by IGMS
She chewed a lip. I liked that. Eleanor had had that habit as well. "I haven't seen a passenger shuttle for two years -- six trips across fourteen-thousand light-years. It is almost as if people suddenly stopped wanting to travel to the stars."
Fourteen thousand years? Obvious hyperbole, I thought.
"A half dozen cargo trips may not mean anything, " I said. "I mean, people wouldn't all give up travelling in just a few thousand years."
"Is that all you've traveled -- a few thousand?" She stared across the table. "I've traveled nearly seven-hundred thousand light-years since I left home eighty subjective years ago. That puts me nearly a million real years from my own time. A million!"
Her casual statement shook me. She barely looked of legal age. A million years? She couldn't have started winking earlier than me; how had I managed to lose that much time?
My earlier concern over a couple of lost millennia had been less than comfortable, but to discover that I might have let a million years slip away was too much.
"Aren't you concerned about what's happening?" she added, obviously not noticing that I was barely listening. "Aren't you worried about what is happening to humanity?"
I tried to work through the implications of a million years. What forms had humanity molded itself into to accommodate natural environmental pressures, genetic tinkering, and the inevitable separation of genetic stock as they spread across the stars?
"The entire race couldn't have evolved uniformly," I said slowly, thinking out loud. "There's too much time and distance involved to allow for the consistent genetic changes. Groups that are clustered within a few light years of one another would tend to be similar, but differences would have to arise between locations separated by huge distances. I paused, then added, "Maybe there are places along the fringes of the galaxy where old-time humans remain."
"Unlike the inhabitants of this planet," Shuu whispered.
"Maybe they're just shy," I joked. But I couldn't help wondering how long I would be able to recognize my passengers as human if I continued winking forward in time?
Shuu and I became more relaxed as the evening wore on, comforting one another over what we'd left behind. We sipped a succession of interesting beverages while respectfully turning our backs to one another, growing more maudlin with each round as we described our time-spanning travels and named people and places we'd never see again.
We shared the traditional pilot's remorse at taking that first, second, or fifth flight -- the one that put all we knew so far into the past. We talked of what might have been, what could yet be, and what destiny held for us if we continued to wink away the centuries, travelling deeper and deeper into an increasingly post-human universe?
At times I grew optimistic as we discussed the wonders we'd seen; then I'd wax remorseful as I realized I had no real understanding of them.
I admitted my increasing alienation from society and humanity in general, while Shuu talked about clade disaffection, genetic anomalies, and some sort of political wrangling that left me confused and confounded. I only knew that her pain of time lost was as great as mine.
At last, the lights dimmed, the mood mellowed, and we went to bed.
Separately.
Shuu Penpen, for all her virginal mores, was affectionate in other ways in the days that followed. She sympathized with me when I was down, and allowed me to cheer her up when she grew depressed herself. We became close friends and, after that, more than friends: we were companions, driven by the loneliness of our chosen lives and the knowledge that we might never meet again.
I had learned my lesson earlier, so love was never a option, not when its promise could never be fulfilled.
We spent four weeks together while the inhabitants of the planet loaded our ships, prepared them for distant destinations, and informed us that we were to depart, emphasizing that last point by suddenly dropping the station's temperature to near freezing.
I donned my cape and enfolded Shuu Penpen in a warm embrace. We shared a final drink, watching each other closely as we drained the last drop from the glass. Then she was gone.
Hours later, I watched her ship twisting about, the shimmering rainbows coruscating down the sides as the Renkinns glowed ruddy at her tail. Somewhere, deep inside that amazing cluster of spheres and capsules, Shuu sat waiting for her view of the stars to change into a sky she'd never seen before, and probably would never see again.
"Remember me," she'd said before boarding her ship. She caressed my cheek with her fingers, a lingering touch that could have meant so much, or so little. "I'll see you at the end of time."
The Renkinns flashed and her ship vanished, launching itself into time's well as if she had never existed, or never would.
There was no ceremony attending my arrival; I simply exited the shuttle off the Renkinn and stepped into an unadorned gray corridor.
"Follow me," the shuttle driver said. "I'll take you down to the lounge."
The lounge turned out to be a utilitarian compartment with a few stools and tables and three inhabitants. The two scruffy looking inhabitants were clothed in the same gray-green workman's uniform as the shuttle driver, while the other wore an elegant outfit that shimmered rainbows when he moved.
"Wil Tibbits," I said after I'd seated myself.
"I am Penso deClave from the year of the Barking Wolf, third reign of the Illustrious Beneficence of the Ceta Collective." He inclined his head. "Are you, too, a Renkinn pilot?"
"Don't know what the Ceta Collective is, or where you're from, but wherever it is, they make some fine looking ships. Saw yours when I docked."
"It is an old design, but serviceable," he replied.
"Mine's from Earth's twenty-third century -- one of the early models. Been winking in it for twelve subjective years, watching as the winks eat up the real years."
Penso bowed his head deeply and crossed his palms. "I apologize profusely, but I know not of 'Earth' or where this twenty-third might be."
