The parking lot was empty except for a cluster of cars and trucks at the far end. I drove over and, as I parked, a muscular man with close cropped white hair walked over. He was dressed in olive pants and a tan tee shirt. "Professor Olsen?" I inquired. I climbed down from my van when he nodded. "I'm Andrew Jamison. I was surprised when you told me to meet you here on Sunday."
"I have a survival group that I join on Sundays. I don't run the group but many of the members are my biology students. I was curious about your call last night and wanted to see these strange birds of yours, so I invited you to meet with the group."
I opened the rear door of the van, revealing a large metal cage covered with a blue nylon tarp. Removing the tarp revealed four brown birds with strange beaks. Dr. Olsen yelled to a group of students coming down the trail to the parking lot, "Karen! Get over here. You aren't going to believe this!"
A very tall, trim and muscular girl in white shorts and a college sweat shirt bounced over, accompanied by a young man only slightly shorter, dressed like the professor. Before taking a look at the birds, Karen shook my hand, then introduced the young man, "This is Morton, my shadow, Mr. Jamison. I'm Karen Kirby, a graduate biology student trying for my PhD."
"Ron Morton, Mr. Jamison. What have you got here?"
"I'll let you decide." I ushered the pair of them over to the cage.
"That's impossible," Karen said, "The dodo is extinct."
"That's why I chose this particular bird to get your attention. Everybody recognizes the dodo and everybody knows it is extinct. There is a cardboard box in front with supplies and food. You can have the cage and the birds. By the way, two are males and two females. You can figure out which are which."
"Karen, get Donna and some of the others, get a cart, and take our birds over to the bio lab." The professor handed her a bunch of keys. "Now, Mr. Jamison, you have my undivided attention. What can I do for you?"
"Well, I heard about your survival group. I want to invite the bunch of you to go with me to a small group of islands where the dodos live on a world in another universe. It is rather rough country, so you will need your survival skills as well as the intelligence represented by the university participants in the group. I would like your group to be mobilized and ready to leave by five this afternoon. There will be a press crew along for the ride at that time. Call it a field trip if you want."
"I have heard your claims." The professor ran his big, rough hand through his short, white hair. "Until now I had dismissed them as some kind of stunt. Those birds are hard to fake, though. Most of the group leaders are up the trail about half a mile, practicing navigation and survival skills. Are you up to a walk, or should I send a messenger?"
I expressed my preference for a walk. As soon as the girls carted the birds away, I shut up the van and we headed up the trail, wide and smooth but steep. Some of the other students joined us, one of them asking, "I saw all of the furor. You really stuck it to the cops and courts. Is it all over, or can we expect more fun and games?"
Professor Olsen interrupted my answer. "You all know who Mr. Jamison is. You have seen him on television for weeks now. But he doesn't know who you are, so introduce yourselves when you ask him a question."
"I'm Bob Riley, Mr. Jamison, an econ grad unwilling to depart the ivory tower for the real world."
"Well, Bob, California has pretty much gone along with my demands. Most other states haven't, the federal government is still trying to find a way around the problem despite the hardship they are facing with no funds and no enforcable authority, and foreign governments are screaming for mercy but unwilling to take any action to get out from under the problem. They aren't desperate enough yet, but I expect they soon will be. I doubt if it will all be over for many years. Everybody is still looking for options, for ways out of the situation. It won't be over until they give up."
Somebody behind me asked, "What did you do to Iraq and Iran? Why are they empty?"
I slowed a bit. I hadn't been able to determine who had asked the question, but I started to answer. "Iraq and Iran each declared a holy war on me independently of one another. Their idea of war is terrorist activities against just about any easy target, so I sent them away to cool off. I had a world available, so I sent all of them there. It will emerge into synchronization with Earth in a couple of months.
