“Count on it, I won’t.” Laz smiled and held out his hand. “Let’s go let Ron debrief us.”

  “What will he be able to do about it?” asked Ivy.

  “Absolutely nothing,” said Laz. “But we’ve chosen our side, and it’s Ron’s.”

  “And the other side is Mumbo. Just him. No team.”

  “Don’t forget Nasty,” said Laz.

  “I don’t know if she’s on his side. Do you think she’d approve of his antics lately?”

  “I hope not,” said Laz. “It’s not a thing that a sister should approve of.”

  “Their relationship is not normal,” said Ivy.

  “Our relationship is not normal,” said Laz.

  “I’m glad of that,” said Ivy. “A normal relationship would not do for either of us.”

  Laz put his hands gently on both sides of Ivy’s face. “With your permission, Ivy, I would like to kiss you.”

  She gave her permission.

  22

  THE WAR WAS over, the Tesseran soldiers had been dispersed among the loyal nations—except none were allowed to remain in Six—and the public mourning, the commemorations, the parades, the mass funerals, all had ended.

  Laz and Ivy had settled down to life in their house, which was gradually becoming home. Ivy had taken a leave of absence from MIT. She had seen to planting several species of ivy to grow up the walls of the house, with the shade-loving ivies on the north side, the sun-loving ivies on the south. They grew quickly, and the house was alive with green three seasons of the year, with coppery bare vines on the north side in winter, and deep green ivy on the south all winter long.

  Inside, printed books were scattered everywhere. Publishers had gone back to printing books on paper, because they never had to be recharged. And Laz and Ivy, given their special relationship with the government of Central Time, had only to leave a list of book titles on the kitchen table, and within twenty-four hours the books were in several piles on the floor. Shelves had been added to the house more than once, but there were never enough.

  For Ivy, the piles of books were like having rose petals scattered all over the house. “I like the smell of them, Laz,” she said. “They smell like home.”

  “I agree, if home is a pile of dust, mold, bookworm poo, and crumbling paper,” said Laz. But he really didn’t mind at all. More than half the books were his, anyway, though unlike Ivy he tended to read a few introductory chapters, then skip to the conclusion. He absorbed a lot of science that way, current and ancient, plus huge gouts of history, but as Ivy pointed out more than once, “Someday you will have read half of every book currently in print in English. I think that makes you half-educated.”

  “A half-wit,” Laz offered, helping her out.

  “Oh, no,” said Ivy. “Reading all of these books straight through would make you a half-wit. You’re only about a fifth of a wit right now.”

  “But making progress.”

  “Given how often you read in poor light, I suspect you’re better understood as a dimwit.”

  Laz only smiled and agreed with her, and even rather enjoyed it when she began calling him Dim as a term of endearment. A rather abusive kind of endearment, but that’s how their relationship stood. He even tried to think of a complementary nickname for her in response, but he could never think of a name for her that he liked better than Ivy.

  She had been calling him Dim for several weeks when a surprising visitor came to their door. No call in advance, but certain people knew that they could show up any time and they’d be, if not welcome, than acceptable.

  “Please come in,” said Ivy, trying graciousness instead of sarcasm, because this was the first time that Ivy-O had ever come to visit them. Her chronological age was about sixty—the history books did not include her actual birth date, and there was no biography of her available. She was just mentioned in the biographies of the great and mysterious Lazarus Hayerian—the original, the real one, not one of the copies. And of course the clones were barely mentioned at all—even though Zero-Laz and Ivy-Z were the ones who found timestreams that were safe from the wandering planet Shiva.

  Laz knew that his Ivy envied or resented the Zees more than a little, though she was ashamed of those feelings, because they really had accomplished great things. The trouble was that Laz and Ivy had both been implanted with the memories of their Zee generation predecessors, so that they remembered doing everything the Zees had done. The only reason Ivy and Laz had been created and implanted was because the Zees had gone on strike. So as Laz saw it, he and Ivy owed the Zees big time—owed their lives to them. But people couldn’t just decide what emotion was appropriate and then feel it.

