Dr. Harold Clarion was a wizened little man with a shock of  unruly white hair that topped a similarly unruly brain.  At the moment, he was considering his own death.  He chewed on the stem of his pipe while he thought about it, all the while staring out at the three kilometer long span of the starscope.

    His vantage point was his office in Astra One, a space station in solar orbit beyond Pluto, which at the moment was beyond Neptune.  In one sense, Astra One was both the tenth 
planet and the first artificial one.  He had lived to see quite a lot in his three hundred years, 
but except for the starscope, Astra One was the topper.
    Except for the starscope. 
    To the Immortals, it was a toy that had to be assembled in a ridiculously brief span of time.  Fewer than a hundred years.  If it hadn't been for him, he knew, they wouldn't have boosted trillions of dollars in equipment and manpower to Hell and gone past Pluto at maxgee.  They'd just kick free of Earth orbit and slingshot from planet to planet-coasting all the way. 
    Time didn't mean anything to them for obvious reasons, but manners, now, that was something else entirely.  Manners were everything to an Immortal.  And, it was just good manners to give a last wish to the last dying man. \

    The pain hit without its usual warning.  He gasped and bent double in his chair, dropping a book from his hands.  When the attack finally passed, it left his slight frame shaking, his dark eyes just a little more watery than his three centuries warranted.  His glasses, too, had landed on the floor.  He picked them up, and with unsteady hands slid the wire curves over his ears.  The center of the frame rested precariously on his steep nose.  He took a breath and began to steady himself. 
    He thought about death, again, then forced it from his mind.  He reached for the fallen book.  As he retrieved it an old photo slid from between the pages.  It was Runs Far Charlie.  Behind the Native American's square, dark, placid face loomed the Kitt Peak observatory. 
    Clarion brushed a hand across his face, grimacing beneath it.  Thoughts of the fine old observatory, and of friends like Charlie from the early days, kept surfacing lately.  It was 
senility, he supposed.  He would be the last human to suffer that indignity, as well. 
    He leaned Charlie against a book and looked again at the space station viewscreen that hung like a picture window on the far wall.  The workers hovered and wheeled about the starscope, their vehicle and suit lights flickering and fluttering as they went behind the struts.  They made him think of the fireflies that used to swarm outside the screen porch at his boyhood Ohio home.  Ohio had had lots of them.  He had loved them.

    But, there was no longer an Ohio, was there?  The post-war reconstruction commission had seen to that.  Elimination of stress inducing parochialism they had explained.  Ohio had a number now. 
    Well, whatever they called it, he hoped it still had fireflies even if it no longer had children to enjoy them. 
    Angrily, he stabbed at a console button.  The scope faded from the screen.  A few of the workers' torches remained briefly as after images, slowly dying like fireflies in an Ohio dawn. 
    He pulled the top drawer of his old oak desk all the way out to the stops.  In the back lay a small container of white pills. They were supposed to keep him alive until he decided whether or not he wanted to go back and try the experimental operation. God, how many of those had he endured already? He pushed the drawer shut and reached instead for his meerschaum, which had dropped from his mouth during the attack. 
   It was a beautiful pipe.  The bowl was stained a rich golden brown from twenty-three decades of curing.  He had had cancer once, of course, but that at least was a malady they could cure. He had heard pipe smoking was considered dashing in some Earth circles, now.  It wasn't completely painless to have your lungs replaced.

    He looked at Charlie as he began to fill the bowl with cavendish.  The Indian, like all his people, had decided not to retard.  The Immortal press had not even discussed the matter. 
They had been shocked and amused in a frightened sort of way over the decision.  To choose death over eternal life was unthinkable to them. 
    "The man who doesn't know how to die," Charlie had said, "doesn't know how to live." 
    Charlie had called him "the man with long eyes."  A wonderfully Indian name for an astronomer.  Clarion smiled, then looked up, irritated, as a soft, polite tapping came from the door.  Slocum's fingertip knock.  He ignored it.  The sound came again-reserved, patient, insistent. 
    "Yes.  What is it?" he said, finally. 
    The door slid open.  A youthful looking man just a bit over six feet tall entered the room.  Smiling in a mildly paternalistic way, he looked slowly around the room, as though seeing it for the first instead of the thousandth time.  His placid face reflected a casual combination of interest and mild disapproval. With an insouciant grace he walked to one of the bookshelves.  The way he faintly broke stride halfway there was an unintentional reminder to Clarion that his office was three times the size of any other on the space station.  No Immortal section head would think of so visibly setting himself above others. 
They were more subtle than that.  Slocum stopped next to the book case.  He pulled one from the shelf.