"There are four continents on that world. The two largest are about equal, so I sent everybody from Iraq to one of them and everybody from Iran to the other. The next largest continent sits on the equator and I placed the transportation monolith on its west coast, south of the equator. I live on the fourth continent, which is in the southern hemisphere, about as far away from the other three continents as you can get. The people I sent there know where they must go to be able to return to Earth and they know where to find me. They just have to build transportation, ships or aircraft, cross to the monolith, and buy passage back if they want to return."
"Tell us about the monoliths." This time I identified the speaker, a tall, extremely thin man with a very large, blade-like nose and carrot red hair permed into a frizzy globe around his head. Professor Olsen repeated his instructions about identification, so the young man introduced himself, "I'm Robert Royal but everybody calls me Rob Roy."
"Well, Rob, the monoliths are just markers. They are illusions of giant slabs of bright golden material that stand about a kilometer high. When you can see them, you will be contacted to make travel arrangements between worlds. I have placed them in several locations around the world that don't get used for much else, such as in the middle of the Mojave Desert, and they will become active in a few weeks, after I have taken several groups, such as this one, on exploratory trips."
We arrived at the top of the trail, where I was introduced to the leaders of the group. The man in charge, a muscular, medium sized black man, dressed like the professor and several of the others in green pants and tan tee shirt, was introduced as Professor Kent Doring, a psychology teacher whose military bearing suggested that he had previously seen service in combat, which was later confirmed. Professor Bently had also founded the group.
With just a few hours before we were to be transported, I suggested everybody collect their equipment and bring it to where we were so I could address them and explain what was about to happen. The group was organized and disciplined, so the assembly process took very little time.
"We are going to a region on the eastern coast of a continent about the size of North America, a region that I have set aside as a wilderness refuge. We will stay in a large complex, basically a big hotel, about twelve miles from the ocean. There is a single road from the hotel to the docks below. About eight miles from the hotel, another road to the left leads to an airfield. Please do not leave those two roads. There are some boggy areas, mostly to the right of the first road, that are full of venomous snakes. I have fenced off the most dangerous area. The fence is only eight feet high, so it is possible to climb over it. Don't do so. You will not survive if you do. The rest of the area, being wild, is still dangerous but not as dangerous as the bogs.
"Most of you will go with me to the one of the seven large islands off of the coast. The nearest is about twelve miles long and can be reached in about an hour by boat. Some of you may visit other islands later. The wildlife on each island is different, having been isolated for thousands of years. That's what makes this area so valuable for biologists. Unlike the mainland, there are no dangerous animals on the islands. Most animals there are very tame. Each island has a compound where you can sleep, eat and study without disturbing the animals any more than necessary.
"It will be dark when we arrive, about 4:00 in the morning. Go inside as soon as we arrive and sign up for a room. There are plenty of rooms, so there is no need to share if you don't want to. The first boat out will leave at 7:00 in the morning. There will be a boat roughly every hour until about 9:00 at night, then every two hours until morning. There will be buses and trucks between the hotel and docks at appropriate times. Check the front desk for schedules. Arrange box lunches or specimen transportation with the concierge. Meals in the hotel will be served restaurant style. Order whatever you want from the menu. It is all free."
Professor Doring asked, "What about the air surveys?"
"There are four single engine planes capable of water landings available. There are two twin engine aircraft for more distant surveys. There is even a four man glider, if any of you want to use it. Pilots are available for any of the aircraft. Larger aircraft can be brought in as necessary." I paused. "I understand that several of you are licensed pilots. You will be allowed to fly your own machines after my staff have checked you out and briefed you on local conditions, but your first flights will be with the pilots I provide."
Professor Doring inquired, "Where do your pilots and other staff come from?"
I smiled. "I've lived on this world for a hundred thousand years. I haven't been alone. There are six continents on the world and the population numbers just under half a billion. Most of them have been looking forward to visits from others from Earth and are happy to serve you in any way necessary. You will find the inhabitants of this world to be at least as civilized as the people of Earth and their technology far in advance. There are also local students here, many of whom will act as your guides. I hope you will make friends with them while you are here.
"One last comment before we leave. I grow old at different times on different worlds. On the world we are about to visit, you will find me to be about forty-five years old and wearing a beard."
