“And now we come to the most significant point. Just before the eschaton is reached, all that has ever been known, all information past or present, becomes accessible. Every item of information about people who died a thousand years ago — or fourteen million years ago — becomes available. At the eschaton, every personality who ever existed could in principle be re-created, in perfect detail.”

“Including Ana! I understand, I understand exactly.”

But Drake was filled with rage, not exhilaration. “If this was known millions of years ago, why the devil was it never once mentioned to me?”

“Because it seemed totally irrelevant. The potential for such future action exists only if the universe is closed. In your time, the observations of mass-energy density provided too low a value, by a factor of ten to twenty. That indicated an open universe. Later, scientists decided on theoretical grounds that the universe ought to sit exactly on the boundary between an open and a closed universe. They sought experimental evidence for the missing matter, and they slowly found it. There was still uncertainty; however, they thought that the universe would expand forever, but more and more slowly. In such a case the Omega Point would never exist.

“But that has at last changed. For reasons that we still do not understand, recent measurements reveal a mass-energy density higher than the critical value. That points to a closed universe. The eschaton will exist. One day, many billions of years hence, it must be reached.”

“And Ana can then return to me. When? When will it happen?”

“If it is ever possible, it will be in the far, far future. Our estimate is that the eschaton will be reached fifty billion years from now. That is a time so long that it makes the interval from your first moment of cryosleep to the present day seem less than the blink of an eye. The universe itself is only fifteen billion years old. I recommend that you do not let this conversation affect your subsequent actions. But your own wishes are important. I would like to know what you want.”

“You’re crazy!” Drake glared at Ariel in disbelief. “You know what I want. Why do you think I was frozen in the first place? I want to be with Ana. I’ll wait forever if I have to. I don’t care how long I have to stay in electronic storage.”

“We feared such a response. We deem it irrational. However, we sense your resolution and the force of your will. There is still one more thing.”

“There always is. Another problem?”

“Not at all. A recommendation. You will, I feel sure, want to understand as completely as possible the concept of a closed universe, and its implications for the Omega Point. That would become vastly easier were you to become part of a composite mind. You would have access to all that any knew, science and mathematics and language and philosophy.”

It sounded tempting. Surely, the more that he knew relevant to Ana’s ultimate resurrection, the better. But Drake had learned to be wary. Might there also be negatives, so well hidden that the composite represented by Ariel and Milton was not aware of them?

Drake could sense one, a subtlety that was hard to define precisely. There was a softness to this age, a kindness and a

willingness to bend and compromise. That sounded like real progress for the human species (if that name still applied). But as part of a composite, Drake would surely find his own anachronistic claws and fangs vanishing, dissolved by the pacifism and gentle altruism of the group mind.

A change for the better? Not necessarily. What was good for today might prove fatal tomorrow. Might there be a new future when polish and diplomacy were useless, where what was needed to restore Ana was raw resolve and crude energy?

Merging into a group was a risk too big to take.

“I don’t want to become part of a composite,”

Drake said at last. Ariel had been waiting patiently. “I am willing to be downloaded into the database. But I don’t want to be awake in electronic storage. Let me sleep until I can do some thing.”

“That can be done. There are, however, other and more pleasant options. It would be very easy to create for you a derived reality, one in which you and Ana are continuously together. Before the general use of the composites, many people lived their whole lives in such an environment.”

“How could I be with Ana? She does not exist.”

“We would provide a simulation. But, I guarantee, a highly plausible one.”

“No.” Drake did not tell of the zombie image that came into his head: Ana’s dead body, somehow reanimated but possessed of no genuine life, took hold of him in clammy hands and pressed cold lips to his. “No, Ariel. That would be the worst thing I can imagine. Let me lie dormant. Activate me only if there is significant new information about the Omega Point relevant to Ana’s restoration.”

Ariel bowed his head. “I am sorry that you will not join us, and I am sorry that you refuse derived reality. I believe that we could have soothed your pain.”

“Forget me and my pain. There are worse things in the world than pain. As soon as you are able, I want to become dormant.”

Drake paused. He had said all that he needed to say, yet it felt incomplete. Something ought to be added of his own great personal debt: to this epoch, to his faithful Servitor, to Ariel, and to the people who had finally offered him a faint and far-distant hope that he might succeed. It was unlikely that he could ever repay Ariel and Milton and their descendants, but he must make the offer.

“Waken me in one other circumstance.” Drake could feel his attention fading. Ariel was taking him at his word, and already moving him toward dormancy.

“Wake me if ever you have problems” — he had to struggle to think, struggle to finish what he wanted to say — “tough problems, ones where I might be able to help. Bring me from dormancy, and I will do my best for you.

“Don’t hold out too much hope. I haven’t had a single idea in fourteen million years, but who knows? Maybe in another fourteen million I’ll get lucky and come up with one.”

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

Interlude:

Dying

Aye, but to die, and go we know not where;

To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot;

This sensible warm motion to become

A kneaded clod, and the delighted spirit

To bathe in fiery floods or to reside

In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice;

To be imprisoned in the viewless winds,

And borne with restless violence round about

This pendent world.

There are worse things in the world than pain.

It was easy to say, hard to believe. Every fiber of every muscle was at full contraction. Tendons stretched, bones creaked and bent.

Something had gone wrong; terribly, terribly wrong. That knowledge filled Drake’s mind as the agony continued without end. If this was the price of electronic downloading into a new body, he would take a thousand primitive thawings any day.

One thing, and one thing only, saved his sanity: if he was being resurrected, it must be because there was also some new hope of resurrecting Ana. For that promise, any pain could be endured.

The knotting of his muscles was finally easing. It was replaced by a great weariness and lassitude. He opened his eyes.

Too soon. He saw only darkness shot through with streaks of flickering white. He lay back and waited.

Now he could both hear and feel. A high-pitched series of clicks sounded, very close. The skin of his chest and belly prickled and tickled, disturbing but not painful.

Vision was returning. He was lying on his back with his head turned to one side. In front of his eyes he saw a milky, translucent sheet, bowed down into a shallow depression under his weight. It felt cool and sticky on his cheek. He tried to lift his head and managed to do so even in his weakened condition. That success convinced him that he was not on Earth or in a simulated gravity close to that on Earth. He was light.