    "What is the Bhagavad Gita, Dr. Clarion?" 
    "Hindu religious writings, Slocum," Clarion sighed, running his bony hand through his wild clot of hair. 
    "Religion," mused Slocum.  He said it in the manner of one responding to the discovery that it is cloudy.  An interesting, if unimportant fact. Well, Hell, thought Clarion, why shouldn't he?  He's never going to face Judgement Day. 
    "Make your report, Slocum," he said aloud. 
    Slocum returned the book to its place.  "Yes, sir," he said. "I think we've solved the vibration problem.  Evidently, your hunch was correct.  The scope is so long that it is resonant to some sort of high order gravitic wave product.  Your approach seems to be working.  The readouts are almost perfect." 
    "I'm not waiting for perfect, Slocum.  Finish it." 
    'But-"  Slocum began to object, then caught himself.  His face recomposed itself into a mask of agreeability. You're a slimy bunch of bastards, thought Clarion.  I wouldn't take fifty billion of you for one Runs Far Charlie. 
    "Of course," mewed Slocum.  "Will ninety-nine, point seven be sufficient, Dr. Clarion?"  He looked sadly hopeful.

    "Get the damned thing done," growled Clarion. 
    Slocum nodded affably.  His eyes brushed across Clarion's face.  It was, thought Clarion, as close as they ever came to looking directly into anyone's eyes.  Slocum quietly left the room.  After he had gone, Harold Clarion stared after him for a time, wondering if he hated the man because he was a detached, effete dilettante-or if it was because Slocum would never die.  

                                        II 

    Slocum found the new man in the lounge.  Wilkerson had been on orbit for three periods already.  As station sub-chief it was Slocum's job to begin the man's orientation.  He should have gotten to the man already, but with the present schedule things were simply too rushed, and -- he smiled suddenly, faintly.  He had been around the old man too long.  Clarion's obsession with time was beginning to rub off.  Three days or three centuries, what did it matter?  Except that one might be an uncouth, mannerless, impatient, dying mortal, it didn't matter at all.  He broadened the smile and bowed. 
    "Dr. Wilkerson?  I'm Dr. Slocum.  Welcome to Starscope Station." 
    Their right hands rolled over, palm up, in greeting.  They did not touch.  As his eyes passed over Wilkerson in that Immortal manner that never seemed to directly look at another, Slocum decided that Wilkerson was an odd sort.  He was a large man, but not in any athletic sense.  It was more that he looked like one of those historical photos from the early twentieth century. The beefy shoulders, the lined face with the squint tracks at the corners of the eyes -- and he was balding!  Could he have waited that long to retard?  The sight of the partially hairless head both sexually intrigued and startled Slocum.

    To allow himself time to regain his composure -- damn Clarion for affecting his style! -- he glanced quickly at the clipboard in his hands.  Wilkerson's biography was summarized on the top sheet.  The information was mostly standard.  Thirty years of primary and secondary schooling.  Undergraduate study at a small but socially prestigious university -- Chronicles College on Mars.  It was a school known for producing good poets.
    But, one item was unusual.  He had only one doctorate.  The man must be a total cretin!  And, it had been taken on Earth, of all places.  Slocum hadn't been aware there was a university left there.  Strangest of all was the man's speciality.  Slocum had never even heard of the field. He glanced up, one eyebrow raised in shameless curiosity. 
    "Dr. Clarion likes to meet everyone, uh, right away, Dr. Wilkerson," he crooned silkily. "I believe he's still in his office if you'd care to see him now." 
 

