history.”
“Oh. Because I was going to ask you my indoor plumbing question. When was it invented? I’ve always wondered which of my ancestors had to, er—squat in fields and who got to sit down.” I noticed that the DIM officials were now interviewing Gabriella Love, their avocado uniforms presenting quite a contrast to her pink robe. She didn’t look too pleased about being held up on her way to the food table.
“That’s a math problem,” Bean said of the plumbing question.
“Because everything is a math problem.”
“Exactly. How many ancestors do you think you had in the year, let’s say, one?”
“One what?” Having decided that it was either hibiscus or African rooibos, not cherry, I had more of the tea.
“Year one. You know, one BC, skip zero, one AD, two AD, and so on.”
“Oh, year one , I see. How many ancestors did I have? I don’t know, a few thousand or so?” I broke a piece off the croissant and began eating.
She reached for a knife and a fork and methodically attacked the crescent-shaped melon wedge on her plate. “You have two parents”—she sliced the wedge in half—” four grandparents”—cut, cut into quarters—” and eight great-grandparents”—cut, cut, cut, cut. “The number of ancestors doubles in each generation going back in time, a new generation appearing every thirty years or so.” She paused to eat one of the tiny great-grandparent melon pieces. “In twenty centuries we have about sixty generations. Starting with you and doubling the number of people in each step in a geometric progression, we get two, four, eight, sixteen, and so on, all the way to two raised to the sixtieth power. That, Felix, is a very large number, more than a billion billion people.” She went back to eating the melon.
“But wait,” I protested. “How can that be? There aren’t a billion billion people now , even with two universes, much less in the ancient world. I can’t possibly have had that many ancestors.”
“Duplicates. Shared branches in the family tree. Your parents might have had the same great-great- great -grandfather, for instance. People used to marry their cousins all the time.”
“Duplicates.”
“Well, er—yes. Which prunes down your family tree and intertwines its branches. Because, of course, the number of people in the world tends to get smaller as you go back in time. All the way back to that one curious toddler who was just a tad smarter than the rest of the kids in her ape family. Just think how much she must have vexed her parents.”
“History is always interesting,” I said, chewing on the croissant and thinking that it needed butter. “All those things that happened to all those people.”
“I find it depressing.”
“Why?”
“For one thing, there’s never a happy ending. Everyone’s dead.”
“There is that. Can you pass the butter?”
“Anyway, to answer your question, with that many ancestors in your family tree, you are pretty much guaranteed that whatever century you pick, some of them used bushes and fields, and others got to, er—use the royal throne. One’s relatives do all sorts of things.”
“I’ve just found out my alter is a chef. Odd,” I added.
“Why?”
“Exactly. Why did he become a chef? I’ve never wanted to be a chef. I suppose it means he has assistants.” The closest I had to assistants were Eggie and Rocky, who were responsible for the day-to-day operations at Wagner’s Kitchen and who had no hesitation in informing me (or even Wagner himself) what needed to be done, rather than vice versa.
“It’s a myth that there is one ideal job for everyone—or one ideal mate, for that matter,” she assured me. “Those who were adults when the universes diverged, well, that was different. They had identical jobs and spouses and houses. No wonder people panicked and did stupid things. But you and Felix B, that’s another story. Look at our two worlds.”
“They started out identical, that’s
“Oh. Because I was going to ask you my indoor plumbing question. When was it invented? I’ve always wondered which of my ancestors had to, er—squat in fields and who got to sit down.” I noticed that the DIM officials were now interviewing Gabriella Love, their avocado uniforms presenting quite a contrast to her pink robe. She didn’t look too pleased about being held up on her way to the food table.
“That’s a math problem,” Bean said of the plumbing question.
“Because everything is a math problem.”
“Exactly. How many ancestors do you think you had in the year, let’s say, one?”
“One what?” Having decided that it was either hibiscus or African rooibos, not cherry, I had more of the tea.
“Year one. You know, one BC, skip zero, one AD, two AD, and so on.”
“Oh, year one , I see. How many ancestors did I have? I don’t know, a few thousand or so?” I broke a piece off the croissant and began eating.
She reached for a knife and a fork and methodically attacked the crescent-shaped melon wedge on her plate. “You have two parents”—she sliced the wedge in half—” four grandparents”—cut, cut into quarters—” and eight great-grandparents”—cut, cut, cut, cut. “The number of ancestors doubles in each generation going back in time, a new generation appearing every thirty years or so.” She paused to eat one of the tiny great-grandparent melon pieces. “In twenty centuries we have about sixty generations. Starting with you and doubling the number of people in each step in a geometric progression, we get two, four, eight, sixteen, and so on, all the way to two raised to the sixtieth power. That, Felix, is a very large number, more than a billion billion people.” She went back to eating the melon.
“But wait,” I protested. “How can that be? There aren’t a billion billion people now , even with two universes, much less in the ancient world. I can’t possibly have had that many ancestors.”
“Duplicates. Shared branches in the family tree. Your parents might have had the same great-great- great -grandfather, for instance. People used to marry their cousins all the time.”
“Duplicates.”
“Well, er—yes. Which prunes down your family tree and intertwines its branches. Because, of course, the number of people in the world tends to get smaller as you go back in time. All the way back to that one curious toddler who was just a tad smarter than the rest of the kids in her ape family. Just think how much she must have vexed her parents.”
“History is always interesting,” I said, chewing on the croissant and thinking that it needed butter. “All those things that happened to all those people.”
“I find it depressing.”
“Why?”
“For one thing, there’s never a happy ending. Everyone’s dead.”
“There is that. Can you pass the butter?”
“Anyway, to answer your question, with that many ancestors in your family tree, you are pretty much guaranteed that whatever century you pick, some of them used bushes and fields, and others got to, er—use the royal throne. One’s relatives do all sorts of things.”
“I’ve just found out my alter is a chef. Odd,” I added.
“Why?”
“Exactly. Why did he become a chef? I’ve never wanted to be a chef. I suppose it means he has assistants.” The closest I had to assistants were Eggie and Rocky, who were responsible for the day-to-day operations at Wagner’s Kitchen and who had no hesitation in informing me (or even Wagner himself) what needed to be done, rather than vice versa.
“It’s a myth that there is one ideal job for everyone—or one ideal mate, for that matter,” she assured me. “Those who were adults when the universes diverged, well, that was different. They had identical jobs and spouses and houses. No wonder people panicked and did stupid things. But you and Felix B, that’s another story. Look at our two worlds.”
“They started out identical, that’s
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