen, “this Wisdom intends to linger.”

“I am Ash,” he replied, immediately dropping to his knees. The ground beneath the tree was rocky, but acting like a supplicant would impress the species. “May I serve your Wisdom in some tiny way, sir?”

“Ash,” the creature repeated. “The name is Old English. Is that correct?”

The surprise was genuine. With a half-laugh, Ash said, “Honestly, I’m not quite sure—”

“English,” it said again. The translator was extremely adept, creating a voice that was unnervingly human—male and mature, and pleasantly arrogant. “There was a tiny nation-state, and an island, and as I recall my studies, England and its confederate tribes acquired a rather considerable empire that briefly covered the face of your cradle world.”

“Fascinating,” said Ash, looking back down the road. The second figure was climbing the last long grade, pulling an enormous float-pack, and despite his initial verdict, Ash realized that the creature wasn’t human at all.

“But you were not born on the Earth,” the Vozzen continued. “In your flesh and your narrow build, I can see some very old augmentations—”

“Mars,” Ash allowed. “I was born on—”

“Mars,” the voice repeated. That simple word triggered a cascade of memories, facts and telling stories. From that flood, the Vozzen selected his next offering. “Old Mars was home to some fascinating political experiments. From the earliest terraforming societies to the Night of the Dust—”

“I remember,” Ash interrupted, trying to gain control over the conversation. “Are you a historian, sir? Like many of your kind—?”

“I am conversant in the past, yes.”

“Then perhaps I shouldn’t be too impressed. You seem to have been looking for me, and for all I know, you’ve thoroughly researched whatever little history is wrapped around my life.”

“It would be impolite not to study your existence,” said the Vozzen.

“Granted.” With another deep bow, Ash asked, “What can this old Martian do for a wise Vozzen?”

The alien fell silent.

For a moment, Ash studied the second creature. Its skeleton and muscle were much like a man’s, and the head wore a cap of what could have been dense brown hair. There was one mouth and two eyes, but no visible nose and the mouth was full of heavy pink teeth. Of course many humans had novel genetics, and there were remoras on the Ship’s hull—men and women who wore every intriguing, creative mutation. But this creature was not human. Ash sensed it, and using a private nexus, he asked his shop for a list of likely candidates.

“Ash,” the Vozzen said. “Yes, I have made a comprehensive study of your considerable life.”

Ash dipped his head, driving his knees into the rough ground. “I am honored, sir. Thank you.”

“I understand that you possess some rather exotic machinery.”

“Quite novel. Yes, sir.”

“And talents. You wield talents even rarer than your machinery.”

“Unique talents,” Ash replied with an effortless confidence. He lifted his eyes, and smiled, and wanting the advantage in his court, he rose to his feet, brushing the grit from his slightly bloodied knees as he told his potential client, “I help those whom I can help.”

“You help them for a fee,” the alien remarked, a clear disdain in the voice.

Ash approached the Vozzen, remarking, “My fee is a fair wage. A wage determined by the amoral marketplace.”

“I am a poor historian,” the Vozzen complained.

Ash gazed into the bright black eyes. Then with a voice tinged with a careful menace, he said, “It must seem awful, I would think. Being a historian, and being Vozzen, and feeling your precious memories slowly and inexorably leaking away…”

The Ship was an enormous derelict—a world-sized starship discovered by humans, and repaired by humans, and sent by its new owners on a great voyage around the most thickly settled regions of the galaxy. It was Ash’s good fortune to be one of the early passengers, and for several centuries, he remained a simple tourist. But he had odd skills leftover from his former life, and as different aliens boarded the Ship, he made friends with new ideas and fresh technologies. His shop was the natural outgrowth of all that learning. “Sir,” he said to the Vozzen. “Would you like to see what your money would buy?”

“Of course.”

“And your companion—?”

“My aide will remain outside. Thank you.”

The human-shaped creature seemed to expect that response. He walked under the bristlecone, tethering his pack to a whitened branch, and with an unreadable expression, stood at the canyon’s edge, staring into the glittering depths, watching for the invisible river, perhaps, or perhaps watching his own private thoughts.

“By what name do I call you?”

