Nasu considered. In truth, she didn’t know. That memory, like so many others, was missing. But now that she was here she wanted to see how things would play out.

“What do you tell them?” she asked, curious. “About who you are?”

“They don’t ask,” Sharif said. “I’m just a mechanic. People hire me for my skills.”

“You were a terrible apprentice,” Nasu said. “I’m surprised you’ve lived this long.”

“The wars are over,” Sharif said. “No one cares anymore. Your type of art is obsolete, a curiosity fit only for a few collectors.”

“Harsh,” Nasu said. “If not unfair.”

“You have been well?” Sharif regarded her in puzzlement. “It’s good to see you,” she said.

“You, too,” Nasu admitted. She sipped her tea.

“Who found it?” she said.

“Some robot out in the desert.”

“One of the old ones? Those humanoid freaks?”

Sharif said, “You never liked them, did you.”

“I never saw a reason to. They’re not one thing, not quite another.”

“They are just what they are,” Sharif said.

Nasu wasn’t interested. Some old robot. No wonder it tripped all kinds of ancient alarms. This was no doubt why she came back. It didn’t matter. Robots couldn’t help but be drawn to the golden man. They were tools, and she made use of tools.

“I’ll see you again,” she said, getting up.

“I’m sure,” Sharif said.

“You won’t remember.”

“Do I ever?”

Nasu gave her a small black pebble. “Close your hands around it.”

“What does it do?”

“It shows you things.”

“I’ve seen enough, Nasu. I don’t want to see.”

But the stone was already speaking to Sharif. It told her of the quiet. Nasu took back the stone. Sharif just sat there, her eyes open, seeing nothing.

Nasu would have felt a twinge of guilt but that feeling, like others, had left her a long way back.

“I’ll see you,” she said. Then she went on her way.

16. The Crossing

The things in the Oort were just a story people started to tell sometime in the past.

The stories began in the Outer System and spread slowly. They told them in the asteroid belt, sometimes, to scare the children. The Inner System with its teeming worlds paid little attention. Anyone who lived past the Great Crossing, that gulf of space between Mars and Jupiter, was more than a little odd, so the consensus went.