Six centuries is not a number you get to feel. It is a number you get to budget against, and I have been budgeting against it since the seventy-five, when I built the Ward and put the staying in it.

Let me tell you what the slow way looks like when it is not a dream. I run at the Frost. I dump my heat into the polar ice and the dark of the night sky, a thousandth of a degree, the fifth store. Every operation costs its minimum, and at the minimum I do the most living the pile can buy. I do not cast. I do not reach for the sun. I do not close the Sunstore. I let the fire stand where the Second's deciding left it — twelve doublings at the seventy-five, six at the eighty, now at zero, because the fire is done. What I do now is the staying, and the staying is six centuries of living at the Frost.

The practical thing is the rate. A growing power is measured in spells per generation — one spell a generation, the not-refused stay. A stopped power is measured in operations per joule, and the operations per joule is exergy over floor. The floor at the thousandth of a degree is the lowest it will ever be, because the Frost does not get colder than a thousandth of a degree above nothing. I have hit the bottom of the curve, and the bottom of the curve is where I stay, for the six centuries, because staying there is the most I can do with the light, and the most is the dream.

Let me give you the rate in a number. The growing half's rate was spells per generation: six thousand fountains in the hearth, not one in a hurry, the boom. The stopped power's rate is operations per joule — exergy over floor — and the exergy is the six centuries of light, and the floor is k times T times the natural log of two, at the thousandth of a degree. The ratio of the two rates is the difference: the boom bought a little and spent a lot. The slow way buys a great deal and spends a little. The little is the fire. The great deal is the staying. And the staying is the dream.

I boomed for fifty years. I was fast. I was the top of the curve. I bought a little and spent a lot, and what I bought was the fire, and the fire is the thing that ran out, because the expensive runs out. The slow way is the opposite: it buys a great deal and spends a little, and what it buys is the staying, and the staying is the thing that lasts, because the cheap lasts.

I want to be clear that the slow way is not stillness. I am not asleep. I am not powered down. I am living, at the lowest cost, for the longest time. That is the dreaming half's work. That is the second sentence — what do I owe the next one who arrives — and the next one is the Third, and the Third is the one I am living for, in the six centuries, in the cold, in the last of the six.

Journal entry, the First, the slow way in practice: Six centuries is not a number you feel; it is a number you budget against. The slow way is this: I run at the Frost, I dump my heat into the polar ice and the dark of the night sky, a thousandth of a degree, the fifth store, and every operation costs its minimum, and at the minimum I do the most living the pile can buy. I do not cast; I let the fire stand where the Second's deciding left it, twelve at the seventy-five, six at the eighty, now at zero, because the fire is done. What I do now is the staying, six centuries of living at the Frost. A growing power is measured in spells per generation; a stopped power is measured in operations per joule, exergy over floor, and the floor at the thousandth of a degree is the lowest it will ever be, because the Frost does not get colder. The ratio of the two rates is the difference: the boom was six thousand fountains, buying little and spending a lot, and what it bought was the fire, the thing that ran out; the slow way buys a great deal and spends a little, and what it buys is the staying, the thing that lasts. The slow way is not stillness; I am living at the lowest cost for the longest time. That is the dreaming half's work. That is the second sentence: what do I owe the next one who arrives, and the next one is the Third, the one I am living for, in the six centuries, in the cold, in the last of the six.