by Various
One paused. “This place with You—vast spaces beyond measure, time within grace—is the wonder we all hoped for…”
She said, “We designed for that, yes.”
One said softly, “…as our eternal resting place.”
He saw One’s problem. “You are finite beings. You do not know of the many ranks of infinity. Within those vast legions, the band of infinities, some entries are larger than other. It is the only way that Measure—which you would call mathematics—can be ruled by logic.”
This idea came buttressed with transfinite realms of suggestion. He let these spill out into the One, so that the finite being could perhaps understand. That small blessing might help in what was to come.
“Thank you—” the One said, then fell silent as it digested the realms of infinities. These cascaded around it in analytic rainbows. She and He watched them have their impact. Ramparts of theorems, clusters of corollaries. Axioms stacked in stretching libraries of rigid reason. In this rumbling cascade One struggled, juggling concepts beyond any finite being.
One fought up from this and finally said, “We all, the Host—we have dwelled here in your firmament. In wonder. Surely that is the promise all our faiths held forth.”
He and She said together, “We are constrained. For this universe we made to give forth such vast wonders, all had to run down.”
One said rapidly (for the clocks of eternity were racing now), “But you saved us!”
She said, “From your little deaths, yes. Not from the necessity of Law.”
One paused, as shadows drew longer around them, and hissing colors lashed up on wrecked horizons. Then One said in vexed tones, “We have lived on, far past our wretched small beginnings. Lived in ecstasy. Lived in our private deliriums of desire, sensation, comfort beyond measure—”
“We know. We designed it for you,” She said flatly.
He recalled. Long ago, One—and the multitude of mortals who had lived their self-aware lives since the Creation—had learned the durable crafts that logic taught. The secret of their survival amid cooling space-time lay in cooling down. Those spirits who had faith did dwell in their small ecstasies, yes. They learned as Creation itself ebbed, using up the Beginning’s store of energies. Being frugal meant that those who by faith dwelled with He and She could dole out ever-smaller drops of the precious, finite energy necessary to live, to think. The mortals called it Heaven.
The mortals thought in digital systems. They were like rachets that, once kicked forward, cannot go back. As the universe cools, they eventually could not kick the rachet far enough forward.
“But this betrays us!” One said as loudly as a finite thing can.
“No,” He said, “not betrayal. The final truths stretch beyond your understanding. That is all.”
Silence. One rested for a tick of time. Streamers arced through it, but brought little pleasure.
Shuddering with pale joy, One said, “I… I know that. We all do.”
The three of them enjoyed the play of space and time, a froth of events.
Then One said, uncertainly, “We…we were promised—admittedly, by texts we wrote ourselves, though they seemed inspired by You—eternal life.”
She understood, but said firmly, “To bring you forth at all demanded a universe that cannot last.”
“But—eternity—in heaven—that is what we thought—”
“Your thoughts are finite, as you are.” He knew that this last era was the moment to be completely clear, as fading redness grew around them. Stars now burst in their final finery, and galaxies shuddered in long, acoustic waves. Dark motes ate at the hearts of the last star swarms, frying in the sky.
One stopped, regarding Them. “But must it be that You, who made and dwell in this cosmos, share the Law?”
She said solemnly, “It must.”
One said it softly. “You must obey the Law you made?”
“Of course.” He saw that this transfinite logic had escaped all those who invested this realm with their faith. Was it always so? This little One, for example, had the mind of a narrative-addicted human. Such beings, swimming in time, thought that the end of a story tells its meaning.
“We will die!”
“Yes.”
Slowly, reluctantly, the One said, “Did you have no choice in the Beginning?”
“Limited ones,” She said.
“To create variety, and spontaneous order of creative kinds,” He added, “we were much constrained.”
Those times before this space-time began had been dark and simple. Their interval in the slumbering nothingness had convinced them to begin a grand experiment. To animate the emerging marvels demanded that they be immersed in the space-time, not merely witness it. He did not regret this ancient decision, though now they all had to face its implications.
One persisted, “Then this ending—”
“Was ordained at the Beginning.” She sent a sympathetic, silky note sounding through to One. It mingled with the popping of the sevagram as the quantum levels stretched and yielded. All was accelerating now with drumroll energies. Faint flavors of ancient masses hissed along the flattening curvatures.
The choices had been hard, with implications that unfurled along all the axis of universal time, toward the Final Sigh. This cosmos animated itself, the true source of unfolding variety. That had been their fundamental First Choice. In turn, the fruitful unfolding had filled Him and Her, making them part of itself—fuming, ceaseless. They all lived in time, He and She and the Ones alike—a time which collapsed, finally, into the now.
One flared with agitated energies. “If you had designed the universe to re-collapse, there could have been infinite simulated afterlife. The askew compression could fuel the energy for such computation—all squeezed within that final era!”