                                       III 
 

    Harold Clarion scanned the resume as Slocum left.  He glanced up and studied Wilkerson openly, in a way that Slocum, or any Immortal, would have considered quite rude.  Wilkerson for his part seemed to be attempting to reciprocate.  An odd 
mannerism for an Immortal.  Clarion frowned. 
    "Tell me, Wilkerson," he said, tapping the stem of his meerschaum on the paper.  "Just what the hell is a Doctor of Archeonovia Sociohistory?" 
    Wilkerson made an awkward little gesture with his hand, and reached into his tunic pocket.  A pipe came out.  Clarion's eyes widened.  Was Wilkerson one of the new dashing sorts?  That would explain his appearance.  But, the bowl of the pipe, Clarion now saw, was shiny from many years of handling.  It took regular use to wear lacquer from a pipe bowl, replacing it with the soft sheen of body oils. 
    "They warned me about your directness, Dr. Clarion," said Wilkerson.  His voice was not deep, yet it was not affected.  His eyes were blue, and had something -- was it humor? -- in them.  And, there was a sadness about the man, faint as the memory of a breeze.
 
    Wilkerson pulled a pouch from his pocket and begin to fill the pipe.
    "Archeonovia Sociohistory is a brand new field.  I have the first doctorate."  He smiled ruefully. 
    "Perhaps the last. Anyway, in a nutshell I'm interested in the development of a cultural grand unified theory.  That's why I did my doctoral work at Oxford.  It's the last university on Earth, and so more in touch with our roots.  They still use books there," he added, glancing appreciatively at Clarion's collection.  "I should like your permission to look over some of yours." 
    Clarion puffed on his pipe for a moment, saying nothing.  Finally, he said, "You may use them as you wish, of course.  But, I still don't understand why you're here, Wilkerson.  This is as far as you can get from the bulk of humanity.  From a cultural standpoint, it is more of an anomaly than anything else, and thus might be misleading to your work." 
    "No," said Wilkerson, obviously having trouble with something.  "I'm not looking at the society of this space station." 
    "Then what?" 
    A part of Clarion's consciousness watched with astonishment the emotions playing across Wilkerson's face.  It was a startling show for an Immortal.  The silence between them grew rigid as the man wrestled with his problem.  It was unthinkable in the current 
mode of manners for Clarion to just sit there and openly watch another's display of feelings, but in truth he was intrigued, and not a little moved.  It had been a long time since he had been allowed to share something like this.  Finally, Wilkerson smiled
apologetically.  He took a breath and slowly released it.

    "I've come here because-according to my theory all cultures that stop expanding begin to decline.  I believe a single thread exists -- call it a life drive -- that is the cohesive force in each stage of human development.  When that's gone, the spirit is gone.  The culture dies." 
    Clarion relit his pipe, then observed, "You have a problem, son.  It is odd, I suppose, that in all the solar system you should happen to come here.  Be talking to me.  But, I have spent much of my life reading classic thought.  And, while I have done it for reasons other than yours, I have crossed your specialty more than once.  A unified theory of the sort you're looking for seems possible.  Not a grand unified. 
    "With the Romans, it was simple sloth.  They got fat, psychologically as well as physically.  When they started hiring somebody else to do their fighting, it was over for them.  The Nazis were driven by feelings of inferiority, stemming from World War One.  For the British, I'll take tradition.  The inflexibility of tradition.  With the Russians, it was a glorious, centuries-long cultural paranoia that caused them to continually replace one sort of dictatorship with another. 
    "And the old Americans?  What a bunch of gunslingers!  Did you know that by the mid-twenty-first century their government was the oldest continuing political structure, unchanged, of all the major nations of the Earth?" 
    He paused.  His face took on a sour look, as though he had just bitten down on a rotten fruit of some kind.

