by Greg Bear
The Age of Darkness became wreathed in the dignified mantle of a sedate if dwindling maturity—watched over by a gerontocracy of immortals, all convinced of their unsurpassable wisdom.
For a few, however, these scattered islands in the abyssal dark were not enough. A minority—not sane, yet certainly not suffering from a deathly complacency—expressed a willingness to journey on, to leave behind the warmth and light of the remaining stars. They were denied, or worse—overwhelmed, quashed, all but exterminated. A handful managed to escape, to sacrifice all they knew, and to make the adaptations necessary to survive in the cosmos’s last frontiers: the crumbling wastes, dejects, and desponds frayed out over a radius of three hundred billion light-years.
Out there, in the Far Dark, to the amazement of the gerontocracy, new technologies proliferated. Bold explorers discovered how to take advantage of the once deadly seams and rifts, squeezing huge stores of energy and sustenance from what most had thought a barren, decrepit desert.
Those last few pioneers did more than survive. Ever resourceful, they learned to live and prosper and multiply as never before. Empowered, they eliminated or absorbed their oppressors.
They built countless empires.
The Age of Darkness was followed by the Trillenium—the greatest period of growth and learning in human record. Zeros stacked upon zeros. Histories were made and lost like the guttering of an infinity of candles. All strangeness was joined, and all life, human and otherwise, was accepted and improved upon, redefining the very idea of humanity and leading to triumph upon triumph, rebirth after rebirth.
No matter that the universe was growing ever weaker and thinner. In its prolonged throes, it fed its young handsomely—until humanity’s farthest flung descendants encountered the first evidence of the Typhon.
It took a billion years to gather conclusive proof of the Typhon’s existence—a rapid few millions of years for it to be analyzed and vaguely understood. By the example of its very perversity, it generated a wealth of new mathematics and science—and new ways of going mad.
Nothing like the Typhon had ever been observed. Neither a place nor a thing, the Typhon spread by scavenging aging universes. Some labeled it a pathology, an infection, a parasite—a violently aggressive membrane of change. Others claimed it was a younger, undisciplined creation infiltrating the ruins of the old.
Where the Typhon grew, worse than silence reigned. The knots of this universe were undone: geodesics failed, sightlines achieved fractal terminations, information swallowed by so many varieties of singularity—collapse, estoppage, endvols, countercepts, twistfolds, enigmachrons, fermion dismays—
And it grew faster than signals could convey, tearing through the aged matrix, eating up the rotting fabric, creating regions not of darkness—those at least were familiar—but of inconsistent, lawless misrule.
It was said that anything could happen there. Perhaps more accurately, it was widely reported that everything happened there.
This, even the hardiest and most stubborn of all Earth’s children—the last wave of the Diaspora—could not tolerate. This, they could not fight. Most succumbed.
The mind-numbing vastness of their reduction defied historical measure. Survivors who still cherished their terrestrial origins finally retreated to the ancient home system, where humanity—its offspring, hybrids, and manifold allies—now cowered in the fastness of old Earth, living under the dwindling light of a rekindled sun and surrounded by the last few dying planets.
Those who had transformed themselves into new kinds of mass and energy were forced to live together, in very reduced circumstances. Difficult times followed—thousands of centuries of pointless violence: the Mass Wars.
Outside, the Typhon raged—and gained.
In a way, the Kalpa’s last chapter had begun over a million years ago, when the City Princes of the twelve cities of Earth had commissioned Sangmer the Pilgrim to find and retrieve a former citizen called Polybiblios from the realms of the Shen—beings who claimed never to have shared ancestry with anything remotely human. Sangmer had crossed the last tracks of free cosmos to the sixty suns of the Shen, found Polybiblios living and working on the greatest of the Necklace Worlds, and carried him back between the threatened wastes, bearing knowledge he had gained from long study with the Shen.