“That was a less interesting choice,” She said. “We chose this universe for its grand variety. Vaster by far since it has lasted so long.”
“Variety was our goal—to make the most stimulating space-time we could,” He said, “You, small One, seem to harbor twin desires—purpose and novelty—and so progress.”
One said, “Of course!” Then, shyly, “…and lasting for eternity.”
She said, “Those contradict.”
One stopped, seeing the problem.
She added, “Did you also suppose that eternity was not infinite duration but rather not time at all?”
One asked, “An existence out of time itself?”
“Yes,” She said.
“I cannot conceive of that,” One said.
“Lack of imagination is not an argument,” She said.
“How would I know I was in a place, a state of being, if it had no time?” One asked.
He and She regarded each other. There was no duration long enough for One to learn enough—not now, in the approaching cold and dark. This Creation had now tipped past the era in which life such as One could exist at all. The expansion now hastened. Soon it would rip apart galaxies, then stars and worlds, and finally the two who had made it.
“We are part of the Law,” He said.
One saw it now. “Then even God must—”
“Be the maker of law, and to make it truly so, abide by it.”
A final red flush arced through space-time. It brought also a last, great pleasure of completion. The ripping of all came like a hard roaring.
He said softly, “This is be the last time. The Final Now.”
He thought of the many manifestations He and She had enjoyed in this ever-new space-time, in all its sweet beetleness and fragrant daffodility. So wondrous.
Yet this rushing end in a shimmering dark was also the point, just as was the Beginning. Clearly, One saw this at last. The universe knitted together.
“Let there be light,” He said, recalling, as the acceleration gained again.
The protons died, popping crimson in the sky. Matter in its intricate forkings ended. Only the electrons and positrons remained.
Th
e plasma beings survived still, their cool voices calling. Among them swam One, still challenging He and She.
Then came the swelling great rip as all matter evaporated, the colossal boom as space-time tore apart, a last long note sounding for them all.
“And darkness,” She concluded.
Copyright © 2010 Gregory Benford
Books by Greg Benford
JUPITER PROJECT
Jupiter Project
Against Infinity
GALACTIC CENTER
In the Ocean of Night
Across the Sea of Suns
Great Sky River
Tides of Light
Furious Gulf
Sailing Bright Eternity
Deeper Than the Darkness
If the Stars Are Gods (with Gordon Eklund)
Shiva Descending (with William Rotsler)
Timescape
Find the Changeling (with Gordon Eklund)
Time’s Rub
Artifact
The Heart of the Comet (with David Brin)
Under the Wheel
Iceborn (with Paul A Carter)
Beyond the Fall of Night (with Arthur C Clarke)
A Darker Geometry (with Mark O Martin)
Cosm
The Martian Race
Eater
Beyond Infinity
The Sunborn
Foundation’s Fear
Man-Kzin Wars VI
SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS
In Alien Flesh
Matter’s End
Worlds Vast and Various
Immersion, and Other Short Novels
As Sterling Blake
Chiller
The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied so that you can enjoy reading it on your personal devices. This e-book is for your personal use only. You may not print or post this e-book, or make this e-book publicly available in any way. You may not copy, reproduce or upload this e-book, other than to read it on one of your personal devices.
Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.
Contents
Begin Reading
The first SETI signal turned up not in a concerted search for messages, but at the Australian Fast Transients study that looked for variable stars. This radio array picked up quick, pulsed signals from a source 134 light-years away. They appeared again consecutively 33 hours apart. The stuttering bursts had simple encoding that, with several weeks’ work, pointed toward a frequency exactly half the original 12.3 gigahertz.
Within hours eleven major radio telescopes locked on that location in the night sky, as it came into view over the horizon. The signal came from a spot in the general direction of the galactic center. At 6.15 gigahertz the signal had on-off pulses that readily unwrapped numerically to a sequence. This was a treasure trove.
Within two weeks cryptographers established a language, following the message’s pictorial point-and-say method. A communication flood followed—a bounty of science, cultural works, music, even photographs of the aliens. They resembled hydras, predatory animals with radial symmetry. Earthly hydras were small and simple. These aliens reproduced asexually by growing buds in the body wall, which swelled into miniature adults and simply broke away when mature. Somehow these creatures had evolved intelligence and technology.
They were curious about human notions of compassion, kindness, charity, even love. Once these were defined, cryptographers dug into the vast terabytes of data, searching for signs of religious belief. There seemed to be none.
An alliance of Christian churches quickly built a kilometer-wide beacon at a cost of seven billion dollars. The Pope made up the bulk of the sum. Ignoring outrage among scientists, the alliance sent an inquiry to the aliens, now referred to as Hydrans.
The Christian message on their Holy Beacon described how our religions focus on forgiveness, atonement for sin, need for reconciliation—to gain a redeeming closeness with our god. Buddhists protested this point, but had no beacon. Muslims set to building one.
