Chapter 30 #3
I looked at the slender purple avatar, holding its mug of untouched tea, and back at the catlike professor. “You could put it that way.”
“We can leave at once,” Raven said, standing.
“You just got here,” Vorsch said.
“No, it’s okay,” I said. “It’s okay. I—I need to adjust.”
“Please inform me immediately if you would prefer to leave,” Raven said. It sat again.
“I will.”
An awkward pause. Vorsch peered at me. An inspection. “Incredible.” He turned to Raven. “Did the Overmind gain any new insights on the method of his transport through time when he arrived?”
“No. The array of sensors prepared provided a substantial dataset, which is still being analyzed, but for all intents, he simply appeared, neatly displacing the air in his space a fractional moment before. His pseudo-sentient intelligence companion accompanied him successfully.”
“Fascinating.” Vorsch turned back to me. “Scott Treder, you are indeed an extraordinary historical oddity.”
“So I’ve been told.” It was bizarre meeting his eyes. Like staring at a house cat, only Vorsch didn’t slow-blink or look away.
“And you will continue forward, tomorrow morning, as described in the Word?”
“I don’t see any reason for it to stop now.”
“Would you want it to?”
“What do you mean?”
“Would you want it to stop? To live in this time?”
I opened my mouth, then closed it. “I want to go back. Home.” I looked through the window, at the astonishing city beyond. “I’m not supposed to be here.”
“Dad,” Lyle whispered.
“Perhaps not,” Vorsch said. “There are so many questions I could ask you.”
I looked at the steaming mug in my hands. I couldn’t feel any heat through the survival suit. “Ask away.”
Vorsch was silent for a long time, long enough that I looked up. “I am unsure that is what you need. No, I am not sure that is what you need at all.”
“What do I need, then?”
“I can’t tell you,” Vorsch said. “Only you can. What do you need, Scott Treder?”
I looked out the window again. Snow drifted between the glittering skyscrapers. Aerial vehicles swept by. Vorsch and Raven waited, silent and still.
“Dad?” Lyle’s voice in my ear.
“A purpose.”
“A purpose,” Vorsch said.
“Or a reason. A reason why I should keep going. Why I should bother, now, with—why I should bother.”
I felt the intensity of Vorsch’s gaze on my face, but I stared out the window, refusing to look at him. “The Word states you are meant to experience,” Vorsch said. “To see each time as you step toward the Omega point, and to carry those experiences forward to the next stage.”
“My son made all that shit up.”
“Dad.”
“He did it to try to build a religion out of me. I know, I know, that doesn’t mean he was wrong.
But it doesn’t inspire any meaning, drive, whatever in me.
Not after all I’ve…” I let out a frustrated sigh.
How to even begin to put into words what the last three weeks had been like for me?
“I haven’t seen anything to convince me this was worth it. ”
Lyle was silent. Vorsch, to his credit, didn’t respond immediately. He sat, contemplative, mulling over what I’d said. “You have faced many challenges.”
I snorted.
“And yet you have seen incredible things.”
Had I, though? Were they things I wanted to see, that anyone wanted to witness? Anjari’s paradise, maybe, but the Autonomous War in the ruins of Fresno, the Vale Riders, and the obliteration of New City of Angels made me doubtful.
“Many,” Vorsch said, “would die to see what you have seen. You have the privilege of dipping in and out of the timeline of human history, experiencing firsthand, with crystal clarity, what everyone else can only imagine through a dim and cloudy glass. And no doubt, as you continue, you will witness ever more incredible things.” Vorsch tilted his head again.
“Ultimately, yours is a fate pointing directly to the intrinsic question raised by all sentient things. Why are we here? What is our purpose? Are we, humans and”—he waved toward Raven—“artificial intelligences, and other sentient creatures, merely smart viruses, with a singular purpose of perpetuating our own continued existence? Or are we here for something more, something greater?”
I could hear Lyle’s voice in Vorsch’s words. Lily’s voice. Anjari’s. “Like what?”
“To experience. To grow the cumulative knowledge of the universe, of itself.”
“I haven’t done anything like that. I haven’t contributed to any cumulative knowledge of the universe.”
“Haven’t you?”
I thought about the historians in Anjari’s time. Anjari herself. Lyle, here in a form with me now. The propagation of the Word forward through time with me. Was I growing the knowledge of the universe, after all? I felt slightly less certain of myself as I said, “No. Not really.”
Vorsch regarded me with as much solemnity as a giant cat-man could muster.
Then he stood. “Scott Treder, I deeply appreciate you coming to see me. But I do not believe you are helping yourself by staying here and answering my many questions. Please. Go with Raven and experience the world. You will carry that experience forward with you. Enrich yourself and the universe.”
I stared at Vorsch. I wasn’t sure if I felt more like shouting at him or thanking him. I settled for a mumbled, “Okay, sure.” I rose, and, with Raven trailing, followed Vorsch to the door.
The cat-man clasped my hand at the door with one furry but humanlike hand.
“It has been an honor to meet you, Traveler,” he said.
“Remember. It is the greatest thing in life to experience all the wonder of the universe that we can.” Then he let go, stepped back in the apartment, waved goodbye, and closed the door.
I could almost feel Lyle’s disembodied, satisfied smile, even though he didn’t say anything.