Dead. They’re both dead… her child, her husband—whoever, whatever he was—Aenea herself.

My dear girl. My darling girl. Nothing left. Ashes. Somehow, even as I had dedicated myself to finding the child, to pleading with the Observer father to allow me to be this child’s friend and bodyguard and disciple as I had been Aenea’s, to using that newfound hope as a means of escaping the Schrödinger box, I had known deep in my heart that there was no child of my darling’s alive in the universe… I would have heard that soul’s music echoing across the Void like a Bach fugue… no child. Everything was ashes.

I turned to Father de Soya now, ready to touch the cylinder holding Aenea’s remains, ready to accept the fact of her being gone forever with the first touch of cold steel against my fingertips. I would go off alone to find a place to spread her ashes. Walk from Illinois to Arizona if I had to. Or perhaps just to where Hannibal had been… where we first kissed.

Perhaps that is where she was happiest while we were here.

“Where is the canister?” I said, my voice thick.

“I did not bring it,” said the priest.

“Where is it?” I said. I was not angry, just very, very tired. “I’ll walk back to the tower to get it.”

Father Federico de Soya took a breath and shook his head. “I left it in the treeship, Raul. I did not forget it. I left it there on purpose.”

I stared at him, more puzzled than angry.

Then I realized that he—and A. Bettik, and even the old poet in the bed—had turned their heads toward the bluffs above the river.

It was as if a cloud had passed over but then an especially bright ray of light had illuminated the grass for a moment. The two figures were motionless for long seconds, but then the shorter of the two forms began walking briskly toward us, breaking into a run.

The taller figure was more recognizable at this distance, of course—sunlight on its chrome carapace, the red eyes visibly glinting even at this distance, the gleam of thorns and spikes and razor fingers—but I had no time to waste looking at the motionless Shrike. It had done its job.

It had farcast itself and the person with it forward through time as easily as I had learned to ’cast through space.

Aenea ran the last thirty meters. She looked younger—less worn by worry and events—her hair was almost blond in the sun and had been hastily tied back. She was younger, I realized, frozen in my place as she ran up to our small party on the hill. She was twenty, four years older than when I had left her in Hannibal but almost three years younger than when I saw her last.

Aenea kissed A. Bettik, hugged Father de Soya, leaned into the bed to kiss the old poet with great gentleness, and then turned to me.

I was still frozen in place. Aenea walked closer and stood on tiptoe as she always had when she wanted to kiss me on the cheek.

She kissed me gently on the lips. “I’m sorry, Raul,” she whispered. “I’m sorry this had to be so hard on you. On everyone.”

So hard on me. She stood there with the full foresight of the torture to come in Castel Sant’Angelo, with the Nemes-things circling her naked body like carrion birds, with the images of the rising flames…

She touched my cheek again. “Raul, my dear. I’m here. This is me. For the next one year, eleven months, one week, and six hours, I’ll be with you. And I will never mention the amount of time again. We have infinite time. We’ll always be together. And our child will be there with you as well.”

Our child. Not a messiah born of necessity. Not a marriage with an Observer.

Our child. Our human, fallible, falling-down-and-crying child.

“Raul?” said Aenea, touching my cheek with her work-callused fingers.

“Hello, kiddo,” I said. And I took her in my arms.

35

Martin Silenus died late on the next day, several hours after Aenea and I were wed. Father de Soya performed the wedding service, of course, just as he later performed the funeral service just before sunset. The priest said that he was glad that he had brought along his vestments and missal.

We buried the old poet on one of the grassy bluffs above the river, where the view of the prairie and distant forests seemed most lovely. As far as we could tell, his mother’s house would have been set somewhere nearby. A. Bettik, Aenea, and I had dug the grave deep since there were wild animals about—we had heard wolves howl the night before—and then carried heavy stones to the site to cover the earth. On the simple headstone, Aenea marked the dates of the old poet’s birth and death—four months short of a full thousand years—carved his name in deep script, and in the space below, added only—OUR POET.

The Shrike had been standing on that grassy bluff where it had arrived with Aenea, and it had not moved during our wedding service that day, nor during the beautiful evening when the old poet died, nor during the sunset funeral service when we buried Martin Silenus not twenty meters from where the thing stood like a silver-spiked and thorn-shrouded sentinel, but as we moved away from the grave, the Shrike walked slowly forward until it stood over the grave, its head bowed, its four arms hanging limply, the last of the sky’s dying glow reflected in its smooth carapace and red-jeweled eyes. It did not move again.

Father de Soya and Ket Rosteen urged us to spend another night in one of the tower rooms, but Aenea and I had other plans. We had liberated some camping gear from the Consul’s ship, an inflatable raft, a hunting rifle, plenty of freeze-dried food if we were unsuccessful hunting, and managed to get it all in two very heavy backpacks. Now we stood at the edge of the city slab and looked out at the twilight world of grass and woods and deepening sky. The old poet’s cairn was clearly visible against the fading sunset.

“It will be dark soon,” fussed Father de Soya.

“We have a lantern.” Aenea grinned.

“There are wild animals out there,” said the priest. “That howl we heard last night… God knows what predators are just waking up.”

“This is Earth,” I said. “Anything short of a grizzly bear I can handle with the rifle.”

“What if there are grizzly bears?” persisted the Jesuit. “Besides, you’ll get lost out there. There are no roads or cities. No bridges. How will you cross the rivers…”

“Federico,” said Aenea, setting her hand firmly but gently on the priest’s forearm. “It’s our wedding night.”

“Oh,” said the priest. He hugged her quickly, shook my hand, and stepped back. “May I make a suggestion, M. Aenea, M. Endymion?” said A. Bettik diffidently.

I looked up from sliding the sheath knife onto my belt. “Are you going to tell us what you folks on the other side of the Void Which Binds have planned for Earth in the years to come?” I said. “Or for finally saying hello to the human race in person?”

The android looked embarrassed. “Ah… no,” he said. “The suggestion was actually more in the line of a modest wedding present.” He handed both of us the leather case.

I recognized it at once. So did Aenea. We got down on our hands and knees to take the hawking mat out and unroll it on the grass.

It activated at first tap, hovering a meter above the ground. We piled and lashed our packs on the back, set the rifle in place, and still had room for the both of us—if I sat cross-legged and Aenea sat in the cusp of my arms and legs, her back against my chest.

“This should get us across the rivers and above the beasties,” said Aenea. “And we’re not going far tonight to find a campsite. Just across the river there, just out of earshot.”

“Out of earshot?” said the Jesuit. “But why stay so close if we can’t hear you if you call? What if you cried out for help and… oh.” He reddened.

Aenea hugged him. She shook Ket Rosteen’s hand and said, “In two weeks, I would be obliged if you would let Rachel and the others ’cast down or take the Consul’s ship down if they want to look around. We’ll meet them at Uncle Martin’s grave at high noon. They’re welcome to stay until sunset. In two years, anyone who can ’cast here on his or her own is welcome to explore to their heart’s content,” she said. “But they can only stay one month, no longer. And no permanent structures allowed. No buildings. No cities. No roads. No fences. Two years…” She grinned at me. “Some years down the road, the Lions and Tigers and Bears and I have made some interesting plans for this world. But for these two years, it’s ours… Raul’s and mine. So please, True Voice of the Tree, please post a big KEEP OUT sign on your way up to your treeship, would you?”