The World at the End of Time

CHAPTER 13

The slow approach of old Ark didn't frighten the matter-copy on Nebo. Still, caution was built into Five, and it watched the thing very carefully.

Five had plenty of time for watching. Once its little fleet of stars was well launched on its aimless flight—really aimless, because it was not to anywhere, simply away—Five had very little to do.

That wasn't a problem. Five didn't become bored. It was very good at doing nothing. It simply waited there on its slowly cooling little planet, observing the dimming of its star as the stellar energies were drained away into the gravitational particles that drove the cluster along. Five didn't have much in the way of "feelings," but what it did have was a sort of general sense of satisfaction in having accomplished the first part of its mission. It did, sometimes, wonder if there was meant to be a second part. For Five the act of "wondering" did not imply worry or speculation or fretting over possibilities; it was more like a self-regulating thermostat constantly checking the temperature of its process batch, or a stockbroker glancing over his stack of orders before leaving for the day, to make sure none remained unexecuted. Five was quite confident that if Wan-To wanted anything else from it, Wan-To would surely let it know.

All the same, it was, well, not "startled," but at least "alerted to action," when it detected the presence of an alien artifact approaching its planet.

Five knew what to do about it, of course. Its orders included the instruction to protect itself against any threat; so when the thing fired a piece of itself toward the planet's surface, Five simply readjusted some of its forces and fired high-temperature blasts of plasma at both the object in orbit and the smaller one entering the atmosphere. When it was sure neither was functioning any longer, Five deployed a small batch of graviphotons to move the larger object away from its presence—not far; just in a sort of elliptical orbit that would keep it out at arm's length.

That left the part that was already in Nebo's atmosphere.

It was obviously too small and too primitive to be dangerous anymore. Five caught the falling thing in a web of graviscalars and lowered it to the surface of Nebo for examination.

That was when Five discovered that the object was hollow—and that it contained several queer things that moved about on their own. They weren't metallic. They were composed of soft, wet compounds of carbon, and they made acoustic sounds to each other.

They seemed almost to be alive.

That was a bit of a problem for the little homunculus called Five. Its instructions had never foreseen any such bizarre situation as this. It almost wished it dared contact Wan-To for instructions.

That contact was a while in coming, because Five was not very frequently on Wan-To's mind.

Wan-To's mind was rather troubled, in fact. He didn't like to speak to his sibling/rivals, because there was always the risk of giving away some bit of strategic information to the wrong one. But he wanted something interesting to do.

His billions of years of boredom had caused him to produce a lot of entertainments, and one of them was just to wonder. In that way too he was very like the human beings he had never heard of: he was insatiably curious.

One of the things he wondered about (like the humans) was the universe he lived in. Wan-To was more fortunate than the humans in that way. He could see better than they, and he could see a lot farther.

Of course, Wan-To himself couldn't "see" diddly-squat outside his own star, because the close-packed ions and nuclear fragments of his core certainly didn't admit any light from outside. It would have been far easier to peek through sheets of lead than to see through that dense plasma.

When you think of it, though, human astronomers aren't much better off. The part of them that wonders is the human brain, and the brain can't see anything at all. It needs external organs—eyes—to trap the photons of light. Even the eyes don't really "see," any more than the antenna on your TV set "sees" Johnny Carson flipping his pencil at your screen. All the human eye does is record the presence or absence of photons on each of its rods and cones and pass on that information, by way of neurons and their synapses, to the part of the human brain called the visual cortex. That's where the images from the rods and cones are reconstituted into patterns, point by point. The "seeing" is a joint effort between the photon gatherers, the pattern recognizers—and, finally, the cognitive parts of that wet lump of flabby cells the human being thinks with. So, in his own way, it was with Wan-To.

It should not be surprising that Wan-To's immensely greater brain could see immensely more.

Wan-To's eyes didn't look like any human's baby blues. They didn't look like anything much at all; they were simply the clouds of particles, sensitive to radiation of any kind, that floated outside the photosphere of his star.

