out. Even if he knew his destination and could head for home at once, his body would wear out and die before he had traveled a tiny fraction of the journey.
And if the search for the home galaxy had to proceed at random? Then a searcher would still be wandering through space thirty or forty billion years in the future, when the universe collapsed toward its inexorable endpoint of infinite pressure and temperature. That searcher could not be Drake or this ship. Long before the end, in less than an eye blink on the cosmic scale, they would be dust.
It was a moment for despair. The logical thing was to end it now, before continued existence brought more grief and longing. He was looking down at his new, flawless, smooth-skinned body, wondering how it could most easily be given a peaceful end, when the ship spoke again:
“My defined actions did not extend beyond the point of entry into the caesura. I require new instructions. Can you tell me the nature of our future, and what activities you plan?”
A moment for despair. That much was permitted. Now it must be over. Someone depended on him — even if it was only a ship. He could not give up.
“You know the main criteria for stellar type and planetary orbits that encourage the development of life. Do you have instruments to determine the nearest and most promising stars that satisfy those criteria?”
“Certainly.”
“What about the development of intelligent life?”
“Essentially unpredictable. I can make crude estimates, but with little confidence in the results. The ascent of a native intelligence depends on too many random events in the evolutionary process.”
“That’s what I was afraid you’d say. All right, I want a systematic survey and catalog of all stars in this galaxy likely to have developed life. Throw in your best guesses for the development of intelligence. Give each one a probability, and place them in order of our distance from them.”
“That can be done.”
“Another question: What is the programmed lifetime of this ship?”
“Given raw materials, it is indefinite. I contain instructions for repair, for maintenance, and if necessary for self-replication. My memory has quadruple redundancy to allow for quantum changes. As any component ages, it can be renewed. ”
“How about me? I know there’s a lab on board that can build a body to specification and download a person into it, because that’s what you did to make me as I am. Is the lab still working?”
“It is working now. Since it is a part of me, it should continue to do so for the indefinite future.”
“What about the other way around?” Drake, despite his determination to think positive, felt a tension he could not ignore. This was the key question. “Could you take me as I am now, and upload me from this body into electronic storage? And if you did that, could you download me later into another body, either the same or a different one? And could you do the same thing over and over?”
The pause seemed long, though it was probably no more than a second.
“What you ask was not in the original mission plan, but it seems completely feasible. The body for future download would need to be specified. Also, I could not go beyond two hundred embodiments without replenishment. If more were necessary I would require a planetary visit for the acquisition of more raw materials.”
“I’m planning on planetary visits. In fact, I’m depending on them.” Drake went again to the ship’s port and stared out. The nearby stars were the brightest things he saw, but they were like cells in a human body, tiny subcomponents of a larger whole. The power was in the galaxies, stretching out into space forever. “What’s the average distance between galaxies, and how far away is the nearest one?”
“Galaxies average a little more than 4,300,000 light-years apart. Of course, they are not homogeneously distributed. ”
“Of course.” The ship did not catch irony, but maybe it could be taught. Certainly, they would have time enough.
“And the nearest galaxy to this one is about seven million light-years.”
Seven lifetimes for this body. But long before that he would go crazy. The only way to survive was to spend the time between stellar encounters dormant, in electronic storage. And the next time around he would insist on his familiar human form.
“There is another factor that I should mention. When you asked me the mean distance between galaxies, I gave you an answer that applies today. ”
“That’s what I expected.”
“But if, as your other questions would suggest, you plan on searching for our galaxy of origin, another factor must be considered. The universe is expanding. The distance between the galaxies constantly increases. If our target world lies many billions of light-years away, then the rate at which it flies from us will be a substantial fraction of light speed. Our effective rate of travel toward it would be diminished. Perhaps greatly diminished.”
“I see the problem; the Red Queen’s race.” Drake was feeling dangerously unstable. “All right. What can’t be cured must be endured. How long before you can pick a preferred stellar target?”
“That has already been done.”
“With life, or with intelligent life?”
“Both tables have been prepared. As I said earlier, little confidence can be given for anything involving the development of intelligence.”
“We’ll have to take that chance. Consider only systems with a better than ninety-five percent chance of having life, and a better than ten percent chance of having intelligent life. How many are there?”
“Between 120 and 250. It is hard to be more precise.”
“How far to the nearest candidate?”
“Six thousand light-years.”
“Take us there. And one other thing. You said you could not detect any sign of S-wave signals. Is that because they travel only a finite distance?”
“No. In principle, they have infinite range. In practice they follow an inverse square law between source and receiver. With the ship’s on-board detection equipment, the signals become indistinguishable from background at no more than a few tens of thousands of light-years. That is adequate for signaling within a galaxy but not outside it. However, even the strongest and most tightly focused S-wave beam would be lost to our limited equipment within a hundred million light-years. That is why I am confident that we are nowhere within our original local supergroup.”
“But you could do better with a better receiver. Do you know how to make one?”
“I have the specifications for much larger receivers — for receivers of almost unlimited size, that would be able to pick up superluminal signals from the far depths of space. However, their fabrication could not be done on board. It would call for a free-space facility, and much assistance.”
“Don’t worry about that for the moment.”
Six thousand light-years to the nearest prospect. Seven million light-years to the next galaxy. One step at a time. There were endless billions of years ahead of them, time enough for anything.
“I now have other information, and it amplifies my earlier statements. I have completed my estimate of global universe parameters. In particular, I have measured the galactic red shift. The result of that is surprising: There is no longer any red shift of distant galaxies.”
The ship paused. Drake was learning how its analytical processes operated. He waited.
“Assuming that we are still in the same universe, which I continue to believe, the vanishing of the red shift is highly
significant. It means that the universe is halfway through its total lifetime, and the blue shift phase is beginning. Within the limits of observational error, my best estimates of current epoch show that the initial singularity preceding the expansion occurred thirty-three billion years ago. The final singularity, the eschaton itself, lies thirty-two billion years in the future. ”
