Between the Strokes of Night

“In a way,” said Peron. “The answer depends on your definition of a second and a year. We’ve been thinking about S-space all wrong. It’s not some sort of parallel universe, or hyperspace. It’s the same space we live in, but S-space is a state of changed perception. If you want proof, look at these people.” Kallen had been watching Olivia Ferranti very closely. “She seems to be unconscious,” he said softly. “And her skin is cold. But her eyes are open. They’re alive, that’s clear. Are they hibernating?”

“No. Each of them is fully conscious. In that condition you feel normal except for a few subtle differences. But their metabolisms have been drastically slowed — two thousand times slower than usual. That’s S-space, and it changes your perception of everything. In one of our seconds, light travels three hundred thousand kilometers. In one of theirs, it travels six hundred million kilometers. To us, Sol is eighteen light-years away. To them, it’s only a little more than three light-days. That’s why we heard that the Immortals can travel between the stars in days — their days. Time passes so slowly for them that what feels like a day to us they experience as less than a minute.”

Peron went close to Garao and passed his hand slowly in front of the other’s face. “See? They don’t even know we’re here.” He moved over to the stationary figure of Atiyah, removed the belt from around the man’s tubby middle, and looped it around Olivia Ferranti’s neck. “In about twenty minutes he’ll notice that his belt is missing. In another hour of our time he’ll begin to wonder where it went. It will be an hour more before he can do anything to get it back.”

The others made their own inspections, touching skin and fingering hair. “How did they get this way?” asked Lum.

“The same way that I did, when Wilmer operated on me back on Whirlygig. I know that’s not much of an answer, but it’s the best one I can give you. There has to be a complicated treatment, but it must be fairly standardized — and it’s fully reversible. I’ve been both ways, and so has Captain Rinker. He had to go back to normal living to fix a mechanical problem with this ship. Let’s take a look at the ship now. We’ll all need that information later.”

Peron led the way back through to the suspense room. As they went he responded to their torrent of questions. The ship they were travelling on was deep in interstellar space, heading for the headquarters of the Immortals. That headquarters was far from any sun or planet, a full light-year away from the Cass system. They were moving at only a fraction of light-speed — probably no more than a tenth. During their journey, nearly ten years would pass back on Pentecost.

The other Planetfest winners were not on board. Their fate could only be conjectured, but Peron thought they were all still back in the Cass system, probably living on The Ship. That was where the Immortals lived in the Cass system. The other winners would probably become Immortals themselves after some kind of indoctrination. They would prefer to live in S-space for the longer subjective life span it offered, and they would return to normal life, as Wilmer had done, only for special duties.

“How long does an Immortal live?” asked Sy. “It’s obvious that nobody can be truly immortal.”

“Seventeen hundred years.”

There was another long silence. Finally Elissa said: “You mean seventeen hundred subjective years? That’s two thousand times seventeen hundred ordinary years back on Pentecost — three million four hundred thousand. They live three million four hundred thousand years!”

“Right,” said Peron cheerfully. Adjusting to that idea hadn’t been easy, and he was glad to see that others had the same reaction. “Of course, that’s only a conjecture. As Dr. Ferranti pointed out, they can only make estimates of full life span — because no one has lived it yet. It’s only twenty thousand years or so since we left Earth, and no one was living in S-space there.”

“But what about side effects?” said Elissa. “When you make such a profound change…”

“I only know of a couple,” said Peron. He brushed his hand through his hair. “See? It has stopped growing, and I think I was starting to lose it in S-space. Better get ready to lose those beautiful locks, Rosanne. I think that when you change metabolic rates for a while you become hairless. That’s what happened to Wilmer, and the other contestant Kallen met. Back on Whirlygig I couldn’t believe it when Wilmer told me that he had been in trouble there three hundred years before. But it makes sense now. That was just a few months in S-space. He was living there until he was with us in the ‘Fest. A hundred years on Pentecost would be only a few weeks for him.”