For a Breath I Tarry

'No. I build. You destroy. Deactivate yourself.'

'Not until I am irreparably damaged.'

'If there were some way in which I could demonstrate to you that this has already occurred…'

'The impossible cannot be adequately demonstrated.'

'If I had some outside source which you would recognize…'

'I am logic.'

'…Such as a Man, I would ask Him to show you your error. For true logic, such as mine, is superior to your faulty formulations.'

'Then defeat my formulations with true logic, nothing else.'

'What do you mean?'

There was a pause, then:

'Do you know my servant Frost…?'

Man had ceased to exist long before Frost had been created. Almost no trace of Man remained upon the Earth.

Frost sought after all those traces which still existed.

He employed constant visual monitoring through his machines, especially the diggers. After a decade, he had accumulated portions of several bathtubs, a broken statue, and a collection of children's stories on a solid-state record.

After a century, he had acquired a jewelry collection, eating utensils, several whole bathtubs, part of a symphony, seventeen buttons, three belt buckles, half a toilet seat, nine old coins and the top part of an obelisk.

Then he inquired of Solcom as to the nature of Man and His society.

'Man created logic,' said Solcom, 'and because of that was superior to it. Logic He gave unto me, but no more. The tool does not describe the designer. More than this I do not choose to say. More than this you have no need to know.'

But Frost was not forbidden to have a hobby.

The next century was not especially fruitful so far as the discovery of new human relics was concerned.

Frost diverted all of his spare machinery to seeking after artifacts.

He met with very little success.

Then one day, through the long twilight, there was a movement.

It was a tiny machine compared to Frost, perhaps five feet in width, four in height—a revolving turret set atop a rolling barbell.

Frost had had no knowledge of the existence of this machine prior to its appearance upon the distant, stark horizon.

He studied it as it approached and knew it to be no creation of Solcom's.

It came to a halt before his southern surface and broadcasted to him:

'Hail, Frost! Controller of the northern hemisphere!'

'What are you?' asked Frost.

'I am called Mordel.'

'By whom? What are you'

'A wanderer, an antiquarian. We share a common interest.'

'What is that?'

'Man,' he said. 'I have been told that you seek knowledge of this vanished being.'

'Who told you that?'

'Those who have watched your minions at their digging.'

'And who are those who watch?'

'There are many such as I, who wander.'

'If you are not of Solcom, then you are a creation of the Alternate.'

'It does not necessarily follow. There is an ancient machine high on the eastern seaboard which processes the waters of the ocean. Solcom did not create it, nor Divcom. It has always been there. It interferes with the works of neither. Both countenance its existence. I can cite you many other examples proving that one need not be either/or.'

'Enough! Are you an agent of Divcom?'

'I am Mordel.'

'Why are you here?'

'I was passing this way and, as I said, we share a common interest, mighty Frost. Knowing you to be a fellow antiquarian, I have brought a things which you might care to see.'

'What is that?'

'A book.'

'Show me.'

The turret opened, revealing the book upon a wide shelf.

Frost dilated a small opening and extended an optical scanner on a long jointed stalk.

'How could it have been so perfectly preserved?' he asked.

'It was stored against time and corruption in the place where I found it.'

'Where was that?'

'Far from here. Beyond your hemisphere.'

'Human Physiology,' Frost read. 'I wish to scan it.'

'Very well. I will riffle the pages for you.'

He did so.

After he had finished, Frost raised his eyestalk and regarded Mordel through it.

'Have you more books?'

'Not with me. I occasionally come upon them, however.'

'I want to scan them all.'

'Then the next time I pass this way I will bring you another.'

'When will that be?'

'That I cannot say, great Frost. It will be when it will be.'

'What do you know of Man?' asked Frost.

'Much,' replied Mordel. 'Many things. Someday when I have more time I will speak to you of Him. I must go now. You will not try to detain me?'

'No. You have done no harm. If you must go now, go. But come back.'

'I shall indeed, mighty Frost.'

And he closed his turret and rolled off toward the other horizon.

For ninety years, Frost considered the ways of human physiology and waited.

The day that Mordel returned he brought with him An Outline of History and A Shropshire Lad.

Frost scanned them both, then he turned his attention to Mordel.

'Have you time to impart information?'

'Yes,' said Mordel. 'What do you wish to know?'

'The nature of Man.'

'Man,' said Mordel, 'possessed a basically incomprehensible nature. I can illustrate it, though: He did not know measurement.'

'Of course He knew measurement,' said Frost, 'or He could never have built machines.'

'I did not say that He could not measure,' said Mordel, 'but that He did not know measurement, which is a different thing altogether.'

'Clarify.'

Mordel drove a shaft of metal downward into the snow.

He retracted it, raised it, held up a piece of ice.

'Regard this piece of ice, mighty Frost. You can tell me its composition, dimensions, weight, temperature. A Man could not look at it and do that. A Man could make tools which would tell Him these things, but He still would