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"YES, MR. MAYOR. WE ARE TO BE TURNED
OFF AT ZERO."
"That's good enough." He wondered, however, if they thought that they might be
turned on again in the future. It was of course foolish to think of them as
entertaining anything even vaguely resembling an emotion, but nevertheless he
decided not to say anything which might disabuse them. They were only
machines, but they were also old friends and allies.
"ZERO MINUS TEN MINUTES."
"It's all going so fast all of a sudden," Dee's voice whispered in the
earphones. "Mark, I ... I don't want it to happen."
"No more do I," Hazleton said. "But it will happen anyhow. I only wish I'd
lived a more human life than I did. But it happened the way it happened, and
so there's no more to say."
"I wish I could believe," Estelle said, "that there will be no sorrow in the
universe I make."
"Then create nothing, my dear," Gifford Bonner said. "Stay here. Creation
means sorrow, always and always."
"And joy," Estelle said.
"Well, yes. There's that.''
"ZERO MINUS FIVE MINUTES."
"I think we can do without the rest of the countdown," Amalfi said. "Otherwise
from now on they will count every minute, and they'll do the last one by
seconds. Do we want to go out to the tune of that gabble? Anybody want to say
'yes'?"
They were silent. "Very well," Amalfi said. "Stop counting."
"VERY WELL, MR. MAYOR. GOOD-BYE."
"Good-bye," Amalfi said with amazement.
"I won't say that, if you don't mind," Hazleton said in a choked voice. "It
brings the deprivation too close for me to stand. I hope everybody will
consider it said."
Amalfi nodded, then realized that the gesture could not be seen inside the
helmet.
"I agree," he said. "But I don't feel deprived. I loved you all. You have my
love to take with you, and I have it too."
"It is the only thing in the universe that one can give and still have,"
Miramon said.
The deck throbbed under Amalfi's feet. The machines were preparing for their
instant of unimaginable thrust. The sound of their power was comforting; so
was the solidity of the deck, the table, the room, the mountain, the world-
"I think-" Gifford Bonner said.
And with those words, it ended.
There was nothing at first but the inside of the suit. Outside there was not
even blackness, but only nothingness, something not to be seen, like that
which is not
seen outside of the cone of vision; one does not see blackness behind one's
own head, one simply does not see in that direction at all; and so here. Yet
for a little while, Amalfi found that he was still conscious of his friends,
still a part of the circle though the room and everything in it had vanished
from around them. He did not know how he knew that they were still there, but
he could feel it.
He knew that there was no hope of speaking to them again; and indeed, as he
tried to grasp how he knew they were there at all, he realized that they were
drawing away from him. The circle was widening. The mute figures became
smaller-not by distance, for there was no distance here, but nevertheless in
some way they were passing out of each other's ken. Amalfi tried to lift his
hand in farewell, but found it almost impossible. By the time he had only half
completed the gesture, the others had faded and were gone, leaving behind only
a memory also fading rapidly, like the memory of a fragrance.
Now he was alone and must do what he must do. Since his hand was raised, he
continued the gesture to let the gas out of his oxygen bottles. The unmedium
in which he was suspended seemed to be becoming a little less resistant;
already a metrical frame was establishing itself. Yet it was almost as
difficult to halt the motion as it had been to start it.
Nevertheless, he halted it. Of what use was another universe of the kind he
had just seen die? Nature had provided two of those, and had doomed them at
the same moment. Why not try something else? Retma in his caution, Estelle in
her compassion, Dee in her fear all would be giving birth to some version of
the standard model; but Amalfi had driven the standard model until all the
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