I picked up a carafe and poured the glass to my right for Susan, the left for Darla, and one for me.
Prime raised his glass. 'I propose a toast. To life.'
'Hear, hear,' Sean said.
I inhaled the bouquet. While I was at it, I smelled the wine, too. What I got was the sense of a late-summer day… ripe fruit fallen in the orchard, warm breath of flowers, bright sun declining over the garden gate, the arbor heavy with grapes, fresh-cut hay fields, dreaming the afternoon away… like that. Odors familiar yet exotic, somehow. More than odors; an ambience. An experience.
I drank the wine and drank in the experience. There was a taste, too. It was fruit and flowers and dew-laden sprigs of wild mint; it was a dash of crushed cinnamon, a twist of lemon, a drop of honey. It was many things.
Presently, Darla said, 'I've never… ever tasted anything like this.'
'I'm so glad you like it,' Prime said, beaming. 'It is very good isn't it?'
'Ambrosia,' John murmured, staring into his glass.
'What is it called? Does it have a name?' Zoya wanted to know.
Prime squinted one eye. 'I think… well, a free translation would be `Earth's sweet breath of summer.''
'How appropriate. How lovely.'
'Where does it come from?' Yuri asked.
'The beings who produced this wine were very much like yourselves, and were excellent wine makers. Possibly the best the universe ever saw. As I said, they were very much like you. In fact, they were your descendents, over two million years removed from your time.'
'Two million!' Susan gasped.
'Yes. They were still human-very human. And they still remembered Earth, apparently. No doubt they visited that most ancient home of humankind.'
'Where's Carl?' Lori broke in loudly.
Prime looked at her, his expression tolerant: 'He'll be here any moment. You shouldn't worry so much, my dear.'
'Two million years in our future,' John said. 'Very difficult to believe. But you speak as if that time were long past… to you.'
'Yes it is,' Prime said. 'It was quite long ago. But time, to us… to me, means very little.'
'Who's `us'?' I asked.
Prime drank, sat back. 'I have been thinking of the appropriate word or phrase to use. Something handy- short, concise-which would impart the meaning without too much distortion. In your language there are a number of words. But I have chosen the Culmination. That is what we are. What I am. You may refer to us the Culmination.'
I usually jump at the chance to ask obvious questions. 'The Culmination of what, exactly?'
Prime gave me a level, sober look. 'Life. Consciousness. Process. Mind. Will.'
I quaffed the rest of my wine. 'Stuff like that, huh?'
Prime laughed silently, his grin broad. 'Yes. Stuff like that.' He looked around the table. 'Please, do begin. We can talk as we eat.'
'Are you God?' Lori said.
'What is God?' Prime answered.
'Huh?'
'Can you define the word?'
'Well, you know…'
'Precisely, now.'
Lori chewed her lip, then said, 'You know. The guy that made everything.'
'Guy?'
'Person. The person who made the universe. Everything.'
'Made?'
She got a little annoyed. 'Created. The person who created living things. That guy. The one you pray to.' She rolled her eyes. 'You know.'
'Do you pray to God?'
Lori was suddenly uncomfortable. 'Sometimes. Not a lot.'
Prime smiled a little impishly. 'I'm teasing you. I knew what you meant. And the fair answer to your question is precisely this: I don't know-yet.'
'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?
