Free Neverness by David Zindell Page B

than the glidderies of the Farsider's Quarter began at his neck, twisted through his dense, white, body hair, and ran down his groin and muscular legs to his feet. When I had asked him about the scars, he had said, "It takes a lot to kill me, you see."
       He motioned for me to sit in an ornate, wooden chair facing the southern window. The tower, a monolith of white marble imported from Urradeth at extraordinary cost, overlooked the whole of the Academy. To the west were the granite and basalt arches of the professionals' colleges, Upplyssa and Lara Sig; to the north, the densely clumped spires of Borja, and looking south towards Urkel, I saw my beloved Resa. (I should mention that the tower windows are made of fused silica, and calcium and sodium oxides, a substance the Timekeeper calls glass. It is a brittle substance given to shattering when the gales of midwinter spring come roaring across the Starnbergersee. Nevertheless, the Timekeeper, who is fond of archaisms, claims that glass allows in a cleaner light than does the clary used in all the buildings of the Civilized Worlds.)
       "Do you hear the ticking, Mallory, my brave, foolish,
young
pilot? Time - it ticks, it runs, it twists, it dilates, shrinks, and kills, and one day for each of us, no matter what we do, it stops. Stops, do you hear me?"
       He pulled up a chair identical to mine and rested his red-slippered foot on the seat. The Timekeeper - afraid perhaps that if he ceased his restless motions,
his
internal clock might stop - did not like to sit. "You're the youngest pilot in history. Twenty-one years old - a nano in the life of a star, but it's all the time you've had. And the clock beats; the clock tolls; the clock ticks; do you hear it ticking?"
       I heard it ticking. All around us, in the Timekeeper's circular tower, were clocks ticking. Interspersed with the curved panes of glass around the circumference of the room, from the fur-covered floor to the white plaster ceiling, were wooden shelves upon which sat the clocks. Clocks of every conceivable design. There were archaic weight-driven clocks and spring clocks encased in plastic; there were wood-covered pendulum clocks, electric clocks and quartz crystal clocks; there were bio-clocks powered by the disembodied heart muscles of various organisms; there were quantum clocks and hourglasses filled with cobalt and vermilion sands; I saw three water clocks and even a Fravashi driftglass, which measured the time since the drifting super-galactic clusters had erupted from the primeval singularity. As far as I could determine, no two of the clocks told the same time. On top of the highest shelf was the Seal of our Order. It was a small glass and steel atomic clock which had been set on Old Earth the day the Order was founded. (The largest clock of course, was - is - the tower itself Far below, set into the circle of ice surrounding it, twenty rows of granite radiate outward and mark the passing of the sun's shadow. This giant sundial, inaccurate though it may be, is theoretically the only clock in the city by which we citizens can direct our activities. The Timekeeper abhorred the tyranny of time, and so he long ago ordered all clocks banned. This prohibition has proved a boon to the wormrunners who make fortunes smuggling in Yarkona pocket watches and other contraband.)
       A clock gonged, and he gripped his forearms, one in either hand. He said, "I've heard that Soli has dissolved your oath."
       "That's true, Timekeeper. And I wish to apologize for my mother. She had no right to come to you, asking you to talk to Soli in my behalf"
       With his foot he pushed back the chair as he kneaded the tight muscles of his forearms, "So, you think I ordered Soli to release you from your oath?"
       "Didn't you?"
       "No."
       "My mother seems to think -"
       "Your mother - forgive me, Pilot - your mother often thinks wrongly. I've known you all your life. Do you think I'm stupid enough to