IGMS Issue 17 (4 page)

"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 universe. 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.

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.