    "What destroyed their culture was compassion. Not the real stuff, but the political kind.  From Lyndon Johnson on, they poured trillions of dollars into social programs that made things worse for the people they were supposed to help.  And, with the bucks going there, they let their defense, their military, wither away.  When China attacked Taiwan, the Americans didn't have the military to step in. After that, they were a minor power, an unimportant player on the world stage." 
    He locked his gaze on Wilkerson's.  The other flinched, but wouldn't break away first.  Clarion admired him for having some guts.  He suddenly softened his voice. 
    "I subscribe to your single more significant drive theory, son, but I believe it's a different one each time.  And, the most glaring example is our present culture.  How could you possibly find an exact continuity between a culture of humans who die and one peopled with those who don't?" 
    Wilkerson nodded his head.  "Perhaps you're right. If you are, then I have dedicated my life to a mistake.  I've come a long way for nothing." 
    Clarion puffed away, watching Wilkerson.  "Which brings us to the point, again, doesn't it?" he said quietly. 
    Wilkerson nodded. 
    "But, if I'm not wrong ... if I haven't wasted my life in a futile effort ..." 
    "Then," mused Clarion, "you would have a diagnostic key to 
any human culture." 
    "Diagnose," said Wilkerson, "and perhaps even cure."

    Clarion blinked.  "That's an odd thing to say.  The implication is not subtle, sir.  How can your culture, Immortal culture, be sick in any serious sense?  It can't die!" 
    Wilkerson shrugged.  "I am probably the only man alive who sees a problem.  But, I think it is sick, maybe even dying.  And, I think-immortality is the disease." 
    Clarion was stunned.  For a moment, he couldn't say anything at all.  Then, suddenly, he chuckled. 
    "I'll be damned," he said, then grew thoughtful.  "I've missed the children.  It isn't the same without them.  But, there are no more wars.  No fist fights, even.  Everyone has as much free education as they want-and if they don't want it now they can have it when they do.  There's plenty to eat, even if it is synthetic crap.  Everyone has a home.  I just don't see it.  What's seriously wrong with your culture?" 
    Wilkerson raised his hands, then dropped them to his lap. 
    "I haven't got a name for it.  For my purposes I call it Infinite Digression.  The way I see it, there was a time when Man was in a hurry to learn.  Now it's as if answers are like -- a 
special trout in a favorite pool.  You may try for him for years, but somewhere deep inside you hope you never catch him.  The drama would be over.  I think it's like that with Immortals. They love dredging up little answers, but they don't like landing the big ones.  There are only so many of those."

    Clarion chuckled.  "Looking for smaller and smaller answers, yes.  But, that's nothing new.  It's been the order of the day for doctoral candidates for -- "  He stopped in mid-sentence, suddenly struck by Wilkerson's terminology.  He had said, "they!". 
    "What," he said, a puzzled expression screwing up his face, "is the ultimate driving force you think you've lost?" he asked. 
    Wilkerson paused.  It was obviously the same thing he was wrestling with before, Clarion realized. 
    "I think the ultimate driving force of  human life - of all life, in fact - is death, Dr. Clarion."  He paused, then his words rushed forth.  It was as if he believed if he hesitated he would never be able to finish. "Since you are the only human in the solar system who is -- immediately mortal, I have come here to find the answer through you." 
    Harold Clarion looked down at the scratched surface of his old desk.  It must have cost a half a million to ship the damn thing out, he thought.  He looked up at Wilkerson.  This man believed that the key to the survival of Immortal human civilization was him!  What a bloody irony. 
    Wilkerson jumped half out of his chair when Clarion exploded into laughter. 
 

