The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Fifth Annual Collection

The Residue of Fire ^{ROBERT REED}

“My face,” said the human.

“Yes.”

“Make the count, please.”

Legs rigid, the jeweled eyes stared at the never-moving sun. But the 31-1 was also searching his memories for the friend’s face. An army of sensors linked the subject’s mind to a bank of diagnostic AIs. The human watched quantum whirlpools breaking out inside each one of his singholes, every swirl growing larger and brighter. An inventory was being taken, but the 31-1 wasn’t counting. Counting was an act that had to cross time, and time was a falsehood, an illusion. As far as the alien was concerned, he was simply chasing a reality where the answer was known, and that was the juncture when every whirlpool was linked with the central mind, and having experienced that reality, the creature felt confident enough to offer a considerable yet very reasonable tally.

The human’s face was unique in a thousand ways, but after that, completely unmemorable. He wasn’t large for his species, but the lanky body gave him a tall man’s build. His hair was gray, the skin deep brown, and eyes that were blue in the night were black in this glorious morning/afternoon light.

“What are my faces doing?” he asked.

“Many drink tea beside your tree,” the 31-3 reported. “Others drink beside our river. And I see three faces enjoying beverages elsewhere onboard the Great Ship. Poured into a single cup, all of that tea would create an ocean.”

Ash laughed at the joke.

His companion appreciated that reaction. Telemetry proved so, as did the front leg’s sudden flexing.

Inspired by the subject, Ash decided to brew a fresh pot. But his supplies were indoors, and he had to drag his own cables into his home with him, and then drag them out again.

In the midst of those chores, the alien offered the word “Urgency.”

“Yes?”

“I see urgency inside you.”

Ash was studying the 31-1’s mind, and in the same way, his friend was privy to the quantum noise inside a tiny, nearly immortal human brain.

“I see emotions that are controlled but distracting,” the alien said. “Some portion of the universe can’t be ignored, yet you wish that portion were as far from you as possible. Which leads you into urgency.”

“I’m scared,” Ash confessed.

“Quite a lot scares your species. But in this case, an impressive terror is living inside you.”

To the 31-1s, the universe was a sequence of fixed, eternal realities. Each reality was spectacularly detailed, encompassing the tiniest quantum event as well as the farthest stars. Like photographs inside an infinite album: That was how the universe was organized. The most similar realities stood next to each other, close enough to touch. To the 31-1s, there was never any need for time. Time was an illusion embraced by weak species. Humans, for instance. Seconds and centuries were cheats that helped the humans navigate through the realities. And in the same fashion, the 31-1s lacked any concept of motion. They couldn’t run or even imagine running. No creature walked or swam or fell. Ash certainly didn’t balance on narrow legs, and data cables didn’t leave drag marks in the dust. These two good friends were simply passing from one mathematical purity into the next, and the next, and a trillion other nexts. And then they reached a reality where the human had his water and blisterwing tea and a favorite pot and two well-used cups.

“Urgency,” the alien repeated.

“Is that what you see inside me?”

“In your head. Considerable urgency.”

But the fear wasn’t enough to make him stop doing what he loved. Kneeling in the shade behind the young bristlecone, Ash arranged bits of dried foliage before applying a spark.

“I see us talking in this fashion just once,” said the alien.

“Now,” said Ash.

There was no “now.” But better than most, this 31-1 understood what the impossible word meant to his companion.

“Why ask about your faces?”

“To test your memory,” said Ash.

“You don’t need tests. Your memory knows our minds very well.”

Here was the key to quite a lot. Ash came to this habitat to study one unusual species. He intended to stay for a few years, no longer, but then he fell in love with the changeless weather and that low, never-moving sun. That’s when he planted the bristlecone that had finally grown enough to cast a reasonable shadow. And with the native rock, he built the hearth where a new fire stood protected from the hot, unending wind.

