"Gillies, Viktor."

"-intelligent gillies for servants. I didn't know you could make just about anything you could imagine."

She considered that for a moment. "Oh, not anything," she decided. "Some things are physically impossible-or, anyway, I could make them, but they wouldn't survive. But this is the most interesting part of my work, Viktor. It's why anyone bothers to go to Newmanhome, really. There's a whole biota in those freezers on Newmanhome, you know. We don't know half of what's there. Even when there's a label we can't always be sure of what's inside, because they got pretty sloppy about keeping records for a while. So when I have a chance I match up sperm and ova-when I can-or find some related genetic material that I can tinker into being cross-fertile. Like this."

"Do you sell them, like a pet store?"

"I don't know what a pet store is, and I certainly don't 'sell' them, any more than I sell the babies. If someone wants them I get credit for my time." She sighed. "It doesn't always work. Sometimes I can't find a match or even make one; a lot of the specimens are spoiled, and it's terribly hard to reconst.i.tute them. And then, even when we do get an interesting neonate, we can't always feed them. Especially the invertebrates; some of them are really specialized in diet, they just won't eat what we try to give them. So they die." She grinned. "Babies are a lot easier."

That was probably true, Viktor reflected, since the real human fetuses never appeared in Nrina's laboratory as born babies. Gestation and birthing weren't her problems. What she produced was a neat little plastic box, thermally opaque so it didn't need either warming or cooling for forty-eight hours or so, containing a fertilized ovum and enough nutrient fluid to keep it alive until the proud parents could put it in their own incubator. "Don't you ever want to see the real babies?" Viktor asked her curiously.

"What for?" Nrina asked, surprised at the question. "Babies are very messy creatures, Viktor. Oh, I like to hear how they turn out and I'm always glad to get pictures of them-every artist wants to see how his work turns out. But the only ones I ever wanted to be around for more than a day were my own." Then she was surprised again at the expression on his face. "Didn't you know? I've had two children. One of them was just a favor to her father, so I didn't keep her very long. He wanted something to remember me by, you see. Her name's Oclane and, let's see, she must be fourteen or fifteen by now. She's on Moon Joseph, but she comes to visit me sometimes. She's a pretty little girl. Very bright, of course. I think she looks a lot like me."

"I didn't know," Viktor said, hastily revising his internal image of Nrina. He had thought of her as many things, but never as a mother-not even as one of those mothers of the present new-fangled variety, who picked out specifications for their offspring and never went through the uncouth bother of pregnancy. Then he remembered her words. "You said you had two children. What about the other one?"

She laughed. "But you know him very well, Viktor. Who did you think Dekkaduk was?"

The next time Viktor saw Dekkaduk he looked at the man with new interest. Dekkaduk did, Viktor decided, more or less resemble Nrina-but then, all these people resembled each other to his eyes, in the same way that all Westerners looked alike to most Chinese. What Dekkaduk didn't look like at all was anyone young enough to be a child of Nrina's.

There was an answer to that, too: Viktor realized he had no idea at all of Nrina's age. She could have been a youthful, good-looking forty-Newmanhome years, of course. She could equally well have been a very well preserved hundred or more. None of these people ever looked old. old.

In bed she was definitely ageless.

Viktor took much pleasure in that part of their intimacy. Still, there were times when he felt a kind of submerged resentment that his main reason for living was to provide a little s.e.xual excitement for a woman he hardly knew. There were even times when he remembered that he had once had a wife. Then, sometimes, a gloom descended over him that was like the suffocating withdrawal of all air, like all the light in the world going out at once.

But there were other times that were not gloomy at all. Nrina was a splendid aspirin for all those pa.s.sing aches of the soul.

Apart from all her other virtues, Nrina was deeply fascinated with Viktor's body. It wasn't just s.e.x she wanted from him. She wanted to prod and squeeze and feel his archaic flesh, though of course she often wanted s.e.x, too. She could be happy for half an hour at a time as they lay naked together, experiencing the flexing of his muscles. Not just his biceps, but his forearm, his thigh, his neck, all the muscles he could flex at all, while she held her hand on them to feel them swell. "And they're natural, natural, Viktor, truly?" Viktor, truly?"

Grunting. "Of course they're natural. Only please, Nrina, don't squeeze so hard on my sore leg."