                                           IV 
 

    Harold Clarion had already left his quarters and was making his way toward the space dock when the lights dimmed and brightened, signaling the beginning of another period.  It was, in his opinion, a pitiable stand-in for an Ohio dawn. 
    Maybe I should just say the hell with it, he thought.  Go back and see if I can find a place with trees to die in. 
    He had gone to hydroponics once, just to be near something living, but it had been a depressing experience.  The scientist in him had understood the efficiency of zero-G gardens with exposed roots and a constant mist of nutrient-rich spray.  But the humanity in him had rebelled against the unnatural quality of it all.  He had left and never returned. 
    The memory of the experience left a renewed bad taste in his mouth, so he was in a lousy mood when he reached the dock.  Wilkerson was waiting for him at the pod lock, his strange half bald head glinting orange beneath the vacuum warning sign.  There was no vacuum on the far side of the door, of course.  The outer bay portal protected against that.  But, these Immortals took no chances with ejection into airlessness.  Even medicine dedicated to trauma repair couldn't put Humpty Dumpty together again after something like that. 
    He reached the door and threw the double safety switches without bothering to check the readout.  Wilkerson flinched and paled.  The door slid open with a whisper.  Clarion stalked through, then stopped at the pod hatch.  "You said you wanted to see the scope," he said impatiently.

    Wilkerson silently followed Clarion into the pod, settling back in the forward passenger bucket.  Clarion jabbed at the bulkhead door release before the pod's hatch had fully cycled. In spite of Immortal precautions, there was a brief whistle of escaping air before the door seals mated. 
    He grasped the controls.  They felt good.  Like the handlebars of a Harley Davidson motorcycle he had found in a barn once.  It had called to him from beneath a pile of old junk.  He had tinkered with it and got it running.  His heart had thrilled to its throaty roar as it hurled his twelve year old body joyously down one of America's last dirt roads.  It had been threatening, dangerous and marvelous ... 
    He suddenly wished there was an atmosphere beyond the pod screen.  He would kick the damned thing out and feel the wind in his face.  He twisted the throttle savagely.  At least he could feel the pod's thrust, meek as it was.  The pod moved swiftly forward, trailing two white, hissless snakes from its rear jets. He banked the vehicle, enjoying the shifting tensions in his old muscles.  A milquetoast compared to the Harley, but then wasn't 
everything?

    Reluctantly, he slowed as they neared the base of the starscope.  Working a toggle, he flicked on the headlights, throwing three white lakes across the structure.  There was no 
beautiful beam of light like the Harley had shot through the night, because there was no atmosphere. 
    Wilkerson whistled softly. "It's magnificent," he said. 
    The awe and sadness of it always affected Clarion.  It was magnificent.  And, it was nearly done. 
    "Three kilometers long?" asked Wilkerson. 
    "Yes, almost." 
    "It doesn't look all that strong." 
    Specialization, thought Clarion.  That's what's killing the race.  Maybe Wilkerson is right with his Infinite Digression. "This is your first intimate contact with space, I take it?" 
    "Yes it is," said Wilkerson, either ignoring the sarcasm or unaware of it.  "But, I wasn't referring to Earth engineering. There are gravitic waves, very long ones, in space, aren't 
there?"

    Clarion glanced at him in surprise. 
    Wilkerson frowned.  "I said that wrong, didn't I?" 
    "Not at all," replied Clarion.  "You're right.  Space is like the depths of the oceans.  Most people think the waves are on the surface alone, but that's far from the whole story. 
There's a complex of waves below the surface.  All kinds of them, in all sizes, going in every which direction.  Space isn't quiet, either.  It's chock full of the same sort of thing.  Our problem was a gravitic product nobody knew existed." 
    "That would explain the large plates, the -- well, they look like baffles.  Some sort of resonance cancelling device, I should imagine." 
    Clarion found himself grinning.  Against his better judgement, he was beginning to like this fellow.  In a better mood than he'd felt for some time, he cranked up the pod jets and scooted out toward the far end of the scope.  There, they sat for a time simply looking quietly out to space. 
    "They have a new surgical procedure, you know," Wilkerson said. 
    Without looking at him Clarion said, "I heard something about it.  Grow you a new heart, a pancreas, whatever you need, right?" 
    "From a single cell of a specific organ," said Wilkerson. 
    "Screw it," said Clarion. 
    They fell silent, again. 
    "It's odd, you know," Wilkerson said after a while, somehow not breaking the delicate mood of peace that had fallen over them.  "Now that Man no longer has to overcome the lightspeed barrier -- now that he can coast to the stars and come home to the same people he left -- he no longer seems to want to go." 
 