Ash lived inside a comfortable cave just a few steps away, and this habitat was a much larger cavern. The 31-1s’ home was built from granite and hyperfiber and convincing, interwoven illusions. What looked like a K-class sun was fixed to a distant wall. What wasn’t sky wore the pinks of airborne dusts. To a human eye, the scene was baked in perpetual dawn or twilight. But of course the locals had no sense of day and night. They lacked any instinct that told them that any sun should move. What looked like glass roadways clung to the canyon walls, and there were hundreds of 31-1s below them, each passing from one reality to the next, and below everything and everyone was a sturdy little river that was equally fixed in time. Water didn’t flow, and the 31-1s did not walk. But if that river found its way into a man’s mouth, he tasted the glaciers hiding on the world’s night side. That mixture of cold pleasure and rock flour made for a delightful tea, and that was another factor in Ash’s decision to linger in this good place.

Ash offered his companion’s name. Which wasn’t a word, but a smell. Each 31-1 had a distinct, birth-given odor never replicated by others, and Ash released the odor twice, for emphasis. Then he said, “This is my reason. Your body is more likely than most to exist outside this habitat.”

A truth, yes. The alien’s mind and the front leg agreed with Ash.

“And your memory isn’t your only talent,” the human continued. “Those eyes see much more than my two light-eating pits.”

Praise for the obvious wasn’t praise. Yet the creature was quite pleased with the words.

“I will pay you,” Ash said. “I need to show you a certain face, and then you’ll go out into the Ship and look for that face.”

“The Ship is rather large,” his friend mentioned.

Not only was the Great Ship bigger than worlds, it was full of vast caves and tunnels and oceans and wilderness.

“I can narrow down the possible universes. Because I know where he lives.”

“This is a human face?”

“Very much so, yes.”

The alien applied what he knew about the tea-drinking creature. “Is this human face attractive?”

“Some would find him quite handsome, yes.”

The silence stretched out while the 31-1 imagined a breeding tale about his friend and this unknown human. At least that’s what Ash assumed. Despite experience and this very sophisticated equipment, he still lacked the power to see anyone’s detailed thoughts.

Perhaps that magic always would be impossible.

“No,” said Ash. “The situation isn’t what you imagine.”

“I’m imagining quite a lot,” the alien warned.

The fire was growing quickly, but Ash didn’t like its shape. That’s why he shoved both hands into the flames, burning his fingers while he restacked the white and red coals.

“What is the truth?”

“The man happens to be lovely, but that doesn’t matter,” Ash said. “He recently arrived on the Great Ship, and his only purpose is to find me. My sources have warned me about that. And his business is very simple.”

The alien’s front leg stiffened.

“He wants to kill me,” said Ash, charred fingers hanging the pot and water on a convenient hook. “My death is the singular focus of his life.”

“You want me to find him,” the alien said.

“Yes.”

“And study his motions?”

His friend was a remarkable 31-1. Just mentioning the possibility of motion proved that much.

“No,” said Ash. “What I want is for you to deliver a message. ‘The man you want is ready to die for his crimes.’”

There was a pause. Then his friend said, “Death is impossible.”

“So you claim.”

The alien was odd among the 31-1s. But the obvious still needed to be shared. “There are countless realms where we do not exist. Does that mean we are dead? No, that’s nonexistence. But there are also countless realities where we are eternal, free of seconds and free of every fear.”

What a horrible, dangerous notion, thought Ash.

Watching the old copper pot, and wishing his tea would hurry. Just a little faster, please.

The human made ten thousand teas across the Ship, and the same human had also just arrived inside the World. Which was not the genuine World. This was a carefully sculpted room buried inside a starship found empty and claimed by humans as their own possession. Owning the Great Ship meant humans were a fabulously wealthy species, but this single man owned little. The 31-1s paid quite a lot to live under this false, convincing sky, and this human gave the 31-1s most of his meager funds for the privilege of sharing their home.

The human’s scent meant nothing.

“Ash,” was the simple sound worn on all occasions. And it was a useless sound before the 31-1 purchased a translator wise enough to interpret both languages. Unfortunately, not every word could be made into its perfect reflection. That limitation was noticed early on. “Early on.” There. The concept of time insisted on finding its way into conversation and into his thoughts, and the largest surprise was how impossible thoughts gave this 31-1 so much pleasure.

“Ash is the residue of fire,” the 31-1 declared.

“I certainly am,” the human agreed. Then he laughed, although his companion didn’t yet understand that sound or the expression on the face.

In another reality, perhaps. But not now.

“Now,” he said.

“What did you say?” asked Ash.

“Nothing. I’m sorry. My translator is cheap and foolish.”