The group broke up so those who wanted to go could pack and prepare themselves. They began to return well in advance of the scheduled departure time.
As roll was called and final preparations were begun, I asked Professor Doring about a pair of very young girls joining the group. He told me they were the daughters of one of his group leaders and had gone on several trips with the group. Apart from them, everybody was at least eightteen years old, and they had approval from their parent, who would also be on the trip.
Departure time arrived. I signalled Professor Bently, who blew a whistle for attention and announced, "We're off!". Abruptly it was dark except for the lights illuminating the front of the hotel, twenty stories high and about a city block wide. The group filed inside.
The group that assembled in the morning was large enough to fill three of the four waiting buses. They organized themselves into three groups, each with its own leader and goals. Boarding, we were soon under way, across the gently rolling hills to the docks, where each group found it had a boat of its own. I led the students below the deck where they were delighted to discover that the hull was transparent plastic that allowed them to view the marine life we passed. I picked a small table about midships, where I was joined by Karen and two other girls I had not yet met. They introduced themselves as Sally Dawson and Carmen Olivera.
As the boat got silently under way, Carmen asked me, "You are Mr. Jamison, aren't you? You did warn us you would be older and different, but I want to be sure."
"Yes, I am Andrew Jamison and I would prefer you to call me 'Andrew'".
An attendant served us coffee and a plate of small sandwiches. Sally asked, "This may seem like a strange question, but 'Rasputin' is an unusual name and I am curious why you chose to give your probe machine that name. Why Rasputin?"
"You know who the original Rasputin was, don't you? Grigory Rasputin?"
"The Mad Monk of Tsarist Russia. Yes, I know vaguely who he was."
"Rasputin was a very charismatic person. He claimed that Jesus was just one of many saviors of humanity, that, in fact, each generation of humanity had its own savior, and that he, Rasputin, was the savior of the current generation. He managed to convince many people of his claims, including the Tsarina. His enemies decided he was a danger to the Russian Empire, if not to the whole world, and conspired to murder him. They poisoned, stabbed, shot and drowned him, not necessarily in that order. Several minutes after Rasputin was wrapped in chains and dropped through a hole in the ice, he surfaced and made an attempt to escape the water. When he finally disappeared below the surface for the last time, rumors began that he survived and would reappear when he recovered.
"I named the probe machine 'Rasputin' to remind me not to trust it and that it would be impossible to get rid of."
A swarm of giant nautilus swept silently past the transparent hull, eliciting many cries of delight and wonder. The now-empty plate was replaced with a larger one that had a variety of pastries. Our coffee was refilled. Finally, Sally gave a dragged out "Okay" and asked, "You don't dislike Rasputin, do you?"
"Let me put it this way: a voice out of nowhere tells me I have been chosen to save humankind, then almost immediately permits me to be murdered by a gang of kids who were given automatic weapons by some creature from another universe who was simply playing a practical joke. Then this voice gives me ghost powers and fails to warn me against frightening my family by materializing among them without warning after they have been told that I am dead. There are some serious lapses of judgment here.
"Yes, I have been given fantastic powers, some of which I don't trust me to have, and I am suddenly surrounded by a variety of creatures from other kinds of universes who only desire to serve me. Does something smell phoney? I don't trust any of them, even after having lived with them for a couple of billion years. I especially don't trust Rasputin."
"A couple of billion ... ?" blurted Karen.
"Sixty thousand worlds at one hundred thousand years each adds up to six billion years. But I have brought only a few up to the present time most are stuck far back in time. It's only been a few weeks since I was chosen but a lot has happened in that short time. I needed the longer time in which to sort some of it out. I especially needed some time in which to figure how to protect myself from future practical jokers and how to get back at them, if that were possible. And, just when I had given up on the idea of revenge, I found myself destroying several of my enemies. How I managed that would take too long to tell on this short trip these boats move faster than they seem to, and we are almost to the island."
