"But the pictures?"
"The pictures were real enough," Carl admitted. "I'd vouch for that. It's just that if you'd ever caught a whiff of that stuff like I have, you'd know that no one could breathe it and stay alive for sixty seconds, much less forever."
"What do you think we'll find?"
Carl shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe the story's true. Sometimes I find myself wondering what it would be like to be immortal—I mean after all the willful-wishing's over with, and you get down to thinking about it in terms of 'what's-in-it-for-me.' Most of us think of immortality as being something we could have on our own terms. But suppose everyone were immortal, the way they'll be—or could be—after this so-called migration starts. How much will people have really changed. They'll have just as many problems—bigger ones in fact, 'cause they'll be living on what to me is just about the God-awfulest hunk of crud in the galaxy. And the only thing they're getting in the way of compensation is the knowledge that these same troubles are going to go on forever."
She was staring at him now—attentively with her lips slightly parted. "You feel this way, and you still agreed to come," she said evenly. "Why?"
Carl forced a smile. "Like I said, maybe I can have it on my own terms. It's a gamble, but if it pays off it'll be worth it."
Diane got up. "I'd best be getting back," she said.
He watched her till she disappeared around the corner of the companionway. Then he fixed his gaze on the marble-sized disc to the right of Polaris.
"Immortality, and thou," he murmured.