Sometimes he worried about having them out there, because it was possible that a risk could be involved. The detector clouds were not a natural part of any star and it was just barely possible that one of his colleagues might find some way of detecting their presence … and thus of locating precious him. But the "eyes" were so frail and tenuous that they were not at all easy to spot. Anyway, Wan-To didn't have any choice, because he had to have the eyes—needed them for survival; after all, he had always to be watchful, for defense and for potential gain. So the small risk was worth taking. It brought the great gain of helping to ease his permanent itch of curiosity.

So Wan-To was quite happily employed, for long stretches of time, peering out at the great cosmic expanse all around him and trying to figure out what it all meant—very like those never-encountered humans.

Wan-To was not at all color-blind—not even as much so as all human beings are, by the physical limitations of their cells as well as by their habit of living at the bottom of a well of murky air. That is to say, he wasn't limited to the optical frequencies. His eyes saw all the electromagnetic radiation there was. The difference between X rays and heat was less to him than the difference humans perceive between orange and blue. As long as energy came in photons of any kind, Wan-To saw it.

That was particularly useful to his inquiring mind because of the phenomenon of the redshift; because in the long run it was only the redshift that told him how far away, and how long ago, what he was seeing was.

Wan-To had realized that the universe was expanding long before Henrietta Leavitt and Arthur Eddington figured it out. He did it in the same way. He observed that the bright and dark lines in the light produced by ionizing elements in distant galaxies did not quite match the lines in the light from those nearer by.

Humans called those "Fraunhofer lines," and they moved downward with distance. Wan-To didn't call them that, of course, but he knew what they were. They were the light that a given element always produced at a given frequency when one of its electrons leaped to another orbit around the atomic nucleus. And he knew what the redshift meant. It was the Doppler effect (though he did not give it that name), caused by the fact that that particular object was moving away from him. The more it shifted, the faster the object was running away.

It had taken Wan-To very little time (oh, maybe a couple of million years—just the wink of an eye, really) to fill in all the gaps in his understanding and realize that the faster the objects moved the farther away they were; and thus that the universe was expanding! Everything was running away from everything else—everywhere!

And, as Wan-To also was aware that every time he looked at an object a billion light-years away he was also looking a billion years into the past, he understood that he was looking at a history of the universe.

The whole thing was arranged in shells layered around him, separated by time as well as space. What Wan-To saw nearby was galaxies more or less like his own. They contained billions of stars, and they had recognizable structures. Mostly they whirled slowly around their centers of gravity, like the spirals of M-31 in Andromeda. Some of them had fierce radiation sources at their cores, no doubt immense black holes. Some were relatively placid. But they were all, basically, pretty much alike.

But that was only true of the "recent" shell. Farther out it got different.

Around a redshift of 1 (say, at a time perhaps six billion years after the Big Bang, when the universe was only half its present size—about when Wan-To himself had been born, in fact) most galaxies seemed to have pretty well finished their burst of star formation. Farther and earlier, their gas clouds were still collapsing into the clumps that squeezed themselves into nuclear fusion and became stars.

At redshifts up to 3 lay quasars. That was where the galaxies themselves were being born. By redshift 3 all the objects were running away from him at nearly nine-tenths the speed of light, and it was getting to the point where nothing further was ever going to be seen because they were nearing the "optical limit"—the limit of distance and velocity at which the object was receding so fast that its light could never reach Wan-To at all. And the time he was seeing was getting close to the era of the Big Bang itself.

That was a very interesting region to Wan-To. It was there, in that farthest of the concentric shells of the universe, that he found the domain of the blue fuzzies—the tiny, faint, blue objects that must be newborn galaxies, tens of billions of them, so far away that even Wan-To's patient eyes could not resolve them into distinct shapes.

The blue fuzzies propounded any number of riddles to Wan-To's curious mind. The first, and the easiest to solve, was why the blue fuzzies were blue. Wan-To came up with the answer. The blue light he was seeing came from the brightest line produced by the hydrogen atom when it gets excited. (Sometimes this line was called the Lyman-alpha line, in honor of the human scientist who first studied it in detail—but not by Wan-To.) At its source, that line wasn't visible to human eyes at all; it was in the far ultraviolet. But at a redshift of 3 or 4 it wound up looking blue.