We were joined by a group of whales, some longer than our boat. It was obvious that the curious animals wanted to play with us, but we soon swept past them, demonstrating the truth of my statement about the boat's speed. We flashed through a shallower area, full of colorful marine life, and were soon beyond them.
Karen, recovered from the implications of my age, asked, "What are your plans for human kind? And why does it involve such large stretches of time?"
"I'll breeze past your first question for the moment by saying that human life on Earth is not safe; too many things could destroy the whole world, or at least all life on the world. The hundred thousand year period is simply the largest interval available to me I could go to new worlds immediately. I have chosen to develop lifeless worlds as similar to our native planet as possible. Even with Rasputin's help, establishing life on a world takes a pretty long time. The first couple of centuries I ride around a new world in a space station, a habitat similar to the one used by the inventors of the probe machines to travel between near stars. They are large, and I fill them with interesting people, to keep me company and help maintain my sanity. When life is well established, most of us drop to the surface in a series of shuttles."
"Most?", asked Karen. "Why not all?"
"Many simply prefer the comforts of the habitat to the rather wild conditions on the surface of the planet. Some do join us when we have established an infrastructure that allows us comfortable living, but many remain on the habitat for the remainder of their lives.
"Preparing a world for colonization isn't easy and takes a couple of thousand years. Most of the time we are fighting an unstable population of animals and plants trying to survive where we are trying to make the world safe for us. The problems change from day to day. Just having an Earth-sized planet at the proper distance from a sun-sized star doesn't mean everything is going to be the same. In particular, tides and the length of days are different on different worlds, the tides depending on the size and distance of the planet's moon. I always like to have a moon. And, while all these places have roughly the same average temperature, there are some pretty wild extremes. Planets with lots of active volcanoes cause special problems, partly because many of the volcanoes are not as tame as the ones we are used to.
"If I need to establish more worlds after this first batch is ready, I doubt if I will go back much more than five thousand years, a period that seems to be adequate. But that will be centuries in your future. I am in no rush to provide planets for the expansion of the human race. You see, I have already learned to take the longer view."
Carmen asked, "But why so many worlds initially? Why start with sixty thousand right off the bat?"
"I didn't know how many I would need in order to develop a protection against my enemies. I didn't even know for sure that I could develop any form of protection. Each experiment required worlds in three universes. I guessed that ten thousand experiments would be enough, so I doubled it. That's a standard engineering practice."
"What experiments?"
"Developing a better and more powerful probe machine, which was what I first expected to have to do to protect myself. Each trio contained an observer, an experimenter and a subject. The experimenter would first modify himself to a maximum intelligence, then would try to modify the experimental probe machine in some way. The answer to the problem turned out to be totally different from having a more powerful machine, but I used the more powerful probe machine as bait for that solution."
The attendants cleared all of the tables as our boat docked at the island of the dodo birds. Everybody rushed off to find a place to stay for the duration and to begin organizing expeditions to explore the island.
I was alone on the rocky beach and the tide was nearly at its lowest. I headed for a cluster of large rocks about a mile down the beach. There was one large flat rock, well above the high tide line and shielded from the wind by taller rocks, and that was my destination. I tossed out a pad to rest on under the tarps I had arranged for shade on previous visits, then took a bottle of water out of my bag. I stretched out on the pad and closed my eyes.
In a few minutes I heard the sound of somebody climbing up onto my rock. I opened my eyes. Karen Kirby had joined me. I moved enough that she could sit on the pad beside me.
"I saw you sneaking off and wondered what you were up to. This is a neat little hideout."
"I come here often. It is a place where I can relax and just enjoy being, existing. The weather isn't always nice, but I enjoy the sea sounds just as much when a storm is raging as when it is as bright and calm as it is now.
"But I wasn't really sneaking. Your people will make the most of their visit if I am not there to distract them. If I had just shut myself in a cabin, they would have come looking for me, as you did here."
"I wanted to talk with you. You have been in the news for just over a month, first being brought back to life by those ..."
"Healer-Destroyers. They come from a different kind of universe."
