He knew that hybernation stopped time for the flesh, but something else went on and on and on . . . Eternity. That was the poet’s candle. The people who were keeping him waiting now did not realize how a poet could adjust the candle’s flame. He knew he was being tested, but these Shipmen hidden behind their sensors did not know the tests he had already surmounted with Ship.

Panille idled away the wait by recalling such a test. At the time he had not known it was a test; that awareness came later. He had been sixteen and proud of his ability to create emotions with words. In the secret room behind Records, Panille had activated the com-console for a study session—to explore his own curiosity.

Ship began the conversation, which was unusual. Usually, Ship only responded to his questions. Ship’s first words had startled him.

“As has been the case with other poets, do you think you are God?”

Panille had reflected on this. “All the universe is God. I am of this universe.”

“A reasonable answer. You are the most reasonable poet of My experience.”

Panille remained silent, poised and watchful. He knew Ship did not always give simple answers, and never simple praise.

Ship’s response had been, once more, unexpected. “Why are you not wearing your silver net?”

“I’m not making poems.”

Then, back to the original subject: “Why is there God?”

The answer popped into his head the way some lines of poetry occurred to him. “Information, not decisions.”

“Cannot God make decisions?”

“God is the source of information, not of decisions. Decisions are human. If God makes decisions, they are human decisions.”

If Ship could be considered to feel excitement, that was the moment for it and Kerro sensed this. There had been a pattern to the way Ship supplied information to him, and it was a pattern which only a poet might recognize. He was being trained, sensitized, to ask the right questions . . . even of himself.

As he waited at Shipbay Fifty, the questions were obvious, but he did not like some of the answers those questions suggested.

Why were they keeping him waiting? It signaled a callous attitude toward their fellows. And what use had the Colony found for a poet? Communication? Or were Hali’s fears to be believed?

The hatch in front of him scissored open with a faint swish of servosystems and a voice called out: “Hurry it up!”

Panille recognized the voice and tried not to show surprise as he stepped through into a reception room and heard the hatch seal behind him. Automatics. And yes, it was the bumbler, Doctor Winslow Ferry.