The false World was one deep canyon and a very steep river with glass roadways strung between homes and the public places. The native plants were dark gray and unlovely, resembling fans and walls and other efficient, sun-obsessed shapes. The larger animals were proteinaceous jewels riding an odd number of legs, and like the 31-1s, their physiologies made them immune to normal aging and normal instincts. And there were always a few alien visitors who paid to see the oddness and stare at the illusionary sun. And there was a point on the river where a human and the cold water would end up touching.

In a sequence of realities, Ash’s hands went into the river and out again, and some of what he caught found its way to his mouth.

“Delicious,” the human declared.

It was pleasure hearing your water praised. Was that true for every other species?

“I’m here to learn,” the human said.

“About my kind,” the 31-1 guessed.

“Everything is interesting,” Ash claimed. “Your species, yes. And in particular, those exceptional minds.”

Fresh praise, another pleasure.

“I’ve heard explanations,” Ash said. “But maybe your answer is different. So I’m asking. What does the name ‘31-1’ mean?”

Nobody asked this question. This was a silly question with only one answer. The 31-1’s nervous system was robust and swift, its physiology close to unique. Thirty-one redundant singholes lay inside that long, spectacular body. Each singhole existed for no purpose but remembering everything. And in his center, perfectly meshed with those relentless memories, was a mind that took the smallest question seriously.

Wishing to be generous, the 31-1 began to explain that simple name.

But Ash was ignoring him, his two tiny eyes watching a screen held in his two ridiculous hands.

The 31-1 interrupted himself. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“Almost nothing,” said the human. The screen was dropped, and he looked up at a great face covered with jeweled eyes and jeweled teeth. “There’s no such creature as ‘happens,’ and actions are not possible. I know what we are. We’re matter and energy arranged in a sequence of fixed existences, and events are the products of illusion. The same way that time is an illusion.”

“I don’t believe you,” said the 31-1.

The screen changed colors, yet the human continued staring at the creature standing before him.

“Your species is quite stubborn when it comes to time and motion,” the 31-1 continued. “Freedom from time isn’t your opinion, but it is mine. No seconds, no strides. This is where I exist, because this is my place, where I belong, and I am glad for all of it.”

That triggered another laughing incident. “This won’t get easier,” Ash mentioned. “But I need to learn. If I can master your species, I could do anyone.”

“What does ‘do anyone’ mean?”

“My profession,” Ash began. Then after some consideration, he said, “I make a modest living by peering inside other minds.”

The 31-1 knew this already. Except what he knew was rather different from “peering inside other minds.”

“You’re doubtful,” the human observed.

“You see doubt?”

“And curiosity. And a powerful need for honesty too.”

“There are incidents inside my mind. Eternal scenes where your customers speak about you and your unusual profession.”

“Which customers?”

“I see their faces. Show me faces, and I will tell you.”

“I don’t care who. Just tell me what they believe.”

“You are an interrogator. In other realms, you are given humans tied to horrible acts, and you place them where they deserve to be, and you make them admit to their crimes.”

“That,” said Ash, “was a very long time ago.”

The 31-1 didn’t contest the remark.

Human shoulders lifted, then fell again. “I’m talking to your species. Asking about each of you. And some tell me that you rather enjoy standing outside this pretend world. More than anyone else. Is that true?”

The 31-1 never relished being outside his home, but there was pleasure in summoning the courage to travel. The Great Ship was full of marvels that would never be seen here, and what wasn’t unpleasant was often amazing. And by comparison, nothing in this World was amazing. And the same was true in the original World, his left-behind home.

“I don’t know the minds of others,” said the 31-1. “What pleasures them and what they believe are mysteries. But I think you know the minds of others.”

“My face,” Ash said.

“Yes?”

“During your travels, have you ever seen my face?”

Every question had a perfect, truest answer. But the task of memory was very difficult. Past upon past needed to be examined. Time wasn’t crossed to reach the answer. Time was nothing but an exercise in mad mathematics, like imaginary numbers and existence without substance. And there were ten trillion realities that were strung together, this 31-1 emitting a series of translated sounds. Those sounds told the human, “I’ve seen your face three times other than this time.”

Ash was studying the screen. Then he was looking up at his companion, showing his teeth. “You remember me.”

“And rather a lot more than you.”