                                         V 
 

    Three days later, it was done.  Harold Clarion sent down the coordinates for the first series of photographic plates.  That night the pain was bad.  He couldn't sleep, and finally got up, dressed and made his way to his office.  He wanted his meerschaum, and a drink.  Wilkerson was there, sitting at his desk, reading one of the Hindu manuscripts, a Purana.  When he saw Clarion, he made as if to rise, but Clarion waved him back. He got his pipe, filled it and headed for the bookcase that hid the bar.  One section swung out easily, revealing a heady stache of bottles, and a sink.  He got a wide-mouthed glass from a 
cupboard and splashed some scotch in it. 
    "You?" he asked over his shoulder. 
    "No, thanks," said Wilkerson. 
    "Apologies," said Clarion.  He had forgotten.  The process that generated immortality had its imperfections.  It gave everyone a long time to develop addictions.  Alcoholics had bad manners, and dealing with the problem one day at a time was a significant task for a man who would live forever. 
    The pain slammed into him as he was about to cap the bottle. 
He sagged against the sink, gasping. 
    "Dr. Clarion?" 
    "-nothing," choked out Clarion.  He tossed the full glass of scotch down his throat.  It burned beautifully bellyward.  He refilled the glass and threw another after the first.  The pain backed off.  Warmth began to spread through his body.  Gradually, his breathing steadied.  He was able to fill his glass a third time, close the bar and make his way almost normally to the couch.  Wilkerson's face was lined with concern.  Clarion smiled 
weakly to reassure the man.

    "It comes and goes," he said.  "What's that you're reading?  Religion?  An odd topic for an Immortal." 
    Wilkerson looked down at the book in his hands. 
    "I have seen references to Shiva, before," he said.  "But, I 
can't recall exactly which Hindu god he was." 
    "The Lord of the Dance," replied Clarion.  "A manifestation of Brahma, the creator -- and a member of the Hindu trinity.  Vishnu is the third one.  Shiva is the destroyer.  In some artistic representations he's a four armed androgynous-looking man inside a circle.  In others, he's sitting on a snake." 
    "He has something in two of his hands, Dr. Clarion.  What do those objects represent?" 
    "One is the drum of time that shuts out the knowledge of eternity.  The other hand is holding a flame.  It's supposed to burn away the veil of time and open our mind to that same eternity." 
    Wilkerson nodded slowly.  "I remember, now.  Sivaism.  They believed in an endless series of universal cycles."  He closed the book gently and set it aside.  "What do you believe in, Dr. Clarion?" he asked, suddenly.

    Harold Clarion's brain slid into that post-tension, pre-slurred state of almost instinctive creativity common to some drinkers.  At this point, which sometimes lasted for hours of 
careful alcoholic manipulation, he often leapfrogged sequential reasoning like a child.  So it happened this time, as he stared at Wilkerson. 
    "But, of course," he said suddenly.  "I should have seen it before.  In the old days, many doctors entered their profession because of their fear of death.  You have a similar reason, 
haven't you?  But, what, exactly?" 
    Wilkerson's rueful smile appeared.  "They devoted billions to researching your situation.  You know that." 
    Clarion nodded. 
    Wilkerson went on: "They found it fifty years after you came out here.  A genetic trait.  Very rare." 
    "One," said Clarion, "make that two, apparently, in twenty billion." 
    "Almost," said Wilkerson.  "My deviation was less destructive in one sense.  I am simply nearly immortal." 
    "Jesus," said Harold Clarion. 
    "Or Shiva," agreed Wilkerson.  "Which, as you would put it, brings us back to the earlier question.  What do you believe in, Dr. Clarion?" 
    Clarion began to grin.  His head nodded slowly up and down. 
    "That," he said, "is the best question I've heard in three hundred years." 
    "And the answer?" 
    "I'll give it to you in 48 hours," said Clarion.  "By God, I think I will be able to do just that." 