Sangmer also brought back to Earth a most unusual being named Ishanaxade. Some said Ishanaxade was the last of her kind, rescued and protected by the Shen, left to her own progress for a few million years and then given new form by Polybiblios. All the legends of those times—and they varied widely—agreed that Polybiblios adopted Ishanaxade, calling her his daughter, and that on the return journey, or shortly thereafter, she was betrothed to Sangmer, who was richly rewarded for his perilous and timely journey.
Along Sangmer’s return path, the last of the ancient worlds met their doom. The sixty suns of the Shen were consumed by the Chaos—a fate the Shen themselves seemed content to accept.
The City Princes took a risk, bringing Polybiblios into their circle of rule—but the cities of Earth had grown desperate, watching sun after sun swallowed and transformed. They hoped that Polybiblios, with his Shen training, might be able to keep the Chaos at bay—and upon his return, he did indeed design the suspension that for so long protected the sun and planets.
The Shen had taught him well.
All surviving humans owed Polybiblios not just their lives, but their sanity. Yet no human could know the limits of his invention. How much had he learned on the far side of that dying sky…?
The suspension blocked Typhonian misrule—but only inside an oblate zone that reached just past the groaning gray ball of stone and ice that had once been Neptune. Beyond the suspension, light stopped as if glued to a page, matter dissolved like blood in water.
Earth, little more than a cold cinder, was now thought to be—had to be—sufficient. There would be no recovery of the lost light-years. So ended the dominance of living, thinking beings in the cosmos.
Some called it a final golden age—life’s long arrogance finally tempered by the incomprehensible.
Scant years later, the Chaos pushed through the suspension and sucked up the sun and the other worlds, then threatened the last twelve cities of Earth. The suspension was pulled tight, severely weakened, almost destroyed. Yet even now the Mass Wars continued. The City Princes—noötic Eidolons all—forced conversion upon all but one of the cities. Those who did not agree fled a thousand miles across the cinereous desert to Nataraja.
Both history and legends were sketchy about the ensuing age. These things were accepted by most, though sequence was vague:
Nearly all but Menders and Shapers—the engineers and underclasses of the Kalpa—were made of noötic mass, far more convenient, reliable, and powerful. But Polybiblios was still primordial. To better understand and control him, the City Princes forced him to convert as well—making him a Great Eidolon like themselves, which they must have considered a tremendous honor. In return, the City Princes vowed not to interfere with his strange, Shen-inspired researches. But conversion did not make Polybiblios more tractable or sensitive to their concerns. If anything, he became more distant and reclusive, speaking only with Ishanaxade through his new Eidolon parts—angelins and epitomes.
He moved into the tower that rose a hundred miles above the first bion of the Kalpa, and continued working.
In time he became known as the Librarian.
The Librarian soon specified that a new class—or underclass—of citizens be made of primordial matter, a whim assumed to have implications both philosophical and personal. The City Princes now completely controlled Earth’s supply of this ancient stuff—the last in the universe. They usually released their stores in small quantities to replenish the few remaining Menders and Shapers who served them, and for ritual exchanges between Eidolons. Somehow, the Librarian persuaded them to allocate to his control a much larger supply.
Without specifying their intentions, the Librarian and
his daughter began to fashion their first prototypes of ancient humans. Since histories of the early Brightness had long since been lost, their designs were conjectural at best. Some scraps of ancient data suggested that early humans could not live without being surrounded by leaping and flying insects—and so, insects and arthropods were designed and incorporated as well.
Ishanaxade oversaw the opening of the lowest levels of the Kalpa’s first bion and the repositioning of the foundation piers that divided the ancient flood channels, creating three islands. Upon completion of the empty blocs and the landscaping of the primitive but eerily attractive meadows—overarched by a false sky that divided time into bright and dark, wakes and sleeps—an allotment of primordial matter was moved from the holdings of the City Princes. The first of the ancient breeds began their hidden lives.
But the Librarian’s plans were interrupted.
The Chaos pushed in again. Ten of Earth’s last cities were consumed—transformed, played with, tortured. Their former citizens even now haunted the vast broken deserts, parodies and playthings of the Typhon—monsters beyond the imagination of even an Eidolon.
