Floating in the soothing, undemanding between, Lanier absorbed the information, already feeling separated from the reality that had been his life. Either route seemed acceptable…But the second way was extraordinary. Only rarely had he even imagined such a thing. Complete freedom, a journey beyond all journeys…and, as Mirsky pointed out, a journey with a definite purpose.

The Final Mind needs many observers along the way, many progress reports. We can provide one continuous report, from the beginning, to the end.

We won’t start here? Lanier asked.

No. We go back to the beginning. We are only observers, after all, and not actors, now that our labor is done. The information we gather can have no effect on the times we’ll gather it from.

Lanier’s thoughts became crystalline again, and he felt another sharp wave of an emotion mixing sense of duty, love and nostalgia. I haven’t cut my roots to the present yet.

Mirsky admitted that he had not, either; not completely.

Shall we say our farewells? Briefly, unobtrusively. To those we love.

For the last time? Lanier asked.

For a very long time to come…but not necessarily for the last.

Now you’re being obscure.

That’s our privilege, with such freedom! Where will you go to say farewells?

I have to find Karen.

And I will find Garabedian. Shall we meet again in, say, a few seconds, and begin?

Lanier found he could still laugh, and the feeling of lightness in him was held down only by that same weight of duty and nostalgia.

All right. A few seconds. However long it takes.

They sped along the conduits reserved for the subtle messages of subatomic particles, space-time’s hidden circuitry.

Karen walked with three terrestrial senators through the freshly painted streets of the Melbourne camp. “They call these camps. I call them palaces,” the senator from South Australia said. “Our people will still be envious…”

That debate had been going on all morning, and she was tiring of it rapidly. The day was going to be unbearably long; more meetings, more pointless bickering, more awareness that never, in all of human history, would they be free of their monkey heritage.

Karen stopped and felt her knees tremble. Something welled up within her, a tide of love and anguish and joy; joy at having spent so many years with her husband, working together, doing as much as two humans could.

Absolution. We are not perfect; it is enough that we did what we could.

“Garry,” she said. She could feel his presence, almost inhale him. Her eyes filled with tears. Part of her said, Not now. Don’t lose it now in front of these people. But the sensation continued and she held up her arms as if to a distant sun.

The South Australia senator turned and regarded her quizzically.

“Are you all right?” she asked.