Thief of Time

lawyerth?”
    “Show them in, of course. We have nothing to hide.”
    “Are you thure, thur?” said Igor, whose carpetbag couldn’t be lifted with one hand.
    “Please do it, Igor.”
    Jeremy smoothed down his hair while the grumbling Igor disappeared into the shop and returned with the guests.
    “Lady LeJean, thur. And some other…people,” said Igor.
    “It is good to see you, your ladyship,” said Jeremy, smiling glassily. He vaguely remembered something he had read. “Won’t you introduce me to your friends?”
    Lady LeJean gave him a nervous look. Oh, yes…humans always needed to know names. And he was smiling again. It made it so hard to think .
    “Mr. Jeremy, these are my…associates,” she said. “Mr. Black. Mr. Green. Miss Brown. Miss White. Miss…Yellow. And Mr. Blue.”
    Jeremy held out his hand. “I am pleased to meet you,” he said.
    Six pairs of eyes looked uncomprehendingly at the hand.
    “The custom here is to shake hands,” said her ladyship.
    In unison, the Auditors extended a hand and wiggled it slowly in the air.
    “The hand of the other person,” said her ladyship. She gave Jeremy a thin-lipped smile. “They are foreigners,” she said.
    And she recognized the panic in their eyes, even if they didn’t. We can count the number and types of atom in this room, they were thinking. How can there be anything in here we cannot understand?
    Jeremy managed to catch one wavering hand in his. “And you are Mr.—?”
    The Auditor turned worried eyes on Lady LeJean.
    “Mr. Black,” she said.
    “I understood that we were Mr. Black,” said another male-shaped Auditor.
    “No, you are Mr. Green.”
    “Nevertheless, we would prefer Mr. Black. We are the senior, and black is a more significant shade. We do not wish to be Mr. Green.”
    “The translation of your names is not, I think, important,” said Lady LeJean. She gave Jeremy another smile. “They are my accountants,” she added, some reading on her part having suggested that this might excuse most oddities.
    “You see, Igor?” said Jeremy. “They are simply accountants.”
    Igor grimaced. Where his baggage was concerned, accountants were probably worse news than lawyers.
    “Gray would be acceptable,” said Mr. Green.
    “Nevertheless, you are Mr. Green. We are Mr. Black. It is a matter of status.”
    “If that is the case,” said Miss White, “white is higher status than black. Black is absence of color.”
    “The point is valid,” said Mr. Black. “Therefore we are now Mr. White. You are now Miss Red.”
    “You previously indicated that you were Mr. Black.”
    “New information indicates a change of position. This does not indicate incorrectness of said previous position.”
    It’s happening already, thought Lady LeJean. It’s in the darkness where your eyes can’t see. The universe becomes two halves, and you live in the half behind the eyes. Once you have a body, you have a “me.”
    I have seen galaxies die. I have watched atoms dance. But until I had the dark behind the eyes, I didn’t know the death from the dance. And we were wrong. When you pour water into a jug, it becomes jug-shaped and it is not the same water anymore. An hour ago they never dreamed of having names, and now they are arguing about them…
    And they can’t hear what I think!
    She wanted more time. The habits of a billion years don’t yield entirely to a mouthful of dry toast, and she could see that a crazy life-form like humanity should not be allowed to exist. Yes, indeed. Certainly. Of course.
    But she wanted more time.
    They should be studied. Yes, studied.
    There should be…reports. Yes. Reports. Full reports. Long, long full reports.
    Caution. That was it. That was the word! Auditors loved that word. Always put off until tomorrow something which, tomorrow, you could put off until, let’s say, next year.
    It has to be said that Lady LeJean was not herself at this point. She didn’t quite have a herself to be. The other six Auditors…in time , yes, they’d think the same way. But there wasn’t time . If only she could persuade them to eat something that would…yes, that would bring them to their senses. There seemed to be no food around, though.
    She could see a very large hammer on the bench.
    “How is progress, Mr. Jeremy?” she said, walking over to the clock. Igor moved very fast, and stood almost protectively next to the glass pillar.
    Jeremy hurried foward. “We have carefully aligned all the