Noxon was still on the ship. Still in the cabin. Ram Odin was there, in his pilot’s seat. The expendable was standing exactly where Ram Odin would look for him in just a few moments, as soon as the expendable could tell him what had happened.

Only it hadn’t happened yet.

Or, more precisely, it was happening right now. In this moment, this infinite unchanging moment, there was only one ship, but there were twenty potential ships coming into existence. It was jumping from one point in space to another that was many lightyears away and yet, at this moment, perfectly adjacent. It was passing from the moment zero of the year zero to a time 11,191 years earlier.

It had been the right guess, that the moment of transition existed but had no duration, and having no duration, therefore could not end. Infinitely brief, yet also infinitely long. Not so much outside of time as deeply within. Full of imminent creation and movement; yet because there was no duration, movement was impossible.

What Noxon had not guessed, and Father had not guessed, and Ram Odin had not guessed, was that in this timeless moment, Noxon could not move. The mice could not move. The electric signals of the computers hesitated and could not move on. Noxon’s heart could not beat, he could not take a breath, but he also did not need a breath, did not need a heartbeat, because no cell in his body craved oxygen. All processes were in complete stasis because there was no movement and no causality and no possibility of change.

Yet something in him was still functioning. Because he could still see Ram Odin and the expendable. Or could he? Had that image simply frozen on his retina, in the place in his brain where vision was constructed? It could not change but it also could not fade away or leave?

Yet I am thinking, thought Noxon.

Only that’s not what he thought, because to his surprise he could not form words or even clear ideas. He could not remember language. What would have caused him to form the conscious thought “I am thinking” was really an inchoate recognition of himself. And the knowledge that his self-realization contradicted the idea that nothing could happen, because his mind, at some level deeper than the brain, was still functioning.

And even if he could not turn away from the image of Ram Odin and the expendable and the pilot’s seat and the different stations that the pilot could move to on his chair, if he could move, Noxon could see the paths.

Not see the paths. But whatever it was in him that sensed them, could sense them now. He had always been able to see the paths without turning his head. He only had to turn his attention. He could see them through walls. He could see them behind hills, though not as well. He was aware of them.