“Master is adequate.”

Every Vozzen was named Master, in one fashion or another. With a nod, Ash began walking toward the shop’s doorway. “And your aide—”

“Shadow.”

“His name is?”

“Shadow is an adequate translation.” Several jointed arms emerged from beneath his long body, complex hands tickling the edges of the door, a tiny sensor slipped from a pocket and pointed at the darkness inside. “Are you curious, Ash?”

“About what, Master?”

“My companion’s identity. It is a little mystery to you, I think.”

“It is. Yes.”

“Have you heard of the Aabacks?”

“But I’ve never seen one.” Then after a silence, he mentioned, “They’re a rare species. With a narrow intelligence and a fierce loyalty, as I understand these things.”

“They are rather simple souls,” Master replied. “But whatever their limits, or because of them, they make wonderful servants.”

The tunnel grew darker, and then the walls fell away. With a silent command, Ash triggered the lights to awaken. In an instant, a great chamber was revealed, the floor tiled simply and the pine-faced ceiling arching high overhead, while the distant walls lay behind banks upon banks of machines that were barely awake, spelling themselves for those rare times when they were needed.

“Are you curious, Master?”

“Intensely and about many subjects,” said the Vozzen. “What particular subject are you asking about?”

“How this magic works,” Ash replied, gesturing with an ancient, comfortable pride. “Not even the Ship’s captains can wield this technology. Within the confines of our galaxy, I doubt if there are three other facilities equally equipped.”

“For memory retrieval,” Master added. “I know the theory at play here. You manipulate the electrons inside a client’s mind, increasing their various effects. And you manipulate the quantum nature of the universe, reaching into a trillion alternate but very similar realities. Then you combine these two quite subtle tricks, temporarily enlarging one mind’s ability to reminisce.”

Ash nodded, stepping up to the main control panel.

“I deplore that particular theory,” his client professed.

“I’m not surprised.”

“That many-world image of the universe is obscene. To me, it is simply grotesque and relentlessly ridiculous, and I have never approved of it.”

“Many feel that way,” Ash allowed.

A genuine anger surged. “This concept of each electron existing in countless realities, swimming through an endless ocean of potential, with every possible outcome achieved to what resembles an infinite number of outcomes—”

“We belong to one branch of reality,” Ash interrupted. “One minor branch in a great tree standing in an endless canopy in the multiverse forest—”

“We are not,” Master growled.

The controls awoke. Every glow-button and thousand-layer display had a theatrical purpose. Ash could just as easily manipulate the machinery through nexuses buried in his own body. But his clients normally appreciated this visible, traditional show of structured light and important sounds.

“We are not a lonely reality lost among endless possibility.” In Vozzen fashion, the hind legs slapped each other in disgust. “I am a historian and a scholar of some well-earned notoriety. My long, long life has been spent in the acquisition of the past, and its interpretation, and I refuse to believe that what I have studied—this great pageant of time and story—is nothing more than some obscure twig shaking on the end of an impossible-to-measure shrub.”

“I’m tempted to agree with you,” Ash replied.

“Tempted?”

“There are moments when I believe…” Ash paused, as if selecting his next words. “I see us as the one true reality. The universe is exactly as it seems to be. As it should be. And what I employ here is just a trick, a means of interacting with the ghost realities. With mathematical whispers and unborn potentials. In other words, we are the trunk of a great and ancient tree, and the dreamlike branches have no purpose but to feed our magnificent souls…!”

The alien regarded Ash with a new respect. The respect showed in the silence, and then, with the hands opening, delicate spiderweb fingers presenting themselves to what was, for at least this moment, their equal.

“Is that what you believe now?” Master asked.

“For the moment.” Ash laughed quietly. Two nexuses and one display showed the same information: The historian had enough capital to hire him and his machinery. “And I’ll keep believing it for a full day, if necessary.”

Then he turned, bowing just enough. “What exactly is it that you wish to remember, Master?”

The alien eyes lost their brightness.