  It was Ivy-O that Laz didn’t like, but not because of any dealings he had actually had with her. It was in his memories inherited from Z-Laz that he found reasons for his dislike. She had been aloof, superior, condescending, and, above all, deliberately and pointlessly weird. When they visited new timestreams, hoping for a Shiva-free world, Ivy-O had left Laz to do the real work, while Ivy-O collected seemingly random samples of various herbs and leaves, which, as far as Laz knew, she did nothing with.

  Now here she was at their door, in their house, sitting in the most comfortable chair, which was habitually Ivy’s reading chair. But Ivy-O probably wouldn’t be here long enough for that to be a problem.

  “You came a long way,” said Ivy.

  “I did, and yet it was pleasant. Buses and trains are friction-free now, so the ride is smooth and sleep is easy. At my age, sleep is my favorite hobby.”

  Laz laughed. “You’re not that old.”

  Ivy-O raised an eyebrow. “And how would you know?”

  That’s right, unpublished information. Laz smiled, “I go by your apparent age.”

  “Oh, how kind of you. Do you find me spry? Or perhaps even spunky?”

  “I know too much about the history of that word to ever describe a lady as ‘spunky.’ ”

  “Fortunately, I’m not a lady. Just a genius’s sidekick abandoned by her genius.”

  “And I’m a half-assed clone who has not yet done anything to compare to his genius original. Both of us might seem to be supernumeraries.”

  “I love big words that are used for their own sake. I don’t think of it as showing off. I think of it as giving lesser mortals something to aspire to. Linguistically speaking.”

  “I doubt that you came here to discuss Dim’s weird ideas about language,” said Ivy.

  Ivy-O shook a finger at her. “There are only two women in the world lucky enough to have a Laz in their lives. There used to be three. Don’t take him for granted.”

  “She never does,” said Laz. “If I ever say something intelligent, she celebrates it, sings about it, bakes me cookies.”

  “I have never baked Dim a cookie in my life,” said Ivy.

  “I never baked any for my Laz, either. Maybe if I had, he wouldn’t have disappeared.”

  Ivy shook her head. “Such a mournful topic. Is there a reason you picked today to visit? Is there some matter we need to be informed of?”

  “Today was a day. My garden is doing very well and Ron has assigned me a part-time gardener to take care of the place if I’m traveling or under the weather. Gardens need babysitting as much as dogs and cats—but you can’t take your garden to a kennel while you’re away.”

  Laz chuckled. Ivy nodded. “Very wise,” she said. “Does the fact that you and Ivy-Z both have spectacular gardens mean that I’m someday going to become fascinated with gardening? Because I haven’t felt a glimmer of that fascination yet.”

  “I think the garden becomes especially appealing after you’ve given up on people,” said Ivy-O.

  That hung in the air for a little bit.

  “So did you bring us starts for plants that our garden needs?” asked Laz.

  Ivy-O answered with a question. “Who decided to plant all your ivy plants?”

  “Ivy,” said Laz.

  “Isn’t that a little on-the-nose?” asked Ivy-O. “Especially for someone who hasn’t yet felt even the slightest stirring of interest in gardening?”

  “I didn’t get my hands in the dirt and plant them myself. And when I decided I wanted trellises, Dim put them up for me.”

  “She means,” said Laz, “that instead of her hiring workmen to do it, I found them and hired them.”

  “They got installed and I didn’t have to give it a thought,” said Ivy.

  “While I spend all my time calculating our taxes,” said Laz, “and making sure we have enough money at the end of the month.”

  Ivy-O looked shocked. “Ron makes you pay taxes and… and bills?”

  “It’s Laz’s sense of humor that earned him the nickname Dim,” said Ivy. “We are just as much on the public dole as the Zees and as you. A grateful nation looks out for its public servants.”

  “We try not to abuse the privileges,” said Laz.

  “No yacht, then,” said Ivy-O.

  “So far,” said Ivy.

  “We can ride on any fishing boat that we want,” said Laz, “which so far has been none of them.”

  “Fishing boats are working boats, not pleasure cruises,” said Ivy-O. “And it takes a month of laundering to get the fish smell out of your clothes.”

  “So you’ve done it,” said Laz.

  “I’ve washed the clothing of one who did.”

  Laz could only guess who she meant, but who else’s laundry would she do? Her Laz, OrigiLaz, apparently voyaged in a fishing boat once.

