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His mind was too occupied with more immediate concerns.
But every now and then he would shut his eyes for a moment and open them
again." He would turn to Karen and meet her sunny smile and run
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file:///F|/rah/Greg%20Bear/Bear,%20Greg%20-%20Eon.txt his hands through her
yellow hair.
No sense worrying about those who were farther away than the souls of the
dead.
Two/ Journey Year 1181
Oh'ny stood in the AM.Euclid public observation chamber, hands folded behind
his back, waiting for Korzenowski.
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Together they would try to convince Earth's chief advocate, Ram Kikura, that
the legal rights of the survivors on Earth could not supersede the
New Hexamon's duty to eventually force them to undergo Talsit purging.
He gathered his if they were not purged mentally as well as physically, the
condition of their thinking would be such that strife and discord would tear
the Earth apart again, in centuries if not sooner. They had to be mentally
healthy to face the future the New Hexamon was already structuring for them;
there was no file:///F|/rah/Greg%20Bear/Bear,%20Greg%20-%20Eon.txt (488 of
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file:///F|/rah/Greg%20Bear/Bear,%20Greg%20-%20Eon.txt room for the kind of
archaic, sick thinking that had led to the Death in the first place.
Olmy was not sure he could convince Ram Kikura, however. She had been
rereading the Federalist Papers and consulting ancient constitutional law
cases.
Korzenowski arrived, late as usual, and together they spent a few minutes
watching the passage of continents, seas and clouds below. The horizon was
still orange and gray with dust and ash in the stratosphere; where clouds
parted, much of the land was covered with snow.
"Is your woman going to give us a hard time today?" the Engineer asked.
"No doubt," Olmy said.
Korzenowski smiled. "I have a confession. Another young woman has been
giving me difficulties lately. Oh, I realize we should all be concentrating
on the reconstruction . . . but I think you'll understand why my mind
wanders."
Olmy nodded.
"She probably did not succeed," Korzenowski said.
"At going home?"
"It's very unlikely. I've been thinking about Way theory.
Part of me keeps pursuing those problems. We understood the geometry stacks
so little. When Patricia expressed her theo-ties, they seemed right at the
time . . . and they very nearly were. But not tight enough to take her
home."
"So where is she now?"
"That I cannot say." Korzenowski held one hand to the side of his head.
"This persistence, though . . . this pressure to keep working on the problems
. . . I can't say I object. The theory is fascinating. Thinking about it is
one of the most enjoyable things I
can do. And perhaps some day we can try again."
"From Earth?" Olmy asked.
"We still have the sixth chamber," Korzenowski said. "It wouldn't be nearly
as difficult as it was before. And we could do it better."
Olmy didn't reply for some moments. "It may be inevitable," he conceded, "but
let's not mention it to the Nexus right away."
"Of course," Korzenowski said. "After all this time, we--I am very patient."
The Engineer's intense, sharp gaze, like that of a cat waiting to pounce, made
the hair on Olmy's neck tingle.
He hadn't experienced such an atavistic response in years.
"Let's go fight the good fight with your advocate," Korzenowski suggested.
They turned away from the view of Earth and took an elevator to the Nexus
antechambers, where Suli Ram Kikura waited.
Three/ Pevel Mirsky: Personal Record If I am not too far off--or the
distorting effects of our journey are not too difficult to
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file:///F|/rah/Greg%20Bear/Bear,%20Greg%20-%20Eon.txt calculate--then today is
my thirty-second birthday.
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I have settled in to life in the Central City, taking part in the rituals and
exchanges of the Geshel life. I update my personality copies each week and
make the acquaintance of dozens of citizens every day, many anxious to
converse with me; and I work.
I study history. Those yello assign work here believe that my perceptions and
abilities make me a unique lens through which to view and interpret the past.
Rodzhensky helps. He has adapted far more completely than I, and even plans,
in his next incarnation, to take on a custom neomorph body.
I often meet with Joseph Rimskaya, but he is still morose and not very
stimulating. I believe he is homesick and perhaps should not have defected.
He plans to undergo Talsit therapy soon, though he has said that before.
Beryl Wallace, the other American, we seldom see. She has been assigned to an
observation party; a unique and sought-after job, in which I believe she must
be serving more as a mascot than anything
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file:///F|/rah/Greg%20Bear/Bear,%20Greg%20-%20Eon.txt else, but I could be
wrong. The implants can perform wonders.
I was never an intellectual. Philosophy bored me; questions of ultimate
meaning and reality seemed pointless. I did not have the capacity for far
stretches of the imagination. With the implants, all that has changed. I
have taken a dozen more steps on the road to being a different person.
We have voyaged a considerable distance since achieving near light-speed. I
do not believe anyone expected what is happening now.
The Way is so complicated; even those who created it could not predict all of
its possibilities.
We now journey down a ghost Way, its local nature altered by the violence of
our near light-speed passage. It has no diameter or boundaries as such;
objects with mass simply cannot exist beyond a distance of more than twenty
thousand kilometers from the course on which we ride. (The flaw, or
singularity, vanished three months ago.
Simply evaporated in a pulse of newly createdparticles, some of them unknown
even to the Geshels.) We have traveled beyond the domain of the super-set of
external universes which encompassed all our various world-lines.
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