"Oh, of course." And then a moment later, "And this hair here? Did everyone have it in your time?" But Viktor had always been ticklish in the armpits, and of course that ticklishness led to tickling back, which led to other things. Or she would minutely inspect the brownish spots on the back of his hand, touching them gently in case they were painful. "What are they, Viktor?" she asked, stretching behind her to reach for something he could not see.

"We call them freckles," he grinned. "Although-well, maybe those are a little more than just freckles. People get them when they get older. They're what we call 'age spots' then. They're perfectly natural-hey! Ouch!" But she had been too quick for him, jabbing the back of his hand with the sharp little metal probe she had pulled from nowhere.

"Don't make such a fuss," she ordered, carefully putting her cell sample away. "Here, let me kiss it."

And then, after a little study in her laboratory, she told him they were simply degenerated collagen. "I could clear those spots up for you if you wanted me to, Viktor," she offered.

He reached out to touch her body, not naked this time, but with only the flimsy gauze and the cache-s.e.x to modify it. She turned comfortably beside him, taking her ease on a fluff of airy pillows beside him. Her skin was quite flawless. "Do they offend you?" he asked.

"Of course not! Your body does not offend me!"

"Then why don't we just leave them alone?" And wryly Viktor reflected that this was a strange relations.h.i.+p, in which she was almost entirely absorbed in his body, while he was desperate for everything that was in her mind.

Her body she let him have almost any time he chose-usually she chose first, in fact. Her mind was another matter. Viktor didn't feel that Nrina closed him out, or went out of her way to keep information from him. It was simply that so many of the things he wanted to know bored her. "Yes, yes, Viktor," she would sigh, while he was thumping excitedly on the desk screen. "I see what you are showing me. There used to be more stars."

"Many more!" he would answer, scowling at the impoverished sky below him. But she would yawn, and perhaps put her hand in a place that made him pay attention to other things again. What was thrillingly, even frighteningly, strange to Viktor was only the natural order of things to Nrina. It was as if someone from Tahiti had seen snow for the first time: The Eskimos wouldn't have understood his feelings.

When Nrina came back from her lab and found Viktor absorbed over the desk she was tolerant about it, usually. She stripped off her robe and sat beside him. He could certainly feel bare body touching bare body, but it did not keep him from concentrating on the desk instead of the touch of flesh. "It's nice that you have an interest," Nrina observed philosophically.

He tried again. "Nrina, I'm certain that some very strange things have happened. Don't you want to know about them? Don't you even wonder?" wonder?"

"It's not my line of work, Viktor," she said, looking slightly ruffled.

He said in bafflement, "The universe has died around us. We've been kidnapped. Time stopped for us-"

She was yawning. "Yes, I know. The other savages-sorry, Viktor. The other people from the freezer talk about that sometimes, too. They call it 'G.o.d the Transporter' or some such thing. A silly superst.i.tion! As if there were some supernatural being who moved stars around just for fun!"

"Then what is the explanation?"

"It doesn't need need an explanation. It just an explanation. It just is." is." She shrugged. "It just isn't a very interesting subject, Viktor. No one really cares except- Oh, wait a minute," she said, suddenly sitting up and looking pleased. "I almost forgot Frit!" She shrugged. "It just isn't a very interesting subject, Viktor. No one really cares except- Oh, wait a minute," she said, suddenly sitting up and looking pleased. "I almost forgot Frit!"

Viktor blinked up at her. "What's a frit?" he asked.

"Frit isn't a what, he's a who. Frit and Forta. I designed their son for them. They're old friends of mine. Matter of fact, it's Balit-that's their boy-who I made that kitten for; he'll be twenty soon, and it's time for his coming-of-age presents." She thought for a moment, then nodded. "Yes, I'm sure Frit knows all about that sort of thing. He'd be interested in you, probably. And he and Forta have been together nearly thirty years now, and we still keep in touch."

Viktor sat up straight. He had the tingling, electrical feeling that all at once, without his having antic.i.p.ated it at all, a goal for his life had been given to him. "How can I reach this Frit?" he demanded.

She looked doubtful. "Well, he's very busy, but I suppose you could call him up," she said, then suddenly brightened. "I know!" she cried. "Why don't we go to Balit's party?"

