"That's a funny answer," Lori complained.
"Nevertheless, it's the only one I can give before I explain some things to you. And that will take time." He reached for a small loaf of bread and tore off a piece. "I suggest we eat first."
"We're still a little concerned-" I began, then heard a noise to my right.
It was Carl, being led into the dining hall by a glowing sphere. Impossible to tell whether it was the same one that had ushered us around.
"Carl!" Lori got up and rushed to him. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah. Where the hell were you guys?"
"Where the hell were you?" I asked him.
"Jeez, after I got to the top, I waited and waited. When you didn't show I took off and scouted around. Got lost."
"We couldn't have been more than a minute behind you."
"Yeah? It seemed a lot longer than that. I thought you guys weren't coming up."
"But you saw Darla and me on the ramp. Didn't you?"
"Yeah, that's what I couldn't figure. I thought the ramp stopped or something and you were stuck. And I couldn't figure a way to get back into that shaft and look down."
"Well, you should've stayed put," I told him.
"Sorry. I didn't go very far at all. I mean, all I did was step out of that round room. And all of a sudden I was, like, lost. It was really weird."
Carl did the chair routine. "This place is screwy," he declared after he had settled in.
"Any explanation for Carl's confusion?" I asked Prime.
"Well…" Prime had taken up a long curved ladle and was dishing himself some of what looked like shrimp casserole. "You may recall that I mentioned some architectural anomalies associated with this edifice. You will find that within the confines of this building, the properties of time and space are somewhat different from what you might normally be accustomed to. Now in most areas the effects are slight, but here and there the curvature increases, and things might seem a bit strange until you have made certain psychological adjustments. The effects are the by-products of all the different technologies in and about the place." He poured himself more wine. "For example, that conveyance you used to come up. Time flows a trifle faster when you ride it-meaning that the trip is actually longer than it seems. Not by much, mind you. I suppose Carl may have grown a little impatient. Anxious, probably. Your arrival may have seemed unduly delayed. Am I right, Carl?"
"Yeah, I guess I was pretty jumpy."
"Well, there you are. And you may have lost your way by entering an area where the shortest distance between two points is not necessarily a straight line, if you get my meaning."
"Not really."
"Suffice it to say that this building would be difficult to negotiate one's way through even without the spatiotemporal distortions."
We had all started digging in. I helped myself to a serving dish piled with what looked like steak tartare.
"I hope this fare is acceptable," Prime said. "Given enough time, the kitchens here can produce some very good food indeed. All of this was on rather short notice."
I remembered something and looked over at Ragna and Oni. "What about-"
But the alien couple had found food they could eat.
"This is most excellent," Ragna said, smiling through a mouthful of mush. "Quite like the food of which we are having at home. In fact, it is most exactly like that of same. Uncanny!"
And George and Winnie were munching green shoots with pink, pulpy heads, and were enjoying them.
I asked, "How did your cooks manage to come up with native foods for these guys-or us, for that matter? Pretty neat trick, short notice or not."
"I hope I won't spoil your appetites," Prime said, "by telling you that everything on this table has been synthesized."
"That's amazing," Yuri said. "The stuffed cabbage tastes quite authentic."
"I'm glad you like it."
Conversation lulled as the feeding got serious. I wolfed down steak, noodles Romanoff, broccoli with cheese sauce, chicken curry, artichokes in lemon sauce, two baked potatoes, a few spiced meatballs, a pile of mushrooms in onions and butter, and half a roast glazed chicken. That took care of the main hunger pangs. There were other dishes which didn't look familiar. I asked Prime about their origins.
"Other times and other places," he said. "For a little variety. Try them."
I did. Most were excellent, some were so-so. All were fairly exotic.
By then I was stuffed, and had to turn down the boysenberry torte and the lemon-cheese souffle. Well, I had a smidge of the souffle: It was light and fluffy. Very good. Everything had been superb. Good. Too goddamn good, and I couldn't figure it out.
I couldn't figure out Prime either; which wasn't surprising. He had told us almost nothing yet, and I was impatient. I'd been watching him, and he had dug in as heartily as any of us. His gusto didn't look fake. Maybe he was human.
"Where'd your cooks get the recipes?" I asked.
"There is not much we don't know-even relatively trivial things like food preparation techniques of antiquity. My `cooks"'-he chuckled--"all this was done by machines. We merely supplied the data."
"Your technology must be fantastic."
Prime leaned back, wiped his lips delicately with a pink napkin.
"We have no technology," he said.
5
I regarded our host. If there were any revealing emotions to be read in his face, they were encoded in expressions I couldn't scan. I recalled what he'd said concerning his humanity. At times I could see that spark, that small part of him, glinting somewhere within those purple-flecked eyes. I thought I could, anyway, now and then. Most of the time the mask covered everything, presenting its blandly pleasant face to us. I couldn't conceive of what was really behind it, the essential part of what he was. Something alien, surely; an impenetrably mysterious presence. The shadow of something vaguely frightening lurked behind the one-way window of his personality.
"Huh?" I replied to his last statement.
"I said, we don't have any technology. That is to say, the Culmination possesses no original technology. All that which we have at our disposal has been bequeathed to us by the great scientific and technology-creating cultures of the past." With a sweep of an arm he went on, "This edifice, for example. It's a technological wonder in itself-a self-maintaining, selfdefending fortress. It is at least a half-billion years old-"
"Half-billion," Yuri gasped, almost choking on his brandy. He cleared his throat and said, "Surely you're joking."
"Oh, I assure you I'm not. The dust of the race that built it lies compressed in geological strata, along with everything else they ever built or accomplished. They are but a memory a faint one at that. But this structure endures. This is not its original site, of course. It was relocated several times in its long history, until it was finally brought here to Microcosmos."
"For what purpose?" Sean asked. "What is Microcosmos?"
"An artificial world. Its original purpose was manyfold. I suppose a handy way to think of it would be-"
"Wait a minute," I broke in. "Are you saying that Microcosmos isn't yours either? The Culmination-whatever that is-didn't build it?"
"No. Microcosmos itself is a relic of a time long past." Prime refilled his wineglass as he continued: "As I was saying, it would be easy to think of it as, say, the site of a long defunct institution of higher learning-an amalgam of university, library, museum, research center, and so forth. This conveys at least part of its original function. The rest is not easy to grasp, since a distinct element of recreation went into the original conception behind it. Also, it served some sort of religious purpose, strangely enough. What that was would be hard to put into terms I could easily convey to you. You are free to research the history of this place, if you wish, though I must say I wouldn't place a high priority on it in terms of what you should be doing here-"