“I am not entirely sure,” the voice confessed with a simple horror. “I have forgotten something very important…something essential, I fear…but I can’t even recall what that something might be…”

Hours had passed, but the projected sun hadn’t moved. The wind was unchanged, and the heat only seemed worse, as Ash stepped from the cool depths of his shop, his body momentarily forgetting to perspire. He had left his client alone, standing inside a cylindrical reader with a thousand flavors of sensors fixed to his carapace and floating free inside the ancient body and mind. Ash kept a close watch over the Vozzen. His nexuses showed him telemetry, and a mind’s eye let him watch the scene. If necessary, he could offer words of encouragement or warning. But for the moment, his client was obeying the strict instructions, standing as motionless as possible while the machines made intricate maps of his brain—a body-long array of superconducting proteins and light-baths and quantum artesians. The alien’s one slight cheat was his voice, kept soft as possible, but always busy, delivering an endless lecture about an arcane, mostly forgotten epoch.

The mapping phase was essential, and quite boring.

From a tiny slot in the pink granite wall, Ash plucked free a new cup of freshly brewed, deliciously bitter tea.

“A pleasant view,” a nearby voice declared.

“I like it.” Ash sipped his drink. As a rule, Aabacks appreciated liquid gifts, but he made no offer, strolling under the bristlecone, out of the wind and sun. “Do you know anything about the 31-3s?”

“I know very little,” Shadow confessed. The voice was his own, his larynx able to produce clear if somewhat slow human words.

“Their home is tidally locked and rather distant from its sun,” Ash explained. “Their atmosphere is rich in carbon dioxide, which my Martian lungs prefer.” He tapped his own chest. “Water vapor and carbon dioxide warm the day hemisphere, and the winds carry the excess heat and moisture to the cold nightside glaciers, which grow and push into the dawn, and melt, completing the cycle.” With an appreciative nod, he said, “The Ship’s engineers have done a magnificent job of replicating the 31-3 environment.”

Shadow’s eyes were large and bright, colored a bluish gray. The pink teeth were heavy and flat-headed, suitable for a diet of rough vegetation. Powerful jaw muscles ballooned outward when the mouth closed. A simple robe and rope belt were his only clothes. Four fingers and a thumb were on each hand, but nothing like a fingernail showed. Ash watched the hands, and then the bare, almost human feet. Reading the dirt, he felt certain that Shadow hadn’t moved since he had arrived. He was standing in the sun, in the wind, and like any scrupulously obedient servant, he seemed ready to remain on that patch of ground for another day, or twenty.

“The 31-3s don’t believe in time,” Ash continued.

A meaningful expression passed across the face. Curiosity? Disdain? Then with a brief glance toward Ash, he asked, “Is it the absence of days and nights?”

“Partly. But only partly.”

Shadow leaned forward slightly. On the bright road below, a pack of 31-3s was dancing along. Voices like brass chimes rose through the wind. Ash recognized his neighbors. He threw a little stone at them, to be polite. Then with a steady voice, he explained, “The endless day is a factor, sure. But they’ve always been a long-lived species. On their world, with its changeless climate and some extremely durable genetics, every species has a nearly immortal constitution. Where humans and Vozzens and Aabacks had to use modern bioengineering to conquer aging, the 31-3s evolved in a world where everything can live pretty much forever. That’s why time was never an important concept to them. And that’s why their native physics is so odd, and lovely—they formulated a vision of a universe that is almost, almost free of time.”

The alien listened carefully. Then he quietly admitted, “Master has explained some of the same things to me, I think.”

“You’re a good loyal audience,” Ash said.

“It is my hope to be.”

“What else do you do for Master?”

“I help with all that is routine,” Shadow explained. “In every capacity, I give him aid and free his mind for great undertakings.”

“But mostly, you listen to him.”

“Yes.”

“Vozzens are compulsive explainers.”

“Aabacks are natural listeners,” said Shadow, with a hint of pride.

“Do you remember what he tells you?”

“Very little.” For an instant, the face seemed human. An embarrassed smile and a shy blinking of the blue-gray eyes preceded the quiet admission, “I do not have a Vozzen’s mind. And Master is an exceptional example of his species.”

“You’re right,” said Ash. “On both accounts.”

The alien shifted his feet, and again stared down at the 31-3s.