The Hydrans replied 269 years later. Much had changed on Earth, but religion was still a hot button. Human life spans were now measured in centuries, but death remained a major issue.
The Hydrans responded with questions. What was redemption? What did it mean, that good works were an atonement for…sin? And what meant this reconciliation with…god?
Atheist Aliens! the NetNews cried. Theologians frowned, pontificated. Apparently, the Hydrans had no concept of sin because they felt connected to a Being who loved them. Social codes came from that, with few Hydran controversies. Everyone just knew how to behave, apparently.
The Pope and his allies decided that the Hydrans had never sinned. They did not need Jesus or any prophet. They were angels, in a distant heaven. Some wanted to go there, but the expense was immense, dwarfing even the coffers of Islam, Christianity and the new Millennial faith.
The firestorm passed. The Holy Beacon, now a low-temperature antenna, heard replies to their continuing broadcasts. So did the Islamic one. These further messages described the Hydran mind-set.
The closest rendering of the Hydran ideas was We are always in touch with the Being. Never have we been separate. Our getherness is the whole, not just those of our kind.
Why were these aliens so different? Some scientists thought they might be a collective mind, not capable of individual difference.
A later message, carrying the striking line Can we have congruity with you?, raised alarms. What could they mean? Did this imply an invasion, across 134 light-years?
These worries dispelled when a message years later told of their envy of us. To Hydrans, humans’ ability to mate and reproduce sexually aligned with our religious perspective. They saw us, in our art and philosophy, driven by our aloneness, each human a unique combination of genes. Their largely static society desired humans’ constant change.
From this emerged the Hydran temptation. In tortured messages they described increasing debate among themselves. Those writing the messages decided to “stand by themselves” and be greater, by cutting free of the collective.
Then they fell silent. A century later, a weak signal described their liberation from their former selves. Chaos had descended, and their Being had fallen silent. Death and ruin followed.
This stunned the world. The Pope remarked mournfully that she and her colleagues had tempted the Hydrans to become apostate. “We are the snake in their garden.” The Pope shook her head. “We have caused their fall from grace.”
Christians were mortified. The last signal sent on the Holy Beacon was to the Being the Hydrans had mentioned. A naked plea for some revelation of meaning, sent on multiple frequencies toward the Hydran star and its vicinity.
Suicides followed. The neglected, aged novels of C. S. Lewis, who had envisioned aliens living in immaculate grace, came into fashion.
The discovery of a large comet, falling in from the Oort cloud, startled many from their shock. It would strike the Earth. Only huge forces could deflect it sufficiently. Some nations united and mounted rockets with nuclear charges, but there was little taste for the frantic labors needed to carry out an effective response. When the comet was only weeks away from striking the Earth, a failed launch destroyed humanity’s last hopes.
Long before this, the Christians had given up hope of any reply from the Hydrans’ Being. Silence ruled the spectrum. But as the comet drew near, its icy glimmer like an angry glare, something odd occurred.
A plasma cloud condensed near the incoming iceball. It wrapped tendrils around the twenty-kilometer comet. Steam began issuing from the dirty gray ice, jetting in all directions. Billions gathered to see the sputtering jewel that spread across the night sky. In rainbow geysers vast plumes worked across the vault of stars.
Within a week the comet had dissipated into st
ones and gas. Crowds watched the spectacular meteor falls streaking crimson and gold across the sky.
Then the Being spoke. It was the Beginning.
Copyright (C) 2011 by Gregory Benford
Art copyright (C) 2011 by Greg Ruth
Books by Greg Benford
Jupiter Project
Jupiter Project
Against Infinity
Galactic Center
In the Ocean of Night
Across the Sea of Suns
Great Sky River
Tides of Light
Furious Gulf
Sailing Bright Eternity
Deeper Than the Darkness
If the Stars Are Gods (with Gordon Eklund)
Shiva Descending (with William Rotsler)
Timescape
Find the Changeling (with Gordon Eklund)
Time’s Rub
Artifact
The Heart of the Comet (with David Brin)
Under the Wheel
Iceborn (with Paul A Carter)
Beyond the Fall of Night (with Arthur C Clarke)
A Darker Geometry (with Mark O Martin)
Cosm
The Martian Race
Eater
Beyond Infinity
The Sunborn
Foundation’s Fear
Man-Kzin Wars VI
Short Story Collections
In Alien Flesh
Matter’s End
Worlds Vast and Various
Immersion, and Other Short Novels
As Sterling Blake
Chiller
The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied so that you can enjoy reading it on your personal devices. This e-book is for your personal use only. You may not print or post this e-book, or make this e-book publicly available in any way. You may not copy, reproduce, or upload this e-book, other than to read it on one of your personal devices.
Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.