Only the Kalpa and Nataraja remained. And then communications between these two cities were severed.
The Astyanax of the Kalpa, the last City Prince, lost what little faith he still had in their erstwhile savior. Ishanaxade was exiled—or left the Kalpa to go to Nataraja—though none could say why, and none even knew whether Nataraja still survived.
From the Tower, Sangmer studied the new configuration of Earth—and crossed the freshly roiling Chaos to find his wife. He was never seen again.
A terrible conflict now broke out. Some believed the Librarian vented his wrath at the Astyanax for banishing his daughter. He reduced power to the suspension. Four of the Kalpa’s seven bions were surrendered to the Typhon. In return, the Astyanax sterilized the Tiers and ended the first population of ancient breeds—those nurtured and taught by Ishanaxade.
The Tower was almost destroyed—broken in half. But the Librarian survived. And it finally became horrifyingly clear that the last humans, whatever their shape or construction, whatever their philosophy or ambitions, could no longer fight.
Under extraordinary pressure from his fellow Eidolons, the Astyanax conceded.
Joining forces with the Kalpa’s finest minds, and using more than half of the city’s resources, the Librarian reconstructed a much smaller, more concentrated ring of reality generators—the Defenders—and thus pushed back the Typhon one last time.
Exiled it beyond the border of the real.
Most believed Nataraja and its rebels did not survive.
After Sangmer’s final pilgrimage and disappearance, the Astyanax banned all attempts to leave. The outward windows of the last three bions were sealed shut—all but in the Broken Tower, still the preserve of the greatest and most curious Eidolon of all.
Work on the Tiers resumed, with a new, redesigned population of ancient breeds set in place of the old.
A young Mender of no special distinction, Ghentun was summoned to Malregard, interviewed by angelins, and chosen to be Keeper of the Tiers—and that was that. There was no contest, no list of applicants.
Like many of the young Menders of that era, he had converted to noötic mass—fashionably giving up his gens inheritance. Yet to accept the position of keeper, the Librarian’s epitomes insisted he must reconvert—he must become primordial again.
In the process, something went wrong. While retaining his knowledge of history, he lost all personal memories. The old Ghentun vanished; the new was born. Yet how could he have regrets? Mere Menders did not question the decisions of Great Eidolons.
Sometimes, when Ghentun watched his breeds sleep, they would shiver with a strange resonance, as if listening to death-cries out of the deep and broken past—sensing their compatriots, made of the same ancient matter, flesh of the same flesh, crawling along their mashed and bundled fates, until they reached the severed ends—and fell into the dimensionless maw of the Typhon.
As they had been designed to do. Canaries in a coal mine.
Proving—if true—that the Tiers were not the idle toy of a demented Great Eidolon, but the one last, true chance to save their tiny scrap of universe.
Finished with his inspection, Ghentun ascended in secured lifts through the outer thick walls to the source of all breeds, the crèche, high above the Tiers.
At the outer circle of the crèche, the Keeper made his signs of respect before the fluid, light-absorbing draperies. Beyond lay the Shaper’s rotating nurseries, where hundreds of new-made breeds slept in quiet rows, awaiting their nativity—should it ever arrive. The curtains swung wide and a golden light spilled over, warming the Keeper’s skin. He had always enjoyed seeing where his breeds were formed, nurtured, and subliminally instructed through infancy, then prepared for transport to the Tiers by the umbers—slender grayish-brown wardens, low and swift.
Several of these umbers met Ghentun beneath the wide sweep of the Shaper’s pallid caul. Two escorted him through the caul—proceeding without escort might subject him to unpredictable fields and pressures—and higher still, between green curtains of gel and tall, eerily still cylinders of primordial ice—into the lambent mist of the vitreion, the Shaper’s inner sanctum—where machines could not go.