“Come with me.”

“He wants me here,” Shadow replied. Nothing in the voice was defiant, or even a little stubborn. He intended to obey the last orders given to him, and with his gentle indifference, he warned that he couldn’t be swayed.

Sternly, Ash asked, “What does the Master want from this day?”

The question brought a contemplative silence.

“More than anything,” said Ash, “he wants to recover what’s most precious to him. And that is—”

“His memory.”

Again, Ash said, “Come with me.”

“For what good?”

“He talks to you. And yes, you’ve likely forgotten what he can’t remember.” Ash finished his tea in one long sip. “But likely and surely are two different words. So if you truly wish to help your friend, come with me. Come now.”

“I do not deserve solitude,” the Vozzen reported. “If you intend to abandon me, warn me. You must.”

“I will.”

Then, “Do you feel that?”

“Do I…what…?”

“Anything. Do you sense anything unusual?”

The alien was tethered to a new array of sensors, plus devices infinitely more intrusive. Here and in a hundred trillion alternate realities, Master stood in the same position, legs locked and arms folded against his belly, his voice slightly puzzled, admitting, “I seem to be remembering my cradle nest.”

“Is that unusual?”

“It is unlikely,” the Vozzen admitted. “I don’t often—”

“And now?”

“My first mate,” he began. “In the nest, overlooking a fungal garden—”

“What about now?”

He paused, and then admitted, “Your ship. I am seeing the Great Ship from space, our taxi making its final approach.” With a warm laugh, he offered, “It is a historian’s dream, riding in a vessel such as this—”

“And now?” Ash prompted.

Silence.

“Where are you—?”

“Inside a lecture hall,” Master replied.

“When?”

“Eleven months in the past. I am giving a public lecture.” He paused, and then explained, “I make a modest living, speaking to interested parties.”

“What do you remember about that day’s lecture?”

“Everything,” Master began to say. But the voice faltered, and with a doubting tone, he said, “A woman?”

“What woman?”

“A human woman.”

“What about her?” Ash pressed.

“She was attending…sitting in a seat to my right…? No, my left. How odd. I usually know where to place every face—”

“What was the topic?”

“Topic?”

“Of your lecture. The topic.”

“A general history of the Great Wheel of Smoke—”

“The Milky Way,” Ash interrupted.

“Your name for everyone’s galaxy, yes.” With a weblike hand, the alien reached in front of his own face. “I was sharing a very shallow overview of our shared history, naming the most important species of the last three billion years.” The hand closed on nothing, and retreated. “For many reasons, there have been few genuinely important species. They have been modestly abundant, and some rather wealthy. But I was making the point…the critical line of reasoning…that since the metal-rich worlds began spawning intelligence, no single species, or related cluster of sentient organisms, has been able to dominate more than a small puff of the Smoke.”

“Why is that?”

The simple question unleashed a flood of thoughts, recollections, and abstract ideas, filling the displays with wild flashes of color and elaborate, highly organized shapes.

“There are many reasons,” Master warned.

“Name three.”

“Why? Do you wish to learn?”

“I want to pass the time pleasantly,” said Ash, studying the data with a blank, almost impassive face. “Three reasons why no species can dominate. Give them to me, in brief.”

“Distance. Divergence. And divine wisdom.”

“The distance between stars…is that what you mean…?”

“Naturally,” the historian replied. “Star-flight remains slow and expensive and potentially dangerous. Many species find those reasons compelling enough to remain at home, safe and comfortable, reengineering the spacious confines of their own solar system.”

“Divergence?”

“A single species can evolve in many fashions. New organic forms. Joining with machines. Becoming machines. Sweeping cultural experiments. Even the total obliteration of physical bodies. No species can dominate any portion of space if what it becomes is many, many new and oftentimes competing species.”

Ash blinked slowly. “What about divine wisdom?”

“That is the single most important factor,” said Master. “Ruling the heavens is a child’s desire.”

“True enough.”

“The galaxy is not a world, or even a hundred thousand worlds. It is too vast and chaotic to embrace, and with maturity comes the wisdom to accept that simple impossibility.”

“What about the woman?”