  But Ivy-O did not want to continue that discussion. “Laz, Ivy, I came here because one of the grandchildren—I regard the offspring of the Zees, as you call them, as my grandchildren.”

  “I’m sure you know they’re calling themselves Nasty and Mum,” said Ivy.

  “They were. They have different names now, but I always try to forget them as quickly as possible. She’s ‘the Girl’ and he’s ‘the Boy,’ which is all my aging memory can handle. Besides, they often pick repulsive names just for the pleasure of hearing their parents address them that way. I keep telling the Zees that they should do as I do and pretend they don’t have names at all.”

  “They do have real names, right?” asked Laz. “On their birth records?”

  “The boy’s official name is Stever, for reasons passing understanding,” said Ivy-O.

  “I understand the reason,” said Laz.

  “But the girl’s name is so nondescript it’s like not having a name, so I can never remember it.”

  Ivy sighed. “Her name is the letters I and V—I. V. Hayerian.”

  “Intravenous Hayerian,” said Ivy-O. “I keep thinking I can remember her name from that.”

  “It’s just Ivy,” said Laz. “Spelled I. V., but pronounced just like your own name.”

  “Parents are never properly held to account for their poor choices in naming,” said Ivy-O. “Not to mention spelling.”

  “They’re novices at naming babies. Sometimes they don’t understand that they’re putting a permanent label on a human being,” said Laz.

  “Ivy,” said Ivy. “You said you came here because one of the grandchildren…”

  “Because the Girl has disappeared. I fear that the Boy has sequestered her somewhere and is amputating limbs and roasting them to devour her joint by joint.”

  “That’s awful,” said Ivy.

  Laz wanted to say that it was ridiculous, that Mumbo would never do that, especially not to Nasty.

  “The Boy is awful,” said Ivy-O. “But it’s not as if the Zees had any hope of controlling him, what with his terrifying abilities. I’m sure he has watched me shower, let alone use the toilet, many times.”

  “Why do you think he does that?” asked Laz.

  “Because he can, and he knows I don’t want him to,” said Ivy-O. “I’m hoping you have some way of locating the Girl in time and space.”

  “Nobody can,” said Ivy. “She can disappear just like the Boy can. Even drones can’t see her. Nor thermal imaging, nor echolocation.”

  “She has no reason to disappear,” said Ivy-O. “She didn’t collaborate with terrorists the way the Boy did.”

  Laz was surprised that she knew about that. It’s not as if it had been in the papers. But Ron probably briefed her, kept her in the loop.

  “I keep wishing we had some way to keep track of people passing through the Portals,” said Ivy. “But we can’t detect either of them, not when they’re strobing.”

  Ivy-O looked disappointed. “I hoped you would have a better relationship with her than I’ve had.”

  “Well, we did call her Nasty when she asked us to,” said Laz, “and not just ‘the Girl.’ ”

  “I’m not good at predicting other people’s reactions to what I do.”

  Laz shrugged. “That’s not a talent I have, either.”

  Ivy-O laughed. “The original, he was a charmer. Everybody liked him. Even the scientists who hated him liked him.”

  That took Laz by surprise. “Why did anybody hate him?”

  “I think they said things like ‘magic’ and ‘fake science.’ ”

  “But side stepping works,” said Ivy. “They can see that it happens.”

  “When people are sure they know everything, they don’t take kindly to people doing things that can’t be done,” said Ivy-O.

  “Well, I know that I don’t know anything,” said Laz, “so I’m not surprised when somebody can do things and know things that are out of my ken.”

  “My Laz was almost as humble as you,” said Ivy-O. “Not quite, because he had less to be humble about.”

  Laz hooted with laughter.

  “Please forgive Dim,” said Ivy. “He becomes so excited when he gets a joke without someone explaining it.”

  “How long have you been almost married?” asked Ivy-O.

  “For nowhere near as long as the Zees were, before they actually got married,” said Laz.

  “Don’t have children,” said Ivy-O.

  “Genes recombine randomly,” said Laz. “There’s no reason to think our children would be anything like Mumbo and Nasty.”

  “You called him Mumbo to his face?” asked Ivy-O.

  “Not often,” said Ivy.

  “We kind of hate him, though,” said Laz. “If things go well, at some point you may hear that I beat him up.”