"... Healer-Destroyers, then. Then you reveal that you have been selected to represent the human race by these probe machines and that there are an unimaginable number of other universes full of wonderful things. Then you cause a scandal by defying the law, claiming you are above all human law, and you shut down our governments by taking away their money, coloring them like Easter eggs and shutting off their computers. Now you've brought us here and I've learned that so much more is happening that I had no idea of. I never even though of how you might feel about all of this. I had no idea that while everybody else lived just a few weeks you had lived billions of years. That, by itself, blew my mind."
"Karen, how old are you?"
She paused before answering, "Twenty two."
"Karen, I was in my late sixties when this all started. I was overweight, out of condition, and my back hurt constantly. My skin was blotchy and thin, my hands hurt me, my hair was white and rapidly disappearing. Then, all of a sudden, I was physically at twenty-five years and in good health. I was well enough that I could have run a marathon. I had this voice in my mind trying to explain that everything was so much more fantastic than it seemed, that it and the Healer-Destroyers wanted to help me. On the other hand, I had died a sudden painful death as the result of a practical joke, had spent days burning in pain when the sun either rose or set, got blamed for a glowing cloud killing people to protect me, and was being attacked by the people I was expected to protect and save. Quite frankly, I went insane. I got madder than I have ever been before and did some very stupid things, which seem to have worked out for the better. But I wouldn't be sitting here so calmly now if I had not had a good long time to adjust.
"Exploring new worlds restored my sanity.
"To change the subject completely, are you married or spoken for in any way?"
"No. There's Morton, my shadow, who attached himself to me last year, but we haven't even dated. I've been too busy with my studies to have a social life. Why?"
"Like many people on this world, I've been waiting for the people of Earth to arrive, to, in biological terms, expand the gene pool. Too many of the people on this world are related to me through centuries of raising families here. Also, there is the problem of genetic drift of isolated populations. I have already messed up one world by letting the population drift away from what we were to the point they were unable to conceive with normal humans. They became a new race, superior in many ways to ours. I had considered just letting them die out and disappear; instead, I built them interstellar craft and sent them to other nearby stars.
"Your group will be here for five days. Some will be asked to come back repeatedly and to start a new life here. To start families here. We have three levels of commitment: joining, marriage as you know it, and the bonding practiced by the Ancient Ones who gave us the probe machines and so much more. Joining is like a trial marriage, usually for a fixed time. At the end of the joined period, couples can break up, renew, or move on into marriage. After a decade or two of marriage, they can bond if their families agree. Very few ever bond, about one percent. You will know a bonded person by the two colored bands he wears on his left wrist, one color for each family in the bonding. I have been bonded many times and married even more often than that. My last wife died about twenty years ago." I put my arm around her waist and drew her close to me.
"So, Karen Kirby, time being short, will you join with me and come to live with me on this world? We can start with a one year contract, which should give both of us time to make the right decision about raising a family."
We spent several minutes in a very delightful kiss, then she asked, "How will this work? What happens when I go back to Earth."
"At the end of the five days, you and everybody else who came here, will go back to Earth and resume your lives there. You will arrive at the moment we left there and it will feel much as if you had never left. Five days later you will be here again, and again it will seem as if you had stayed here except for your memories of the five days on Earth. You will have two distinct lives, one here and one there. Those who have not been invited back will simply disappear from this place."
"Time travel?"
"It isn't exactly time, it's an extra dimension or two in action. All of our four dimensional universes exist within a five or six dimensional construct. Travel between universes is done in discrete jumps having multiples of five days. Some say we are not really traveling between universes, just making copies of ourselves in different universes, copies that are connected by our minds and memories."
"Why do those who aren't invited back disappear?"
"They don't have to, but it is neater that way. They could continue to live independent lives in two or more universes, never aware of what was happening in their other life. Why force them to live a new life that has no connection to their old life? Not that we don't do something similar from time to time."
"What do you mean?"