“Which woman?” Master was surprised by his own question, as if another voice had asked it. “That human female. Yes. Frankly, I don’t think she’s important in the smallest way. I don’t even know why I am thinking about her.”

“Because I’m forcing you to think about her.”

“Why? Does she interest you?”

“Not particularly.” Ash looked up abruptly, staring at the oval black eyes. “She asked you a question. Didn’t she?”

“I remember. Yes.”

“What question?”

“She asked about human beings, of course.” With a gentle disdain, the historian warned, “You are a young species. And yes, you have been fortunate. Your brief story is fat with luck as well as fortuitous decisions. The Great Ship, as an example. Large and ancient, and empty, and you happened to be the species that found it and took possession. And now you are interacting with a wealth of older, wiser species, gaining knowledge at a rate rarely if ever experienced in the last three billion years—”

“What did she ask you?”

“Pardon me. Did you just ask a question?”

“Exactly. What did this woman say?”

“I think…I know…she asked, ‘Will humanity be the first species to dominate the Milky Way?’ ”

“What was the woman’s name?”

A pause.

Ash feathered a hundred separate controls.

“She did not offer any name,” the historian reported.

“What did she look like?”

Again, with a puzzled air, the great mind had to admit, “I didn’t notice her appearance, or I am losing my mind.”

Ash waited for a moment. “What was your reply?”

“I told her, and the rest of my audience, ‘Milk is a child’s food. If humans had named the galaxy after smoke, they wouldn’t bother with this nonsense of trying to consume the Milky Way.’ ”

For a long while, Ash said nothing.

Then, quietly, the historian inquired, “Where is my assistant? Where is Shadow?”

“Waiting where you told him to wait,” Ash lied. And in the next breath, “Let’s talk about Shadow for a moment. Shall we?”

“What do you remember…now…?”

“A crunch cake, and sweet water.” Shadow and Ash were standing in a separate, smaller chamber. Opening his mouth, he tasted the cake again. “Then a pudding of succulents and bark from the Gi-Ti tree—”

“Now?”

“Another crunch cake. In a small restaurant beside the Alpha Sea.”

With a mild amusement, Ash reported, “This is what you remember best. Meals. I can see your dinners stacked up for fifty thousand years.”

“I enjoy eating,” the alien replied.

“A good Aaback attitude.”

Silence.

And then the alien turned, soft cords dragged along the floor. Perhaps he had felt something—a touch, a sudden chill—or maybe the expression on his face was born from his own thoughts. Either way, he suddenly asked, “How did you learn this work, Ash?”

“I was taught,” he offered. “And when I was better than my teachers, I learned on my own. Through experiment and hard practice.”

“Master claims you are very good, if not the best.”

“I’ll thank him for that assessment. But he is right: No one is better at this game than me.”

The alien seemed to consider his next words. Then, “He mentioned that you are from a little world. Mars, was it? I remember something…something that happened in your youth. The Night of the Dust, was it?”

“Many things happened back then.”

“Was it a war?” Shadow pressed. “Master often lectures about human history, and you seem to have a fondness for war.”

“I’m glad he finds us interesting.”

“Your species fascinates him.” Shadow tried to move and discovered that he couldn’t. Save for his twin hearts and mouth, every muscle of his body was fused in place. “I don’t quite understand why he feels this interest—”

“You attend his lectures, don’t you?”

“Always.”

“He makes most of his income from public talks.”

“Many souls are interested in his words.”

“Do you recall a lecture from last year?” Ash gave details, and he appeared disappointed when Shadow said:

“I don’t remember, no.” An Aaback laugh ended with the thought, “There must not have been any food in that lecture hall.”

“Let’s try something new,” said Ash. “Think back, back as far as possible. Tell me about the very first meal you remember.”

A long, long pause ended with, “A little crunch cake. I was a child, and it was my first adult meal.”

“I used to be an interrogator,” Ash said abruptly.

The eyes were gray and watchful.

“During that old war, I interrogated people, and on certain days, I tortured them.” He nodded calmly, adding, “Memory is a real thing, Shadow. It’s a dense little nest made, like everything, from electrons—where the electrons are and where they are not—and you would be appalled, just appalled, by all the ways that something real can be hacked out of the surrounding bullshit.”

