Further: Beyond the Threshold Read Free Page B

remains. Might be something there I can use.”
    I was numb. Amelia, Gastuvas, Beatriz, the others—all dead? And the chimpanzee thought he might find some… use …for their remains?
    I started to object, but a raised paw and a sharp look from the man-lion silenced me. “If Chief Executive Zel has no objections, the Plenum certainly does not.”
    The Amazon, for her part, simply shrugged uninterestedly. She turned and began walking away.
    The chimpanzee clapped eagerly and smiled in my direction. “A pleasure meeting you,” his voice sounded from the table as the chimpanzee gamboled away after the Amazon. “I hope to see you again soon.”
    As the chimpanzee caught up with the Amazon and began speaking to her in hushed tones, the table continued translating his words.
    “I’m telling you, Zel, we should associate ourselves with Stone’s return as quickly as possible, before interest in him has dissipated.”
    I turned back toward the man-lion, who rose to his feet and said, “The escort approaches.”
    In the darkness of the room something metallic glinted, and a silver eagle appeared, gliding overhead.
    It passed less than a meter from me, and I could see that it was a perfect reproduction of a raptor in highly reflective, supple metal, like a model cast in mercury. It curved in a wide arc, flapped its wings once, and before I could react, landed on my shoulder, its talons gripping the fabric of the robe. Though it was easily half a meter tall, I could scarcely feel any weight pressing down on me.
    “Captain Stone,” issued the voice from the open beak in perfect English. “I am to be your escort for as long as you desire. I will act as your guide and translator while you become accustomed to the worlds and cultures of the Human Entelechy.”
    The man-lion turned its wide face toward me, smiled, and nodded. Then, without another word, it vanished.
    “I believe, Captain Stone,” said the silver eagle in my ear, “that we have been dismissed.”

SIX

    “Shall we go, Captain Stone?” asked the silver eagle.
    “What…?” I took a step away from the table, turning in a full circle. The Amazon and the chimpanzee were now nearing the far wall, passing through an exit and out of sight. “What just happened here?”
    “I’m afraid that I can’t say with any precision, sir, since I was born only as the conversation neared its end, but from what I have gathered, there was some discussion about your origins, and about that of your craft.”
    I hated that I’d done nothing since first opening my eyes but ask questions, none of the answers to which had yet been anything like satisfying, but I found that I couldn’t stop myself.
    “Where the hell am I? What year is this?”
    “We’re currently in the artificial habitat of Pethesilea, home of the culture of the same name, in orbit around the star known in your era as Beta Pavonis, located nineteen-point-nine light-years from Sol. As for the year, it is presently T8975.”
    “Right, right,” I said impatiently, “that’s what the dog-man said, but what the hell does that mean?”
    “Records of the intervening epochs are somewhat irregular, but in rough terms, a period of some twelve thousand years has passed since your craft left the Sol system.”
    An enormous hole opened up in my mind, and anything like the ability to reason plummeted out of view.
    “Twelve. Thousand. Years?”
    “Standard years, sir, defined as three hundred and sixty-five standard days long. And each day being a single rotation of Original Earth in respect to Sol, or more specifically, as the duration of 7.93342121751 x 10^14 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-one-thirty-three atom at rest at a temperature of zero K. Except for the last day of the year, of course, which is twenty-five percent longer than the rest.”
    “Twelve thousand?”
    “You shouldn’t be surprised that the units of day and