“You know they did.” Drake was learning his way around the data banks, with no help from Leon. “Your own records show it, the ones that we were examining just two days ago.”

“Yes. They do show it, but believing it is difficult. Men and women actually appeared to hate each other in your era. Yet at the same time there was much random mating, mating on impulse. I do not mean mere sexual acts, that I can comprehend. But random mating that produced offspring, without benefit of genome maps or the most rudimentary genetic information on parents and grandparents…”

Drake started to explain, and quickly realized that it was hopeless. Here was another five-hundred-year gulf that could not be crossed. To Par Leon, mating was always dictated by the selection of desirable gene combinations. As he said, there was no other way to make sure that the children would be healthy. How could any other approach be justified?

He reacted to the idea of reproduction between comparative strangers as Drake regarded public burning at the stake.

In any case, Drake was beginning to have problems of his own. There really was no case to be made for the production of children, without thought for their future or for their physical and mental well-being. It was, as Par Leon said, “the blind mating urge of the primeval slime, deified to become religious principle and-blind dogma.”

Drake listened to those words and decided that he was beginning to view his own epoch with a new perspective. He must control that tendency, or his main value to Par Leon would disappear. For that reason, and one other, he had to remain an outsider in this century.

After six months, Drake realized that he was earning his keep and more. Leon might be the century’s foremost expert on the music of Drake’s period, but of some events and forces he knew nothing. He was endlessly fascinated by the smallest details.

“You say you knew him?” Par Leon leaned forward, eyebrows raised on his high forehead. “You met Renselm in person?”

“A score of times. I was present at the first performance of Morani’s Concerto concertante, written especially for Renselm, and I went backstage afterward. Then we went to dinner, just the three of us. I thought you already read about all this in one of my articles.”

“Oh, yes.” Par Leon made a dismissive gesture. “I certainly read it. But this is different. Tell me about his fingering, his posture at the keyboard, his strange reaction to applause. Tell me what he said to you about Adele Winterberg — she was his mistress at the time, you know.” He laughed in delight. “Tell me, if you can remember it, what you all ate for dinner.”

Only once or twice did Par Leon express dissatisfaction. And then it was because Drake had been frozen just before some event that especially interested him. “If you had only waited another three years…” he would say; but he spoke philosophically and with good humor.

It was by no means a one-way transfer of information. From his vantage point five centuries ahead, Par Leon had insights into the musical life of an earlier era that left Drake gasping. For the first time he understood where certain contemporary musical currents had been heading in his own time. Krubak, in his much-ridiculed late works, had been feeling his way toward forms that would not mature until thirty years after Drake had been frozen.

The work went on, ten to twelve hours a day. If Leon ever wondered why Drake showed no curiosity at seeing firsthand the world as it had become in the twenty-sixth century, or in making other friends, or even in learning the twists and turns of human progress over the past five centuries, he never mentioned it.

For his part, Drake had no desire to be absorbed by or become part of the current society. Yet he had to know certain subjects in great detail, far more than Par Leon could tell him. Fortunately, the general data banks permitted near-infinite cross-checking and depth of inquiry.

Drake began to satisfy his own unique information needs.

The whole solar system had been explored and mapped in detail. Venus was in the first stages of terraforming, the acid witch’s brew of its atmosphere creeping down in temperature and pressure. Mars had been colonized, not on the surface but within the extensive natural caverns beneath. There were permanent active stations — many of them “manned” by self-replicating computers and repair devices — on all the satellites of the major planets.

It was progress; yet to Drake it was less than expected. The projections made in his own time had seen the whole solar system crawling with humans and their intelligent machines. Sometime in the past five centuries, priorities had changed.

But what about Pluto?

Drake gave that little world his special attention. A small crew of scientists had a research station on Charon, the outsized satellite that made the Pluto-Charon system into a small planetary doublet. Pluto itself was uninhabited, unless one counted the dreaming serried ranks of the cryocorpses. The cryowombs were too cold for the comfortable permanent presence of animate humans. They hovered down at liquid helium temperature (Drake’s earlier suspicion of liquid nitrogen storage had proved well founded). The vaults were tended, to the extent that they needed any sort of attention, by machines especially designed for extreme cold.

With the idea of money subsumed into some incomprehensible system of electronic credit, it was not clear to Drake

when he would be able to afford to make the long trip out to Pluto. He forced himself to be patient, putting the question to one side until his time of service was closer to its end.

The work went on, hard but certainly not unrewarding. The text that they were producing grew steadily. By the beginning of the fourth year, Drake shared Par Leon’s conviction that they were producing a classic. He listened to the suggestion that in fairness the two of them should be given equal credit, and shook his head.

“It was all your idea, Leon, not mine. You could have found someone else to do what I have done. But without you to revive me I could have done nothing …”

…and if you shared credit with me, I would not be here long enough to take it. As soon as possible, I will be gone.

That was the secret goal, thought about constantly but never mentioned.

And then, at the end of the fourth year, an event took place that changed all Drake’s plans.

Chapter 7

“A wild call and a clear call that man not be denied”

Drake was working. It was late or early, depending on the definition. The improvements to his body included a lessened need for sleep, and he did most of his private thinking and searching long after midnight. Tonight he had lost track of the hour as he strove to understand, for the hundredth time, the complex medical environment of Ana’s disease. He could see why an ailment that had been bred out of the human race would attract little attention in the present day; but it seemed to him that treatments for other conditions might apply to this one.

He was toying with the daunting idea of learning Medicine — a multiyear commitment — when his outer portal reported a caller. He glanced up at the clock. Eight in the morning. He had time for a short nap, then he ought to call Par Leon and plan the rest of the day. They worked together flexibly and well, swapping opinions and thoughts and notes whenever either of them felt it useful; but they seldom met in person.

So who could be visiting, so early and uninvited? He lived in a tiny apartment. It was furnished with minimal facilities, and in four years he had never had a visitor.

The portal again reported a request for attention. He approved it, and stood up as the interlocking doors opened.