No Early Birds: A Short Story Read Online Free PDF

social changes. If we get prepped ahead of it, something that can't be changed doesn't upset us so much. The future us still cares about us now. We have done things none of us could have imagined, and had secondary pursuits. Faye was famous as a painter for awhile. Anna wrote some books that are still famous even if under a past name, and after a break is doing it again. Edna has worked with people as her palette, helping those who needed a loving person to become whole. She often has two or three adopted children in her household, and the occasional distressed adult. Under a different name she has written the definitive manual for such care giving. She had a long time to see what actually works.
    I've developed an interest in the sciences I never had as a youth. Perhaps the little time machine gave me a nudge that way. It does provoke all kinds of thoughts and makes you reason on things to have it in your life. Knowing it exists has let me reject with certainty models which reject such intervention as impossible. And of course it drives me nuts that nobody knows how it works yet, because I do watch any research about time very closely. It's still our secret and we haven't ever revealed it to anybody. Human nature doesn't change and I can't imagine when it will ever be safe to show it to others. At the very least we'd lose the use of it, at worst be considered criminal for keeping it to ourselves for so long.
    * * *
    I'll be gone, off on my own for this weekend, to the center of the our galaxy. There's an observation post there watching a black hole. It's not unusual for one of us to take off a few days away from the others. We're friends, not joined at the hip. It's hardly a spa, and the other girls declined to go, declaring it will be boring, looking at a black smudge in the sky that doesn't visibly do anything. I'm quite interested to see what they are reporting first hand. I understand that near the black hole they have observed it doing some strange things to time.
    * * *
    The first thing that struck me when I boarded, was that there were only six passengers going to the observation post. It was the firm custom now to publically list all the passengers on a long range conveyance. That might change again in a few decades or centuries, and there were undoubtedly local cultures that rejected it. There isn't anywhere now that is really remote in the sense it takes a long time to travel there. But there are still lots of places where outsiders are unwelcome, and places that are simply boring or of no benefit to visit.
    There wasn't anyone aboard who could be called crew. An expert AI was more than sufficient to handle routine flights. The vessel appeared more like a lounge than a cabin, with several bathrooms and an automated snack bar. There were a couple isolation rooms for anyone who wanted to avoid even being seen. If anyone was using them they would already be in them, given first opportunity to board. With six passengers in sight it was obvious they were unused this trip.
    I got a coffee, which was still a common choice in menu selections. The only real change was that the quality was uniformly superb now. We only expected about a half hour journey. That would be the local maneuvering and docking at both ends, with no discernible transition time in between. I didn't try to work or entertain myself. By the time I got my thoughts engaged on a task it would be time to stop.
    A young man sitting alone looked at me when I sat on a sofa. You might wonder, given the state of medical science, how I concluded he was young. When you are my age you can read a person's demeanor better than their face. I can look at a person for a few minutes and most of the time tell you their age within a century.
    I like to sit into the corner at an angle rather than a narrow single seat. He stood up and approached. He had a drink also and brought it along. That was a little pushy by current social standards. It telegraphed he intended to intrude