That last bottle of wine. Sam Wasserman explained it to me once, the way tastes and smells are branded in your memory, stronger than sights and sounds. Something about bypassing the hypothalamus. You could smell the intricate fruitiness of it a moment after he popped the cork, and the cool complex savor as we sipped it was beyond description. It was a magical time anyhow. Humanity leaving the womb of Earth. In that small room with John and Dan and Evelyn. It glowed with purpose, love, comradeship.

Maybe friendship bypasses the hypothalamus, too. I could measure out this long life in terms of friends, who were sometimes lovers. Who were sometimes adversaries at first, like Dennison and Purcell, which gave a special closeness later.

No one left from my generation but Charlee. We meet down at the whirlpool every afternoon, let the water lave the stiffness out while we trade gossip, sometimes about the living. And sometimes talk about serious things, although at this age it’s more important to keep each other laughing.

I fight the selfish wish to die first, because I dread the disconnection, the isolation, that her death is going to bring. But my death would leave her even more alone. She doesn’t have anyone like Prime to keep her company.

What can you say about a person whose most constant friend is a mirror? A trick mirror, of herself when young. Prime argues that that’s nonsense. She’s been a mature individual for much longer than me, since she started at twenty-nine and didn’t spend forty years as a TV dinner. (That term would be obscure even on Earth now; a primitive kind of frozen food.)

If she were less kind she might also point out that her synapses don’t have to slog through a century’s worth of accumulated toxins, so she is in fact at the same time older and younger than I am, both of those in the positive senses.

Of course there are things she can never know, because of the things that she could never do. I wouldn’t trade.

Website

If you've enjoyed this book and would like to read more great SF, you'll find literally thousands of classic Science Fiction & Fantasy titles through the SF Gateway.

For the new home of Science Fiction & Fantasy …

For the most comprehensive collection of classic SF on the internet …

Visit the SF Gateway.

Also by Joe Haldeman

Forever War

1. The Forever War (1974)

2. Forever Peace (1997)

3. Forever Free (1999)

Worlds

1. Worlds: A Novel of the Near Future (1981)

2. Worlds Apart (1983)

3. Worlds Enough and Time (1992)

Marsbound

1. Marsbound (2008)

2. Starbound (2010)

3. Earthbound (forthcoming)

Novels

Mindbridge (1976)

Tool of the Trade (1987)

The Long Habit of Living (1989) (aka Buying Time)

The Hemingway Hoax (1990)

The Coming (2000)

Guardian (2002)

Camouflage (2004)

Old Twentieth (2005)

The Accidental Time Machine (2007)

Collections

All My Sins Remembered (1977)

Infinite Dreams (1978)

Dealing in Futures (1985)

Dedication

These three books are for Gay.

EPILOGUE

PRIME