Viktor turned and peered at the gangling young man. "That's nice," he growled.

Balit blinked at him but went on enthusiastically. "Yes, and do you know what they've done? Three of the other schools got together, and they've launched a new observatory! A really big one this time. Big mirrors and radio webs-it'll be looking for infrared and radio and gamma radiation and all those things you've been talking about. And Forta says they're even talking about moving one of the habitats, or building a new one, in orbit around Newmanhome!"

He broke off, aware that Viktor was not matching his pleasure. "Is something the matter, Viktor?" he asked worriedly.

Viktor flung his arm up toward the black sky. "Look," he said. "It's all gone! The whole universe, it's simply grown old and died on me!"

Balit was silent for a moment. "That might be," he admitted. "But really, Viktor-don't you remember all the things you've told me? That's there. there. This is This is here. here. Our own sun isn't old. It's got billions of years left-much longer than all the time life's existed in this system." Our own sun isn't old. It's got billions of years left-much longer than all the time life's existed in this system."

"I know that," Viktor said wearily.

"But, Viktor-what does it matter what happened to the rest of the universe?"

"It matters that I don't know know what happened," Viktor said tightly. "And I never will! Oh, it's wonderful that Kiffena's trying to patch up some of the old records, and people are starting to look for new answers again, and-it's all wonderful, I admit it! But it's all taking so what happened," Viktor said tightly. "And I never will! Oh, it's wonderful that Kiffena's trying to patch up some of the old records, and people are starting to look for new answers again, and-it's all wonderful, I admit it! But it's all taking so long. long. And even if sometime people do find out what was going on on Nebo, and what caused our stars to do what they did-I won't live long enough to find it out!" And even if sometime people do find out what was going on on Nebo, and what caused our stars to do what they did-I won't live long enough to find it out!"

"But Viktor," Balit said lovingly, "I will."

CHAPTER 31.

What Wan-To was doing was pruning himself-as surgically as any horticulturist trying to save a winter-struck shrub.

Wan-To didn't call it that, of course. He had no experience of horticulture. He had never seen a flower garden in the dying fall of a year, when the plants prepare themselves for the death of winter; roots are allowed to die, stalks wither, flowers turn brown and fall to the ground-everything is sacrificed to the growth of the healthy seeds that will bring the new plant to life again when the soil warms.

But what he was doing in that moribund universe was the same thing. Everything had to be allowed to die except that one little kernel of self that was the essence of Wan-To. Eyes were allowed to go blind. Thought processes were rigorously pruned. Memories were abandoned-oh, so many memories! Memories of the eternity of Wan-To's life, the eons of joyous frolicking in his thousand giant young stars, the pride of creating his own stars, his own galaxies, his own copies. Everything had to go. All the memories of Wan-Wan-Wan and Kind and all his other copies-gone. The taste of a G-cla.s.s star turning red giant, forgotten. The delights and terrors of warring against his compet.i.tors, abandoned. There was simply no room for any of these things in the little tachyon seed that would be Wan-To, speeding across the dead emptiness toward his rebirth. Even the tiny trickle of energy that was spent in h.o.a.rding them could be squandered that way no longer but had to go toward creating the tachyon pattern itself.

There were some memories that he couldn't bring himself to throw away. He could not force himself to discard the memory of that tiny group of stars itself-could a dying man make himself forget the promise of Heaven?

So when almost everything else was gone . . . when the task of turning himself into a seed was almost complete . . . Wan-To allowed himself the luxury of retrieving all that he knew about that wonderfully preserved cl.u.s.ter.

Yes, yes, it contained three medium-sized stars, just the size he liked! (A fourth, unfortunately, in some disrepair because it had been zapped in that long-ago war-but no doubt more or less healed again, in all this time.) Several other stars, not as pleasing as habitats, but still so very welcome. And even solid-matter planets, yes. Even those were precious to Wan-To now, in his final poverty.

And on those planets- A thrill of memory shook Wan-To. He had not remembered the strange thing Matter Copy Number Five had told him, but there was the datum, long neglected, now recalled at last. Yes. It was so. The planets were known to possess that strange and unhealthy phenomenon, living matter.

Some parts of them were inhabited. inhabited.

Wan-To stopped what he was doing for a moment to think that over. Could that forgotten fact be in any way important?

Then common sense took over. Of course not, he chided himself. How could it? They were so tiny and helpless. Why, it was even possible that they might be quite amusing-even a kind of company for him, more or less as Kind and Sweet had been long, long ago. In any case, they could not possibly be a threat. threat. With a healthy star behind him, he could easily enough annihilate them, if that proved necessary-as he had with creatures like them, so many times before. With a healthy star behind him, he could easily enough annihilate them, if that proved necessary-as he had with creatures like them, so many times before.

It had never occurred to Wan-To to think about what those silly, short-lived little creatures might become . . . in some tens of thousands of years.