The Status Civilization

She was looking up from the faceted glass now, shaking her head sadly. "There's very little I can tell you. I was not able to see the murder performed. But I skrenned a graveyard, and in it I saw your parents' tombstone. It was an old tombstone, perhaps twenty years old. The graveyard was on the outskirts of a place on Earth called Youngerstun." Barrent reflected a moment, but the name meant nothing to him. "Also," Myla said, "I skrenned a man who knows about the murder. He can tell you about it, if he will." "This man saw the murder?" "Yes." "Is he the man who informed on me?" "I don't know," Myla said. "I skrenned the corpse, whose name was Therkaler, and there was a man standing near it. That man's name was Illiardi." "Is he here on Omega?" "Yes. You can find him right now in the Euphoriatorium on Little Axe Street. Do you know where that is?" "I can find it," Barrent said. He thanked the girl and offered payment, which she refused to take. She looked very unhappy. As Barrent was leaving, she called out, "Be careful." Barrent stopped at the door, and felt an icy chill settle across his chest. "Did you skren my future?" he asked. "Only a little," Myla said. "Only a few months ahead." "What did you see?" "I can't explain it," she said. "What I saw is impossible." "Tell me what it was." "I saw you dead. And yet, you weren't dead at all. You were looking at a corpse, which was shattered into shiny fragments. But the corpse was also you."