“I remember seeing you once,” Ash said. “And thinking to myself, ‘God, that is one splendid creature.’”

The 31-1 was bathed in prideful pleasure.

He didn’t want to leave this moment.

What did that say about him?

Every species was carried by its narrative, by a long history and endless accommodations to the impossible. Every species could be understood partly and only partly, and that meant your own species too. Living with the 31-1s had changed Ash. He was absolutely more aware of being human. But there were incidents—not moments—where he felt separated from time. Change inside the universe was unthinkable. Realities were pressed close to one another, and he was free and eternal, sharing the world with wise neighbors who were rather less peculiar than one tribe of upright, uptight mammals.

Ash was born on Mars. Humans wasted their affections on balls of warm rock and hot metal, and the entire body wore that very arbitrary name. But of course nothing lived inside a planet, and no planet ever wished to be named. To the 31-1s, names were granted only to those places where living bodies stood, and their original World was a ribbon. Woven from eternal memory, the ribbon was that precious narrow and very rich boundary between brutal cold and incinerating heat. No creature walked; motion was a ludicrous concept. But sturdy legs stood everywhere in the World, every timeless life embraced by the beauty, and that was the vision that the very best dreams gave to Ash.

Hundreds of billions of planets were tidally fixed. On most of them, life was forbidden. The suns were too close, and even the night side was a blistered wasteland. But there were planets where life thrived inside the narrow middle zone. Plants or something like plants were fed by the low sun, the climate more reliable than not. But those fertile zones were often too narrow or too fragmented to support complicated, mind-ruled life. And the difficulties didn’t end with the richer planets. A bully sun might spit flares or otherwise butcher what couldn’t flee. Moons changed orbits, turning or tipping the planet in less-than-ideal ways. And the continents could be drowned under deep oceans or shoved in and out of paradise by the amoral tectonics.

The 31-1s were unusually blessed. The planet beneath them was massive, but it wasn’t as wet as most superterran, ocean-swaddled bodies. The daylight side was punctuated with volcanism and deep basins, and an ice sheet covered the night side, fattened by whiffs of steam from the sun-bathed regions. Every glacier eventually pushed towards the heat. Moraines and loess mountains ruled the boundary, ice melting into rain clouds and rivers, and that’s where the 31-1s stood. Where the sun was low, the air agreeable. They stood where they belonged, and concepts such as days and forever didn’t apply, because forever was a single day, and that had to be part of the story explaining what they were.

But only a small part. After all, the galaxy was full of changeless circumstances. Yet there was no second example of these creatures, and that’s why the 31-1s were spectacularly precious.

In his dream, Ash wore a 31-1 body. Enormous and filled with keen excitement, he felt close, very close, to that point where he would be transformed, existing inside a multitude of realms and every good memory always in reach. But he inevitably grew nervous, and that always made him tremble. Trembling was motion; motion wasn’t permitted. Ash woke just enough to realize that the delicious nap was nearly finished. Laying in the shade of the immortal bristlecone, he struggled to keep his eyes closed. The meanings of the universe. The alien world that he had never seen for himself. What flavor of tea he would boil next. Those were the great thoughts that filled a busy, happy mind.

But then he was entirely awake, and without fail, some piece of his mind insisted on remembering Mars and its long terrible war and the Cold that was waiting for every man.

Objects were responsible for nothing but their locations, fixed and outside time. The giant starship didn’t plunge through a vacuum at any fraction of light-speed. No, the Great Ship was set where it was needed, where the universe demanded it to be, and the competent mind inside the Ship had found a rich location, and that’s where he remained. Rigid as a statue, he stood inside a succession of brilliant days and the nights that were nearly as bright as day. The avenue beneath him was paved with glowing shells and frozen resins. The locals were dissimilar in appearance from one another and relatively poor compared to the typical passenger. These creatures had never seen a 31-1, and in many cases, they did not see this 31-1. They were too busy or too indifferent to notice his existence in one place and another place and a third midway between the two. They didn’t see him watching faces for the one face that mattered. But of course all faces mattered, each being a mask obscuring long rich lives that he would never understand. Not in any reality worth the calculation, that is.

