On one of the smaller boulders at the cliffs base Reese sat, arms around his legs, chin resting on his knees. He smiled as Donnerjack entered the clearing.
“Welcome to my secret place,” he said. “Won’t you have a seat?” He reached out and patted an adjacent boulder.
“Your design?” Donnerjack asked. “Time trick and all?”
Reese nodded. “With the help of the genius loci AI who manages it,” he added.
Donnerjack moved forward and seated himself.
“Would you care to meet her?” Reese asked.
“Perhaps later, though time is one of things I have to include in my field theory.”
“Dear old time, my lifelong nemesis and friend,” Reese said with a sigh. ” The image of eternity,’ David Park called it in a book of that title. He posited a Time I, which works out determinate, and a Time II, which doesn’t. Time I is the time of thermodynamics, Time II subjective human time. He wrote it right before Chaos Theory was developed. It would have been a different book if he’d done it a few years later. Still fascinating, however. The man was a philosopher as well as a physicist, for he’s as right as anybody has been, for as far as he goes.”
“You’re saying he doesn’t go far enough?”
“He didn’t have Virtu to play with, the way we do.”
“But the physics of Virtu seem to be circumstantial.”
“Because of its seeming artificial character Virtu lends itself to the creation of anomalies.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that, considering Verkor’s work on perfect fluidity.”
Reese arched a brow. “Verkor is wrong. Had I the time and inclination I’d disprove him in print. There are universal principles in Virtu. I doubt I’ll have the time to point the way, however.”
“You have been working all these years?”
“Never stopped working. Just stopped publishing. You can have my notes if I don’t make it this time around. I’ll leave instructions.”
“Very good. But I’d rather you made it. I didn’t realize you’d stayed in such good shape, but since you have—”
“You can’t tell by looking.”
“I meant mentally. Any idea how you’ll come through?”
“I’m not going to make a bet with you and jinx myself,” Reese said. “That is the way of the statistician. What do you want to know for, anyhow?”
“I think I’d like to work with you again.”
Reese chuckled. “John, I don’t think this one is for me. These are probably my last hours. As I said, I’ll leave you the papers. Don’t expect anything more.”
“Then let me ask you this: How good is the Center for latropathic Disorders?”
“They’ve pulled me through before. Several times. I have to give them that.”
“I was just thinking that if it were necessary to place the resources of the Donnerjack Institute at your disposal I’d be happy to do it, whether you work with me or not.”
“You always were a generous guy, John, but I don’t know whether it would really be of much help.”
“You never know till you ask. Remember, my foundation did a lot of medical engineering work at one time. Let me find a way to interface my data with theirs and we’ll see what they have to say to each other. If they don’t, no harm done. If they do, who knows what might turn up?”
“All right. Let’s do it as soon as we can, then.”
“Done,” Donnerjack said, and he snapped his fingers.
A man in a tuxedo stepped from behind a boulder.
“You called, sir?”
“For someone with less formality.”
“Sorry, it’s been a long while.”
“It has and it was generally someone else seeking access, as I recall now.”
Suddenly, the man wore khakis and a long-sleeved sports shirt.
“Very good,” Donnerjack replied. “There is someone I would like you to meet on a medical matter.”
“It’s been a long while. Who is it?”
“The AI for the Center of latropathic Disorders.”
“Oh, Sid. I knew him when he was just getting running. He’s the one who started calling me Paracelsus.”
“You joke.”
“In my generation, joking by AIs was considered pretty much bad form—unless you were a professional in the area, of course.”
“You and A.I. Aisles must have been of a generation. What did you think of him?”
“What can I say about the first AI comedian? He was great. I knew him.”
“Why was he really canned?”
“The story was that he distracted the AIs from their work. They used to repeat his stuff over and over and over.”
“That can’t be right, considering how many things you can do at a time.”
“True—”
“Hello, gentlemen,” said a dapper, dark-suited individual with brown eyes and a short beard. “Dr. Jordan I know from the inside and Dr. Donnerjack by reputation. How’re you, Paracelsus?”
“Fine,” replied the other.
“It seems to me that you two worked together briefly in the past,” said Donnerjack. “Would you check and see how compatible you might be right now?”
“I don’t believe I’m authorized to execute such a procedure,” Sid said.
“Paracelsus, you have full permission to do so,” Donnerjack responded. “You get ready, and I’ll be in touch with Sid’s bosses in a few moments.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Reese said.
“Okay.”
Paracelsus and Sid sketched bows and vanished.
“Stay with me, John,” Reese added. “I feel it will be soon.”
“Of course.”
“You ever see the moire?”
“Yes.”
“Under what circumstances?’
“I saw it when the lady who was later to become my wife died.”
“‘Later to become your wife’?”
“Yes, we had a rather bizarre courtship—which led us to this place.”
“Time paradox?”
“Spatial.”
“How did you affect it?”
“I didn’t. I visited a place called Deep Fields, where I petitioned Death for her return.”
“You must be joking. There is no such—”
“There is. That’s how I got her back. But it entailed a weird route and a weirder outcome.”
“Tell me the story.”
“I will, while we wait.”
“Good idea,” said Reese.
Catching the falling notepad had not been a fluke. Arthur Eden tested his new ability for a week or so, discovering its limitations, its strengths, testing beyond what he needed to prove to himself (or anyone else) that the virt power was real, extending the testing even further while he mulled over what he should do. The wisest choice, he suspected, was to keep his virt power a secret. Telling his Elishite superiors that he had developed TK might cause them to focus their attention more closely on him—on Emmanuel Davis, attention he was not certain that his cover identity could withstand.
But even as he mulled over this, accepted what the reasonable choice would be, Arthur Eden knew he would not do this thing—he would make the less safe choice, tell his superiors, find out what they would do. He tried to justify his choice to himself as academic zeal—the desire to do his research as well as possible—but he knew there was another, less pristine, reason for his decision.
Reaching out with his mind, he levitated his notepad and brought it to him. He activated his personal journal, recited the date, spoke:
After the next meeting, I will request a conference with my superiors, demonstrate my new ability. From my observations, I know this will result in an immediate promotion—a merit badge of sorts. There have been a few others of these “Elect” in my initiates class. They are all unbearably smug and usually are promoted onto another track quickly. I cannot miss such an opportunity. As a gesture to prudence, I will add the planned levels of complexity to the Davis persona.