Galaxies, sometimes overpopulating and using up planets much faster than they could restore themselves. Hence laws of migration that regularly set aside broad galactic zones for fallow recovery. But machine reproduction could be especially rapid and voracious, often beginning in dark corners where no one was looking. Once, a wave of autonomous replicators had built up enough momentum to seize and use up every small planetoid in Galaxy Three within the narrow span of ten million years, converting each gram into spindly automatons … which then began disassembling planets. The calamity continued until a coalition of other life orders intervened, bringing it to a halt.
Nor were machines Harry’s sole concern. At times like this, when oxygen-breathing civilization was distracted by internal struggles, it was important to keep watch lest the rival culture of hydrogen breathers take advantage.
Still, the traces Harry picked up seemed more strange than dangerous. The lavish amount of metallic debris suggested that this particular mech could be damaged. And there were other anomalies. His sensors sniffed amino acids and other organic detritus. Perhaps small amounts of oxy-life were accompanying the machine-vessel. As cargo perhaps? Sometimes mechs used biological components, which were more resistant than prim logic circuits to damage by cosmic rays.
At the stroke of a midura, he had to halt the pursuit in order to lay another of Wer’Q’quinn’s packages, aligning it carefully so the cameras peered straight into the Avenue, collecting data for NavInst technicians. Harry hoped it would prove valuable.
Of course his boss had plenty of measurements already, from probes that laced each transfer point, as well as hyperspatial levels A, B, and C. Moreover, travelers routinely reported conditions they encountered during their voyages. It seemed obscure and unconventional to send Harry all this way gathering information from such a quirky source. But who was he to judge?
I’m near the bottom of the ol’ totem pole. I can just do my job as well as possible, and not try to second- guess my chief.
In pre-mission briefings, Harry had learned that strain gauges were showing increased tension along nearly every navigable route in the Five Galaxies. Ruptures and detours had grown routine as commerce began suffering noticeably. Yet, when Wer’Q’quinn made inquiries to high officials at Navigation Institute headquarters, the response consisted of little more than bland, reassuring nostrums.
• • •
These events are not unexpected.
Provisions have been made (long ago) for dealing with the phenomena.
Agents at your level should not concern themselves with causes, or long-term effects.
Perform your assigned tasks. Protect shipping. Safeguard the public. Continue reporting data. Above all, discourage panic. Hearten civil confidence.
Maintain your equipment at high levels of readiness.
Cancel all leaves.
It wasn’t the sort of memorandum Harry found exactly inspiring. Even Wer’Q’quinn seemed disturbed — though it wasn’t easy to read the moods of a land-walking squid.
The situation prompted Harry to wonder again about his current mission.
Perhaps Wer’Q’quinn didn’t clear my trip with his bosses. He may have sent me to get a look at things from a perspective that no one at HQ could co-opt, anticipate, or meddle with.
Harry appreciated his supervisor’s confidence … while at the same time worrying about what it implied.
Could everything be falling apart? he pondered. Maybe the Skiano proselyte is right. If this is the end of the world, what can you do but look to the state of your own soul?
Just a midura before taking off on this mission, with some mixed feelings and trepidation, he had accepted an invitation from the Skiano to visit its small congregation of converts. Entering a small warehouse bay in one of the cheaper quarters of Kazzkark, he found a motley assortment of creatures following the strange new sect.
There had been a pair of portly synthians — creatures traditionally friendly to Terran customs and concepts — along with several little wazoon, a goggle-eyed pring, three por’n’aths, a striped ruguggl, and …
Harry recalled rocking back in surprise, dismayed to see a cluster of terrifying Brothers of the Night! With muscular, streamlined arms and sharklike faces, Brothers were famed for their intense though fickle religious impulses, sampling different creeds and pursuing them fanatically — until the next one came along. Still, it shocked Harry to see them in such a gregarious setting, worshiping alongside beings who had no relationship at all with their race or clan.
The variegated faithful had gathered before a symbol that Harry found at once both quaint and unnerving … a holo portrait of Earth, homeworld to his neo-chimpanzee line, depicted with cruciform rays of sacred illumination emanating outward. As the hologram turned, the planet seemed to swell … then burst apart, donating its own substance to the brilliant rays, enhancing the gift of enlightenment with an act of ultimate self-sacrifice.
Then, moments later, the world recoalesced in a feat of miraculous resurrection, beginning the cycle once more.
“We are taught that the aim of life is its own perfection,” preached the Skiano, speaking first in a flashing dialect of Galactic Two, with glitters from its lower pair of eyes, then almost simultaneously via audible Gal-Seven through a vodor held in one hand.
“This wisdom is true, beyond arty doubt. It crosses all boundaries of order or class. Once sapiency is achieved, life must be about more than mere self-gene-ego continuation. Long ago, the Progenitors taught that our highest purpose is to seek a sense of purpose. For existence to have meaning, we need a goal. A target at which to aim the projectile of our lives.
“But what in the universe is perfectible? Surely not matter, which decays, eventually reducing even the greatest artifacts and monuments to a dim glow of heat radiation. Any individual organism will age and eventually die. Some memories may be downloaded or recorded, but true improvement grinds to a halt.
“Even the cosmos we perceive with our senses appears doomed to entropy and chaos.
“Only species seem to get better with time. First blind evolution prepares the way on myriad nursery worlds, sifting and testing countless animal types until precious presapient forms emerge. These then enter a blessed cycle of adoption and Uplift, receiving guidance from others who came before, accelerating their refinement over time.
“Up to this point, the way taught by the Progenitors was good and wise. It meant that nursery worlds would be preserved and sanctified. It ensured that potential would be preserved, and wisdom passed on through an endless cycle of nurturing.
“And when an elder species has taught all it can, reaching high levels of insight and acumen? Then its own turn comes to resume self-improvement, retiring from the spacefaring life, seeking racial perfection within the loving Embrace of Tides.
“Down that route, into the snug clasp of gravity, the Progenitors themselves are said to have gone, waiting to welcome each new gene line that achieves ultimate transcendence.”
The Skiano pressed its sucker-tipped hands together, leaning toward the congregation.
“But is that the sole route to perfection? Such a far-sighted, species-centered view of salvation seems cold and remote, especially nowadays, when there may be very little time left. Too little for younger races to refine themselves in the old-fashioned way.
“Besides, where does this leave the individual? True, there is real satisfaction from knowing your life has been well spent helping the next generation be a little better than yours, and thus moving your heirs a bit closer to fulfillment. But is there no reward for the good, the honorable, the devoted and kind in this life?
“Is there no continuity or transcendence offered to the self?
“Indeed, my friends and compeers, I am here to tell you that there is a reward! It comes to us from the most unlikely of places. A strange little world, where wolflings emerged to sapiency whole and virginal, after a long hard struggle of self-Uplift with only whale songs to ease their lonely silence.
“That … and a comforting promise told to them by the one, true God.
“A dreadful-beautiful promise. One that the little world called Earth will soon fulfill, as it suffers martyrdom for all our sins. Yea, for every solitary individual sapient being.
