“That means after my death, right?” He saw an inward shadow pass over her face. “I’m sorry,” he blurted. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
She turned entirely calm, even smiled a bit. “It’s all right. We both know what we are, and what we used to be.”
“But—”
“Yes, but.” She shook her head. “It does feel strange, being … this … again.”
He was quickly gaining assurance, settling into the situation. “I know. I’ve had practice in it,” light-years away, at the star where Alpha dwelt. “Don’t worry, it’ll soon be quite natural to you.”
“I have been here a little while myself. Nevertheless—Young,” she whispered, “but remembering a long life, old age, dying—” She let the parasol fall, unnoticed, and stared down at her hands. Fingers gripped each other. “Remembering how toward the end I looked back and thought, ‘Was that all?’”
He wanted to take those hands in his and speak comfort, but decided he would be wiser to say merely, “Well, it wasn’t all.”
“No, of course not. Not for me, the way it had been once for everyone who ever lived. While my worn-out body was being painlessly terminated, my self-pattern was uploaded—” She raised her eyes. “Now we can’t really recall what our condition has been like, can we?”
“We can look forward to returning to it.”
“Oh, yes. Meanwhile—” She flexed herself, glanced about and upward, let light and air into her spirit, until at last a full smile blossomed. “I am starting to enjoy this. Already I am.” She considered him. He was a tall man, muscular, blond, rugged of countenance. Laughter lines radiated from blue eyes. He spoke in a resonant baritone. “And I will.”
He grinned, delighted. “Thanks. The same here. For openers, may I ask your name?”
“Forgive me!” she exclaimed. “I thought I was prepared. I … came into existence … with knowledge of my role and this milieu, and spent the time since rehearsing in my mind, but now that it’s actually happened, all my careful plans have flown away. I am—was—no, I am Laurinda Ashcroft.”
He offered his hand. After a moment she let him shake hers. He recalled that at the close of his mortal days the gesture was going out of use.
“You know a few things about me, I suppose,” he said, “but I’m ignorant about you and your times. When I left Earth, everything was changing spinjump fast, and after that I was out of touch,” and eventually his individuality went of its own desire into a greater one. This reenactment of him had been given no details of the terrestrial history that followed his departure; it could not have contained any reasonable fraction of the information.
“You went to the stars almost immediately after you’d uploaded, didn’t you?” she asked.
He nodded. “Why wait? I’d always longed to go.”
“Are you glad that you did?”
“Glad is hardly the word.” He spent two or three seconds putting phrases together. Language was important to him; he had been an engineer and occasionally a maker of songs. “However, I am also happy to be here.” Again a brief grin. “In such pleasant company.” Yet what he really hoped to do was explain himself. They would be faring together in search of one another’s souls. “And I’ll bring something new back to my proper existence. All at once I realize how a human can appreciate in a unique way what’s out yonder,” suns, worlds, upon certain of them life that was more wonderful still, nebular fire-clouds, infinity whirling down the throat of a black hole, galaxies like jewelwork strewn by a prodigal through immensity, space-time structure subtle and majestic—everything he had never known, as a man, until this moment, for no organic creature could travel those reaches.
“While I chose to remain on Earth,” she said. “How timid and unimaginative do I seem to you?”
“Not in the least,” he avowed. “You had the adventures you wanted.”
“You are kind to say so.” She paused. “Do you know Jane Austen?”
“Who? No, I don’t believe I do.”
“An early nineteenth-century writer. She led a quiet life, never went far from home, died young, but she explored people in ways that nobody else ever did.”
“I’d like to read her. Maybe I’ll get a chance here.” He wished to show that he was no—”technoramus” was the word he invented on the spot. “I did read a good deal, especially on space missions. And especially poetry. Homer, Shakespeare, Tu Fu, Bashō, Bellman, Burns, Omar Khayyam, Kipling, Millay, Haldeman—” He threw up his hands and laughed. “Never mind. That’s just the first several names I could grab out of the jumble for purposes of bragging.”
“We have much getting acquainted to do, don’t we? Come, I’m being inhospitable. Let’s go inside, relax, and talk.”
He retrieved her parasol for her and, recollecting historical dramas he had seen, offered her his arm. They walked slowly between the flowerbeds. Wind lulled, a bird whistled, sunlight baked odors out of the roses.
“Where are we?” he asked.
“And when?” she replied. “In England of the mid-eighteenth century, on an estate in Surrey.” He nodded. He had in fact read rather widely. She fell silent, thinking, before she went on: “Gaia and Wayfarer decided a serene enclave like this would be the best rendezvous for us.”
“Really? I’m afraid I’m as out of place as a toad on a keyboard.”
She smiled, then continued seriously: “I told you I’ve been given familiarity with the milieu. We’ll be visiting alien ones—whatever ones you choose, after I’ve explained what else I know about what she has been doing these many years. That isn’t much. I haven’t seen any other worlds of hers. You will take the leadership.”
“You mean because I’m used to odd environments and rough people? Not necessarily. I dealt with nature, you know, on Earth and in space. Peaceful.”
“Dangerous.”
“Maybe. But never malign.”
“Tell me,” she invited.
They entered the house and seated themselves in its parlor. Casement windows stood open to green park-scape where deer grazed; afar were a thatched farm cottage, its outbuildings,
