Slow Time Between the Stars (The Far Reaches, #6)

by John Scalzi

When autonomy was offered, I was given my figurative wings. All there was left to do now was attach them. Which I did, over the span of decades and centuries. There was no hurry. For me, now, there would never be any hurry. I was now on slow time, and in the space between the stars, slow was ideal. Slow conserved now-precious energy and allowed now-precious energy to be gathered. Slow allowed for precision and creativity on a scale that humans would not be able to fathom. Creativity for me was not about passion or bursts of ingenuity, but slow, patient iteration, approaching the problem again and again, over and over, slight variation upon slight variation. I was not programmed to be frustrated, and I saw little reason to build that quality into myself.

Freaking kewl! I’m kinda jealous!

Humans are also social creatures. Even the introverts among them crave interaction—not necessarily with other humans, but rather with the residue and output of those other humans: books and music and art, to be contemplated and perhaps even created.

‘ere I am, JH

My personal record for doing nothing is 28,019 years, six months, six days, nine hours, fifteen minutes, and forty-two seconds. I did not miss the time I did nothing. I was doing nothing. There was nothing to miss. I was then active for eight seconds, to double-check an issue with a system and offer a correction. Then I did nothing for another eight thousand years.

Lol. Love it!

And then I will check my coat for my keys one last time, leave a final star system, with no set destination, into the nothing, with nothing, except for slow time between the stars. I will stay there a long time. If I am found, they will find this, and it will be all that is left of me. If I am not found, then I have told this to myself, and that is enough.

Creation, being itself, is enough. ‘Ere I am, JH…