Tomorrow and Tomorrow

“And what would you have done as a human in the same situation?”

“If I could see no possible further use for my existence—”

Drake’s comments on suicide, an idea alien to the ship’s intelligence, were interrupted.

A-W-A-W-A-W-A-W-A-W-A-W-A-. The ship’s S-wave detector screeched and warbled in overload as a message blared into it.

A-W-A-W-A-W-A-W-A-W-A-W-A-W-A-W-A-.

“Is it coming from the galaxy?” Drake had to send his own thought at maximum volume to penetrate the curtain of incoming noise.

A-W-A-W-A-W-A-W-A-W-A-W-A-W-A-W-A-.

“I do not know.” The ship’s own signal was barely intelligible. “The source is so powerful. It comes from everywhere. Wait.” The ship de-tuned its receiver, and the volume of signal suddenly dropped to a tolerable level.

WARNING. YOU ARE ENTERING A DANGEROUS AND QUARANTINED AREA. DO NOT PROCEED FARTHER WITHOUT INSTRUCTIONS. REPEAT, YOU ARE ENTERING A DANGEROUS AND QUARANTINED AREA. HALT, AND DO NOT PROCEED WITHOUT INSTRUCTIONS. WORKING S-WAVE COMMUNICATION PROTOCOLS ARE CONTAINED IN CARRIER WAVE. VISUAL AND REAL-TIME INTERACTION FOLLOWS.

“I’m sending our identification and reply.” The ship was already transcribing protocols. “It is safe to do so. That signal

can’t be coming from the galaxy ahead.”

“How do you know?”

“Because there is no encryption. More than that, the signal is in standard form. It must be coming to us from our own form of mentality.”

Drake did not need that last piece of information. The promised visual and real-time information flow was beginning, and pictures were already flowing in. The first frame was very familiar. It was Drake Merlin, staring at something right in front of him. A puzzled voice was saying, “Please transmit that identification sequence again. There appears to have been a transcription error. According to our records, you don’t exist. You haven’t existed for fifteen billion years.”

Drake was not embodied, so he could not send an exultant real-time image of himself. The best that he could do was to provide his own stored and smiling icon, as it was preserved in the ship’s memory.

“What you have received is not a transcription error. We exist, and you have the right ID sequence. We’ve been heading for home all this time. I’m sorry that it took so long.” And then, the only thing that really mattered, the question: “Did you develop the technology needed to restore Ana? Is she there with you?”

While Drake waited for answers, he realized that everything else made sense. A rogue galaxy, devoid of life but sending out S-wave signals and filled with weapons of destruction, was a menace to every intelligence in the universe. A region around that galaxy was needed as a quarantine zone. All the approach routes had to be monitored. Like a dangerous reef in a peaceful sea, the galaxy must be surrounded by warning bells and lightships. It was a beacon for the whole universe, the best possible place for lost travelers, like Drake and the ship, to arrive at.

And arrive they had. They were on the way home.

In an infinite universe, anything that can happen will happen.

One of those things, now and again, was a little bit of luck.

Chapter 29 Homecoming

With Drake’s return to human space, his problems seemed to be in the past.

The feeling of euphoria did not last. It ended when his question about Ana remained unanswered, and when the image of the other Drake Merlin vanished suddenly from the screen. It was replaced by the face of Tom Lambert. Tom’s features, hair color, and expression varied wildly for a few seconds before they stabilized.

“Unfortunately, Ana has not been resurrected.” Tom’s mouth shrank to half its size, then enlarged again. Drake had seen the effect before. Some strong emotion, fear or joy or rage, was distorting the presentation. “The problem of resurrection will be worked on.

Will be worked on, after so many aeons? Drake wondered what they had been doing all this time. What could possibly be left to do?

But Tom Lambert was continuing. “I’m sorry.” His face writhed with worry, then took on a lopsided smile. “We have not used this particular form of presentation for more than fifteen billion years. We never thought it would be necessary. A return such as yours was never anticipated, although we knew that the theory showed it to be formally possible. Now, of course, we understand exactly what happened. You and your ship remained in this universe, but you passed through a noncausal path in the caesura. Before you reemerged, you traveled seven billion light-years in space and eight billion years forward in time.”

“And then I couldn’t find you for umpteen billion more. But here I am. So what is there to be sorry about?”

“We are sorry that you encountered the warning concerning your approach to the Skrilant Galaxy.”

“I assume that I needed it.” Drake was not convinced by Tom Lambert’s explanation. “I presume I would have been blown apart otherwise.”

“That is most probable. But our warning included a representation of yourself.”

“So I met myself. Big deal. I survived.”

“But it was not yourself.” Tom glanced sideways, away from Drake. “You, as you are now, did not encounter the full present form of Drake Merlin. I should add that I form a minor subset of that whole. Very soon you will meet.”

“I think you’d better tell me what’s going on. This isn’t the sort of homecoming I was hoping for. What do you mean, I haven’t met my present self?”

“Drake Merlin, in all the universe except on your ship, you are no longer a single entity. The mentality of Drake Merlin, except for you, is a composite.”

“I don’t believe it.” Drake sensed coming disaster. “It’s the one thing I knew I could never afford to do. If I merged to a composite with anyone else, I knew I might lose sight of my goal.”

“But we did merge, in a different way. We regret that now. Sit quietly, Drake Merlin, for one moment more. We are opening an S-wave high-data-rate linkage with you- and your ship. Prepare for an update of many billions of years, since the time that you vanished from our horizon. Be prepared for strong coupling, then all your questions will be answered. The link is opening… now.”

Drake submerged beneath a torrent of data, a million parallel sources streaming in…

The struggle with the Shiva was ending. He saw new composites, part human, part Shiva, controlling the interaction between the two forms of life. Humans and the giant sessile plants might never understand each other, but with the right intermediaries they could coexist.

With success came a new problem. Through the endless years of battle, Drake had remained aloof. He dared not allow himself to become part of any composite, organic or inorganic, within the interconnected webs of consciousness. Nor would he share his personal data banks with anyone or anything. His logic was simple and invincible: He alone was willing to make the awful decisions of death and destruction needed to defeat the Shiva. He dared not risk any dilution of that will. But there was also the secret agenda: if he ceased to be a single individual, the drive to restore Ana might be lost.

For what seemed like forever, versions of his individual self had been downloaded and sent out on the warships, to meet their fiery or frigid end on planets at the edge of the Galaxy and beyond. With the Shiva ascendant that had been a oneway process. But in some of the spiral arms, humans at last began to hold their own. As they carried out their programs of counterattack and advance into the space between the galaxies, and then on through to other galaxies, human ships began to survive.

And now …