marmalade?' John passed him the marmalade.
'Thank you. Jake, Darla… let me first assure you that your friends are fine. Alive and well, fit and hale, and all of that. They are under no-'
'Okay, okay,' I said curtly, 'I'll take your word for it. Just tell me where they are.'
'That brings up the perennial problem of communication again. But let me try-'
'Look,' I cut in. 'I'm getting awfully weary of these huge philosophical barriers that keep preventing you from answering the simplest of questions-like, where are my friends? Are they here, or are they somewhere else?'
Prime interrupted the job of applying marmalade to his croissant long enough to turn his head and ask, 'Do you want to visit them?'
'Of course.'
'Then sit back and relax.' I tried.
'Open your mind and call your friends. One or all of them.'
l stared at him.
'Just do as I say,' Prime instructed.
I leaned back and pictured Susan's face in my mind. Nothing happened.
Prime smiled, his black eyes twinkling. 'Keep trying.'
So I kept trying… to do exactly what, I didn't know. I began to feel faintly ridiculous sitting there, staring off into space, but then something began to happen. Hard to describe. The environment around me began to dissolve, like a film, into another scene. It startled me at first, and the process halted and reversed-the dining room, the table, and everyone in the room reappeared. But then I relaxed and let go, discovering that I could control whatever was happening. I let the scene around me fade again.
I found myself sitting on a ledge on a steep rocky slope. Far below was a fog-filled valley ringed by snow- tipped peaks. Above was a jagged mountaintop against a gray sky. I stood and breathed in. The air was cool, fresh enough to have been created the instant before. Looking around, I saw stunted trees clinging to the slope, along with an occasional bush. The slope was steep but not difficult to climb, set with wide flat stones in uneven steps. I hopped to a higher outcrop and looked around. Deciding to climb the mountain and perhaps get a better view of what was going on, if anything, I began the ascent.
A cold wind rose. Eventually the slope leveled off to a wide ridge graced with an occasional tree. I walked along the edge, gazing down, until the way narrowed to a ledge just big enough to walk on without having to turn and sidestep. I paced slowly along it. The ledge narrowed some more, and I considered going back; but I kept on. Soon the ledge was barely as wide as my feet were long. I inched along sideways, the wind strong enough to tug at my open jacket but not enough to unbalance me. Far below a lake of mist swirled at the bottom of the cliff.
Eventually I came to a crevice splitting the wall behind me in a crooked V. I stepped back into it. It was a corridor cut back into the mountain, widening into a descending pass. I walked for a few minutes, came out the other side of the mountain, and found a gentle slope leading down to the edge of a forest. I took a path that led me down through tall conifers bearing enormous cones. A soft trilling came from the treetops; birds, maybe. Maybe something else.
I came to the bottom of the hollow and found a swiftly running brook. I turned downstream and followed it, jogging over the smooth boulders that lined its banks. When the forest thinned out, I left the rocks and took a path that paralleled the stream and wound amongst miniature trees and tended shrubbery. The path became stone- paved and bore away from the main stream, following a small tributary and cutting through rock gardens. A dwelling lay up ahead: a cottage, done in a vaguely oriental style, fronting on a quiet pond. Susan was there. She was sitting on a stone bench near the edge of the pond, reading from a slim volume bound in blue cloth.
She glanced up and saw me, smiled, then got up and ran to me.
We embraced. Her brown eyes shone. 'Jake! It seems like years,' she said, beaming.
'It does seem like it's been a long time,' I said, running a hand through her straight, light-brown hair.
This was all very strange. It wasn't a dream, but it couldn't be real, I thought. Not altogether real, at any rate.
'Where are we?' I asked. 'What is this place?'
'This is a place where I stay… sometimes,' Susan told me, taking my hand and leading me back toward the bench by the pond. 'It's quiet, and I can think here.'
'About what?'
'Anything that I think is worth thinking about.'
'I see.'
We sat. Pink and yellow flowers floated on the pond's surface, bobbing gently, and reflections' of overhead boughs shimmered deep within. Rushes grew at the pond's edge. A trilling cooing sound came from the trees. Other than the murmur of a brook, all was quiet.
'Where are we?' I asked again.
'It's a space and a time I sort of like,' she said. 'Isn't it nice?'
'Very. Tell me-does joining the Culmination mean that you can never give a straight answer again?'
She laughed. 'No. Jake, I really don't know where or when this is, exactly. It's somewhere and when outside of all space and time-or maybe I created it. I don't really know. I haven't given it much thought. Does it matter?'
'Maybe. Maybe not.'
'What was that about straight answers?'
'Sorry,' I said. 'Fair is fair. Okay, it doesn't matter. But how did I get here?'
'I gave you access to the Consensus Metaphysical Substratum. Go ahead, ask what that is.'
'What is it?'
'I'm still learning, but basically it's a reality that everyone can agree on. But it isn't necessarily the true reality.'
'The true reality of what?'
'Of everything. Real reality.'
I nodded, then turned my head and stared into the pool. There was something dark at its bottom.
'It's hard to explain,' Susan told me.
'I'm sure.'
She patted my hand, and I took hers in mine. 'Are you real?' I said. 'Are we really here, or is this an illusion?'
She pinched the back of my hand. 'Feel that?'
And I did. 'Yes. But it occurs to me to ask what that's supposed to prove. A pinch can be dreamed, too.' I looked into her eyes.
She said, 'I'm really here, Jake. And so are you.'
I had never noticed that there were little flecks of green in her irises. 'I must be,' I said.
A ripple crossed the pool, and a faint reflected wave flowed back.
'Where have you been?' Susan asked. 'You guys took off the other day.'
'Earth,' I said, 'for a vacation.'
She nodded as if she'understood. 'Did everything work out?'
'More or less.'
'Good.'
She was wearing what she always wore, her gray and brown survival suit with soft gray deck boots. Her hair was a little mussy, as always.
I said, 'I guess it wouldn't do any good to ask you to tell me what the Culmination really is, or what it's like being part of it.'
'Would you like to be a part of it, Jake?'
I shook my head. 'No.'
She nodded again, smiling, and again she understood, this time only too well. 'It's not your kind of thing, Jake. You're not a joiner. The idea of it goes against your grain.'
'I guess so.'
'But you're wrong, Jake. The Culmination is nothing like anything you've ever experienced before.'
'There's something in me that dreads the loss of individuality.'