"Why grow old? I can have Rasputin make a copy of a younger body with an older mind in it. We can copy anybody who has lived for the last hundred thousand years. That is where everybody on this world came from originally, their ancestors copied from people who had lived on Earth at some time. And you can basically live forever."
"Wow! Just when I start to feel comfortable with you, you detonate another surprise. But I've decided to live with you for a year or so. Now let's consumate this thing."
The two little girls, the twins Grace and Joy, had managed to sneak off on their own by simply telling their father they were going to go with another group, then remaining in their room until everybody else left. They sneaked out of the hotel and began walking down the single road leading to the docks, delighted by their independence. Their happiness lasted for a bit over six miles.
"I've gotta pee," said Grace.
"There's a bathroom up ahead. It isn't far. All of them have been pretty close together."
"Public bathrooms are always so dirty. I just want to go behind a bush."
"There's a fence on this side of the road and no bushes on the other side. Use the bathroom." She shook her water bottle, then took a long sip.
Grace walked over to the fence and started climbing. "Wait here. I'll be right back," she said.
With almost no hesitation, Joy dropped her backpack beside the road and joined her twin in climbing the fence. The pair headed down the hillside toward a nearby cluster of bushes. When they arrived, the bushes turned out to be taller, thicker and more extensive than they had seemed from the road. With some difficulty, the pair pushed their way inside the cluster.
"I haven't seen any sign of snakes. Have you?" asked Joy.
Grace shook her head. "I doubt if there are any snakes here. It was just a story to scare us."
She found a suitable spot, checked quickly for snakes, then, seeing none, dropped her pants and squatted down. The large snake she hadn't seen, annoyed by the spray of warm liquid, struck at its source. She screamed and danced around until the heavy snake finally let go and quickly disappeared again. She managed to pull her pants back up, then collapsed face down into a bush.
"Grace! Oh, God, I've got to get you back up to the road and get help."
Half carrying and half dragging her twin, Joy headed almost directly away from the road. The ground turned soft and squishy, then she was wading through a pond almost up to her knees. She felt multiple bites on her legs as she struggled to get out of the weedy, muddy water, then joined her twin in oblivion, the pair falling into the black water.
The tide had risen and fallen again. Karen asked me, "How long have we known each other?"
"In this manifestation, less than a day. Altogether, a little over a day. Regrets?" I asked
"Never! This feels so right. Let's consumate some more."
Voices could faintly be heard calling her name. "Damn," I said, struggling out from under her attempt to straddle me, "We've got problems."
"Ignore them. They won't find us here and they'll give up pretty soon."
"They aren't the problem. The two little girls that came along have managed to get themselves killed. We have to go back to the mainland. An airplane is coming out to get us. A messenger is getting the girls' father and he'll meet us at the dock."
We both began searching for previously discarded clothing and dressing. I rolled up the pad and attached it to my bag, slinging the bag over my shoulder. We dropped off of the rock on the sea side, away from the searchers, then walked around the rocks to where they could see us. We started up the beach towards the rocks at a run, waving to the small party of searchers as we passed but not pausing. Morton the shadow broke away from the group and tried to catch us but we easily gained on him. We caught up to the messenger and the girls' father just as the seaplane arrived at the dock and the three of us got aboard quickly. Morton tried to join us in the plane, but it pulled away, dumping him in the sea.
"I'm sorry, sir, but I haven't been introduced to you. I assume that you are the girls' father," I said.
There was some noise from the propeller as we climbed, but it disappeared as we leveled off. The seaplane was almost as quiet as the boat had been.
"Yes. I'm Harvey Wilshire, and Grace and Joy are my daughters." He reached back from the front seat to shake my hand. "What happened? That messenger didn't give me any details."
"Before we get into that, I want to assure you that your daughters are safe and well on Earth, just as you left them. Whatever harm has come to them here will not hurt them in any way there. If you like, I can block their memories so that they won't even know they were here. What I have been told is that, despite my warnings, your daughters crossed the fence into the bogs and were both bitten by venomous snakes. On this world, they are dead."