Here, on natal pads arranged in counterrotating spheres, the golden glow intensified. Spin-foundries like frantic bushes—all silvery vector-curves and whirling branches—surrounded and refined a dozen half-formed infants, their motions so rapid Ghentun could not track them at his highest frequency.
The last Shaper in the Kalpa, the crèche’s mistress of birth stood on six slender legs beside an elevated natal pad. At Ghentun’s approach, her small head popped up from a radiance of dark, field-wrapped tool-arms. Shapers and Menders had long since parted ways in physical appearance. She acknowledged his presence, then finished imprinting an early layer of mental properties into a small, quivering thing covered in fine white fur, its large eyes tightly shut, though its lips moved continuously, as if it might awake at a whisper.
The Shaper put away her kit and joined Ghentun on a walk through the prototypes annex.
“I’m not sure what more can be done,” she said as they slid between the history pallets, on which were suspended most of the second-stage proposals for the inhabitants of the Tiers—a sobering record of extended development, indecision, and failure. Ghentun himself had made a number of significant mistakes early in his tenure.
He transferred his notes to the Shaper, who read them with several of her many eyes.
“No instructions. No orders,” she complained.
“Am I to make last-minute improvements—if they are improvements—at my own discretion? We’ve already given a few the capacity to reproduce—outside my control. That’s dangerous enough—though it increases their sensitivity. If we make them any more sensitive, they’ll tremble at a breeze—and die of stress. And if we make them any smarter, they’ll die of boredom.” She made a small whirring sound of irritation. “One could hardly call all those books amusing.”
Ghentun touched the outline of the single book in his bag. “They’re smart enough,” he said. “The Librarian wishes to examine an exceptional specimen.” He projected an image—a young male breed, bristling with aggression. “I saw this one first when they were sport-fighting along the fallow meadows. And once, I caught him staring in my direction as I walked past, almost as if he could see me.”
The Shaper thrust two arms forward, grasped the image, spun it, and let it go. It flew off and faded to nothing. She had an aversion to images. “His name is Jebrassy. I tuned him a bit hot. He’s a born marcher—he’ll join one of your suicide groups soon enough.”
“Reproduction?”
“He’s one of the new maters, if some fertile female will have him—which I doubt. He rings like a bell—even on the natal pad, something came to him, took his voice, and changed him. A strong dreamer, I suspect. The breeds ca
ll it straying—blank eyes, vacant stares, troubled sleep. Puts off the others.” The Shaper regarded Ghentun with a slant of her three mid-distance eyes—accusing, amused, impatient. “Do you stray, friend Ghentun?”
Ghentun did not dignify this absurdity with an answer. “This one seems right. I’ll confer with Grayne, arrange something…”
“Grayne? She’s still with us? Now there’s a piece of work. One of my finest—just goes on and on…”
“She’s a sama now, and march leader.”
“She was so fine in her youth. Shame on us all, sending our pretty children into that wasteland. I’ve never been proud of my labors here, Keeper.”
“No one else requires your talents, Shaper.”
She acknowledged as much. “The Librarian should be pleased. These breeds vibrate to the slightest trembling of the lines. While the Eidolons ride their endless circles of amusement, trying to ignore the obvious—down here, the breeds have become exquisitely sensitive to something I can’t perceive—though I do wonder. Perhaps it is the past…twisting, knotting, in agony. Am I right, Keeper?”
Ghentun did not answer this, either. They both knew it was likely—and the main reason for the existence of the Tiers.
“Yet wake by wake the generators fade—and the Chaos has no patience,” she said. “How long until you get the Librarian’s attention?”
“Soon,” Ghentun said.
“There’s no pleasing Eidolons. I’ve known that all my long life. If the Librarian’s still not happy—” The Shaper reached into Ghentun’s bag, swifter than he could think, and lifted out the green book with fingers so strong they threatened to crush it. “Archaic little treasure. You’ve stolen this from your sama,” she accused.
“Her predecessor, actually.”
“Enlightening?”
“It’s in breed-text. It changes whenever I read it—so I assume it’s not for our eyes.”