"Monica might."
"That's different. But don't be too sure even with her; she's been lying to herself for a long time. I'm going to ask her to stay." Yelén's smile was gentle; two weeks ago she would have been scornful. With Gerrault and Chanson gone, a great weight had been lifted from her soul, and Wil could see what — beyond competence and loyalty — Marta had loved in her.
Yelén looked at her feet. "There's another reason I ducked , out of the meeting early. I wanted to apologize. After I read[?] Marta's diary, I felt like killing you. But I knew I needed you — Marta didn't have to tell me that. And the more I depended on you, the more you saw things I had not... the more I hated you.
"Now I know the truth. I'm ashamed. After working with you, I should have seen through Marta's trick myself." Abruptly she stuck out her hand. Brierson grasped it, and they shook. "Thanks, Wil."
The one who still lives, the one who has not said goodbye? No. But a friend for the years to come.
Behind her, a flier descended. "Time for me to get back to the house." She jerked a thumb at Castle Korolev.
"One last thing," she said. "If things are as slow as I think, you might want to diversify .... Give Della a hand."
"Della's back? H-how long? I mean —"
"She's been in solar space about a thousand years; we were waiting to find the best time to stop. The chase took one hundred thousand years. I don't know how much lifetime she spent." She didn't seem much concerned about the last issue. "You want to talk to her? I think you could do each other good."
"Where —"
"She was with me, at the meeting. But you don't have to go inside. You've been set up, Wil. Each of us — Tammy, me, Della — wanted to talk to you alone. Say the word, and she'll be out here."
"Okay. Yes!"
Yelén laughed. He was scarcely aware of her walking to the flier. He started back to the dorm. Della had made it. However many years she had lived in the dark, she had not died there. And even if she was the creature from before, even if she was like Juan Chanson at his ending, Wil could still try to help. He couldn't take his eyes off the doorway.
The doors opened. She was wearing a jumpsuit, midnight black, the same color as her short-cut hair. Her face was expressionless as she came down the steps and walked toward him. Then she smiled. "Hi, Wil. I'm back... to stay."
The one who still lives, the one who has not said goodbye.
AFTERWORD
The author's afterword: that's where he explains what he was trying to say with the previous hundred thousand words, right? Well, I'll try to avoid that. Basically, I have an apology and a prediction.
The apology is for the unrealistically slow rate of technological growth predicted. Part of that is reasonable, I suppose. A general war, like the one I put in 1997, can be used to postpone progress anywhere from ten years to forever. But what about after the recovery? I show artificial intelligence and intelligence amplification proceeding at what I suspect is a snail's pace. Sorry. I needed civilization to last long enough to hang a plot on it.
And of course it seems very unlikely that the Singularity would be a clean vanishing of the human race. (On the other hand, such a vanishing is the timelike analog of the silence we find all across the sky.)
From now to 2000 (and then 2001), the Jason Mudges will be coming out of the woodwork, their predictions steadily more clamorous. It's an ironic accident of the calendar that all this religious interest in transcendental events should be mixed with the objective evidence that we're falling into a technological singularity. So, the prediction: If we don't have that general war, then it's you, not Della and Wil, who will understand the Singularity in the only possible way-by living through it.
San Diego
1983-1985