“immortality,” faxed a stack of material on cryonics. Cryonics. The preservation of humans for later reanimation. Freezing yourself. Victor read through the pages, then took his fi rst satisfi ed breath in months. He could not beat death. But he might outlast it. 23 The pool of voices was formed by Dor’s tears, but he was only the fi rst to weep. As mankind grew obsessed with its hours, the sorrow of lost time became a permanent hole in the human heart. People fretted over missed chances, over ineffi cient days; they worried constantly about how long they would live, because counting life’s moments had led, inevitably, to counting them down. Soon, in every nation and in every language, time became the most precious commodity. And the desire for more became an endless chorus in Dor’s cave. More time. A daughter holding her ailing mother’s hand. A horseman riding to beat the sunset. A farmer fi ghting a late harvest. A student huddled over piles of papers. More time. A man with a hangover smacking his alarm clock. An exhausted worker buried in reports. A mechanic under the hood with impatient customers waiting. More time. It was the choke of Dor’s existence, all he ever heard, millions of voices surrounding him like gnats. Although he’d lived when the world spoke but one language, he was granted the power to understand them all now, and he sensed by the sheer volume that Earth had become a v did much mor eled, it made war And it ne me a v wded p than hunt or b ar, it despaired. had enough time to extend the hour requests ne He did not under our he appetite was endless he stopped. Until slowly, gradually, Dor came to rue the hat once consumed him. very thing that once consumed him. t understand the purpose of he cur y he n nger he bo , he cursed all ts he had spent ay fr hen he been with her , listening to her v ying , apparently torture, and he cur he cursed the bo the moments he had spent a could have been with her his head ag he cur iv Mostly he cur g would die and meet their fa going to liv
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