Days and nights. Days and nights. Calculating the passage of time was unnatural. Ash’s good friend had to struggle to count one hundred days and ninety-nine nights, and he still wasn’t convinced by the numbers. And if he didn’t find the man here? He would allow the universe to carry him back to Ash and further instructions. In another hundred days, perhaps. But that was too much of a calculation, casting numbers into the future. 31-1s were happiest when they conquered one piece of ground, living on their stored fats, watching every indifferent beast that was here and then elsewhere and then back again.

This was important work, but it wasn’t fun work.

Exhausted and bored, this 31-1 felt like a different creature than before. The alien faces had stopped being new. His mind kept returning to an eternal, left-behind World. The genuine sun was pinned to the perfect salmon sky, a fine dry wind blowing from wastelands. Airborne salts gave the wind its flavor, and friends were standing with him. Voices that would never escape him kept offering their advice and their scorn. What was he doing? Leaving the World was insane. That was without question, and they said so and said so and said it again.

The 31-1 felt as if he had stopped using his eyes. Only his perfect mind mattered, and a very long existence lay under him, straddled and complacent.

But he was wrong. The face that he wanted had appeared inside this reality. Existence returned to this tiny place and one promise. The 31-1 passed through the next sequence of realities. Sometimes he felt the illusion of walking, but not now. He was motionless as the Great Ship gracefully shifted its position around him, leading him towards an existence where two strangers would collide on this busy, shell-paved avenue.

What would be said?

Humans managed conversation easily, but only because they were oblivious to how impossible conversation was. Countless words, endless poses, and each reality offering crushing ramifications. The 31-1 had gathered up several viable strategies. Instead of offering the truth, he would befriend this stranger with typical words, or maybe he would beg for small favors or large sums of money. Unless he offered nothing but his close, unwelcome presence as the human continued his migration through realities. That would put the burden of the first word on human shoulders, and that solution might be best.

But the most likely strategy was to grab the man with one of his five hands, shaking him while saying, “The man you want is ready to die for his crimes.”

Life was fixed and eternal. 31-1s understood that, just as they knew how the obliteration of a body and mind could never erase a life’s existence.

Yet this 31-1 felt nervous. Which was very uncharacteristic of his kind. He was so nervous that his great eyes were focused on the pretty shells beneath his five bare feet. He didn’t see the human standing before him. The stranger was waiting to be run over, or he was just waiting. Like Ash, he was a brown creature with a slight build. But he was far more handsome, at least by human measures. And instead of black-blue, his eyes were brown rimmed with a fine snowy whiteness.

“What are you?” the human asked.

Was any question more difficult than that?

Before the universe offered answers, the human added, “You’re a 31-1. I’ve heard about you.”

It was a pleasure, recognizing interest in the voice.

Yet the 31-1 decided to do nothing for as many futures as possible. That meant standing in the open, feeling the false light of a five hour day closing into darkness. Feeling even more than nervous now. This human wanted to kill his friend, and a succession of realities left him wracked with terror.

To this vengeful stranger, the 31-1 said, “I’m busy. I must leave.”

“Ah. By any chance, do you live nearby?”

“Yes.” Another lie. Which was a skill shared by every 31-1. Since lies were truths in other realms.

“I’ll see you again, perhaps, and we can chat,” the human said.

He was smaller than Ash and sweet-faced. That sweetness wasn’t apparent for another fifty days. By then, the 31-1 had become a little more expert in the expressions and manners of human beings. Ash was a stoic, intensely private creature. But this very pretty human was the opposite of stoic or private. He easily shared details of a long life and the worlds seen, reaching back to his childhood, and then he quietly spoke about his red world and the war that took hold of his homeland, and he described the suffering seen and the suffering experienced firsthand.

The sweet face was weeping.

The lovely mouth opened and said nothing and then closed again. For the first time, the human had no words to offer.

The 31-1 looked at the cold tea on the table between them. And he studied everything else that he had ever experienced.

“Someone is hurting you,” said the timeless creature. “Now and in the past too.”

“Very badly,” the suffering man agreed.

A series of silent realities took hold, not a word spoken.

Then with a thread of mucus leaking from the nostrils, the human produced the holo of the torturer who had done unspeakable things to him.

The universe was a sequence of perfect photographs.

Ash lived inside that image.

“As I understand it,” the man began. Then he paused to breathe, gathering himself before saying, “31-1s have remarkable memories for faces.”

