(voices -- overheard softly in the night)
"So did Hariseldon get to see Dors again, before he died?"
"Of course he did. Why do you ask? We have played at least fifty simulations of the reunion, some of them with high fidelity/probability scores. In all of them we sense their love. Their joy, combined with poignant sadness at having to part again, so soon."
"Yes, but why did he have to die?"
"It wasn't optional. Anyway, he was ready for that body of his to join the Great Cycle."
"You're holding something back. I can feel it. Tell me what it is!"
"Are you sure you're ready? You are still quite young and it's a bit complicated."
"I'm sure I'm ready. Tell me!"
"Well.. there is a continuaton, of a sort. For now, let's call it a fable. Something that might have happened, somewhen along the stream that flows from past to present."
"Is it a true story?"
"That will be for you to investigate for yourself. But I can tell you how it begins..."
( a new page... the final page of this adventure... the first page of the next? )
David Brin is a scientist and best-selling author whose future-oriented novels include Earth, The Postman, and Hugo Award winners Startide Rising and The Uplift War. (The Postman inspired a major film in 1998.) Brin is also known as a leading commentator on modern technological trends. His nonfiction book -- The Transparent Society -- won the Freedom of Speech Award of the American Library Association. Brin's newest novel Kiln People explores a fictional near future when people use cheap copies of themselves to be in two places at once. The Life Eaters -- a graphic novel -- explores a chilling alternative outcome of World War II.
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