Chapter 14

“These our actors,

As I foretold you, were all spirits and

Are melted into air, into thin air.”

There was the same pleasant room, the same outlook onto a broad bay and windswept ocean: the Bay of Naples, and farther off the timeless waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea. But this time the sea was slate gray, and to the north, ominous rain clouds stood above the ancient city; in place of the raven-haired gypsy woman, a longhaired person with handsome androgynous features was sitting in the easy chair opposite.

Drake turned his head back and forth. His neck was slightly stiff, as though he had been sitting for too long in the same position. The ludicrous nature of that thought hit him, as he said, “I’d rather you didn’t bother with all this, you know. I much prefer the real thing.”

“I think not.” It was a man, judging from the voice. The English he spoke was perfect, accent-free. “There have been… changes.”

“I expect changes. I need changes. Past eras could do nothing to help Ana. Let’s dispense with the simulations.”

“That is, I am afraid, impossible.”

“My body—”

“Is preserved. Your cryocorpse, together with Ana’s original body, is still in the cryowomb. That womb is no longer held on Pluto, for reasons that will become obvious to you later. However, your body is unchanged. It could be revivified, although as you see we no longer find it necessary to reanimate you in order to converse. We are maintaining a direct superconducting link with your brain.”

“Who are you?”

“That also calls for explanation.” The man smiled, an easy and friendly grin that seemed impossible to simulate. “Let us say, I am ‘such stuff as dreams are made on.’ As you can see, after the misunderstanding of your last resurrection we have made an effort to be familiar with the writings of your times. Call me Ariel, if you must have a name familiar to you from that era. With your permission, I will now bring someone else to this meeting.”

“Melissa, and Ana’s clone…”

Drake had asked, as strongly as a man with no real power could ask, that he remain frozen until something could be done to restore to him the original Ana; but his last awakening had taught him that others had their own overriding needs.

Ariel shook his blond tresses. “Not Melissa Bierly, nor the clone of Anastasia.”

“Are they alive?”

“I would say yes; but not in any form that would be recognizable to you. Patience, Drake Merlin. Much has happened, and much needs to be said and done. First, however …”

The man did not move, but at his side a familiar sphere topped by a metal whisk broom blinked into existence.

“With profound apologies.” The Servitor nodded its eyeless head toward Drake. “Your instructions to me upon freezing were quite explicit: only when new information was available concerning Ana’s condition were you to be resurrected. However, upon reflection I judged it necessary to interface with you before taking certain other required actions. I recognize that an argument could be made that you have not in fact been reanimated, and therefore that your instructions have not been disobeyed. However, I reject that as a form of special pleading on my own behalf.”

“You are Milton? You don’t sound at all as you used to.”

“I am Milton, but in composition more than Milton. I appear in this form only for your convenience. Although much time has passed, I remain your Servitor and obey your commands.”

“How much time?” Drake sat up straight, aware that his real body deep in cryosleep could not move a micrometer. What miracle of science gave him total control of this other body, in derived reality? What magic permitted his supercooled brain to think? “Don’t offer me the same runaround as I had last time. How long has it been since I returned to the cryowomb?”

There was a perceptible hesitation before Milton answered. “There is no deception. By your standards, it has certainly been a long time; but there have also been changes in the perception and measurement of time. And there have been… discontinuities … in human history and development.”

“You mean a collapse of human civilization? I worried about that, before I first went into cryosleep.”

“There has been no collapse in the sense that you imply, with complete loss of technology. However, on three occasions human development has proceeded in other directions — what we now consider to have been false directions. During two of those periods, the idea of technology lacked meaning.”

“You can tell me about that later. How long since I went to the cryowomb? Are you going to say, or aren’t you? Forget the ‘temporal shock’ nonsense and tell me. You say that you obey my commands. That is a command.”

“Even without reinforcement from the composite, I am obliged to reject any command you give me that is provably contrary to your ultimate well-being. However, I will answer. Your body has been within the cryowomb for a period which, in your most familiar units of Earth orbital revolutions, equates to fourteen million years.” The Servitor paused. When Drake did not move or speak, it continued: “Fourteen million years. Which is to say, a period equal to—”

“I know what fourteen million years is.” Drake laughed, a humorless bark of disbelief, while he tried to comprehend such a length of time. In his original innocence, he had imagined being frozen for up to a thousand years. He had thought of that as a huge interval.

It was a huge interval, a period long enough for civilizations to flourish and fall, for cities and dynasties to rise from the earth and return to it. Rome had endured and ruled for a thousand years. Once that had been regarded as a model of human stability. But while he slept, fourteen thousand Roman Empires could have appeared, one after another. A hundred thousand Caesars, enough to fill a football stadium, could have conquered, ruled, and been brought down. Fourteen thousand Gibbons could have chronicled their rise and bloody fall.

“Or maybe you’re right,” he said at last. “I don’t know what fourteen million years means. And I guess I was wrong. I’m not immune to temporal shock. I’m in temporal shock. Give me a minute or two, Milton.”

“As long as you need.” The Servitor rolled backward a few feet, and the fair-haired man in the armchair continued, “We assume that you refer to subjective minutes. One advantage of a superconducting interface is speed. This meeting is taking place with subjective time rate equal to less than one thousandth real time—”

“I need to know,” Drake interrupted. “I need to know what’s happened to the solar system — why you woke me — if there has been progress with Ana’s problem.” He had a thrilling thought. “Is it possible to interface with her brain, the way you have with mine?”

“Unfortunately, it is not. We made contact with the residue, long ago. There are many intact brain cells, as you might imagine. But the connectivity, the whole that permits the concept of mind, has been destroyed.”

“Let me try it for myself.” Drake found that he was trembling with eagerness. “I know her better than anyone. Put me in touch with her, let me make my own evaluation.”

“We judge that would be most unwise.” Ariel’s face was calm but compassionate. “Unwise for your sake. Just as it is unwise to expose you, immediately, to humankind as it exists today. There must be a period of adjustment. Your strength and mental resilience are extraordinary by any standards, but we do not wish to push it too far. We feared that you might retreat to insanity immediately after being contacted. You have . not done so. But a meeting with the sad, muddied remnant of mind that sits now within Anastasia’s body would try your sanity past bearing.”

“Has there been other progress, though? If her original brain cannot be repaired—”