"Balit's party?"

"Balit's Frit's son. They live on Moon Mary. No, wait a minute," she corrected herself. "They do live on Mary, but I think they told me they're having the party on Frit's family's habitat." She nodded to herself as the details of her inspiration were coming clear to her. "Dekkaduk can handle things here for a couple of days. It would be a nice trip for you, and I ought to take Pelly's gillies there anyway-that's where his s.h.i.+p is. And I'm sure they'd be glad to have us, and then you can talk to Frit all you want." She gave Viktor's thigh a decisive pat, pleased with her idea. "We'll do it! And don't ask me any more questions now, Viktor. Just believe me, it'll be fun!"

CHAPTER 23.

.Reminiscing is a recreation for the elderly. It is what people do when they have outlived all their other occupations-people like Wan-To.

Elderly human beings at least have bodily functions to use up some hours. They have to eat, use the toilet, maybe even hoist themselves into their wheelchairs and complain to those around them. Wan-To didn't have even those ways of pa.s.sing the time. Wan-To didn't just have very little else to do, he had nothing nothing else to do. In the exhausted, depleted, moribund universe that Wan-To lived in he not only didn't need to do anything to keep on living, he had nothing much in the way of limbs, powers, or effectors to do anything with. His mind still worked-quite clearly, in fact, though at a depressingly slow speed. But everything stayed within his mind. He didn't have any useful appendages anymore to convert any of his mind's impulses into action. else to do. In the exhausted, depleted, moribund universe that Wan-To lived in he not only didn't need to do anything to keep on living, he had nothing much in the way of limbs, powers, or effectors to do anything with. His mind still worked-quite clearly, in fact, though at a depressingly slow speed. But everything stayed within his mind. He didn't have any useful appendages anymore to convert any of his mind's impulses into action.

All that being so, Wan-To was lucky he had so much to reminisce about.

He certainly did have a lot of memories. If there had been a contest to see which single being, among all the universe's inhabitants in all the endless eons of its existence, had the most in the way of stored-up memories to take out and chew over, Wan-To would have been the incontestable winner. If your mind remains clear, and Wan-To's had, you can remember a lot out of a lifetime of ten-to-the-fortieth years.

Ten to the fortieth power years . . . and maybe much more still to come. That was one of the things Wan-To had to think about, for there still was at least one decision he sooner or later would have to make.

That was going to be a very hard decision. Because it was so very hard he preferred not to think about it. (There was, after all, positively no hurry at all.) What Wan-To liked to think about-the only thing that could be described as a pleasure that he still had left-was the days when he had had all the power any being could ever have desired.

Ah, those long-gone days! Days when he carelessly deployed the energies of stars on the whim of a moment-without a care for the future, without penalty for his spendthrift ways! When he cruised at will from star to star, from galaxy to galaxy (wistfully he remembered how wonderful it was to enter a virgin galaxy, bright with billions upon billions of unoccupied stars, and all his!) When he lived off copies of himself for companions.h.i.+p and battled joyfully against them for survival when they turned against him! (Even the frights and worries of those days were tenderly recalled now.) Wan-To remembered lolling on the surface of a star, taking his ease in the cool luxury of its six or seven thousand degrees (and he'd thought that cool!) cool!) . . . and swimming through the star's unimaginably dense core . . . and frolicking in the corona, temperature now up to a couple million degrees, soaked with X rays, das.h.i.+ng out as far as ten million miles from the star's surface to the corona's fringe and then happily plunging back. . . . and swimming through the star's unimaginably dense core . . . and frolicking in the corona, temperature now up to a couple million degrees, soaked with X rays, das.h.i.+ng out as far as ten million miles from the star's surface to the corona's fringe and then happily plunging back.

He remembered the fun (and challenges-oh, he relished remembering the challenges!) when he had created those little copies of himself, Haigh-tik and Mromm and poor, silly Wan-Wan-Wan-and Kind and Happy and all the others he had made; he even remembered, though not very well, the terribly stupid matter-copies he had made, like Five. (He didn't actually remember Five as an individual, to be sure. Five had not been important to him-just then.) What he remembered was living. living. And though it gave him a sort of melancholy joy to remember, the knowledge that he would never have such times again made him almost despair. And though it gave him a sort of melancholy joy to remember, the knowledge that he would never have such times again made him almost despair.

