Dead Romance by Lawrence Miles

Author:Lawrence Miles [Miles, Lawrence]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Action & Adventure, Fiction, General, Science Fiction, Space Opera
ISBN: 9780426205326
Google: g8sAAAAACAAJ
Amazon: 0426205324
Publisher: Virgin
Published: 1999-08-15T07:00:00+00:00

54

This was wrong. How did I know this was wrong?

Cwej‟s people never, ever, ever swapped their secrets with

other races. It was a fact of life. Something so basic, I felt like

I‟d known it even before I‟d been told. Like the time travellers‟

control over space and time went so deep that one bad

decision could make everyone in the universe feel ill.

How much of history gets decided like that, I wonder? In

my world, or the „real‟ one? One of the time travellers

sneezes half a galaxy away, and whole wars start down on

Earth. I‟d like to think that this explains all the things I lived

through in London. I‟d like to think the reason I‟ve spent so

much of my (remembered) life blowing my brains out with

drugs and poisons is that I was trying to get over the shame

of Cwej‟s employers, trying to shake the guilt they‟ve always

felt about the things they did in their past, when they were a

lot younger and a lot more careless with their time travelling.

It‟s like original sin, I suppose. The oldest civilization suffers,

so we have to suffer along with them. We have to live

out their nightmares, and deal with all their paranoia.

But I don‟t suppose any of this is true. I‟m just trying to

find excuses for everything I‟ve ever done, all those mornings

waking up sick with the taste of vomit in my mouth, all

that time spent mixing Space Dust with the cocaine (for that

extra adolescent buzz and no, it doesn‟t work, but I had to

try). I don‟t think I can blame Cwej‟s employers for every-

thing. Or the Gods, even.

Another conversation between me and Cwej, while we were

lying on our backs looking up at the stars:

„How can the sphinxes do that, though?‟ I said. „How can

they just mess up the whole shape of the universe?‟

„You mean, by making sphinx space? Er...‟ Cwej mulled

it over for a while. „I don‟t know. Maybe it was always meant

to happen that way. You know? Maybe there‟s something in

nature that says things like the Gods have got to be there.‟

„Like an appendix,‟ I said.

Another long pause from Cwej. „Um...?‟

„An appendix,‟ I said. „Part of your body that doesn‟t

really do anything except go wrong and give you gut ache.

Maybe that‟s what sphinx space is. Maybe it‟s like the

universe‟s appendix.‟

„Right,‟ said Cwej. He sounded like he thought I‟d gone a

bit strange.

(We had a lot of conversations like that. If I‟ve got space

later on, I‟ll tell you Cwej‟s story about visiting a planet run

by intelligent numbers. „They were all between seventeen

and eighteen,* he said. „All the really complicated bits came

after the decimal point.‟ You‟ll laugh, believe me.)

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