19. Lazarus Taxon

Carnival Station: Mesozoic era. Jurassic period. Dogger epoch. Aalenian age. 177 My B.C.E.

The Old Man sat in a dark room, alone.

The world outside was arguably the most interesting time in all the Mesozoic, an age when dinosaurs were challenged from a surprising direction, almost lost their place in the ecosystem, and then successfully fought their way back to dominance again. He did not give it a thought. All his attention was focused on the visions he called up, one after another, in the air before him. He had been given tools that were inexplicable in their effects. The one he was using now enabled him to eavesdrop on select events that were, to him, of particular interest. It was like owning God’s own television set. So far as he knew, he was the only human being who had one.

Half a billion years in his future, Griffin and company were finally about to meet their sponsors. They stepped through a gate and onto the same grassy sward where they had first set foot in the Epimethean.

He leaned forward, and all his surroundings vanished as his identity dissolved into theirs.