Mosala seemed pleased with this description. “A link, a bridge. Exactly.” She leaned forward, reached over and took my hand; I glanced down, thinking: I’m in shot now, so this is unusable.

She said, “Without pre-space to mediate between us – without an infinite mixture of topologies able to represent us all with a single flicker of asymmetry – nobody could even touch .

“That’s what the TOE is . And even if I’m wrong in every detail – and Buzzo is wrong, and Nishide is wrong … and nothing is resolved for a thousand years … I still know it’s down there, waiting to be found. Because there has to be something which lets us touch.”

#

We broke off for a while, and Mosala called room service. After three days on the island, I still had no appetite, but I ate a few of the snacks she offered me from the tray which emerged from the service chute, just to be polite. My stomach began protesting – loudly – as soon as I swallowed the first mouthful, rather defeating the point.

Mosala said, “Did you know that Yasuko hasn’t arrived yet? I don’t suppose you’ve heard what’s holding him up?”

“I’m afraid not. I’ve left three messages with his secretary in Kyoto, trying to schedule an interview, and all I’ve got back are promises that he’ll be in touch with me ‘very soon.’”

“It’s odd.” She pursed her lips, obviously concerned, but trying not to plunge the conversation into gloom. “I hope he’s all right. I heard he’d been sick for a while, early in the year – but he assured the conveners he’d be here, so he must have expected to be well enough to travel.”

I said, “Travel to Stateless is more than … travel.”

“That’s a point. He should have pretended to belong to Humble Science! and stolen a ride on one of their charter flights.”

“He might have had better luck with Mystical Renaissance. He’s a self-described Buddhist, so they almost forgive him for working on TOEs. So long as he didn’t remind them that he once wrote that The Tao of Physics was to Zen what a Creation Science biology text was to Christianity.”

Mosala reached up and started massaging the back of her neck, as if talk of the journey was rekindling its symptoms. “I would have brought Pinda, if the flight had been shorter. She would have loved it here. Left me to my boring lectures, and dragged her father off to explore the reefs.”

“How old is she?”

“Three and a bit.” She glanced at her watch and complained wistfully, “It’s still only four in the morning, back home. Not much chance of a call from her , for two or three hours.”

It was another opportunity to raise the emigration rumors – but I held off, yet again.