It was only when he was close to despair that he could force himself to think about that other thing, the one about which he would sooner or later have to make a decision. It concerned the only things in the universe that had ever really frightened Wan-To-because there was so much about them that even he had never been able to understand: Black holes.

There lay the choice that ultimately Wan-To would have to make. Not right away, to be sure-nothing ever had to be "right away" in this dreary eternity-but sooner or later, for the sake of survival. ever had to be "right away" in this dreary eternity-but sooner or later, for the sake of survival.

A black hole might very well give him his best chance for really long-term survival.

Wan-To wasn't sure he quite wanted to survive on those terms. He did not care for black holes. The locked-in singularities where a star once had been-and then collapsed upon itself and pulled s.p.a.ce in around it-were about the only sorts of objects in the universe Wan-To had never investigated in person. He hoped he would never have to. They were scary. scary.

The frightening thing about black holes was that inside them the laws of the universe-the laws that Wan-To understood so well-did not apply, because black holes were no longer really parts of the universe. They had seceded from it.

It was easy enough to get inside a black hole-in fact, the problem sometimes was to avoid falling into one. Once or twice Wan-To had to exert himself to steer away from one's neighborhood. But getting in was a purely one-way trip. Once inside, you couldn't get out again. Even light was stuck there.

That wasn't because the immense gravitational field of the black hole pulled light back down to its surface, as, say, the gravity of a planet like the Earth pulls a thrown ball back down. Wan-To knew better than that. Wan-To was quite aware that light can't can't slow down; that's why slow down; that's why c c is invariant. The reason even light couldn't escape was simply because the gravity of the black hole wrapped s.p.a.ce around it-bent it-so that the light orbited around it eternally, within the Schwarzschild radius of the black hole, as planets...o...b..t around a sun. is invariant. The reason even light couldn't escape was simply because the gravity of the black hole wrapped s.p.a.ce around it-bent it-so that the light orbited around it eternally, within the Schwarzschild radius of the black hole, as planets...o...b..t around a sun.

But the exact mechanism that caught and held anything that wandered by in those cosmic traps wasn't really what mattered to Wan-To. What mattered was that once you were inside, you couldn't get out again ever ever-not light, not matter. Not even Wan-To himself. light, not matter. Not even Wan-To himself.

The things were terrifying. terrifying.

Nevertheless, they had their virtues, Wan-To told himself. One of those virtues was that a good-sized black hole, say even one of as little as three or four solar ma.s.ses, would continue its existence for a long long time. time.

That was not just a very long time, like Wan-To's present age of ten-to-the-fortieth years. It was a long long long time: ten-to-the-sixty-sixth years, anyway. time: ten-to-the-sixty-sixth years, anyway.

Those are numbers that few human beings can ever grasp. Even Wan-To had trouble working with them. Ordinary arithmetic isn't meant for such numbers. But what they mean was that if Wan-To were to take the plunge so that he could live as long as one of those fair-sized black holes- Which is to say, for 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years- And if you subtracted from that his present lifetime (which was to say, the present age of the universe, because by now they were pretty much the same number)- Which amounted to 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years- If, then, he succeeded in living as long as that black hole continued to radiate energy, he had still to look forward to- Another 999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,990,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years of existence. If such numbers meant anything at all, even to Wan-To.

And if, of course, you could call that "existence."

Because that radiated "energy" from the black hole wasn't really very energetic at all. Such a black hole didn't begin to radiate in the first place until the mean temperature of the universe-what was called the "background radiation" when human beings first discovered it in their silly little microwave dishes, back in the twentieth century-had dropped to the very low value of one ten-millionth of one degree above absolute zero. It was only at that temperature that the black hole would begin to radiate.

That was very feeble warmth indeed.

Wan-To knew dismally that he could manage to survive, more or less, even with that sort of input-but he did not like the idea at all.

The only thing was that he didn't see any better alternative . . .

Until he became aware that the tiny tick his few remaining sensors had registered some time earlier was, strangely enough, a sudden and wholly unidentified flux of tachyons.

CHAPTER 24.

