My Library

for AA? No one could make that percept, not even AA at this point. In my few stopovers in the outer ring, it had always been utterly fascinating—the mix. Particularly the Last-Timers, those who knowingly were about to make their final recycle. They gave off a radiation that was unforgettable—tremendous vital power that seemed totally under control. Within that strength were all of the values and ideals that humans hold important—not in time-space context, not in external control systems that demanded performance in a specific manner, but something entirely apart, something learned from being human. Most important, all under control, all a cooperating, melding part of the whole. They were completely open. You could get a percept easily of the crucible of human experience that formulated such greatness—if you could handle it. I tried once and it was too much. I returned to the physical and was wistful for days thereafter. The key was that they got that way from being human. They were not that way at First Entry. But now it was different. Their radiation had a familiar resonance, and I wondered why this was so. In the last time around, they evidently close it all down. Part of the vitality seeps through; it really all can’t be closed off. Yet they don’t select history-making roles in that final run—they’ve probably performed such previously. They are inconspicuous, the mail clerk, the plain dirt farmer, the sailor, the bookkeeper, not gathered as a group, but quietly spotted here and there in both time and place. If you ask their destination upon completion, most simply respond with a gentle warmth: Home. The percept comes out that way, but there’s an overtone, a flavor, a nuance that is only slightly familiar. Yes, BB, there is much beyond the cold data. You pay the price and you get what you pay for. One way or another. How do you tell a fish what it’s like on dry land? You don’t try. (Hey, I thought you were with me,) BB cut in. I opened. (I am, I am.) (He’s not in this mob. Now what?) I smoothed. (Down another ring.) I turned, with BB close to me, and we moved quickly into the lower