“You know that,” said Ponter. “I know that. But they don’t know that. They think the universe is only—well, they’d say twelve billion years old; a hundred and fifty billion months or so.”

“Then what existed before that time?”

Ponter frowned, remembering back to his conversations with the female Gliksin physicist Lou Benoît—how he wished he could pronounce their names properly! “They say there was no time before then, that time began when the universe was created.”

“What an astonishing notion,” said Selgan.

“That it is,” agreed Ponter. “But if they accepted that the universe had always existed, there would be no role for this God of theirs.”

“Your man-mate is a physicist, isn’t he?” asked Selgan.

“Adikor Huld,” said Ponter, naming him. “Yes.”

“Well, I’m sure you often get to talk about physics with Adikor. Me, I’m more interested in other things. You brought up this—this ‘God’—in connection with the concept of judging. Tell me more about that.”

Ponter was quiet for a few moments, trying to figure out how to present the concept. “It seems most of them, these other humans, believe in what they call an ‘afterlife’—an existence that follows death.”

“But that’s ridiculous,” said Selgan. “It’s a contradiction in terms.”

“Oh, yes,” said Ponter, smiling. “But such things are common in their thinking—so common that they give them a special name, as if by naming them it resolves the paradox. I can’t quite say it the way they do; it’s something like ox-uh-mor-on.”

Selgan smiled. “I would love to treat one of them—learn how such a mind functions.” He paused. “This existence that follows death: what do they believe it is like?”