Iris

Littleballs of gas. Spheres so small that much of their hydrogen leaked away, until only the trace elements remained. They were cold, these planets, and rare. Each one had to have a thick sea of the proper density upon it ... complex lipids dissolved in methane may be a form of life, you see. And we had special models at home to work from. . . .

It began ...

Tupamaro Arcology, like Montevideo, was quiet and raucous at all times. As the postindustrial world of the late twentieth century evolved, waves of technology cascaded out and down from the Euroamerican Transpacific matrix that gave it birth. The benefits and deadly dangers flowed outward in equal measure, changing the world's four quadrants on four levels across four generations. They quickly destroyed the basic nature of the matrix, first the Turing circuits, then the Insurrection fragmenting the lives of the people. What emerged demolished the economy and ideology of the Socialist Bloc. By the time the wave front got to the third world, it had leveled off, become a mere bootstrapping effect. The fourth world, the lands of absolute poverty and degradation,felt it only as a sudden famine, then they were all swept up into the New Order, made whole again.

It filtered downward. Suramerica Limited Federation was the Earth's largest old-style political entity, a weak corporate state in which the ex post facto enclaves were bound together by the rules and regulations meant for the various communication and data networks. Montevideo was still a city, but not a free city, not a New York. On its outskirts, Arcologia de Tupac Amaral was almost a city in its own right, something like an enclave writ small, a million people in a giant building, striving to be free and failing.

Ariane and Brendan sat together in their living room, working at separate tasks. He had a single tap plugged into his forebrain, reviewing some correspondence from MCD, cursing their inability to understand the latest batch of inequations he'd sent. They were stupid, he thought. Only the response from the Moon's Lewislab made any sense at all. At least they asked interesting questions. Someday, he knew, there would be a branch of mathematics called Sealock Decision Gate Masking, but it was a struggle.

Ariane had a circlet on. She was perusing the latest edition of her favorite electronic newsmagazine, looking over the various articles and wildly extravagant advertisements with quiet amusement. Suddenly she called out, 'Hey! Look at this!'

Brendan sighed and shunted his awareness over, Neptune hung in the starry sky, huge and blotched turquoise above a field of dark, rubble-strewn ice. A pale haze hung on the horizon and there were domes below, twinkling with light and life. A tall, slender man clad in colorful robes smiled out at them.

'Come with me,' he said. 'Be free. Triton.' Induction music filled the background, latest addition to a panoply of famous works. The name was John Cornwell; a TY-com outlet address followed.

'What the fuck was that all about?'

Ariane snuggled up against him, warm and soft. 'It seems this guy has almost a billion ceus saved up from his royalties. He wants to take a colony out to Triton. I never thought of it before, but that sounds neat. Maybe we're all dying downhere on Old Earth. . . . Want to go?' She was grinning mischievously. Brendan felt a sudden freezing terror.

Continuities . . .

On the old world, the first world, perhaps the only world, a council met. The Starseeders called it the Grand Design Planning Forum. There were almost a hundred billion beings jamming this Solar System, among them millions of savants and philosophers. The thousand greatest of them were gathered here and the one called Over Three Hills spoke to the multitude.

OTH was a giant, tailed biped, massing well over a ton, with thick, leathery gray skin and a broad, muzzled face. Beneath a heavy brow ridge and crested skull his eyes were deep-sunk, glowing red orbs. He waved his tentacled hands for silence. 'The first survey is now complete,' he said. 'We have now examined every star in the fourteen galaxies of our own little cluster. Among all those billions of systems we have found a few score of silicate worlds, all lifeless, all circling stars too hot for our purposes.' A low rustle of dismay came from the assembled multitude. His head dipped slowly to one side. 'Disappointing, I know, but all is not lost. Among the hydrogen masses we have found more than four thousand of the little methane worlds. That is enough. I propose that we proceed with the Alternate Plan. We'll never see it come. Even our descendants will not last so long, but in the end the Grand Design may succeed. We have aeons to deal with. . . .'

The scientists arose silently, with grim determination. There was work to be done. Work enough for many lifetimes and a purpose to fill the race.

A flashing change. OTH was an old being now, his long, productive life coming to an end. He stood before his finest creation, proud at the legacy he would leave his world. The Starseeders technology had followed many different tracks, but this had proven to be the most fruitful one. Passing alongall the lifeless mineral paths, they finally settled upon large,complex organic molecules as the basis for their data processing capabilities. They built brains capable of independent, original thought and, in so doing, created their first truly great life form, what was to be the most enduring product of their society.

'You understand,' said OTH, 'what it is that you are to do?' A rustling voice speaking in the Starseeder tongue came from an encoder box nearby. 'I do,' it said.

'It seems to me that you took a wrong turn in my design. A million minds of my capacity might well be combined fruitfully, but there is another way. . . .'

OTH was satisfied. The brains would grow in depth and complexity of their own accord. He died happy.