Charles Sheffield: Tomorrow and Tomorrow

At the edge of the caesura horizon, he slowed and hesitated. Mass and energy was swirling past them into the infinite maws, draining from the universe. But as long as he remained there, the final singularity could not be avoided.

“Second thoughts?” Ana was tugging at him, urging him on toward blackness. “Bit late for those.”

“Not second thoughts. I was thinking, it would be just our luck to emerge into some place where the laws of physics are too different to permit life. Or some of us might find ourselves right back here.”

“What’s so bad about that? If we do come back here, won’t it be to an open universe? You worry too much.” She was bubbling within his mind, an effervescence that he could never resist. “ ‘Life is a glorious adventure, or it is nothing.’ You were the one who first quoted that to me. Have you changed so much?”

“I don’t know. I can’t bear to lose you again.”

“You won’t lose me.” She was reaching out, enfolding him, confident as he was nervous. “This universe or another one, wherever we go, we go together. You’ll have me for as long as there is time. Come on, Drake. You always said you wanted to live dangerously, now’s your chance.”

They were on the brink of the spiraling funnel of oil and ink, close to the point of no return. Ana was laughing again, like a child at the fair. “Here we go,” she said, “into the Tunnel of Love. And don’t forget now, make a wish.”

“I already did.” It was too late to turn back. Ahead lay total, final darkness. Behind them he imagined the radiance dimming, easing with their departure away from the hellfire of ultimate convergence. The universe they were leaving would become open, facing an infinite future. Not bad, for a man and woman who only wanted each other and had no desire to change anything. “I wished that—”

“Don’t tell me, love — or it won’t come true!”

“Won’t matter if I do tell.” They were passing through, heading for the unknown, the last question, birth canal or final extinction. Was it imagination, or did the faintest glimmer of light shine in the vortex ahead?

Drake reached out to embrace Ana, squeezing her as hard as she was holding him. “Won’t matter if I do, love. Because it already has.”