“I like it better here,” she said. “I’m not always messing up when I’m here.”
“None of the messing up was your fault,” said Zasper, turning away to hide his face. “I like you just as you are. Remember that.”
Oddly enough, the old woman said the same thing. There Fringe was, just going down the alley to the Swale, and there the old woman was, sitting on the low wall that ran along Tyme Street, eating a meat pie.
“You look a bit worn and raggedy today,” said the old woman.
“Everybody hates me,” said Fringe in a nasty voice, thinking it was none of this old person’s business what she looked like.
“I like you just as you are, child,” said the old woman, with a strangely penetrating glance. “Raggedy or not. Sit by me and I’ll buy you a meat pie.”
“Rather have a sweet one,” said Fringe, glaring angrily from beneath gathered brows.
“A sweet one then,” said the old woman, patting the wall beside her, so nothing would do but for Fringe to sit down there and have a hot fruit pie all to herself, fresh from the vendor’s kettle.
“Your name’s Jory, isn’t it?” demanded Fringe. “I know your old man’s name too, he’s Asner.”
“That’s right. What’s yours?”
“Fringe. Are you Professional class?” Fringe asked, wondering who else would have time to sit about all day, eating pies.
“Only in a manner of speaking,” said the old woman. “Actually, I’m not from Enarae at all.” “You’re here all the time.” “Vacationing. Seeing the sights.”
“Not much to see,” snorted Fringe, who, as an habitué of the Swale, thought she had seen it all. “People from Denial and Sandylwaith. Globs once in a while. Dinks from City Fifteen.”
“Dinks. You mean dinka-jins.”
“People parts in boxes,” sneered Fringe. “Obs.”
“They eschew the flesh,” said Jory thoughtfully.
“Hah,” barked Fringe. “Like I said, Obs and Uglies.”
“But they’re still people,” said the old woman. “Interesting people. Some of them are very, very smart.”
“Maybe in City Fifteen they are, but not the ones who come here,” Fringe snorted.
“Possibly not. But still, I like people. Picking them out, you know.”
Fringe didn’t know.
“I picked you out,” said the old woman with a smile. “I really did, Fringe. Did you know that?”
Fringe held her breath. “Why?” she asked.
“Why?” The old woman cocked her head and considered this. “Because you obviously aren’t satisfied with yourself the way you are, that’s why. You keep popping out in all directions, playing at being other people. But then, don’t you get dreadfully tired of people who like themselves a lot? Just the way they are?”
Fringe’s eyes stared wide in wonder. “How did you know that?”
“Well, because we’re alike, I guess. Both special in our own way. And then, too, I’ve spent years and years picking out people, all over Elsewhere.”
This came so close to her dream that Fringe didn’t dare listen, didn’t dare believe! “How can they be special if there’s a lot of them?” she sneered, sure it was all deception.
“Not lots! I never said lots. I said all over Elsewhere. Someday you’ll come visit me, perhaps, and I’ll tell you all about them. Introduce you to them.”
Though it was possible the old woman might actually be telling the truth, Fringe took the promise with a grain of salt. It would hurt to believe it and find out it wasn’t true. Grownups were always making promises they didn’t keep.
3
Great Question Day on Elsewhere. Carnivals and street dancing and solemnities. Processions with bands and clowns and red and gold banners. Music from the rooftops, and children going from door to door begging candy for the traditional give and take:
“Where is the Great Question asked now, child?”
“On Elsewhere, only on Elsewhere!”
“Why only here, child?”
“Because only on Elsewhere are there any humans left!”
“Long ago, where did they ask the Great Question, child?”
“At Brannigan Galaxity! They asked it there!”
A rattle of candies into the proffered container. A whoop and a scamper, off to the next house.
Brannigan Galaxity.
Oh, say the name reverently. Say it with awe. Say it as you might utter the secret name of God.
The center of the academic universe. The repository of all knowledge. The hub around which all reputable research had revolved. The quintessential fount of academe that was.
“Brannigan,” the human teacher had said, in the remote village on the tiny world, laying her human hands upon the heads of her rose-lipped charges. “Study hard and maybe you’ll get to go to Brannigan.”
“Apply effort diligently,” the docentdroids had cried on the eduscreens, to urb-pale students they would never touch, never see. “You may be selected for Brannigan.”
Fat chance. One in ten million had been accepted at Brannigan. Unquestioned and prodigious genius might have gained an interview, if one had known the right people, if one’s parents and grandparents had gone there, if one had been on the AA list. Otherwise, dream on!
Vast auditoria reverberating to words deathless as Scripture. Laboratories where ideas fell thick as pollen, packed with potentiality. Hallways vibrant with scuttering youth, with striding maturity, with ponderous age. Ramified structures, lofty towers, cloud-touched, star-noticed, sky-surrounded.
Voices raised in song:
Brannigan we sing to thee!
A thousand colleges, each with its own history, its own traditions, its own glories to recount. A thousand colleges, each with its own feudally owned worlds to provide goods and services, each with its own recruiters at large in the star-whirl, moving among the lesser schools like sharks among the shoals, picking the little scholar fish who would grow into the intellectual leviathans of the future!
Fountain of diversity!
Libraries sprawling in wandering tunnels of stone across continents of lawn. Mile-long stacks, loaded with volumes numerous as stars, copies of copies of copies from originals long ago turned to dust. Automatic retrieval ladders disappearing into the retreating distance of painted
