Existence

of ancient, mechanical probes. Or peeling back the stories and schemes encrypted layer-by-atomic-layer within crystal fomites. Or bringing more long-dead races back to life.

The overall goal? Chart a history of civilizations that struggled to rise in this quadrant, across the last two hundred million years. To grasp their myriad failure modes-from feudalism and renunciation to impulsive god- making. From war and short-sighted greed to ecological blundering. From too-much to too-little individualism. From careless technological arrogance to scientific timidity… all the way to other pitfalls that human sages never imagined. And, of course, the frequent killer of those who rose above a certain point. The Plague.

Were there exceptions? Perhaps an elder race or two, who might offer both solace and advice?

And if so, why have you been silent all this time, leaving us terrified youngsters to tiptoe through a minefield, without help?

On the other hand, what if we’re the first to get this far? Can we make it the rest of the way? And if so…

A haunting, lonely thought struck Lacey.

… might we become the elder race?

The people who finally get out there to help everyone else? The fabled and foretold redeemers? Doctors who cure. Postmen who connect. The mentors who teach others to survive and thrive?

Those who help to raise the dead and lost?

Not the kind of notion that settles a restless mind. It was daunting enough to carry the burden of your own posterity. Your species and planet. But a galaxy-a cosmos-waiting in suspense for someone not to blow it? All those quadrillions of lives. All that potential.

What a terrifying idea! And-of course-statistically improbable to the point of absurdity.

* * *

And yet, she did need rest. Tomorrow, once the great sail finished transforming and all optics lined up, brilliant rings of sun-lensed data would then pour upon this little exploration vessel. Lacey had to be there! For the best moment of any telescope-First Light.

A satin nightgown fluttered into being over a corner of the four-poster bed. Some AUPs had virtual-servants, but for that kind of magic you must live below the submillimeter level. Anyway, Lacey had spent a lifetime being waited-on. A tiresome thing.

She crossed her arms, preparing to strip off the tight T-shirt, with its Eye-and-Q symbol, representing the great quantum supercomputer in Riyadh-the oracle she once hired for a personal reading, whose very expensive answer cost two million dollars per word.

You may soon be typical.

Why do I keep dwelling on that augury? That depressing omen?

As a reminder of the odds against us? To keep my expectations low?

The Quantum Eye had access to millions of alternate-reality versions of itself, or so they said. It never lied. Though it could be infuriatingly cryptic.

Pulling off the shirt, she tossed it in a corner and lifted a hand, but could not cast a simple dissipate spell. Stopped by her unconscious, Lacey knew she’d wear the shirt again tomorrow. And again, till she figured out why.

The nightgown was silky and cool, pleasant against pseudo skin that felt real in the best ways. With luck and a nod from the gods of programming, this life might remain bearable for millennia of work and discovery. A better fate than being a mere virus.

In bed, she drifted a while, generally pleased with today. Learning that humanity-through a combination of wisdom, politics, diversity, ethics, foresight, and popular opinion-had chosen curiosity over the easy-but-lethal alternatives. Giving in to the fomites or giving in to fear. And yet, the fate that humanity was fighting against seemed so huge. So ponderous. A galaxy-wide equilibrium of death.

We know there was a long, earlier era of bickering machine probes. That seemed a stable condition too. Till suddenly, in a galactic eyeblink, it ended. And the long, sterile desert of the Crystal Plague began. Another equilibrium.

But the thing about such states… Lacey mused, half asleep… is that they can seem steady, even permanent… until…

… until each one ends, as abruptly as it started.

Which could mean… that statistics don’t matter… since all it takes is one…

Lacey sat up.

Her pounding heart felt more than virtual.

The Quantum Eye had said:

You may soon be typical.

Everyone took the prophecy’s obvious, gloomy interpretation. That humanity would likely join all the other toppled sapients out there. Another typical failure. But there was another possible meaning.

That the galaxy’s situation… the typical condition of intelligent life… might soon transform…

… to be more like us.

Lacey blinked upward in the dimness of her bedroom, whose roof and ceiling magically vanished, like a dream, revealing a skyscape of luminous clouds. And beyond them, she glimpsed Sagittarius, its innumerable stars like dust.

Suppose we find a real cure, a way to prosper… a roadmap through the minefield of existence… then the cosmos may change again, filling with voices and variety. With adventure and wisdom. And by our hand, the galaxy may come back to life.

Lacey settled back against the pillow, feeling suddenly content. This dream-within-a dream culminated a fine day. Moreover, she felt certain the T-shirt would be gone tomorrow.

One question lingered, though. Why had the Oracle been so vague?

Of course. Because there was a choice which of the two meanings came true. It would take combining maturity with perpetual youthfulness-being joyfully ready for anything! Agility. And care. And work.

From all of us, she thought. And drifted into blissful sleep.

INFINITY

She sits before me, cross-legged, as I rise to awareness, vaguely knowing she has been here for some time, tending me like a gardener. Or a mother.

I know about gardens only from Earth-images. The same with mothers. Except my own-

Vast machinery against vacuum-bright stars. Robot hands, constructing me under a small, red sun…

She leans forward now, lithe and human-limbed, to rap me above my oculars. She peers into them with one brown-irised eye, then another.

“Aha! Someone’s home in there, at last. Can you speak?”

Vision broadens and deepens. I look past her at a realm unlike any that I’ve known. Not the comfortable black chill of space. Nor the film-separated layers of Earth-blues and whites above greens and browns. Here, there is a sense of vertical without weight. Dimensionality seems limitless. My sense of scale is painfully warped. The clouds appear to be alive.

And yet-I realize-this isn’t one of those cramped crystal-worlds either. It borrows from all three… expanding on them all.

“Well?”

Her question prods me. And so, words manifest from a place below my oculars, in a way that seems both wet and strange.

“I… remember you.”

“Well, you ought to!” She grins. “We had our times, you and I. Up and down. Trust and betrayal. Friendship and