Permutation City

She said, "It's not just a matter of the Lambertians out-explaining us. The whole idea of a creator tears itself apart. A universe with conscious beings either finds itself in the dust . . . or it doesn't. It either makes sense of itself on its own terms, as a self-contained whole . . . or not at all. There never can, and never will be, Gods."

She displayed a map of Elysium. The dark stain marking processors which had ceased responding had spread out from the six public pyramids and swallowed most of the territories of Riemann, Callas, Shaw, Sanderson, Repetto and Tsukamoto. She zoomed in on the edge of the darkness; it was still growing.

She turned to Durham and pleaded, "Come with me!"

"No. What is there left for me to do? Descend into paranoia again? Wake up wondering if I'm really nothing but a discredited myth of Planet Lambert's humanoid alien visitors?"

Maria said angrily, "You can keep me company. Keep me sane. After all you've done to me, you owe me that much."

Durham was unmoved. "You don't need me for that. You'll find better ways."

She turned back to the map, her mind going blank with panic for a moment -- then she gestured at the growing void. "The TVC rules are dissolving, the Lambertians are destroying Elysium -- but what's controlling that process? There must be deeper rules, governing the clash of theories: deciding which explanations hold fast, and which dissolve. We can hunt for those rules. We can try to make sense of what went on here."

Durham said sardonically, "Onward and upward? In search of higher order?"

Maria was close to despair. He was her one link to the old world; without him, her memories would lose all meaning.

"Please! We can argue this out in the new Elysium. But there's no time now."

He shook his head sadly. "Maria, I'm sorry -- but I can't follow you. I'm seven thousand years old. Everything I've struggled to build is in ruins. All my certainties have evaporated. Do you know how that feels?"

Maria met his eyes and tried to understand, tried to gauge the depth of his weariness. Could she have persisted for as long as he had? Maybe the time came, for everyone, when there was no way forward, no other choice but death. Maybe the Lambertians were right, maybe "infinity" was meaningless . . . and "immortality" was a mirage no human should aspire to.

No human --

Maria turned on him angrily. "Do I know how it feels? However you want it to feel. Isn't that what you told me? You have the power to choose exactly who you are. The old human shackles are gone. If you don't want the weight of your past to crush you . . . then don't let it! If you really want to die, I can't stop you -- but don't tell me that you have no choice."

For a moment Durham looked stricken, as if all she'd done was compound his despair, but then something in her tirade seemed to break through to him.

He said gently, "You really do need someone, don't you, who knows the old world?"

"Yes." Maria blinked back tears.

Durham's expression froze abruptly, as if he'd decoupled from his body. Had he left her? Maria almost pulled free of his grip -- but then his waxwork face became animated again.

He said, "I'll come with you."

"What -- ?"

He beamed at her, like an idiot, like a child. "I just made a few adjustments to my mental state. And I accept your invitation. Onward and upward."

Maria was speechless, giddy with relief. She put her arms around him; he returned the embrace. He'd done that, for her? Reshaped himself, rebuilt himself . . .

There was no time to waste. She moved toward the control panel and hurried to prepare the launch. Durham looked on, still smiling; he seemed as entranced by the flickering display as if he'd never set eyes on it before.

Maria stopped dead. If he'd rebuilt himself, reinvented himself . . . then how much of the man she'd known remained? Had he granted himself transhuman resilience, and healed himself of his terminal despair . . . or had he died in silence, beyond her sight, and given birth to a companion for her, a software child who'd merely inherited its father's memories?

Where was the line? Between self-transformation so great as to turn a longing for death into childlike wonder . . . and death itself, and the handing on of the joys and burdens he could no longer shoulder to someone new?

She searched his face for an answer, but she couldn't read him.

She said, "You must tell me what you did. I need to understand."

Durham promised her, "I will. In the next life."

EPILOGUE

(Remit not paucity)

NOVEMBER 2052