“Quee Lee.”

“Pardon?”

“The human woman. Her name was, and is, Quee Lee.” Ash began disconnecting his devices, leaving only the minimal few to keep shepherding the Vozzen’s mind. “It was easy enough to learn her name. A lecture attended by humans, and when I found one woman, she told me about another. Who mentioned another friend who might have gone to listen to you. But while that friend hadn’t heard of you, she mentioned an acquaintance of hers who had a fondness for the past, and her name is Quee Lee. She happened to be there, and she asked the question.”

Relief filled Master, and with a thrilled voice, he said, “I remember her now, yes. Yes. She asked about human dominance in the galaxy—”

“Not quite, no.”

Suspicion flowered, and curiosity followed. “She didn’t ask that about human dominance?”

“It was her second question, and strictly speaking, it wasn’t hers.” Ash smiled and nodded, explaining, “The woman sitting next to her asked it. Quee Lee simply repeated the question, since she had won your attention.”

A brief pause ended with the wary question:

“What then did the woman ask me?”

Ash stared at the remaining displays, and with a quiet firm voice said, “I’ve spoken with Quee Lee. At length. She remembers asking you, ‘What was the earliest sentient life to arise in the galaxy?’ ”

The simple question generated a sophisticated response. An ocean of learning was tapped, and from that enormity a single turquoise thread was pulled free, and offered. Five candidates were named in a rush. Then the historian rapidly and thoroughly described each species, their home worlds, and eventual fates.

“None survived into the modern age,” he said sadly. “Except as rumor and unsubstantiated sightings, the earliest generation of intelligence has died away.”

Ash nodded, and waited.

“How could I forget such a very small thing?”

“Because it is so small,” Ash replied. “The honest, sad truth is that your age is showing. I’m an old man for my species, but that’s nothing compared to you. The Vozzen journeyed out among the stars during my Permian. You have an enormous and dense and extraordinarily quick mind. But it is a mind. No matter how vast and how adept, it suffers from what is called bounded rationality. You don’t know everything, no matter how much you wish otherwise. You’re living in an enriched environment, full of opportunities to learn. And as long as you wish to understand new wonders, you’re going to have to allow, on occasion, little pieces of your past to fade away.”

“But why did such a trivial matter bother me so?” asked Master.

And then in the next instant, he answered his own question. “Because it was trivial, and lost. Is that why? I’m not accustomed to forgetting. The sensation is novel…it preyed upon my equilibrium…and wore a wound in my mind…!”

“Exactly, exactly,” lied Ash. “Exactly, and exactly.”

After giving him fair warning, Ash left the historian. “The final probes still need to disengage themselves,” he explained. Then with a careful tone, he asked, “Should I bring your assistant to you? Would you like to see him now?”

“Please.”

“Very well.” Ash pretended to step outside, turning in the darkened hallway, centuries of practice telling him where to step. Then he was inside the secondary chamber, using a deceptively casual voice, mentioning to Shadow, “By the way, I think I know what you are.”

“What I am?”

With a sudden fierceness, Ash asked, “Did you really believe you could fool me?”

The alien said nothing, and by every physical means, he acted puzzled but unworried.

Ash knew better.

“Your body is mostly Aaback, but there’s something else. If I hadn’t suspected it, I wouldn’t have found it. But what seems to be your brain is an elaborate camouflage for a quiet, nearly invisible neural network.”

The alien reached with both hands, yanking one of the cables free from his forehead. Then a long tongue reached high, wiping the gray blood from the wound. A halfway choked voice asked, “What did you see inside me?”

“Dinners,” Ash reported. “Dinners reaching back for billions of years.”

Silence.

“Do you belong to one of the first five species?”

The alien kept yanking cables free, but he was powerless to void the drifters inside his double-mind.

“No,” said Ash, “I don’t think you’re any of those five.” With a sly smile, he reported, “I can tell. You’re even older than that, aren’t you?”

The tongue retreated into the mouth. A clear, sorry voice reported, “I am not sure, no.”

