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his life. For immortality of a kind. For a way to change the world, to have his life matter But it is all in vain. I was swept away until I existed only in footnotes in other men's articles. It all came down to this, as it always does. You can change the world-as you have, Bean, Julian Delphiki-you and Petra Arkanian, both of you, all those children who fought, and the ones who did not fight, all of you-you changed the world. You saved the world. All of humanity is your progeny. And yet... it is empty, isn't it? They didn't take it away from you the way they took my work from me. But time has taken it away. It's in the past, and yet you are still alive, so what is your life for?"
They were at the stone steps leading down into the water Bean wanted simply to keep going, to walk into the Mediterranean, down and down, until he found old Poseidon at the bottom of the sea, and deeper, to the throne of Hades. What is my life for?
"You found purpose in Thailand," said Anton. "And then saving Petra, that was a purpose. But what did you save her for? You have gone to the lair of the dragon and carried off the dragon's daughter- for that is what the myth always means, when it doesn't mean the dragon's wife-and now you have her, and... you refuse to see what you must do, not to her, but with her"
Bean turned to Petra with weary resignation. "Petra, how many letters did it take to make clear to Anton precisely what you wanted him to say to me?"
"Don't leap to conclusions, foolish boy," said Anton. "She only wanted to find out if there was any way to correct your genetic problem. She did not speak to me of your personal dilemma. Some of it I learned from my old friend Hyrum Graff. Some of it I knew from Sister Carlotta. And some of it I saw simply by looking at the two of you together. You both give off enough pheromones to fertilize the eggs of passing birds."
"I really don't tell our business to others," said Petra.
"Listen to me, both of you. Here is the meaning of life: for a man to find a woman, for a woman to find a man, the creature most unlike you, and then to make babies with her, with him, or to find them some other way, but then to raise them up, and watch them do the same thing, generation after generation, so that when you die you know you are permanently a part of the great web of life. That you are not a loose thread, snipped off."
"That's not the only meaning of life," said Petra. sounding a little annoyed. Well, thought Bean, you brought us here, so take your medicine, too.
"Yes it is," said Anton. "Do you think I haven't had time to think about this? I am the same man, with the same mind, I am the man who found Anton's Key, I have found many other keys as well, but they took away my work, and I had to find another. Well, here it is. I give it to you, the result of all my... study. Shallow as it had to be, it is still the truest thing I ever found. Even men who do not desire women, even women who do not desire men, this does not exempt them from the deepest desire of all, the desire to be an inextricable part of the human race."
"We're all part of it no matter what we do," said Bean. "Even those of us who aren't actually human."
"It's hardwired into all of us. Not just sexual desire-that can be twisted any which way, and it often is. And not just a desire to have children, because many people never get that, and yet they can still he woven into the fabric. No, it's a deep hunger to find a person from that strange, terrifyingly other sex and make a life together Even old people beyond mating, even people who know they can't have children, there's still a hunger for this. For actual marriage, two unlike creatures becoming, as best they can, one."
"I know a few exceptions," said Petra wryly. "I've known a few people of the 'never-again' persuasion."
"I'm not talking about politics or hurt feelings," said Anton. "I'm talking about a trait that the human race absolutely needed