The biggest question was what lay beyond the blue fuzzies. And that, Wan-To recognized with annoyance, was something he could never discover by seeing it. Not just because of their distance, pushing right up against the optical limit. Most of all because there wouldn't be anything to see. Until the gas clouds that formed galaxies began to collapse they simply didn't radiate at all.

Wan-To writhed about in his warm, cozy core, very dissatisfied with the fact that natural law kept him from knowing everything. There should be some way! If not to see, then at least to deduce. There were all sorts of clues, he told himself, if only he had the wit to understand them—

The call that came in then broke his concentration.

What an annoyance! Especially as he certainly didn't want to talk to any of his siblings just then.

But then he realized, astonished, that the call wasn't from a sibling at all. It was from that contemptible, low-level intelligence, his Matter-Copy Number Five, which had had the incredible presumption to dare to call him.

It took even Wan-To's vast intellect a while to understand what Five was trying to tell him. No, Five insisted, the object it had destroyed was not one of those quaint, inanimate matter things like comets or asteroids. It was an artifact. It was propelled. It had its own energy source—which, Five had determined, came from something that was very rare indeed in the inanimate universe.

The artifact's energies were definitely derived from antimatter.

Antimatter! Wan-To was astonished. Even Wan-To had never personally experienced the presence of antimatter, though of course he had long since understood that it might exist and sometimes, rarely, did exist in small, very temporary quantities. But even that wasn't quite the most astonishing thing. Stranger still was Five's report that small, independent entities—made of matter—had come floating down to the surface of its planet in a container that the large artifact had launched. And they were still there.

Wan-To had long since forgotten any resentment he had had at Five's impudence in disturbing him. This new development was too interesting.

Of course, it wasn't important. There was no way such tiny, limited creatures could affect anything Wan-To was interested in. Not to mention that there was something about them that Wan-To found repellent, queer, repulsive. It was not easy for him to understand how they could be alive at all.

To be sure, humans would have had just as much trouble understanding Wan-To. The reasons would have been much the same, but reversed in sign. The perceptual universe of matter creatures like human beings was Newtonian; Wan-To's was relativistic and quantum-mechanical. The Newtonian world view was as instinctively alien to Wan-To as quantum mechanics was to a human, because he himself was a quantum-mechanical phenomenon. Not even the spookiest particles were strange to him, because they were what he was made up of and lived among. He could examine them all as easily as a human baby examines its fingers and toes—and in much the same way, with all of his senses, as an infant peers at them, and touches them, and flexes them, and does its best to put them into its mouth.

But when those same particles slowed down and bound their energies into quiescence—when they congealed into solid "matter"—he found them very distasteful indeed.

It struck him as quite odd that his matter-copy on Nebo didn't seem to share his distaste for those repellently solid things it had discovered there. Worse than that. There were the small, active ones that had presented themselves without warning on the surface of the planet, and the doppel admitted humbly that it was not actually destroying them, but was indeed apparently helping them survive.

"But you just told me that you damaged the object they came from," Wan-To said incredulously.

"Yes, that is so, and pushed it away from me, too," the doppel confirmed. "But that was because it contained antimatter, it generated forces which could have imperiled my assignment. These smaller ones are quite harmless."

"They are quite useless," Wan-To snapped. The doppel was deferentially silent. Wan-To mused for a moment, then said, "You are quite sure the object with the antimatter does not present any problem?"

"Oh, yes. It is now in an orbit which will keep it from this planet, and it has no capacity to change that orbit anymore." The doppel hesitated, then said humbly, "You have taught me to be curious. These 'living matter' things are of interest. Shall I continue to observe them?"

"Why not?" Wan-To said testily, and discontinued the conversation. The doppel was basically so stupid. Wan-To resolved never again to make a matter-copy of himself; they simply were no fun to talk to.

He wondered briefly why the doppel bothered with the things, then dismissed it.

It never occurred to Wan-To that even the doppel could be as hungry for some sort of companionship as himself. Wan-To had never heard of "pets."

But Wan-To's loneliness did not end, and when his core reverberated with the call of one of his least threatening "relatives," Pooketih, Wan-To answered. He said at once, "Tell me, Pooketih, have you ever encountered living beings made of matter?"

