CircumEuropa was through; imports no longer mattered.
He followed a snaking hallway through translucent tilted walls
of membrane. The corridors glimmered, painted with all the
blue-green tints of seawater. They were almost deserted.
Lindsay glimpsed occasional sundogs and squatters, come for
junk and loot. A party of them waved politely as they sawed
noisily through a hard-set wall. An Investor ship had docked as
well, but there was no sign of its crew.
The movement was all outwards. Giant ice ships, hulled in
crystal, were arcing down to the planet's surface, for gentle
splashdowns through the new crevasses. Vera, his daughter, was
aboard one of them. She had already gone.
The population had shrunk to a final handful, the last for the
transformation. CircumEuropa had dwindled to a series of labs,
where the last transformees floated in smoky Europan seawater.
Lindsay paused outside an airlock, watching the activity within,
through a hall-mounted monitor. Transformed surgeons were
assisting at the birth of Angels, tracking the growth of new
nerves through the altered flesh. Their glowing arms flickered
rapidly in conversation.
He had only to don an aqualung, step through that airlock into
blood-warm water, and join the others. Vera had done it. So
had Gomez and the rest. They would greet him joyfully. There
would be no pain, It would be easy. The past hung balanced on the moment. He could not do it. He turned away.
Then he sensed it. "You're here," he said. "Show yourself."
The Presence flowed down from the tilted, sea-green membrane of the wall. A puddle of mirrors trickled across the floor,
seeping into shape.
Lindsay watched it in wonder. The Presence had its own gravity; it clung to the floor as if pulled there. It warped and
rippled, taking form to please him. It became a small, fleet
thing, poised on four legs, crouching like an animal. Like a
weasel, he thought. Like a fox.
"She's gone," Lindsay told it. "And you let her go."
"Relax, citizen," the fox told him. Its voice had no echo; it
made no sound. "It's not my business to hold on to things."
"Europe's not to your taste?"
"Aw, hell," it said. "I'm sure it's fabulous there, but I've seen
the real thing, remember? On Earth. What about you, sundog? I
don't see you going for it."
"I'm old," Lindsay said. "They're young. It should be their
world. They don't need me."
The creature stretched, rippling. "I thought you'd say as much. What do you say, then? Now that you have a chance for, ah,
reflection?"
Lindsay smiled, seeing his own warped face across the shining
film of the Presence. "I'm at loose ends."
"Oh, very good." There was laughter in the unheard voice. "I
suppose you'll be dying now."
"Should I?" He hesitated. "It might be premature."
"It might," the Presence agreed. "You'll stay here a few more
centuries, then? And await the final transcendance?"
"The Fifth Prigoginic Level of Complexity?"
"You could call it that. The words don't matter. It's as far
beyond Life as Life is from inert matter. I've seen it happen,
many times before. I can feel it moving here, I can smell it in
the wind. People . . . creatures, beings, they're all people to
me . . . they ask the Final Questions. And they get the Final
Answers, and then it's goodbye. It's the Godhead, or as close as
makes no difference to the likes of you and me. Maybe that's
what you want, sundog? The Absolute?"
"The Absolute," Lindsay mused. "The Final Answers. . . .
What are your answers, then, friend?"
"My answers? I don't have 'em. I don't care what goes on
beneath this skin, I want only to see, only to feel. Origins and
destinies, predictions and memories, lives and deaths, I sidestep
those. I'm too slick for time to grip, you get me, sundog?"
"What do you want then. Presence?"
"I want what I already have! Eternal wonder, eternally
fulfilled. . . . Not the eternal, even, just the Indefinite, that's
where all beauty is. . . . I'll wait out the heat-death of the Universe to see what happens next! And in the meantime, isn't it something, all of it?"
"Yes," Lindsay said. His heart was hammering in his chest. His
robot nurse reached for him with a needle-load of soothing
chemicals; he turned it off, then laughed and stretched. "It's all
very much something."
"I had a fine time here," the Presence said. "It's quite a place
you have here, around this little sun."
"Thank you."
"Hey, the thanks are all yours, citizen. But there are other
places waiting." The Presence hesitated. "You want to come along?"
"Yes!"
"Then hold me."
He stretched his arms out toward it. It came over him in a
silver wave. Stellar cold, a melting, a release.
And all things were fresh and new.
He saw his clothes floating within the hallway. His arms drifted
out of the sleeves, prosthetics trailing leashes of expensive circuitry. Atop its clean white ladder of vertebrae, his empty skull sank grinning into the collar of his coat.
An Investor appeared at the end of the hall, bounding along in
free-fall. Reflexively, Lindsay smeared himself out of sight
against the wall. The Investor's frill lifted; it pawed with magpie
attraction through the tangle of bones, stuffing items of interest
into a swollen bag.
"They're always around to pick up the pieces," the Presence
commented. "They're useful to us. You'll see."
Lindsay perceived his new self. "I don't have any hands," he said.
"You won't need 'em." The Presence laughed. "C'mon, we'll
follow him. They'll be going someplace soon."
They trailed the Investor down the hall. "Where?" Lindsay
said.
"It doesn't matter. Somewhere wonderful."