I took a sip of my drink. "Not surprised. Didn't imagine they'd count time the same way after this long." I took another sip.
"I am honored to meet you, venerated one. You have sacrificed much in the service of mankind."
I shrugged. "I just keep moving out to where the people look like those I'm familiar with. This is the first time I've winked back in this direction in a lot of years. I'm not comfortable getting this close, where they've . . . well . . . let's just say where things have changed so much. How far did you say you've come?"
The change of conversational direction startled Penso. "Twenty light-years to bring enlightenment to this world. This is my fourth and longest wink yet."
"So you'll be forty more years out of synch with your society. Penso, take it from me: when you get back home, settle down and try to fit in -- no matter how much it costs you. If you keep on winking, you'll eventually get so dissociated from everything you knew that your only choice will be to keep going. Quit while you can."
"Most wise and honored one, I must debase myself for not accepting your learned guidance, but I am honor-bound by the Ceta Collective to participate in ever longer voyages."
"You might find that there's no 'Collective' when you get back. History has a way of changing things. Forty years is a lot of time to lose."
"Winking away forty years is a trivial loss," he replied. "The Collective plan for the long term is untouched by mere decades or centuries. The Ceta's five-thousand year plan will not reach fruition for many millenia yet. Placing our missionaries on this world is merely one step in the greater plan."
"I knew a woman a few years back," I said, hoping he'd understand. "She was the same age as me when we first met, but because of the wink differentials, she ended up a lot younger the second time around."
"Such effects are well known," Penso replied. "They are, at most, minor inconveniences. One can regain parity when an adjustment wink is made."
"Listen, I was young like you once. Full of beans and ready to conquer the univ
erse. But after a few winks, I found out the hard way that neither love nor ideals survive when you do long trips."
"I do not grasp what you are saying," he replied, as if I were stating something that was obviously false.
"You want to know the worst part?" I said. "The worst part is that even if you do find love, you can lose it in a single wink. As soon as I realized that, I forgot about forging any lasting relationships. Now I just enjoy a few days of companionship where and when I can, and move on."
"So you, despite your obvious maturity, continue to move forward with no objective, no goal?"
I saluted him with my cup. "What's the alternative? I started out looking for fame and glory, pushed onward to escape a painful marriage, then turned that into a way of life -- winking whenever things got uncomfortable. Unless you jump off the treadmill and settle down, you'll find yourself just like me, going forward in search of . . . I don't know . . . something that might justify wasting so many real years."
Penso drew himself up. "I am in the service of the Illustrious Beneficence. If that costs me a few centuries, so be it."
"Hate to see a young pup waste his time, but it's your choice," I said. Draining my cup and standing, I added, "Maybe I'll see you at the end of time."
My second meeting with Eleanor -- a vastly changed and matured Eleanor -- was out near Vestigius. She had changed so much from that young girl full of nervous energy and fervent certitude that I almost didn't recognize her.
She, on the other hand, had no such problem. "Gods, you don't look as if you've aged a day," she said. "Well, maybe a few days." I recalled her bright smile.
"About fifteen years since I left Earth," I replied. I couldn't help noticing that she was a lot older than the last time we'd met, probably ten or more years older than me. For that to happen she must have been winking a lot less frequently.
"I never went back to Earth after the far winks," she said. "People were acting so differently that I couldn't stand it."
I told her about my experience with the aultrachvolk, and she mentioned something about the Communalism of 4261, which sounded so different from my own experience with the Collective that I wondered just how fast society had been changing.
"So I started taking farther winks," she explained. "Then ever longer ones, until here I am, twenty subjective years older than the last time we met, and with another two or three hundred-thousand real years behind me."
Her words indicated that I wasn't the only one who had lost track of time.
"I admit that the hive-like changes on Earth were a shock," she continued, laughing. "Most of the other places I went, I couldn't understand the language, and the people . . ., well, let's just say that they've become even harder to comprehend."
"I've seen the same thing," I replied. "But it hasn't been a few hundred-thousand years since we last met, Eleanor. It's more like a million."
I told her about my meetings with other pilots of increasing strangeness, especially Shuu Penpen and the splendidly-clothed young Penso.
Eleanor folded her hands and sighed, accepting the news with far more grace than I had. "So what's to become of us, Wil? What's going to happen to us as we keep winking down the centuries?"
"Do we have a choice?" I asked. "I don't think I could settle down after all this time, even if I could find some dirty little planet where I'd fit in."
"As if anyone would even have us," she replied with a laugh. "Still, haven't you ever wondered what it would be like to just stop? To quit winking altogether?"
We both laughed at that. We knew it would never happen. Winking had become a fascinating and exciting addiction.
"I don't think I could give up winking after all this time. I don't think you could either."
"I've been tempted," she said. "Sometimes there were places that . . ." she chewed her lower lip before continuing. "Sometimes there were places that, when it was time to leave, I cried and felt sad. But those feelings never lasted long, not when I knew there could be no return."
Her words made me wonder again about the price we'd paid, racing down the centuries and watching everything we'd known disappear.