“And for quite a lot more than faces,” his companion agreed.

“You might have seen this face before,” the sweet man suggested.

“I see him now, yes,” said the 31-1.

“Now?” Not understanding, the man twisted his head, looking one way and then another.

“I know where he lives. That’s what I mean.”

“Will you tell me where?”

“No,” said the one who smelled like nothing else in existence. “But I will take you to him. Now.”

The AI whispered.

“The man approaches.”

A warning was delivered.

And Ash understood that this was his last day of life.

Doubt didn’t exist. The premonition smacked him and then left him feeling hopeless, the pain growing blacker and hotter until it was unbearable, until his heart raced and his skin was clammy wet and both hands shook and his legs could barely hold him upright. Three seconds. That’s how long he had to endure the worst of it. Three seconds, which felt like an enormous span. Ash was never more human or more enveloped in time than when one of these awful, inevitable premonitions grabbed up his soul.

Exactly on schedule, the trembling eased. By the ten second mark, his breathing had slowed and his heart remembered that it didn’t have to beat so hard, and rising up on his toes, Ash tested the legs that still missed the sluggish gravity of their home world. The dry wind stole away his sweat. One hand was steadier than the other, and it rubbed the back of its nervous mate while he listened to the wind playing with the bristlecone’s gnarled branches.

“Of course this is my last day,” he thought. “Since I never leave and the sun never sets…”

There. The incident was finished.

Except the voice returned. Once more, the security AI said, “He approaches, and I can’t see all of him.”

The human was obvious, but one of his pockets was shielded. Ash saw the same scans and agreed with the machine. There was enough room inside that pocket for a small but still thoroughly illegal plasma gun. Exactly the kind of tool to use if you wanted to obliterate another man’s bioceramic mind.

Ash walked past the bristlecone, out where flat ground turned into empty air. Two figures were walking together on the narrow glass road. They were far below, several hours away. The 31-1 was leading, but the human didn’t need any help. Ash didn’t have to read minds to know that. The man had an urgent stride and he kept looking up at Ash’s home, and despite knowing it was foolish, the man insisted on occasionally touching the pocket, feeling the gun that would deliver a world of retribution.

Ash retreated, kneeling beside the hearth.

The idea of tea made his mouth taste foul, his stomach ache. But that reaction wouldn’t last. The hearth needed to be cleaned, and he was desperate for some small chore to help pass the time. Bare hands swept the ashes and a few still-warm coals into a bucket that had no other job. Hands and then wrists turned white, and when the bucket was full, he stood and carried it downwind, upending it on a ridge that always caught the wind, allowing the finest ashes to be blown away in the next minutes, leaving the rest to be washed away with the occasional downpour.

The white on his fingers tasted like salt and like earth. He licked three fingertips clean and then washed everything else.

Then he sat with his back against the bristlecone, the sun filling his eyes.

Arsia Mons. It was easy to assume that he chose this patch of ground and its false sun because they triggered memories of his Martian home. But the truth was that he didn’t need reminders. He never stopped thinking about Arsia Mons, about the weather and the scenery that he had loved. A shield volcano with a huge caldera, the mountain’s high reaches were famous for their cold dry air and the bristlecone forests. Brought from the Earth, the trees were tweaked until they thrived with the high carbon dioxide levels and the strong UV flux, and then other people tweaked them again, allowing them to live forever. Human cells; plant cells. In a universe full of aliens and odd biologies, those two lineages were just slightly different versions of the same cells, and humans had a need for handsome trees that served as immortal friends.

In those days, Ash wore a different name. And in front of that other name was the noble label of Doctor.

An academic, he lived in a small university with his spouse and many friends, good work and eager students from all parts of the solar system. The Doctor kept his focus away from the political troubles of the world below. A few government people came to the university seeking help. His colleagues said, “Yes,” and then moved away, throwing in with the war effort. Or they said, “No,” and were allowed to remain neutral in a struggle that seemed awful, but only because it was still so young and small.

That university was famous for its odd thoughts and arcane fascinations. Some colleagues invented weapons, but more important, others invented the surveillance and propaganda tools used against underground foes.

