by Greg Egan
‘You lunatic!’ she yells, backing away.
Maria approaches us. The probably-flesh-and-blood prophet addresses her: ‘He’s mad! Get him off me!’ Maria takes hold of my arm, then, inexplicably, leans towards me and puts her tongue in my ear. I burst out laughing. The woman steps back uncertainly, then turns and hurries away.
Maria says, ‘Not much of a dissection—but as far as it went, it was in my favour. I win.’
I hesitate, then feign surrender.
‘You win.’
* * *
By nightfall, we end up on the freeway again; this time, to the east of the city centre. We gaze at the sky above the black silhouette of abandoned office towers, our brains mildly scrambled by the residual effects of a nearby cluster of astrologers, as we eat the day’s prize catch: a giant vegetarian pizza.
Finally, Maria says, ‘Venus has set. I think I ought to sleep now.’
I nod. ‘I’ll wait up for Mars.’
Traces of the day’s barrage drift through my mind, more or less at random—but I can still recall most of what the woman in the park told me.
After so many orbits, the basins must have emptied…
So by now, we’ve all ended up captured. But—how could she know that? How could she be sure?
And what if she’s wrong? What if we haven’t all, yet, arrived in our final resting place?
The astrologers say: None of her filthy, materialist, reductionist lies can be true. Except the ones about destiny. We like destiny. Destiny is fine.
I get up and walk a dozen metres south, neutralising their contribution. Then I turn and watch Maria sleeping.
There could be two points, side by side, one leading into the strange attractor, one leading—eventually—out of the city. The only way to find out which is which would be to start at each point, and see what happens.
Right now, everything she said sounds to me like some heavily distorted and badly misunderstood rationalist model. And here I am, grasping at hope by seizing on half of her version, and throwing out the rest. Metaphors mutating and hybridising, all over again…
I walk over to Maria, crouch down and bend to kiss her, gently, upside down on the forehead. She doesn’t even stir.
Then I lift my pack and set off down the freeway, believing for a moment that I can feel the emptiness beyond the city reach through, reach over, all the obstacles ahead, and claim me.