Finally, the skimming through time came to an end. He'd arrived at his destination, at the opening up; the consciousness of this far distant year — if the word year had any meaning anymore, the planet whose orbit it measured having long since disappeared — having vacated for even more remote realms, leaving a hole here for him to occupy.

Of course the universe was open. Of course it went on forever. The only way consciousness from the past could keep leapfrogging ahead was if there was always some more-distant point for the present's consciousness to move into; if the universe was closed, the time displacement would never have occurred. It had to be an unending chain.

And before him now—

Before him now was the far, far future.

When he'd been young, Lloyd had read H. G. Wells's The Time Machine. And he'd been haunted by it for years. Not by the world of the Eloi and the Morlocks; even as a teenager, he'd recognized that as allegory, a morality play about the class structure of Victorian England. No, that world of A.D. 802,701 had made little impression on him. But Wells's time traveler had made another journey in the book, leaping millions of years ahead to the twilight of the world, when tidal forces had slowed the Earth's spin down so that it always kept the same face toward the sun, bloated and red, a baleful eye upon the horizon, while crab-like things moved slowly along a beach.

But what was before him now seemed even more bleak. The sky was dim — stars having receded so far from each other that only a few were visible. The only bit of loveliness was that these stars, rich in metals forged in the generations of suns that had come and gone before them, glowed with colors never seen in the young universe Lloyd had once known: emerald green stars, and purple stars, and turquoise stars, like gemstones across the velvet firmament.

And now that he was at his destination, Lloyd still had no control over his synthetic body; he was a passenger behind glass eyes.

Yes, he was still solid, still had physical form. He could now and again see what appeared to be his arm, perfect, unblemished, more like liquid metal than anything biological, moving in and out of his field of view. He was on a planetary surface, a vast plain of white powder that might have been snow and might have been pulverized rock and might have been something wholly unknown to the feeble science of billions of years past. There was no sign of buildings; if one had an indestructible body, perhaps one didn't need or desire shelter. The planet couldn't be Earth — it was long since gone — but the gravity felt no different. He wasn't conscious of any smell, but there were sounds — strange, ethereal sounds, something between a sighing zephyr and woodwind music.

He found his field of view shifting as he turned around. No, no, that wasn't it — he wasn't actually turning; rather, he was simply diverting his attention to another set of inputs, eyes in the back of his head. Well, why not? If you were going to manufacture a body, you'd certainly address the shortcomings of the original.

And in his new field of vision, there was another figure, another encapsulation of a human essence. To his surprise, the face was not stylized, not a simple ovoid. Rather it had intricate, delicately carved features, and if Lloyd's body seemed to be made of liquid metal, this other's was flowing green marble, veined and polished and beautiful, a statue incarnate.

There was nothing feminine — or masculine — about the form, but he knew in an instant who it must be. Doreen, of course — his wife, his beloved, the one he wanted to spend eternity with.

But then he studied the face, the carved features, the eyes—

The almond-shaped eyes…

And then—

Lloyd had been lying down in bed when the experiment was replicated, his wife by his side — no way they could hurt themselves or each other when they blacked out.

"That was incredible," said Lloyd, when it was over. "Absolutely incredible."

He turned his head, sought out Doreen's hand, and looked at her.

"What did you see?" he asked.

She used her other hand to shut off the radio. He saw that it was trembling. "Nothing," she said.

His heart sank. "Nothing? No vision at all?"

She shook her head.

"Oh, honey," he said, "I'm so sorry."

"How far ahead was your vision?" she asked. She must have been wondering how long she had left.

Lloyd didn't know how to put it in words. "I'm not sure," he said. It had been an amazing ride — but it was crushing to think that Doreen would not live to see it all, too.

She tried to sound brave. "I'm an old woman," she said. "I thought maybe I'd have another twenty or thirty years, but… " She trailed off.

"I'm sure you will," said Lloyd, trying to sound certain. "I'm sure you will."

"But you had a vision… " she said.

Lloyd nodded. "But it was — it was a long time from now."

"TV on," said Doreen into the air; her voice was anxious. "ABC."

One of the paintings on the wall became a TV screen. Doreen propped her head up to see it better.

" — great disappointment," said the newscaster, a white woman of about forty. "So far, no one has actually reported having a vision this time out. The replication of the experiment at CERN seemed to work, but no one here at ABC News, nor anyone else who has called in to us, has reported having a vision. Everyone seemed to just black out for — early estimates have it that perhaps as much as an hour passed while people were unconscious. As he has been throughout the day, Jacob Horowitz is joining us from CERN; Dr. Horowitz was part of the team that produced the first time-displacement phenomenon twenty years ago. Doctor, what does this mean?"

Jake lifted his shoulders. "Well, assuming a time displacement did occur — and we don't know that for sure yet, of course — it must have been to a time far enough in the future that everyone currently alive is — well, there's no nice way to put it, is there? Everyone currently alive must be dead at that point. If the displacement was, say, a hundred and fifty years, I suppose that's no surprise, but — "

"Mute," said Doreen, from the bed. "But you had a vision," she said to her husband. "Was it as much as a hundred and fifty years ahead?"

Lloyd shook his head. "More," he said softly. "Much more."

"How much?"

"Millions," he said. "Billions."

Doreen made a small laugh. "Oh, come on, dear! It must have been a dream — sure, you'll be alive in the future, but you'll be dreaming then."

Lloyd considered this. Could she be right? Could it have been nothing but a dream? But it had been so vivid — so realistic…

And he was sixty-six years old, for God's sake. No matter how many years they jumped ahead, if he had a vision surely younger people should have, as well. But Jake Horowitz was a quarter-century his junior, and doubtless ABC News had many employees in their twenties and thirties.

And none of them had reported visions.

"I don't know," he said, at last. "It didn't seem like a dream."