  “So hard to beat up the Intangible Man,” said Ivy.

  “When you’ve got him down and crying for mercy, hit him a couple of extra times for me,” said Ivy-O.

  Laz, laughing, agreed. “Not likely to come up, though.”

  “Oh, it will come up,” said Ivy-O. “It has to.”

  “Why do you say that?” asked Ivy.

  “Say what?”

  “That it has to come up,” said Ivy. “Laz getting Mumbo down, Mumbo begging for mercy.”

  “Sounds so unlikely,” said Laz.

  “Mumbo begging for mercy?” asked Ivy-O. “The Boy is so proud he can do humiliating things, like begging a foe for mercy, and he’s not ashamed.”

  “But he doesn’t need mercy, ever,” said Laz. “He can evanesce and nothing can hurt him.”

  “Except poison he’s already eaten,” said Ivy-O. “Except the ravages of time.”

  This all sounded mystical to Laz. It sounded like humbug. But it took his Ivy to say, “How can time affect him when he’s strobing? Let’s stay within the realm of reality.”

  “Reality has no realm,” said Ivy-O, with a Mona Lisa smile. “Reality owns nothing, owes nothing, is nothing.”

  “Except for everything that actually exists,” said Ivy.

  “And what do you think that might be?” asked Ivy-O, disdainfully. “What is it that you think actually exists?”

  “Everything,” said Ivy. “Everybody.”

  “Then what do you think it is that does not exist?” asked Ivy-O.

  “You know so much,” said Ivy. “You tell me.”

  “Everything,” said Ivy-O. “Everybody.”

  “I’m so glad you came to clarify things,” said Laz. “Everything that exists does not exist. Everything that does not exist, exists.”

  Ivy-O’s eyes filled with tears. “I thought you might understand,” she said. “I thought that you might know what he meant.”

  “What who meant?” asked Laz.

  “My Lazarus,” said Ivy-O. “Before he side stepped into oblivion.”

  “He said something?” asked Laz.

  “It was the culmination of several speculative discussions we had. About existence. About matter and energy. About all the timestreams that seem to exist at once.”

  “Ivy and I have talked about that,” said Laz.

  “But he knew,” said Ivy-O. “He said that he knew. And then: ‘It all exists all the time,’ he said. And I said, ‘What exists all the time?’ And he said, ‘Nothing.’ ”

  “You mean he didn’t say anything?” asked Laz.

  “Oh, Dim, don’t be so thick,” said his Ivy. “He wasn’t silent, he said the word ‘nothing.’ ”

  “So a cloud of oxymorons, and he’s off to Never-Never Land?” asked Laz.

  Ivy-O laughed bitterly. “He was off to Always-Always Land.”

  “What are these oxymorons?” said Ivy. “I always thought that you knew more than you were telling.”

  “You’re a clone,” said Ivy-O. “You only ‘always’ knew whatever I always knew.”

  “You never knew you, Grandmother,” said Ivy. “So ever since I met you—since Ivy-Z met you—I thought—we thought that you knew more about OrigiLaz’s disappearance than you were willing to admit.”

  “I knew nothing,” said Ivy-O. “But I remembered some. And I guessed much.”

  “And now you’re sure?” asked Laz.

  “I’m sure of nothing,” said Ivy-O.

  Laz sighed.

  Ivy-O laughed. “Didn’t you hear me? I’m sure of nothing.”

  “Dim,” said Ivy, “you’re not hearing the grammar. There is something she’s sure of, and that thing is—”

  “Nothing,” said Laz. “Language is so weird. Where ‘nothing’ can be a thing.”

  “Do you have any idea what OrigiLaz meant by that?” asked Ivy.

  “It was the same problem Ron tells me you’ve been having,” said Ivy-O. “Do all the timestreams you perceive actually exist—in detail, every event, whole worlds worth of people? Or does your entering a timestream call it into existence, so that it was merely a set of ideas that came to life because of you?” Ivy-O looked at them for confirmation. “And then he said, ‘Either way, where is all this matter coming from? Where is it stored, only to be trotted out when a new timestream pops into existence? Is the deep universe filled with billions of worlds inhabiting one timestream each? How can there be that much matter and energy?’ ”