"Then why are we in such a rush?"
"There was a magistrate at the hotel. When notified of the accident, she summoned a medical examiner and sent robots out to retrieve the bodies. She also summoned us. Here, you respond quickly to the summons of a magistrate."
"There will be an autopsy?"
"That is standard procedure. When two young girls are harmed, foul play must be ruled out. Sexual preditors exist even here. I'm sure nothing of the kind happened in this case, but the magistrate makes all such decisions."
Stunned, shocked and saddened, Harvey lapsed into silence that lasted for the remainder of the trip. Karen and I, holding hands, also remained silent.
We arrived at a smaller set of docks below the airfield. A small bus was waiting for us. It whisked us past the airfield where a large jet that hadn't been there before was parked. People were unloading the jet onto a luggage cart and a small group was walking from it towards nearby hangers. "Probably the medical examiner and his crew. The bodies have probably already been brought down here. But we still have to check in with the magistrate," I said.
"Please explain to me how and why my daughters are still alive and well on Earth."
"You are doubtless familiar with a number of science fiction programs on television in which machines called transporters are used to move people around quickly. The people disappear from one place and appear in another. That is really two different and independent operations. And, sometimes, to make a story, the person being transported doesn't disappear as he should and you wind up with two identical people. Clones."
"Okay, I never thought about it, but that seems reasonable."
"I can't transport people or things between two places in the same universe. I'm not even sure that I can transport them from one universe to another. It is more like making a copy in a second universe. Once I do that, I have several options. First, I can make the original disappear. The result would be the same as moving that person or thing from one universe to another. That is basically what will happen with the specimens that get shipped back to Earth.
"Now it gets more complicated, because travel from universe to universe requires the equivalent of going back in time some quantum amount of time, some multiple of five days. When you travel from Earth to here and back again, you arrive at exactly the moment you left with memories of having been gone but no physical changes. I can then make the copy that is here disappear. You will have spent five days here and returned to Earth."
"So. If somebody dies, they simply don't return to Earth. Is that right?"
"Not completely. They can still remember their visit, up to the time of their death, or they can simply continue on Earth as if they had never gone, with no memories."
"Let me think about this for a while. I think we've arrived."
The bus stopped at one of the many outdoor bathrooms along the road where a crowd was gathered. A messenger came to the car and escorted Mr. Wilshire to the magistrate, pointedly leaving the two of us behind. Rob Royal came over, accompanied by a tall girl with short, dark hair and high cheekbones that gave her an oriental look.
"I understand that congratulations are in order, that you were the first to be hooked," I commented, startling Karen.
Rob took the girl's left hand in his left hand and raised it to show us the red band each wore around their wrists. "I'd like you to meet my wife, Casey O'Doull Royal. When everybody else went in to sleep, I went down to the restaurant for a snack. Casey waited on me. Then she seduced me and summoned the magistrate so I could make an honest woman of her."
"Actually, my name is Kikko. My initials are K. C., so everybody has always called me Casey. I understand the magistrate has made some joining bands with your names on them. We would be honored to stand as witnesses, if you would let us."
Karen said, "I would love that. I won't let Andrew refuse."
"You also win the prize. That is, Casey wins the prize for being the first to marry a person from Earth. Surely she told you about it," I commented.
Casey blushed and admitted, "Well, I was going to mention it ... later. After the adjustment time."
I explained, "The adjustment time is what we know as the honeymoon. Actually, the adjustment time is part of the prize. You get a week at the resort location of your choice, then you get the use of a penthouse apartment in Outreach, on the western coast, for the duration of your joining."
"And what do I get for being second?"
"You weren't even in the contest. Only local people were considered. We are the ones who have to improve our rather limited gene pool by encouraging immigration. And you came in seventh, not second. But you did win me. Isn't that prize enough?"
Karen took my arm. "Let's find that magistrate and get hitched before somebody else comes along and makes us eighth."
"The magistrate knows our plans and won't do any other joinings until she has taken care of us. I guarantee it."