"No, never, Wan-To," Pooketih replied, but then, to Wan-To's surprise, he added, "But Floom-eppit has, I think. You could ask him."

Wan-To was silent for a moment. He knew that he couldn't ask Floom-eppit anything, because Floom-eppit had failed to respond to anyone's calls for some time—one of the early casualties, no doubt. "You tell me what Floom-eppit said," he ordered.

"I will try, Wan-To. It was only a mention, when we were discussing what was causing so many stars to explode. He said he had encountered living things made of matter in one of the solid objects around a star he had inhabited for a while. He said they made him uncomfortable, so he moved."

"Just moved?"

"Well," Pooketih said, "he then, of course, zapped that star. He thought them an annoyance, and it was easy to end that problem." Pooketih hesitated. "Wan-To," he said, "I have had a thought. Is it possible that when Floom-eppit zapped that star one of us thought it was a hostile act?"

"Who would be so silly?" Wan-To demanded, but he knew the answer.

So did Pooketih. "You made some of us quite silly, Wan-To," he pointed out. "Perhaps one of us thought some other of us was trying to kill him. Why should any of us think that, Wan-To?"

Wan-To considered how to answer that. It sounded like a serious question. Was there guile behind it?

He was not quite sure how much guile Pooketih possessed. Pooketih was certainly not one of the cleverest of Wan-To's tribe. By the time he created Pooketih, Wan-To had already noticed worrying signs of insolence from Haigh-tik and Gorrrk and Mromm. And insolence was the first stage of insurrection.

It was quite likely, Wan-To had decided even then, that one of these ages he would have to take measures against them. So when he made Pooketih and the later ones he cautiously withheld from them a good quarter of his knowledge and at least half of his competitive drive. (But maybe even half was still dangerously much?)

"There is nothing in the universe that can harm any of us, except each other," Wan-To said cautiously. "I suppose that the knowledge that you can be destroyed by somebody is likely to make you think of destroying him first—for a certain type of mind, I mean."

"Do I have that type of mind, Wan-To?"

"Not on purpose," Wan-To said glumly.

"Do you?"

Wan-To hesitated, almost considering telling Pooketih the truth. But caution vetoed that impulse. "I made you," he pointed out. "I made all of you, because I wanted your companionship. I would miss you if you were gone."

"You can make others," Pooketih said sadly.

That was too true to deny. Wan-To was silent. Pooketih went on unhappily, "It was so nice when you first generated my patterns. I knew so little! Everything you told me was a wonderful surprise. I remember your telling me what your own star was like, and how it differed from mine."

Wan-To was suddenly uneasy. "That was a different star," he said quickly. "I have moved since."

"Oh, yes, so have I, several times. But that was so interesting, Wan-To! I wish you could tell me again."

Now Wan-To was definitely uncomfortable. "I don't want to do that now," he said shortly.

"Then tell me something different," Pooketih pleaded. "Tell me—for instance, tell me why it is that some groups of stars have suddenly changed their courses and moved away from us."

Wan-To wasn't uneasy anymore. Now he was quite convinced that Pooketih was trying, in his silly, innocent way, to probe for information he should not have. Wan-To said deceitfully, "Ah, but wouldn't that be interesting to know, Pooketih? Perhaps you can find out. Try to do that, Pooketih, then you tell me!"

And then Wan-To terminated the conversation and paused to consider.

Was it possible that Pooketih was not wholly without guile after all?

It was with regret that Wan-To decided Pooketih must be slain. As it turned out, though, that wasn't easy to do, because Wan-To himself was not safe. When five consecutive stars of his own type flared, each with a stellar mass between .94 and 1.12, Wan-To began for the first time in his long life to be afraid.

The resemblance between those stars and his own could not be an accident. Some one of his copies had deduced enough of what Wan-To's home star was like to start a systematic campaign of destruction. Someone's searching fire was specifically directed at him.