“And that’s why,” said Ash.

“Why?”

“The woman asked that question about the old species, and you picked that moment because of it.” He laughed, nodded. “What did you use? How did you cut a few minutes out of a Vozzen’s perfect memory…?”

“With a small disruptive device—”

“I want to see it.”

“No.”

Ash kept laughing. “Oh, yes. You are going to show it to me!”

Silence.

“Master doesn’t even suspect,” Ash continued. “You were the one who wanted to visit me. You simply gave the Vozzen a good excuse. You heard about me somewhere, and you decided that you wanted me to peer inside his soul, and yours. You were hoping that I would piece together the clues and tell you what I was seeing in your mind—”

“What do you see?” Shadow blurted.

“Basically, two things.” With a thought, he caused every link with Shadow to be severed, and with a professional poise, he explained, “Your soul might be ten or twelve years old. I don’t know how that could be, but I can imagine: In the earliest days of the universe, when the stars were young and metal-poor, life found some other way to evolve. A completely separate route. Structured plasmas, maybe. Maybe. Whatever the route, your ancestors evolved and spread, and then died away as the universe grew cold and empty. Or they adapted, on occasion. They used organic bodies as hosts, maybe.”

“I am the only survivor,” Shadow muttered. “Whatever the reason, I cannot remember anyone else like me.”

“You are genuinely ancient,” Ash said, “and I think you’re smarter than you pretend to be. But this ghost mind of yours isn’t that sophisticated. Vozzens are smarter, and most humans, too. But when I was watching you thinking, looking at something simple—when I saw dinners reaching back for a billion years—well, that kind of vista begs for an explanation.”

Ash took a deep breath, and then said, “Your memory has help. Quantum help. And this isn’t on any scale that I’ve ever seen, or imagined possible. I can pull in the collective conscience of a few trillion Masters from the adjacent realities…but with you, I can’t even pick a number that looks sane…”

The alien showed his pink teeth, saying nothing.

“Are you pleased?” Ash asked.

“Pleased by what?”

“You are probably the most common entity in Creation,” saidAsh. “I have never seen such a signal as yours. This clear. This deep, and dramatic. You exist, in one form or another, in a fat, astonishing portion of all the possible realities.”

Shadow said, “Yes.”

“Yes what?”

“Yes,” he said with the tiniest nod, “I am pleased.”

Always, the sun held its position in the fictional sky. And always, the same wind blew with calm relentlessness. In such a world, it was easy to believe that there was no such monster as time, and the day would never end, and a man with old and exceptionally sad memories could convince himself, on occasion, that there would never be another night.

Ash was last to leave the shop.

“Again,” the historian called out, “thank you for your considerable help.”

“Thank you for your generous gift.” Ash found another cup of tea waiting for him, and he sipped down a full mouthful, watching as Shadow untethered the floating pack. “Where next?”

“I have more lectures to give,” Master replied.

“Good.”

“And I will interview the newest passengers onboard the Ship.”

“As research?”

“And as a pleasure, yes.”

Shadow was placing a tiny object beside one of the bristlecone’s roots. “If you don’t give that disruptor to me,” Ash had threatened, “I’ll explain a few deep secrets to the Vozzen.”

Of course, Shadow had relented.

Ash sipped his tea, and quietly said, “Master. What can you tell me about the future?”

“About what is to come—?” the alien began.

“I never met a historian who didn’t have opinions on that subject,” Ash professed. “My species, for instance. What will happen to us in the next ten or twenty million years?”

Master launched himself into an abbreviated but dense lecture, explaining to his tiny audience what was possible about predicting the future and what was unknowable, and how every bridge between the two was an illusion.

His audience wasn’t listening.

In a whisper, Ash said to Shadow, “But why live this way? With him, in this kind of role?”

In an Aaback fashion, the creature grinned. Then Shadow peered over the edge of the canyon, and speaking to no one in particular, he explained, “He needs me so much. This is why.”

“As a servant?”

“And as a friend, and a confidant.” With a very human shrug, he asked Ash, “How could anyone survive even a single day, if they didn’t feel as if they were, in some little great way, needed?”