Nrina was flushed and excited as they boarded the bus. "It's going to be a nice party," she was saying. She seemed younger than Viktor had ever seen her, happily making sure her packages were stored and that Viktor got a window seat. "Have you got the cat? Please, don't let go of it. We'll have a couple of velocity changes, and we don't want it flying around and hitting some other pa.s.senger in the face. You don't get s.p.a.cesick, do you?"

Viktor Sorricaine, who was fairly sure he was the oldest living s.p.a.ce pilot in the known universe, didn't dignify that with an answer. "How far are we going?" he asked as he settled himself into the soft webbing of the seat, carefully adjusting the belt so that it didn't squeeze the restless little kitten on his lap. The dark-haired man across the aisle was staring at the little animal.

"Not far. Frit's family lives on a fabrication habitat; they make things. It's two or three levels down, but it's less than a quarter-orbit away. It'll take about two hours to get there."

Two hours! A s.p.a.ceflight of only two hours? But he had picked up on something else she had said. "Is it a family party? I'm not family," he objected.

She looked at him in surprise. "That doesn't matter. I am. Sort of, anyway. They'll certainly be glad to have you; there are always guests at this kind of party-" She stopped to nod to a young-looking woman who was strolling languidly through the bus, glancing to see that everyone was strapped in. "That's the driver," Nrina informed him as the woman pa.s.sed. "We'll be leaving in a moment now." The driver seated herself in the front of the bus, before a broad screen. Casually she pulled a board of pale lights and twinkling colors down into her lap, glancing over it for a moment. Then she touched the control that closed the entrance hatch behind them, and Nrina said, "Here we go, Viktor. Don't let go of the cat."

Then they were in s.p.a.ce. In s.p.a.ce! s.p.a.ce!

Viktor was thrilled by the feel of the bus launching itself free of the habitat. It wasn't violent. The launch was no more than a gentle thrust against the back of the webbing, a quarter-gravity at most. Viktor found himself grinning in pleasure, though he felt Nrina, beside him, s.h.i.+fting uncomfortably in her seat. Absently, Viktor patted her knee with his free hand. (Under his other hand, the kitten didn't seem to mind the acceleration at all. It was actually purring.) Considered as a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p, the bus was-a bus. Even the old Newmanhome lander shuttles had been twice its size, but then they necessarily had to be; they had to carry the fuel and rockets capable of fighting a planet's gravity. The bus had no such needs. All it needed were air and room for its dozen or so pa.s.sengers, and engines enough to push it along through inter-orbital s.p.a.ce.

Just outside Viktor's window, it seemed, was the smoldering, b.l.o.o.d.y face of the brown dwarf, Nergal. The planet was less than a hundred thousand miles below them, almost hurting his eyes until Nrina indulgently leaned over him and darkened the polarization. Nergal-light wasn't like bright suns.h.i.+ne, it looked hot hot-though only visible light came through the polarization, with the infrared frequencies screened out.

The word for it was "baleful."

As the s.h.i.+p rotated Nergal slid away, and Viktor got a look at the habitat they had just left: A length of sewer pipe, half a mile long, spinning in stately slow motion, with odds and ends of junk hanging from it. Some of the appendages were the great mirrors that caught Nergal's hot radiation and funneled it into the magnetohydrodynamic generators that gave them the power they needed to run the habitat. Some were probably communications gear; more were things Viktor could not even guess at.

Then that was gone, too, and Viktor turned to find Nrina looking at him with interest. "You're excited, aren't you?" she asked, placing her hand over his.

"I guess I am," he admitted. "Oh, Nrina, it's so good to be in s.p.a.ce again! That's what I dreamed about when I was a boy- Look, there's another s.h.i.+p!" he cried as something the size of a family car slid rapidly past, only a mile or two away.

Nrina glanced briefly at the thing. "It's just a cargo drone, probably n.o.body on it." Then, rea.s.suringly, she said, "This is quite safe, you know, Viktor."

But it wasn't safety that was on his mind, it was the glandular excitement of being in s.p.a.ce. in s.p.a.ce. Viktor stared longingly at the nearly empty black sky. Viktor stared longingly at the nearly empty black sky.