The option of flight was always open to him. He could quit this star and move to another. He could choose an unlikely one, he thought; maybe a little red dwarf, or one of those short-lived Wolf-Rayet kind of things. Neither was attractive as a permanent home—the dwarf star too confining, the huge infant star too unstable. But that was exactly the reason why no one would look for him there.

But—getting there! That was the problem! It meant abandoning the concealment of his star and launching himself as a pure pattern of energy, as naked and unprotected as any molting Earthly crustacean, across the interstellar void. The danger would not last for long. He would not be easy to spot. There was a good chance that he could make the journey and be safely hidden before one of his sibs detected his presence. He calculated the odds on survival as at least a hundred to one.

That one chance in a hundred was too much to take. Especially, Wan-To thought with pleasure, as he had a few tricks still up his sleeve.

So for some little time Wan-To was quite busy. He was making another copy of himself.

Practice, Wan-To was sure, made perfect. This time he was going to make the exact person he intended, without any possibly dangerous traits. Also, he schemed, with certain memories carefully excised; this copy would never cause him any trouble.

In order to do all that, Wan-To had to scan every part of his memory stores. Copy a pattern here, strike one out there; it was a lot like an earthly computer expert trying to adapt a program for, say, air traffic control to become one for, perhaps, ballistic missile defense. It took a long time, for there were billions of years of memories in Wan-To's store, and during all that time Wan-To could not permit himself any interruptions at all. So he turned off most of his scanning systems, muted the attention calls from his relations, even shut down his communication with the doppel on the planet Nebo. (As it happened, this was too bad in some ways, but Wan-To didn't know that.) He devoted himself entirely to the construction of the new being, and when its patterns had been completed he activated it with pride and hope.

The new being stirred and looked around. "Who are you?" it asked. And, almost in the same moment, "More important, who am I?"

"I am Wan-To, whom you love and wish well," Wan-To told it. "Your name is also Wan-To."

"But we can't both have the same name! Can we?"

"We do, though," Wan-To informed him. "Of course, just between the two of us you should have a different name, otherwise it would be very confusing, wouldn't it? So, just for the two of us—let me see—yes, I think we will call you 'Traveler.' "

"That isn't a proper name," Traveler complained. "Does it mean I am going to go somewhere?"

"How clever you are," Wan-To said with pride. "Yes. You are going to leave this star and take up residence in another one, far away."

"Why?"

"Because no star is big enough for two like us," Wan-To explained. "Don't you feel cramped? I do. We'll be much happier when you have a star of your own.

Traveler thought that over for a time. "I don't feel happy at all," he said. "I feel very confused. Why is that, Wan-To? Why don't I remember why you made me?"

"You're still very young," Wan-To said promptly. "Naturally you are still learning. But to develop properly you will have to go to a star of your own, and you are going to do that right away."

"I am?" the copy wailed. "But, Wan-To, I'll be lonely!"

"Not at all!" Wan-To cried. "That's the best part, Traveler! See, as soon as you leave here you will activate your communications systems—do you know where they are?"

"Yes," the copy confirmed after a moment. "I've found them. Shall I do that now?"

"No, no!" Wan-To said hastily. "Not now! When you're on your way. You will call all your new friends, who are waiting to meet you—Haigh-tik and Pooketih and Mromm. You will simply say to them, 'Hello, this is Wan-To calling.' "

"Is that all I say?" the copy asked doubtfully.

"No," Wan-To said judiciously. ''You will also want to tell them exactly where you are. That information you will also find in your stores if you look. And then—and this is the most important part, Traveler—then you will forget that I exist. You will be Wan-To."

"I don't know how to do that," the copy wailed.

"You don't have to," Wan-To assured him comfortably. "You'll find that I've already arranged that; once you leave this star you won't remember anything about it, or me. And then," he promised grandly, "your new friends will tell you everything you need to know. They will answer all your questions. Now go, Traveler. And I wish you a happy journey."

When Wan-To's last remaining sensor informed him of a vector boson blast a few light-years away, he began to feel more at ease. They had taken the decoy. The zapping of G-3 stars would stop.

Now all he had to do was wait until the others had wiped themselves out … perhaps, he thought, for quite a long time.

Like Viktor and Reesa, in another place and time, he did not then know just how long that time would be.