They had finished their work on Thistledown. Now they moved through their hidden conduits to points between worlds. Lanier’s sense of time had flown; not inappropriately, since he was supposed to be dead. But he still thought, still remembered, his mind somehow operating in a new matrix established and maintained by Pavel Mirsky.
Am I dead now? he asked Mirsky.
Yes. Of course.
There’s no oblivion.
Would you rather have oblivion? It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
No…
Our time here is done. We have choices to make…Choices on how to go home.
Lanier felt like laughing. He conveyed this to Mirsky.
Marvelous, no? Such freedom. We can return as Ry Oyu will return, or take another route…much longer, more arduous.
And he outlined for Lanier where that route would take them, and how long.
Floating in the soothing, undemanding between, Lanier absorbed the information, already feeling separated from the reality that had been his life. Either route seemed acceptable…But the second way was extraordinary. Only rarely had he even imagined such a thing. Complete freedom, a journey beyond all journeys…and, as Mirsky pointed out, a journey with a definite purpose.
The Final Mind needs many observers along the way, many progress reports. We can provide one continuous report, from the beginning, to the end.
We won’t start here? Lanier asked.
No. We go back to the beginning. We are only observers, after all, and not actors, now that our labor is done. The information we gather can have no effect on the times we’ll gather it from.
Lanier’s thoughts became crystalline again, and he felt another sharp wave of an emotion mixing sense of duty, love and nostalgia. I haven’t cut my roots to the present yet.
Mirsky admitted that he had not, either; not completely.
Shall we say our farewells? Briefly, unobtrusively. To those we love.
For the last time? Lanier asked.
For a very long time to come…but not necessarily for the last.
Now you’re being obscure.
That’s our privilege, with such freedom! Where will you go to say farewells?
I have to find Karen.
And I will find Garabedian. Shall we meet again in, say, a few seconds, and begin?
Lanier found he could still laugh, and the feeling of lightness in him was held down only by that same weight of duty and nostalgia.
All right. A few seconds. However long it takes.
They sped along the conduits reserved for the subtle messages of subatomic particles, space-time’s hidden circuitry.
Karen walked with three terrestrial senators through the freshly painted streets of the Melbourne camp. “They call these camps. I call them palaces,” the senator from South Australia said. “Our people will still be envious…”
That debate had been going on all morning, and she was tiring of it rapidly. The day was going to be unbearably long; more meetings, more pointless bickering, more awareness that never, in all of human history, would they be free of their monkey heritage.
Karen stopped and felt her knees tremble. Something welled up within her, a tide of love and anguish and joy; joy at having spent so many years with her husband, working together, doing as much as two humans could.
Absolution. We are not perfect; it is enough that we did what we could.
“Garry,” she said. She could feel his presence, almost inhale him. Her eyes filled with tears. Part of her said, Not now. Don’t lose it now in front of these people. But the sensation continued and she held up her arms as if to a distant sun.
The South Australia senator turned and regarded her quizzically.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“I feel him. It’s really him, it’s not just me.” She closed her eyes tightly, brought her arms down and held them rigid at her sides. “I feel him.”
“She lost her husband recently,” the senator from the south island of New Zealand explained to the others. “She’s been under tremendous strain.”
Karen didn’t hear them. She listened instead to a familiar voice.
We are always a team.
“I love you,” she whispered. Don’t go away. Where are you? Is it really you? She raised her arms again, grasping at the air, eyes still closed, and felt for the merest moment the touch of his fingers on her own.
There are many more surprises, she heard him say, and then the touch was gone, and he seemed to recede across a vast distance.
She opened her eyes and stared at the puzzled faces around her. “My husband,” she said, trembling uncontrollably. “Garry.”
They led her to a small greenspace between buildings. “I’m all right,” she said. “Just let me sit.” For a moment, surrounded by young trees and well-manicured lawn, Hexamon architecture a few dozen yards away, she thought she might be on Thistledown again, in the second chamber city, before meeting and working with Garry; that it was all just beginning…
She shuddered and took a deep breath. Her head was clearing now. The contact had been strong and undeniably external; she was not hallucinating, though she doubted she would ever be able to convince others. “I’ll be fine. Truly. I’m all right now.”