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Iicole awakened early. Benjy was already up and dressed, but Kepler was still asleep on the far side of the room. Benjy patiently helped Nicole shower and dress, as he had before.
Max came into the apartment a few minutes later. After waking up Kepler, he walked over to Nicole’s wheelchair and took her hand. “I didn’t say much last night, my friend,” Max said, “because I couldn’t find the right words. . . . Even now, they seem so inadequate. …”
Max turned his head away. “Shit, Nicole,” he said in a breaking voice, without facing her. “You know how I feel about you. You are a beautiful, beautiful person.”
He stopped. The only sound in the room was the water running for Kepler’s shower. Nicole squeezed his hand. “Thank you, Max,” she said softly, “it means a lot to me.”
“When I was eighteen,” Max said hesitantly, turning back to look at Nicole, “my father died of a rare kind of cancer. We all knew it was coming. Clyde and Mom and I had watched him wither away for several months. But I still
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didn’t believe it, even after he was lying in the coffin. We had a small service at the cemetery, just our friends from the neighboring farms plus an auto mechanic from De Queen, a man named Willie Townsend who got drunk with Dad every other Saturday night.”
Max smiled and relaxed. He loved telling stories. “Willie was a good ole son of a bitch, a bachelor, hard as nails on the outside, and soft as putty underneath. He was jilted by the De Queen High School homecoming queen when he was a young man and never again had a girlfriend. Anyway, Mom asked me if I would say a few words over my dad at the graveside service, and I agreed. I wrote them myself, memorized them carefully, and even practiced once out loud in front of Clyde.
“Come the service, I was ready with my speech. ‘My father, Henry Allan Puckett, was a fine man,’ I began. I then paused, as I had planned, and looked around. Willie was already sniffling and was looking down at the ground. Suddenly I couldn’t remember what I was supposed to say next. We all stood there in the hot Arkansas sun for what seemed like forever but was probably only thirty seconds or so. I never did remember the rest of my speech. Finally, out of both desperation and embarrassment, 1 said ‘Aw, fuck,’ and Willie chimed in immediately with a loud ‘Amen.'”
Nicole was laughing. “Max Puckett,” she said, “there cannot be anyone like you anywhere in this universe.”
Max grinned. “Last night, when Frenchie and I were in bed, we were talking about that other Nicole the aliens had created for Simone and Michael, and Ep wondered if they could make a robot Max Puckett for her. She liked the idea of having a perfect husband who always did exactly what she asked—even at night. We laughed until our sides hurt trying to imagine, well, you know, what the robot might or might not be able to do in bed.”
“Shame on you. Max,” Nicole said.
“Actually it was Frenchie who really got imaginative. Anyway,” Max said, “I was sent over here with a^specific purpose, to inform you that we are having a catered breakfast next door, courtesy of the blockheads, as part of
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our attempt to say good-bye, or wish you ‘bon voyage,’ or whatever is appropriate. And that it will start in exactly eight more minutes.”
Nicole was delighted to discover that the mood at breakfast was light and pleasant. She had stressed several times the night before that her departure should not be a time for sorrow, that it should be celebrated as the end of a wonderful life. Apparently her family and friends had taken her remarks to heart, for she saw only an occasional somber face.
Ellie and Benjy sat on either side of Nicole at the long table set up by the block robots. Next to Ellie was Nikki, then Maria, and Dr. Blue. On the other side Max and Eponine were beside Benjy, then Marius, Kepler, and the Eagle. During the meal Nicole noticed with surprise that Maria was actually conversing with Dr. Blue. “I didn’t know you could read colors, Maria,” Nicole said, a clearly complimentary tone in her voice.
“Only a little,” the girl said, slightly embarrassed by the attention. “Ellie has been teaching me.”
“That’s great,” Nicole commented.
“Of course the real linguist in this group,” Max said, “is that strange birdman at the end of the table. We even saw him yesterday talking to the iguanas in bizarre clicks and screeches.”
“Yuch,” said Nikki, “I wouldn’t want to talk to one of those nasty creatures.”
“They have an altogether different way of looking at the world,” the Eagle said. “Very simple, very primitive.”
“What I want to know,” Eponine said, leaning forward and directly addressing the Eagle, “is what I have to do to get an alien robot companion of my own. I’ll take one that looks like Max here, except is not ornery and has certain other improved attributes.”
Everyone laughed. Nicole smiled to herself as she looked around the table. This is perfect, she thought. / couldn’t have asked for a better farewell.
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Dr. Blue and the Eagle gave her one last dose of the blue liquid while Nicole was arranging her bag. She was glad to have a private moment to tell Dr. Blue good-bye. ‘Thank you for everything,” Nicole said simply, hugging her octospider colleague.
“We will all miss you,” Dr. Blue said in color. “The new Chief Optimizer wanted to organize a grand send-off, but I told her I did not think it would be appropriate. She asked me to tell you good-bye on behalf of our entire species.”
They all accompanied her to the air lock. There was one final round of smiling hugs, at wheelchair level, and then the Eagle and Nicole passed through the air lock.
Nicole sighed as the Eagle lifted her into her seat in the shuttle and folded the wheelchair.
“They were great, weren’t they?” Nicole said.
“They love and respect you very much,” the Eagle
replied.
Once they left the starfish, the great tetrahedron of light was again turning slowly in their view. “How do you feel?” the Eagle asked.
“Relieved,” Nicole said, “and a little frightened.”
“That’s to be expected,” the Eagle said.
“How long do you think I have?” Nicole asked several seconds later. “Before my heart gives out?”
‘That’s hard to say exactly.”
“I know, I know,” Nicole said impatiently. “But you guys are scientists. You must have done some computations.”
“Between six and ten hours,” the Eagle said.
In six to ten hours I will be dead, Nicole thought. The fear was more palpable now. She could not push it completely aside.
“What’s it like to be dead?” Nicole asked.
“We thought you’d ask that question,” the Eagle answered. “We are told that it’s similar to being unpowered.”
“Nothingness, forever?” Nicole said.
“I guess so.”
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“And the act of dying itself?” she said. “Is there anything special about that?”
“We don’t know,” the Eagle said. “We were hoping that you would share with us as much as you can.’1
They flew in silence for quite a while. Ahead of them, the Node grew quickly in size. At one point the spacecraft changed its orientation slightly and the Knowledge Module moved to the center of their window. During the final approach, the other three vertices of the Node were below them.
“Why do you want to spend your final moments in the Knowledge Module?” the Eagle asked as they drew nearer to the magnificent tetrahedron.
Nicole laughed. “Now, that’s a preprogrammed question if ever I heard one,” she said. “I can already see my answer stored in some almost endless file, under Death: Human Beings, and other related categories.”
The Eagle did not say anything.
“When Richard and I were marooned in New York years ago,” Nicole said, “and did not think we had much of a chance to escape, we talked about what we would like to be doing during the last moments before our deaths. We agreed that our first choice would be making love together. Our second choice was to be learning something new, to be experiencing the thrill of discovery one last time.”
“That’s a very advanced concept,” the Eagle said.
“And a practical one too,” Nicole said. “Unless I miss my guess, mis Knowledge Module of yours will be intriguing enough that I will not even be aware that the last seconds of my life are ticking down. If I am completely involved in something right up until the end, maybe the fear of death won’t overpower me.”
The Knowledge Module now filled their entire window. “Before we enter,” the Eagle said, “I want to give you some information about this place. The spherical module is actually three separate concentric domains, each with a specific purpose. The outermost and smallest region is focused on knowledge associated with the present, or near present. The next inner region is where all the historical