                                            VI 
 

    Two days later, the crusty old astronomer bounced up and walked around his desk to shake hands.  Wilkerson actually did it, touching the other man.  If his facial expression was any guide, it was not repulsive to him, this ancient peace parlay gesture of presenting an empty weapon hand. Clarion admired his courage.  Custom being what it was it must have been two hundred years since he had touched another person in a non-sexual way. 
    Clarion headed for the bar.  "I can't tell you," said the old astronomer, "how pleased I am to share this moment with you, Dr. Wilkerson.  The feelings I have about it are certainly mixed.  But, having you here is important." 
    "I'll have some juice with you," said Wilkerson, looking up from his hands.  He smiled.  "Where did you aim it?" 
    Clarion chuckled, in obvious good humor, though his old face looked a little more hawkish, today.  He had had a rough night. 
    "You tell me," he said. 
    Wilkerson's mouth pursed.  "Andromeda?  The Crab?  There are some possible Earth type systems inside twenty light years, I 
seem to recall.  No, somehow you wouldn't do it that way.  An Immortal astronomer would -- he'd be methodical to the point of distraction.  But, not you ... "  Suddenly, he looked at Clarion and smiled.

    "You know, then," said Clarion with satisfaction.  "I had a feeling you'd figure it out." 
    Wilkerson watched the old man tap his fingers on the Rig Veda.  "It's a matter of time, isn't it?  There are a million million wonderful questions for you out there.  But, in the final 
analysis, there's only one for a mortal man.  The Big Bang." 
    As if recreating it on his desk, Clarion slammed his fist to the top.  "Right, by Damn!  They'll get the credit for all the rest, but I'll be the first to know the Brobdingnagian beastie 
that started it all.  The plates have been exposed.  They're in the darkroom, now.  The answer is on board this lab.  And, you're going to be with me when I see it!" 
 

                                           VII 
 

    "I didn't know the Cosmos had a center," said Wilkerson as they waited for the humming, chirping computer processor to spit out the prints. 
    "It doesn't," said Clarion, swirling the ice around the inside of his glass. He took a stiff belt, belying his outward calmness.  "Not in the sense, anyway, that a cherry pie has a 
center.  We've known that since the twentieth century.  Einstein took away our privileged reference points. Mathematically, things are all flying away from each other in a 
way that makes everywhere the center of the universe.  Or, nowhere, if you prefer to look at it that way." 
    "Ptolemy would have loved knowing that," said Wilkerson. 
    Clarion chuckled.  "Absolutely!" 
    "Then, how did you decide where to aim the Scope?" asked Wilkerson after a moment. 
    Clarion pursed his lips and blew air through them.  "That was a strange journey -- trying to figure that out.  In one sense, since everywhere is the center, anywhere would be fine. 
But, things get in the way.  Suns, planets, solar systems, galaxies, local groups, cosmic dust, dark matter ... " 
    "Dark matter," mused Wilkerson.  "Have they ever figured out what that is?" 
    Clarion laughed.  "Nope.  We can probably do it now, with the Scope.  It was a big question when I was a kid.  In the 1980's a bright young lady astronomer figured out that it was there.  Used the orbital pace of glactic rim-stars to prove its existence." 
    "The galaxies," Wilkerson said hesitantly, "have to be, well, heavier than the total weight of everything we can see in them -- that's how it is, right?" 
    "Right.  More massive.  So, there's dark matter.  I decided then it was 1953 Buick sedans.  Pre-space-travel doctor's cars. All black and heavy as hell." 
    The computer terminal beeped.  The two men looked meaningfully at each other.  "So, where did you aim it?" Wilkerson asked quietly.

