Its true form will never be directly perceived by humans, human senses being limited to three spatial dimensions and the one-way arrow of time. The wiggly nudibranchiform creature that taught humans how to read minds is pure illusion-the simplified projection of a four-dimensional object onto three dimensions. In the same way, the projection of an unabridged dictionary onto two dimensions-its shadow-is identical to the gray rectangle projected by a blank piece of paper, and gives no clue as to the object’s complexity.
When this race of Gods decided to destroy itself, it saw no reason to tidy up beforehand. So the Groombridge gameboard remained for future, simpler, races to puzzle over.
The planet that Still Cloud studied had been dead and cold for two hundred millennia when the Gods went home to die. Home was a couple of thousand light years away, which distance they traveled instantaneously, by an application of will.
In Jacque Lefavre’s time, all that was left of the home of the Gods was a rapidly expanding nonthermal radio source called the Cygnus loop.
The light of Their passing had enabled Neanderthal men to hunt at night for several months.
32 – Help Wanted
An advertisement appearing in every major newspaper in Nevada the week of March 4-11, 2052:
DIE
FOR
MONEY
WANTED: LEGAL SUICIDES
IF you have a legal suicide permit, and can supply proof of good health and mental stability, we offer you the chance to make a unique contribution to science while leaving a sizable sum to your heirs.
PROJECT THANOS will pay up to $10,000 for qualified subjects. Amount paid will depend on the subject’s score on a battery of psychological tests. Minimum pay will be $2,500.
If interested, please write or call:
PROJECT THANOS
Box 7777
Colorado Springs
Colorado 7019464
3037-544-2063, Extension 777
33 – CHAPTER NINE
The next two years were full ones for Jacque and Carol. Together they did a couple of months’ dog-work geoformy on Procyon A, then spent six months on Earth as subjects in an intensive research project on the Groombridge bridge. They duplicated their experiment of 26 August 2051, this time with more symmetrical results.
They were getting used to living together, and talking about someday getting a contract, when Carol was tapped for her first breeding mission. Jacque applied to be father, a request which might normally be granted, but unfortunately the planet was 61 Cygnus B. AED policy on this was inflexible: no man was allowed to contribute more than .05% of a planet’s genetic pool (women were allowed .2%) in the first and second generations.
During the nine months Carol was working and getting round on 61 Cygnus B, they saw each other only once, even though she spent four of those months on Earth to minimize xenasthenia.
Jacque had shown an unusual sensitivity to the Groombridge bridge, so when the project was moved to the smaller crystal at Charleville, Australia, he went along. He shuttled back and forth several times between Charleville and Groombridge (one place as bleak as the other, he claimed), making secondary contact with bridges after the volunteer suicides touched them first.
It wasn’t pleasant, being in bridge rapport with someone who knew he was going to die. Some of them looked forward to it. Some had second thoughts. One tried to speed up the process by running into the exhaust beam of a mass spectrograph. With a GPEM suit, nothing would have happened to him. With the minimal protection they wore on Groombridge, he lived almost an hour.
Carol had a smooth delivery and the AED gave her and Jacque six weeks’ leave together. They had saved up a lot of salary, with nothing to spend it on, and decided to blow it all in Africa and Europe.
Paris was a little cool in late October, 2052, but Jacque was determined. He’d found a cafe on the Left Bank whose proprietor had set a few tables out on the sidewalk, hoping to snag a crazy tourist. Jacque pulled his collar up and poured a few more drops of water into his Pernod. When he’d been here as a little boy, you could still see the Seine, even here, across from the Louvre. Now it was wall-to-wall houseboats. It was also, the guidebooks said, an unhealthy place for tourists to be, after dark. But Jacque was protected by his Tamer uniform. Not only were Tamers supposed to be tough, but if you hurt one the AED would have you in a soft room for the rest of your life.