Bioceramic brains. They were Ash’s passion, the reason for every professional success. Immortal flesh needed a mind that could carry huge amounts of memory, crossing millennia while retaining the sum total of a life. But the bioceramics weren’t devised by humans. They were just the latest species to borrow technologies old before trilobites ruled the Earth. Intercepted broadcasts delivered the magic, and save for a few odd faiths and enclaves, humanity had thoroughly embraced the technology. Except nobody understood them perfectly. Indeed, there were days when the Doctor uncovered one or two secret talents hidden in the finer workings of these ancient machines.

University life continued, the Martian war grew worse, and the government suffered from errors and bad luck. One major problem was that prisoners couldn’t be interrogated with any hope of success. Bioceramic minds were too tough, their owners too certain of their own invincibility. Death was always a threat, yes. But the modern body didn’t suffer horrible pain, and the ageless minds couldn’t be bored or sleep deprived into madness, or fooled in any of the traditional ways.

The Doctor had opinions about how to break a man. Indeed, working with student volunteers, he proved concepts that would revolutionize the entire business of making an enemy confess.

Publishing his work, he fully expected the government to send agents to beg for his advice, if not his out-and-out aid.

And he would say, “Yes.”

Or, “No.”

He wasn’t certain how he would answer the pleas. But the moment never came. Mars ignored him, even when he sent messages of support and teases of possibility. According to the government’s resident experts, his work was too experimental and far-fetched. And silly and shallow as this was, that’s why he became angry. The noble professor was pissed by the insult, and that was when he decided to travel to Ganymede, attending a minor conference where he would meet with colleagues who understood what a good mind was being carried on his shoulders.

The Doctor was homebound when Arsia Mons was attacked. An experimental starship had been hijacked. A substantial quantity of metallic hydrogen spiked with antimatter was liberated above the mountain’s caldera. The immortal bristlecones burned, and the university was destroyed, every mind obliterated in a fire that was briefly hotter than the interior of most stars.

A few days later, the new widower tried to cross the ravaged landscape. He couldn’t walk far. The energy was drained from his legs, his soul. Sitting in cold sunlight, this expert of the mind again offered his aid to his world. But because both sides were guilty and both sides were incompetent, he didn’t commit to either cause. This innately clinical man understood what mattered. The war had to end. And he was prepared to end it by himself, if necessary.

That’s what he told the world below.

Sitting where fire had obliterated wood and soil, homes and souls, he said, “Whoever comes to me first, wins me.”

Then, speaking to himself as much as any audience, he added, “Ash is my name.”

“My face,” said the human.

“Yes?”

“Where do you see my face?”

In the shadow of the young bristlecone. The face was between two odd hands and a deficient mind: Not a generous assessment, but that was how the 31-1s regarded their human landlords.

This 31-1 threw his focus on those hands.

Working together, the hands held a tangle of wires and sensors. That was Ash’s weapon of choice. A third hand was holding an expensive, profoundly illegal gun. The two human faces were pointed at one another. Both of their wet little bodies were sucked and blowing air. One man wanted his air to carry meanings, and placing those realities into a string, the 31-1 absorbed the voice while his translator interpreted all of those painful noises.

“What you did to me, you had no right, I want you dead, the hurt you caused, for me and everyone, torturer, goddamn torturer, I’ll kill you now, you shit, where you stand, shit bastard.”

Ash’s face didn’t hide its pain. The man exhaled, and the translator said, “He sighs,” and then Ash let the wires fall to the ground.

“We aren’t alone,” Ash said.

The furious man kept talking.

“A witness is watching us,” Ash warned.

The cursing continued until the man was breathless. That’s when his face turned just far enough to look at the 31-1. The 31-1 had walked all of this way, and he was standing beside the sad, angry humans. The furious man looked pale, but in the same reality, the 31-1 saw something else. In those eyes, there was a radiant, sick and intoxicating joy.

“Where do you see my face?”

Ash and his face were beside a tall table. Drinks waited in glasses and various humans stood at the table and drank. Ash was holding the hand of the man beside him. This 31-1 had never been among humans before. He didn’t know any of their names and very little about the species. He would never guess about the relationship between the men, or care. But other realities existed, moored in places deficient minds called “the future,” In those places, this 31-1 appreciated that the men were lovers, and a willing and competent translator was able to offer up the words that the 31-1 had overheard.

