<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

As Time Goes By is a 5000-word short story by Tanith Lee. It was first published in Chrysalis 10, edited by Roy Torgeson.

Spoiler Warning: Plot details and/or information about the ending follow. If you wish to enjoy the work first, stop reading here and return at another time.

Plot

Time is unstable, and every star system runs at a different rate of time than every other. The space station Tempi has been constructed as a kind of anchor, to stabilize time and allow ships to get their bearings. The narrator tells of stories he has heard about a legendary gun-runner ship, The Napoleon, and its unscrupulous captain, Day Curtis. He says that in a bar on Tempi, Curtis had a run-in with a 31 year old woman, who told Curtis that she had met him when she was 16, and he was the same age as he is now. She reports that just a day later, his ship had been destroyed in a storm in space. Day Curtis claims not to believe her, but he cancels his next mission anyway. His angry crew then mutinies and steals his ship, which is then destroyed in the storm.

Reprints

This story is reprinted in Donald Wollheim's The 1984 Annual World's Best SF.