What a joke.
The universe was laughing at him. How trite. How perfect.
The universe was perfect. It was beautiful, beyond belief.
This life—and it wasn’t done, not yet, not quite—was beautiful. He couldn’t get enough. Loved it to death.
That was rich.
He loved life to death.
Love flew out of him in every direction. Love, attachment, desire, connection—the names meant nothing—flew out: to Earth, to the stars, to the emptiness between the stars, to the dark matter and the dust, the fourteen dimensions and the fifteen cosmos, to all that was living and all that was not. Love flew, faster than light. So fast that it came back around, and wasn’t done. He knew it wasn’t done, because the alarm didn’t stop. Like a wake-up call, a catchy jingle that gets stuck in your head, a song from the symphony of life, vinyl version, with a scratched track that keeps popping back, it kept repeating, repeating, as if to prolong the suspense.
He was ready to die, but also ready to live. There was a balance in all things, and death at the moment appeared to have the upper hand. He had made his peace with this, was prepared to embrace it, but he had a passing thought, quite possibly his last: was it too late to change his mind?
The thought, impossibly, gave way to action. Marshaling every bit of strength and will, he clawed his way back to the inside hatch, unlocked it, then collapsed into the bay. It was all he could manage. He had nothing left after that.
He hovered above the floor, more or less on a level with the Ooi, which was nestled on its rock. He stared at it. He, and he alone, had believed in it, and given it life. Who was he, he had to ask, to give life?
He wasn’t God. He didn’t believe in God. Or wishes on a star.
Yet there it was. An inert, unresponsive, implacable splotch now glowing like the rising sun, like a comet’s coma. Radiating heat and light.
A miracle. Like life itself.
He didn’t ask why or how. It was enough to be bathed by its healing energy. He felt it through his suit. It warmed his skin, but didn’t penetrate farther, unable to drive away the deeper chill. There was so much of that. Too much. And it was spreading.
But the Ooi wasn’t done. It ramped itself up, burning brighter, hotter. Red, orange, yellow. It fought the chill and the gathering darkness. Drove them back.
But not far, and not for long.
The alarm kept sounding. Louder now than ever.
Death was knocking at the door.
The Ooi seemed to shudder in response. Then it drew itself up, rose from the asteroid, and began to vibrate. Then hum. The hum was unrecognizable, unlike anything he’d ever heard. From its own symphony, or rather the expanded symphony, the infinite, universal one. Musica mysterium. Heavenly and euphoric. It drowned out the alarm.
Death retreated.
But not far, and not for long.
Eternal darkness was like a fog that might lift for a minute, an hour, a lifetime or two, but in the end would return to engulf all. A fog of oblivion. It sent its lacy tendrils toward him now. They carried the smell of death. An honest smell. Awful, but beguiling.
It filled his nostrils, then his mind.
Death was upon him.
The Ooi refused to yield. It hovered above the asteroid, and seemed to melt. Bubbles appeared on its surface, and as they burst, he smelled something new in the air. Sweet but not too sweet, rich but not too rich. Fresh and deeply satisfying. A smell to put iron in the blood and hair on the tongue. The smell of life, which overwhelmed the smell of death, and silenced the alarm.
But only for a little while.
Like a school bell, signaling the end of recess, it returned. Like a barking dog, it wouldn’t stop.
He was growing weary of the sound. Weary to the bone. He longed for peace and quiet.
He looked to the Ooi for help, but it had nothing more for him, nothing more to give. It had done what it could. He thanked it with all his heart, and wished it well.
The wish was his final thought.
After that, there were only sensations. A roaring in his ears. A pungent, earthy scent. A spreading chill, and something opposing it, the embers of a fire, pale red and ghostly pink, growing ever fainter. He saw a ray of light, felt a spark, then was swallowed by darkness.
–TEN–
Gunjita stood on the banks of the Ganges, near Rishikesh. It was early morning. A light breeze carried the smell of burning wood, bone, and flesh, from an upstream ghat. A snapping turtle, grown thick-shelled on its diet of turtle food and supplemental calcium, was basking on a nearby rock. Downstream was a small sandy beach. Across the river a steep, forested hill gave an inkling of the vast heights beyond it.
The smell stirred a memory. Gunjita had not been an eater of flesh for many long years, not since coming of age, when she’d flexed the muscle of independence, commitment, and fierce belief. A hundred and fifty years a vegetarian. A century and a half grazing, crunching seeds, eating nuts and beans, sipping nectar.
The memory: her dashing, rose-scented father was roasting a goat on a spit. She must have been a girl. She could remember the smell, and the feeling in her mouth, the sudden, uncontrolled salivation, the thickness of her tongue, the aching in her throat. Roasted goat, crispy, savory, and rich. Two lifetimes ago, and she could still taste it.
Two lifetimes, and now she was looking at a third. She felt like a book that kept getting longer, with more chapters, more characters, more drama. The book meandered a bit, but overall stuck to a fairly predictable storyline. It was the book of Gunjita Gharia, thicker, weightier, heftier than ever, but after two lifetimes not much different than it was after one.
The world had changed; the woman only slightly. She hadn’t wanted to change. She liked who she was. More of the same suited her.
This was true of many juvers. Others saw juving as a perfect time to try something new and different.
This did not always go as planned. Newness was one thing to wish for, another to accomplish. The habits of a lifetime, much less two, were not easily broken. Juving was no guarantee.
What it did guarantee: a month of turmoil, upheaval, and chaos, as the body rearranged itself. For most people, a distinctly unpleasant experience. It was a shock to the system, and every part of the system, notably consciousness, unconsciousness, subconsciousness, superconsciousness, and the two other consciousnesses, yet to be announced. She was glad she wouldn’t be facing it again. She understood Cav’s reluctance. But if she could overcome hers, why couldn’t he overcome his? What was she missing?
He wasn’t weak-willed. On the contrary.
Something shiny and bright had robbed him of the big picture.
There was a lesson in this, maybe even intended: the big picture wasn’t the only picture. There were smaller ones. Small did not necessarily mean less valuable or fulfilling.
Parting advice from her ex.
Novelty wasn’t for everyone, but if she wanted to give it a shot, she could start small. Make a modest change.
Goat, strictly speaking, wasn’t new to her. But it was new enough. The prospect engaged and excited her. And why stop there? Humans were naturally omnivorous. Physically, it felt right. Morally, it would bridge the divide in her mind between sacrificing animals routinely in the name of progress and the greater good, and being opposed to their wholesale slaughter for food. Eating meat, if nothing else, would end the hypocrisy.