It was so terribly black. black. So very little was left of the familiar sky. Without Nergal or the distant sun, there was nothing to see but an occasional glint-a distant habitat, perhaps, or another s.h.i.+p-and one or two more distant things: the surviving stars. So very little was left of the familiar sky. Without Nergal or the distant sun, there was nothing to see but an occasional glint-a distant habitat, perhaps, or another s.h.i.+p-and one or two more distant things: the surviving stars.

That was it.

The familiar spread of constellations that had always been there-always-simply did not exist anymore.

Viktor s.h.i.+vered. He had never felt so alone.

Chatter beside him reminded him that he wasn't alone at all. Nrina had taken the kitten from him and was feeding it with a little object like a baby bottle, while half a dozen other pa.s.sengers were cl.u.s.tered around in admiration, braced awkwardly against the mild thrust of the s.h.i.+p. "Yes, it is called a 'cat,' " Nrina was explaining. "No, they've been extinct for ages. Yes, it's the only one of its kind now-I just finished it-but if it lives I think I'll make a mate for it. No, they aren't wild animals. People used to have them in their houses all the time. Didn't they, Viktor?" she appealed.

"What? Oh, yes, they make great pets," Viktor confirmed, recalled to reality. "They do have claws, though. And they needed to be housebroken."

That led to more questions (What were "claws"? What was "housebroken"? Could they be trained to do useful things, like gillies?) until the driver broke up the party. "Everyone get back to his seat, please," she called. 'We'll be matching orbit with the target in a moment."

As the little s.h.i.+p swerved Viktor saw what was waiting for them. This new habitat was also cylindrical-no doubt because that was the best shape for an orbiting people container-but along its perimeter were a dozen rosettes of air hatches where odd-looking little s.h.i.+ps had attached themselves. "They're raw-materials gatherers," Nrina explained when he asked. "This is a manufacturing habitat, didn't I tell you? That's what Frit's family does, manufacturing. Those things-I suppose you've never seen them before-they are set loose here. Then they go out to the asteroids and so on to grow and reproduce themselves and bring back metals and things to use-"

Viktor felt a start of recognition. "Like Von Neumann machines?" he asked, remembering the ore-collecting nautiloids that he had encountered so often in the seas of Newmanhome.

"I don't know what those are, but-oh, look! That must be Pelly's s.h.i.+p!"

And Viktor forgot the Von Neumanns, because as the habitat rotated under them he saw what Nrina was pointing to. Yes, that was a s.h.i.+p, s.h.i.+p, a a real real s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p, hugged to the sh.e.l.l of the habitat. The s.h.i.+p had to be nearly a thousand feet long by itself, and it in turn had hugged to its own sh.e.l.l a lander larger than their bus. He stared at it longingly. That was more like it! A man could take pride in piloting a s.h.i.+p like that . . . s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p, hugged to the sh.e.l.l of the habitat. The s.h.i.+p had to be nearly a thousand feet long by itself, and it in turn had hugged to its own sh.e.l.l a lander larger than their bus. He stared at it longingly. That was more like it! A man could take pride in piloting a s.h.i.+p like that . . .

"Maybe Pelly will be at the party," Nrina said with pleasure. "Anyway, we'll be getting out in a minute, Viktor. Do you want to take the cat?" She pa.s.sed the kitten to him and then, leaning past him, looked with disfavor at the habitat. "It doesn't look like much, does it? It's so big. It has to be, I suppose, because they do all sorts of industrial things there. I don't think anyone would live there if they didn't have to. Still, it's quite nice on the inside, anyway. You'll see."

What she said was true. On the inside the factory habitat was nice, very much so, but it took Viktor a while to find that out.

Its design was not like the one they had come from. It was almost a reversal of Nrina's, in fact. Instead of a sh.e.l.l of dwelling places surrounding a core of machinery, this habitat's machinery was all in the outer sh.e.l.l. The pa.s.sengers exited the bus into a noisy, steel-walled cavern, with the thumping, grinding sounds of distant industrial production coming from somewhere not far on the other side of the wall. Then Viktor and Nrina and the kitten took a fast little elevator, and when they emerged Viktor saw that the whole heart of the cylinder was a vast open s.p.a.ce. Great trees grew along the inside of the rim, all queerly straining up toward the axis of the cylinder. There a glowing rodlike thing stretched from end to end to give them light. The whole place was almost like a vast park, rolled around to join itself.