The light was brilliant, crystalline, in a black sky filled with stars.
'Ah. There really is a desert. Does everyone get this?' said Brutha.
WHO KNOWS?
'And what is at the end of the desert?'
JUDGEMENT.
Brutha considered this.
'Which end?'
Death grinned and stepped aside.
What Brutha had thought was a rock in the sand was a hunched figure, sitting clutching its knees. It looked paralysed with fear.
He stared.
'Vorbis?' he said.
He looked at Death.
'But Vorbis died a hundred years ago!'
YES. HE HAD TO WALK IT ALL ALONE. ALL ALONE WITH HIMSELF. IF HE DARED.
'He's been here fore a hundred years?'
POSSIBLY NOT. TIME IS DIFFERENT HERE. IT IS . . . MORE PERSONAL.
'Ah. You mean a hundred years can pass like a few seconds?'
A HUNDRED YEARS CAN PASS LIKE INFINITY.
The black-on-black eyes stared imploringly at Brutha, who reached out automatically, without thinking . . . and then hesitated.
HE WAS A MURDERER, said Death. AND A CREATOR OF MURDERERS. A TORTURER. WITHOUT PASSION. CRUEL. CALLOUS. COMPASSIONLESS.
'Yes. I know. He's Vorbis,' said Brutha. Vorbis changed people. Sometimes he changed them into dead people. But he always changed them. That was his triumph.
He sighed.
'But I'm me,' he said.
Vorbis stood up, uncertainly, and followed Brutha across the desert.
Death watched them walk away.
The End.
1. Factoring nsIChannel into a protocol specific part, the nsIChannel, and a socket specific, the nsITransport.
2. Derive the nsIChannel from a nsIRequest.
2. Changes the notification system from necko and the URILoader to pass the nsIRequest interface instead of nsIChannel interface.
This goal stems from wanting to be able to have active AsyncRead and AsyncWrite operations on nsSocketTransport.
This is desired because it would greatly simplify the task of maintaining persistent/reusable socket connections
for FTP, HTTP, and Imap (and potentially other protocols). The problem with the existing nsIChannel interface is
that it does not allow one to selectively suspend just one of the read or write operations while keeping the other active.
The full details of the change on written up in the netlib newsgroup.
r=darin@netscape.comsr=rpotts@netscape.com
