'That if the universe were-infinite and crowded uniformly with stars, how come the night sky isn't blazing with their light?' Zeke finished for him. `'That should be obvious-unless you're predisposed to think and perceive finitely. The more we amplify the weak optical resolution of the human eyes through lenses and photon receptors, the more crowded with stars the black spaces between the visible stars get. All photonsensitive plates react with a limit, and so we can't see everything that is there. It's the biological fallibility of the human mind that keeps us from accepting the infinity of the Continuum.'
Carl was only half listening. He had grown accustomed to Zeke's prattle, and his inner attention went through the kitchen to the back of the converted warehouse. There, under slick black tarpaulins, were three point five tonnes of pig manure. Nothing but the tarps covered the stuff, yet not a whisper of manure tainted the air. And when Carl had examined the mound, he had found that the-dung looked as fresh as the day it was dropped. The lynk field had permeated it. Soon, the lynk would be strong enough to carry them and the whole mound of feces across the universe.
'Another beer?' Zeke asked.
Carl shook his head. 'With the wild ideas you-have for company,' he said, rising to his feet, 'you shouldn't be drinking.' He walked to the kitchen and put his empty beer bottle in the trash. 'This is a comfortable waiting room for the next world.'
'I still wish you'd rethink going back to New York.'
'I've got to face them. You know that. If what the armor showed you about Sheelagh is true, I'd better show myself soon or they may decide to visit us in a less friendly fashion.'
'They don't know we're-here.'
'For all the precautions I've taken, I'still have this anxiety that they'll find us, Zeebo. '
'Let them. Let the future come to you. You're too dangerous for the world.' They had had this conversation before, and when Zeke recognized the unlistening patience in his friend's stare, he stopped and took another slug of beer.
'Just remember,' he added. 'You're the master of the precipitate. You're not thoughts or bones. You're freedom itself. You're light.'
'Sure.' Carl avoided his buddy's gaze and watched the flakes of life skittering through the kelp shadows.
For all Zeke's mumbo jumbo about .light and infinity he was as intensely in this world as a mineral shard, and Carl felt unreal as a ghost. Nothing, seemed as real as his memories of his lost life. The armor had him wholly in its grip.
'Look, I'm going to be on my way,' Carl said.
'Okay, then.' Zeke led him to the sliding door. They stood together for a while in the chilled and loamy air. of the churned earth. The dark land furrowed away on all sides.
'Be easy with Sheelagh,' Zeke advised. 'And be ready for the unexpected. Okay?'
'You have any prescient dreams you've been holding out?'
'No, but I can feel the uneasiness of the armor. Four-space is murky up ahead. Keep alert.'
Carl nodded, slapped Zeke on the shoulder. 'If there's any trouble, stay close to the lynk. The lance has cued your molecules to pass through the field membrane. No one can reach you there.'
Carl walked out into the field. His armor lightningflashed, and he was gone.
t
That evening, after eating microwaved lasagna and watching a Lakers game on the giant TV, Zeke lay down on the waterbed under a skylight meshed with stars. In moments, he was asleep, flying across the dizzy space of a dream.
He saw the silverblue scimitar of the earth cutting the night, and the beryl sparks of Steel Wheel I and II, the cislunar factories, glinting in the span of emptiness between the earth and the lopsided moon.
The dreamflight pitched steeply, and all at once Zeke's awareness was mizzling in a sparse, modern apartment.
Sheelagh and Carl were there before a window glittering with the constellations of the Man
hattan skyline. He Couldn't hear what they were saying at first, but he didn't need to. Sheelagh was undressing, her valentine-face mirthful as a mask. Her hair looked teased and her lispy mouth nervous. If she was hiding something, Carl didn't seem to notice. He was asking his armor if there were any threatening psyches nearby.
The armor detected none.
Then sound swarmed over Zeke's ghost presence: 'You loved me once,' Sheelagh was saying in a voice like an empty seashell. She opened her wrinkled blouse and slinked off a sleeve.
'That was before Evoe,' Carl answered, dryly. Sheelagh was fragrant as warm rain, but he was not going to be tempted. 'Come off it, Sheelagh. I'm here because I know you blabbed on me.'
Her features went slick with surprise. 'I didn't.'
'It's all right. I'm not angry.'
'You're not?' Her lipsticked mouth looked petulant again.
'Why should I be?' Carl smacked the lance against his palm like a nightstick. 'I'm leaving this rock as soon as the lynk can carry me, and nobody can stop me. I want you to tell them that. Make them understand=-so no one tries to stop me.'
'There's still time.' Her face was moony with love in a halo of static-frizzed hair. 'Stay with me. And talk with them. yourself. Let them hear what they can before you go.' , 'No, Sheelagh. I came back to see you, not them. I have to explain why I behaved so wildly with you the other night.'