At the same time, seeing the changes in people and worlds and watching the human race expand to fill the galaxy has been its own kind of reward. Perhaps it was the endless fascination of what was at the next station. Perhaps, somewhere, a dozen, a hundred, or a thousand winks from now, I'd emerge to find something wonderful. Or to find out that the human race as I knew it no longer existed.
Either way, the thought thrilled me so much that I knew that I couldn't stop; not now, not ever.
"I think you're right," Eleanor said. "I don't think we have a choice, not anymore." She paused. Then she said, "Just promise me one thing, Wil: Remember me. Remember me, and maybe we'll see each other again at the end of time."
The likelihood of us running into one another was negligible. There were too many worlds, too many stars, and too many years.
"Yes," I replied. "Until the end of time."
She climbed into her Renkinn. The next wink awaited.
An Early Ford Mustang
by Eric James Stone
Artwork by Anselmo Alliegro
* * *
Unfamiliar keys in hand, Brad looked at the ketchup-red 1968 Mustang convertible in Uncle Fritz's garage. Then he re-read the note that accompanied the bequest: Maybe now you won't be late for everything. I trust you will be a responsible driver. But be careful of the curse.
Brad understood the first part. His girlfriend, Denise, joked he would be late for his own funeral, while Uncle Fritz had never been late. If anything, Uncle Fritz had been early to his own funeral, dying at only fifty-eight. He'd owned the Mustang over forty of those years.
And the bit about being a responsible driver was obviously a veiled reference to the time Brad had gotten drunk at a party in high school and had stumbled out of his friend's house to go home. Just as Brad was trying rather unsuccessfully to unlock his car door, Uncle Fritz happened to drive past and recognize him. On the way home, he'd gotten an earful about the perils of drunk driving. Since then, Brad had kept his promise never to drive drunk, and as far as he knew, Uncle Fritz had kept his promise to never mention the incident to Brad's parents.
But the part about the curse had to be a joke. If Uncle Fritz believed the Mustang was cursed, why did he drive it everywhere? Maybe he meant not to drive with the top down -- Uncle Fritz's skin had really taken a beating, so he'd looked more like seventy-eight than fifty-eight.
After putting the note in a back pocket, Brad unlocked the door and got in. The Mustang started right up with a smooth roar. Uncle Fritz had kept the car in great shape despite its age.
"Hey, baby," he said, patting the dashboard, "Whaddaya say we go for a spin?"
After forty-five minutes aimlessly cruising on the highway, Brad looked at his watch and realized he was supposed to pick up Denise in five minutes. She knew him well enough to not actually expect him for another fifteen minutes after that, but he was a good forty miles away by now, so he would be late even by his usual standards. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed her number.
"Hey, I lost track of time," he told her. "Won't get there until seven-thirty or so. But I got something cool to show you."
Denise sighed. "Fine. See you when you get here." She clicked off.
He took the Mustang up to eighty-five on the freeway, and luckily there were no cops. When he pulled up to the curb beside Denise's apartment building, his watch read 7:28.
When Denise answered the door, she grinned. "So you were kidding about being late. I think this is the first time you've ever arrived on time."
"What?" Brad checked his watch again: 7:29. "Your watch must be slow. It's 7:30."
"No, Jeopardy just finished. It's seven o'clock."
Brad pulled out his cell phone and checked its clock. Denise was right. "Huh. Wonder how that happened." He reset his watch to seven. "Now let me show you the car I inherited from my uncle."
The next morning, Brad overslept, which was not unusual. He rushed out the door seven minutes before his ten o'clock class, and after an eleven-minute drive to campus and six minutes to park and get to the classroom, he somehow managed to walk in the door just before the bell rang. The wall clock said it was ten o'clock sharp; Brad's watch said it was ten after.
As the professor droned on about some Greek philosopher, Brad wondered if there was something about the Mustang that made his watch run fast. Maybe that's what Uncle Fritz meant about a curse.
After a week with the Mustang, Brad had no doubts: the car was magic. He didn't have a clue how it worked, but no matter where he was going, he never arrived late if he drove the car. Somehow the car seemed to know where he was going and when he needed to be there.
His watch always showed him to be as late as he thought he was; but according to everyone else's clocks, he was always on time. Since his cell phone updated its time from the phone company network, it agreed with everyone else.
No wonder Uncle Fritz had never been late. Then, in a flash of insight, Brad realized what the curse was: he was living his life measured by the seconds on his watch, and they were ticking away faster than the rest of the world's.
He thought back to Uncle Fritz's funeral. Only fifty-eight years old, his uncle had looked twenty years older.
That won't happen to me, Brad decided. And the next morning he tried an experiment. He woke up early and drove off to his ten o'clock class at 9:40.
Without rushing, he arrived at the classroom a couple of minutes before the bell. His watch agreed with the wall clock.
If I only use the Mustang's power for emergencies, Brad thought, I can live a lot longer than Uncle Fritz. What a fool Uncle Fritz had been to waste so much of his life by leaving late to things. If he had just left on time, he would rarely have had to use the Mustang's magic to arrive on time.