    Staring at the terminal, Clarion went on.  "Well, for a long time we thought the Cosmos had an even distribution of matter- on the large scale, of course.  But late in the last century we found open areas, big ones.  One map of all the known stars looked like an illustration of a man.  An illustrated man, with arms, legs, the works.  I realized then if you could 
figure out how to cancel out the effects of stray light particles, the photons, what you had in the empty places was a time hole." 
    Wilkerson nodded.  "A nice irony, there, I think.  The first thing you aim the greatest telescope in history at is nothing." 
    "A hunch," said Clarion, "a long shot, pun intended." 
    The machine beeped.  Two prints slid out of a slot.  Wilkerson and Clarion stared at them in disbelief. 
    "Well, I'll be damned!" whispered Wilkerson. 
    "That," Clarion said in muted awe, "may be an option." 
    The image was clear.  There was no doubt.  In one print, a four armed man was half kneeling, as if between standing and reclining.  In the second, the figure was prone on a coiled snake.  He looked like a person going to sleep. 
    "The snake had -- has a name, doesn't it?" said Wilkerson. 
    "Sesa," said Clarion.  "Or, Ananta, the unending."

    Suddenly, Wilkerson began to tremble.  He took hold of the nearest bulkhead brace.  Looking at Clarion, he asked: "Why are the photos different?" 
    Clarion blinked and cleared his throat.  "Uh-a telescope is a kind of time machine.  The greater the physical distance involved, the farther the temporal travel.  The naked eye has a focal length and capacity to gather light that allows a man to see, oh, relatively nearby galactic clusters.  They look like stars, but they're galaxies.  A telescope can gather more light.  See more distant objects." 
    Wilkerson choked back an emerging giggle.  "Then you have the technical control to select a ... space time?" 
    Clarion nodded slowly.  "In a manner of speaking, yes.  I do and I did." 
    Wilkerson's breath came in shallow, quick bursts.  The giggle started rattling upwards from his chest.  "Which was the nearer?" 
    Clarion's voice cracked.  "The half reclining one." 
   "Jesus!" whispered Wilkerson. 
    "Well ... " said Clarion, his inflection rising on the first 
word and falling on the second.  "Shiva."

    "The destroyer incarnation," said Wilkerson.  "How long?" 
    "Before it-hits?"  Clarion shook his head as if to clear the fog.  "I don't know.  A thing like this-how could it be anything but instantaneous?" 
    "But it isn't!"  Wilkerson's voice was harsh.  "It isn't! The whole goddamned Cosmos has ended out there, but it hasn't ended here!"  His right index finger was pointing rigidly at the deck beneath them. 
    Clarion stared at the deck.  "I don't know!  Maybe Einstein was righter than even he knew.  Maybe even the gods can't exceed the speed of light." 
    Wilkerson finally let the giggle escape.  "The End is near," he said. 
    Instantly, both of them exploded into laughter.  Soon, their faces were streaked with tears, and they were in each other's arms, pounding each other on the back.  It took them some time to notice the loud knocking on the darkroom door. 
    "Dr. Clarion!  Dr. Wilkerson!  Are you all right?" 
    They looked at each other and fell into another paroxysm of laughter.  A few moments later, Clarion managed to get his breath and say, "Yes, Slocum.  Everything is fine.  Just fine.  We're okay." 
    The knocking stopped. 
    "But, you're not," he added quietly. 
    Wide-eyed, Wilkerson asked: "What'll they do?" 
    Clarion shook his head.  "Damned if I know.  It's a hell of an interesting problem, though." 
    "Are you going to just go out there and tell them in so many words?" 
    "Not," said Clarion, "until I have had myself a good stiff scotch." 
    "Make it a double for me!" said Wilkerson, with another chuckle.

    They left the darkroom, arm in arm.  The Immortals who happened to be along their path stepped back in shock at the sight of two people touching in public.  As they passed Slocum, Clarion said: "Listen here, Wilkerson, old boy.  This new operation they've got now.  How much time do you think I'd pick up?" 
    "The discrete organ cloning?" 
    "Yeah, that." 
    "Who knows?  Two-maybe three hundred years.  Could be twice that." 
    "But time enough to see the fun begin?" 
    "Hell, yes!" agreed Wilkerson.  "Plenty of time for a great beginning!"  

Copyright 1998: Larry Leonard