Final Days

‘And don’t forget the Inuvik–Jupiter gate is a lot more isolated than the one in Florida,’ said Olivia. ‘They won’t be dealing with the kind of mobs Florida’s been getting – not all the way up in Alaska.’

Mitchell gazed at Olivia, his pupils deep and blue and seemingly infinite. ‘What about me?’ he asked. ‘Are the Roses still going to take me on board, without you there to back me up?’

‘Of course they are,’ said Jeff. ‘We’ll all go to the space-port first, and help arrange everything. Besides, they’re expecting us. They confirmed they had room for three, so they’ll definitely have room for just one.’

‘And you’re both absolutely set on this?’ asked Mitchell, looking back and forth between the two of them.

‘More so than anything else for a long time,’ Olivia replied, clutching Jeff’s hand more tightly.

Mitchell sighed and stood up. ‘Then you’ll have to figure out how to get north. Remember, most of the flights to Inuvik are run by the ASI.’

‘Already thought of that,’ said Jeff. ‘Bob Esquivaz runs mission control for the Roses, and they have a sub-orb that can fly us out there.’

Mitchell looked impressed. ‘Sounds like you’ve really thought this through.’

Jeff stood up as well and nodded towards the door. ‘But, for the moment, we’re all still heading for the space- port. I’ll go pack our stuff in the car. Olivia?’

‘In a minute,’ she said. ‘There’s one other thing I want to ask you first, Mitchell. Jeff told me two of you were caught in those pits. What happened to . . .’ She waved one hand, momentarily unable to recall the other man’s name.

‘Erich Vogel,’ Jeff finished for her, stepping back from the doors and gazing at Mitchell. ‘I already asked you about Vogel, but you never gave me a straight answer.’

One corner of Mitchell’s mouth twitched. ‘He’s not dead, if that’s what you mean.’

‘Then where is he?’ asked Olivia.

‘He went ahead.’

Olivia frowned. ‘Ahead to where?’

The corner of Mitchell’s mouth curled again, into an almost apologetic smile. ‘To the very end of time.’

Olivia stared at Jeff, then back at Mitchell. ‘What?’

‘Look,’ said Mitchell, ‘the exploration teams went a long, long way into the future, but there are routes through the Founder Network that can take you much farther still – so far ahead in time that I don’t even know how to describe it. Except that it’s long after the universe, as we know it, has effectively ceased to exist.’

‘You believe this?’ she asked, looking at Jeff.

Jeff shrugged helplessly. ‘After what I’ve seen during the past couple of weeks, I think I’ll believe pretty much anything.’

‘The Founder Network zigzags across the whole universe,’ Mitchell went on. ‘Jeff told you about it, surely?’

She nodded, and Mitchell reached up to tap the side of his head. ‘The pools – the learning pools, I call them – they put a road map of the whole thing here inside my head.’

‘What about Erich?’ asked Jeff. ‘How could you have spoken to him? There was no sign of himivia starl when we found you.’

‘I can’t tell you exactly how I know, but some time between losing consciousness and when you found me, I talked to him.’

‘Talked? How?’

‘I just know that, before you found me, Erich and I’d . . . communicated in some way. He said he was going up ahead, to find the Founders and the civilization they created close to the end of everything. When I woke up, I was all alone.’

‘Why didn’t you go with him?’ asked Olivia.

Mitchell paused, as if he was being careful to find the right words. ‘There were things I had to do first.’

‘What things?’

‘I had to remember certain things,’ he answered after a pause.

Olivia could feel herself getting angry, again, at what struck her as deliberate obfuscation. ‘What things?’

‘Everything . . .’ said Mitchell. ‘Like taking a snapshot of everything living on Earth, and preserving it with all its thoughts intact, and carrying it through to the far future. “Remember” isn’t really the right word . . . but the memories will live and breathe and think, put it that way.’

Olivia stared at him, suddenly frightened. ‘And you can do that?’

‘In a sense,’ he replied eventually, his expression almost reverential as he continued. ‘All this would make more sense if you’d seen what those learning pools showed me. Death has no real meaning to the Founders. It’s not a concept they really understand, because they vanquished it so very long ago.’

Olivia stared at the strange half-smile on his face and shivered.

A fresh tremor caused the table to rattle. The three of them waited, ready to bolt outside if it grew worse, but it faded after a few seconds.

‘Time to get moving,’ said Jeff, heading towards the exit. ‘We’ve probably wasted too much time