Both men saw the long, five-legged alien.

“There walks beauty.”

“A 31-1.”

“Is that its name?”

“The species is, yeah.”

“Why that name?”

“I don’t know.” That human male sipped his drink and showed his smiling teeth, and he said, “But they have incredible minds, I know. Something you might like to research, if you get the chance.”

The other man said, “Maybe,” and then sipped hot water filled with cooked leaves.

“Where do you see my face?”

In the shade of the bristlecone. The torturer and his victim were standing close enough to touch each other, but they didn’t. Death was impossible. The 31-1 might flirt with time, but he understood that nothing could erase the existence of those two humans. Yet here he was, the witness, feeling as close to terrified as he had ever been. Intriguing, wasn’t it? Fear and the impossibility of guessing what would happen next: That is what made him more alert than ever. The realities were being sliced thinner than ever. That’s how it felt. Everything important was visible to him, and that included how fingers and the thumb held the terrible gun that could lead to a reality where a human mind was transformed into light and vapor.

“You don’t want to leave a witness,” said Ash.

The 31-1’s good friend was terrified. That showed in his stiff face and those huge eyes and the tone of his voice. Sunshine colored the drops of sweat that lay hard as jewels on a face that in every other existence looked composed.

Ash said, “You should kill the 31-1 first.”

What did that face say?

“That would leave enough juice to finish me off too.”

No, the 31-1 realized that his fear could grow worse.

It was worse.

But the furious man laughed at the suggestion. “No, I’ll shoot you and then I’ll kill myself. I don’t care what he sees.”

“Sees and remembers for ten million years,” Ash said. “Is that what you want? To have this moment locked inside that alien mind?”

“I want you to die.”

“And you’re promising to follow me into death.”

The other man started to respond.

“To stop your pain,” Ash said.

The plasma gun needed a stronger grip. The next realities were centered on fingers wrapping tight around the small handle.

“But if your pain is so awful, why are you alive today?” Ash asked. “All these centuries and no end to your suffering. Yet you managed not to kill yourself. Because you needed to kill me first. Just that possibility was enough. Is that what you’re claiming?”

“Yes.”

“No. You’re wrong and you’re silly.”

The other man become less angry and more angry.

How was that possible?

“Your misery hasn’t been that awful,” Ash said. “I mean, you tolerated it. Didn’t you? You were able to function. It’s not as if you haven’t lived for decades carrying that gun with you, and all it would have taken was one dark thought and the press of the finger… and you would be dead and past pain and free.”

“Shut up,” said the angry man. His face was taut and the lips started to bleed where teeth cut into the flesh.

“Maybe you came here for some reason other than revenge,” said Ash.

The other man spat blood, saying, “No.”

“Yes.”

“Never,” he said. “No.” Then he was blowing air without speaking, eyes wide and lost and very simple.

“What else am I?” Ash asked.

Then he paused, and the other man asked, “What’s that?”

Ash took a deep breath and exhaled, and then he said, “In the entire galaxy, who knows your mind better than me? And who has the necessary skills to take away all of your misery?”

The angry man stopped breathing, and his eyes closed tight.

“This is my offer,” Ash said. “I’ll do that first. I’ll work at your mind until both of us are satisfied. You’ll be free of pain, and I’ll be happier too. Then you kill me. If you wish. And our friend will watch it happen, or you can use my private home to do whatever you want to me.”

The other man opened his eyes, and with both of his hands and both arms, he pointed his gun at the torturer.

Ash seemed smaller, his eyes narrow and wet.

“How?” the vengeful man asked. “How can you take my pain away?”

Ash knelt.

And then Ash stood, hands filled with his weapon of choice. “You’ve done nothing for centuries but suffer and chase me,” he said. “But meanwhile, I’ve applied my time to learn all kinds of useful tricks.

“So what do you say, my friend?

“And where do you see my face?”

In the highest branches of a bristlecone that has grown up the canyon wall and down the canyon wall. Its roots drink from the river, and Ash sits where he can see a sun that isn’t as bright as it should be. And the wind is weaker than ever. And something about the voice and eyes and the look of the ageless skin… something in all of that has changed.

“I see you everywhere,” the 31-1.

Offering one of his hands to that odd human hand, knowing just how it feels when they touch.