Across a Billion Years

by Robert Silverberg

We are fighting that force in the universe that nudges everything toward chaos. I mean that we are at war with time; we are enemies of entropy; we seek to snatch back those things that have been taken from us by the years—the childhood toys, the friends and relatives who are gone, the events of the past—everything, we struggle to recapture everything, back to the beginning of creation, out of this need not to let anything slip away.

She pondered that. “How intricate you naturals can be! Why must you be so concerned about superiority and inferiority? Why not simply accept all distinctions and concentrate on matters of real importance?”

“Thou endest our time to teach us that time is without an end. Thou shortenest our days so that our days may be made long. Thou makest us mortal so that eternity will be ours. Forgive us, O Father, as we forgive Thee. Amen.”